When I see someone call some work of art horrible or bad or shitty or literal garbage, be it music/movies/whatever, it makes me want to try it out myself.
Am I rooting for the underdog or is it motivated by pride?
Saturday, January 20, 2018
Getting Back into Yu-Gi-Oh!
So recently I've gotten back into playing the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. I played a lot of the game back when I was 13 or 14 but I've always felt a close affinity to the whole franchise. Looking back on my life, it's actually pretty cool how my relationship with the series evolved. My love for Yu-Gi-Oh was totally revitalized while we were in Japan. On my first Saturday in Muroran (before I had a car or even before Diana made it over), I walked 2.6km from my apartment to Muroran's Hard Off. It's a huge thrift store/recycle shop that has three sections: 1) Off House (clothes, household items, jewelry), 2) Hobby Off (trading cards, LOTS of anime toys and memorabilia), and 3) the traditional Hard Off (video games, electronics, instruments, music/DVDs). Hard Off was somewhere I had always heard about on video game forums over the years so I was stoked to have one in my town! On that first trip, I found a very nice, complete-in-box DigiWindow but I couldn't help noticing the huge displays of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards!
A little while later, I got addicted to the recently released Duel Links app which got me to start watching the final arc of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime that I had never seen as a kid. I went to some of the local recycle shops and found the Egyptian God Cards (legendary cards from the anime that I ALWAYS wanted as a kid -- back then I had to settle for Chinese fakes from eBay). Coincidentally, there was also a current Gachapon (the Japanese capsule toy machines that are EVERYWHERE over there) run of the Millennium items, the ancient cursed relics from the anime, in keychain form. Unfortunately, Gachapon machines are all random and are totally about sucking your wallet dry. Luckily, I managed to get all seven without breaking the bank (almost like it was designated by fate). I only ended up with a few duplicates that I made use of by giving them to friends back in America.
While watching those final episodes, I brought up the series in conversations with one of the teachers at Shimizugaoka, Ogawa-sensei. Ogawa-sensei was the very first person I met in Hokkaido since he was the one who had to pick me up from the airport. We had an hour and a half car ride from Sapporo to Muroran and from the very beginning, Ogawa-sensei and I bonded over our love of anime. When I told him I was watching the end of the show, he mentioned that he had collected a lot of the cards when the original series was airing in the late-90s -- he also told me that he saw the major theme of the series as "learning to become your own person" and "what it means to become a man." We had a lot of good conversations and, during my farewell dinner a few nights before we came back to America, he gave me three of his "treasures:" limited edition, mail order, promo Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. I received a lot of memorable, powerful gifts that night but those in particular really moved me.
After getting back to America, I started hanging out with one of my old high school cross country friends, Dusty. We started running together almost every day and we'd spend a lot of time talking about video games and other nerdy stuff. He used to be a big Magic the Gathering player back in the day but he mentioned Yu-Gi-Oh! during a run so I dug through my crap and found my box of cards, built one of my old decks, and we started playing together. One day after a run, he asked if I wanted to go check out the card shop in Middlesboro. I'd never really looked around down there so we went to see what they had. Considering that Dusty never seriously played and that my knowledge of the game only went up to 2004, I was a little nervous about bringing the game up in person. I've always been deeply self-conscious about even the prospect looking stupid or unknowledgeable about something. I wonder where that comes from? It explains a lot about my time in grad school, at least. I've been getting better at facing that fear (mostly by realizing that acknowledging your limits is the only way to truly break through them) but I still get uneasy about it.
