I know we all get lazy, and in our adult lives we tend to be “too busy” for most things that we want to or need to do. Especially in these days with this so called “fast paced” lifestyle where we hardly find time to read the directions posted on a sign anymore, but when it gets to the point where we aren’t keeping our homes or our belongings clean is that just laziness or are we really THAT busy?

I became inspired to write this short story all thanks to the most likely week old McDonald’s biscuit that I just realized was sitting on the couch next to me. It’s not mine, I don’t really ever eat breakfast from fast food places, but it’s sitting right here on the couch cushion next to me all nestled up next to a screwdriver (okay so the screwdriver is my fault) and a knife. It’s as if they’re all snuggled up, and the two other objects are protecting the biscuit from the evil human being who is about to throw it away after she’s finished writing. There;s even a can of peanuts sitting behind it, acting like a bodyguard to this poor stale, lifeless, and probably tasteless, biscuit. I understand that my brother works long hours in a night, and I definitely could be of more help in keeping the apartment kept up, but I know for a fact energy is a problem for me, and it’s also hard to touch old food that I haven’t brought into the house. I’m also getting pretty terrified of that can of peanuts now that I look at them more, they are pretty mean looking. What if it’s a trap and there’s really a snake that pops out of the can the second I go to grab that disgusting pastry and bring it to it’s final resting place?

I’m starting to think I need to invest in a trash can in every room in the house or every other corner. I’m not going to sit here and say that I am the cleanest person you’ll ever meet, but I am scanning my living room and noticing that my big problem is the many pairs of shoes I own that are kind of scattered about in the pathway from where we enter our apartment. I rarely drink Dr. Pepper if ever, and there are cans of it scattered about as if they had been in some sort of war against each other.  None of them were left standing and…oh wait, there’s one survivor! Maybe it’s because he has a few body guards too, a soda cup from Runza (again not mine), an orange juice cup from McDonald’s (again not mine), a coke zero can (oops) , an open bottle of rubbing alcohol (mine, but the last place I left it was in my bathroom), a fry box from Runza(not mine) with a couple of surviving fries, and a bowl with some sort of green substance in it (not mine, and most likely molded milk).

Now I’m beginning to wonder what the exact distance the kitchen is from my couch…all I really know is it’s not that far. Maybe I should build some sort of belt like for a cash register to set all this stuff on so it makes it into the kitchen, instead of on our floor or furniture. No, on second thought maybe I shouldn’t because that would just promote even more laziness in a country that already has a severe problem with it. Oh, and just so we’re clear this isn’t a story intended to attack my brother, the poor guy overworks himself from 6pm to 6am almost every night, it’s just a realization on my part that one or the other needs to get into gear. Actually, people in general really need to. Yeah, I’m talking to you mister “I’ll just leave my soda cup on this clothing table even though the trash can is 5 steps away from me in plain sight” and you miss “I’ll just leave this paper sample cup on this end cap because even though there is a designated trash can next to each sampling station it’s just too much effort for me to use my brain or eyes to find the thing, or even extend my arm to throw it in there. I mean who does that anymore? Using your arms or any part of your body to do things yourself is so 1999! So is using your brain, my phone and computer just do that for me now!”

I’ll just leave it at that. It’s not really a matter of “I don’t have the time” as it’s more of a, “this doesn’t interest me because it’s a mundane necessary task in life, and quite frankly it bores the living shit out of me so I won’t do it. Besides , someone else will even if I don’t.”

And with that all said, I am now off to attack this biscuit, pick up these fallen soda cans, these bowls that look like they’re about to be sick, and the debris this little trash war has left on our living room carpet. If I return alive, you’ll see me back on Facebook yet again, and the carpet will be thanking me because it will be able to breathe again as well as show it’s pretty self off. Just keep this simple fact in mind, you’re all adults now. Pick up after yourselves! Hell, most of you (I would hope) learned how to pick up after yourselves since you were knee high. Why quit now that you’re adults? The only excuse you have now is any possible disabilities, or just being so old you don’t function anymore, and I mean that in the literal sense. Not just saying you’re old because you feel old, I mean like old as in you share a birthday with dirt. The end.

— I would also like to add as a side note the biggest apology on earth to my mother for being a messy teenager/young adult during the time I lived under her roof. I now completely understand the irritation!

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This. Here you are, turning on the Freedom Faucet and letting it run.  Please enjoy my thinly-veiled contempt for your kind.

Preamble: You people, you people make me sick.  Make me ashamed, make me sad and embarrassed to be an American.  Make me afraid to be a Black American.  I am so sorry we share a common national heritage and the same Constitution and that the Declaration of Independence is the same for the both of us.  You are a noxious cancer, a pox on all that is good about this country.

How dare you twist the facts to your own purposes?  How could you stand and with a straight face claim citizenship of this nation that was built on the backs of everyone but yourselves and expect to have what you want when you are coasting, as are we all, on the downward slide of our country into unreason and irrationality?  I don’t even have enough spit for all of your faces.

So, we have this video.  This black man walking through a crowd.  Somehow he becomes the target of chants and accusations and, don’t try to deny it, hatred by the protesters.  How did this happen?

I remember learning in school that this nation was founded (and yes, stolen) by people who wanted to worship as they pleased.  I used to think that this meant in America, your choices were respected.  I feel a little like a fool.  Who have I sat next to on a bus or spoken to politely in line at the store that has taken one look at my hair wrapped up and my unadorned face and thought to themselves “That brown girl’s prolly a Muslim”?  Have I walked through a door that was held by a Tea Bagger?  Did I ever smile at a baby whose parents were teaching it behind closed doors to hate in public?

