tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24469321031721802452024-02-20T20:38:32.413-08:00GreenspeakThe Personal Blog of Jeff GreenJeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.comBlogger152125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-35168999083913582922013-12-29T15:03:00.000-08:002013-12-29T15:03:48.241-08:00My Top 11 Games of 2013Well, <i>garsh</i>....that was kind of an amazing year for games, huh?<br />
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As one generation wound down and another sputtered to a start with a phlegmy, throat clearing cough, we were left, in the end, with a rather monumental pile of great or at least very good games, on all platforms.<br />
Thanks to the sheer volume of quality titles, this was the year in which I found myself back into handheld gaming with the 3DS, and genuinely "struggled" (if such a word can be used for such a joyous pastime) to budget my time adequately and keep up with everything I felt I "needed" to play. As such, I never even got to titles like <b>Assassin's Creed 4</b>, <b>Super Mario 3D World</b>, and more that might have otherwise made this list. So if you don't see your favorite game on here, that's one possible explanation. Another might be that we just don't like the same things, which is okay and doesn't mean we can't be friends. Also: I am personally singling out <b>XCOM: Enemy Within</b> as a game that I imagine, in an alternate universe, would not only be on this list but probably at or near the very top, but is not here at all simply because I played so many hundreds of hours of XCOM: Enemy Unknown in 2012 (and 2013, on my iPad) that I am still in a heavy XCOM detoxification mode and could not handle rekindling the addiction.<br />
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As always, this list is the one I happen to be writing right now while I'm in the mood I'm in right now. That is to say, <i>it is not based on science </i>and is entirely subjective, to the point at which I'm likely to disagree with myself as early as an hour after I post this today<i>. </i>Knowhutumsayin?<br />
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So without further waffling or bet-hedging, let's do this. Oh, yeah, and, I guess it probably goes without saying but my favorite overall gaming experience this year has been with Dark Souls. But since that was last year's game, it doesn't count here. But we all know what's what.<br />
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<b>11. The Swapper</b><br />
Just barely edged on to the list at the 11th hour, thanks to a recommendation from Giant Bomb's Patrick Klepek. Which is why I'm giving it the 11th spot. Before he pointed me in its direction, I hadn't even heard of it. But this PC-only puzzle game from Facepalm Games (available on Steam and from <a href="http://facepalmgames.com/the-swapper/" target="_blank">the company's</a> website) is a profoundly clever little game, reminiscent of Portal in its mechanics, and instantly hit that part of my brain that loves this kind of challenge. How to get from Point A to Point B? It looks impossible. It seems impossible. Until you finally figure it out and it seems like it was obvious all along. Here's hoping it finds a bigger audience in 2014. It deserves it.<br />
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<b>10. Bioshock Infinite</b><br />
If the rest of the game was as awesome as the first hour, it'd be at the top of this list. I loved the opening segment to pieces, writing at the time I played it that it was the best opener since Half Life 1. I still stand by that. And while the game was thoroughly entertaining and great to look at throughout, I had the same problem as a lot of folks -- the combat -- which to me just did not mesh well with and did not have the same high quailty as the rest of the game. Bioshock Infinite abounded in cool ideas and clever, suspenseful storytelling, which is why it's on my list, but the gameplay itself fell a bit short for me. Plus, I'm just too stupid to understand the ending. And don't want to go through the combat a second time to try to figure it out.<br />
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<b>9. Rayman Legends</b><br />
Like my #1 game (I know you've already peeked ahead and spoiled it for yourself), this is a videogame that revels in being a videogame. There is no point to Rayman Legends other than to ensure that you have a great time. And that I did. This platformer franchise has always been mysteriously underrated and underappreciated, and I don't know why. Is it because Rayman has no bones? Is it because it's actually somewhat difficult? I do not know. What I do know is that, even when the game was kicking my ass, I always had a smile on my face. It looks great, plays great, has fantastic music, and can (and should) be played by everyone in your family. <br />
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<b>8. Rogue Legacy</b><br />
I think my average lifespan in this game was about 10 seconds. At best. I am not very good at Rogue Legacy. At times it feels like the gaming equivalent of beating my head against a wall. But goddamn if a good head-beating doesn't feel good sometimes. Rogue Legacy's unique skill tree and progression are really what kept me going: funny in concept but actually super-smart in execution, with new abilities doled out just enough to feel like you may actually make it five more seconds into your castle run than last time. Everyone keeps telling me how hard Dark Souls is...and it is. But I'll tell you this, I'm way further along in Dark Souls than I am in Rogue Legacy. But it makes the list for continuing to make me come back for more even as it keeps having its way with me. I'm Rogue Legacy's bitch.<br />
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<b>7. Saints Row IV</b><br />
The sheer ludicrousness of the story is what made this for me. Unabashedly over-the-top was absolutely the right way to take a franchise that used to draw comparisons to GTA, but has since gone its own way, gloriously, right off the deep end into zero-fucks-given absurdity. I gravitate towards "funny" games. It's just the way I'm built. I'm not sure where this franchise could possibly go now, but the cool thing is that the developers have proven themselves so imaginative now in conjuring the ridiculous that I'll basically follow them anywhere now.<br />
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<b>6. Gone Home</b><br />
Enough digital ink has been spilled on whether this is a "game" or not, so you're getting no more of that from me here. All I know is that I was riveted the entire way through, keeping me guessing (incorrectly), messing with all of my expectations, until arriving at an ending that showed that sometimes the most riveting stories are just the simplest and most mundane. Like the #2 game on this list, and #3, too, it focused on family, in a real way, in a way that resonated. That's good enough for me.<br />
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<b>5. Papers, Please</b><br />
On paper, perhaps the most boring sounding concept for a game of all time. You get to check passport documents and entry visas for people trying to enter into a fictitious Eastern Bloc country, all in gloriously pixilated 2D graphics. Yay? But, again, execution was everything here. And what might, in lesser hands, have been a tedious exercise in "hidden object" gaming, turned instead into a funny, often poignant, and surprising meditation on power and choice, on duty versus morality, on selfishness versus altruism....all laced with grim humor and damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't decisions. What <i>would </i>you do if this was your real job? Not many games ever really make you think about your own morality. This one did, and did it while never forgetting to<br />
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<b>4. The Stanley Parable</b><br />
The funniest game of the year - as long as you're already a gamer. Like Gone Home (but in a totally different way), The Stanley Parable messes with our expectations around games themselves. It assumes we've played many of them and then defies us to make sense of this one. It has an answer for every wiseass decision we try to make, and then out-wiseasses us. Every time you think you may have finally figured out a way to "break" the game, you realize that the developers were still five steps ahead of you, and had a joke ready for you when you land there. Super entertaining, hilarious narration, a game about games that's still a great game itself. <br />
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<b>3. The Last Of Us</b><br />
This one climbed higher and higher on the list the further I got into the game. I'll admit it: After the first hour or two, I didn't even think it'd be on this list at all. I found the opening section tedious and underwhelming, with a whole lot of "Press A to continue" along with a story that didn't feel very original. Another zombie apocalypse? Really? And another character who may be the hope for all humanity? And even the first rounds of combat didn't do much for me at all. As in Bioshock Infinite, I felt the combat inferior and subservient to the developers' storytelling ambition -- except at least in Bioshock Infinite the story felt original. But..I kept playing. And it grew on me. A lot. The sheer detail of the world began to impress, and, much more important, the dynamic between Joel and Ellie began to gain weight and resonance. As the story continues, the combat that at first felt mundane takes on increasing urgency, and the story itself takes enough unexpected, suspenseful turns to actually justify itself as the primary <i>raision d'etre </i>(sorry) of the entire experience. I don't think it's the masterpiece that its strongest adherents feel it is, but it's the one "AAA" game I played this year that seemed like it ultimately justified its budget. If this was mostly just a game as a big-budget movie, it was a movie I was glad - very glad - to have seen.<br />
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<b>2. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons</b><br />
Still, for all the emotional resonance that The Last of Us provided, Brothers did it even better, and more profoundly, with far less. And without even one word of dialog. Brothers did something very cool this year, in the humblest of ways. It presented an almost entirely new way of even thinking about game controls, with one clever puzzle after another, while, simultaneously, telling an emotionally rich story with an ending as overwhelmingly brutal as any I've ever experienced in a game. The game world itself is bizarre and mysterious and is never fully explained - thank god - as the developers seem to get that less truly is more, that showing is better than telling. The game looked and sounded beautiful, too. I always think that the "games as art" discussion is pretty ridiculous. Still, if any game was "a work of art" this year - whatever the hell that means - it was Brothers.<br />
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<b>1. Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds</b><br />
Pure joy.<br />
I'm neither a Zelda nor a Nintendo fanboy. I don't have a Wii U and don't particularly want one. I don't even remotely understand the history of Hyrule or how any of these games fit together, nor do I really care. What I do know is this: I had more fun playing this game than any other game in 2013. Every single moment in this game, every screen, every piece of music, every puzzle, was pure joy for me. I played and played and played until I was finished, and then I started it again. I've read complaints about the small dungeon size, and about the relatively easy difficulty level overall, but for me they were both just perfect. So maybe that says something about me. It probably does. But so does every list, and every choice on a list. For me, A Link Between Worlds was just about perfect. Just challenging enough to make me have to use my brain, but not so tough that it held me up for long. The wall merging was a brilliant gameplay addition, And that music...my god. I don't know what really constitutes a "best" game of the year. Every game on this list was awesome. But Zelda made me happy every minute I played it. It was pure joy.Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com137tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-62468482979200990942013-10-07T17:36:00.003-07:002013-10-08T15:34:12.644-07:00A Period of TransitionHi! Jeff Green here! You might remember me from such jobs as Director of Social Media at PopCap Games! Actually, I still have that title. So nothing has changed, technically, at least in terms of what it says on my business card and paycheck. However, since my online activity has changed of late, and as my name keeps showing up in new places, like<a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/socalmike/retro-the-multi-format-throw-back-video-game-magaz" target="_blank"> right here</a>, I do have a little 'splaining to do, just so we're all clear on stuff. Like, for the record.<br />
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So here's the deal: I am currently "in transition," as it were, at PopCap, and am not their day-to-day social media guy anymore. And it's all good. Astute readers of this blog may recall <a href="http://jeff-greenspeak.blogspot.com/2013/08/on-second-and-third-acts.html" target="_blank">a post I wrote in August</a> in which I alluded to the fact that I was feeling restless and ready for more, bigger, better things, and that is happily now the position in which I find myself. PopCap and I are still pals, and they and EA are, as I said, still my employers. I am in what we call "a period of transition" and will be working in a more advisory behind-the-scenes role for a predetermined period of time. And again, it is all good. My time at PopCap has been an awesome one - the best job I've had since the CGW days. We will split - when I split - as friends.<br />
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But this post does serve as kind of an official announcement that I am now actively working on and looking for my next thing. What is that thing going to be? I have a few schemes in the works. I don't know which one, if any currently being considered, is going to pan out. It may be with another company, it may be my own thing, it may be something in collaboration with one or more other folks, like the magazine kickstarter listed above. One thing is almost for sure, which is: I'll be staying in the gaming industry or gaming media, yabbering about this stuff that I love, as I have for the past 17 years. Because it is what I love.<br />
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So there it is. You're gonna see more of me - and hopefully that's not entirely bad news - on this blog, in speaking engagements <a href="http://gaminginsiders.com/summit/" target="_blank">like this</a>, on my <a href="http://www.twitch.tv/greenspeak" target="_blank">brand new Twitch channel</a>, as part of Kickstarter plans like the one linked to above, and other various forms of online activity, none of which, I solemnly promise, will involve nudity.<br />
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Where this is all going to lead me, I have no idea. But it is an exciting and liberating feeling. At least until the money runs out.<br />
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So, hey. I'm available. Pass it around. I've got a good resume and I'm mostly housebroken. Plus, I yodel on request. Who WOULDN'T hire me?<br />
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cheers,<br />
Jeff<br />
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<br />Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com31tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-58542511236655746682013-08-24T14:41:00.001-07:002013-08-24T14:41:45.021-07:00Oh boy! My PAX Prime 2013 Schedule! Hi there! Jeff Green here. You might remember me from such magazines as Computer Gaming World and game companies like PopCap. You might also recognize me by my trademarked catchphrase "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI7SzaO2Mdo" target="_blank">You're not the Lord of the Rings!</a>" Or maybe you don't know me at all and don't really give a shit. No matter. The point of this post today is to share my schedule for next weekend's PAX Prime in Seattle, either so you can find me or actively avoid me. <br />
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I'm going to be on three (3) panels at PAX this time, and will also be findable at PopCap's booth on the show floor, where you can come up to me and yell at me about PvZ 2's free-to-play, or the fact that it's not on Android yet. Really, it's all I've been hearing for the past week, so I'm totally used to it. Alternatively, you can come up to me and we can talk about something else entirely, like Breaking Bad, or the weather, or Ben Affleck as Batman. Doesn't really matter to me. I'm just there for the good vibes, man. And the convention food.<br />
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So below are the panels I am on. I will provide links to the PAX site so you can read more, if you are so inclined. I'm pretty psyched about all three. One because it is a fun gathering of old pals, the other two because they are very different from any other panels I have participated in previously.<br />
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Listed chronologically:<br />
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<b>SATURDAY AUG 31 </b><b>6:30 PM</b><br />
<b>PEGASUS THEATER</b><br />
<b><a href="http://prime.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/three-old-guys-play-zork" target="_blank"> Three Old Guys Playing Zork</a> - </b><br />
What started as a Twitter joke between me and my friends Dan Amrich and Eric "e"<br />
Eric Neustadter is now a PAX panel. Yay! It's basically exactly what the description is. We hope to make this be a fun (yet educational!) look back at one of the seminal works of interactive fiction. Audience participation encouraged!<br />
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<b>SUNDAY SEPT 1 12:30 PM</b><br />
<b>PEGASUS THEATER</b><br />
<b><a href="http://prime.paxsite.com/schedule/panel/its-dangerous-to-go-alone-the-take-this-panel" target="_blank">It's Dangerous To Go Alone: The Take This Panel</a></b><br />
What could be more fun at a gaming convention than to attend a panel on depression? And that's the only joke I'll make on the subject, as frequenters of this blog know that this is a condition I have suffered from. Thus making it okay for me to joke about it. In all seriousness, I'm very honored to be part of this panel, which will discuss issues surrounding depression and how to cope with it, as it relates to our Internet and gaming lives. If you are at all someone who has suffered in any way, or even just wondering if you do, I encourage you to attend. We all have stories to tell. And the more we talk about it, the easier it gets.<br />
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<b>MONDAY SEPT 2 4:30 PM</b><br />
<b>WOLFMAN THEATER</b><br />
<b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/CGW/GFW%20Radio%20%E2%80%9CThe%20Brodeo%E2%80%9D%20Reunion%20#2:%20Even%20Eli%20Knows%20What%20That%20Means" target="_blank">CGW/GFW Radio "The Brodeo" Reunion #2: Even Eli Knows What that Means</a> </b><br />
