Video games can be educational.

Whether you know it about me or not, I am into video games. Like the majority of men and an increasing portion of women in America, I enjoy sitting in front of a television screen and battling armadas of ridiculously oversized robots (or aliens, depending on your preference) with out-of-this-world weapons.

One of the games I like to engage in is called Psychonauts. This game can only be described as a "saturday morning cartoon for adults". Much like Pan's Labyrinth was "a fairy tale for adults" (if the comparison is lost, I'm sorry, it's all I've got). Its funny, irreverent and smart all at once. And what's more, it's fun. One of the things that the main character, Rasputin (or Raz for short) gets to do is travel telepathically into the brains of people who are having certain psychological problems. Mind you, pertinent to the game's plot.

In a particular level, you travel into the brain of an out-of-work actress named Gloria, who is wiling away the hours in the back yard of an insane asylum, giving a movie award acceptance speech to an audience consisting mainly of plants and rock in a greenhouse. Its inside her that you see a massively overweight acting critic sitting in the upper seats of an ornate playhouse.

The basic premise of this level is, by using a troupe of hap-hazard, talentless actors/actresses to act out portions of Gloria's life in order to get to the upper levels of the playhouse to take out the critic.

Ok. For those of you who have read this far, I applaud you. There is a point to this.

There is a voice, approximately somewhere in the vicinity of my left inner ear and corpus collossum (thats the inner part of your brain that acts as the bridge between both sides) that ruptures with what seems to be a mixture of sadness, hysterics and uncertainty. This is something, much like my fear of spiders and old houses, that I have dealt with nearly all my post-pubescent life.

Its the voice of that inner movie critic that doesn't like what he sees, and has made it his life's work at questioning every move and motion in my life. It is only through the act of doing, as well as not doing. Especially in the "not doing". I get into the realm of could-have-been and should-have-been.

I resolve to end this jibba jabba. I have before me a life that is full of opportunity and discoveries. I resolve to listen to only those voices that bring encouragement and praise. I resolve to take the negative voices as constructive criticism. I resolve to grow up. I resolve to take my responsibilities seriously. I resolve to work hard, regardless of my current mood.

Now that wasn't totally pointless.

Fighting off a cold and Overweight Midwestern Coaches

I sit here in what is the 3rd room i have moved into in my parents house since moving back from Salem in June. Tonight I'm feeling particularly tired. It's a combination of the muscle relaxants, my lower back pain, and the onset of what seems to be one of those nasty, sore-type colds. Maybe its the flu. I don't know. All I know is that the soreness in my back is exacerbated by the chills and soreness this cold is bringing on.

The Kansas Jayhawks beat the Virginia Tech Hokies 24-21 in a screamer of a match. I say screamer, because nearly the whole time my father was yelling things like "COME ON KANSAS!!!! MOVE THE BALL!!!" and "YOU CAN'T WIN GAMES PLAYING LIKE THAT!!!!" (mind you I was right there with him yelling. Gotta support the Big 12). You have to understand something about my dad. He is an avid sports fan. Especially college and pro football. When he comes home from a long day at work, he grabs a beer, plops himself on the couch and heads immediately for ESPN, ESPN2 and any other sports channel that is in existence. Hockey and soccer, two sports I find more stimulating, he doesn't particularly like to watch. So no NHL Center Ice or ESPN Shootout on our Dish Network.

But tonight was especially.....special. My Aunt Steph and Uncle Darrell from California flew in for an early celebration of my birthday (they leave on the 7th.... :( but i get strawberry cheesecake. its all good) and some quality time with my parents. (I really wish I had a picture of them to show you, my friends. They are two of the coolest people i know.)

My aunt and I made incriminating remarks about the Kansas Jayhawks coach's weight. When he would make a strained, thinking gesture with his face, Aunt Steph would insert something like...."Hmmmm.....I think I'll order a bucket of wings after the game" and I would immediately mean, the guy looks like a bunch of stacked up oversized tires for a Cadillac Escalade and then placed an oversized jumper suit on said stack (that might have been too much.....).

I love my aunt and uncle. They are fantastic. They are the expected visitor you still pretend to be unexpected. It's great. Here's to getting over that cold too. :)

Sometimes I Wanna Be The Car Crash, Not Always Just a Traffic Jam......

L.G. Fuad by Motion City Soundtrack

Let's get f***** up and die
I'm speaking figuratively of course
Like the last time I committed suicide...
Social suicide
Yeah so I'm already dead on the inside
But I can still pretend.
With my memories and photographs
I have learn to love the lie

I wanna know what its like to be awkward and innocent, not belligerent.
I wanna know what feels like to be useful and pertinent and have common sense, yeah.
Let me in, let me in to the club cause I wanna belong
And I need to get strong
And if memory serves I'm addicted to words and they're useless.

(In this department)
Let's get f***** up and die.
I'm riding hard on the last lines of every lie.
And the BMX bike of my life is about to explode.
I'm about to explode.
I'm a mess, I'm a wreck.
On the inside but I have learned to accept
All my problems and shortcomings
Cause I'm so visceral, and deeply inept.

I wanna be a part of you forget-me-nots and marigolds.
And all the things that don't get old;
Is it legal to do this, I surely don't know.
It's the only way I have learn to accept myself through other people's descriptions of life...
I'm afraid I'm alone and entirely useless....

(In this department)
Let's get f***** up and die.
For the last time with feeling we'll try hard not to smile.
As we cover our heads and drink heavily into the nights that still shock and surprise.
I believe that I can, overcome this and beat everything in the end.
But I chose to abuse for the time being,
maybe I'll win, but for now I've decided to die.

Sister soldier
You’ve been such a positive influence on my mental frame
If I could ever repay you,
I would, but I'm hard up for cash
And my memory lacks initiative.

God damn the liquor store's closed,
we were so close to scoring
it hurts, it destroys 'til it kills..
I am tired and hungry and totally useless.
(In this department)

-----------------------------------

For those of you who have lasted this long, I thank you. This song, however crude and invasive the lyrics may seem, they describe the last 8 hours of my life.

It is the last song on a mix CD I created this last summer in California before driving back to Colorado after my DTS in Salem, OR. I have had this CD in my car all day today, and the song feels appropriate, given my evening's events. With the New Year freshly arrived, I wanted to take this blog to bring these lyrics into perspective.

Without being overly revealing for the sake of modesty, I will say that this song represents the beginning of 2008. It's a song that describes how the absurdity with which one can pursue the things that hurt. The hormones that take over and the vices that can rule a person's life. Drinking, sex, approval; each of these things I have pursued in the last 8 hours.

Its funny that God can reach a person however He wants to. Whether its through a revealing self-consciousness masked in the pursuit of sexual satisfaction or drinking oneself into a stupor for that affirmation and acceptance from others. Humility and reality invade whether it be through an attempt of a benevolent God's protection or a statistical improbability.

I ask that you don't condemn me or abhor the things I talk about. Everyone falls. To what degree is irrelevant. For it is not in the things that I have done that bring glory, but what happens despite my dumb choices. I just hope that God still loves me and that my liver is still working come tomorrow morning. Because I need it to digest fats and such.

Thank you God for redemption and your protection. Without it, I probably would decide to have die.

Here's to 2008. A New Year.