Depressing Friday Morning

I stopped at Wawa this morning for coffee and cigarettes, and since I have a new car, parked near the back of the lot to avoid unnecessary dings to the beautiful piece of Japanese craftsmanship. While walking up the sidewalk to the front door I noticed a couple sitting in their old car, all windows down, watching me. Odd, but since I am such a compelling human being (yeah), it made a strange sort of sense.

When I came back they were still sitting in their car. I ignored them and went to mine, lit a cigarette and prepared to smoke it in the heat because, once again, I have a new car and will never smoke in it.

"Excuse me," a woman's voice said as I lit my smoke. I whirled around, startled, and the woman stepped back a pace. She was from the old car I noticed on my way in and out. "Is there any way you can spare some change?"

Normally, I ignore this kind of behavior as it comes from drug addicts and drunks; it also usually happens while I'm in Asbury Park, which, as nice as the business district and boardwalk have become, is still a shit hole. You can step out of the ritziest boutique or restaurant and get harangued by crackheads looking for a cigarette of money.

I didn't expect this in Bricktown. It's a suburban town. The homeless people live in the woods on the outskirts of town, as if hiding from the "good" folks who own homes and drive nice cars. They are also not drug addicts and drunks, although they might imbibe from time to time; rather, most are victims of New Jersey's mental health system, deinstitutionalized folks who were turned loose on a world that would rather forget them. I've met them before at the McDonald's near their settlement: one guy in particular who has a cute, mangy little mutt he cares for. I bought them both a bag full of burgers and fries one day, a soda for the guy and a bottle of water for the pup. He thanked me profusely and dug into the bag, feeding the dog first. I'm not ashamed to admit it - it made me bawl.

Anyway, this woman who approached me at the Wawa was a little worn around the edges, but not like the crackheads of Asbury fame, or the poor crazy guys out at the edge of town. I wasn't about to refuse her; she was painfully embarrassed to ask me for money. She must have watched at least fifteen other customers come and go from that store and settled on me for some reason.

"We spent all night in this parking lot," she continued. "We slept in the car. We have about seventy-five cents and no gas, and need to get to Whiting." Whiting is a crappy, piny town about twenty miles southwest of Brick, but hey, if they had a reason to go there, more power to them.

"Must have been hot, sleeping in the car all night," I said, digging into my pocket. My wife says I have expressive eyes, but I was wearing sunglasses. I smiled, just to let her know I was sympathetic.

"You have no idea," she said, smiling back.

I gave her the pile of change I had in my pocket, maybe about seventy cents total, and took my wallet from my back pocket. There were nine singles. I gave took them out, folded them and gave her the money. "Here you go. It's all I have."

Her smile widened and she took the cash. "Thank you so much, you've been such a help."

"It's okay. I've been in some bad situations myself, with no one to help. Take it easy."

She went back to her car and I had some of my coffee while I smoked. Their car started up behind me and I turned in time to see them drive by. The guy at the wheel offered a shy wave and said, "Thank you." I waved back.

I hoped nine dollars would get them to Whiting; it's only a little more than three gallons of gas

New Medal of Honor

Wow. Last night I checked my email and, lo and behold, received a beta key to play the new Medal of Honor game. I feel so special. Eletronic Arts must have looked at all the shooters I've registered with them over the years (mainly the Battlefield franchise) and said, "Hey! This maniac must do nothing but play games all day." So now I'm testing a bad-ass game months before it hits the shelves.

And by the way, it's awesome.

Amazon can kiss my shiny metal ass!

I purchased a Samsung 26" LCD HDTV for the bedroom and received it yesterday. It was fucked out of the box. When the power is off, the tv makes an annoying, high-pitched keening sound, akin to the sound a field mouse makes while one of my cats is playfully murdering it. Other than that, it's fine.

I sent an email to customer disservice at Amazon and received a fun reply: basically, fuck you. They told me to go to Samsung, it's not their problem now. Samsung said I need to get an RA, return it to them and wait for it to be fixed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I buy something from a store and it's broken when I open the box, isn't it said store's responsibility to replace the merchandise or refund the money to me? I've spent thousands of dollars at Amazon in the last couple of years alone and I'm pissed.

This is the best part: at the end of their fuck you response email to me, it says this:

We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company.

Yeah, right.

Valentine's Day

I think V-Day is a pile of garbage - a lame Hallmark Holiday, like Love Day on the Simpsons; however, since my wife is a stereotypical woman, I must observe it. One Valentine's Day, years ago, I was caught up in a really obnoxious project similar to coordinating the invasion of Normandy, and I forgot all about it.

She never let me forget it.

This year I bought her a pair of platinum earrings, candy, and a card with a Photoshopped, smiling kitten on the cover. I gave her everything Friday night so she could start the weekend happy. It worked.

