Rest is for the Dead: Atlantic City Edition

May 31, 2012
5:25- After a hard day of un-crazy-ing the crazies, I get into my car. I am heading back East for an extended weekend of family and friends; two nights in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, two days at home with my folks. As it has been six months since my last trip, I am feeling well overdue for such a vacation. So, with a smile on my face I start driving down to Indianapolis.

6:10- It has occurred to me that I might have fucked up my packing. Investigating my suitcase on the side of the road, I discover that I have packed two suits, but no dress shirt; a bathing suit, but no sandals; tee shirts, but no shorts or jeans. I have also forgotten my iPhone charger, and I have exactly zero condoms (Hey, it always pays to be prepared). This does not bode well.

6:41- I fly through security like I'm some kind of young white male or something, and I decide that I'm hungry enough for a burger. I grab a seat at Champps and order. Flight leaving at 7:10? No problem!

6:44- This might be a problem.

6:55- I have essentially swallowed my burger whole, but my waiter (who is now aware of just how strapped for time I am) is being intentionally slow bringing me my change. After the gate calls for "all passengers on the flight to Baltimore" a second time, I realize I cannot wait any longer, and I abandon my $20 on a $9 burger. I got to eat exactly two fries. If, by some unfathomable coincidence, you are reading this and you know the waiter I'm talking about, kick him in the goddamn balls.

7:23- No sooner are our wheels off the ground than the baby behind me begins screaming as if she'd just been forced to pay $20 on a $9 burger. But as eardrum-burstingly loud as she is, I can't decide if the more annoying sound is the baby herself, or her father talking to her in a baby voice. "Daaaaaaddy's patting!", he says in a coochy-coochy-coo falsetto, burping her as best he can, "Mooooommy's patting! But we neeeeeed moooooore power for BLAAAAAASTOOFFFFFFF!"


7:39- The baby has been knocked unconscious by her father's voice, some unknown medication, or possibly by my sheer force of will. Assuming it's the third, I begin writing out an appropriate cover letter to the Green Lantern Corps. Do you think you start such an application with "Dear Sirs" or "To Whom it May Concern?"

7:58- I find myself in an unenviable position. The speed at which I ate my burger, combined with the pressure changes at 30,000 feet, and the soda I just pounded have caused a chain reaction in my stomach similar to Mount Vesuvius. There is a belch bubbling up in me from the depths of my very soul... and I am sitting next to one of the most attractive women I've ever actually seen on a Southwest flight. I'm talking like, this burp could actually destabilize the fuselage of the airplane, and I have to hold it for another... half hour? Forty minutes? This is not good.

8:13- Nope, I am no longer able to hold back. This beast is making itself known to the world.

8:14- I let out a belch of such force that people in the back of the plane think we've been hit by a surface to air missile. This, in turn, wakes the baby- but this time, Daddy doesn't have any quiet words of comfort to reconcile what I just committed upon innocent bystanders.

9:30- I have, in fact, landed safely and made it home. Mom brings home dinner, but I take a moment to visit where they buried my cat about a month ago. She was very old, and fortunately didn't go through much pain, but I still feel guilty for not being there for her. So I take a knee and say my proper goodbyes.

9:40- The Rents and I spend some quality time ranting about politics and why Ron Paul is an idiot.

12:00- After determining that Ron Paul is, in fact, still an idiot, I retire. The real show begins tomorrow.

Why Queen Elizabeth Hates Holidays

11:20am- I wake up after a fun night on the town with a buddy of mine. After asking my plants how they slept, I move them back onto my balcony and wish them a good day.

11:28am- The bamboo and the oregano are arguing again, so I move them to opposite sides of the balcony. Personally I think the oregano started it but I don't want to take sides.

12:45pm- I lose a couple rounds of video games to mouth breathing 13 year olds. I disagree with their assessments of my sexuality and of my mother. I review the merits of introducing my mouse to the inner workings of my monitor. I decide against this- barely.

1:40pm- I begin writing this account. By now it is occurring to me just how little there will be for me to do today, as tomorrow is Easter and therefore nobody will be around to hit the town tonight. This disappoints me, and so I begin filling the day with things such as balancing my finances, laundry, and eating breakfast.

1:42pm- I have finished balancing my finances, my laundry, and my breakfast. This does not bode well.

2:02pm- My situation has deteriorated to the point where I am considering playing Warcraft.

2:03pm- I play Warcraft.

2:04pm- I remember why I stopped playing Warcraft for 3 months.

2:59pm- After being tricked into joining a Tough Mudder team, I get an email stating that team practice is today. An opportunity to embarrass myself in front of my team? Count me in!

4:02pm- I finish saving my terrible friends from their own blind fumblings through WoW, and grab a bit of lunch. I start imagining all the things that a Mudder team practice will include. Given the fact that my team is both comprised mostly of beautiful women, and our team is (apparently) going to compete in the Least Clothed costume contest, I'm confident that today's dry run will include an acceptable lack of modesty.

4:11pm- I receive a text from our team leader that practice is actually canceled due to everyone bailing- because of Easter. My dislike for family holidays grows.

4:21pm- After my team leader tells me what I already know (that nobody is around to hang out with, but Happy Easter!), I decide to go for a run. I tell the potted hanging fern to make sure that the plants on the deck don't get into it again, and I hit the bricks.

5:39pm- I return to find the basil pot knocked over. Its undamaged, but I have my suspicions. I move it inside and start trolling the internet.

