I Hate the Dentist, pt. 1

You know how some people have a crippling fear of heights, or water, or even darkness? It’s a sensation that sucks, and that fear can keep you from doing things that you really want to or, in worst-case scenarios, things that you need to do. I have a similar fear, but mine is not of standing on a clifftop, or of the bottomless ocean (though I dislike large bodies of water). Mine is of doctors, and specifically going to the doctor’s office.

It’s called iatrophobia (or “odontophobia” for dentists, because everything needs to have a name for some reason), and the TL;DR is that you experience a near-crippling fear of going to the doctor’s office. A unique problem with ~~iatrophobia~~ being scared shitless of the doctor’s office is that while you can avoid most fears (i.e. if you don’t like heights, don’t go on the roller coaster), you will have to go to the doctor’s office eventually.

Such was my case. As you may recall, I vowed at the start of the year that I would go to the dentist. Recently I made the first of what I quickly learned would be many visits to the dentist, and let me tell you – it sucked.

Oh boy, did it suck.

Posted on February 4, 2013 by James in Lowlife

The eFuture of eBooks

I love a good story. To me, the art of storytelling is the finest form of expression, both of the self and of the world around you. It’s a way to escape the monotony of life for some, a way to deal with tragedy and loss for others, and a form of entertainment for just about everyone. For me, it was all of the above.

When I was young and growing up in rural Michigan, I didn’t have much. One of the few things that I did have easy access to were books, and throughout my childhood I would often find myself turning to my steadily-growing collection of stories. When my grandmother died, I buried myself in the Anne of Green Gables series (which was required reading for me in fifth grade), The Hardy Boys books, and of course, Goosebumps. Two summers later, when my mother was stricken with cancer, I retreated to the fanciful worlds of H.G. Wells, Douglas Adams, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For a long time, my stories were my lone reprieve.

Then I lost them.

Posted on January 16, 2013 by James in Writing

All Good Things…

In real life I’m, like, a foot taller than that guy.

I know, I know. In my previous post I promised to talk about Dinosaurs for Hire, and I’m still going to do that, but something came up since then. You see, what had happened was that yesterday was my final day at BioWare. Now I’ve already written a bit about how my time at BioWare has immeasurably changed my life for the better, but I can’t stress enough how much of a privilege it was to work alongside some of the most passionate and dedicated people in the business.

In working on Star Wars: The Old Republic, I was able to take part in something that was truly phenomenal. I’m referring, of course, to being a member of the BioWare Austin Creative Services team. We stuck out like a sore thumb inside BioWare, to say the least. When you’d first step into our office – which for a long time was a room only slightly larger than a storage closet where we somehow managed to cram six guys and nine PCs – it was like stepping into the secret basement lair of the real-world Goonies. The room was always slightly darker than the offices around it (mostly because nine PCs in a goddamn closet throws off a LOT of heat), the walls were adorned with Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Sonic the Hedgehog posters, and we had X-Wings, TIE Fighters, and Clone Wars-era dropships hanging from the ceilings.

Plus the room reeked of nerd and Italian food.

Posted on July 19, 2012 by James in Lowlife

Viewing the World Through a New Lens

I’ve been trying to find a way to write this for a while now, but every time I only manage to knock out a few sentences before I back out. The truth of the matter is that it’s never been easy for me to admit faults with myself, so to write a piece that calls out the fact that I’ve been a curmudgeony bastard for several years is not easy…

…oh. Oh! Well, okay then! We’re in business.

The simple fact is that I am not a happy person. Don’t worry, this isn’t a cry for help. I’m just not a particularly happy guy, and when you strip everything away the only person I have to blame for that is myself. For a good portion of my life I carried with me the ABCs of personal misery: Anger, Bitterness, and Cynicism. I looked around, and my view on life was that I hated everybody and everything sucked. I didn’t see the point in anything, and in the months and years that followed I allowed those three things to reshape the way I viewed the world.

