The One That Got Away

            This morning (Saturday, not Monday) I was witness to a highly entertaining event (at least to my sleep-deprived mind). A rather large earwig was climbing the wall in the corner of the bathroom when, for whatever reason, it fell to the floor. As it fell, it passed through the web of a spider living at floor level.

            At this point, I should tell you about the spider in this story. It was a tiny spider. Its body was smaller than half the earwig’s head.

            So, the earwig scuttled backwards away from the web and the tiny spider lurched forward, grabbing the strands of web attached to the earwig. I couldn't actually see the web, but I could tell what had happened because the earwig started sliding sideways across the floor.

            The struggle that ensued can only be described as an angler reeling in a fish. The earwig struggled and flopped around, the spider tugged. Sometimes one was winning, sometimes the other. Frankly, I was exceptionally impressed with how well the spider was doing, right up until the thread snapped and the earwig was free.

            After watching all this, only one thing jumped into my mind. I could just picture the spider telling all its friends about the one that got away. “It was THIIIIIIS big!” Thinking back on the proportions, it would be kind of like a fisherman trying to land a whale. Apparently even spiders can have big fish stories!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

 

Animal Superiority

            I've often thought that animals know how to live far better than we humans do. I mean, yes, we’re brilliant and have made all these nifty gadgets and such that make our lives better, but I have to wonder... Are we really as clever as we think?

            I first thought this while observing pets. A perfect example is a dog – various fictional characters, when asked what kind of animal they want to be, answer “a dog”. Because dogs get taken care of by their owners and sleep all day. The thing is, out in the wild it’s nearly the same thing. The dog sleeps most of the day and hunts so it can eat. It’s the same with all animals – eat, sleep and, sometimes, avoid predators. It’s a simple life, but a good one.

            Now look at humans. The average adult human wakes up to an alarm five (or more) days a week, goes to work tired because they didn't get enough sleep, slogs through eight hours of work and returns home. Of course, what do they have to do at home? More work to maintain their homes, unless they live in unhealthy conditions or have worked hard enough that they can pay for others to take care of their homes.

            We’re told all our lives to be grateful for what we have – a roof over our head, food to eat, etc. It’s true, of course – I can’t even imagine having to live without the conveniences I grew up with, but at the same time, I often look out the window and see what humans have done to this world and it makes me feel sick.

            Then I think of those animals out there, living day-to-day with their only real concern being to find food and not become it. Their days aren't divided into thirds where they have eight hours to sleep, eight hours to work and a final eight hours to eat, get ready for work, travel to and from work, do housework and maybe, if there’s a bit of time left over, do something they enjoy.

            Sure, we humans have all these great conveniences, but all the work we have to do in order to keep and maintain them kind of takes away from our time to actually live our lives. Not to mention the destruction of the planet. If we’re really so smart and great, shouldn't we be maintaining and nurturing the planet rather than tearing it to pieces?

            Animals live their lives, eating when they are hungry, sleeping when they are tired and doing essentially whatever they want (except when they’re the ones being eaten). Meanwhile, humans work and work and work so they can work some more and have a few conveniences.

            Are we really all that superior?

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Defeating the Dastardly Ball

            I really need to start writing my blogs before Dungeons and Dragons. Such a fantastic idea; I think I’ll start doing it as soon as I get back on the ball.

            Of course, getting on the ball is the real trick, isn't it? Even harder is to stay on it. Last weekend, after Colleen and I had been talking about how poorly we’d been doing at keeping up our various work and chores, I said to her “Don’t worry! As of Monday, you and me, together, we’re getting on the ball!”

            And it worked...! For the first day and a half. Then Colleen got sick and, as a result, we both slipped back a bit. But we still ended up having a better week than the previous few. Once again, this weekend I said, “As of Monday, we’re getting on the ball!” After all, if a horse bucks you off, you get right back on!

            Naturally, all of this got me to thinking about why it’s so hard to get back into a routine once it’s been broken. The answer seemed pretty obvious – when a routine is broken, a new one is formed and you follow that routine instead. Our brains are wired for routine. We’re creatures of habit.

            That’s an interesting phrase, actually... looking at the rest of the world, aren't all living beings creatures of habit? Pets expect to be fed and exercised at regular times, flocks of birds migrate seasonally and just about every animal I know of follows some sort of routine. Interesting...

            Reminds me of my dad frequently saying humans are pack animals while pointing out groups of cars clustered together on the highway where it’s far safer to keep as much distance between yourself and other cars as possible.

            Where was I...?