What are our freedoms even worth if we’re too ignorant to exercise them properly?  I mean didn’t we all learn how to read a map in school?

Here’s a map from TopherChris, you stupid motherfuckers.  Read this Village Voice post too, so you can see what’s already near Ground Zero that’s somehow not more threatening than a community center aimed at fostering multicultural understanding and defusing the kind of horribly (un?)American antics depicted in this video.  I realize that this terror mosque will be right in the middle of Ground Zero, so I suppose I understand how it must feel to be standing at the site of the World Trade Center and not even be able to see the people you hate so much.  For those of you who are just looking at this for the pictures because you can barely read, “A” as in “All I want is for you to learn something today” is the proposed site of the place you’re terrified of and “B” as in “But I bet you’re still an idiot” is the site where you’re trivializing the deaths of thousands of people with the crosses you’re burning on the inside.
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Amagad look, over there there’s a woman dancing with no clothes on while men get hardons staring at her!  GASP!  And over there is a betting parlor!  And oh crap a bunch of kitschy junk!

In the interest of being fair, I thought I would try to balance myself out a bit here lest I be seen as some sort of liberal-thinking intellectualist who cares only about allowing terrorism and terrorists to grow and bloom in this, the “greatest nation on Earth”.  Remember this guy?

Wh-what’s that say?  The face of…terror?  Really?  Perhaps you were not aware of this but Timothy McVeigh, while not a mainstream Christian, was a member of the Christian Identity movement.  I won’t go into a long definition here but let’s see what we can find out about them.  From one of their own pages:

Kingdom Identity Ministries is a Politically Incorrect Christian Identity outreach ministry to God’s chosen race (true Israel, the White, European peoples). We proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom (government according to God’s Law) through books, tracts, tapes, videos, the American Institute of Theology Bible Correspondence Course, our international Herald of Truth Radio Broadcasts, a Prison Ministry, Biblical Counseling, Seminars, and other means. The Elect Remnant, Christian Patriots, Nationalists, Reconstructionists, Racialists, and all seeking a higher level of understanding will learn Biblical solutions to personal and national problems, and be given keys to unlock hidden truth.

I won’t link to their page but you can Google it if you want don’t already have it saved in your favorites.  Perhaps you might be saying “Well gawrsh, alphabete, those guys are extremists!” O rly?  Might they be?  Just like, I don’t know, the extremists who killed a grip of people on the eleventh of September in the Year of your Lord, Two Thousand-One?  I’m not done yet though, for ye who kneel and prostrate yourselves at the altar of hatred and stupidity.

You may recall Mr. McVeigh caused some property damage.  He blew up a building, specifically the Alfred P. Murrah on 19 April, 1995.  It remains the worst act of domestic terrorism that the United States of America has ever seen.  This is a man, a white man, in this country, a citizen who conspired with another white American citizen to cause damage to property and lives.  A guy who believed in God and, ostensibly, Caucasian Jesus.  But wait, there’s more.

Look at all these Christian churches near the Murrah Building! Where are your protests?  Where’s the claim that by putting churches near the Murrah building is a slap in the face to the victims of McVeigh’s terror?  Where?  Oh, right, just look at these fucking comments.

Let’s see what those shifty Muslims are up to with this so-called “Community Center at Park51”.  According to their Mission Statement the founders of this project hope to

“Uphold respect for the diversity of expression and ideas between all people”

“Cultivate and embrace neighborly relations between all New Yorkers, fostering a spirit of civic participation and an awareness of common needs and opportunities”

“Establish a state-of-the-art green facility that will serve as a model and inspiration for sustainable space, helping to advance sustainable living in urban contexts”

…and a few other things.  A couple of them have to do with Muslims but if you want to tell me with a straight face that you’re not being willfully ignorant you can read them yourself and look for the “halla halla halla”.  So let’s see.  They want to uphold respect for diversity?  Those bastards!  Cultivate and embrace neighborly relations?  Foster the spirit of civic participation and an awareness of our commonalities?  What the fuck?  And don’t even get me started on that whole green facility/sustainable space/sustainable living thing.  For crying out loud it sounds like they’re trying to turn New York and indeed, all of America into some kind of place where the people you shit on prove that they’re not as bad as you think and that, in fact, they may be better than you.

I checked out some other pages.  Know what “their kind” will have in their fancy-pants new center of extremist terror-breeding?  Recreational facilities.  A swimming pool.  A reading library (oh Holy Father preserve us!), art studios (grab your Bibles lest ye be tempted to appreciate something), a restaurant and culinary school where no doubt all the food will be seasoned with a nice heaping tablespoon of jihad, and let us not forget the mother-fucking swimming pool.  Does that explain it?  Are you people afraid of getting in shape or are you scared that in your swimsuits we will see you exposed for the yellow-bellies you really are?  So hard to tell.

There will be a mosque, sure, oh, and also a memorial room for contemplation.  I see now, though, that contemplation in a 9/11 memorial room, or a basketball court, or an exhibition hall are so, so much worse than a gentlemen’s club which you would go into if it weren’t for your shame-laden penises shrinking at the thought that wimmins aren’t property and naked dancing doesn’t make them gutter trash.  And the fact that you’re not gentlemen.  I’d address the lady Tea Baggers here but I will assume their mouths are too full of their husbands’ balls to get back to me.