You want to know something? Being resentful all the time, carrying that anger, bitterness, and cynicism with you everywhere like a security blanket? It wears you down. It leaves you empty, and it leaves you tired. But it doesn’t just affect you – it wears on the people around you, too. Over time, your friends and family become wary of your constant negativity, and eventually people begin to drift away. Some of your closest friends, and even family, become little more than background noise. Even the people who choose to hack their way through the briar patch of your disillusionment wear down. Sure, they’re always there if you need someone, but they don’t want to be around you. They don’t want your negative attitude bringing them down.

Ultimately, all that mindset does is leave you tired, emotionally empty and completely alone. I’ve seen it before, and when I looked I saw a preview of what I would become if I didn’t learn to let it go.

So, that’s what I did. I let it go.

Posted on July 4, 2012 by James in Lowlife

The Post in Which I Make Excuses For Not Updating My Blog

Hi, kids. So, if you follow me on the Twitternets, you’ve probably seen me say something along the lines of “I’m going to update my blog today”, or “I think I should write something on my blog”. Obviously, I haven’t. But why not? Am I engaged in something so epic that it requires my full and undivided attention? Have I been kidnapped by Afghan nationals and fought my way out of their desert bunker only after building a suit of armor from spare pinball machine parts? Am I on a secret mission from the CIA to start a blood war between Portugal and Senegal?

No. For the most part I’ve just been lazy, but that isn’t to say that I haven’t also been busy. After all, I work at a video game developer and it’s the middle of “convention season”, which begins with PAX East and continues through E3, Comic-Con, gamescom, PAX Prime, Tokyo Game Show, and for an increasing number of companies, New York Comic-Con. Not every company goes to every event (in fact, most companies don’t go to even half of the events), but even if you’re just going to the big three (E3, SDCC, PAX), there’s more than enough work to be had. Maybe one of these days I’ll go into some more detail on what’s involved in putting one of these shows together, but it’s suffice to say that I’ve been busy.

The other big thing that’s been eating away at my time has involved me putting my personal writing projects in order. Going back to when I was in junior high, I would always write down story ideas in composition notebooks. Admittedly, some of these ideas are better than others (for instance, I don’t think “Lionel Ritchie’s Federation of Exceptional Bon Vivants” will ever see the light of day), and for the last few weeks I’ve been going through and picking out which ones I want to give serious thought to and which ones were just me grasping at straws during moments of soul-shattering boredom. While I wish I could say more, I still have a long way to go before I finish sorting the good ideas from the bad, and while I do that I’m still writing down new ideas as they come.

In addition to all of that, I’m also working on yet another writing project. I’ve talked about it on Twitter a few times now, and it’s really more of a pet project of mine than anything I’m seriously hoping to package and sell to the masses. It’s tentatively titled 500 Things That Make the World Less Good, and it’s exactly what it sounds like: a collection of things that, in my forever humble opinion, make Earth a slightly less awesome place. I’m still putting together the list right now, but once I have the core list in order and start actually writing the damn thing, I’ll give you more details (and maybe let you read on or two).

Oh, and when I’ve not been at BioWare or working on my personal projects, I’ve been going through my PS3 library. So, you know… there’s that, too…

Posted on June 17, 2012 by James in Writing

Mother Nature Will Be Like ‘Slooooow Dooooown’…

…and you’ll be like “fuck you” and kick her in the face with your Energy Legs!

Hi! I’ve been busy! Really busy, in fact. This is the update I’ve been pushing off for weeks, and all I’ve got for you is “I’m busy.” But posting just that would be dickish, so…

I’m moving to a new apartment. Those of you who follow me on Twitter are only too aware of the absolute black hatred I feel for my neighbors. When I moved in, I lived below a college couple. They were young, with spirits filled of life, eyes filled with a longing for each other, and hearts filled with an insipid hatred that would peel the varnish off a urinal grate. Every night, without fail, I would be privy to the irate ramblings of the female as she unleashed a barrage of personal, educational and sexual attacks on her boyfriend, who often times would be found drunk in the parking lot, shouting back at her with all the eloquence of a drunken stroke victim who had popped one two many Xanax with his peanut butter and lard sandwich. More than once she would throw his belongings from their balcony, and the crash of glass and heavy plastic as a computer, beer mug or stereo crashing against the pavement below soon became as normal and comforting to me as birds singing on an early spring morning.