5:47pm- Success! One of my lines comes back with a fish. A friend of mine is heading out tonight. I might not have to forsake human interaction this weekend after all!

7:23pm- A second friend of mine claims interest in causing trouble. Given their two natures, I begin considering how worth it a charge of Criminal Mischief would be on my record. I decide that this would be very worth it, and I celebrate with a quick round of Civ 5.

8:00pm- I, Queen Elizabeth, have given the Danish Empire the business. They, meanwhile, are decidedly out of business .

9:00pm- I get dinner and a shower. Can't be running around town like a raggamuffin, after all.

10:50pm- I have now watched Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I have reassessed my earlier position; the two robots who can't read might be racist after all. What I have not done, oddly enough, is met up with either of my two friends. This strikes me as odd because after both specifically told me they were going out, they decided on a "radio silence" approach to the conversation. I begin to suspect that they have either been killed by Decepticons, or that they are Decepticons. Both of these possibilities seem plausible, and I begin barricading my apartment for the inevitable siege.

11:35pm- I have now triumphed over my foes as Akali, the Fist of Shadow, and all of League of Legends trembles before my name. Still no word from the Decepticons; they probably saw my game as observers and were like "FUCK we ain't messing with THAT guy, did you see how he gave those pixels the business? It's like he's Queen Elizabeth or something!"

11:38pm- I have given up and changed back into my gym shorts for the rest of the evening, deciding to at least finish that bottle of white wine that isn't going to get drank any other day of the week.

11:39pm- In the spirit of Easter, I first fill my glass with water. "And now for my NEXT trick!" I announce to my apartment (which is empty, other than the Transformers movie (which is on again for some reason) and my plants), "Ka-CHOW!". I then empty the water and re-fill it with the wine, declaring that I am the Savior reborn. My plants, which have seen this trick before, are not impressed. Oh well.

Happy Easter.

Running Tests on Seashells

I finished Mass Effect 3, yesterday. If you haven't played this, don't read on. Here lie spoilers.

I've played both Mass Effect titles previous to this one, and I did so knowing that my choices would effect my game play later down the line. Even way back when the original came out, I saved the Rachni Queen so that she could come thundering back and kick some Reaper ass for me. I reprogramed the Geth dissidents because they seemed like a misunderstood bunch, because the Quarians seems kinda shifty in their explanations regarding the Geth, and because Legion is just a monstrous badass. I turned down Miranda, Tali, Liara and Jack so that Sheppard would get back together with Ashley; I was in this game for the long haul, and I played this way expecting to be rewarded. I expected that, as a result of my long-term planning, I'd be able to kick the Reapers up and down this galaxy and right back to whatever shithole they were sleeping in.

And then...

Mass Effect 3 happened, and I see that all my work was essentially for nothing.

But y'know, it isn't even so much that the three endings of ME3 were garbage in and of themselves by virtue of how wholly unsatisfying they all were- its that they didn't even do the player the benefit of making basic sense.

Allow me to explain.

This entire time, the point of the Mass Effect series has been a sci-fi, contemporary American spin on a more traditional Lovecraftian theme; that there are forces beyond our control, that we are utterly powerless against, and that fighting them will do us no good. Enter Sheppard, this personification of willpower, chance, and a sheer refusal to die. He alone threatens to upend a galactic cycle that has gone on uninterrupted for millions of years; somehow, out of all the myriad races and individuals that came before him, he (or she) alone has that special something that makes the impossible, possible. He is the antithesis of everything the Reapers stand for; where they are inexorable order, he is improbable chaos. Where they are crushing despair, he is impossible hope. Where they seed distrust and suspicion, he brings cooperation and unity. That's the Sheppard we've been playing, be (s)he Paragon or Renegade. That's what the message of the Mass Effect story has been- as we see our own world becoming seemingly darker and darker, just as the ME universe sees theirs, there are people who absolutely refuse to give in to odds that should have ground them to dust years ago. And, that it is these people that we should aspire to emulate.

It's a powerful narrative, to be sure. And while it is in the form of a video game, remember that non-traditional forms of media such as games and graphic novels have really stepped up their storytelling in recent years. Sure, pretty pictures and being able to pilot tanks helps sell copies of the comic or game, but a lot more energy is devoted into the storyline of games, these days. And Mass Effect's story was one of the best in the business.

So. Here we have that level of immersion, that quality of setting and storytelling. Here, we finally had Sheppard poised to make the galaxy safe once again for Mom, Baseball, and Apple Pie. We'd sunk another 30-40 hours searching every star system, collecting every last ounce of war material. We had every fleet and all our old surviving friends signed on. We shot the shit out of the Reapers orbiting Earth, we made it through the ruins of London and into the Citadel, and...!

...The game's plot suddenly 180's and makes becomes all about whether or not organic and synthetic life can life together?

Uh...

...

What?

Never mind that the three endings were garbage, each one just a different-hued version of the others. Never mind that there isn't any explanation about what the hell happens immediately afterwards to the galaxy at large- such as, how do the various races deal with the fact that they're trapped in Earth orbit with no Mass Relays to get them home? Or just where in God's name did Joker crash-land the Normandy?

Never mind any of that- those issues are their own cans of bullshit.

The biggest failing of the Mass Effect franchise was that its ending missed the point of the game. It took the theme of despair versus hope and changed it into inter-species relations. It changed philosophy into politics.

And they didn't even show us a worth-a-damn picture of Tali's face.

The fuck.