We had no real plans on Sunday other than laying around the house and hanging out, but then our upstairs toilet broke. I spent Valentine's Day repairing a toilet.

How's that for romance?

The Animal Rescue Site

The Animal Rescue Site relies on vistors to click the purple "Click Here to Give - It's Free!" button on their homepage. The more clicks they get, the more money corporate sponsors give to feed needy animals. Lately, page visits have dropped, so if you have time, drop by and press the big, purple button. It doesn't cost you anything and you can click as many times as you'd like.

An unexpected new cast member at work...

I arrived at work today in my usual mood - irritated at the thought of another day in Hell - and was promptly introduced to a new member of the company: Boomer, from Battlestar Galactica. And I mean the new BSG, the good one. Athena, Sharon Valerii, Number 8, what have you.

No, Grace Park has not joined the glorious field of mail order merchandising, but this woman looks a lot like her. Wow. IMMD.

Anniversary

Yesterday was my thirteenth wedding anniversary. It was also the eighteenth anniversary of when the wife and I first got together. I've had a rough time getting used to being at work again, after being off from work for a week and a half over the holidays, so I was in a pretty crappy mood when I got home last night. That changed when I stopped to think about things.

My mother and father just separated after forty years or marriage. My sister and brother in law are also in the process of calling it quits. A friend of mine is still single after divorcing her husband a few years ago, two other close friends are single and can't seem to find the right person.

I am truly blessed that I found my soul mate, and that we've managed to stay in love for close to two decades. That's all I had to say. Carry on.

Hamlet

On Saturday, I had the pleasure of seeing Jude Law in Hamlet on Broadway. This is my absolute favorite play by Shakespeare and Jude Law is one of my favorite actors, so it was really cool. We were in the seventh row, orchestra, and through most of the play he was only about twenty feet from us. This was nice for my wife, too, because she has a heavy-duty crush on him.

It was amazing. The dude had to be the most intense Hamlet I've ever seen, and all of the other actors in the play were just superb.

This was all tempered by the fact that we had to go to New York City to see it. I hate that place. There are too many people in Manhattan. There are too many cars in Manhattan. The warren of streets makes me feel like I'm trapped in a maze. I just plain despise it.

We went with my mother because at 60 years old, she's suddenly obsessed with New York. She made lunch reservations at this little place called Rachel's on 9th because it's not "touristy." When we finished lunch we had an hour and a half to kill, so where does she want to go? Times Fucking Square. Because Times Square is not "touristy." At all. So we walked up 40th to 8th and found ourselves immersed in a cauldron of humanity. I had a full blown anxiety attack but kept quiet about it. As we walked my mother pointed at every single fucking thing she could. "Look, there's MTV! Look, that's where the Virgin Mega Store used to be! Look, there's the M&M Store!"

That was the highlight of the walk. She made us go into the M&M store. Two floors of M&M merchandising and teeming with scumbag people. I pushed myself back against the farthest wall and performed deep breathing exercises. It was a nightmare.

When the play ended we had to walk back through several blocks of theater foot traffic to the parking lot. I drove west and asked my mother to tell me where I needed to go to get back to the Lincoln Tunnel.

"I don't know. I always park at Port Authority. I don't know how to get back from this way."

Icing on the cake. I followed a long line of cars down 41st and eventually came to the tunnel. I hate the city.

More Writing

Yesterday, my novel reached 222 pages and 63,802 words. I've been writing since March of this year, so I don't know if this is good or not.

Technically, I started this novel about twenty years ago, but as a 19 year old kid, my life experience was severely limited and thus the story turned out to be crap. Two hundred and some odd pages of hand-written crap. And no, not front and back. Thank Christ.

Pesky little things get in the way of writing: work, spending two + hours a day in the car driving to and from work (although this is my most productive thinking time), spending time with my wife after work and on weekends, and doing all that annoying crap at home that won't get done if I don't do it.

Wow, that was a redundant sentence.

Anyway, a person I know (friend no longer fits our relationship description; he is someone I'm forced to spend time with on occasion) is obsessed with word count. He used to go on and on about how many thousands of words he'd written so far and was generally impressed with himself. Then I read the bulk of the novel; my mother always told me if I had nothing nice to say...

During the period when I was actually friends with this person, I went to him for advice and ideas when I was stuck. He was usually helpful and helped aid my creative process. On occasion I gave him stories I was working on for critique, and he always sent them back to me with loads of constructive criticism. He was helpful.

Then something changed. He became a bitter person. He rarely had something nice to say about anything. He was unbearable to be around. Silly me, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and tried to be friendly. When my novel took off this summer, I sent him the first chapter and asked for a critique. "Keep in mind this is only a first draft," I told him. "I'd just like your input on the general story so far."