As the end of their lease approached, their fights became more violent. He turned the tables on her, frequently locking her out of their apartment. The rhythmic, almost tribal beats of her meth-weakened hand against their door played not unlike a samba, and I soon found myself “dancing to the beat” as they continued their verbal sparring.

… okay, that dancing part is complete bullshit. But I digress.

With their lease up, they departed. It was about the same time that rain returned to Austin, fueling my theory that their hate was so palpable that it disrupted the flow of the jet stream, spiraling Austin, Texas into a hate heat cocoon that lasted for months. But they were gone now. The rains returned, the crops grew and the city was safe. I could finally read my books or sleep in relative silence…

…at least until the family of six moved in.

Posted on April 8, 2012 by James in Lowlife

A Lot Can Change in a Year…

The year that was 2011 now lies bleeding and lifeless in an alleyway, and 2012 has stepped in to take its 366 days (356 if you believe in that Doomsday poppycock) in the spotlight. As I sit here typing this, I can’t help but be in a little bit of awe over how much my life has changed.

January 1st, 2011: Starving Artist
I was terribly depressed. It seemed that nothing was going my way. My personal life was in shambles and, professionally, I had hit a brick wall. I was working 18-20 hour days writing soulless How To guides for various content farms for next to no pay. The work was so soul crushing that I had a hard time putting words down anymore. I would stare at my screen, sometimes for hours on end, trying to will myself to do the work. The people around me would tell me that I was burnt out, but the truth of the matter was that I simply didn’t enjoy it anymore. I was too tired, too stressed and too down on myself to care about my work at that point.

My professional issues bled into my personal life. The career struggles worked to drive away the woman I was (and still am) head-over-heels for, and my inability to pay my share of the rent on a regular basis drove a wedge between my roommate (who is one of my closest friends) and I. There were other matters, much of them involving my family, but I won’t get into those here.

At this point, I was rethinking my decisions. Maybe they were right, I thought. Maybe I’m just not cut out for writing. I should just give it up and try to find something more realistic and stable. So when the clock hit midnight on January 1st, 2011, I made the New Years Resolution to give up writing. I gave up writing everywhere but a single blog (had to pay my bills) and spent the next two months looking for work. I must have sent out over a hundred resumes, not getting beyond a single phone interview. But then, on March 2nd, the strangest thing happened…

BioWare called.

Posted on January 1, 2012 by James in Lowlife

Konnichiwa

Hi, kids!

As you can see, I’ve started a new blog. This will, in time, become a dumping ground for whatever is on my mind. Apart from that… I’ve got nothin’. I’m awful at introductory posts. This unnecessary pressure to say something witty, thought-provoking or otherwise creative is one of the reasons why I always wound up abandoning my blogs to begin with.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t like most blogs. At least, I don’t like the perception of what “most blogs” are. Over the years blogs have evolved, but I came of age during that brief period where “blog” meant “LiveJournal” or “MySpace.” I used to have one of those blogs — but I didn’t have a LiveJournal. Oh, no. That was far too bright and upbeat for my dark, tormented (read: angsty) tastes. I had a DeadJournal. It was, at the time, basically LiveJournal for emo kids, goth twenty-somethings and ICP fans. I used it to bitch about my parents, bitch about school, talk about my girlfriend and recap my life in a very Joe Friday “Just the Facts” manner.

So help me God if this turns into that, I’ll swallow a porpoise and let the dolphin-seal gnaw it’s way out of my esophagus.

What will this blog be about? Well… me. I’ll talk about my thoughts on games and the gaming industry. I’ll opine about cinema and my love of bad movies. I’ll go into entirely too much detail about some of the stupid shit I eat (such as a half-pound hamburger inbetween two grilled cheese sandwiches). Basically I’ll go on about whatever I want to go on about at that given time.

Except work.

So, thanks for visiting. I apologize in advance if this is all you see – but I promise that I’ll be updating soon… unless you’re reading this in May or something. In that case, give it up. Because I obviously did.

Posted on December 25, 2011 by James in High Tech