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48

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#48. I finished Half Life, Max Payne, and Red Faction.

Okay, these are not really overly impressive accomplishments. I didn’t save a life, or climb a mountain, or cure a damn disease or anything. But I did waste many hours and obsess over lots of tricky problems to finish these games, and so I’m gonna talk about it. I’ve only got my life to discuss, you know. Don’t try to make me into a hero, here.

Anyway, I went on a gaming kick for a while. Now, I’m usually semi-playing a game — I’ve got a simulated baseball season in progress, or I’m trying to put together a Madden NFL football squad that I like. But these are background processes for the most part — I’ll poke at them for a couple of days, and then lose interest, and then fire them up again to give it another go. That sort of thing.

But that’s not how it was with these three. Not at all. No, these three I played one after the other, in an orgy of shooting and dodging, and running the hell away from scary things. I spent two or three weeks on each, it seems, and blew through them in succession. I didn’t sleep, barely ate — don’t even ask how much work I got done. For a while there, it was all about finishing the game. And finally, I did. And I haven’t gone on another kick since.

Which is too bad, I suppose, in a way. There’s some wicked cool shit out there. Soon it might be time to go on a spree and pick up the latest two or three games and go at it again. I hear that the Rainbow Six games are sweet, and I never did buy either of the No One Lives Forever titles. And those are just the old ones — I haven’t really kept up in the last year or so, so who knows what’s stormed onto the market? My collection has definitely got a few holes that I’d like to patch.

On the other hand, I think I’m so happy about finishing the three games I mentioned because they’re the exception, not the rule. I’m generally horribly bad at getting all the way through a game, whether because of lack of skill or a vanishingly short attention span. I dabbled in Civilization III and Alpha Centauri, but never really got anywhere. (Guess I’m just not on the same wavelength with Sid Meier. Eh.) Ditto Homeworld, which I thought I’d play for months. (Turned out to be days, instead. Basically, I wasn’t all that good at it.) And recently, I picked up a bargain-bin copy of Commandos, which I used to have a demo of. (And couldn’t finish even the demo missions, so why the hell am I torturing myself again?)

Maybe that’s why I gravitate towards the sports titles. Besides the obvious fact that I like watching and playing sports, perhaps it’s the open-endedness of these games that appeals to me. I always play in franchise mode, so there are years and years of simulated action to take into account. A down year or two can be mitigated by rampant success later on. See, if there’s no real end to the game, then I can’t lose, now, can I? The only way to lose these games is to not play at all. Hey, I like it!

Um… on the other hand, considering that I invariably lose interest before finishing a single season, and then deciding to start from scratch each time I revisit that game… well, I guess I’m not exactly winning, either. *sigh* Maybe I should just go back to Pong. At least there I know when I’m losing. (And just because that’s ‘nearly always‘ is no reason for you to snicker. I’ve got a bad joystick, that’s all. Hey! I said, stop snickering! Bitches!)

47

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#47. I can work the three-star puzzles in Games magazine. Sometimes, anyway.

Okay, so maybe this only makes me a nerd. Still, it’s quite an accomplishment to finish up one of the hard-hard crosswords or cryptics in Games or World of Puzzles, and then look in the back to see that everything’s right. Not that it happens often, mind you. Usually, in the bigger crosswords, there are one or two places where two words cross that completely mystify me, and I have to enter a ‘T’ or a ‘K’ or ‘U’ as a guess. And my guesses are always wrong, of course. You’d think, just maybe, that one-twenty-sixth of the time, I’d get one right. Or one out of six or so vowels, right? Right? But no. I’m zero for, I don’t know, several thousand by now, I suspect. It just doesn’t happen.

I don’t see why they have to be so goddamned devious, either. I’m not completely stupid — evidence to the contrary on this site notwithstanding, of course. But I can infer answers. I know things. So I can work around one or two things that I’m not sure about, and circle around them, and fill in gaps until I can make an educated guess about most things. I don’t mind that; it’s part of the challenge.

But is it absolutely frickin’ necessary that the answers for shit like ‘Ancient Sumerian god of dysentery‘ and ‘Small river port in central Bumfuck Nowhere, circa 1508‘ have to cross each other? Give me a fucking chance, would you? I mean, the answer to each is ‘Xygrylty’, or ‘Ic’, or some equally-impossible shit like that. How the hell am I supposed to work around that? That’s just cruel.

Still, every once in a great while, I win. The cryptic crosswords are good for this. I’m still at the point where I have to work one over a couple of weeks, but I can finish, if I get just the right puzzle. I just stare at the clues for a while, until I can get a few answers, and then I quit. My brain gets locked into one speed (usually ‘puree’, though ‘whip’ is another popular one), and after a while, I’m just not gonna get any more. So I put the book down and go do something else for a day or two. And usually, when I come back, I can get a couple more. Usually, they’re obvious — I guess they’ve been simmering under the surface of my brain for a while, and just sort of work themselves out while I’m busy watching Blue’s Clues or picking lint out of various body cavities. Amazing how complex multitasking works, isn’t it, folks?