Yes, just before they close the doors on the show for another year, just as their putting all the chairs up and the janitors are starting to disinfect the place, your pals the Brodeo crew will make a second pathetic attempt at relevancy with another reunion! Yes, watch in awkward, trainwreck silence as these forgotten podcasters relive the old days for an audience of five. Next year, we'll be on tour of suburban malls with the surviving members of Gilligan's Island, so catch us now while you can!<br />
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Okay? So that's the deal. If you see me, please don't hit me. If you'd like to say hi, or buy me a beer, I'm up for both, always! And I hope all y'all have a great PAX!<br />
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<br />Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-60484732932600843342013-08-05T17:25:00.003-07:002013-08-05T17:40:03.841-07:00My Multiplayer ProblemI have always sucked at team sports. As far back as I can remember, this has been my curse. Or one of my curses. I'm sure I actually have plenty of curses. But if I stop to think about that I won't write this post at all, and not writing blog posts is another one of my curses.<br />
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In any event, I was the worst team sports player I knew growing up. Here's how bad I was. I would not be the last person picked for teams when kids were divided up--I was the leftover <i>after </i>the last pick. That is, I'd always make it to the final two. Me, and, say, Irving Needlebaum-- the blind kid with the wooden leg. The team captain would be looking us over with a pained look on his face, as if having to decide which piece of shit smelled less bad. Eventually, inevitably, he'd say, "I guess I'll take Irving," at which point everyone would immediately disperse to the playing field without another look back.<br />
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"I guess I'm on the other team then?" I'd say to all the players' backs. And then I'd take my gangly, redheaded, uncoordinated self out onto deep right field and then pray for an earthquake or plague of frogs or even spontaneous combustion so that I would not have to field a ball or go up to bat.<br />
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Later, in the videogame world, I fared somewhat better, thank goodness. Obviously physical prowess was not a factor, and the sheer amount of time I put into them (since I wasn't busy playing sports) meant that I actually acquired some skill. Key word being "some." Except for one game ever, <i>Interstate '76</i>, for which I had some kind of freak, natural ability, the best I could ever hope to be in a multiplayer match was Not Horrible. Occasionally, if I was particularly inspired, or perhaps unplugged everyone else's mice, I might actually win a LAN match. But it would never last. I'd never get to experience the feeling of being great or dominant in a game. And frankly, my childhood had prepared me for such inevitability, so I actually didn't (and still don't) have my ego tied into such things. The difference between videogames and sports, however, was that in videogames I could at least compete. I could at least score the occasional point. And, of course, the anonymity of online meant that no one ever know that it was me who sucked. It was Tinkletrousers, or Mike Oxbig, who would endure the brunt of any humiliation.<br />
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Where it all began to fall apart for me online, however, was with the rise of team matches. In solo deathmatches, I only had to worry about myself. I was liberated from having to prove myself to anyone. And my overall feeling would be one of triumph if I didn't suck. The fact that I knew that sometimes I <i>could </i>win, however rare, was enough to keep me going.<br />
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But once games like Counter-Strike started getting popular, where skill actually mattered, where players really needed other players to do their best, I was doomed. First, I was nowhere near good enough, from the start. By this time I was already older than the average player, and my reflexes were starting their slow deterioration to their current state of near total calcification. Second, there was the pressure. As in real-world sports, there was the expectation that you knew the rules, you knew how to play, and you were good enough to be on the field in the first place. Anything less, any sign of incompetency - like blowing yourself and your teammates up within the first second of the match by accidentally pressing the Grenade button - was to be instantly shunned and scolded, and possibly booted from the team. <br />
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The problem of course, was and still is the barrier to entry. If all the players in a particular game are skilled and experienced, then it just makes it that much harder for a new player to find his or her footing, to gain any experience or confidence. And there is little to no tolerance by a lot (but not all) experienced players to put up with noobs on the team. Especially in games where everyone takes it totally seriously and winning is everything.<br />
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Sometime around 1996, when I knew my deathmatch days were numbered, I started getting all my online kicks in MMOs. In those games, I could hold my own much better. I could also either play by myself or with friends, where the pressure was minor at best. Even if I played on PvP servers (like my main character in EverQuest), in the end it boiled down to one-on-one situations, where, again, I didn't feel beholden to other players, and thus did far better. Late in my Wow career, however, I had one experience with random players that has stuck with me ever since. I was playing my level 80 dwarf warlock, Eggbertt, a character I was quite proficient at. I was level 80. I'd invested hundreds of hours into the guy. I'd sacrificed a good deal of my life, ambition, and self-respect to build this guy up. Blizzard had rolled out the dungeon finder, which grouped random folks together looking to complete the same dungeon. Most of the time, this was awesome, and eliminated the need for begging.<br />
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One night, however, I found myself randomly grouped with Serious Players. Equipment checks were being carried out before we began. Roles were assigned. A plan was made. There was no time for idle chatter and thus no one appreciated my joke about Jim Belushi being the end boss. So in we went. And within 2 minutes, the "leader" was yelling at me. "WTF EGGBERTT MORE DPS!" "DO U FUCKIN NO HOW TO PLAY?" And so on. I assured him that I did in fact know how to play and that he could calm down because honestly it was just a videogame and not worth the aneurism and, plus, we were just starting. I'd get my game on in due time. Except my time was already up. By the time we'd hit the next group of trash mobs, I suddenly, without warning, found myself warped back outside of the dungeon. I'd been kicked. He'd taken a quick vote with the rest of the team, and they agreed that I was out. And I honestly was infuriated. It was an outrage. I felt wrongly accused. I <i>knew </i>how to play this game! But, that was that, and due to the anonymity of the thing and the millions of players, I knew I'd never find them again to plead my case. But what stuck with me was how serious these players were. How there was no tolerance for error. How the slightest perception of weakness was enough to get booted. And while I blew it off and jumped right back in, because, really, who gives a shit, this is the stuff I try to avoid online. Playing with players who are more intent on winning than anything else - like being civil or tolerant of others - is of no appeal to me. None. Because once you're yelling at people online and getting a busted vein in your forehead because someone isn't tanking correctly, you are beginning to miss the whole point of this entire pastime. (Unless you are a pro, which is another story entirely.)<br />
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All of which is a humongous, rambling preamble to what I really wanted to talk about, which is my reluctance to dive into either of the super-popular MOBAs these days - DOTA 2 or League of Legends. I've played through the tutorial levels in both games, and they are super fun. I get it. I totally see the appeal. As someone who also used to have a blast with real-time strategy, I can see that, in time, I might not completely suck. The problem is the "in time" part. Because, from everything I've seen and read, from the little I've dabbled in it, I can see that these are hardcore, serious games. Obviously. And stepping into one of these games unprepared is like stepping onto the track of a horse race right as the gates are being opened. You are going to be trampled, spun around, and dumped in a ditch within two minutes if you don't know what you're doing, with your teammates yelling at you the whole time. These are deep, deep games requiring a tremendous amount of knowledge and skill -which is their appeal - but which make them near impossible for the curious to dabble in. Dabbling isn't even really possible. You either commit for the long haul, or don't play. Yesterday on Twitter I quoted from <a href="http://www.giantbomb.com/dota-2/3030-32887/forums/the-i-am-new-to-dota-beginners-guide-570903/" target="_blank">a Giant Bomb tutorial on DOTA 2</a>: "The first initial 100 hours will be tough." Is that an investment I'm willing to make? Do I want to slog through 100 hours of abuse and humiliation, just to get to the point where I can <i>start </i>competing? Don't I have a novel to finish? Oh, right--and a family?<br />
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So, I don't know. Maybe the sad fact is that these games are for the young and unencumbered. Back in college, I easily could've devoted 100s of hours to a game, because that's what I did, one quarter at a time, in the arcades.<br />
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Or maybe I just have to care about winning more.<br />
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To me, the gameplay is the thing. Doing well, and getting better, and having fun doing it. I've learned, slowly, over time, that once I hit a point of any frustration or anger, to stop a game immediately. Because I know, right then, that I have lost the plot. If I want to get frustrated or angry, there are a million other ways to do it rather than ruining an experience I otherwise enjoy.<br />
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Which is not to say that I've given up on the idea of DOTA or League of Legends. I have not. I actively look forward to possibly being convinced to try. That's about as strong as a commitment you're gonna get from me. But I'm telling you now, once you start yelling at me, I'm out. And once you start yelling at me, you should maybe think twice about what you're doing in the first place.<br />
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<br />Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-90681036874600135972013-08-01T12:26:00.001-07:002013-08-01T12:30:19.100-07:00On Second (and Third) ActsI became an editor at Computer Gaming World in my 30s. At this point, I had already had many years under my belt as an editor for technical books and magazines--jobs that offered only mild satisfaction at best. I was also already a father.<br />
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My CGW job--which of course bled in and continued through 1UP, GFW, etc--was the job that made me feel like I'd "made it." It was the first job I was truly happy in, and not coincidentally, was the most successful at. There was not one day, ever, when I wasn't happy to be going to work, when I didn't know how lucky I was. Yes, it was not all good times every day, there were lots of politics and headaches, I frequently got angry and frustrated as in every job---but I knew, always, that it just felt right to be there. It did not ever feel like "work" to me. It felt like I had just gotten extremely lucky to be doing what made me happy and actually getting paid for it besides. The paycheck almost felt beside the point. That job allowed me to fulfill a lifelong dream - having a humor column - but also helped me discover skills I had no idea that I had, and, most important of all, gave me a sense of self-confidence I had lost, for a variety of reasons, around age 13 and until then had never regained.<br />
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I left 1up.com only reluctantly. Only because I could see the writing on the wall (I escaped the notorious "1upacolapyse" by just a few months) and knew I would be laid off. In addition, my magazine, the laughable and unfortunately renamed <i>Games For Windows: The Official Magazine</i>, had closed down for good, and while I was adapting well to life online - and was having the time of my life with the GFW Radio podcast - my day-to-day responsibilities were changing to a point where I just felt like maybe my time had come. So I left. And that, so far at least, has turned out to be the end of that Act of my life - the act in which I had found my proper place in the world and was happy and thriving and fulfilling my dreams.<br />
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This Act, the act I am currently in, is...well, I don't know exactly what it is yet. I sort of half-jokingly called it the "epilogue" the other day to my daughter, and she was swift to scold me. At 51, I still have many things I hope to accomplish, many goals still unfulfilled, and much, I hope, to offer. But I freely admit that these last four years, from the time I left 1UP until now, have not been the easiest, however else it may appear to anyone who for whatever reason has any interest in me and my career. Not being able to find a job in the press, unadvisedly trying my hand at being a game producer, and now muddling along in whatever the hell "social media" is, has not done wonders for my sense of accomplishment or self-worth. I don't actually know what "success" in these positions means, or whether it matters, or whether what I'm doing is of any remote consequence. I'm not complaining or feeling sorry for myself or issuing a cry for help. I'm just saying that it's hard not to feel at times like I'm "the guy who used to be Jeff Green," that the past four years have been some kind of glorified early retirement home for me, even though I sure as hell am not ready for that yet.<br />
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In the end, it's all on me. Whether it's at PopCap or somewhere else, whether it's in videogames or something else, it is my personal responsibility to actually take my life in the direction I want it to go, rather than let life happen to me - which is something I've been all too guilty of in the past.<br />
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Do I want to write more? Do I want to podcast again? Do I want to walk away from all of it and go sell bongs on the beach in Kauai? Yes, yes, and of course not because that would be wrong and not legal and please don't worry mom it was just a joke. The point is that I am in a heavy duty period of self-reflection right now, trying to figure out how best to spend this part of my life, how best to turn this Act into one as vital as the previous one, one that does not in fact feel like an "epilogue" even when I'm pretending I'm joking about it.<br />
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"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," according to a quote often attributed to John Lennon. Sometimes, however, those "other plans" need to take center stage. They need to get shoved out from the corner of the closet they're hiding in and assert themselves. So that's kinda what I'm doing right now. I'm trying to take those plans out of the closet, see if they actually still fit, and then put 'em on and see if there's any swagger (as you kids say) left in this middle-aged doofus.<br />
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Answers TBD.<br />
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<br />Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-9041522223740879142013-07-02T09:46:00.001-07:002013-07-02T09:46:07.134-07:00Small(er) WorldIn 1984, at age 23, I packed up a large orange backpack with clothes, some music cassettes, and a copy of Let's Go Europe, and took a one-way flight to London. I had no agenda and no time frame for myself. I might be gone a month, I might be gone forever. With nothing particularly promising going on for me at home, all bets were off. <br /><br />Stories about that trip could occupy blog posts from me for months. It was one of the great experiences of my life, and a turning point for me in every way. I stayed for four months, returning for the birth of my brother's first child (who just gave birth to HER first child a few months ago). Had that not happened, I don't know how long I would have stayed. Probably a lot longer. <br /><br />I've been back to Europe many times since then. Partly as an indirect result of that trip, I married a French woman, so as often as our time and expenses can afford we visit her homeland. I'm writing this now from Cabris, France, a small town near Cannes, where we've spent a week relaxing and sightseeing and generally trying to tune out.<br /><br />The key word in that last sentence, however, is "trying." Because one thing I've been thinking about on this trip is just how much the world has changed, and shrunk, since I first came here in 1984. Back then, there was no email. Back then, there were no cell phones. Back then, there were no websites, or Twitter, or Facebook, or Instagram to keep you constantly in touch with the people in your life no matter where in the world you were.<br /><br />I'm not a Luddite by any means (I'm typing this on my iPad 3 with Bluetooth keyboard attached - there was no way I was going to travel without it - and I've used it constantly throughout the trip), but I do admit to feeling a little bit of old man nostalgia at The Way Things Used to Be while over here this time. On that trip in 1984, I truly felt the reality of my geographical situation: that I was on the other side of the world. No one I knew had any way to get in touch with me. And the only way I could communicate on my end was via postcard, or pay phone, which was an unreliable, complicated, and expensive process. The only news I'd get would be from the International Herald Tribune (or occasionally, depending on the city, the NY Times). <br /><br />I kept track of my experiences rather meticulously in a written journal, which I own to this day--but this really just for myself. I wasn't sharing "updates" with either people I knew or in the kind of public postings (like this one) that have become a part of my regular life. What I was experiencing was private, and, at age 23, profound and overwhelming, for the specific reason that I was experiencing it alone, without a lifeboat, as it were, of contact with the world that I knew.<br /><br />I marvel every single day at the miracle of the Internet, of the instant access to information and communication (it's how I make my living, of course), and would not want to have it any other way now. It's insane how lucky we are to be living at this time, with this incredibly empowering technology. If I'd known, back then, that there'd come a day when I could basically own any record or book within seconds of thinking of it, without even having to leave my couch, my head might have exploded. And this is without even getting into the far more serious political and social advances that the Internet has created, through the democratization of information.<br /><br />But, sitting here in this house in France, knowing that I'm about to hit the Send button on this post, for anyone in the world to read within seconds, and knowing, too, that after posting this I will goof off on Twitter and Facebook and Reddit, connecting with everyone I know as if I never even left, I think something was lost, too. Yes, I could disconnect all my devices and pretend it's 1984 again. And for the most part, I have done that on this trip. <br /><br />But whether I voluntarily choose to connect or not doesn't change the singular fact that the world is much smaller than it used to be. For better and worse, there's no going back. Being "on the other side of the world" will never again mean what it used to. We're all in each other's business all the time now. It's a freaking miracle, is what it is. <br /><br />But I'm glad I got to live in a time when it wasn't always like this. When it wasn't a choice. When you were out of touch because you had to be. When being out of touch was kind of the point. <br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br />Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-80732201793979065782013-01-03T14:43:00.001-08:002013-01-03T14:48:45.226-08:00Artifice vs Substance vs MeWell, I guess that's kind of a heady title for my first blog of 2013, but what the heck. I'm a heady sorta guy! Except not really! Mostly I'm a middlebrow guy (at best) who just happens to like what he happens to like.<br />