Months go by. During a period of writer's block in September, I edited Chapter 1 until it no longer resembled the original I sent him. Between snotty comments to me and my wife, he always assured me that he was still looking at it and would send a marked up version back right away. "Don't go nuts," I said, "it's just the first draft." Well, he did go nuts. He emailed it back to me a few weeks ago, just as I was getting back into the swing of working on this book again.

It was a nightmare. Rather than constructive criticism I received nasty, sarcastic comments. Reading it made me feel depressed, then angry, then murderous. This came from a person that was my friend for close to sixteen years! How could he be so rude, so mean? Listen, I've been critiqued before and I know how to take it. I've posted stories on different writing websites and dealt with some heavy criticism, and the critics were valid; but none of this person's so-called "input" made any sense!

I learned from that misadventure. In the future, I'll ask the Interweb for help if I'm desperate; the Interweb, a place where anonymous people are known for tearing others a new asshole without being asked to in the first place. I spend all of my time in the car listening to music that inspires me to think about this book and come up with ideas on my own; it was nice to have someone to bounce thoughts off of from time to time, but that's gone now. I'm the author of this damned novel anyway, so it's my responsibility to come up with ideas and write them.

It's just sad. We were friends for a long time, and this experience made me realize that's gone now. It reminds of that scene in The Shawshank Redemption, after Andy escapes and Red says, "I guess I just miss my friend." Shit happens.

Veteran's Day

Growing up I was surrounded by veterans: both of my grandfathers served in the Navy during WWII, one uncle was in the Navy and another in the Marine Corps during Vietnam; all four of them chose to enlist and fight, none were drafted. When my time came I chose the Marine Corps, but certain events conspired against me and I never served. This is something I've spent my adult life regretting.

So, to those of you out there who have served or currently are in our great nation's armed forces, I say "Thank you."

The Watchmen and a New Dawn (Red, that is)

I know, as usual I'm late to the party. Last night I rented The Watchmen on-demand and was so happy with the results. I've been waiting for this movie for decades and they did not let me down. It hit all of the salient points of the story and changed very little (if you consider the climax to be important, you may disagree with me. I always thought that weird "dropping a monster on NYC and killing a bunch of people with its psychic screams" idea to be a little off the wall. That's just me. A friend of mine is obsessed with the Black Ship-pirate story-whatever the hell you want to call it, but the movie would have been five hours long if it was included.

It looked just like the graphic novel. The characters were perfect. Jackie Earl Haley spoke the way I heard Rorschach's voice when I read it. Jeffrey Dean Morgan was the Comedian, and Malin Akerman was as sexy as Silk Specter. Absolutely amazing.

On the "Hollywood lost its imagination and has not an ounce of creativity left" front, they're remaking Red Dawn. And it takes place in Detroit. Because there are wolverines in Detroit, so the high school football team would have that name and it makes sense. What do I know, I grew up in a Jersey beach town and our mascot was a panther. Don't remember ever seeing panthers wandering the streets. Guess I'm just kinda pissed. I loved that movie.

I only have one thing to say

Fucking Yankees.

2009 Elections

Well, New Jersey has a new governor, but I don't feel all that great about it. The election reminded me a lot of the South Park school mascot elections: our only choices were a Giant Douche (Corzine) and a Turd Sandwich (Christie). Don't get me wrong - Chris Christie, aside from having a great first name - did some wonderful things here as Attorney General: he prosecuted and won 130 convictions against corrupt politicians, launched a huge investigation into fraud and political corruption, and went after the scumbag gang bangers in this state like an angry pit bull. Conversely, Christie was the top fundraiser for the 2000 Bush campaign, and as a result, Karl Rove passed his resume along through the George W. Bush good ole boy network to get him appointed as the US AG in New Jersey. Oh, and Christie is also related to Tino Fiumara, a high-ranking member of the New Jersey Genovese crime family. That's the mob, in case you're wondering. Hey, I know, blood relation doesn't mean anything; I'm related to my father but we get along like cats and dogs.

Let's see, what has Corzine done during his tenure as New Jersey's governor? Nothing. I didn't vote for him. He came into office in 2005 and planned to apply private sector business sense to the deficit issues here. Rather than lay off thousands of state employees occupying useless positions and collecting large, multiple salaries and pensions, he raised the sales tax by 1% and tried to increase tolls on the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike by 800%. 800%! Fortunately, the toll hike failed, otherwise I might be working at MacDonald's right now. Corzine also suspended the property tax rebate, caused a government shutdown in 2006, and forced through legislation to build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River to Manhattan. And nobody wants it but Corzine and his cronies. It will cost $8.7 billion dollars. That's billion, with a b. $3 billion will also come from federal funds, so not only is New Jersey paying for this, but taxpayers throughout the U.S. as well.