You are the festering, gangrenous wound in the side of this country.  You are the ones who are ignorant and irresponsible and hypocritical.  When will the physical attacks begin?  When will you mobilize to bring down De Gubmint in which it is encoded that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”?  When will you stand up like men and women and say “You see these freedoms?  They’re ours, not yours!”?  Come on now, when will you break down your barriers of respectability and appearance as normal American citizens and do as your hero McVeigh did, and use force to get what you want while you whine that people are trampling on your precious, pure-blooded Aryan America?  Or are you afraid to just put on your balaclavas and come out of the closet as the terrorists that you are?

You deserve your tickets on the Public Shame Glory Train and you make Mr. Conductor want to drive this shit off a cliff.

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Everyone is wrong. Wrong is the default state of the universe. It’s the default of any idea, it’s the starting place of every rationalization, and it’s every step along the journey towards either greater or lesser wrong.

I know, it seems an exaggeration. It’s not.

Do you remember physics and chemistry? My textbooks had a few pages about the various models for atomic structure that have been proposed throughout the ages. In order from quite wrong to less wrong. And the implication is that our current understanding is wrong too, and we haven’t figured out how yet.

Every science, every art, every discipline… perfection is not attained. We strive not to be perfect, but to be less wrong than we start. It’s a process, and every one of us demands improvement from ourselves in some aspects of our lives. Lest we succumb to depression.

You don’t think it applies to you? How about sex? You like sex? Gets better with practice, doesn’t it? Anyone who hasn’t repressed (or not experienced) their first sexual experience knows for damned certain that virgins are not good lovers.

Or maybe you’re a bit of a puritan? Finding sex offensive, you spend your evenings in Bible study… trying to improve or maintain your spiritual purity… or just to deepen and improve your understanding. Because you are imperfect, and therefore wrong in some way.

It’s easy to spot wrongness in others, isn’t it? Laws passed that clearly didn’t have the best of brains behind them, or have wording so poor that every armchair lawyer is thinking how bad the loopholes are. That grumpy sourpuss in line ahead of you that’s getting fed up with everything not being 100% perfect in their life and letting the whole world know… that they’re wrong in their expectations.

But the only way that we improve as human beings is to say that there’s something wrong about ourselves… and then fix it.

I am fed up with my life. It’s not living up to my expectations. The problem is, what I want is a way to get from here to… self-supporting, and having a family. I don’t have that. I lack the education, the job market sucks, and I have a shitty work ethic when it comes to begging for a job I really don’t want. I don’t even have half a clue what I want to do with my life from here.

I’m wrong!

Nothing in my life suggests I’m actually going to be any good with starting my own family. That’s an expectation that I had for life when I was 6. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I barely stay in touch with the loving family I have now. We’re generally aloof people and even wanting a family, I’d have to learn how to be a real part of one.

I’m wrong about hating just about every sort of retail job… that’s bullcrap. I liked work that involved a lot of moving around. Was great for my metabolism in high school. Once my weight shifts to where it’s less strain, I’ll like that again. It’s not even the physical pain of menial labor that bothers me. It’s putting up with corporate bullshit… but… most low-end jobs have pretty obvious common-sense rules. Sure, some of it’s BS layout from corporate, or obviously bad legal compromises… but there’s stories there, and you can respect them. At the end of the day, your job is to move things to where they must go so people can find them, and money can be made. I’d probably hate management there, but that’s not what I’d be applying for.

And, for what I want? I do know. I want to help people. I want to see justice. I want to get paid… and I’d like to be creative and occasionally even underhanded when someone deserves it.

I’m not quick. I keep a level head under pressure… I think I’m describing police work. Bit of a surprise, I was expecting counseling. Something to look into either way. I just have to keep in mind that, with any expectations… I’m wrong about reality.

But we all start being wrong. So it’s all right.

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Over the past several weeks/months I’ve been writing down anything I hallucinate while on the come-down of any sort of psychoactive drug. If you require a re-cap, you can check out part 1 here. Most of these current sentences were heard mainly during the come-down after tramadol, promethazine, or heavy doses of caffeine, whereas the last few are due to dextroamphetamine.

Here are 15 more.

1. “There’s like, a carpet sledgehammer that comes in rolls.”
2. “You guys planning to do? Not have a Christmas party.”
3. “Bit big is it? During the month?”
4. (Male) “We’re getting in touch with our clone soon” (Female) “HAHA! Cannae go local”
5. “We’ve been inspiring the hippies for…hundreds of years”
6. “What about 1…1….1:30. 1:30?”
7. “Fuck off cunt, you think they’re mine to limit?”
8. “You’ve gotta time it, then you’ve gotta mount their heads.”
9. “Fishy crab bath celery soup”
10. “No wonder I can’t pick up now, I feel seedy as”
11. (Robocop) “Somebody TURNED MY COMPUTER OFF” *gunfire*
12.  “Cut the goat out, man. Seriously whack”
13. “So like when did you lose your license and stuff, mate? You were going so good, and we’re glad you kicked him out. He’s a terrorist; wears a  suit when he comes out for a walk around the back yard”
14 “I have no idea how that idea gives me other ideas.”
15. “Water pipe rock ‘n’ roll”

Another 15 down, another unlimited supply to go. Until then,

EOF

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Everybody needs help at one point or another right? You start off life as this confused deformed looking form of life, but now you’re no longer a fetus safe from the outside world anymore.  It’s time to start learning things on your own once you come out of that dark gaping hole crying, covered in blood, and other things you’d rather not think about. Of course you receive assistance while all this going on , much more than you will later in life (hopefully) because you are too young to fend for yourself and you’re probably about the size of  a large house cat at this point.