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But what I've noticed in the last few months, as I've been going to a lot more live theater than I ever have before in my life, is how much I actually *like* artifice, when done right, when done in a way that feels like it actually elevates the content, or comments on the content in a cool way. That is, I think I'm okay with artists who kinda like to show the strings and ropes, who signal their intentions, who are consciously aware, and make us consciously aware that we are watching/listening to "art" as opposed to "real life." <br />
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I just started reading David Byrne's new book<i> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/1936365537" target="_blank">How Music Works</a></i>, and he talks about this a lot. About how, as he grew confident as a performer with Talking Heads, he started incorporating elements of Kabuki theater, etc, into his staging of the Talking Heads live shows, having the lighting and staging actually contribute to the mood and feel of each individual song, rather than just being a "live rock and roll show." He mentions that not everyone, even amongst the performers, felt equally at home with the idea, that others felt he was sacrificing the spontaneity of rock for a more formal artifice. Byrne, while acknowledging the artifice, does assert, though, that the structure does not have to be mutually exclusive with spirit and emotion, and on this I totally agree.<br />
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In fact, the Stop Making Sense tour, around which this discussion takes place, remains to this day my favorite concert experience of all time, in part because the "show" that he presented so elevated the music to me, giving the songs even more weight to them than I'd previously felt. In addition, the entire cadence of the show, from Byrne walking out on an empty stage, with an acoustic guitar and a boombox, to play "Psycho Killer" solo, to the end, when the entire extended band is joyfully grooving to the afro-funk rhythms of their later stuff, tells a story - the story of this band - in a way I'd never experienced before or since.<br />
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I remember when I saw the show, even at the time, that I was aware how cool it was that Byrne had figured out a way to expand their sound and vision to encompass their ever-expanding audience. When I first saw them, in 1979 at Zellerbach Hall for the "Fear of Music" tour, it was just these four geeky, awkward musicians, playing absolutely intense (and great) music, but with zero flash whatsoever. Anti-flash was really their thing, as it was for many (most) in the early days of punk/new wave. No rock star poses. No machismo bullshit. No elevating themselves above their audience. And it was awesome. Especially for uncool nerds like me, who finally had someone to identify with on stage. But as Talking Heads became surprisingly popular (or maybe not so surprising - given their immense talent, brains, and embracing of catchy pop melody), it was clear - even to a mere fan like me - that their original stage presence/persona was not going to translate to a bigger space too well. I actually worried about it. "Are their new fans going to think they're boring live?" And what I discovered at the Stop Making Sense shows (I went two nights in a row) was that Byrne, of course, had figured this out way ahead of me. He thought about the larger spaces the band was going to have to fill, and how, to reach those back rows, he was going to have to think differently, not just sonically but visually as well. When you're in a small club or hall, the individual intensity of the performers is enough. But in a large space, especially from a distance both the band members themselves and the sound can become lost. Byrne figured this out and took it as a creative challenge and embraced it wholeheartedly, and said, in the end, it filled him with immense satisfaction.<br />
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Reading about this stuff, just in the last couple days, was kind of a weird coincidence, since this topic had already been at the top of my mind after my last two experiences at the Berkeley Rep, seeing "An Iliad" and "The White Snake." In structure and format, these two plays couldn't be more dissimilar. One is a one-man show, on a completely bare stage, in which the actor acts/recites/performs The Iliad - a monstrously brilliant performance that only seems implausible until you remember that that's how The Iliad was presented/performed in the first place, back in Homer's day. It was oral storytelling, and yet--it was also completely modern, in the way the actor shifted back-and-forth from "classic" text to modern vernacular -- but in a seamless way that didn't feel forced or gimmicky, even as it drew attention to its own artifice. The actor himself was playing a character. He was a storyteller, THE storyteller, who'd been telling this same story for god knows how long, weary of doing it, horrified by some of the stories themselves he'd have to tell, tired of praising some of the "heroes", rebelling against his own job of having to do this. In doing this, he made the audience - us- characters, too. That is, the performance specifically drew attention to the fact that we were sitting there, that the only reason he was there was because we were there. We were the ones who were demanding that he do this, one more time. We were the witnesses to his own breakdown. As with Byrne's songs, all of this artifice only served to make the stories that much richer -darker and more "real." It was an emotionally overwhelming experience.<br />
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"The White Snake," on the other hand, was a gloriously rich and vibrant spectacle, full of wondrous staging, color, and light. It reveled in its own staginess. And, in fact, the staginess, in this case, did kind of overwhelm the story, for much of the time anyway....except that it was so brilliant that it was hard to just not sit back and marvel at it all. Drawing from ancient Chinese folktales, the play told not JUST the story of the white snake (who assumes the persona of a woman, joins the human realm, and wreaks havoc everywhere), but ALL the stories of the white snake, in all its permutations, as it morphed over the past few centuries. That is, at times the narrative would almost literally stop dead, as a character (a "narrator") would come on stage to inform us that "at this point the story goes in many different directions - we'll go this way" - though in a few places they ALSO give us glimpses of those other paths the story might have taken. In other points of the production, the actors freeze in place, as the narrator returns to brief us, before the actor unfreezes, on how the scene to come is representative of certain Chinese theatrical stereotypes. It may seem a bit precious and clever for its own good - except for the fact that in so doing, it acknowledges us as a modern audience, as people who might otherwise be skeptical or impatient, to tell us WHY we're seeing what we're seeing, as we see it. Again, the artifice comments on the content. And, for me, at least, adds a depth to it I might have otherwise not felt. When, in the play's epilogue, the artifice is dropped almost entirely and the characters are allowed to shine simply as themselves, it's a moment of near transcendence - the veil lifted to expose the humanity behind the spectacle.<br />
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As I think about my own writing - as well as the writers I love - I know that I too enjoy artifice over "realism." In my case, as someone who's still, in the end, a total amateur and wannabee, I worry at times that the artifice is a crutch, rather than a tool to get to the truth. It's being clever for the sake of being clever. Which, ya know, can be okay, in small doses. But may not be where I'm trying to get to. My first NaNoWriMo book, "The Cudgel of Xanthor," which I honestly hope you can read someday, was all artifice: It was a dual story. The story of an incompetent team making a videogame, along with the story within the videogame itself, in which the reality of the game's main character, Xanthor, kept changing as the game's development kept spiraling further into chaos. Basically, it was a mildly clever one-joke conceit masquerading as a story. My second NaNoWriMo attempt, from this past November, I did not finish, but again it was all structure and not much else: I was trying to write a book in 30 days about a guy trying to write a book in 30 days. Parts of it were funny, but I ultimately gave up because I realized that all I was really doing was trying to be clever, rather than, ya know, having anything to say. As it turns out, another story kept beating its way into this one, which was about my experiences growing up as a teen in LA in the 1970s. It had nothing whatsoever to do with what I was writing, and yet I found myself drifting to it as I was trying to write my clever sentences. So, at some point, I gave up THAT book entirely, bored with myself, and started jotting down my memories instead - first in the third person, then in the second (!), and then finally, when I felt ready to drop all pretense, in the first.<br />
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I don't know really where I'm going with it, if anywhere, but I think I realized something in the process of doing this: I've been using artifice to avoid being honest, to avoid exposing emotion. In the works I praised above, the opposite was true. The artifice exposed and informed and ultimately deepened the artistic achievement. That's what I'd like to do. I have no clue whether I have either the talent, ambition, or drive to do any of this. Maybe I'll just keep wiling away the years playing videogames, listening to music, seeing movies etc--- enjoying OTHER people's artistic achievements. Hey, it makes me happy. But something tells me I'm not done yet. I've got something in there to get out. The key now, at age 51, is for me to let go. To stop messing around with "clever" and go for something much more humble, yet something far, far harder: Truth. Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-79691581838110437732012-10-30T21:31:00.001-07:002012-10-30T21:31:07.989-07:00GFW Radio Rap - The Lost Verses (2008)It may not be widely known, and has certainly not been reported on noted websites such as Wikipedia, that the original "CGW Rap" that I "banged out" on our final podcast in 2008 was really only the first verse of a larger composition I had been writing for weeks, in preparation for the full-length rap album I had planned on recording if Dr. Dre would ever return my calls like even once. <br /><br />Lost and forgotten for generations, these just discovered verses, which I found when sorting through some Word files on a pile of 3.5-inch floppy "disquettes," represent the complete song as originally composed. <br /><br />A true find for any completist.<br /><br />"GFW Radio Rap"<br /><br />GFW Radio <br />Listen to our podcast<br />Yo yo<br /><br />We play PC games<br />Because we like 'em<br />If we have a good guest<br />We fuckin' mic him<br /><br />GFW Radio<br />Listen to our podcast<br />Or go blow<br /><br />We do five-page interviews<br />With Sid Meiers<br />If our intern is a dick<br />We fuckin' fire him<br /><br />GFW Radio<br />Listen to our podcast <br />YOLO<br /><br />If it's turn-based gaming<br />You know we like it<br />If it's just a console port<br />Go take a hike, yeah?<br /><br />GFW Radio<br />Listen to our podcast<br />Yo Yo<br />GFW Radio<br />Listen to our podcast <br />Ok we out yo<br /><br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br />Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-70801482564688783872012-08-29T21:53:00.001-07:002012-08-29T21:53:18.172-07:00The Kid Who Doesn't Give A ShitHere's a short story.<br /><br />The Kid Who Doesn't Give A Shit<br />By Jeff Green<br /><br />Johnny Johnson just doesn't give a shit. He so doesn't give a shit, that he doesn't even give a shit that he doesn't give a shit. That's how badass he is. And he is fucking 5 years old. Does that bother you? Guess what? Johnny Johnson doesn't give a shit. See?<br /><br />That's why all the adults in town love Johnny Johnson. Even the parents of the kids who Johnny Johnson beats up. They are glad, if you want to be completely honest about it. That's right, they say. Kick my kid's ass, Johnny Johnson. We trust you. He must deserve it, if you're doing it.<br /><br />And Johnny Johnson just glares at the parents. For like a whole minute. Man, he finally says. You think I give a shit? And he shakes his head and walks right out of the goddamn room without saying another thing or looking back or anything. Like a goddamn glorious gladiator. <br /><br />Man. That kid sure is cool one dad says.<br /><br />He sure goddamn is says another.<br /><br />Fist bump.<br /><br />Totally.<br /><br />Boom. <br /><br /><br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br />Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-17958056566025830292012-07-17T07:56:00.001-07:002012-07-17T07:59:45.237-07:00A Dream from 2005<i>I have tried, at various attempts in my life, to keep a journal. It never works out. Mostly I just don't have the kind of discipline to keep it up. I have started and stopped numerous times, and usually I start with a great amount of diligence and enthusiasm, but, eventually, it just peters out. </i><br />
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<i style="background-color: white;">In any case, I found an old notebook this morning while looking for my keys (which I have still not found), and came across an entry from 2005. I had just woken up and written down the dream I had just had. I am going to transcribe that journal entry in its entirety her, with no edits or changes whatsover. I have no recollection of ever having written this. It's like a found a stranger's journal.</i><br />
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<b>Dec 30, 2005</b><br />
Okay, so how's this for a dream? I am supposed to go to the Neil Young concert with Annie. We are walking there. Along the way of whatever crowded urban street we are on, I fall way behind. I am too tired. I stop to sleep. So there I am sleeping right on the sidewalk, with some kind of a musty old blanket - and then all of a sudden I resemble and am mistaken by some as a street person. Various people look at me as they walk by and I am approached by a few questionable-looking guys as a kindred spirit, or maybe somebody they can easily rob.<br />
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But I somehow rally myself back up, get a couple anxious text messages from Annie letting me know that Bob Dylan has already finished playing, that Neil Young has begun, and where am I?<br />
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I am on my way. Somehow I end up in a long line with Dave Salvator<i> [Ed note: a fellow former editor at CGW magazine], </i>and he and I shuffle into the stadium. Our seats are a mile away. One of us says, "Well these sure are nosebleed seats." I sit down next to Dave and someone else says the seats aren't so bad. I look again and somehow Neil Young and the two female singers look very close indeed.<br />
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They are playing a little bit when all of a sudden Sammy Davis Jr. walks out onto the field and we all laugh at the absurdity of it until he starts singing and his deep baritone sounds great as he belts out some kind of Americana song of Neil's.<br />
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Then we are all on a train and the train begins to roll forward, looping around the coliseum as if it were suddenly part of a Disneyland ride and this was a scheduled part of the show. We are all happy and excited. Sammy is still singing to us as the train makes its slow loop.<br />
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Then, in the train car from the rear, Tom Waits suddenly appears, scruffy, in a flannel shirt, singing to us as he makes his way down the aisles, looking at each of us like the conductor asking us for our tickets. He stops at each person and says something nice or witty, giving them a moment of his attention, this famous star.<br />
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And when he gets to Dave and I, he looks for a second, giving me somewhat of a blank look, like, what could I do for this guy? And he reaches into a bag and hands each of us a box of Jujubees, and it seems like the most perfect, generous gift. But I am still desperate to make an impression with him, so in response to some question of his, I respond with an unexpectedly witty answer that genuinely makes him laugh, that I am proud of, and that he is going to remember and share with others and possibly means we may even be friends now. And that's when I woke up.<br />
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Tom Waits gave me a box of Jujubees. I don't even like Jujubees. What does your brain go through to come up with stuff like this?<br />
<br />
<i>That's the end of my dream. I think I need to start keeping a journal again.</i><br />
<i>--Jeff</i>Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-69714449843424549542012-07-04T10:59:00.002-07:002012-07-04T11:54:44.879-07:00The Depression Post.I've been taking medication to battle clinical depression for 25 years now. I've written that sentence first mostly to get it out of the way, but also because it's taken me 25 years to write it. Talk about procrastination. The problem with suffering from depression (well, one of them anyway) is that it's often the condition itself that prevents one from talking about the condition. (The first rule of Depression Club is: Don't talk about depression.) It is, at times, like walking around with a giant anvil over your head, ready to pound you into submission at any random moment, ready to take you down 20 pegs until you're just a sniveling puddle of goo utterly convinced of your own inherent worthlessness. It is, in short, a handicap. A debilitating one, and a real one.<br />
<br />
