When this date rolled around during my childhood, I found myself wishing for new toys. More Transformers, a new video game, etc.
As a teenager, the primary wish was for acceptance from my peers. Toys were a nice bonus, but what I really wanted was to fit in. It would be a long time before I realized not fitting in was part of what made me unique.
Attending college, I wished on this date that the experience wouldn’t end. These days I look back and know that there are people and events I should have cherished more and taken more time to appreciate in the moment.
10 years ago I was wishing for answers. I could project confidence as a young man, to be certain, but inside I was growing more confused and unsure. If I could write letters to past selves, 23-year-old me would be getting a big one. And maybe a smack in the face.
5 years ago, my only wish was for everything to stop hurting.
Today, I find myself wishing for better tomorrows. Ones where I make more time to write, ones where my family and friends are safe and content, ones where my current worries and concerns diminish or cease to exist altogether. I want a tomorrow that will be better for my son than my past days were for me.
And I do still occasionally wish for new toys. So I guess I haven’t changed that much.
The time has come, (the Alchemist said)
To talk of many things:
Of busses — and cards — and handmade-crafts
Of children and of kings.
Once a year they gather there,
A fanciful base on the moon –
(Granted, we know it’s actually Canada,
but don’t spoil it so soon!)
They sit upon their bean-bags and couches,
Displayed for all of us,
For that great and humble event we love,
The one called Desert Bus.
From Tuscon to Las Vegas is their digitized route,
Displayed on Sega CD.
Since Penn & Teller decided (for the lulz)
To make a non-violent game, you see:
There are no bullets, no cars, no rockets,
No prostitutes or pimps.
Just drive and drive and drive some more,
Until you weep like simps.
“What purpose?” you ask? “What’s wrong with them?
“Why do they do these vids?”
The answer’s as simple as it is heart-warming:
They do it for the kids.
As long as donations and auctions abound,
The crew will play the game.
Could be for days or weeks or more,
To them it’s all the same.
They’ll sell hand-stitched crafts of all kinds,
Things mythic and beyond,
They’ll laugh, they’ll cry, they’ll drink Red Bull,
And with us they will bond.
Watch and donate, for the children,
for the auctions and the fun.
Brave as they are, they can’t do it alone,
That crew from Loading Ready Run.
Here it comes now! I hope you’re ready!
There’s room for all of us.
Join us, won’t you? The time has come
to ride the Desert Bus.
I’ve been down this road before. I’m going to take bits from previous posts, paste them here and update my commentary on the points. I’m doing this because, it seems, there are those who do not take criticism well. I’m not talking about the artists behind a particular work, mind you, I’m talking about the population at large that enjoy those works. Before we begin this little exercise, though, here’s a caveat that I feel should be kept in mind when you read any criticism of public artistic works, be it my criticism or another’s.
You are the sole arbiter of how you spend your time and money in entertainment. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. You, me, everyone. Just because a critic or friend or stranger believes something is a pile of dogshit doesn’t necesarily make it so to you. Likewise, said critic or friend or stranger singing the praises of something they believe plated in gold may not make it look that way to you. Enjoy what you enjoy. Tell others about things you enjoy, and tell them about things you dislike, be it a little or a lot. We all learn more the more we share with one another.
Okay? Okay. Here’s what I’ve said before, and how I feel about it now.
In addition to being comprehensive and funny, Chuck often reminds us that his criticism of a given episode, series or movie is just his opinion. He welcomes discussion and even opposition to his ideas. He […] encourages the audience to think, rather than sit back & switch off higher brain functions in order to take in some shallow, pandering, distracting colors & sounds that call themselves ‘entertainment.’
Okay. Let me make this clear. Not everything you want to enjoy as entertainment is necessarily shallow or pandering just because you like switching your brain off for it. And referencing my earlier statement, just because I happen to think that Attack of the Clones was perhaps the weakest Star Wars film made that I’ve seen doesn’t make it so. If you enjoyed it, great. I know people who didn’t like Thor or Captain America but I thought they were fine films. Guess what these are? Opinions!
Critical analysis and review is everywhere on the Internet. But you will never catch any such entertainer worth their salt telling you point-blank that they are 100% right in their opinion and everybody else is wrong. Go ahead and take a look. Yahtzee, MovieBob, SFDebris, Confused Matthew, Red Letter Media, TotalBiscuit, the Extra Credits crew – none of them end a discussion with “I’m right, you’re wrong, your mom agreed with me last night” in any serious discussion. Some of them may play this sort of thing for laughs, but even the most satirical and cynical of these folks are also intelligent enough to know that anything upon which they might pontificate involves the exposition of their own subjective views.
Sorry, that was a lot of big words. Put simply: None of these people believes they are a holy authority on anything they talk about. Yes, some of them are professional critics, paid to give their opinion based on the years of experience they have weighing objective and subjective criteria of various media, but each and every one of them are human beings, and human beings are fallible, subjective creatures. Yahtzee and MovieBob might not like shooters, but that doesn’t mean shooters are bad. People like those caricatured by MovieBob’s Anti-Thinker may consider retro games to be stupid, but them saying it does not make it so. These people I’ve mentioned know this.