This is all perfectly acceptable right now. You can’t even lift more than a hair yet,  you have no idea what’s going on, people are constantly fussing at you, you can’t speak yet, and the only things you know how to do are things that are based off  instincts. If you take a shit, you can’t tell anybody you feel like you need to drop a deuce, you don’t know how to change your own disgusting piss and shit filled diaper, you can’t feed your hungry happy ass whenever you please, and so on. I’m sure you guys get the point now.

Life goes on , you grow into a young budding child (who’s still a little bratty snotty nosed shit), but you still get help from the people around you when you need it. There’s so much left to learn, and you can’t fit it all in that screaming hyper child sized head of yours. Many mistakes are made by you, but at this point it’s for the most part forgivable because you’re not ‘old enough to know better’ yet. Enough time goes by, and soon you learn  not to use your little smart mouth with your mother, lie about the fact that you just beat the shit out of your sibling (even though they are in tears on the ground beside you), or whine and bitch about a toy you weren’t bought at the store.

You also learn one very important concept of life. Showing up on time matters, and will matter much more when you get older. In order to do this ‘being on time’ thing you are also taught that getting a proper nights sleep is essential, because it usually allows you to wake up on time for any appointments, interviews, or important matters you may need to handle the next day in your adult life.

School bells ring in the morning to tell you school is starting, and you better get the fuck into the classroom.  There are also bells that ring to signify your next class is about to start, so you better hurry and end your conversation with your sticky, dirty, and dumb little friends about who has cooties and who doesn’t. Then there’s the lovely bells that ring to tell you that you’re late to class,  because somehow your dumb ass apparently hasn’t figured this out yet even though you’ve been in school for a few years now. This is supposed to condition you to learn to manage your time in order to be on time, appear reliable to your current teachers, and  appear professional to possible future bosses when you’re older.

When you’re still in these young years, you thankfully have your mother, father, maybe grandparents, or some family member/guardian who gives you a bedtime and expects you to follow it religiously. Some parents or guardians are better at reinforcing this than others, but for the most part most kids who don’t get into bed when told to can expect to see a belt or some other form of punishment coming for them. At least in our years this was true.  Now you can’t spank kids, so that creates a problem…no wonder they are all little shits, you can’t even so much as lay a hand on your kid to give them a high five anymore without someone jumping on you claiming you’re abusing the child. Anyway, that’s a different topic for another day.

Finally you hit your adult life, and hopefully you’ve learned how to set your alarm clock, wake yourself up, and drag yourself into whatever lame routine of life you may have set for yourself. Mommy is no longer waking you up saying, “It’s time for school sweetie, get the hell out of bed!” Mommy is no longer beating your ass when you refuse to get into bed the night before, and she’s no longer beating your ass for oversleeping in order to get you where you need to go on time. You’ve HOPEFULLY by this point trained yourself into being able to handle this basic part of life on your own. You can go to the bathroom on your own now, feed your own overweight hairy ass, dress yourself in your own horrendous outfits, and speak for yourself. Hopefully, at this point you aren’t crying for no apparent reason, crying to let people know you’re hungry, need to use the restroom, or need to play.

Here’s what inspired me to write this story. I love to help others, and I love to help my friends. However, I’m beginning to wonder if this is all getting to the point where it’s just detrimental to certain people in my life. I wouldn’t be overly concerned except for the fact that a majority of my friends are older than I am by several years, and I thought that with those years came something called “experience”. At least that’s what I was lead to believe…

I am finding it difficult to process that my 30 something year old friends can’t manage to get themselves up in time for work , or in some cases class (I know a few people going back to school). I often wake up to last minute text messages about how they woke up late and if there’s any way I could possibly give them a ride (I have a few friends who are unable to access cars at the moment as well). It doesn’t, or I should at least say it DIDN’T, used to bother me before because for the past 3 months I’ve been out of work with nothing better to do. In fact, I was the one who offered rides many times even though I know these people are fully capable of  finding ways to get themselves where they need to go as well as arriving there on time.  However, I’ve noticed a trend in some of these people becoming more and more reliant on me.

Maybe I’m weird, but I never found it difficult to get up and get to work or school on time. I follow a basic rule: If I have somewhere to be or someone to meet the next day, I go to bed at a time I know that I will be able to still make a timely appearance.  If I made the mistake of staying out too late and partying the night before, I mentally kick my ass into gear. Why doesn’t anybody else seem to have this in them?

What I guess I’m trying to really get at is the fact that I’m realizing my help seems to be more damaging than actually helpful. I seem to be sending these people straight back into reverse, and quite honestly I feel like a mother trying to wean my 30 something year old children off breastfeeding. They have teeth which really fucking hurt first of all, and don’t forget they can talk back in a way that doesn’t send me crying for my mommy, but rather trying to collect the bits of my brain they’ve exploded with their words as well.

It’s time to fly free birdies, I won’t be off work much longer, and if you don’t make it to where you’re going to be on time, I won’t be found anywhere within reach. I’ll most likely be stuck behind a register arguing with some numbnut about why the coupons they brought with them aren’t valid, because they refuse to read, and refuse to believe that coupons have dates, fine print, and restrictions.   No more help from me at the drop of a hat . It may be what I love to do , but I also hate hurting people, and in this sense I am hurting you by stifling the growth you apparently still have to do.  It’s time for me to move on, and all I can do is hope that you figure it out.