The other, maybe bigger problem is that depression is still, if no longer a taboo subject, one that is largely misunderstood, and still somewhat embarrassing to admit. And it's why there are so many cases in which you don't find out that someone "suffers from depression" sometimes ever, or sometimes not until after they're gone. But I'm kind of tired, at age 50, of not talking about it, not even once, so I figure there's no better time than now, on the 4th of July, to talk about it. Consider it my Independence Day from my own shame around it.<br />
<br />
So here's the main thing to know: I am not sad. Really. I don't need anyone to send me teddy bears or hugs, though of course both would be awesome and I wouldn't return them. Cash, too, would be great, preferably in small, unmarked bills. I have a great life: A great family, a great job, great friends. If this isn't entirely the life I envisioned for myself as a boy (I'd always wanted to be an English gravedigger), it is one that I feel pretty good about and won't complain about. Suffering from depression doesn't translate to the more casual use of "I'm depressed!" in the way you might say after, say, you've just eaten two Snicker bars in a row, or after discovering that Bristol Palin has her own reality TV show. It's not like that. Most of the time, most days, I'm just like everyone else: Plugging along, trying to avoid thoughts of my own mortality, and trying to squeeze the maximum amount out of fun and pleasure into days annoyingly riddled with real-world responsibility.<br />
<br />
What it does do, though, especially on days when, for whatever reason, the meds aren't working well, or (worse) I either forget to take them or (way worse) convince myself I "don't need them anymore," is remove the floor from underneath my feet. Not literally, of course, because that would be rather disturbing and surreal and make me a walking public health hazard. But figuratively, it puts me off balance, quite often in a way I don't fully feel or see or understand until it's already kicked in in a bad way. Those few who are close to me who have known about my depression usually see it before I do. "You haven't taken your meds, have you?" they'll say--because the things I'm saying and my worldview and my energy level become different, different in ways I have no control over or no awareness around in the early stages.<br />
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The biggest bummer around it all, for me, is that even when I am being good, the pills don't eliminate it entirely. It's not an on/off switch. Shit seeps through. And the toll of this has affected every aspect of my life for decades. I have days where I can't write anything, decide anything, or really be much of an effective human being at all because of it. It's screwed up my ability to be a good friend, to focus, to be productive. It's kept me, at times, in a fog of self-doubt and self-hate, of low energy, of recrimination and regret over things not accomplished or things never even attempted. It's kept me in a perpetual state of wishing I could do things over again, of feeling like "I've failed" no matter what I accomplish or how many total strangers come up to me and say they like what I've done. I register it, I appreciate it (more than I can express), but it never fully overcomes my own internal dialog, so much of which is just a loud, mean, clattering cloud of noise that a few little pills do their best to dispel day after day. (And not just pills, either, I should say. They're not magic. They are supplemented by a steady, weekly decades-long stream of therapy, to talk the stuff out and get it out of my head.)<br />
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I should be clear about one thing. None of this is being written today to either elicit pity or to excuse myself from any choices or actions I've made in life. It's all on me. Always. It's like when people try to excuse their behavior because "they were drunk"--when of course part of them is always conscious. Any stupid or irresponsible thing I'm doing, or avoiding, is done with at least a chunk of awareness that I am doing (or not doing) that thing. The problem is that, even while seeing it, I can't grasp it by the horns and cut it out. This is the key issue. I see it, I'm aware of it, and yet I can't do anything about it. What the medication does, when it's really working, is just eliminate that aspect of it. It puts the floor back under my feet. It makes me have what I imagine to be the strength and resolve of "normal" people. I can act and respond and simply tell myself to keep going. To just write that email or call that person or finish that article rather than just sit in the chair for an hour and tell myself what a shitty, worthless person I am.<br />
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It's exhausting. I get tired of being me. It's so much noise all the time. I think about what I might have accomplished, or what my life might have been, if I didn't have to deal with this. But one thing I'm trying to come to grips with at age 50 - because if not now, when, dude? - is that fighting it is just a fool's game, and maybe a little bit of a cruel thing to do to myself. I mean, I'm never going to stop being hard on myself, ever, and I think a lot of that - depression aside - is good for a person. I want to constantly challenge myself and be better. So I'm not asking for a free ride for myself. What I think I am asking for is the ability to forgive myself for "only" being the person I am today, for "only" having the level of success (whatever that is) that I have - rather than some mythical, theoretical success I imagine some Alternative Jeff from Earth 2 to have. I guess, in a way, I'm asking myself not to "be depressed" over having depression. I'm stuck with it, and so my decision now is to accept and acknowledge it, rather than fight it and hide it and beat myself up about it, which is a guaranteed loser of a strategy.<br />
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Anyway, I hope I didn't depress <i>you</i> with this blog post. Though if I did, I might have a couple pills to recommend. Just kidding. It doesn't work that way. What I think I mainly want to say, and my bigger reason for writing this, is that if you are younger than me, or, heck, even older than me (if that's possible), and any of this sounds familiar or resonates, know that you are not alone, that it is probably more common than you think, and that there are solutions. There are ways to regulate it and control it. You too can go on to have a family, a home and a degree of success you might not think possible within the turmoil of your own noisy brain, as long as you're not afraid to acknowledge the problem and do something about it. I encourage you, strongly, to not give up, and not be afraid to seek help if you think you need it. Odds are you do, and odds are there are people, both personal and professional, ready right there to help you, if only you'll reach out. That itself is probably the hardest step you'll ever take. But it will be the most important one, too.<br />
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Okay. That's enough New Agey self-revelation and self-help for one 4th of July, don't you think? I have a couple teeny little pills to swallow, and then after that I'm going to go out and have a kickass holiday with my friends and family. Here's hoping you have a great day - and life - too.<br />
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Remember that you deserve it. <br />
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--Jeff<br />
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<br />Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com97tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-74608591611661636642012-02-25T09:58:00.005-08:002012-02-25T14:06:15.679-08:00Mortal thoughtsThis past 6 months marked two significant milestones in my life: I turned 50, and my daughter turned 18. Even typing these sentences now results in a certain cognitive dissonance, or, to speak more plainly--a quiet little freakout.<br /><br />I've mentioned this before, but I always remember reading an interview with Bruce Willis, as he became an "aging" action star, and he made a comment something along the lines of "In our minds, no matter how old we get, we always think of ourselves as 27." It's such a great quote. If you're younger than that, you can't possibly understand now. But when you get to be a half-century like me, you will. Though our bodies and metabolisms change - inevitably and unfortunately for the worse - our minds really never do. I'm just the same Jeff Green I was when I was in my 20s, in my own head. I still love music, games, books, movies with an insatiable passion. I'm still easily distracted, absent-minded, and lazy. I still love dogs more than people. I still love pizza and Snicker bars and nacho cheese Doritos. I still distrust all authority, and bristle with a natural instinct to rebel whenever it rears its head.<br /><br />So this is how I feel, inside myself. I feel like that same guy. (Not emotionally, though--thank god. But that is a post for another day.) The problem is that on the outside, to other people, I'm a 50-year-old man. I don't mean this is a problem for all those other people, because, um, yeah, that's what I am. They are right. I <span style="font-weight: bold;">am </span>a 50-year-old man. The problem is that my own perception of what a 50-year-old man is supposed to be does not jibe with my own self-image. Call it reality distortion. Call it self-delusion. Call it - as many people have said of me - a refusal to grow up. Not gonna deny it. Because I honestly don't even know what that means. If there was supposed to be a switch that flipped, in which I suddenly feel like attending cocktail parties, discussing my stocks, listening to adult contemporary radio, and harrumphing about how much better things were when I was a boy, well, then I short-circuited somehow. All that stuff feels like it's still 30 years away for me. At least.<br /><br />I'm giving superficial examples, I know. And in terms of basic responsibility of adulthood, I do like to think of myself as at least somewhat of a grownup. I've held a full-time job steadily, and with increasing responsibility, ever since graduating college. I'm a husband and father. I try to do my best at all three of those things every day. The mistakes and failure on all those fronts are constant, as they are with anyone who isn't kidding themselves, but I do like to think of myself as hanging in there and trying and learning, as best as I can.<br /><br />What I really mean, I guess, is the weird dissonance I feel when I sense the way people - especially people I'm just meeting, strangers, random encounters - are looking at me or treating me. When, for instance, did I become "sir?" When did I become "the old man of gaming?" When - and boy, this is a tough one - did I switch from being someone that at least the occasional woman - if they were desperate and perhaps a bit nearsighted - might have found somewhat marginally appealing to, instead, someone who reminds them of their father? I know I look like a middle-aged man. I know I am a middle-aged man. I just don't feel like a middle-aged man. And I guess part of me doesn't want to be one, wants to rewind the clock, wants to have a second-chance to do it all over again, but better and smarter and more successfully. I'm simply unable to parse or accept that so much time has slipped away, that over half my life is over, and that what I am in now is an undeniable, unpreventable period of decline. (And, boy, that sure makes me unique, huh!)<br /><br />Of course, one doesn't simply give up. One doesn't just say "it's over" and go sit on the rocking chair until death. I have so much I want to do and accomplish and see and experience that I'd need multiple lifetimes to get through it all. (At the very least, I really need to catch up on Dr. Who.) And I think that's the hardest part of all of this, the crux of the matter of these milestones in my life. For the first time, I've been seriously confronted, in a real and palpable way, with my own mortality, with the harsh reality that I am just not going to get to it all, and that if I really want to actually reach some of these goals, well, I better hurry the hell up.<br /><br />So I'm going to get right to it. Right after this nap.Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-86064982739959141852011-12-17T10:08:00.000-08:002011-12-17T10:49:54.744-08:00A Fan's NotesI am not a musician. I am not a musician now, nor have I ever been one, despite having played the trumpet for 10 years and the bass for about 5 years. It's one of the great frustrations/regrets of my entire existence. Because if I could be anything in life, that's what I'd be. Honestly. I'd give up any relative "success" I've achieved in life if I could master an instrument and be part of a band (or orchestra) and contribute in a meaningful way to the creation of music. Instead, I must be content (and I am, happily!) with watching and listening from the sidelines--a perpetual fan. An obsessive listener and collector. An outsider.<br /><br />My love of music has always been with me. At least partial credit goes to my dad, who instilled a love of early jazz (starting with Fats Waller) in me early on. But, like any teen, I gravitated towards rock on my own, falling in deep starting at around age 14 and never emerging, only expanding. I don't think a month has gone by in over 35 years when I have not bought new music. Probably not even two weeks. The advent of the Internet of course has made it that much worse (or better), and more dangerous (and easier). My interests are all over the map. For the past few months I've been heavily obsessed with New Orleans R&B and jazz. I started with current stuff--Trombone Shorty and Galactic--and have been working my way back in time and falling even more in love. My most recent purchases were a Fats Domino collection, and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cosimo-Matassa-Story-Various-Artists/dp/B000QCQG28/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324146043&sr=8-1-fkmr0">this glorious box set</a>. Allen Touissant is playing on my laptop right now as I type this. <br /><br />When I was a miserable, unhappy teen in the San Fernando Valley, and then a miserable, unhappy college kid at Berkeley, music was my refuge and my salvation. That'll be corny to some, but that's okay. Because I know it's true. Music is what got me through. I clung onto the inspirational music of guys like Bruce Springsteen, as well as the nerdy empowerment of Elvis Costello and other "punks" at the time. These days, at age 50, I don't need to self-identify through a musician or anyone else, which I guess we can call progress. But I do still get ALL my inspiration to create, through words or otherwise, from the music I love. Many of my old Greenspeak columns for Computer Gaming World magazine back in the day were written either to the accompaniment of the Beastie Boys, or were at least preceded by a listen to them---because their snarky, immature intelligence was exactly the tone I was going for. When I couldn't handle actually listening to lyrics while writing those columns, I'd switch to Thelonious Monk--another musician who so brilliantly infused his work with humor. <br /><br />In ten years of playing the trumpet -- from age 7 to 17 -- the best I ever got was that I had a decent, steady tone and could read music well. I could execute. That was good enough to place high in the chair seatings in the school orchestra, and to serve as lead trumpet in the jazz band--but it wasn't the same as being a musician. In the jazz band, it was the second trumpet who did all the solos. I might have carried the melody, but I couldn't improvise for shit. I had no vision or point-of-view, nor the technical skills or knowledge or understanding of music theory to even take a stab at "academic" improvisation. I could play what was in front of me, and play it well, but that's it. And I was jealous as heck (and still am) at anyone who could.<br /><br />Years later, around age 25, when my friends were forming a punk band, they asked if I'd like to play bass. I had never previously touched a bass. In true punk rock spirit, I of course said yes. It didn't hurt that, growing up, I'd always gravitated to the bass anyway. I was one of those guys who would forget to listen to (or even realize that there was) a guitar solo, because I was grooving on the bass line. I still do that. And because I was already aware of my lack of inspiration and imagination, the bass, as rhythm keeper, appealed to me. I could play away, keeping the beat, letting others do their thing, while still feel like I was contributing. So I did that. I did it for years, as the bass player for "The Uncalled Four." We played a lot of gigs in the Bay Area. The two songwriters were actually damn good. I liked the songs they wrote, a lot, and loved playing their songs. We made one record (a vinyl EP), called "Oakland's Newest Hitmakers," in which we paid homage to the first Who record on the back cover and a Gang of Four record on the front cover. I listened to it again recently, after not hearing it for well over a decade, and it sounded pretty good. Their songwriting holds up. <br /><br />I had moments as The Uncalled Four bass player that I was proud of. Never on stage though, where I was all frozen nerves, just repeating the same bass line over and over until the song ended. I never found my comfort up there, mostly because I always felt like a poser. A fake bass player who didn't know what he was doing. But there *were* times, when we were practicing and learning new songs, when I would try to go deep within the song, and myself, and find a creative bass line, beyond the rudimentary obvious ones. I didn't usually succeed, but at least a couple times I did. I found a line that came straight from my own head and heart that made the song better. But it was work, and didn't come naturally to me at all. And then once I'd come up with the line, all I could ever do was repeat it, note for note. I had no ability to deviate, to experiment, to play. Whatever that is, I don't have it. <br /><br />And hey, I'm okay with it. The truth is, I get so much pleasure out of listening to music, that it's enough for me. It's more than enough. It's one of my life's great passions. The best live concerts I've ever been to (Van Morrison in 1987, Talking Heads in 1980, Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn in the 90s, Springsteen numerous times--just to name a few) have been transcendent, near-religious experiences for me, making me love and appreciate the simple act of being alive.<br /><br />But I never stop having this kind of dream, in the middle of the night, deep in slumber: I'm on stage with a band (usually jazz). We're all jamming on a song. It's my turn to step up. I adjust the mouthpiece, settle my hands and fingers on the horn, and then let loose with heart, humor, and skill. flowing in and out of the song's melody and the band's backup, telling a story, or a joke, or a tale of heartbreak or redemption, through pure sound. I'm feeling it, the band is feeling it, the audience is feeling it. I'm part of a moment beyond words.<br /><br />Is that the dream of every writer?Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-33575019704267418022011-08-22T18:25:00.000-07:002011-08-22T18:38:34.346-07:00My PAX Prime SchedulePAX Prime is almost here, and y'all know what that means: TIME TO STOCK UP ON DEODORANT, YOU SMELLY SLOBS! Err, no. What I meant to say is: It's time for the best gaming convention in the universe, and I can't wait to see you all!