I hope that’s pretty clear. I may not have the audience, appeal or even potential of any of the aforementioned critics, but I would like to think that I have this level of self-awareness. When I say something is good or bad, and I either recommend paying for it or giving it a pass, that’s my opinion on it. It’s not a salient, beyond-a-reasonable-doubt fact. I never mean it to be taken as such. Nor am I so arrogant as to believe that anything I say in the vein of reviewing or critiquing entertainment will or should be taken as gospel. I critique for a very specific reason, one I elaborated upon on the third and final previous post I’m going to mention.
Criticism is a powerful force for good. Nothing ever improves without coming to terms with its flaws. Without critics telling us what’s stupid and what isn’t, we’d all be wearing boulders for hats and drinking down hot ebola soup for tea. – Zero Punctuation: Overlord 2
I could make all sort of analogies for criticism. There’s the bonsai tree example, the fat on a steak visual, the sanding of a bat to remove its splinters for a nice clean hit; I could go on. But suffice it to say that the best criticism is one that sees what a work is going for and points out the flaws so that the crux of the work can be improved while things that don’t work can be discarded.
If I say that “there’s nothing here” when talking about a story, or that a part of a game let me down, or something frustrated or confused me, it’s not me saying the entire work is worthless. More often than not I can get the gist of what the original artist or artists were going for in the work, and if there are obstacles between us and that objective that they either did not completely clear or set up themselves through sloppiness, being rushed or just plain laziness, it bothers me. Why? Because I know there are always obstacles between where the artist begins and where they want to be. I review and criticize other works in order to better understand the creative process from my end. And I’m not going to enjoy everything I choose to review. It is impossible to do that. I want to sample a lot of entertainment to find where I fall in the spectrum and where I can go with my work, and on average some stuff will be good while some will be bad. At least in my opinion.
I hope this made sense. I’ve taken flak for putting opinion out in front of the public. So have the aforementioned critics, as have Roger Ebert, Pauline Kael, Charles Baudelaire and the like. I’d like to think that those critics who break into the public domain are doing said public a service, even if it’s just in generating debate. In defending a given work, the defender should at some point be able to cite why it’s worth defending; by contrast, if the work has flaws, they should be recognizable even if the critic does not believe them to be detrimental. We all want the entertainment we enjoy to improve, and by pointing out how or when it doesn’t, we all in effect become critics.
And there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as we abide by Wheaton’s First Law: Don’t be a dick.
I’ve been fighting this. I haven’t had an Apple product of my own in any place I’ve lived with the exception of a 2nd generation iPod Shuffle I still use for walks. I’ve opted to install Linux on all but my latest laptop. I’ve had moments where I’ve considered purchasing an iPad in passing, but I’ve consciously struggled not to fall into the iCulture that seems to promote an attitude of smug superiority in some circles. No more or less so than Tux’s biggest fans, but that’s beside the point.
Those days might be over. I may soon own an iPhone, and perhaps an iPad before the end of the year.
Why the change of heart? Sure, it’ll pay homage to the memory of Steve Jobs, but expenditures and committments like this require more concrete, practical reasoning. So here it is.
As A Rich Media Professional
First and foremost, the position I now occupy requires a great deal of tasks and testing related to the iOS. The advertisement assets upon which I work can and often do appear on Apple’s mobile devices, and as HTML5 grows, the more prevalent those sorts of adverts will become. It’ll behoove me to have a platform on which I can test my work on these items, no matter where I might happen to be.
Other projects by other professionals will be created for the platform as well. I know a few very talented people invested in pursuing transmedia projects, and having a universally-available and name-brand platform is sure to be key in a few of them. Giving feedback on those projects, and reporting on them either for the blog or a professional publication, will require the use of such a device. There’s only so much of an ARG I can experience using my current dumbphone, after all.
As A Gamer
I know there’s a contingent of gamers who would like to say that platforms like the iPhone and iPad are not viable for gaming. I don’t think they can be more wrong. From graphically impressive RPGs like Infinity Blade, to simple and fun puzzle games like Angry Birds, to straightforward multiplayer standbys like Words with Friends, I can tell you that an iPhone or iPad can cater to just as many gamer tastes as a PC or console can. Sure, some of the graphics and depth of gameplay or story will be a few years behind, but it’s forgivable for being able to have that sort of thing in your pocket on the same device you use for communication, or even productivity.
It’s not just limited to what’s on the App Store under the Video Games category, either. Tabletopping could benefit from it. A quick, covert die roll or looking up a forgotten rule might be easier with one of these devices, even if it doesn’t have the same tactile feedback as a page or a polyhedral. And I hear there are emulators available, so I may be able to play Mega Man 2 on the train as I have long dreamed. Just remember, if you see a scruffy man approaching middle-age glaring at his iPhone and muttering curses at somebody named “Quick Man,” it’s probably me.
As A Writer
I’ve long been a proponent of the notion that a writer can write anywhere. Originally this was based on a writer only needing some basic tools: something to write on, and something to write with. And there’s nothing wrong with carrying a pen and paper with you at all times, if you’ve got a creative mind. But a technological tool can be helpful as well.
Imagine my delight upon discovering that PlainText is available for the iPhone as well as the iPad. Now, I can’t picture myself doing long passages of writing on the iPhone, but if an idea strikes me and I need to jot it down (or perhaps dictate it!), this device would provide me the means to do it, and always know where I left my notes. I know other writers who adore their Apple devices for various reasons, and I’m sure they’d be happy to tell me more about their experiences.
