life of pike, omg awesome

Being Sick Is Hilarious

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It started out with an innocent sore throat back on Friday.

It promptly escalated into my head feeling like it was going to explode, followed by a very, very persistent cough.

I’ve managed to escape a couple of days from work in order to stay home and recuperate, and I’ve spent that time stuffing kleenex up my nose, playing video games and browsing stupid websites and doing… nothing else.

So you can probably imagine my surprise when I attempted to talk today for the first time in a while, and what came out was the funniest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. So funny, in fact, that I decided to record it so we can all laugh at the chipmunk that somehow managed to crawl into my throat:

PikeHasNoVoice

(Sorry, I can’t figure out how to make a fancy-pantsy embed so you’ll just have to click and open in a new tab.)

Then, in the name of further hilarity, I give you…

WalrusAndTheCarpenter

I keep going around and talking to myself in this squeaky highpitched voice because I think it’s the funniest thing. I know it’s bad and I should probably just shut up and let my poor vocal cords heal but man, I seriously just keep cracking myself up. I feel like I should be taking requests to make Dramatic Readings of various Dramatic Pieces of Literature in the name of Comedy.

How pathetic is that?

Either way, I kind of hope I still sound this way tomorrow morning. So I can call work with this voice and see what the reaction is. Or if they still want me to come in, so I can be all “HelLO caN I HElp yOU fiNd SOmeThiNG.”

classic video game monday, video games

Classic Video Game Monday: Majora’s Mask.

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Okay guys, sit down and I’m going to tell you a story.

Once upon a time, there was a girl who was in loooooooove with Ocarina of Time. She played it for hours and hours on end, interrupting it only to watch Dragon Ball Z on Cartoon Network. She played it a lot and beat it a lot and she knew where all the skulltulas and heart pieces were and she thought Adult Link was pretty cute and she dearly wished there would just be MORE of that game.

And then one day, a couple years later:

WHAT? WHAT IS THIS? OMG. I MUST HAVE IT.

My dad rented it from Blockbuster for me. And so I sat down to play it.

For those three days that we had that game, my mind was blown with sheer AMAZING. It was everything that made Ocarina of Time great, minus Adult Link (QQ) but plus a lot of super interesting and fun game mechanics and fantastic music.

The only problem was that we’d rented it, not bought it. Link wasn’t the only one with three days. I was, too. And unlike Link, I couldn’t go back and redo it if I wanted to.

The game went back to Blockbuster. For about a week I was depressed as heck. I moped around the house and tried to distract myself by playing Jet Force Gemini. Which was a pretty fantastic game, but it just wasn’t the same.

Somehow, I have never gotten around to finding the game and picking up where I left off. So it’s a sad truth: I have never finished Majora’s Mask.

I’m not lying when I say it’s one of my biggest regrets. Curse you, Blockbuster. Someday I’ll be able to take all of my consoles out of storage and then I can find the game and then I will finish it. That day will be happy.

classic video game monday, video games

Classic Video Game Monday: The Top Gear Series

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I’m doing three games today, and this is why.

TOP GEAR:

This song.

TOP GEAR 2:

“You might be missing some of the benefits that stereo can provide” in 16-bit glory.

TOP GEAR 3000:

I have never forgotten any of this music in the ~18 years since I first played these games. Seriously.

Music aside, the games themselves were generic racing games, except that they were solid enough that I played the heck out of them and I honestly think they were among the finest racing games of the 16bit era. The first two had you racing through different countries, the last one had you racing on different “planets” that actually all pretty much looked like Earth, but it allowed the game to throw in some extra sci-fi-esque touches to your car.

All of the games followed a similar format, allowing you to customize your car and, as you won more races, make it more powerful by upgrading to the upgrades of your choice. Simple formula. AWESOME execution. Big props to the developers.

life of pike, thoughts, windshifter, writing

*blows away dust*

6 Comments

Wow, I stink at updating this blog, don’t I? I’ll admit, I kind of fell out of it for a couple of weeks. As such, I also owe you all lots of Classic Video Game Mondays. Derp.