<br />
<br />We don't have an official PopCap booth this year, but we will be there in the form of DANCING ZOMBIES who will have free stuff to hand out. So look for 'em! There is also a PopCap party on Sunday afternoon at the show, to which you are all invited, and at which we will have a Bejeweled Blitz tourney with some cool prizes! Note that there are over 60K people attending PAX, and our party venue holds 500. So plan accordingly. The party details can be found on Facebook, right here:
<br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137930262965485">
<br />http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=137930262965485</a>
<br />
<br />In addition, after taking a break from being a blabbermouth at PAX East in Boston, I am back in full overexposed form at PAX Prime, appearing on 5 panels (and possibly 6, if the Giant Bomb dudes let me crash!) Fortunately, they are all on different topics, so I shouldn't have to repeat myself too much, except for the whole "I'm so old I tell the same stories over and over" thing I've already had going on for years.
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<br />Anyway, if you care, here is the full list of all my PAX panel appearances, stolen directly from the official PAX site:
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<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">UP Presents: Retronauts vs. Your Fondest Memories </span><div style="font-weight: bold;" class="news">Kraken Theatre
<br />Friday 3:00pm - 4:00pm</div> <div class="news">Retronauts is all about reliving our fond memories of classic games as we stroll through the medium's history, but sometimes we let our rose-tinted glasses get in the way of objectivity. Well, this episode of 1UP's live podcast is designed to rectify that. For one hour, we'll be asking our reader to name their favorite games ever and clinically (albeit lovingly!) explaining exactly what's wrong with those games. Fair's fair, though; we'll be opening the session by talking about our own personal favorites, so there'll be plenty of time to excoriate our own poor taste. No cow is sacred! Please join us for this cathartic session of objectivity and perspective.
<br /></div> <div class="news"><i>Panelists include: Jeremy Parish [Editor-in-Chief, 1UP], Nich Maragos [Atlus], Chris Kohler [Editor, Wired], Jeff Green [PopCap]
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<br /></i><div style="font-weight: bold;" class="faqhead">Can Mommy & Daddy Come Over to Play? - The Truth About Being a Gamer Parent</div><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><div style="font-weight: bold;" class="news">Raven Theatre
<br />Friday 6:00pm - 7:00pm</div> <div class="news">Can I please play for just a little bit longer?" This is a familiar sentence uttered in households around the country. But what if it's the PARENTS saying that and not the kids? Does having kids REALLY change your life THAT much? And what if video games ARE your job? How do you balance both? Come join our panel of precocious parents as we share our stories of being gamer parents and how we learned that having kids doesn't mean the games have to stop. Being a parent just means we've reached a whole new level of gameplay. (Plus, kids mean we have built-in co-op players!) Our Gamer Parent panel will include: Jeff Green of PopCap Games, Justin Korthof of Robot Entertainment, Jessica Shea of 343i & others with Stephanie Bayer of Microsoft Game Studios moderating.
<br /></div> <div class="news"><i>Panelists include: Jessica Shea [Community Manager, 343i], Justin Korthof [Community Manager, Robot Entertainment], Jeff Green [Director of Editorial & Social Media, PopCap Games], Stephanie Bayer [Customer Engagement Lead, PopCap Games], Jamileh Delcambre [Free Agent of Awesome, Underemployed], Christa Charter [Freelance Marketing/Community Manager]
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<br /></i><div style="font-weight: bold;" class="faqhead">GameTrailers.com Presents: Hello Fellow Babies! - Pach-Attack! LIVE</div><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><div style="font-weight: bold;" class="news">Kraken Theatre
<br />Saturday 4:30pm - 5:30pm</div> <div class="news">Michael Pachter. Yes, he's real. Yes, he's here. And yes, you can ask him your burning questions at this exclusive panel! Pach-Attack! has taken the web by storm, and since it was debuted on GameTrailers.com, the smarmy seer has become a household name, with video views over 5 million. Here at PAX, this is your chance to challenge the analyst's legendary wit and have your game industry questions answered live at this exclusive interactive panel. Plus, what's this about special guests dubbing themselves the "Grumpy Old Men of Gaming"...? Find out! <span style="font-weight: bold;">[JEFF SEZ: YEAH GUESS WHO. THAT'S ME AND GARY WHITTA. THERE, I SPOILED IT!]</span>
<br /></div> <div class="news"><i>Panelists include: Michael Pachter [Host, Wedbush Security / GameTrailers]
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<br /></i><div style="font-weight: bold;" class="faqhead">Weekend Confirmed</div><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><div style="font-weight: bold;" class="news">Unicorn Theatre
<br />Saturday 8:00pm - 9:00pm</div> <div class="news">Weekend Confirmed returns to the PAX Prime stage to record a special show in front of the live audience. Join Garnett Lee as he hosts his fifth year of podcasting from PAX with Jeff Cannata, Xav de Matos, and special guests including John Davison, Jeff Green, and other esteemed friends. Get your PAX "confirmed" with a PAX edition of "Whatcha Been Playin?" and bring your questions for an open mic version of the
<br />Warning. Start your Sat night at PAX off in style with Weekend Confirmed.
<br /></div> <div class="news"><i>Panelists include: Jeff Canata, Garnett Lee, Luke Smith, Xav De Matos, Jeff Green, John Davison</i></div>
<br /></div><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gaming as a Lifestyle</span> <div style="font-weight: bold;" class="news">Serpent Theatre
<br />Sunday 4:00pm - 5:00pm</div> <div class="news">Flying in the face of criticism against video games and their ruination of lives, this panel will address the topic of living a life made richer by playing games. From how to keep your job while supporting a game-playing habit, to making your game-playing habit your job. Graham Stark, Jeff Green, Ian Dorsch and James Portnow will share secrets and personal stories, deflate hype and participate in a detailed Q&A. Moderated by Russ Pitts, Editor-in-Chief of The Escapist.
<br /></div> <div class="news"><i>Panelists include: Russ Pitts [Editor-in-Chief, The Escapist], James Portnow [CEO/Developer, Rainmaker Games], Ian Dorsch [Musician - Zero Punctuation, The Escapist], Jeff Green [Journalist/PR, PopCap], Graham Stark [Writer/Actor, LoadingReadyRun]</i></div></div>
<br /></div>Good lord.
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<br />Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-12059281107981884052011-07-02T18:38:00.000-07:002011-07-02T20:21:59.929-07:00Speaking of beer...I know a few of you might be waiting for Part 2 of my Dublin Chronicles, but, frankly, here's the truth of the matter: It got kind of boring after that first morning. Well, not boring. Because I loved every minute of my trip. But that was kind of it as far as "amusing anecdotes in which I prove what a clod I am" go. I do want to revisit it, but, on my mind today is...a beer commercial.<br /><br />Specifically, this one:<br /><br /><iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_dpTmvSuWbA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />I came across this on "the Internet" this morning, randomly, as tends to happen in that crazy place, and it's been on my mind all day long. I'll admit that there's a certain nostalgia factor at work here, as I distinctly remember seeing this as a boy (I was 9 years old at the time), but, man, what a great commercial this is. I don't even mean in a cheesy, ironic way. Though of course it is cheese <span style="font-style:italic;">par excellence.</span> Especially if you watch it a few times in a row and focus on the way some of those white guys are dancing. <br /><br />But, really, there is something just so wonderfully earnest about this one. I mean, I know they're selling beer, so it's not earnest in the way that, say, Joan Baez was earnest. But still. I like that they're just very sincerely and nicely singing about how great the beer is. Rather than trying to convince us that we're going to score chicks if we drink it, or that we'll be part of the cool crowd, or whatever. It's just a very celebratory ode to the drink itself. The choreography, too, the way they enter a few at a time (just like in Stop Making Sense!), the way the American flag slowly lights, the way they all look at the lead singer when she delivers the big line, it's just...perfect. And of course it all comes packaged with the standard 70s-era semi groovy/hippy/we're-all-in-it-together vibe, complete with a conspicuously self-congratulatory mixed demographic, though back then "mixed" just meant black and white, as there are no other discernible races represented, which is okay because I think there actually were no Asian people back then anyway. <br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />[EDITOR'S NOTE: Thanks to my pal Chris Remo for pointing out to me, after I published this post, that there does, in fact, seem to be an Asian woman in the chorus here. I suspect, however, that she was only recently photoshopped in by the CIA, or something.]</span><br /><br />Part of me (the old, curmudgeonly part) wants to say "Boy, I sure wish they made commercials like this today!" But the truth is, there are still some great ones, and some shitty ones, just like back in 1970. This just happens to be one of the great ones from back then. <br /><br />I sure wish they made commercials like this today.Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-61508089813589967692011-06-26T09:12:00.000-07:002011-06-26T10:06:54.352-07:00First morning in Dublin.I arrived in Dublin at 7:30 a.m. on a Monday morning. I'd just flown overnight from San Francisco to Boston, and then Boston to Dublin. The Boston-Dublin flight was on the Irish airline, Aer Lingus, where the flight attendants wear green and the beer is not Guinness but Coors and Budweiser and Heineken. A sorry disappointment.<br /><br />The cab ride from the Dublin Airport to the city itself is a relatively short one--about 20 minutes, max--but it was a 20 minutes well spent on my part, as I discovered the general talkativeness and gregariousness of what seemed like every Irish cabbie I had all week. This guy, in particular, was a trial by fire, because his accent was as thick as mud. It was the thickest, in fact, that I heard all week, though I of course didn't know that at the time. All I knew was that I had to strain forward to try to comprehend and keep up. (I also didn't realize, until I was sitting in his cab, that they drive on the left, with the steering wheels on the right, just like in England. Didn't they have a revolution to separate themselves from the Brits?)<br /><br />This was also the first time I was to hear the same amusing spiel I'd hear in every cab all week. Both Obama and the Queen had recently visited Dublin, and while both were very well received, Obama won the popularity contest by a landslide for one very particular reason: While the Queen had posed for photos in front of a pint of Guinness, she never even took a sip (apparently a standard custom for royalty), while Obama, man's man that he is, downed the whole damn pint. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFXeoUPWWmhdSTlwcQgoWcAN3Bo7IdezFxCZnGw4fuuHZS6q0DpMjFkySNP30s3MKhXgTnM-eZLxa16Jjzd94fw_RMzCmhPDIz10SSsvNHy3Oiz6ZVKHXZ1efr_R0F98xWOElSvJIalCHc/s1600/obama.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 239px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFXeoUPWWmhdSTlwcQgoWcAN3Bo7IdezFxCZnGw4fuuHZS6q0DpMjFkySNP30s3MKhXgTnM-eZLxa16Jjzd94fw_RMzCmhPDIz10SSsvNHy3Oiz6ZVKHXZ1efr_R0F98xWOElSvJIalCHc/s320/obama.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622565560821808322" /></a><br /><br />I probably heard this story a good six or seven times, and, honestly, it never got old. Not because I liked hearing our president getting praised (though after 8 nightmare years of Bush, it was quite a novelty to hear the praise from an EU country), but because of the pride that these gentlemen had in their national drink, and the significance it held to them in having world leaders approach the drink. <br /><br />My first Guinness in Dublin was to come less than an hour later, though I didn't know it yet. We arrived just before 8 a.m. at the Clarence Hotel, which is located right along the River Liffey at Wellington Quay, pretty much right in the heart of the Temple Bar district, magnet for all drunken, rowdy foreigners, as I would later discover. The Clarence is owned by Mssrs. Bono and The Edge, but you'd never really know it had that kind of rock star cred from the outside, as it has a remarkably unassuming (but nice) exterior, and a rather quaint boutique feel inside. At the reception desk, I was told what I was dreading: That my room wouldn't be ready for hours, given that it was so early. Despite having the adrenaline that comes with being in a foreign city for the first time, the larger truth was that I was tired as shit. Approaching the age of 50, these 15 hour trips just aren't as easy to shake off as they used to be. I needed sleep. It wasn't the hotel's fault, of course, and I was shown into the adjoining "Tea Room," where I crashed into a large armchair, ordered coffee, and waited for the arrival of my co-worker Keith, who I knew was just about 15 minutes behind me.<br /><br />Once he arrived, looking equally bedraggled, and with about 3-4 hours to kill, we knew the only real solution was to just get out walking. It helped that it was already sunny and beautiful out. We wobbled out of the hotel with no plan. I had a street map, but we didn't use it, instead just going wherever things looked interesting. After a short while, we ended up at about the best place I could imagine: Hodges Figgis, a great Irish bookstore. I beelined to the section dedicated to Irish writers, and found what I was hoping to find--a bunch of books by Irish noir writer Ken Bruen, who I'd been hearing about but had been unable to find in the US (well, Amazon carries him, but I was trying to buy at local bookstores). Not only did Hodges Figgis have some of his novels, but, in a stroke of luck, he had appeared there recently, so the books were autographed. I picked up two--<span style="font-style:italic;">The Guards</span> and <span style="font-style:italic;">The Killing of the Tinkers</span>, though honestly I could have spent a ton more in that store (and did a few days later).<br /><br />By 10:00 a.m. Keith and I were even more tired and now famished. We needed to eat. We went out searching for food, but were really too tired to make a coherent decision. Some nice person had tweeted to me a recommendation for a place to eat, but I couldn't find it on the map or in our wandering. Ultimately, we just decided to head into the first pub that looked good, figuring we could get some filling Irish food, and, of course, that first drink. But, it was to our sad fate (well, not really) that the pub we landed in served no food at all. That did not deter us from leaving. I don't think I've ever had a drink before noon, but, ya know, we were in Dublin now. And, besides, if we considered that we were still on Pacific Time, it was 2:00 a.m., a totally legitimate time to be drinking. So a pint each it was for us. And then another one after that.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSahKhtRPq-iOmL9_pIIs_gS0_c3ikRpvG3IROXj5UL4Du916mNs4E7q7kjXrXrkS-g26J-krjSG7bWmrDE6i0MCeW2hnyNBC9exIKzdAQSVXmhyphenhyphenprYVnB1GXteCXm_Etgpj50CTZVkE9i/s1600/guinness.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 239px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSahKhtRPq-iOmL9_pIIs_gS0_c3ikRpvG3IROXj5UL4Du916mNs4E7q7kjXrXrkS-g26J-krjSG7bWmrDE6i0MCeW2hnyNBC9exIKzdAQSVXmhyphenhyphenprYVnB1GXteCXm_Etgpj50CTZVkE9i/s320/guinness.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622572011532835506" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">That first Guinness, Monday a.m. in Dublin.</span><br /><br />Now, people who know me know what a total lightweight I am even in the best of conditions. Two pints is really about all I can handle even on a full stomach and a good night's sleep. So it is not much of an exaggeration to say that by the time I finished the second one shortly after 11 a.m., I was hammered. Here was the first sign: As I staggered off the bar stool and out the door, the bartender called to me, because I was about to wander off with my passport lying on the floor. I thanked him, and we made our way back to the Clarence. Keith's room was ready by this point, so he went up to settle and crash, while it was back to the Tea Room for me, where I ordered another coffee just to mess with my confused nervous system even more.<br /><br />Shortly thereafter, my room was ready and I went upstairs. I'm sorry to report, however, that I don't remember much of what happened at this juncture in time. I do know that I somehow managed to land in bed, because I woke up there a few hours later, totally confused as to where I was and what day it was. <br /><br />I stumbled out of bed, still fully dressed, and made my way to the bathroom. <br /><br />I looked in the mirror, at my baggy eyes and jowled face and tousled hair.