But, of course, I don’t get them all on that second try. I’ve got to go through several rounds of this — think, think, think, ignore, ignore, ignore, think, think, think again — before I get as far as I’m going to. Usually, there are one or two answers left that just seem impossible. Usually, I just keep banging my head against it anyway, until I finally give up in a huff. Or, more often, another magazine comes, and I start working on the next Herculean (for me, anyway) feat. Every once in a while, though, I’ll admit defeat and peek at the answer, which never turns out well.

See, at that point, one of three things can happen. One, the answer, once read, may be excruciatingly obvious, which only leads me to kick myself for how stupid I was not to see it. Even worse, the answer, once read, may still make no sense, viz a viz the original clue. So then, I get to kick myself for how stupid I still am, because I still don’t understand it. Yuck.

But worst of all, the answer is sometimes some obscure, never-used archaic son-of-a-bitch word that I’ve never heard of, and which hasn’t been used since Shakespearean times. Those are the ones that really piss me off, when I think about how frigging close I was to finishing a puzzle, and they went and stuck ‘forsoothily’ or some ridiculous shit like that in the middle of it. Grrrrr. I mean, I finish few enough puzzles as it is; do they really have to torture me with this crap?

But once in a magical while, it all comes together. The obscure bullshit all crosses with the words I know, and they leave the Pig Latin and fucked-up place names out, and I can just use logic and general trivial knowledge to nail one of those bastards. Sure, it still takes a week or more to get through one most of the time — I’m not gonna win any speed awards — but it feels good to win once in a blue moon. It makes me smile, and swell with pride, just a little. I put the magazine down and just take a good long look at this rare accomplishment, a sigh a little sigh of relief and joy.

And, so, of friggin’ course, what do I do then? Start another one, of course. Stupid bastard. I know I’m not gonna get lucky twice in a row, but do I sit on that good feeling, and milk it for even a minute? No. Before the ink’s even dry, I’m flipping pages, looking for the next puzzle to tear my hair out over. Clearly, I’m stupid after all. Not even praying to Xygrylty can change that. Though it might make me more regular, so maybe it’s worth a shot. What have I got to lose?

46

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#46. Wendy’s has the best French fries. Sorry, McDonald’s fans.

Okay, so I’m not actually going to convince anyone with that statement. I realize that. Fry fandom is almost like religion; people have really, really strong opinions that are unlikely to ever change, regardless of what proof or logic or alternatives you parade in front of them. And the most fanatical of them will kill to defend their beliefs. This is serious shit.

That said, I’m a Wendy’s man, through and through. First off, I’m pretty sure that Ronald McDonald is the antichrist. Or something very similar, anyway. McDeath has served ‘billions and billions‘ people; so many, they’ve even stopped counting, for the love of horsemeat! Is there any way they could make you feel more like a mindless sheep for eating there? Wake up, folks — they’ll be grinding up mind control pills in the hamburger ‘meat’ any day now, and plopping those two pickles and *squirt squirt* of mustard and ketchup on it, and serving it up to the unsuspecting masses shuffling through the doors. Any day now, if they haven’t started already.

(Which would actually be a handy explanation as to how Roseanne got another show; she’s probably got comprimising piccys of Ronald gettin’ busy with the Michelin Man, or the Pillsbury Dough Boy, and she’s blackmailed him into using the McD’s clout to get her back on TV. Really, think about it. What other explanation is there?)

And Burger King? Um, no. Yeah, you can have it your way, just so long as ‘your way‘ is grease-drenched, soggy, oversalted and uninspired. (Which actually does happen to be my way… just not as it applies to French fries. Yeah, don’t ask.) So, though I don’t really have anything against BK as a multi-national conglomerate, their fries are crap. Limp, tepid crap. Moving on.

And frankly — even forgetting my morbid fear and loathing of the McDoodles franchise — their fries aren’t all that great, in my opinion. First of all, they’re too skinny. They’re also non-uniformly crispy. They do get nice and brown on the ends, I’ll admit, but the centers are often like cake batter, or cottage cheese. Lumpy and doughy and just not yummy in any conceivable way. I’ll pass.

Which leaves Wendy’s as the winner in my book. Their fries are a little thicker than the others, which is a damned good start. (And don’t even get started, you Sonic or Jack-in-the-Box or J.D. Ritzy’s folks. The fries from those places — and most others — are like little deep-fried toothpicks. You gotta stuff about twelve of ’em in your damned mouth just to be able to taste them. This is the only mention they’re gonna get in this space. Sorry.) And a well-cared-for Wendy’s fry is brown from top to bottom, and on both sides. Crunchy on the outside, warm and pillowy and creamy in the middle. Like a jalepeno popper, or a chocolate-covered hamster.

To prove my point, I’ll say this: Wendy’s fries are the only ones that I’ve ever encountered that don’t require ketchup. That, to me, is the highest praise you can lavish on a fried potato product. You can wax poetic about whatever fry you want. If you prefer to eat it unadulterated, then at least I know you have the strength of your convictions to back you up. Otherwise, don’t talk to me about French fries. You’re just shooting ketchup in your mouth, and you happen to need something solid to keep it sliding down. Don’t waste my time.