Fortunately, Dusty was there! He started talking to the guys working and told them that we were just getting back into the game. Another customer perked up and mentioned that he's been playing for a long time. This guy introduced himself as Jeff. I didn't necessarily recognize it at the time, but meeting him was "θΏε½ηγͺεΊδΌγ" -- a fateful encounter.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
We're at my sister's house and figured it would be nice to watch an episode of The Office while eating lunch. Here's a list of synchronicities that occurred:
1) Ryan refers to himself as a "wunderkind" -- Diana had to answer an exam question in Persona 5 about the meaning of wunderkind three days ago
2) The office is cursed -- I told my grandma that her Japanese letter opener might be cursed (because I really think it might be but that's a whole other story)
3) Michael saying he's a little stitious -- we quoted this to my grandma when bringing up the cursed letter opener
4) Michael asking everyone about their religious beliefs -- Diana filled out an application for King University yesterday that asked her if she was a Christian, leading her to articulate her religious beliefs in writing for the first time in recent memory
5) Michael eating the alfredo to carbo load before his race -- Marena (Hunter's roommate) called us earlier today to tell us she's making alfredo for dinner
6) Dwight's insensitivity to killing Angela's cat Sprinkles and telling her to essentially get over it -- a reminder of how my grandma can mean well but miss out on empathizing with our feelings in regards to my dad
We continued on to Season 7, Episode 10:
7) last episode / Meredith's broken pelvis -- before the intro of the episode, I got a phone call about Jeff, a kid I've been playing Yu-Gi-Oh! with at the mall, his parents called to tell me that he broke his leg while shoveling snow and they asked if I could give them a ride to Florence/Knoxville over the next few days for their settlement talks
8) Dwight's attempt at becoming pedidextrous -- trying to play Chrono Cross with my one handed controller!!!
9) Dwight's comment about Stanley's pampered anus -- Hunter made us buy toilet paper yesterday (actually we wanted to) and Diana brought up the wonder of Japanese bidets
10) Erin read China's Wikipedia page and went "oh my god" and Michael looked at her worriedly: "what?" -- this is how I ALWAYS react to Diana's gasps, I always expect the worse!!!
11) Dwight and Nate are looking for the new office building and he theorizes that Pam's lying so they start muttering "PAM PAM PAM PAM PAM" when a woman comes up and says "Yeah, I'm Pam"(what are the odds!!!) -- a SYNCHRONICITY INCEPTION
12) DWIGHT HAS A HEART -- no explanation needed
1) Ryan refers to himself as a "wunderkind" -- Diana had to answer an exam question in Persona 5 about the meaning of wunderkind three days ago
2) The office is cursed -- I told my grandma that her Japanese letter opener might be cursed (because I really think it might be but that's a whole other story)
3) Michael saying he's a little stitious -- we quoted this to my grandma when bringing up the cursed letter opener
4) Michael asking everyone about their religious beliefs -- Diana filled out an application for King University yesterday that asked her if she was a Christian, leading her to articulate her religious beliefs in writing for the first time in recent memory
5) Michael eating the alfredo to carbo load before his race -- Marena (Hunter's roommate) called us earlier today to tell us she's making alfredo for dinner
6) Dwight's insensitivity to killing Angela's cat Sprinkles and telling her to essentially get over it -- a reminder of how my grandma can mean well but miss out on empathizing with our feelings in regards to my dad
We continued on to Season 7, Episode 10:
7) last episode / Meredith's broken pelvis -- before the intro of the episode, I got a phone call about Jeff, a kid I've been playing Yu-Gi-Oh! with at the mall, his parents called to tell me that he broke his leg while shoveling snow and they asked if I could give them a ride to Florence/Knoxville over the next few days for their settlement talks
8) Dwight's attempt at becoming pedidextrous -- trying to play Chrono Cross with my one handed controller!!!
9) Dwight's comment about Stanley's pampered anus -- Hunter made us buy toilet paper yesterday (actually we wanted to) and Diana brought up the wonder of Japanese bidets
10) Erin read China's Wikipedia page and went "oh my god" and Michael looked at her worriedly: "what?" -- this is how I ALWAYS react to Diana's gasps, I always expect the worse!!!
11) Dwight and Nate are looking for the new office building and he theorizes that Pam's lying so they start muttering "PAM PAM PAM PAM PAM" when a woman comes up and says "Yeah, I'm Pam"(what are the odds!!!) -- a SYNCHRONICITY INCEPTION
12) DWIGHT HAS A HEART -- no explanation needed
"Important updates to the YouTube Partner Program"
This morning, Diana woke up and told me that she got an e-mail from YouTube telling her that our channel would no longer be eligible for monetization as of some day in February. Considering that we've only made $40 (which can't even technically be touched until you've made at least $100), it doesn't really affect us -- I guess our kind-of-but-not-really-real $40 will disappear back into the digital ether whence it came.