<br /><br />I made to turn on the water faucet to wash my face off, but as I looked down, saw something that at first totally confused me, then horrified me, and then made me laugh. There, in the sink, floating in water, was my autographed copy of Ken Bruen's <span style="font-style:italic;">The Guards</span>, now about 4 inches thicker than it was when I bought it.<br /><br />I still have no idea how my book ended up in the sink. Maybe I thought it was a good idea to wash it. Maybe my drunken self thought it needed a bath. It remains a mystery.<br /><br />From here, a bit bummed and chagrined, I took a long, hot shower, shaved, changed my clothes, and got ready to meet up to go to PopCap's Dublin office. I unpacked my things and got my things together to take with me, only to discover that I had somehow managed to lose my California driver's license. I remembered the bartender handing me back my passport. My shame and chagrin was now doubled.<br /><br />I'd been in Dublin for all of 3 hours. In that time I'd managed to get drunk, destroy an autographed book, and lose my ID. <br /><br />I was off to a brilliant start.Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-6453740407339431502011-06-12T17:59:00.000-07:002011-06-12T18:36:42.613-07:00More on The Wise Man's Fear and Other Pop Culture Detritus.Happy Sunday!<br /><br />It has been the best kind of Sunday for yours truly--that is, absolutely no plans whatsoever. With all sorts of travel behind me, and another trip out of the country in a week, I seriously needed a day of downtime, and today I got it. <br /><br />The best part of my day--or maybe the worst--was finally finishing up Patrick Rothfuss' <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wise Man's Fear.</span> If you read my previous blog entry on this book, and if you cared, you will note that I was supremely disappointed in this followup to one of the great fantasy novels of the best decade or so--<span style="font-style: italic;">The Name of The Wind.</span> I was holding out hope, against all reason, that the last bit of the book would somehow redeem the mess that is the first 2/3. But, nah. No surprise really. This book was just all over the map plotwise, with just atrocious pacing throughout, so even though some individual parts were okay, thanks to Rothfuss' lovely prose and good ear, my overall impression is the same as it was about 800 pages ago: this book needed a serious edit. Ugh.<br /><br />In happier news today, I plowed through a humongous chunk of <span style="font-style: italic;">Uncharted 2 </span>today on my new PS3. It took me five years to finally get my act together and buy the console, partly because of money (like everyone else), and partly because I felt like my 360 was enough and I don't play that much of that console anyway. What tipped me over the edge was receiving the email from Sony that I was entitled to the two free "welcome back" games on PSN, following their security debacle, thanks to my foresight in registering the one PSP game I've bought in the last five years, Tactics Ogre. Those free games, plus the fact that I knew I had $300 in credit sitting on my card at GameStop, finally pushed me over the edge. And, ya know what? I'm glad. I'm totally digging it.<br /><br />I have four PS3 games in my possession now: Infamous and Little Big Planet from the "welcome back" deal, Uncharted 2, and Demon's Souls. Uncharted 2 I picked up at the store with the machine, based on remembering everyone and their mom and their mom's mom telling me this was the best game of 2009, back when I didn't give a shit cuz I didn't have the console. And, yeah. It's awesome. What's particularly satisfying to me is the dialog--something I was not prepared for. <br /><br />Since I'm so utterly LTTP on this, there's no real point in me blabbering on about it, but I'll just say that it's a rare videogame indeed that actually manages to pull of witty, adult banter that isn't just cheesy or groan-inducing or a pale imitation of the sources its mimicking. Clearly we're in Indiana Jones turf here--obviously--but somehow Naughty Dog is able to give Nathan Drake and his pals (and enemies) personalities, and lines to say, that totally hold their own. And if the story isn't particularly original, I still--amazingly--feel emotionally invested in the characters' plight. Gameplay-wise (and I believe I have at most 2 chapters to go), I've loved the variety of the level design (the train was my favorite), and the difficulty (I'm playing on Normal) is just right for me, though I imagine lots of hardcore folks find it too easy. My only complaint? A bit too much shooting, especially near the end here. I'm all for shooters. It's not that. It's just that I like the adventurey/platformy stuff in games like this more. Some of the firefights here just feel a bit too gratuitous, and long. And I seriously could have done without the sniper level (or any sniper level in any game ever again.) Overall, though, I'm loving it. And had I played it at the time, chances are it would have been at the top of my list in 2009 too. Now I just have to go back and play the first one.<br /><br />More quick pop culture hits:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Killing on AMC</span>: Still totally hooked on this, as is the wife, but it ain't perfect. For one, there's the issue of the rain. Seriously, it doesn't even rain this much in the fucking rainforest. There isn't this much water in the ocean. We get that it's in Seattle, okay? And we get that you must have read somewhere that it rains in Seattle. But the constant heavy downpour in practically every scene has now moved from distracting to ridiculous. Oh yeah, and, err, it might help to advance the plot a bit now and then, and not devote weeks to plot points that end up being total red herrings. (And also, I can't tell if the Twin Peaks references are deliberate and loving homage, or just straight ripoff. At least they didn't call the casino Two-Eyed Jacks.) But credit the writers, and my love of a good whodunnit, for still tuning in every damn week. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Oz on HBO GO</span> - I've already seen this entire series. And there's other series on HBO that I could/should be watching instead. But there's something about Oz that's compelling me to do a second run-through, and I don't think it's all the male nudity. At least that's what I'll keep telling myself. Mostly I'm loving seeing all the actors who would then go on to The Wire. So many more than I originally thought! Still, I wish I could just get myself to stop watching it already, since I know what happens, and finally get on to Deadwood.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Comic Books:</span> Yeah, I'm back in. Only digitally though. And I'm taking it easy so far. Based on recommendations from Twitterites, I've now gotten myself into Chew, Atomic Robo, Criminal, Invincible, and Morning Glories. All great stuff. I'm totally going to stay away from the Marvel/DC superheroes though, especially with DC's reboot looming. I've lived long enough to see this kind of reboot more than once, and ya know...no thanks. In fact, let's get Hitler to weigh in on this matter, since he says it best:<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UpUh_Yl49l4" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><br />That's it for today. Not a particularly funny or witty or insightful post, but, hey, maybe none of them are! This was more a Sunday afternoon brain dump, in front of the NBA Finals. And if you made it this far, and have a PS3, and feel like being my pal on PSN, go ahead and add me: JeffAtPopCap. I'm reluctant to send that out to 17,000 people on Twitter, but since only a fraction ever look at this page, and only a fraction of that will make it to this paragraph, why, consider yourself "lucky!"<br /><br />cheers,<br />JeffJeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-70138389569746851272011-06-05T10:08:00.000-07:002011-06-05T12:41:40.921-07:00On not attending E3 for the first time since 1996When I attended my first E3 convention, as a writer/editor for Computer Gaming World magazine in 1996, there was no Web yet. No Kotaku, Joystiq, IGN, GameSpot. No fansites. No liveblogging. No Twitter. There wasn't even a TV presence yet, because, at that point, the mainstream media still didn't really give much of a shit about videogaming. So when it came to the press, the print magazines--the "hobbyist" magazines-- were <span style="font-style: italic;">it</span>.<br /><br />Walking through the LA Convention Center that first year with Editor-in-Chief Johnny Wilson is still one of my most indelible memories of all 15 E3s I have been to (I missed only the very first one, in 1995). That was as close to an "Omar comin!" moment as I've ever witnessed, as the arrival of Johnny to your E3 booth meant that the King had arrived. I'm barely exaggerating. With the press (and gaming in general) being such a relatively small world at the time, Johnny's blessing, in the PC gaming scene, was about as high a stamp of approval as you could get.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UmtuRRhtGQw" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="349" width="425"></iframe><br /><br />In those days, the pressure for the writers and editors at this show was not nearly what it is for the poor saps covering it today, when even a blog post is now "late," what with everyone livetweeting everything. For us, we just had to make sure to take good enough notes to be able to write our articles for the print magazine when we got back to San Francisco. We still had deadlines, of course, and often they were brutal around E3 (we'd have the whole magazine basically ready to go before the show, and then have to come back and hurriedly write the E3 feature in time to make the printer deadline), but still, compared to today, it was luxurious.<br /><br />My head is entirely full of E3 today, not just because the show starts tomorrow and almost my entire Twitter feed is full of pre-show chatter, but also because this is going to mark the first time in 15 years that I am <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>attending, and I'm finding myself to be full of conflicting emotions about it. When you attend something so many years in a row, it becomes part of your life. For me (and most of the folks I know who attend), it ends up being less about whatever may be happening at the show than something of a gigantic reunion, a ritual we all go through together. And within that ritual, our group had its own rituals: the Ziff Davis party at the Figueroa, the Morton's steak dinner, cigars by the Figueroa pool, and, for me personally, my annual breakfast with my dad at the Patio restaurant.<br /><br />I had the option to go this year. So it wasn't a matter of not being able to go. But my reality, this year, is this: I'm on the road all the time now. I just got back from China, then spent a few weeks in my "regular" PopCap routine of back-and forth to Seattle, and in two weeks I'm flying off to Dublin for 6 days. That's a lot of being away from home, and my family. And this week, this E3 week, is my daughter's finals week. And when I arrived back home from Seattle after my last trip up, she said, as clear and direct as she always is, "Dad, please be home for my finals week." So, ya see, right then and there it was decided. Nothing trumps that. Nothing.<br /><br />I do have a fair bit of jealousy and of feeling "left out," if I'm being honest. But the truth is, too, that since I left the press in 2008, the show itself isn't the same for me anyway. When it comes to actually seeing things at the show, nothing beats a press pass. And the previous two years, when I attended on behalf of EA, while still awesome from a socializing aspect, were brutal in terms of trying to actually see the stuff (like the Nintendo 3DS) that people were raving about. Suddenly I was waiting in all those lines I'd been able to cut in front of for over a decade--and man did <span style="font-style: italic;">that </span>suck. Now that I'm at PopCap, my "need" to be at this show is even less crucial, at least right now, this year, as what we do isn't necessarily the best fit for a show of this scale. (PAX is much more are speed--and yes I'll be there.) And finally, in regards to my PopCap job itself, I love it, and the things I'll be doing during this E3 week, and then in Dublin, are thoroughly satisfying to me, and really just what my life is about right now. So, I'm trying to be philosophical about it, be happy for my very, very lucky place in life, and know that I will be back to E3 again when it makes more sense and the timing works better.<br /><br />I could probably write a book (or at least an extremely long blog post) on my E3 experiences, but here are a few random memories from year's past, before I get on with my day:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1997 in Atlanta: </span> Absolutely sweltering, unbearable heat that had all of us even sweatier and smellier and grosser than we already normally were. Having one of the CGW editors say he was taking us to the "best wings place in Atlanta," only to realize, as we approached it, that he was talking about Hooters. Seeing the Foo Fighters at the Sony party on an outdoor rooftop.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">1998:</span> Seeing Duke Nukem Forever for the first time. LOL.<br /><br />1999: Seeing Team Fortress 2 and thinking it was going to be the greatest PC game of all time.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zDAc_q1I5U7Vjh-3hK3GZzm0CeVArmuIp9nReYWi0pdLUlIhwvz6tPsPuG72Np-c01caSL0ARQJu_Y8w6JDZh8quM2Ri8wv1AAoiierP8V3c20asu5oYuZvnI74Rx1lJnPCLq6RIiDzL/s1600/Tf2_oldstyle.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zDAc_q1I5U7Vjh-3hK3GZzm0CeVArmuIp9nReYWi0pdLUlIhwvz6tPsPuG72Np-c01caSL0ARQJu_Y8w6JDZh8quM2Ri8wv1AAoiierP8V3c20asu5oYuZvnI74Rx1lJnPCLq6RIiDzL/s320/Tf2_oldstyle.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5614795915794351522" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The original look of Team Fortress 2, circa E3 1999</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2000:</span> Having the CGW editors literally running up to me telling me I <span style="font-style: italic;">had </span>to go see the new, secret, behind-closed-doors PC game that Bungie was working on: Halo.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2001:</span> Seeing how hard Microsoft was pimping the Xbox and realizing, even back then, that they were going to bail on PC gaming (even if they'll never admit it).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2002-2006</span> (Exact dates lost to the vagaries of time and memory): One of my then brand-new editors ordering a double Porterhouse for $80 at the annual Morton's dinner and eating the whole thing by himself. Smoking cigars with Bioware's Dr Ray and Greg by the Figueroa pool. Trying to get into every "hot" E3 party at night, and, when succeeding, staying for about 20 minutes because the parties were always too crowded and lame, and it was much nicer and fun and relaxing and satisfying by the Figueroa pool. Getting annoyed with the increasingly bigger crowds at the show, and the TV cameras, and the websites and "bloggers" invading "our" space.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2007: </span>Getting what we wished for by having the oversized, overcrowded convention reduced to a tiny "business summit" in Santa Monica, and then instantly realizing it was a huge mistake as it felt <span style="font-style: italic;">too </span>tiny and marginal and depressing, like a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman convention. We "needed" the giant party that was E3 as much as a celebration of self and gorilla chestbeating than for actual, logical work business reasons.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">2009:</span> Attending E3 for the first time ever not as part of the media, but as a representative for the Sims team at EA, and discovering that the only thing harder than rushing from one appointment to another as a member of the press and frantically trying to write everything as fast as possible, was standing in one spot all day long demoing the same shitty-ass Wii game that no one gives a crap about over and over and over until I wanted to shoot myself.<br /><br />So, yeah. There are more of those. I'll get to 'em someday. Meanwhile, I have a lot to do this week in my current job, but I will, of course be monitoring Twitter and the websites and even the TV to see all the fun stuff coming out of the show. I'll miss all my friends and colleagues. I'll miss the general insanity of the whole thing. And I'll miss breakfast with my dad.<br /><br />But I'll be home, where I'm needed and where I want to be this week. So have a great show everyone. And don't forget, amidst all the "work," how lucky you all are to be there!Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-7145995251273763242011-05-30T20:01:00.001-07:002011-05-30T20:02:21.985-07:00In flight, May 30, Oakland-SeattleSo here's the deal. I'm on a plane now: Alaska Airlines Flight 345, Oakland to Seattle, pretty much my "regular" flight when I commute to PopCap. I'm typing on my iPad, and using the inflight wifi, confirming that I am, in fact, communicating with you from the future. Huzzah!<br /><br />The problem with this flight today, other than the 1.5 hour delay (second one in a week), is that I'm flying on Memorial Day, which not only means I'm not home on the holiday like I should be, but also that the plane is full of civilians, as snobby frequent fliers like me like to call you. Rubes and mouth-breathing morons are two other technical terms, though we try to only use those in our secret meetings.