Category: Personal

Corn Nuts These delectable nuggets of crunchy goodness are delicious, and surprisingly good for you (I mean, as compared to other crunchy fried snacky foods). And while you tend to see them fairly regularly in gas stations and freeway travel plazas, you don’t often hear people talking about them.

Drakan: The Ancients Gates When this game game out on PS2 shortly after launch, it was met with thunderous apathy. To this day I don’t understand why it didn’t become a hit. A free-roaming hack-n-slash RPG with really awesome dragon-riding elements? That is pure gold. I liked the game so much I had Greg Sewart write up a retrospective for OPM. I sure hope you got paid, Greg.

New Model Army This vastly underrated British folk-rock band has been making challenging, provocative, catchy, sometimes heart-wrenching music since 1979, and almost no one in this country has ever heard of them. It’s very, very hard to find lyrics with as much power and artistry anywhere else.

Turning Off the TV This one may seem like cheating, but I really do relish hitting the off switch on the electronic overseer. Don’t get me wrong, I like me a good program every now and then. (And of course, gaming doesn’t count.) But I probably watch less than three hours of TV a week…I just enjoy gaming or reading or feeding my brain with internet junk food so much more. There are definitely times when I find myself sinking into that TV stupor, just watching it because it’s on and I’m not even that interested in what’s showing. At those times, summoning the energy to turn it off and go do something else is particularly rewarding.

Cemeteries Even though I’ve had to see them a lot more than I’d like over the past few years, I still do find something so relaxing and soothing about being in a cemetery — particularly an old cemetery, with its gorgeous headstones, monuments, and mausoleums. Oh, that reminds me:

Harold and Maude My favorite movie ever. It’s about love, and death, and wealth, and freedom, and most importantly: happiness. It’s not a movie for everyone, but if quirky black romantic comedies strike your fancy, I have never seen a better one. There are few movies like it, but if you liked Garden State, for example, I have a feeling you’ll like Harold and Maude.

Your turn. Let me know five (or six, or ten!) things you like that no one else does, in comments or your own blog. (Drop a link in comments if you do it on your own blog, k?)

I grew up in a very large family: I’m the youngest of ten kids. Yeah, you read that right. I have five older sisters and four older brothers — an even 5/5 split. To make things even more surreal, there was an eight-year gap between my youngest sister and my youngest brother, so most of my siblings are at least ten years older than me, with the difference in age between me and my oldest brother clocking in at ten days short of an even twenty years. So even in my earliest memories, my siblings had significant others, and very shortly thereafter, kids. (I now have a niece and two nephews who are married. But I’m not a great-uncle, yet.)

In addition to that, my dad’s biological mother died shortly after he was born, and his father got remarried, which made for five separate and distinct branches of the family tree just two generations back, counting the families of my maternal grandmother and grandfather, paternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, and paternal step-grandmother. And many of them came from big families. (We’re talking about turn-of-the-century reproduction statistics here, mostly for recent immigrants to the country; this was not at all abnormal.)

Anyway, to sum up: we’re a big family. So the holidays were always a fairly substantial production. Continue reading “And to All, a Good Night”

Thursday is my last day in the office, and while you’re still going to be seeing me around this place (I’m still hammering out details of my Big Plans but I’ll be posting here no matter what), I thought I would leave you with some thoughts gleaned from my ten-and-almost-a-half years working for the same employer, and nine-and-a-third years working on the same magazine. Let’s begin!

On the Business World
When you start at a new job, you will be terrified. Ten years later, you will wonder what you were so worried about.

Learn how to do the things that aren’t strictly your job. You never know when it might come in handy.

Remember that it’s okay to say “no” sometimes. But if you spend more energy explaining why you can’t do something than you would have spent actually doing it, it’s time to look for a new job.

The business world is strange, and fickle, and strange. Weird things happen. Expect the weirdness and you’ll be fine.

My dad, the successful owner and manager of a small business, once told me, “Never ask an employee to do something that you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself.” Another way to put this is, “Never ask an employee to do something unless they know you’d be willing to do it yourself.” I have never been given better managerial advice.

Continue reading “Parting Words”

[originally published in The Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, Issue #104, May 2006]

A few years back I got a letter from my mom. Amid the pleasantries and family updates was this particularly touching passage:

“‘Far be it from me to tell you what to do’…but I felt I must say something.

“I wish — I ask — I plead with you. Please try to do something to discourage those violent, antisocial videogames such as Grand Theft Auto. (I’ve read and heard more negative comments about this game in particular.)

“You have always cared about others — and cared deeply, I believe. I just can’t believe that you don’t care what effect these games have on other people — especially on kids and teens. I know you say they are for adults. Well, even if adults were the only ones to play them (and they aren’t), the game can influence adults who are not emotionally and morally mature — and can even affect those who are. This sort of thing is depressing, at the very least, and we all ought to try to be uplifting and encouraging, and most of all, responsible. We are our brothers’ keepers.

“You might think that you have no influence on the game designers, but I believe that you do. If you care, your voice could influence others to join you in protesting. And if you don’t make a difference at this time, your attempts could bring a change in the future — so that your children might live in a more peaceful world.” Continue reading “Missed Opportunities”

OPM columnist John Scalzi posted an entry on his personal blog where he invited readers to list 10 things they’ve done that most people haven’t. It sounded like a fun idea, and responding reminded me I’ve had an oddly interesting life. So here are my 10; feel free to add your own in comments or on your own blog! (If you do put it on your own blog, leave me a message to that effect in comments, ok?)

1. Headlined a punk rock show in a Masonic temple in Trenton, New Jersey. The opening band was a very young Less Than Jake, followed by a surprise appearance by Bobby Steele (formerly of the Misfits) and his band the Undead, who performed a 3-song set on our equipment. Their closing song was a freakin’ incredible rendition of “Last Caress” (which Steele wrote but Glenn Danzig stole and copyrighted under his own name) in which Steele paused before the final verse and slyly commented, “Often imitated, never duplicated.” \m/ Continue reading “10 Things I’ve Done That You Probably Haven’t”