Friday, February 20, 2009

I Don't Get It

Much of the gaming world is aflutter this week with the North American release of Street Fighter 4. This game release is totally lost on me. When it comes to gaming, I tend to avoid fighting games since I really don't seem to "get" them. All I see is button-mashing.

Other gamers who do groove on fighting games all seem to have their "brand" -- much like smokers, beer drinkers, or even pop-drinkers. Some prefer Street Fighter, others prefer Tekken or Soul Calibur. They claim certain subtleties within each brand, and even claim to prefer subtleties within iterations inside that brand (eg. "Street Fighter 2 was the best ever, but Street Fighter 3 sucked!" or whatever).

To me, it feels like these brands/franchaises have been making the same game over and over ad nauseum. I guess I can't fault them though since people keep buying them. It's kind of the same issue with the game industry, and the film industry for that matter, in general: sequelitis.

Like I said, to me it's all button mashing.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Itchy Scratchy

Maybe it's just that I haven't had a vacation in eons, or maybe it's the early twinklings of spring fever, but I feel the urge to purge -- not in a bulemic kinda way, but in a surroundings kinda way. Too many screens, too many wires, too much crap. It's an itch that I need to scratch.

I suppose to a certain extent I've inherited a mild pack-rat mentality. I have copies of my paid bills and tax material from 2004. I keep them yet I will never use them. An industrial-strength paper shredder would be nice.

Apropos to itching --

Ever since I was a little kid, I've had difficulty with eczema.

When I was younger, it used to be more prevalent -- showing up on both legs, the backs of my knees, my arms... I scratched and I scratched. I would scratch until I bled and then I would scratch some more, getting dried blood lodged underneath my fingernails. I itched so much that I scratched in my sleep -- often waking up and finding that my sheets were glued to my legs with dried blood.

These days it only really manifests itself around the end of the winter and usually only on one of my calves. My leg, not the baby cow.

I suppose with time my body's evened out a little, and just like zits, the problem has mostly gone away (though not entirely).

Draw your own conclusions as to what the connection is between pack-rattery and eczema -- I'm sure there's something tenuous connecting the two. I'm just too tired to figure it out myself.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Do Over

This blog, which was previously a repository for general thoughts and nonsense, is going to get a thorough redesign. I'm not sure which direction it's going to be going in just yet, so this is mostly a placeholder post.