When Diana started the YouTube channel, I was definitely in the background pushing her, like some dark, demented puppetmaster. We had just moved to Japan and she had no job, no money, and a huge heap of student loans + credit card debt so I thought a YouTube check every so often would help a lot. Secondarily, I thought it might spur us to employ creativity (which, even speaking strictly for myself here, has been hampered and wasted by procrastination and a lack of drive over the years). Besides, I thought it was the perfect storm: Diana's a beautiful girl taking a brave leap into a beautiful, foreign country on a journey of self-discovery. Who wouldn't want to watch that?!?
...with that mindset, aren't I just like some pimp hoing out my wife to the big-ol-wagging-and-waving dick of capitalism? Actually, wasn't I just hoing out my soul to the God of $$$?
In retrospect, I guess I spent way too much time thinking about the money (which is even more cosmically funny considering how paltry AKA digitally nonexistent the money turned out to be). Then again, I guess most of us in the first world Heaven of the modern world are at least a little guilty of the same crime to varying degrees. Nonetheless, it's a hard lesson to learn and I've felt pretty ashamed while writing this. I feel dirty. Is this the time to come clean about the time when we came up with a fake idea/name/person in order to hopefully start streaming on Twitch? Ugh. I might as well put it out there.
Look at those hashtags! We called Diana Riley B and I got her to push her boobs out in hopes that people would watch. I feel like I've let someone or something down. Maybe it's Diana, maybe it's God, maybe it's my dreams/ideals...maybe I feel like I've let my inner self down.
It wasn't all bad, though. I look back on the videos that Diana made like Camping in Japan: A Night in the Ainu Forest of Creation (Tobiu Camp 2016) and How I Came to Live in Japan and see them as creative and honest works of art. After coming home from Japan, we came across some old home movies that my sister and I made when we were kids. It's something I honestly forgot about over the years but my sister and I probably made hundreds of hours of video when we were between the ages of 5 and 12. We used an old camera my mom and dad used to make their own collection of crossdressing comedy skits back in the 80s (my mom said there really wasn't much to do when you're at home in the pre-Internet era -- also, how ANYONE could watch those videos and not realize that my dad was gay is totally beyond me lol). Anyways, one of our (mine and Hunter's) favorite recurring productions was Sakura Coast to Coast (a foulmouthed toy talk show inspired by Space Ghost Coast to Coast). We also had two true crime/horror movie inspired characters that we invented: 1) The Suicidal Stripper and 2) The Porn Ninja. They were all relatively innocent despite the terminology, lol. Watching some of our old videos was definitely embarrassing and cringe-worthy but we really had a lot of fun making them and they were a great way to pass the time (you'd often catch glimpses of our mother chatting away on the computer while we were filming -- almost always she'd yell at us or tell us to be quiet without ever breaking her gaze with the computer).
Back to YouTube, I've really enjoyed most of the stuff we've done, including my Digimon and collection unboxing videos. It's great to just talk about something you care deeply for. My ultimate, personal favorite is probably the tour of our apartment in Muroran (naturally inspired by MTV's Cribs). It's the kind of thing we'll be happy to have in 20 years.
As millennials, I think we live in an amazing time in terms of being able to make a somewhat-decent living through hobbies. Years and years ago, back when I would steal my neighbor's wi-fi from the couch in my grandma's living room (aka the room I lived in/slept in/considered my own while in high school/...now -_-), I found myself constantly browsing through the video game streams on Justin.tv -- usually watching people play JRPGs. I loved having game BGM in the background and the commentary often made me feel a little less alone. I was so intrigued by the idea of being able to stream my own games but due to Internet limitations (my grandparents had a legit sometimes-56-but-usually-28k connection until around 2014, IIRC) and my lack of a capture card on my old Dell laptop that we paid $1500 for when I graduated high school (!!!), it was nothing more than a pipe dream. So I just kept watching. Of course, back then I had no idea that select streamers on Twitch and YouTube would eventually make MILLIONS of dollars (or that it would at least provide enough side income to justify the time put into it).
I guess I just missed the train, so to speak. As the Japanese often say, "γγγγγͺγ."