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Don’t get me wrong. I’m not completely against them (cell phones), I mean hell, the one I own barely leaves my hands or my sight (unless I am driving or somewhere where a cell phone is inappropriate). They’ve helped me out in situations where I  needed help immediately, and they have given me the ability to assist others.

Anyways the thing that irritates me is the fact that recently I’ve been having this issue with receiving several texts from several different people asking me what I was doing.  Well it was actually more like, “Wut r u doin/What ya doin?” This also has a tendency to only ever happen when I’m occupied of course.

Yes, I am guilty of  sending these texts as well, but they are extremely rare coming from me. If someone says that they are busy, I stop texting them. Simple as that.  I also actually take the time to spell out all of the words, and use proper grammar in my messages. You know…because that whole three extra seconds was so important to my life. Don’t want to lose those!

I don’t mind letting people know what I’m up to at the moment, and  I like knowing that my friends care enough about me to ask, or at least send me some type of text at any time during any given day. It’s good to know I’m at least cool enough for some people to want to hang out with, or at least talk to if I’m not occupied.

The thing that has been bothering me is the fact that when I specifically state that I am occupied in my texts a few specific friends of mine continue to text me with questions about whatever I am doing at the moment, or about things that don’t matter.  What does this have to do with common sense you ask? I’m getting to that, don’t worry your pretty little head.

First of all, I am out on the road a lot. I love to drive, and my friends know this. I do not own a hands free device, or have a way of texting by or with my mouth (they know this as well). So when I get asked a question like “what are you doing?”  as I’m busy driving, I will make it a point to state that I’m doing so. I make it as short and sweet as possible (usually with a text while stopped at a red light) with the simple word “driving”.

Common sense would tell any normal human being with half a brain that the person driving most likely has both hands on the wheel , and has their attention on the road. So why, why do my friends take it upon themselves to continue to ask me questions, and then proceed to follow up with a frustrated “????” when I don’t respond within two minutes. I’m sorry, but I thought making sure I didn’t endanger other drivers and focusing on the road was a bit more important than answering your question anyway. It’s never urgent or of any concern, and I would hope that if it was, my friends would have the sense to get my attention by calling me rather than texting me.

So I guess you could just say I’m irritated at the fact that people (specifically these friends) aren’t using their brains to put two and two together, and that this is happening too often.  I could tell them that I was hopping in the shower, and they would ask me, “So how’s your shower going? What kind of shampoo do you use? Are you shaving your legs? How long are you going to be in there for?” I could be running around the house with my panties on fire, let them know this, and these people would still ask me, “So what are you up to?” Hello?! Anything in that space in your head? Most people have one, USE IT!

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I am going to link to a flash game that breaks my heart: Zombie Assault 2 – Insane Asylum.

This is zombie survival with guns and upgradable barriers. I’d rather like to know how the zombies manage to carry cash, and what agency it is that sells you barrier upgrades that you have to fix your own self. But anyway, it’s a rather bog-standard mix of frenetic shooting, base defense, and upgrading your offense and defense to survive upgrading waves of undead. It’s a good formula. The mix this time around is needing cash to add on to the map, to find… well, it’s not the weapons themselves, like I’d expect. It’s an outline of the weapon that lets you buy them from the shop. Like pieces of a picture-menu for a mute customer.

At first glance, it’s a horrid trade-off. You buy, essentially, an increasing number of ways for zombies to enter. Some do not even allow barricades. Fortunately, the undead are stupid and stick with their assigned doors, even walking past an already-smashed barrier to beat upon one that had caught their fancy. The number of undead in each wave is static. These two details mean that you have spread out the zombie problem, so your barriers should last a bit longer. The kitchen and adjacent… porch-y area give vital obstacles to run around, exposing flaws in zombie pathfinding I haven’t needed to exploit since Lode Runner. (look it up, whipper-snappers!)

The undead themselves are a fun mix of speeds, toughness, and special effects. Clowns which are nearly unkillable… save for their own detonations a few seconds after they run near you and root themselves in place. Big beefy meat-cleaver wielders that have a few mutant tapeworms to share with you on their death. And even some demon-y guy who likes to chuck eldritch fire at you. The best bit is that you have some warning. The game’s sound effects include screeches and chilling clown laughs to let you know what a given wave is about to throw at you. But not from which direction… so that you might decide if you are using a good weapon for the upcoming problem.

All that is to the good, believe it or not. Each element listed enhances the experience. Even the pathing issues, as the difficulty is high enough to where exploiting the AI isn’t any guarantee of victory… just a slight edge.

Difficulty, as in all of this class of game, comes from a simple source… you need to buy things, and you don’t know what will help you survive until it’s too late to spend the money elsewhere. As you are spending the exact same cash on expanding your living space that you do on weapons… it becomes even more of a challenge. It is simpler if you know which areas contain which… uh, weapon potentials? Menu items? So you simply do not get to know what’s even available on the first playthru, until you have unlocked the entire map.

You do start off with the ability to buy better barricades tho. Which are repaired to full health instantly, by walking up to one and tapping a key. However… upgrading this to the point where the barriers will damage the zombies that bash them costs as much as the mid-range weapons… and represents the game’s obvious tipping point. If you get the barricades to full, and the map unlocked, you can hold off quite a lot. A sentry gun or two would also make it possible to survive to the endgame.