<br /><br />Anyway, so I have a couple with two screaming babies behind me, and a guy next to me who smells like he hasn't bathed since Hee Haw went off the air in the 70s. And the guy two seats down from me keeps snuffling his nose so loudly I can hear it through my noise-canceling headphones.<br /><br />I know what you may be thinking: Boy, this Jeff Green character is a real curmudgeonly asshole! To which I can only respond: Welcome to my blog! But, look, I fly a lot now, so what little patience I had in humanity is severely tested aboard these flying tin cans, especially when the guy next to me smells like a soggy bag of dog flatulence. It's times like these that I wish the airports had delousing and decontamination chambers at the gates. I've written letters to all the major airline airlines repeatedly now for months, but oddly, I've yet to receive a single reply, despite me adding "READ NOW OR ELSE" on the front of every Yu-Gi-Oh envelope used for this correspondence.<br /><br />There's nothing you can do about screaming babies on planes. Nothing legal or socially acceptable, anyhoo. And hey, I've been there. Not only did I used to have my own screaming baby on planes back in the day, but just two weeks ago I was screaming myself when the flight attendants ran out of peanuts before it was my turn. I'm tearing up a little even thinking about it now. But, ya know, smelly passengers--that's another thing. It seems like the bare minimum one should do before confining oneself in a closed space with strangers for a couple hours is to make sure beforehand that one is not emanating a rotten, fetid, and/or fecal odor from one's body, but maybe that's just me. Maybe this guy is proud of his stench, or doesn't actually notice the flowers wilting and dogs whimpering and women fainting as he walks by.<br /><br />The upside of this situation is that it is giving me something tocthink about and share with you on this flight, which you in turn can share with your children, and their children, and so on. As those noted rock emissaries Journey once astutely noted, "the wheel in the sky keeps on turning." As I look out the window of the airplane right now and gaze at the infinite sky, all I can do is say, "yeah, it does."<br /><br />I hope you have enjoyed my heartfelt ruminations on this flight, as it has made me feel close to each and every one of you. I hope you feel the same. Now I'm going to blast some Beastie Boys into my ears and try to breathe in as little as possible until this flight lands and I can get the heck out of here.<br /><br />Namaste, <br />Jeff<br /><br />- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad<br /><br />Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-66168716983924445762011-05-28T17:40:00.000-07:002011-05-28T19:08:51.812-07:00Thoughts on Sons of Anarchy, Season 3So I just plowed through Season 3 of Sons of Anarchy, paying $1.99 a pop to watch 'em on my iPad, rather than wait for the DVDs, or reruns on FX, to come out later this summer. It was worth it.<br /><br />Season 3 has gotten somewhat of a bad rap in some quarters, both for the slower pace (vs the near-nonstop action of the first two seasons), as well as the extended foray over to Belfast, was a decidedly different turn for the show, with all sorts of new characters and subplots, which, for some, detracted from the "main story." Not for me, though. For me, it only deepened the main story--that being the coming of age of Jax Teller and what he is going to do with his father's legacy. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">[THERE WILL BE BIGTIME SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT. STOP NOW IF YOU HAVEN"T SEEN SEASON 3 YET.]</span><br /><br />The key to the theme of this season lies in the names of the opening and finale episodes: "SO" and "NS," respectively. Series creator/writer Kurt Sutter loves his symmetry and cleverly constructed narrative architecture in his show. These two episode names, of course, form the word "sons," which not only are shown physically in the 2 rings that Jax leaves behind on his father's gravestone, but also represent what this entire season was about: Jax searching for his son, and Jax searching for his role <span style="font-style: italic;">as </span>a son. (And the moment that Jax ponders letting his son go was <span style="font-style: italic;">the </span>most devastating scene, emotionally, of the entire season, and maybe even of the series as a whole.)<br /><br />Even back in Season 1 we knew that the Sons of Anarchy's primary revenue stream came from selling IRA guns, so Ireland has always loomed in the background as central to the show's mythology. What we learned this season was that it goes way beyond the simple gun-running. Jax's father, John Teller, has an entirely different, and somewhat secret, life over in Ireland, complete with a mistress and another child. Until this point in the show, Jax has looked up to his father, and wrestled with his father's belated wishes, expressed in his memoir, to have Jax take the club in a "better direction," away from the violence and outlawism represented by Clay and Gemma.<br /><br /> The tension between Jax and Clay, of course, has been the central conflict of the entire series, and, for all those who know their Hamlet, upon which Sons of Anarchy is explictly based, we know this isn't going to go well. But this discovery, by Jax, that his father, too, was less than a saint, coupled with the present day threats to the club (the white supremacists of Season 2, and his kidnapped son in Season 3), help lead Jax back into the fold with Clay--thus depriving some viewers of what satisfied them most: Jax vs Clay. But the season finale's brilliant final minutes makes it clear that this conflict has merely just been postponed, and, in fact, is only going to get worse.<br /><br />The final scene is a juxtoposition of the show's two main female characters each reading a letter, and the two letters perfectly, brilliantly make clear just how ironic and tragic Jax's resolution with Clay is. The first is from Jax to his mother, making it clear that he has renounced his father now and is totally with Clay and the club. The "betrayal" she was worried about, that <span style="font-style: italic;">we</span> were worried about, turned out to be a fakeout for a good portion of the season. But if there was any doubt that we, the viewers, were supposed to consider this a good thing, we had Jax's letter juxtaposed with his father's old letter to Maureen in Ireland, now discovered by Tara, in which he reveals his fear that (hello, Hamlet!) that he was going to be killed by Gemma and Clay. So Kurt Sutter, evil bastard that he is, picks the exact moment that Jax has finally given up his father's path towards the "good" to reveal what we knew all along but were waiting to have explicitly revealed: that his father had been murdered by his mother and step-dad. And because Tara now knows, that means it's only a matter of time before Jax finds out, with a path of destruction to follow. <br /><br />But, ya know, this is also a pulpy action show about a motorcycle gang. One in which we expect (and enjoy) large chunks of violence and badassery (Clay's "I don't recognize your bullshit MC" was my favorite line of the season), and while this season *did* have plenty of that, I can see, if you were watching it one week at a time, rather than in a marathon like I did, how this season's slower pace might have been frustrating. Sutter is always looking at the big picture, setting things up in long arcs with big payoffs. He spins a million plates at once over a variety of characters and story arcs, some of them crossing multiple seasons, and in this season more than the first two he let some individual episodes contain more exposition than action. But, holy crap, the action, when it finally came, was awesome, as two of the show's biggest villains--Stahl and Jimmy O-- finally get their due in the most satisfying possible way. I don't know about you, but I almost let out a vocal cheer when Chibs finally gets his revenge, as brutal as it was. And, hey, after we had to watch Ethan Zoebelle slip away scot-free last season, this was amazingly satisfying.<br /><br />Of course, a lot of this stuff doesn't really hold up to close scrutiny. Once you really start thinking about Jax's and the club's "The Sting"-like triple cross of Stahl, it kind of falls apart, in how they could possibly have known it would all play out the way it did. Gemma's escape from the hospital seemed totally unrealistic, as did the fact that killing of Stahl and Jimmy wouldn't have raised 1000 red flags that would have backfired on the lot of them, including Unser.<br /><br />But, hey, it's a pulpy action show about a motorcycle gang. And I love it. I love Kurt Sutter's ambition, the way he digs deep with the characters, the way he so brilliantly orchestrates his plots, while simultaneously reveling in the pulp and violence. It's a highbrow show in a lowbrow form, or maybe a lowbrow show with highbrow ambition. (Or, if you're not a fan, it may be a middlebrow show that thinks it's more clever than it is---but I wouldn't agree with you.)<br /><br />In any event, I loved Season 3, and recommend, if you watched it at the time and were disappointed, that you watch it again when you can binge on multiple episodes at once. Because I think the story will seem much more tighter and focused and suspenseful if you do. And if you've actually read this far, and are as big a fan as I am, than I know you will at least agree that Season 4 can't start soon enough.Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-25758355957887341712011-05-25T18:10:00.000-07:002011-05-25T18:35:39.280-07:00Lament of a formerly skinny guy.I spent the first 20 years of my life being rail thin. If you can, in general, divide your geek stereotype into two broad categories--overly fat dudes and rail-thin string beans--I was firmly in the latter camp. ( I also had bright red hair, and glasses, and braces, which put me on the fast track towards Never Having a Date and Listening to Lots of Dr. Demento--but that's a subject for another post.) And while I think it's definitely harder, in terms of social acceptance, to be fat than it is to be skinny, when you are an adolescent the skinniness is still a form of "otherness," of not being "regular"---which is all that most of us ever want at that age. I know I did. I <span style="font-style: italic;">hated </span>being that skinny, and tried everything I could, at certain points, to gain weight. My metabolism just didn't allow for it, nor did my DNA.<br /><br />Oh, to suffer from that problem now.<br /><br />I remember at the time lots of older people telling me, "yeah, you just wait," but I never could believe them because I was so skinny for so long that I couldn't possibly see how my body would ever change. But holy double-double with extra cheese were they right. Now I got my "normalcy," all right, and boy do I wish I could get that old metabolism back. Because I've got about 15 pounds of blubber, minimum, that need to be sliced off my body so that I can look in the mirror and not want to point and laugh, or cry.<br /><br />It totally crept up on me, too. My wife was the first to notice, of course, because that's what spouses do. "Maybe you really don't need to eat that whole pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk tonight, Jeff. I'm just saying." Not the kind of thing a guy really wants to hear, especially when you feel your day was so damn lame that you <span style="font-style: italic;">deserve </span>the full pint of ice cream, and especially when you spent decades of your life being able to eat whatever you damn well pleased and couldn't gain weight even when you tried.<br /><br />So I was blind to it, at first. It's what we do. I'd look in the mirror and not really see the current reality, but instead the me I was used to seeing, that I'd built my identity around. In junior high, one asshole kid who used to be my friend said I was a "tomato on a stick," the tomato being a reference to my red hair. And that's what I've been in my head for forever. Now I'm kind of more just like a tomato. Or perhaps a cantaloupe. In any case, it's clear, once I take a good look, or stand on a scale, that I can retire that moniker, at least for the near future.<br /><br />So, yeah. I have to watch my weight, just like everyone else now. In February, PopCap sponsored an internal contest called "Play2Lose", in which participants signed up for a specific amount of weight to lose, and would receive a $50 Amazon gift certificate if they reached their goal. I signed up to lose 10. By the end of the contest period, I had gained 8. I guess the whole "drinking more beer while I'm in Seattle and also see how many cheeseburgers I can eat each week" was not the best possible strategy for this particular competition. <br /><br />It really sucks. Now I know just how spoiled and easy I had it for so long. And, far, far worse than just feelings of vanity over appearance, of course, is the actual health and fitness aspect to this. Because in addition to eating more, I compounded the problem by exercising less (something also I never needed to do to keep the flubber off). I've made a serious, concerted effort to get on a regular exercise regime now (elliptical/bike/yoga/weights), but good lord do I feel like a fat, sweaty tub of lard every time I do it now, huffing and puffing over an exercise that I used to be able to do with half the effort or exhaustion. It's embarrassing to myself. But it's also good motivation for me to keep at it. There's no way I'll ever be a skinny rail of a guy again. But maybe I can somehow work my way back to feeling "normal" again. Or maybe I'll figure out, after all these decades on the planet, that such a thing might not actually exist.<br /><br />I'll settle for healthy and happy.Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-59228808530826550402011-05-22T17:42:00.000-07:002011-05-22T18:19:55.361-07:00Why I resent The Wise Man's FearI am 750 pages into Patrick Rothfuss' <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wise Man's Fear</span>--over 200 pages to go still--and I can't recall the last time a book has made me more resentful. Why resentful? Because, I am sorry to say, it is boring the crap out of me, and has been doing so for nearly all its 750 pages so far, and yet I can't not finish now. And so it is the obligation that I resent. The obligation to finish a book I am thoroughly not enjoying, and yet have committed so much time to already (in addition to the outstanding first book in the series before this, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Name of the Wind</span>), that to put it down now without finishing would just feel like even more of a waste of my time than its been already. If I'm going to waste my time, in other words, I at least want to be a completist about it.<br /><br />My reaction to this book is bumming me out. And if it wasn't for reading like-minded reviews elsewhere, I'd wonder if maybe something was wrong with me. Because the first book, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Name of the Wind</span>, was just so damn good--one of the best fantasy books I've read in a long, long time. It was just the story he told, and the way he told it, but the writing itself, which was just so clearly a cut above the standard stuff of this genre. (Though there are some amazing fantasy writers out there---my favorite, which is a cheat, because he's as much a comic writer and satirist as "fantasy writer," is Terry Pratchett, but that's a topic for another post.) <br /><br />Rothfuss just has a great way with words, and when you marry it, as in the first book, to a great story with great momentum and suspense and mystery, it makes for marvelous entertainment. The saving grace in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Wise Man's Fear</span> is that Rothfuss still writes great sentences. He has a poet's ear for description and cadence, which, when everything else is going wrong, still helps carry me along without wanting to blow my brains out.<br /><br />Not much of a recommendation, I know. The problem with this book is <span style="font-style: italic;">everything but the individual sentences.</span> I don't even know where to start. Well, okay we can start at the beginning, or more specifically, the book's first 300 pages, which feels to me like nothing but a total, unnecessary rehash of the first book. ( I'm trying to avoid specifics, because I don't want to give away any spoilers, not that I think you need to bother.) It's one thing, in a trilogy, to start off where the previous book concluded. It's another to go on for hundreds of pages without doing anything to advance the plot beyond where we were a few years ago. Yes, we know Kvothe is poor, and brilliant, and in love with Denna, and is awesome at the lute, and is the greatest student at the University in a billion years, but, good god, man, we knew that already and have been waiting for years now for you to tell us something we didn't know.<br /><br />Once Kvothe does finally move on--which, if I had edited the book, would have happened about 250 pages earlier--it hardly gets better. While the Name of the Wind drives along on the strength of a gripping storyline, Wise Man's Fear feels episodic, and disjointed, with "set pieces" stuck together with masking tape. First he goes here, then he goes here, then he has amazing sex because he's so good at having sex even immortal faerie queens can't believe it, then he goes here, and then he goes here, without ever seeming to get one step closer to the essential mystery that opens the first book: The murder of his parents, for one, and how he becomes the guy we know he is to become in the book's present-time sequences. And when every episodic, barely interesting event seems to have "look how awesome I was!" as its point, it just makes it that much more intolerable. When I finished <span style="font-style: italic;">Name of the Wind</span>, I felt like I could have listened to Kvothe's stories for a number of books. Now I just kinda want to kick his ass.