Monday, January 15, 2018
Salvation
Today we found out that Dolores O'Riordian, the lead singer of The Cranberries, died. The cause of death is still unknown but after Googling around she apparently had an overdose attempt back in 2013, but said "I suppose I am meant to stay here for the kids." The news has really affected me and Diana but if I'm honest, I probably wouldn't have cared if this had happened two months ago. The big difference is that I heard the Cranberries song "Salvation" back when Dusty and I drove up to Richmond for his State Trooper exam in November. He rented a car with SiriusXM so I spent most of the drive listening to the 90s station (I think it's called Lithium) -- at some point "Salvation" came on and it immediately struck a chord with me. "Linger" and "Zombie" were cool but, man, "Salvation" really hit me. Now that I think about it, we were coming back from seeing The Sidekicks play through Awkward Breeds in Columbus and we stopped at a Pilot/Flying J during a snowstorm to sleep in their parking lot; while we were there, I recognized the song playing in the store at 2:40 AM and Shazam told me it was "Dreams" by The Cranberries. Considering my obsession with "Salvation," I felt like it was a sign.
Diana's been playing through Persona 5, so I was browsing around on Reddit when I saw a post in r/ShowerThoughts titled "The final shot of Game of Thrones should end by zooming out of Westeros and revealing that it's actually been a bunch of neckbeards playing a table top RPG the whole time." I immediately had a response ready to go but I scrolled through the replies and realized someone had already beat me to it -- that idea's the basic premise behind the last arc in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters. Honestly, I often think the true nature of reality may not be too far off from this idea. Wouldn't it make sense that we, as humans, are so drawn to games because that's the very framework through which we exist? As they say: as above so below. Even Biblically, you could argue that human beings are just the pieces used to wage the war of God vs Satan, good vs evil, or Law vs Chaos in a giant game of Celestial Chess. Of course, I think there's a little more to it than that, but it's one potential reading of existence. This example just popped into my mind, but my own personal beliefs are probably closest to those found in Star Ocean III: 'Til the End of Time.
"All that we can see in our dimension, and everything we can touch..
It's all been a fabrication created for us to perceive.
And now they've disabled our perception of such things, effectively erasing them from existence.
Without perception, there is no existence.
And yet...
Even though everything around us was an illusion, I'm positive that our minds, which perceived that dimension, really do exist.
...
You're right.
No matter what they claim, our minds are the only things that were real.
Just believe.
Just believe we exist here and now.
We're not just mere data that someone created.
That's right!
Choose to live!"
Even now, I can't fucking believe that this kind of stuff is what I was feeding my brain as a 12 year old. Makes sense.
Diana's been playing through Persona 5, so I was browsing around on Reddit when I saw a post in r/ShowerThoughts titled "The final shot of Game of Thrones should end by zooming out of Westeros and revealing that it's actually been a bunch of neckbeards playing a table top RPG the whole time." I immediately had a response ready to go but I scrolled through the replies and realized someone had already beat me to it -- that idea's the basic premise behind the last arc in Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters. Honestly, I often think the true nature of reality may not be too far off from this idea. Wouldn't it make sense that we, as humans, are so drawn to games because that's the very framework through which we exist? As they say: as above so below. Even Biblically, you could argue that human beings are just the pieces used to wage the war of God vs Satan, good vs evil, or Law vs Chaos in a giant game of Celestial Chess. Of course, I think there's a little more to it than that, but it's one potential reading of existence. This example just popped into my mind, but my own personal beliefs are probably closest to those found in Star Ocean III: 'Til the End of Time.
"All that we can see in our dimension, and everything we can touch..
It's all been a fabrication created for us to perceive.
And now they've disabled our perception of such things, effectively erasing them from existence.
Without perception, there is no existence.
And yet...
Even though everything around us was an illusion, I'm positive that our minds, which perceived that dimension, really do exist.
...
You're right.
No matter what they claim, our minds are the only things that were real.
Just believe.
Just believe we exist here and now.
We're not just mere data that someone created.
That's right!
Choose to live!"
Even now, I can't fucking believe that this kind of stuff is what I was feeding my brain as a 12 year old. Makes sense.
Sunday, January 14, 2018
An Alternate Timeline (Chrono Cross Part 1)
I haven't been playing too many games lately. You'd think that being unemployed would mean having plenty of time to do all the things you normally don't have time to do but I've found that isn't the case. Still, one game in particular has been calling out to me: Chrono Cross.