This is also the point the game appears calibrated to leave slightly out of reach. I’m not saying it’s impossible… there’s bound to be some cryptic range of upgrading and ultimate zombiefighting that allows a human player to survive. But the difficulty of the game… even with health restored between waves, the bulk of players are going to be stymied just short of being able to balance themselves against the ever-steepening difficulty.

Which is where the game promptly decides to break my heart.

You can register yourself with the game’s handlers to unlock a persistant profile, so your XP and character perks don’t go away (the shop and inventory is reset every time tho. Sorry!). And you are given a couple “premium” items for free. Few extra grenades, a rifle that’s quite a bit better than the starter pistol… and this brings you to the bloody shop. Don’t get me wrong. I am not opposed to paying money for a game. Good games are awesome, and worth supporting. This game is playable for free… but you pay to unlock certain… perks. For real cash, you can lower the difficulty of the game. There’s weapons ranging from autoshotguns to proton packs. Permanent boosts to damage, armor, health regen, and bonus income from zombie kills. You can buy the whole set of upgrades for $10 or $15 if you’re getting them individually. Clever pricing scheme, since $5 is the minimum, and would give you the most critical upgrades. But for twice the price, you can have it all. Nice marketing.

Now, if they had made this a bit like shareware, so that I were unlocking, say, an end-game boss… I could dig it. The thing that sends me into a bit of disgust is not that they are charging for the games… they are charging for things that lower the difficulty. This disgusts me. Thoroughly.

Some of you don’t need this explained to you, so I’ll try to be brief. Games used to come with a range of difficulty. There would be an easy mode so that you could experience the bulk of the game, but you wouldn’t be trying very hard. There might be a hellfire and brimstone mode where it would take weeks of training to survive the game… maybe in order to get a different ending. The ending wouldn’t really be all that great, but the elation of finally getting there… to no longer be banging your head against a bit wall in a silicon prison… that would give a giddy rush and instant bragging rights. And anyone sane would have long since found that one guy who could beat it, and watch them do it, so they wouldn’t actually have to.

But you didn’t pay money to make the game easier.

MMOs spend countless hours trying to destroy the practice of “Gold Farming”, wherein real money is exchanged for in-game currency, to allow for purchases that the player hasn’t earned. Ostensibly, you are outsourcing the grinding of the game. Frankly, the games are a bit grind-tastic, and like to keep you from having “fun” as much as possible… but the efforts to stop this industry are due to very real issues of in-game inflation (which puts prices so high that new players cannot buy any upgrades with their hard-earned cash) and of the farming activities crowding out “legitimate” gamers from vital resources.

These are beside the point, but I cannot truly express the outrage I feel without giving them as perspective.

The actual practice of requiring a player to spend money on lowering the difficulty level, and increasing fun… goes against good game design. It’s also a hideous business practice. You end up with a paying customer base of gamers who may be obsessive, but certainly do not have the skill it takes to conquer your game without your little perks… so every single customer is going to be ultimately dissatisfied with the experience, because they will know they couldn’t have beaten the game on their own. They are paying to cheat themselves of the very illusion of victory these games use as a reward for playing.

From a business perspective, you are giving yourself customers who will be disillusioned by the very game they bought into… which can’t do future sales much good. From a game designer’s perspective, I look at this and feel that there was a lot of playtesting put into making the difficulty exactly right… so the game will be addicting but impossible without paying, for most customers. The gaming purist in me scoffs at spending money to gain an edge in a game. The smart shopper who once bought a gameshark figures the price point is WAY off for cheats (But not bad for buying a full game of this type). The casual gamer in me… is intrigued, but not going to spend money when I have a book I could be reading.

I’m not sure what the target market is for this experiment, but as a mutation of the old shareware model, I can’t help but think it’s headed down the old Darwinian path.

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Hi. I play MMOs. At the moment, I’m going to take a bit of both our time to convey a concept about these colossal, yet awesome, timesinks. You have to learn how to play the game in order to excel at the game.

Right, points for the obvious, I know. Now, the usual method of training someone for doing well involves rewarding them for doing things right, and punishing them for doing things wrong. Right? Well… sort of. In order to actually learn, you would need to know what you did right, and what you had done wrong. If this were a sports game, you would see instant replay, and at the professional level, someone making more money than the average schoolteacher would patiently explain how someone on the team did something right in the heat of the moment, with imperfect information, and that the other guys weren’t ready for such a startling display of competence. MMOs lack this. Your random group of bored strangers may have simply succeeded on the 3rd try because one of the casters accidentally dispelled the enemy’s debuff… because he hit the wrong key at the right time. You did nothing different, so you don’t learn. Everybody thinks the other players game improved.

Now, it is possible to learn to play better… by listening to the advice of others. Sometimes this advice is actually good. Sometimes it is ranked slightly below frenching an electrical socket. I recall fondly my first serious group attempt in World of Warcraft, as a newbie warlock. I was repeatedly told 4 pieces of advice. I ignored half. One was to whip out the big ugly smoke pet I use as a tank when solo. I’m being told this by the tank. We have a tank and a healer. I can use my little imp to give everyone more stamina/hp, and set foes on fire. I ignore the advice.

I am told that I should not Fear an enemy in an instance. This makes sense. They run screaming for help, we get 5 guys in exchange for the 1 I sent packing. Bad news for the party. Good call. Instead, I use a power that prevents a foe from running. Curse of Recklessness. I’m told I should be using the mutually exclusive DPS power. I ignore this, because it’s a bad call. The foes aren’t living long enough to have a second tic of damage. And if they run, they tend to live just long enough to bring back grief.