45

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#45. I’ve written two science fiction short stories.

Okay, so don’t get all excited. (I know, you’re not. Just let me have my moment, would ya?)

Anyway, I wrote the stories, but never got ’em published. See, apparently, the best way to break into short story writing is to write a story that’s… well, in a word, short. Like a thousand words or so. I guess it’s easier for an unknown to sell something that’s not gonna take up much room. Makes sense, right?

And then there’s me. I had a couple of cool story ideas, so I tried putting them on paper. Together, they weighed in at around twelve thousand words. Not good. But I can spend five hundred words talking about navel lint (don’t make me go there, please), and I didn’t know how to strip these stories down to something marketable.

So I joined an online writer’s group called Critters, and got my stories reviewed. The first — longer — one got really good reviews, and a few comments about how to shorten it. So I worked on it some more, trimmed the fat, and got it ready to send out.

This is where I made my second unrealistic decision. Again, the best way to get published is to shoot for smaller mags first, even those that may not pay well, or even at all. Anything to get your name out there. Fuck that. I’m all about the instant gratification. So I sent my story out to one of the most famous science fiction weeklies, and waited. Three weeks later, I got a response — a form rejection letter. No feedback, no comments. Not what I wanted, of course, but in retrospect, what I probably deserved. Bitches.

I sent the story back out — to another highly visible and successful mag — while I worked on getting the second one reviewed. In the meantime, I wrote reviews for other people’s stories on Critters. Long, detailed — but helpful! — reviews. It was actually kind of fun, and I like to think that I helped some people out. That went on for a couple more weeks.

Then, I got my second-story critiques back. The people reviewing my story seemed to like it (though it was also too long by a thousand words or so), but more than one person mentioned that it was very similar to a short story written a few years ago by a very famous author. Which I hadn’t read myself, lucklily for my self-respect, but which also wouldn’t help in getting the idea published. So I scrapped that story.

I started working on a third, but couldn’t figure out where to start it. I read once that the most critical decision in a short story is where to begin the action, and I simply couldn’t get it right. There was an alleged homocide involved, and I tried starting when the ‘murderer’ and ‘victim’ met each other, when the ‘crime’ occurred, and at the murder trial. I even tried starting after the fact, and wrote one intro with the ‘murderer’ in jail, and another with him living in a faraway place, acquitted but with his life in tatters. None of the angles worked. The story started to sound silly to me, and I forgot what message I was trying to get across. Around that time, I got my second form-letter rejection, and decided to hang it up, at least for the moment.

So, you may never read me in Asimov’s or Amazing Stories. You’ll just have to console yourself by reading the material here on this site. All of it. Come on, get cracking. You’ve got a lot of words to get through, buddy. Just try reading them a thousand or so at a time. I hear that helps.

44

Charlie’s “100 Things Posts About Me”

#44. I’ve been to the top of the Empire State Building and the Eiffel Tower.

Well, okay, technically not the tippy-top of either structure. I’m not King Damned Kong over here. It gets windy and cold way up there on the radio antennae and such, and I’m a delicate flower, after all. And actually, I don’t think I’ve been up to the very most toppedest that people are allowed to go, either. From what I recall, the ‘Upper Observation Deck‘ in each structure was unavailable when we were there. Something about maintenance, or loose bolts, or a private party or something. Damned fat-cat bastards.

Still, the views from the near-upper decks were pretty damned awesome, too. I think I liked the Eiffel Tower view a bit better, maybe because of the ‘foreignness’ of everything I could see around me. I’ve only taken one trip to France, and so there was no familiarity with the surroundings at all. It was like taking a balloon ride over a city on the moon or something. Very cool.

The skyline of New York is grander, of course — at least in it’s enormity. There were buildings everywhere, and I could even recognize a few of them, and point at places I’d been earlier in the trip. You can really get a sense of the ‘concrete jungle’ concept from way up there — there are skyscrapers as far as the eye can see, in just about every direction. It’s a little intimidating.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember many details of the views, or about what exactly I was doing up in each tower. I was on vacation with my wife both times, I remember that. And it was the first time we’d been in either place together, so we were doing all the touristy shit, and gawking, and snapping photos of everything, and generally being out-of-town geeks. But the details are a haze — even the views, other than the general impressions that have remained, are indistinct and fuzzy in my memory. Maybe it’s just been too long. Or maybe I’ve just been to a lot of parties since then. Most likely, it’s because I’m still sort of afraid of heights, and maybe didn’t really want to look down and focus on anything.

But, in any case, I can say I’ve been. Two more stickers for the proverbial travelling suitcase. And since I’m not much of a mountain climber or anything, one of the two might have been the highest I’ve ever been, without the aid of a jet-propelled engine. So that’s pretty cool. Even if I don’t know which one it is, and I can’t remember the view. (Damn, I’m such a shitty tourist…)