            Creatures of habit! Right. Colleen and I are good at setting our routines – you need to be when you work from home. No boss to tell you what to do. Unfortunately, the routines are too easily interrupted – usually by shows. We can be happily working 40-50 hour weeks leading up to a show, but as soon as the event is over we often drop to 15-20 hour weeks. Why? Well, because shows interrupt our fantastic routine and tire us out enough that we feel we deserve a day off. By the end of the day off, a new routine is established and it’s hard work to get back into the old, good routine.

            So, here we are, jumping on the ball, bouncing off and trying again. I think we’ll manage it this week – after all, it’s just in time for another show to interrupt us in another two weeks. Ah, but now we’re one up on that tricky ball! We've caught onto its routine of routine breaking! Now we’re prepared take that ball and practice jumping on and off it until there’s no doubt about who’s in charge of the routines around here! If it throws us off, we can just give it a good kick!

            Then go chasing after it as it goes bouncing off down the hill so we can fetch it back and get back on it.

            Seriously, who writes this stuff? Oh yeah, me...

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

 

A DM is Born

            So, back in the spring I came up with a ridiculous idea – I was going to see if my parents would be interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons. I had played a couple games over the years and enjoyed it, but all of them died out very quickly because it was just too hard to get everyone together at the same time. Colleen had also played a little and wanted to try some more, which is where I came up with such a crazy idea.

            I started by asking my mother, since she’s the busiest one in the family (she’s a minister – if you've never spent much time around ministers you should know that they are always working, even on their days off). I explained the game isn't just about the fighting – it’s a storytelling game. I was shocked when she actually said yes.

            Then my brother dropped by, so I jokingly told him about it and asked him if he was interested (in the past he said he’d never want to play). He said sure, as long as I could convince his wife. A few texts later, she was in.

            Without even trying, I’d gotten four family members interested in the game. Last was my father, who, when he came home from worked and I asked him, said “yes” without a hesitation when I asked him.

            That was about when I realized that I had just accidentally convinced my family to play D&D, which meant something else – I needed to be the Dungeon Master, the person running the game.

            For those of you unfamiliar with the game, when playing D&D you are either part of a group of adventurers playing through the game, or you are the Dungeon Master (DM) who has to create the world, the story and control everyone and everything in the world who isn't one of the adventurers. In other words, it’s a lot of work.

            Luckily I was able to cheat a little. Because I've never run a game before, I decided that I would alter a pre-made adventure rather than making one from scratch. This way I’d know that I was running the game properly and it would be far less work.

            Even so, I knew I’d be teaching a group who were almost all new to the game while learning how to run the game, so I was a little worried about how it would go. I also wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy the role.

            Well, tonight (last night, for you lot reading this on Monday) we had our first game and I, for one, had a great time. I haven’t gotten feedback from everyone else yet, but the rest of my family seemed to have fun as well. This was particularly gratifying because the beginning of any D&D game is extremely slow and full of a lot of work for everyone, but when you have new players there’s a lot of new explaining to do that makes it even slower. Luckily everyone learned quickly and the pace picked up fairly quickly.

            It seems that I make a decent DM and I'm thoroughly enjoying myself. With any luck, everyone else will continue having fun as well and this will end up an ongoing thing. On the other hand, that means a lot more writing for me – not to mention I’ll have to start writing my blogs earlier in the week. Hey – that means this may even work out well for you!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

 

 

The Cursed Game Conquered!

            While this is a story about my misadventures surrounding a videogame, you really don’t need to be even remotely interested in videogames to enjoy it. The following is an amusing account of how, after 14 years, I finally managed to beat Final Fantasy VIII, the game I was cursed to never know the ending of.

            It all started when my brother bought a Sony PlayStation from one of his friends in est. 1999. The two of us went out to buy ourselves some new games to play on this exciting new system (yes, I know that the PS2 came out the next year, but it was new for us, okay?). Being that we were the age we were, we were buying our games from whatever allowance we had managed to save up, so, naturally, we were getting used games because they’re so much cheaper.

            I don’t recall for certain what game or games my brother bought (probably racing games), but I bought two games: Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy VIII. I’d heard that it was a well known series, and even played Final Fantasy III on my Super Nintendo, so I was excited to try them out. Unfortunately, as the gaming console belonged to my brother, my play time was limited.

            When I did play the games, I found I was not disappointed – the Final Fantasy series is well known for a reason. They’re good. And their graphics are always cutting edge for their times – particularly their videos and cut-scenes (short videos that interrupt the game to tell part of the story, for you non-gamer types). The other thing about them is that they’re long. This specific game had four discs, while your average game of the times had one.

