Monday Update

I'm wrapped up in a couple of TV shows on Monday nights. I don't tend to watch a lot of live TV, since I prefer seeing a lot of episodes back-to-back, but there are two shows that have really captured my attention. If only there were something good to watch in between them, but no one puts a good show on at 8 o'clock on Mondays. (Darn you, Dancing with the Stars!)


First, at 7 pm on NBC, we have Chuck. This show is wrapping up it's 4th season, and it's amazingly hysterical. The nerd we all want to be with a super CIA computer in his brain, fighting crime in the most amazingly awesome geek way possible. High stakes UNO games over possession of a nuclear weapon, disarming said nuclear weapon with a juice box, and this week staging a break-in to a secured location using a plan concocted entirely from Star Wars. I've never laughed so hard watching any show as much as this one, and if you don't fall for the characters after 2 episodes, you may need professional help. If you've ever referenced a sci-fi movie, video game or comic book in regular conversation, this show is for you. Secret weapon: Adam Baldwin's love for guns..


Then, after pretending that I don't watch at least some of Dancing with the Stars, at 9 o'clock on ABC we have my other favorite show, Castle. Nathan Fillion (always watchable, even as Captain Hammer) stars as Richard Castle, a mystery novelist who follows around a female detective to base his book off her. The premise is no less reasonable than most crime procedural shows, and honestly the premise isn't what draws me to this show. The characters are some of the most fully-fleshed out that I've ever seen in a crime drama, and the relationships between them are the real reason to tune in to this show, after the antics of man-child Fillion of course. I'll be honest, I'd watch pretty much anything Fillion does just because I can't see him smirk without laughing. Secret weapon: Fillion's Castle one-liners and fancy toys.

So, now that I've spilt my guts about my TV favorites, let me know what your shows are. Because when the mainstream audience fails to adopt these show and they're canned, I'm going to need something else to watch. And if you are in the business of making TV shows, apparently all you need the please me is an impossible crime fighting premise and a cast-off actor from Firefly. (I'm seeing Alan Tudyk as a schoolteacher who fights crime with history lessons. Make it happen!)

What am I supposed to feel?

Last night, my wife logged onto Facebook and read that Osama Bin Ladin had been killed as a result of a military action by the U.S. in Pakistan. The news has been saying that this is day we'll remember forever, like where we were when we heard about the planes hitting the towers almost 10 years ago. But is this something I want to remember?
Bin Laden lived a violent life, and his actions led to the deaths of thousands of people in multiple countries from various religious and ethnic backgrounds. The lives of others were expendable to him and he had been declared the enemy of nearly every established government in the world. The world is definitely a safer place without him gone. Yet I cannot help but wonder why we are celebrating someone's death to such a degree. The ending of a life is something very saddening to me, whether it is because their death was a tragedy, or because it was necessary.
I am not trying to say that I am not sad that he is dead. I am saddened because this is what had to happen. I feel this way anytime anyone dies who "deserves it." Death for someone who is in that state holds no hope. A person who dies with their heart so firmly rooted in evil is truly lost. And so even though it was necessary, I regret that it was the last option.
In a nutshell, I'm conflicted. I wonder if I'm supposed to feel compassion towards a man whose actions have destroyed innumerable lives, lives of people I know and feel for. I had family in New York who lost friends and loved ones on September 11th, 2001. I felt the fear that war would engulf us and my friends and I might be drafted to fight. I know soldiers who've served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade. I know that Bin Laden's actions have caused great suffering and pain to these people. I am only lamenting that ending another man's life was the only solution to stop him from continuing to hurt others. Kill to prevent killing is a concept I've never been fully comfortable with.
In short (too late), I am only left not knowing how to react to the news. His death is cause for both joy and sadness, and I am finding it hard to choose which to feel. I'll definitely remember it, though, even though I don't really want to.

Valentine's Day Blues?

