Hand over your flesh, and a new world awaits you...
Hand over your flesh, and a new world awaits you...
I’ve been really inspired lately to do small comic strips like this one. I’ve got a couple others in a sketchpad, but I like this one the most so far and thought I’d digitize it. This one is called "Catfight."
I’m honestly not sure what to talk about first with this title. I don’t anticipate this to be a very long review, mostly because I’m so far beyond frustrated with the game that I don’t even want to talk about it anymore. But this information needs to be heard, and this game is in desperate need of some real criticism. The fluffy scores dished out by the various review sites seem evident of publisher buy-in. I guess that works, "I pay you enough money to advertise the game, you’d better give it a damned good score!" Not in my books! You don’t pay my bills, so I can bash the shit out of this sorry-ass game!
OK, that might be taking it a bit far. I can’t make such a dubious claim without presenting some sort of reason for my scrutiny, right?
Red Dead Redemption takes place at the dawn of the Mexican Revolution, and your character, *says in a Western voice* Mister John Marston, is stuck in the midst of a civilization that can’t seem to make up their damned mind about anything. I felt there were some strong tie-ins to the political climate of today, which wouldn’t be atypical of Rockstar, but there just wasn’t enough for me to rant and rave about the story much more than that. A majority of the dialog takes place on horseback or riding a carriage, which blends already screaming voices with the constant patter of hooves and dirt. Sure, it helps set the mood of the game, but I’m not sitting right next to the fart who’s squeaking, and I had a hard time telling what the hell they were talking about. No, I won’t turn captions on, for the same reason I don’t text and drive. Duh.
I recently stole a book from Meepe’s library that always caught my eye for it’s shriveled appearance. The old, withered hard-back cover and parched yellow pages hold a lone date of 1937, with $.25 written in pencil on the inside cover. I’ve been dying to unleash my creative spark lately, and more so through some sort of metaphysical experience and/or esoteric training, even one as indirect as this. So I’m going to write footnotes on each of the chapters and include some kind of art along with each one. This’ll be a series that I’ll do every so often in between some of the other articles I plan to write, but mostly because I’m a bloody-slow reader. Enjoy!
The Ascended Master Discourses is a collection of lectures conveying the wisdom and mastery of various Ascended Masters. These teachings revolve around the individual "I AM Presence" - God - of light, love, and life, and aims to inspire the student with the ability to master their own existence, so-to-speak, and eventually attain true ascension, the unification of the physical body and the God-like body, the "I AM Presence."
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
All too often we don’t realize, and more often take for granted, the unity of the ego, or conscious mind, and the self, or unconscious mind. The ego has wants, desires credit, conjures the illusion of needs, feels jealousy, hate, discrimination, etc. Whereas the self is led purely by your Spirit, the Source, the Universe, God (take your pick), and only knows love, kindness, creativity, euphoria, etc. I perceive what I’m speaking of as the bond that mends those two levels of consciousness together.
Most people don’t have a full grasp on the idea that living life to their fullest extent requires harmony between the two consciousnesses. The yin cannot exist without the yang; peaks cannot exist without valleys; light without dark; heat without cold; so on and so on.
Fear, in all actuality, exists only in the ego.
Roger Ebert, some famed and worshiped movie critic, recently rebutted a previous rebuttal he’d made years ago about video games, originally rebutting that they "could not be art." So then this other wildly unknown dood by the name of Clive Barker had something to say about that statement, rebutting that Ebert "thinks you can’t have art if there is that amount of malleability in the narrative."
Ebert was quick to revise and extend his remarks on his flawed video game statement, most likely to reduce the amount of hatemail he’s probably getting from angry video game nerds all over the universe and YouTube. "What I should have said is that games could not be high art, as I understand it." Great Job(!) clearing up that statement, guy! You’ve now left your haters with something to scratch their heads about before blasting you with spiteful emails; I mean, of course, pondering on what exactly Ebert’s version of "high" might be.
Love is an extremely confusing concept to me; I always try to think about it scientifically. As I sit here and try to analyze it, I deactivate the very power it grants me with. My pendulum of love constantly sways back and forth, and my emotions play out based on my perception of the reality that I, myself, create.
The Sun doesn’t work this way. It’s unconditional. It’s been pummeling the Earth with it’s life-force rays of light-energy for millions of years, never once asking for anything in return. Show the Sun any kind of emotion or feeling (or lack thereof) and it will still shine bright as ever.
This is my goal. To be like the Sun. It’s my new ideology.
I find it amazing how I have so much trouble just doing the things I want to do. From simple shit like picking up around the house, to the more complicated and intimidating things like finishing projects, big or small. There is always some sort of Resistance that comes in right when you feel the urge or thought to do that thing. It might be that... you’re too tired to do yoga in the morning, and the extra twenty minutes of hanging out under the blankets outweighs the clarity of thought and feel-good attitude you’d have for the rest of the day. Or it might be that you’d rather play video games than to clean the kitchen.
My mother blessed me with a magical grocery bag this past weekend. Its contents? A mint condition Nintendo 64. Accompanying it were of course the cables, an original gray controller with an analog stick still in great shape, Rumble Pak, Controller Pak (memory card), the console Memory Expansion Pak, and a plethora of games.
Happy New Year you silly reader, you! My gift to everyone this year is my new website design (YAY!!!) - gander at it’s 16-Bit’d awesomeness as every plasma cell of fire burns itself into the retinas of your eyes while you watch a glorious 16-Bit D.C. sunset!!!1
Unfortunately, the blog’s received no love until now 
. I’ve been gone for a long time, and I’ve been quite busy. Work, play, the holidays, expansions of consciousness, Mario Kart Wii, Forza 3; they’ve all taken up quite a good portion of the last three months of the latest 365-day cycle that we all willingly, but always questionably, partake in. So in celebration I’ve prepared a small list of treats for you - a late stocking-stuffer if you will - full of cool things I’ve been finding on the internets!
Sooo... the demo for Forza 3 came out yesterday. Have you played it yet? It really hasn’t been that long since Forza 2 didn’t leave my drive for months. Two years, really, at the most, and it definitely doesn’t feel like it’s been that long. What I’m getting at is that confusion ensued the excitement of the trailer for this game. I didn’t understand why they’d be releasing the next version so soon.
After doing some research, I’ve come to my own conclusion that it’s either A) a stab a making bank this Christmas season, or B) an attempt to steal some more Gran Turismo fans with yet another awesome racing sim before they have the chance to stick to their brand loyalty with Polyphony. Did I mention that Gran Turismo 5 hasn’t come out yet? Did I mention that it had been pushed back again to Spring 2010? Oh... well, Gran Turismo 5 hasn’t come out yet, and won’t until Spring 2010.
Spaghetti Oh likes video games, cool movies, sweet rides, and awesome music. If you like these things too, you should rejoice with him. More »