            It turned out that my brother and I both liked Final Fantasy VIII, and we played through the story at about the same pace. It was when I had reached a cut-scene on disc 2 that the curse struck for the first time. The game froze. Right in the middle of the video. No matter how many times we tried to get past, or how many tricks for repairing scratched discs we tried, neither of us could get past that cut-scene.

            Well, our pockets being rather shallow, we figured that we had gotten what we deserved for buying a used game and gave up on it. We were disappointed, but there was nothing we could do.

            A couple years later, when my brother and I now co-owned a PlayStation2, I decided I was going to take another shot at playing Final Fantasy VIII. I knew disc 2 was damaged, but I hoped that the newer system could possibly get past the scratched part in the video. It was worth a try, and the video did get further this time, but still it froze.

            Luckily, I now had a paper route, so I went out and bought myself a new copy of the game! I then played past the video, and continued along my game. All was well – until one day...

            Our PlayStation was still in use, even though we had a PlayStation2 – after all, that way my brother and I could play games at the same time without annoying each other. With the new disc available, he’d started playing Final Fantasy VIII as well. But something went wrong. Somehow – we don’t know how – a small patch of the disc he was playing managed to melt itself onto the system. Frustrated, and really wanting to play his racing game, my brother forced the game out of the system and broke the disc. Would you care to guess which disc it was? That’s right. Disc 2.

            It shouldn't have been all that bad – after all, I could still continue playing on my other, rather scratched disc 2; it just meant that I wouldn't be able to play the game a second time and get past that video. Except that there was a slight problem with the old PlayStation memory cards (this was before the systems had their own memories) that would sometimes cause them to wipe themselves of their save files. Can you guess what I discovered the next time I went to play...? The curse had struck again.

            That was it, for me. I gave up on the game again and eventually forgave my brother for breaking the disc. Then, another two years later, I decided to try again...

            I went out to a pawn shop and bought another used copy of Final Fantasy VIII. It was worth a try, wasn’t it? When I got it home, I opened the case to take out disc 2 (I’d already played the game up to where it got stuck) and stared in disbelief. The case was for Final Fantasy VIII. Discs 1, 3 and 4 were all for Final Fantasy VIII. But disc 2, the only disc that I needed, the cursed disc, was from Final Fantasy VII.

            What was with this game!?!?

            I went straight back to the pawn shop and told them my story and they were kind enough to let me take a different copy of the game (we checked to make sure it had the right disc first). I took that disc home, put it into the system, and...! It froze in the middle of the video again. Seriously.

            But I wasn't giving up! I switched it for my other scratched and used disc and the video went a little further before freezing again, so I switched discs again! The video went a bit further, then froze again. One last switch and I was past the video of the cursed game! It was a wonderful feeling.

            So, I played through the game, quite enjoying it up until I reached the final battle. Now... the last battle in any Final Fantasy game is pretty intense, but the game designers outdid themselves this time. I’ll spare you the details and simply say that I was fighting this battle for over two hours before I died and got the dreaded Game Over. Needless to say, I was not happy. Still, to my credit, I tried the battle several more times before giving up this time round.

            I learned in later years that there were two major things that led to my downfall. The first was that the monsters in the game level up when your characters level up, which means that the more powerful you get, the harder the game is to play. The other was that, in Final Fantasy VIII, unless you really understand all the spells and various systems in the game – which for most people means having a walkthrough beside them – it’s next to impossible to actually beat the final boss.

            However, over the last couple weeks, I finally managed it! I’ll admit that I was looking up some of the more finicky parts of the game as I went along, and I definitely had a walkthrough open telling me roughly how to win the final battle – it should say something that the guide went along the lines of “Use these spells to boost the effectiveness of these attacks and hope for the best”. It was a long and grueling battle, but I won! And you know what? It was worth it.

            It was worth the time spent on the game. It was worth all the aggravation and frustration. It was worth buying three copies of the game. And, more than anything else, it was worth the wait. The ending video of the game brought a phenomenal and touching conclusion to the game’s story, which I never would have appreciated when I was younger. I also caught all kinds of amazing plot twists that I’d never noticed the previous times I played through the game.

            I've said before that playing a videogame is like controlling the main character of a book and this one is no exception. Incredible as the story in this game is (and as much as I want to “borrow” some of the plot twists), this is one case where I don’t think it could have been more effective as a book. Or a movie, for that matter. It’s small wonder that this game series is so popular. They just need to make the end battles a little less grueling.

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.