The best advice I recieved was to “SS the healer”. SS turns out to mean “soulstone”. A bungee cord for the tunnel with the white light at the end. Brilliant! However, as a newb, it wasn’t ’till a breather halfway down the dungeon when I was able to type out “WTF is SS?” and actually get a coherent answer. Acronyms are not your friends when you try to train another person. They are used between people who already know what they are doing. When I used the power in the most tactically advantageous method, to let the healer survive a total wipe, so she could restore all of our bleeding corpses to life… it saved us all a long walk. And I got to disappoint said healer, who hadn’t known it was only usable once every 30 min.

Now, in all of WoW, the game itself never actually tried to train me on the most effective uses of my powers. It just sat there being Darwin. If I got it right enough, I survived. If I didn’t, I got to hike back to my corpse.

These days… I play LOTRO. One thing I really love in this system are the deeds. If you’re only familiar with WoW, think of them like Talents… that don’t suck, there’s far fewer of them, and you have to earn each one before you can spec it. Earning them is the critical aspect. As a game designer, you can never truly anticipate what stratagems the player base is going to roll out to break your carefully crafted balance. This is a reason that it isn’t altogether simple to train a player in using his class effectively. Sure, in the prior example, the tactical significance of letting the player who can resurrect  the party rez himself is a bit obvious. But not using the damaging curse, or the biggest looking pet… is a bit less obvious.

LOTRO’s deed system encourages experimentation. Because it rewards experimentation directly. You don’t know which of your abilities will advance a deed until actually using it, once you’ve reached a high enough level for that particular deed. So, to unlock all of them, you must practice your abilities to see what must be done. Granted, they are all simply “use ability x a few hundred or thousand times over a few days.” There is still a mighty opportunity to learn from such rote practice. The Minstrel has one that is simply based on using healing abilities. A thousand times. No deeper meaning here, other than training the player to spam healing. The Lore-Master, however, has one for an ability that simply drains power from a foe into his own reserves. While it’s never a horrible thing to have a mid-battle recharge, running out of power is extremely rare in the early game. However, against foes with low reserves, it also functions to drain them to zero. Which denies them further use of their most powerful attacks. If I didn’t have gamer OCD towards such traits, I’d never have understood how useful this could be. I’d have saved it for long boss fights when I needed the boost. This system improved my competence in the game.

I’m quite curious what the next iteration of gaming is going to roll out to subtly train the player. Because this sort of stealth education is powerful, and molds a playerbase nicely… when it works. Now, if only we could use it to weed out side-conversations in movie theatres.

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Heres an article I’ve been thinking of random bits and pieces for over the week, so I’ve decided to compile them and post them. So here it is – 15 things to teach your kid as young as possible – the 15 kinds of things that should never go untaught. Ever.

1) If it ends up in the toilet, its gone forever. FOR. EVER.
2) Don’t touch anything that doesn’t belong to you. Assume everything that isn’t yours is full of spiders and KEEP YOUR GODDAMNED HANDS OFF IT.
3) Walking barefoot in sand will get you hosed the fuck down. With ice cold water.
4) Throwing your food on the floor at home, or the bin at school will get you 1: belted and 2: starved in your room until the next day.
5) Touching a dog and then touching food/other people warrants a hosing down also.
6) The computer is more valuable than you are. Remember this forever.
7) Drinking daddy/mummy’s beer/wine/bourbon while they’re not looking will get you 5 across the eyes.
8 ) Assume every adult you see is a paedophile (except your family, of course).
9) Playing in the kitchen will get you belted. Hard.
10) Playing with the telephone, or a mobile phone will get you double-belted, especially if either of them suddenly disappear.
11) Touching a toilet in any way warrants instant hand washing – with SOAP. NO EXCUSES.
12) Trying to get daddy’s attention while he’s playing videogames/watching a movie will see you locked in your bedroom until the following day.
13) Liars always get found out. Being dishonest will eventually get you belted really hard. It’s much better to tell the truth and accept a small belting  up front, than getting found out in the future and being belted until sitting down brings tears to your eyes.
14) Hitting your mother will result in your father hitting you in a way that will teach you not to try that again.
15) Running amok in a shopping centre, or out in public where running amok is generally not acceptable, will result in you having the belting of a lifetime, which doubles in intensity per public outing you misbehave in. Wooden spoons may snap over your arse if belting intensity reaches certain heights.

Print these out and stick them on your fridge, or laminate them and give them to your kids. Make sure you follow through with the epic beltings though, or you’ll look soft, and everybody knows soft parents breed thugs, drug addicts, murderers and general scum!

EOF

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Valentine’s Day. Where to start? I’ve never liked this “holiday”. I never have, even when I was in a relationship for it. I don’t understand anything about this day really, other than the history behind it. Which makes me wish I could find the newspaper article I wrote my sophomore year in high school…

No, it’s not because I’m single that I despise it (so don’t even begin to judge based on that), and no it’s not that I’m bitter or heartless. It’s the fact that everyone gets so caught up in this ONE day to go out of their way to show affection or whatever the crap they’re trying to show. So those of you who are quick to judge and say , “it’s just the single people that hate this holiday,” think again. It has always been just another day in the year for me to enjoy as I normally would. I can find several other friends of mine who are in relationships who would say the same as I just did.

