Arteest

It is a funny scenario, my friends. A couple of weeks ago, I went on a random idea that had me purchase a sketch pad. I decided to learn how to draw, mainly because I wanted to start a webcomic. Yes, that is the exact reason why I have decided to put pencil to paper. However, there have been a few bumps in my road. One is that I remembered while attempting to draw that I can't draw for shit. So, I guess I am reaching out to the general public for any sort of tips that may be helpful. Second being that the idea I finally planned on trying was taken last year without my knowledge. I wanted to start one about the hells of retail, an idea I thought no one had thought of. So, on a random whim, I decided to make sure I was right. A guy (in Massachusetts no less) decided to do the same thing in January 2006. Now, you can tell me all you want to do it anyway, but pretty much every joke that can be made about retail are generic and I could risk copying a joke here and there. So, I may have to find a new idea. Third being that even when I get my idea, I may have a snag in being funny. Now, if you know me, I try to be funny on a daily basis, mainly because it makes the day go by faster. Plus, being in a funny mood is better for me, it makes me feel a lot better in life in general. However, when I try to be funny at work or even when I was at school, it just came on a whim. I have a hard time pulling a joke from thin air, setting it up, and delivering the punchline effectively. A technique that maybe someone could help me with as well. Other than that, I am having a ball! I am practicing here and there, but I still don't feel like I am getting any better. That might be because I have high standards, but meh. On a lighter note, ER's suck. A few years back, I went to the ER in Haverhill over a very massive headache I had. They did bloodwork (which was spilled during the process), a cat scan, and other misc. work done to tell me I had a migrane. So, fast forward to last night when I was having this aching pain in my right side. Just to be safe, I decided to go to the ER to make sure my appendix was still intact and I was OK. Six hours of waiting and fun and bloodwork (which they didn't spill this time) and X-rays and urine testing to tell me that I am full of shit. You think that would be a good joke I finally made, but that was the truth. I was supposedly blocked up and the pain must be from that. Interesting enough, NO IT'S NOT. But, it might just be my hip. Meh. I'm out. Adios.

Video Games

If you know me, I like the occasional video game here and there. I don't live my life around the next one or devote all my free time playing them. However, it is a nice thing to know that I can kick up my Gamecube, Wii, or any of my other wonderful systems and escape from the shitty reality I live in for a few hours. The debate of video game violence is a long road of lies, deceit, and half-truths. While many people will come to the defense of video games and their connections to violence, there are still a select few who hate them with a passion. Of course, the forerunner in the campaign against video games being Jack Thompson. Video game violence isn't a new topic. It dates back to the days of Doom and the beginning of the era of 3D graphics. Games were crossing the line of not just being for fun, but to show more realistic situations. This, of course, sparked the debate on whether or not games were telling kids that it was alright to kill, because their video games basically told them so. If you believe that last statement, you are a fucking idiot. No way around it. While many people continue to believe that video games is the prime reason why someone at Virginia Tech, Columbine, or any other mass murder spree would do it, it just isn't true. Well, partly not true. The partly not true part being that while these violent people might have played a violent video game, it isn't the main reason behind why they did it. The main reason, of course, being the fact that they were fucked up to begin with. We are all born a different way, in a different part of town, to a different kind of family. A lot of us are going to go through the same issues in life. We are all going to grow up, we are all going to go to school to learn, and we are all going to live life. We are all going to go out dating, we are all going to "find true love" and then the next moment find out that there is nothing true about it. We are all going to handle it in different ways. While many will blow it off as being life, some will take it to the next level and make it an obsession of sorts. Those who take it to the next level do what the person at Virginia Tech did. The main argument I could make is look at the history of violence. Video games are violence only intersect at the point in which video games were created. However, look back further. To the Stalin's, the Hitler's, and the other evil dictators of the world before even them. They did not sit down and play Castle Wolfenstein and wonder how they could accomplish the same atrocities as the characters they were controlling. They did it because of what they believed in and what they thought was right. No one will ever know the real reason why were have to commit the most heinous crime known to man, we will always be left to guess. However, when you start blaming violent media, video games, movies, and TV combined, you start treading the waters of what we play in our games and watch in our movies. A world in which anything is possible and where the unexplainable is easily explained that doesn't make any sense. In summation, all those haters of video games need to shut the fuck up and pick up a game controller. Then, after you play the games that aren't named Grand Theft Auto and Doom, you tell me that I am going to turn violent and kill everyone in sight.