I think the last time I went through this game was when I was 11 or 12. It had to be around 2001. I remember playing it in three places: 1) my grandparents', 2) my dad's old apartment in Middlesboro (the front facing one), and 3) my friend Casey's. We've been passing by my dad's old place a lot lately so I think that's why it popped into my head. I've been thinking about it for a week now but I just finally started it up this afternoon. The first big hurdle was finding the actual game -- it was upstairs in my grandparents' attic in one of the numerous boxes I left there before we went to Japan. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of games in those boxes. Luckily I found Chrono Cross in the first box of Playstation games I looked through (along with Crash Bandicoot 3 that I brought down for Diana and a copy of Time Stalkers for the Dreamcast that I was hoping would be worth a little money SPOILER ALERT: it isn't). I brought it downstairs and hooked up an old PS1 I had laying around, but first I had to go through a recently-packed box just to find a power cord and a video cable which meant more moving and digging. Once I took it all into the back bedroom where we've been staying and hooked it up to the TV and got started, the game froze at one of the battle result screens. I restarted and made it through a battle with no problems -- SUCCESS! Or so I thought. Once I fought the same enemy from the first time around it froze again. I went into the other room and swapped out the PS1 for a dirtier one -- unfortunately that one wouldn't even boot up the game. I had one of the smaller PSOne consoles in the pile but I had no clue where the AC Adapter for that one was. I ended up going outside to the shed where a bunch of my other crap is to look for it. Of course, after unstacking four huge boxes/totes, I found a huge Kroger bag filled with tangled up cords -- but still no PSOne power cord. Fortunately, I ended up finding my white PSTwo, its AC Adapter, and an ASCII Grip controller that I had bought a few years ago and never used. About 10 minutes later, I was ready to finally start the game.
I thought it would be cool to use the ASCII Grip controller to play through the game since I've had the urge to experiment with ambidextrousness for the past little bit. I'm very into the idea of breaking habits of all shapes and sizes and this seemed like an interesting way to do it. If I was in an RPG, my dexterity stat would be hilariously low and it's something I've always wanted to change. I've already found myself playing with the controller in one hand and my phone in the other. Talk about irony and habits.
Talking to the fisherman in Arni makes me think about how much I miss living near the ocean. While we were living in Muroran, we were literally half a mile away from the Pacific Ocean. I'd never lived that close to the ocean before then! The water was always kind of cold and people never really swam outside July or August but there were always surfers out there year round. During my last month or two there, I'd run out to Itanki Beach, jump into the ocean and swim around for maybe 15-20 minutes, then run back to our apartment. Those were some really great times. I'd get back home and be so covered in salt that I'd break out in a rash and get all itchy if I didn't take a shower. Now we're an eight hour drive away from the Atlantic.
When you stop and think about it, the sea's been around for practically everything, hasn't it? The primordial soup of life -- it's heard and seen it all.
"What came from the sea has returned to the sea."
I was 12 the last time I played through this game and now I'm realizing that a lot of stuff went over my head. I didn't even remember that Serge (the player character) had died 10 years earlier in the Other World. You visit your own grave. What is it with alternate realities and timelines? Just a few nights ago I had a dream where I ran into my high school Sociology teacher (he was also the father of a childhood friend). I looked at him and asked him, "Aren't you dead?" He smiled, in a way that was all too common for him, and said, "Yes, I am." I can't remember much more about the conversation we had, but I know that we had a long one, one where I definitely knew the truth behind what was happening. I specifically mentioned something about the dream being an alternate timeline where he was still alive.
"As you gaze at the sea all day long...
One starts to wonder where the sea ends, and where I start...
I've tried to live my way, but maybe I have just been drifting along, trapped in the ebb and flow of the ocean's tides...
Wouldn't you agree, dear?
?
How could I forget? She has already returned to the great sea..."
Earlier, while I was nervously waiting for my grandparents to get home (I notice that I always glance out the door obsessively when I expect them to get back) I got on my grandma's computer and looked up a list of the rarest PS1 games. I came across one newer list that had Revelations: Persona's intro video linked and posted it on Facebook captioned with the Soshi passage used in the video, the one about dreaming you're a butterfly. Which is it? Are you dreaming you're the butterfly or is the butterfly dreaming that it's you?
Is there really any difference between the two scenarios?
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