Fat boys are only allowed to love pretty girls on the inside…

    Stephen King wrote this in the book IT, and the older I get, the more I come to believe it’s true. I’ve always been a fat kid, I was a butterball growing up, and even though it’s evened out a bit now, I’m still a tubby fuck. As a consequence, I was, well, shunned seems too extreme, but in school I was treated like complete shit by everybody but the teachers, and to be honest, even some of the teachers. A further consequence of the ostracizing is that I have absolutely no self-confidence. This video, while hilarious, pretty much sums up how I feel about myself on a day-to-day basis. I think my writing sucks and it’s only through sheer boredom and grim force of will that I continue to do it, despite my better judgment. Despite my bragging, I think my cooking is mediocre at best, and while it tastes good, I can always find something wrong with it.

    I know I’m not the best looking guy. If you were able to see my mental image of myself, it would be something that belongs in a freak show, like Joseph Merrick. As a result of this horrible self-image and my lack of confidence, I don’t have much luck with women. In fact, I tend to try too hard and end up driving them away, or I don’t even admit that I like them until way too late. For instance, I worked with a girl about 5 years ago, and I was so in love with her, but she was taken, right? So nothing I can do about it, I’m just friendly with her, like I always am. Twice during the span of time that I was working with her, she broke up with her boyfriend and of course I’m so worthless that I did absolutely nothing about it, despite urgings from our common friends.

    And now, she’s single again, and I still lack courage of any kind. Aside from flirting, which I do with her as easily as breathing, I still have not made any sort of move. Of course, I have doubts about whether she’d want me to. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m writing this other than mild depression and a general lack of giving a damn anymore.

Despite still not giving a damn, I feel the need to update with a sentence or two. The girl I mentioned above? Completely stopped talking to me. Oh fuckin' well.

The Dark Tower 1: The Gunslinger Video Review

The first book review in video form, and I thought I'd start with a biggie. In honor of The Wind Through the Keyhole, I've decided to go through all of The Dark Tower books, one by one and give you my thoughts on them. Sorry, there really is no plot analysis for The Gunslinger, but honestly, there really is no plot for this one in and of its self. All we know is that Roland is chasing The Man in Black and ultimately is chasing the Dark Tower. We don't really find out why until later. Anyway. Cheers.

Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

I apologize for the low volume; didn't know I was speaking that softly.

Rockstar games

I was looking through my collection of games across my consoles and computer and I saw more than a few by Rockstar. For those that don't know, Rockstar is famous mostly for making the Grand Theft Auto series of games. Now, I won't lie, I own a couple GTA games. I own the original, San Andreas and GTA 4 and to be honest, I've never been able to play them for more than just a few hours before I get sick of it and turn it off.

It's not the violence, God knows I play violent as fuck video games. Where I start taking issue with these games is the horribly overblown stereotypes and the language. I swear like a sailor, but when every third word out of the main character's mouth is a racial slur that I refuse to repeat, I start getting sick to my stomach. Surround that main character with five other stereotypes that talk the same way and I shut the game off. I thought GTA 4 would be a little better with that; seeing as the main character is a European immigrant, I figured the racial slurs would be minimal, and I was right. Honestly I couldn't tell you why that game bugs me, but it does.

The two games that I keep coming back to in Rockstar's catalogue are Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire. I love these games, not only because they represent two genres that are cliches in movies but under used in games, but because they show that Rockstar as a company is maturing. Sure, the stereotypes are still there, although I don't find them as gratingly annoying as in GTA, and they tend to play the same as the aforementioned series, but its the subject matter that really shines. RDR is similar to GTA, except in the wild west. It's been called Grand Theft Horsie, which I find annoying, because I enjoy RDR even despite its similarities to GTA. It may have something to do with how jaw droppingly beautiful the game is, or that I'm a sucker for westerns, so much so that I actually own Red Dead Revolver, the game that Redemption is a spiritual sequel to.

L.A. Noire is a completely different beast altogether; its main controls are almost identical to GTA and Redemption, but the subject matter couldn't be more different. It's a cop drama, stylistically made to look like a film noire, in fact there's an option to put it in black and white, just to keep that noire film feeling. Set shortly after WWII, the player is in the polished wing tips of rookie cop, Colton Phelps. What's revolutionary about it is the interrogations, where the player must pay attention to the suspect's facial expressions to tell if they're lying. You also have to look for clues and evidence and whatnot. Spanning two disks, it's so huge and there's so much to see and do, that I have yet to finish it.

Hopefully these two games, Red Dead Redemption and L.A. Noire are a sign that Rockstar is maturing and is getting ready to leave the offensive bullshit that Grand Theft Auto has always been and bring us something that's worth playing.

Dragon Blues by Edie Ramer

I don’t know what to say about this book. I sped through this book in about 2 days and now I’m just meh. It’s a good book, I guess, although while I read it I did nitpick the hell out of it like I was an English teacher or something. Several times I re-phrased sentences in my mind while I was reading, attempting to make them a bit more impactful. There were a few too many instances of repetition for my taste, such as the constant reminder that Lila’s a martial arts master. I got so sick of reading that her hands and feet were deadly weapons, I just started skipping over that sentence. Lila’s whole character really got on my nerves too, but I can get past that because I’ve met women like her.

Now, having said all that, I did enjoy the hell out of this book. Normally, I just read during break and lunch at work, but I read this all last night, because I needed to know what happened. The characters were great, especially Noah, who I identified with rather strongly. I don’t want to call it a romance, even though there are elements of it in the book. Really, the thing that got me reading was the premise. I’ll explain.

Noah Long is a dragon in human form. Running an antique shop called, appropriately enough, Dragon’s Lair, he presides over his centuries-old hoard of treasure. Having chosen to be human for the love of music, Noah is a loner, like others of his kind. One night, a pair of junkie thieves attempts to rob his store, but he catches them and the story begins. 

Gripping and for the most part, well told, the story can capture your attention and hold it until you finish. If you can overlook the repetition and odd phrasing and a few missing words here and there. Sometimes it seems almost like the rough draft got published instead of the final version, but otherwise it’s ok. It’s one of the better books I’ve read this month, managing to draw my attention away from the Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft. If you’re a reader, pick it up, I got it for free on the Amazon Kindle.