<br /><br />But, who knows. It's the middle book. The story is not done yet. Maybe, in retrospect, all this rambling braggadocio will mean something in the context of the larger work. Maybe the third book will be so satisfying it will help this book seem better. And, hey, I'm not even done with this yet. Maybe, in the 200 pages I still have to go, Rothfuss will tie all the pieces together in a way that will make me feel ashamed and embarrassed that I ranted here prematurely. (In which case I'll have to post again to apologize.)<br /><br />And I <span style="font-style: italic;">am </span>ranting because I've so rarely been this disappointed by the followup to a book that I loved. Because I'm a slow reader, I almost never read books twice, but I loved <span style="font-style: italic;">The Name of the Wind</span> so much that this one I did read twice--and enjoyed it even more the second time. But now, I'm counting the pages for every chapter. It feels like being back in college. "Okay, if I just read 10 more pages, then I can reward myself with something fun." And this is why I'm so resentful. This is supposed to be my leisure reading. <span style="font-style: italic;">This </span>is supposed to be fun. But it feels like a slog. I'm looking at the stack of books sitting by my nightstand, waiting to be read, and I am resentful that I can't get to them yet, because of this interminably boring book.<br /><br />Most of all, I'm resentful because I want to believe. I want to love it. I still think he is fantastic writer for the most part. And I know I'll still be buying the third book on Day One. But, for the love of Gandalf, <span style="font-style: italic;">please </span>let that third book be a better read than this one. I need my entertainment to entertain me, not make me a bitter, ranty blogger.Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-35508147024051125342011-05-17T17:23:00.000-07:002011-05-17T18:24:25.672-07:00LA Noire and the "DAY 1!" problem.When you are in the videogame press, as I was for about 400 years, you get kinda spoiled. I'm not even talking about the ridiculous wining and dining such as is happening with the "E3 Judges" this week, but really just the day-to-day mundane aspect of getting <span style="font-style: italic;">every single game free.</span> I used to always remind myself, and other editors, to keep in mind that most people actually had to pay, and pay a LOT, for the games we were reviewing, and to never take that for granted--both when writing, and also just in appreciation for how good we had it.<br /><br />Now that I'm a "civilian, " I'm like everyone I used to talk about. I have to pay for my games. This means I have to pick and choose what I'm going to buy, and when I'm going to buy it. Most of my press friends already have LA Noire, released to the public today, and have played a bunch of it, because they got it for free. Me? I don't have it yet, and I have to decide, like you, whether it's worth spending $60 for, or not.<br /><br />The old me--and the part that still likes to stay current with everything--wanted to rush out and get it ASAP this morning. It's today's <span style="font-style: italic;">big deal</span>, after all, and I want to chime in with my know-it-all perspective, dammit! But the old me didn't have to think about where this factored in with, ya know, every other fiscal commitment I have. Sixty dollars is a lot of freakin' money. iPhone games or Amazon MP3 deals are one thing. I can justify those impulse buys all the time. A full-price brand new console game is something else entirely.<br /><br />And then when I really start thinking about it rationally, I remember the huge backlog of games I haven't finished yet--or even started. (Like Dead Space 2, still waiting for me, even though I "needed" that one Day 1 as well. ) My backlog, like many gamers, is ridiculous. I couldn't even tell you--especially because of all those free games the old me got--how many unfinished/unplayed games I have. 50? More? Plus, there's the fact that, at some point, there's going to be a price drop. Because there's always a price drop. I could easily, happily play all the games I haven't played yet (like "Bully," another Rockstar game!) for a long time and just wait for LA Noire to hit a more reasonable price point, at a time when I actually have the time to play it. Totally reasonable, right?<br /><br />And yet--that DAY ONE impulse remains. You want to be part of the phenomenon, the zeitgeist. You think you have to play it because everyone else is. You get worked up and hyped up, and everyone who participates amps it up a little more, encouraging and validating your own "need" to have the game RIGHT NOW.<br /><br />But time has told me that if I try to just resist that, I (and my bank account) won't regret it. That first wave of hype only lasts so long, and is usually followed either by an "err, wait, this isn't actually THAT great" buyer's remorse, or, more often, "this is pretty good but I have 1000 other things to do and games to play so maybe I'll put this down for awhile"--after which it gets neglected while the next bright new shiny DAY ONE game grabs everyone's attention, yet again.<br /><br />That hype machine is, of course, what all the game companies want and need and count on. They NEED you to buy those DAY ONE games on DAY ONE. Their stockholders need you to, too. But, ya know, the games aren't going anywhere, and they'll just get cheaper. And now that I'm a civilian, this matters to me way more than the hype.Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-88307895573159357482011-05-15T18:04:00.000-07:002011-05-15T18:57:06.026-07:00Uh oh, I'm thinking about comic books again.Like many nerds, I have a bit of a collecting problem. As in: I like to collect things. (Game Freak gets a Genius of the Millennium award for recognizing this problem in us and creating Pokemon, by the way.)<br /><br />My worst collecting addiction, by far, is with music. I really make no apologies for it. It's just too much a part of who I am, and what gives me joy and meaning in life. I have hundreds of vinyl records and CDs, and, boy, have I spent a lot of time and money over the past four decades thinking about it all and obsessing over them and going down different avenues every time I fixated on a new sound or genre or artist. I'm particularly glad to be living through the digital age now, though, since the *worst* thing, by far, of the collector mentality is the sheer clutter of it all. Being able to buy music (and not have to wait for the store to open, or to hope that the record is in stock) without adding more *stuff* to my house is a godsend. And as much as I love my vinyl records (not so much with CDs), there's no chance I'd ever go back. I'm all digital now, baby.<br /><br />What I wanted to talk about in this post, however, is comic books--another obsession. This one was never as important to me as music, except for the fact that once I start collecting, I can't help but kind of go all in. Though I read a bunch of Marvel and DC stuff when I was growing up in the late 60s and early 70s, I never developed a habit for it. (What I did collect back then was MAD Magazine, one of my big life influences.)<br /><br />My comic obsession really started in the mid-80s, when I was already in my 20s. This was the point at which the indies first began to rise, as well as the watershed rebooting of the superhero genre through Alan Moore's <span style="font-style: italic;">Watchmen</span> and Frank Miller's <span style="font-style: italic;">The Dark Knight Returns</span>. Thanks to these guys, as well as comics like Harvey Pekar's <span style="font-style: italic;">American Splendor </span>(my all-time favorite comic book ever), David Boswell's incomparably ridiculous <span style="font-style: italic;">Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman </span>(my all-time second favorite comic book ever) Bob Burden's <span style="font-style: italic;">Flaming Carrot</span>, Peter Bagge's <span style="font-style: italic;">Hate</span>, and Daniel Clowes' <span style="font-style: italic;">Eightball</span>, I discovered comics as an intellectual pursuit, and these alternative books coincided and collided nicely with a lot of my punk/alternative musical obsession at the time. Comic book shops (like the just-departed, legendary Comic Relief in Berkeley, R.I.P.) were added to my shopping rotation along with the record store, where I'd blow an irresponsible amount of whatever disposable income I had at the time, which was not much.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIcIkkvVDMOiUWUs9MZ8UYm1n5AK_tltJNiCTZB9YkN8mQDMDx-EQUGCtEanegNLipv1cRC1UwquSTe3C-MKzWIzQ21-RdoEVe6wARCKFPCFTGfihRinoVRTutARxEWGwTqC5l2fwpSUMe/s1600/reid_fleming_2.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 294px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIcIkkvVDMOiUWUs9MZ8UYm1n5AK_tltJNiCTZB9YkN8mQDMDx-EQUGCtEanegNLipv1cRC1UwquSTe3C-MKzWIzQ21-RdoEVe6wARCKFPCFTGfihRinoVRTutARxEWGwTqC5l2fwpSUMe/s320/reid_fleming_2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5607120273887432626" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This lasted for awhile, but did not persist. Once I met my now-wife and started actually thinking about things like, say, a career, I tapered off on the comics for a number of years--- until I got a job at <span style="font-style: italic;">Computer Gaming World</span> in 1996. This, for me, was the true moment of doom. Suddenly, from the first week of the job, I found myself surrounded by grown men, at least one of them older than me, who were obsessing over comics and--worst of all--were <span style="font-style: italic;">talking </span>about them at all the time. If you like nerdy things, like I do, and like collecting things, like I do, and suddenly find yourself amongst a group of people all riled up about the Wednesday comic run, and then spending the week dissecting the latest developments in the Marvel and DC worlds, among other things, well, let's just say you'd have to be tougher than I was to resist.<br /><br />I started out small. And at first I stayed away from the superhero stuff, gravitating instead to indie stuff like Jeff Smith's <span style="font-style: italic;">Bone</span>, Stan Sakai's <span style="font-style: italic;">Usagi Yojimbo</span>, and Mark Crilley's <span style="font-style: italic;">Akiko</span>. But I could only resist the superhero stuff for so long, what with all the chatter around me all the time. I made a couple early choices, to limit myself. Like: Only <span style="font-style: italic;">Batman</span>. But, as any follower of these universes knows, it's almost impossible, once you decide to get involved, to ignore the other books--not entirely. Both DC and Marvel are masters at sucking you in, if you're willing to let them. Crossovers, multi-arc stories, "events," all conspire to make you buy books you could have sworn a week ago you would never, ever buy, no matter what. Like, say, <span style="font-style: italic;">Catwoman</span>. <br /><br />And once that collector switch flipped in my brain, I was done. I was all in. Suddenly I was buying practically every goddamn book that came out every Wednesday. I had to. I had to have them all. I had to be totally caught up with everything. I started buying magazines about comics, so I'd know what was coming. I'd be at the store as soon as they opened, just to make sure I'd get the books before they sold out. I started buying longboxes to hold them all.<br /><br />Eventually, it got to the point where I was buying more than I had time to read. I'd bag-and-board them only to have them pile up on my nightstand, in the To Read pile, which, at its worst was literally, seriously, a few feet high. And now the reading of the comics started to feel like homework. I couldn't spend time reading actual books (the kind without pictures), because I felt like if I had any free time, I had to get through some of the comics. Finally, ultimately, I just kind of got disgusted with myself. I was buying comics every week <span style="font-style: italic;">and not reading them.</span> I made a vow to myself: I will not buy one more comic book until I get to the bottom of the To Read pile. And guess what? I never did make it to the bottom. That's how I quit my comic book obsession. Total cold turkey, based on a deal with myself.<br /><br />It's been years since I've spent even a dime on comics. And I haven't really missed them, to be honest. I realized that I actually could live my life, as a man in my 40s, without necessarily knowing what The Flash was up to, and be just fine. I knew that there was probably a lot of great stuff I was missing out on, but I just had to stay the hell away, and felt good about it. My longboxes? They got covered up by a big blanket to become a de-facto stair for my cat and dog to use to climb up on our bed.<br /><br />Now, however, I have an iPad. And, like with music, I am confronted with the wonder and magic of the digital age. I can buy comics, and not have them pile up in a To Read pile on my nightstand? I don't have to go to the store on Wednesday and feel bad, like a junkie showing up for my weekly fix? WHERE DO I SIGN UP. I am going to try to be prudent and circumspect about this. I am going to try not to go all-in again. I asked for recommendations on Twitter today of the current cool stuff, and got more than I can handle. As I did previously, I'm going to start with some of the more off-kilter stuff, and avoid superheroes. <span style="font-style: italic;">Chew, Orc Stain, Criminal, Atomic Robo</span> and<span style="font-style: italic;"> Locke & Key</span> are the first ones I'm checking out. And maybe (hopefully?) the ONLY ones. (And yes, if you followed me over here from Twitter, I know there were a lot more, and maybe one was one of your favorites, and I promise I have a larger list, so don't be hurt.)<br /><br />I worry, though. Because I know myself. I know I can say, "I'm only going to do THIS much", but then quickly rationalize it once I get sucked in. I know, for example, that not every book is available digitally. I know, too, that if I read a book and find a writer I love, I'm going to be tempted to seek out his/her other work.<br /><br />So I need to stay vigilant. I need to keep a lid on it. I need to not have comic books become too important to my life again. I need to enjoy them without obsessing over them.<br /><br />There may be no hope.Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2446932103172180245.post-30174062644155091422011-05-13T09:40:00.000-07:002011-05-13T09:46:04.845-07:00The Busy SignalMy first real job out of college, in the mid-1980s, was at a computer book publishing company in the Bay Area. You will recall—or, if you’re too young, I guess I will make it clear—that in the mid '80s there was no such thing as “the Internet,” so people tended to get their information from such now archaic forms of communication as print. LOL. <br /><br />The books that this company made were instructional books on the then popular software and programming languages at the time: Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, dBase, and so on. My job, as a recent graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in English Literature, was proofreader. I would proofread the galleys (page proofs) for spelling and grammatical errors, and then to paste the galleys on to boards that would get sent to the printer. These were the days of literal “cut-and-paste.” We’d use Xacto knives to physically cut lines of text and paste them onto the boards. So you Ctrl-X/Ctrl-V people? We used to do that, like, for real, okay?<br /><br />Anyway, my boss at this place was an amiable but utterly absent-minded kinda guy, as well as sort of spineless and cowardly when it came to dealing with the higher-ups. The latter part, unfortunately, pretty much negated the fact that he was amiable, because, in critical work situations, it was clear that when push came to shove, he was always going to side with upper management, rather than his employees, out of fear for his own job. Thus a pattern of distrust was established. <br /><br />One particular week, the upper management dipshits got it in their heads that the proles were wasting too much company time on private phone calls. A crackdown was ordered.<br /><br />Our boss returned to our area and informed us of the crackdown. There will be no personal calls on company time, except in emergencies. People were abusing the privilege. To prove his point, he pulled out the most recent company phone bill, with all the itemized calls. As he scanned the bill, he noticed that one particular phone number in our area had a grotesquely large number of long calls. <br /><br />“Look at this one!” he exclaimed. “Who the hell is this on the phone all the goddamn time!” he said, waving the bill around in the air. “You know what? I’m gonna CALL this number and see who the hell answers it!” He dialed the number, while a few of us watch him. “It’s BUSY!” he yelled. “IT FIGURES!” He slammed down the phone. <br /><br />A few minutes later, he left his office. A couple of us walked in to peek at the phone bill, and the offending phone number.<br /><br />It was his phone number.<br /><br />He had called himself.Jeff Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16156559263867246922noreply@blogger.com5