Exciting news, though, if you are one of the two people who haven’t heard yet because I’ve posted/shouted this everywhere. A publisher… a real, live publisher… has the manuscript to that novel I wrote a year or so back. Yes, they liked the query letter and synopsis I sent them and now they’re reading my book. It’s got me terrified and it’s giving me the weirdest nightmares about sudden random major errors in my book that I forgot to fix.

ANYWAYS, if everything goes well, they’ll like what they read, and hopefully this will eventually lead to physical copies of this mythical Pike Project that I’ve been dropping hints about for so long.

Oh, and my apologies if this turns into a Writing Blog for a while. I was attempting to dump all of my Writing Rambles in one spot, namely another blog that no one reads– which is fine, since a lot of my rambling is for my own benefit more than anything– but sometimes I get that itching for feedback, so you might see some stuff here, as well.

TODAY’S WRITING RAMBLE: Writing down a story is like pulling a tooth. It just sits there and bothers you until you go through the painful process of pulling it out, which sucks, but then it feels a lot better when it’s out.

(“Weird Metaphors” is my middle name.)

classic video game monday, video games

Classic Video Game Monday: Halo

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Hi, everyone! I’m here to make you feel old. I figure, I’m turning 27 in a couple of days, it’s the least I can do to spread the feeling-old-cheer. Ready?

Halo came out over nine years ago. That’s right. There are kids these days playing video games who have never lived in a pre-Xbox world.

You’re welcome.

Halo is one of exactly two traditional shooters that I’ve actually enjoyed, the other being Goldeneye 007. My memories of Halo, though, are a little different. See, I played a lot of multiplayer in Goldeneye, but I also played a lot of the story mode. A lot. In fact I think my focus on that game was getting through the story mode. As proof, back then I could quote probably half of the lines from the game.

Anyways, I played the story mode with Halo, too, but that wasn’t the point of the game for me.

The point of Halo was hours and hours and hours of multiplayer. Mmmyep.

Who doesn't remember this map?

Hours of making crazy novelty “[insert random weapon name here] only” modes
Hours of accusing people of “screen-looking”
Hours of me getting the tank and subsequently racking up more kills than should be legal
Hours of people getting the tank before me and shoving it into the cracks in the wall in Blood Gulch so I couldn’t get it
Hours of “three on one” fights against my brother because he was stupidly good
Hours of this game simply not getting old despite the fact that there were only, what, like 12 different maps? And we played Blood Gulch 80% of the time anyway?

Halo was, to put a simply, a period of a few months of my life that I remember fondly. School was getting tough and my job at the time sucked, but I could come home and wrangle up some friends and family and notch up the frags long into the night. I wouldn’t be this “social” with a video game again until World of Warcraft, and it just was a ridiculously fun experience.

Thanks, Bungie. <3

rambles, rants, thoughts, writing

Storycrafter’s Pride Parade

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You know, when I was in film school, it was all about being super deep. Everyone worshipped “Memento” and “Fight Club”. David Lynch was viewed as some sort of deity.

But you know what, there’s a reason why “Avatar” is the highest-grossing movie of all time. And it’s not just because of 3D or because James Cameron has more money than God.

No, it’s because he took a bunch of familiar character tropes, mixed them up in a blender with “Dances With Wolves”, made a very tantalizing dish out of it and served it to an audience hungry for exactly that sort of thing.

…why is that bad?

Hint: it’s not.

We live in a world where there is much emphasis on absolute originality in creative pursuits. If you make a story and some character or plotline has already been done, everyone sees it as some sort of grave unfortunate error. But the truth is that that’s how stories work.

As a storyteller my job is first to entertain you and secondly to hopefully teach you something. Both of these things are best done by allegories, fables, and parables. By the familiar hero that is almost like us, if maybe we were just a little more brave. By the familiar character arc that is almost like our own, if we had been born a little different. In that world that is almost like our own, if you hold a funhouse mirror up to it. That’s where you make emotional connections and that’s where you tell the best stories.

