A glance back in time

The last time I was up at my parents house, when they weren’t there, after they changed the locks and went to Costa Rica, I couldn’t sleep.  I was bored with computers, there were no sports on, and I was without an XBOX, so I eventually found my old high school yearbooks.  After spending about two minutes glancing back to junior, and senior year photos, slightly amused by the youth in mine, and everyone’s faces, I found my way to the signatures section, since I couldn’t give a shit less about anything else in these gigantic four pound editions.

The above drawing was drawn in my yearbook by my last high school crush.  Naturally, as many other teenagers, I went through my share of unrequited crushes, but this one was only one I ever really manned up and came out to admitting to, directly to her.  Naturally, right after graduation, so I wouldn’t have to really see her again if things went awry.  Surprisingly, it was not received poorly, and she even kissed me on the cheek before we parted ways and would never see each other again.  I vaguely remember feeling a sense of satisfaction, and slightly relieved that it went as well as it did, back in those days.

Continue reading “A glance back in time”

One Year.

365 days ago, I officially moved totfc.net into a WordPress blog format. The main reasoning behind the move was that I felt that I was losing touch with my writing, mostly because the process was redundant and had become arduous, and I felt some obligation to make long and thoughtful posts in order to get my point across.  When it felt like it was becoming a chore, I knew change was essential in order to restore order to my enjoyment of writing.  A year ago, a new beginning, began.

2001 posts: 74 (not full year, either)
2002 posts: 81
2003 posts: 75
2004 posts: 73
2005 posts: 41
2006 posts: 55
2007 posts: 34
2008 posts: 19
2009 posts: 28

As you can see, as the years passed, so did my desire to really post anything to the old site.  In the span of the last 365 days, I have posted to my new brog 225 times, effectively more than the last five years combined. Granted, the depth, quality, and integrity of the last year’s posts might not be nearly as “meaty” as some of my previous years’ posts, but I can say without much question, that over the last year, writing hasn’t felt a chore to me anymore, which is a wonderful feeling.

It’s not necessarily how much I’ve posted that’s refreshing, but also the means in which I’ve posted.  I’ve made posts from seven different states, three different time zones, from my PC, various work computers, my old laptop, my Android phone, and most frequently, my trusty netbook.  Post contents have been heartfelt and thoughtful, sometimes just a link that amuses me, or random pictures from when I have been traveling on my baseball trips.  Some have been negative in connotation, with me pouring my ronery heart out, or fuming over my inability to secure a real job.  But all of it has been relatively close to the moment, and a more accurate reflection of my actual emotions and thoughts, as opposed to me having time to stew and think things through, and deliberate my choice of words when I had the time at home to do so.  When something crosses my mind that seems worthy to write about, I literally have the means to essentially get it down, just about almost anywhere.  Even if it’s not worthy, I can brog my heart out too.

Needless to say, switching my website to a WordPress brog was the best decision I made last year.  Writing means a lot to me, and when it began to take over my particular presence on the intertubes, it only made sense to adapt my online real estate to accommodate such outlet.  With one year in the books, I’m hoping to keep this going and I realize at this point, I’ve pretty much been doing this for the last decade, which is kind of surreal, knowing that I’ve got quite a bit of personal writing up online for that long.

Pre-order now: My literary contributions to a real sports publication

It would be in my greatest interests, if one day, I could get paid to write about sports for a living. This is about as good as a start for my amateur, unaccredited background, aside from once being an English major in college.

The Maple Street Press 2011 Braves Annual is just that – an annual edition about the Atlanta Braves, to which your truly has contributed some writing to, and this will be available on a fairly wide-spread distribution, mostly to the remote Georgia regions, but available online to anyone who would want to purchase.

I wrote one “main” article, as well as one “light” article for the publication, as well as several reviews for many of the current Atlanta Braves going into 2011. And although it will go uncredited, I also served as an associate editor to some capacity, as I was responsible for grammar and proofreading duties towards the tail end of the editing process, probably when the lead editor discovered how thorough I could be with such a task.

Not that I genuinely think anyone who reads my personal brog would have the least bit of interest of purchasing this, but I’m proud of my contributions to a real publication, and therefore you’re going to have to read about it this time.

Nothing really to contribute

Instead of going straight to bed, I instead have this compulsion to write.  These are the times in which writing can be a little precarious, because the tone is often on the somber side, and I’ll be the first to admit that there’s a lean towards slightly disappointing on my thought process right about now.

I know some pretty decent folks in my little life down here in Atlanta.  We do things together, gather for trivia on a mostly weekly basis, have occasional parties, and I’m more than willing to lend helping hands to whomever of these may need one.  I like most of them very well, and I know that the feeling is mutual.  However, I’m often under reminder to myself, that I don’t really have a lot in common with my frequent company down here, and it often leads to droughts of silence on my end, when I have pretty much nothing to contribute to a group setting.

Upon departure from my friends, I often sit in the silence of my car, and thoughts like these often times pervade my head.  It’s not that I’m necessarily a quiet person in general, but if I have nothing to contribute to a conversation, I’d prefer to stay away; listen and try and pick up on things, sure, but risk sounding ignorant, disingenuous, or bored, I’d rather not do.  I don’t have the same interests or hobbies as anyone down here really, I’m not interested in gossip, and what I do for a living isn’t interesting to anyone, nor is it remotely recognizable beyond an “oh hey, I have seen that before” kind of mannerism.  I can’t always say I’m always interested in what other people do for a living, nor educated in certain talents or comprehensions to where I could hold my own in a casual conversation.  Furthermore, when things tend to get louder in a bustling environment, I simply grow agitated and exasperated with the difficulty it is to simply hold common communication sometimes.  Then silence ensues.