Alright, so this is not the typical rant about the over commercialization of Valentine's Day that everyone seems to write this time of year. I am one of the few people I know who actually truly loves this holiday. And not just because it's fun to get a card from every girl in your class just because they have to, or because I love crappy candy hearts. It's also not because I'm married and no longer have to worry about spending the holiday alone. I've loved it ever since before I understood why it was so important to impress that cute girl.
I was that little boy who wrote the card and didn't sign his name, sent the roses even if I knew the girl wouldn't give me anything back. I embarrassed myself more than once with awkward shows of pubescent "love". I was also apparently one of the one few guys in my high school who didn't feel the desire to break up with the girl just before V-Day in order to avoid the whole mess. I guess that makes me a romantic?
Valentine's is the first of our great Catholic holidays. Well, not so much Catholic per se, but at least named after a Catholic Saint. The irony of a holiday about love and marriage surrounding priest is not lost on me, but then neither is the one where every drinks green beer and can't remember what happened the next day. But honestly, the story of St. Valentine is that he was martyred for bringing young Christian couples together against the wishes of the Roman Emperor. He believed in that love so much he died for it, even though his beliefs prevented him from courting or marrying himself. This is a man I can respect.
He spent the holiday single, for obvious reasons. (Of course, it wasn't a holiday yet then, but who's counting.) Not only was he not getting any at the time, he wasn't getting any EVER! Love meant enough to him that didn't matter, as long as other were able to be happy. Now I'm not trying to be the happy married person that tells all the single people "Just be happy because at least someone is getting loved, even if it's not you." You are still getting loved, almost everyone is, because not all love is romantic. St. Valentine's Day needs to be about all kinds of love, like a father or mother for their children, or a priest for his congregation, or a person for their fellowman.
So whether or not you think that too many people want your money in exchange for trinkets that only commercialize and cheapen love, just for me, think of what the holiday means, or at least what it could mean to you, if you let it.

Video Games and Family

Video games are a huge part of my life. They have been since I was 7, and a NES system entered our house with a cartridge of Super Mario 3. I'd played Mario games before but this was the first one that I had access to in my own house. That was when the addiction started. This may be the reason why the list of systems that were in my own house reads like a Nintendo's greatest hits roster, including about every possible incarnation of the Game Boy. I think the only one we missed was the Virtual Boy, but I got to play that once at a friend's house and it gave me a headache, so I didn't mind too much.

My family was split over video games the way way most families were back then; the kids loved them, the parents not so much. My mother kept telling me how awesome BurgerTime and Centipede were, and how I was playing Tetris wrong when I covered over holes on the bottom. (In her defense, she was right.) But the concept of having them in her home as opposed to the arcade was a little foreign to her at first. I cannot think of a time where she sat down and grabbed a controller and played with me. And the times my father did can be counted on one hand, with fingers left over. My parents would watch my siblings and I play, but never join in.

My wife Kim grew up in a house where video games didn't exist. Her younger brothers eventually loaded some on the family computer, but they were considered a waste of time by the family and she never played them. When we got married, her attitude towards my games was understandably negative, but I eventually won her over. I handed her my DS one day and showed her how to play Final Fantasy III. 4 hours later she handed it back because her hands were tired and she was stuck. I had expected 4 minutes, tops. She finally let me buy a Wii, as long as she got a "toy" too. I'm almost positive she's played our Wii as much as she's used that iPod I got her to even the score.

My family that I grew up in had video games, but just us kids played together. My wife and I play now, and will definitely be playing with our daughter in a few years. She tries now, but at 18 months she's got a little ways to go. But even though I've gotten my father to sit down once and play LittleBigPlanet with us, I never thought it was something that his generation would seek out as a way to spend time with family. Then I read this.

How "World of Warcraft" helped me through my divorce

A mother going through a divorce used World of Warcraft as a way to bond with her 9 year old son. Their family was falling apart, and so she used an interest her son had to pull herself to him. She states that she never would have played WoW on her own, and that the game is not for her, even though she is now a Level 21 Darkspear Troll mage. Yet she plays the game, and through it her son is able to communicate his love for her, something most 9 year-old boys find hard to do.

I will have gaming in my house when I grow up (if I ever grow up), and I will continue to share it with my wife and children, so that it can bring us together. I hope other people can see this too, not so that more people become gamers, but so that more people allow the things in their families to draw them closer, not push them away.

Weekends are hard.