Yesterday I watched “Elf“. It was completely unoriginal. But it was thoroughly entertaining, it made me laugh, the ending made me go “awww”, and I loved every minute of it. That’s what movies and stories are supposed to do.

Guys, if you’re a writer or a dreamer or an artist or what-have-you, and your goal isn’t to make the next “Ulysses” but to make the next “Warcraft: The Last Guardian”, then stand up and be proud. Who cares if you’re not super hardcore or deep? Who cares that students won’t have to BS their way through long papers about your work sometime in the far future? You made someone’s day a little better.

I would rather make the next “Elf” than the next “Apocalypse Now”. And I’m not afraid to admit it.

classic video game monday, video games

Classic Video Game Monday: Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga

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It’s hard to top Super Mario RPG. Like, really hard. Like, “There’s a reason why it’s Pike’s Favorite Game of All Time” hard.

But you know, Superstar Saga was far from a bad effort.

It’s actually been years since I’ve played this game, but off the top of my head, let me tell you what made this game so enchanting:

1.) Nods to classic Mario. At one point you are thrust into a minigame that is a variation on the original Super Mario Bros. Neat, no? But not content with stopping there, the game throws in one of my favorite renditions of an homage ever. You know how in World 1-2 of SMB, you can get to the top of the level and reach the warp pipes at the end?

Yeah. You can do that in the Superstar Saga homage level. I think you get some sort of bonus item. I can’t remember. All I know is that it made my day.

2.) Geno. The Greatest Video Game Character of All Time has appeared in exactly two games. Super Mario RPG… and Superstar Saga. Granted, it was a cameo. But I didn’t see it coming and I sort of flailed around in fangirl glee for a long time.

3.) Fawful. In the running with GLaDoS for my personal designation of “Most Hilarious VG Villain of All Time”. Choice Fawful quotes include, but are not limited to, the following:

“I HAVE FURY!”

“Princess Peach’s sweet voice will soon be the bread that makes the sandwich of Cackletta’s desires! And this battle shall be the delicious mustard on that bread! The mustard of your doom!”

“Your lives that I spit on are now but a caricature of a cartoon drawn by a kid who is stupid!”

“Rage dressing on a salad of evil!”

I mean, really. You can’t top that. “Rage dressing on a salad of evil”? Sign me up, please.

I also seem to remember this video game having above-average play value and some pretty addictive mini-games but as I said, it’s been too long.

I do need to look into this game again, though. It’s no Super Mario RPG, but dude. FAWFUL.

I HAVE FURY!
writing

Ode to the NaNoWriMo Graph

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Dear NaNo Graph,

I hate you for sucking up all my free time.

For tying me to the shackles of an enticing statistic. “Your daily wordcount average is dropping! OMG, get your butt over here and write before it’s TOO LATE.”

For making me write piles of crap when I couldn’t think of anything else to write.

For making me look at my story that I loved at the beginning of the month and hate it for all its flaws. …well, okay, dislike it. Dislike myself for coming up with it and for not being prepared to fix the flaws and for putting my characters into such a trainwreck.

For making me keep writing anyway when I wanted to stop and do something else,

for forcing me to solve problems,

and making sure I didn’t quit because then how embarrassing would the graph look?

And that, NaNo Graph…

…that is why I love you.

50k, back-to-back.

life of pike, rambles

My Drive to Work is the Most Distracting Drive in the World

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See the windy road through the trees and the bridge? That’s the road I take whenever I go to work. And whenever I come back.

When going over the bridge, my mind inevitably does something like this:

“Must keep my eyes on the road.
Must keep my eyes on the road.
Must keep my eyes on the road.
Must keep…”

*glances out window*

“DANG IT”

(Note: This place is called Deception Pass. I figured with a name like that, there’s got to be some crazy stories behind it, and it turns out there are. Also apparently parts of “The Ring” were filmed here, which means NIGHTMARES INC because I’m a wuss and that movie scared the pants off of me.)

Less talk, more tick-tock