I really do enjoy the company of others, but I’m kind of pissed at myself for being able to genuinely take part of it sometimes.  I look back at a lot of the gatherings where sure, I do have fond memories of, but I’m coming to the disheartening conclusion that a lot of those times, I was drunk, and I apparently didn’t give a fuck about holding my tongue, or risking looking dumber than I already was while inebriated.  At that point, Drunk Danny is now a good story to tell in the future.

But then I ask myself, if I were capable of handling myself in a more interactive manner, would anyone care of what I’d have to say?  When the numbers increase, my voice becomes drowned out, and it feels like even more of a futile effort to be heard sometimes.  I guess what all of these words are amounting to is that there are times in which I just don’t believe that my friends down here, simply don’t think I’m a very interesting person.  I don’t have many of the same interests, my love of sports is often met with ridicule and mockery, and I often get the impression that my intelligence in select topics isn’t regarded very highly. I’m an artist by trade, but it’s like when it comes to my opinion on the artistic, you’d be better off asking an invalid.

Personally, I don’t think I’m a particularly interesting person sometimes, aside from the slightly abnormal thought processes, kind of morbid sense of humor, and tendencies to over-think things from time to time.  But I grow to dislike the feeling of irrelevance sometimes.  I’m the most important person in the world when anyone needs my specific services or expertise, but most times else, I’m the guy in the background who seems to only really be fascinating when drunk.

This is why writing is therapeutic to me.  To those who choose to read my words, my voice can’t be muted.  It may sound like your own voice in your own head, but they’re my words, and my thoughts.  The funny thing is that I’m astute to the fact that not a very good number of people read my ramblings.  My site is awesome after an event or a gathering where I had my camera, because everyone likes to see pictures of themselves, or people doing stupid shit.  But does anyone really stick around to indulge in my passion of writing?  Maybe a few.  Maybe they’re the ones who’ve always been interested.  Maybe not.

In the long run, and even the short run, it doesn’t really matter.  But here’s a little bit of truth in my writing – there are occasionally times like this in which I will jot and share my thoughts down, that I’d otherwise not share with people in private conversation.  Not Jen, not my family, not my closest friends.  It’s presumed that I’ll simply just talk about the shit I’d brog about, so there’s no point in dropping by.  There’s a level of candor that I’m just not comfortable discussing with others, so I put the writing on the wall, and leave it to anonymous chance.  Some will give a shit, some won’t.  Some simply won’t even know.  It doesn’t really matter.  Tomorrow’s a new day, and feelings subside in time.

A funny thing happened playing L4D last night

I swear, it’s like the plot of Rocky III.  Rocky has been fighting scrubs for so long that when Clubber Lang comes along, he gets owned.  Since Christmas, there has been such an influx of scrubs playing L4D that my brother and I have been getting a little soft.  Apparently last night was Clubber Lang night, and every match we seemed to play in was four Clubber Langs versus the two of us, and naturally, two scrubs who have no real talent at the game, resulting in us getting targeted and annihilated pretty much every match.  Needless to say, after a while, I begin to get a little frustrated.

A compulsion I have when playing L4D is that I often times look at the profiles of the people I’m playing with/against, when waiting for load screens, or during spawn time waits.  The game channels out my inner-ADD apparently.  During one of the games in which we were getting bested, I glanced at the profile of one of the people we were playing with, and interestingly enough, in his profile was boasting about how he was a Microsoft employee, who worked on the Kinect, as well as the XBOX version of MSN Messenger.  Furthermore, his profile had a little digital watermark above it with “Project Kinect” behind his peripheral information, giving him designation from the rest of us plebeians.  Additionally, his profile smugly boasted “I only accept friend requests from people I know.”

As a player, XBOX Employee wasn’t bad at the game, maybe a little too rogue for my liking.  However, the fourth player on our team was the typical scrub who completely bogged down the team altogether, and was primarily responsible for our downfall in the first two rounds.  Naturally, such results leads to the democratic desire to alleviate the team of such dead weight, prompting my brother and I to vote out the carcass.  Upon bringing up the vote screen, XBOX Employee consistently voted no, leaving the result as an unsuccessful stalemate, drawing my ire.  Eventually, after consistent losing thanks to retaining a heavy ballast, the dead weight finally left on their own accord.

I thought to myself “maybe we shouldn’t vote the XBOX Employee, he might have some mythical employee powers to smite us later,” but by the time the thought was done my brother had already pulled up the vote screen.  Without any hesitation, the thought was discarded, and I hit the start button, and the Smarmy XBOX Employee was unmercifully kicked from the game, just like any other pleeb and scrub we’ve disposed of like garbage.

Nobody fucks with our zbs.  Nobody.

Bad Movie Review: King of the Fighters: The Legend of Mai Shiranui (2010)

I tend to fall behind movie releases very easily, so when I get really bored, I literally comb through individual weeks, and see what’s been released, so I can procure new material to watch when I’m bored, which is a lot. During my last perusing of movies that I likely missed, one particular title caught my attention: King of the Fighters.

Admittedly, in the video game world, I prefer Street Fighter over KOF like people prefer a filet mignon over a Big Mac, but for what it’s worth, I’ve been admittedly entertained by SNK’s bastard retarded attempt at a fighting game franchise before. Long story short, upon learning that it was directed by Gordon Chan (Typical HK director) I knew what I was getting myself into, but I decided to watch it anyway.

Fucking Hong Kong directors – they pretty much always find a way to ruin any existing properties, and it should come as no surprise to anyone, that King of the Fighters was a piece of garbage. However, the bigger question is, how does it fare to Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li?

Continue reading “Bad Movie Review: King of the Fighters: The Legend of Mai Shiranui (2010)”