Don't get me wrong. I love weekends. I just subscribe to the version of weekends I had when I was a kid:" Get as much playtime in as you can until you have to go back to school on Monday." Now I am an adult, and weekends are supposed to mean "Get as much stuff done you couldn't do during the week before you have to go back to work on Monday." The difference is striking, and now, more than ever, I miss being a kid. This weekend I succumbed to my inner child and spent more sequential time in front of the TV than I have in a long time. I watched Netflix and played video games until I couldn't stand it anymore.
Now for those of you reading this and thinking, "Wow, my wife would kill me," know that my wife was beside me the whole time. She's been fighting morning sickness and this weekend she left the house in my dubiously capable hands and rested. For those worried about the state of our house now, it is still standing. The bathrooms got cleaned this weekend, and I managed to stay on top of the dishes (mostly). Two or three loads of laundry even got washed. But school starts tomorrow, and so I think that's why the kid in me reigned supreme this weekend.
Neither Kim or I are really looking forward to this particular semester, since scheduling around a pregnancy and a needy 1 year-old while nether of you are home is rough. I've never been a huge fan of school anyway, so we fought against the establishment with laziness. Now we're going into the new semester with a cluttered house, and no enthusiasm. I'm sure we'll make it through, but if I become a recluse for the next 4 months, now you know why.

Writing ain't easy.

I awoke this morning and decided to write. So I went to my computer, surfed a little, then finally shut down Facebook and opened Google Docs. I went to my novel from NaNoWriMo that I hadn't opened since the beginning of November, and re-read it. I didn't like half of it. Now, instead of bothering to change it, I decided to keep trudging on, and go back to fix it later.
Then I tried to start the next chapter. I couldn't remember where I wanted to go with it, or what the story should be in the first place.
Why did I want to be a writer any way?

Happy? New Year's Day

Twas the day after New Year's and all through the house,
not a person was stirring, not even a mouse.
The bottles were strewn on the floor without care
in the hopes that soon sober people would clean up there.

I've never under stood the tradition of staying up as late as possible to greet the new year, so that we can start it off with a riotous party and then collapse in to a coma. We torture our bodies, either with alcohol or unhealthy food, then we begin the brand-new year in some kind of pain, either a hangover or indigestion or some combination of other, easily avoidable ailments. I'd almost think it would be better to go to bed early, then wake up at midnight to greet the new year and actually spend some quality time with it, whatever that means to you.

Then we have resolutions. Now, I've never been a huge fan of New Year's resolutions, but I have been inspired this year. I'm not generally the kind of person who is dedicated enough to complete a daily goal for any period of time. I have multiple Journals with only a few, widely spaced entries, and my attempt to write a book this year went horribly awry as well. About the only thing I am sure to accomplish daily are my natural body functions, which apparently includes video games. Which, buy the way, is pretty much what I accomplished on January 1st this year; massive amounts of gaming.

However, I was inspired by a good friend this year to try and make something more out of myself. He did accomplish some great things this year. He had set a goal to become a better artist, so he took to drawing a "daily sketch." Over the course of the next 365 days, he drastically improved his artistic skills. He also successfully completed NaNoWriMo, and managed to write a 50,000 page novel in a month. So, as a tribute to him (or something), I've decided to take advantage of this New Year's Day and make a couple of resolutions for myself.

Number one: I am going to write more. I'm resolving to write something worthwhile every week, whether it be here on this blog, or a novel I'm working on, or appreciative notes to my wife for what she does for me. (Note to all guys; regardless of your marital status, all girls love these kinds of notes. Especially mothers.) There are two reasons that this isn't a daily goal. Firstly, I'm a full-time worker and a part time student with a wife and daughter, and another one on the way. Secondly, I know I won't achieve a daily goal, but I have had success with weekly goals in the past, so here we are.

Number two: I am going to spend more time with my daughter. Our daily schedules tend to conflict, but I am going to make sure to take advantage of the little time we do have. Because she is only 18 months old, she sleeps a lot, so the only time I'm home and she's awake tends to be between 6 and 8 pm. Of course this means more than just holding her on my lap while the TV is on, (except on Mondays at 7, when Chuck is on.) Now that wife will be taking evening classes, I am going to get plenty of time alone with our little girl, and I want it to be more meaningful than just her watching Daddy play Epic Mickey and Little Big Planet. Until, of course, she's old enough to play along.

I wish you all luck with whatever you choose as your endeavors for the new year, and if you are interested in mine, you can see how I'm doing right here. And if I know you're watching, I can make sure I'm doing something too, so you are keeping accountable. Sound like fun?