Chris Daggett, another guy with a great first name, ran on the independent ticket, but since this is not Minnesota and he's not a former actor and pro wrestler, he didn't figure into the fray too much. He campaigned to raise taxes. Really. Did he honestly think any sane New Jersey resident would vote for him?

I yearn for an election when I don't have to vote for the lesser of two evils. Will it ever happen? I'm not holding my breath.

Writing

I have been writing like crazy lately, and god damn it feels good. Last night I worked for a solid two and a half hours and cranked out some great stuff; at least it felt good. When I edit it might all be crap, but for now I'm happy.

And to think, all it took was a new genre to break my decade-long writers block. For so many years I wrote speculative fiction, because, well, that's what I've always read and what influenced me. Maybe I found my true calling.

How will I die? Your Result: You will be murdered. This doesn't guarantee pain and suffering, but it will be at the hands of another. Perhaps the vile deeds of a past life will attribute to this horrific demise. Do not fear murder. There is a rare epiphany that comes from this type of death. You will see it in the last moments.
You will die while having sex.
You will die in a car accident.
You will die in a nuclear holocaust.
You will die from a terminal illness.
You will die while saving someone's life.
You will die in your sleep.
You will die of boredom.
How will I die? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

I'm sure I've pissed off plenty of people over the past 39 years. But...murdered?

First runner up is the best, though. I'm thinking I'd rather die that way.

Thanks, Jim.

Wolfenstein 2009

Got my copy of Wolfenstein on Saturday and played it all weekend. It totally rocks, and I love the fact that, seventeen years after playing Wolfenstein 3D, I'm still playing the franchise. It's like Grand Theft Auto 3 set in WWII Germany - minus the tricked out cars, and the Mafia, and the Chinese Triad, and the Yakuza, and the god cheat where you can go to the highest point on the map and pick off random people with your sniper rifle, then blow up the police cruisers and helicopters with the rocket launcher.

Am I the only person who felt guilty after doing that? I know they were only computer generated NPCs, but seriously, after watching the twentieth hooker's head explode, I always got this creepy feeling inside. Kinda like in the original Sims, when I'd lock my Sim in a room and start taking things away until they pissed on the floor and finally died. I swear, I never pulled the wings off of flies or fried ants with a magnifying glass as a child...

Okay, maybe it's not like Grand Theft Auto 3 set in WWII Germany, but it still kicks some serious ass. I swore I wouldn't play another WWII game because the genre is getting so stale; but come on, it's Wolfenstein!!!

Is this a bad thing?

I've been working on this urban fantasy/hard-boiled novel for the past several months, and today, being the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, brought a question to mind.

In the universe of this novel, the attacks never happened. During a bizarre dream sequence the protagonist lives through our universe, where his life is completely normal and on September 11, 2001, he sees two planes crash into the Twin Towers and the chaos that follows.

Last night, Fox reran last season's finale of Fringe. In the end of the episode, Olivia unwittingly travels through a portal into a parallel dimension, and looks out the window of a skyscraper she's in, only to realize she is in one of the towers of the World Trade Center. This pissed off a lot of people I talked to after the episode first ran last season, but I didn't see the big deal. Maybe I'm just callous. I don't think so, since I live within spitting distance of Manhattan and was directly affected by the whole fucking thing.

My question is, does my story somehow desecrate the memory of 9/11/01 but erasing it from the universe, only to make it happen as some sort of bizarre dream to someone?

Comic Con 2009

I've never been to a convention in my entire life, but only because I have no time and despise air travel. However, I do know for a fact the events like this are not news worthy to mainstream America. Comic book people just aren't a part of what most people would refer to as "normal society." I know. I am one of the outcasts. This year, I saw a lot of entertainment news coverage of Comic Con (no, I don't watch crap like E! News, but my wife does, so it seeps into my brain.) I'm blaming it all on this:



Apparently, doable women like Megan Fox are now appearing at Comic conventions, probably for some lame cross-promotion of crappy, Hollywood blockbusters. I guess this is great for the conventions because it brings more mainstream media focus to them, but at the same time it annoys me. Conventions are a geek thing, and it feels like the rest of the world is co-opting them from us. It reminds me of the late 80's, early 90's, when circuses like Lolapalooza brought alternative music to the mainstream, and suddenly every guido in Seaside Heights, NJ was listening to Jane's Addiction and Rollins Band. That was our music: the outcasts, the punks, the disenfranchised and disassociated freaks of the world.

This video hit close to home

As an FPS addict I understand this all too well. Borrowed from John Scalzi.

I was hoping for better odds than this.

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