You see guys (or girls) at the store lined up to buy roses, or little teddy bears with hearts on them, chocolates, whatever. That may be for some people, but it’s never been for me. In fact, when I was still working at the mall a few years ago on February 14th a coworker asked me nicely, “What are you doing today?” I responded, “absolutely nothing, it’s just another day.” Now keep in mind I did NOT sound angry about it or anything, I was just being honest about my plans. So he quickly and sharply responds with, “Wow someone’s single, or bitter!” Rude much? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

First off, any plants or flowers are just a bad idea for me. I DO NOT have a green thumb. I have normal skin colored ones, that don’t do anything except what thumbs are supposed to do unfortunately. I don’t remember to water plants. I don’t even remember that there are plants in my apartment if I buy them, which is why I don’t bother with spending money on them. What was brought to me in the hospital is an exception, although the dry air in there killed them pretty fast unfortunately. Hell, I don’t even remember to wear my glasses when I’m driving sometimes. I should considering I’m slightly nearsighted, and can’t see signs for where I need to get to when they are so far off in the distance (aka I won’t notice until I’m right about under that sign, and by then it’s too late). So I would feel bad if they died a few days after because I neglected them, and there’s about a 95% chance that WILL happen.

Second, I would lose something like a small teddy bear.I usually prefer gifts that are practical if I get anything at all, I love stuff that I can actually use, stuff that I can learn with, stuff that will actually entertain me, stuff that I can read…you get the point. Sure, it’s nice to get the random gifts every now and then that aren’t practical, but that stuff just ends up piling up, and becomes lost in the black hole in my apartment anyway after about a week.

Again, this is excluding the stuff I was given while in the hospital, because my mom was nice enough to create a space for them to sit on (thanks mom). Those are a completely different case because I was going through a hard time in the ICU when they were given to me. They have true meanings behind them rather than, “hey I just picked up this random thing for you from the store since i saw it on a shelf then remembered it was the 14th” type of deal.

Third, I don’t usually eat candy unless it’s around ‘that time of the month’ or I am a bit stressed. I loved it when I was a kid, but now that I’m older I’m worn out on it (candy) for the most part, so I end up wasting it (which would make me feel guilty). If I go on a binge I’d end up eating the whole box, feeling guilty again, and feeling it in my pants in the next few days when I try to button them as I’m getting dressed. Then I’d feel self conscious, depressed that I allowed myself to do such a thing, and beat myself up in my mind for not having better control. Yet again, all candy brought to my room while I was in ICU is a different case. Trust me when I tell you that I ate almost ALL of what showed up. I am not kidding, and that was A LOT of candy!

So part of what I’m trying to say is; even if I had a significant other right now I would NOT want them to spend any money on me just because of this day. It would be a waste when their money could have gone toward something better. If someone I was involved with felt like they had to buy my love, I would instantly feel like something was wrong in the relationship. I’m a pretty independent 22 going on 23-year-old woman, and I absolutely hate to feel helpless. I love to help others in any way I can, but I never expect anything back. I’m not royalty, I don’t expect things bought for me, and I don’t expect things done for me. So please don’t treat me like I am something to just spend your money on, because honestly it makes me a tad uncomfortable, and it definitely makes me feel weird. If you absolutely can’t handle this & feel you absolutely have to spend ANY money on me, then pay my rent for the rest of the year! Kidding… but help with a phone bill, gas bill, electric bill, or internet bill would be something I could and would appreciate more. That kind of stuff is practical, and when I’m not behind on payments it runs less than 30 bucks (excluding cell phone).

Finally! On to what I really just wanted to get out there with this post! Yes, it may be the thought that counts, and yes I am grateful for ANY gifts I receive no matter how cheesy, cheap, expensive, weird, big, small, fat, tiny, or color they may be. Yes, I’m glad to know people do love & care about one another, me, or some random stranger in the world. However, the thing that bothers me the most about all this is the fact that it is only focused on for one day out of the year. Why? Shouldn’t we be loving each other every day? Isn’t that why people get into relationships, or get married in the first place? You know, because they have feelings or love for each other anyway? Shouldn’t you do a little something for your other half no matter what day it is, say just because you felt like it, or felt they deserved it for being so awesome?

It’s not that hard to do something special for someone outside of this day, like maybe pick up their favorite ice cream from the grocery store while you’re out, help them finish something they may have been struggling with, pick up something from the store that they wanted, but couldn’t buy at the time, or spend a day just hanging out doing whatever they want to do. You’re obviously with this person for a reason, show them you love them every chance you that you can even if it’s not with material objects!

Okay, I’m still going. I’m just about done though, I promise! So hang in there!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying , “be a total pushover, and let people walk all over you.” Things are bound to go wrong if a relationship becomes one person always being the giver, and one person always being the taker instead of it being as close to 50/50 as possible. Although for me, as long as I am on the giving end at least a little bit more than 50% of the time I am content, and tons more comfortable. Yes, that has brought me into some bad situations before, but thankfully as I get older I’m at least getting a bit wiser, and know when someone is using me.

Same goes toward showing your family love too, they will always be the ones who around when nobody else is… or even when other people are! They are the ones who put up with you through your toughest times, and your toughest years (sure there may be exceptions in some cases), but never forget to tell them you love them either no matter what the day may be. You never know what’s to come, so always show your appreciation for those you care about when you can. I suffered a stroke back in January due to the AVM in my brain bleeding, and I will never take anything for granted again like simply being able to tell my family members that I love them whether it’s in writing or in text. Speaking of which, I LOVE MY PARENTS, SIBLINGS, AND ALL OF MY FAMILY! <3 ! EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR!

Oh! I would also like to add I LOVE ALL OF MY FRIENDS TOO!

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