Twin Peaks + Silent Hill + GTA3 = ?

My sister told me about this game called "Deadly Premonition." Although the cover of it looks like some gruesome scene out of Resident Evil or somesuch, it's apparently closer to an adventure-game type thing. A really surreal adventure-game type thing. This made me think about why there isn't more surrealism in video games. I guess people are only just starting to think of games as an artistic medium, and surrealism doesn't exactly lead to commercial success. I think it's pretty cool, or at least amusing.

The FBI agent you play also talks to his invisible friend named Zach.

Apologies to you if you're a gun'sbraster

I was in my Japanese class when we got on the topic of gun control laws. (My teacher is the token liberal professor at BYU, and he favors tighter gun control laws. It didn't have much to do with Japanese.) One student said "Well, maybe a lot of Church members think guns are a good thing because they were important to us historically when we were being persecuted." Another said "It might also have to do with geographic areas." I tend to lean left, and since most of BYU, and by extension my class, is pretty conservative when it comes to the right to bear arms, I started to wonder what would be the most inflammatory thing I could say. I didn't end up actually contributing much to the conversation because I started giggling like a schoolgirl, but I immediately came up with "Maybe it's because of repressed sexuality." (Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if that were the case for a lot of people who like guns.) Then later the potentially more inflammatory thought of "Maybe it's because of repressed homoerotic urges." Then as I was biking home, "I know! Maybe we could classify gun ownership as a paraphilia!"

See, it'd be really funny if I said these things out loud in a classroom full of gun nuts. Right? You yourself can try them at home or on the job.

half-visible, half-baked, half-naked

In my Environmental Biology class today, we watched a bideo about climate change 'n' stuff. It was kind of America-bashing, because of our culture of excess. We've got ridiculous amounts of wealth in this country--people spend more money watering their lawns than India's government collects in income tax--but all we can think about is getting more. It's as if there was some machine saying "consume...consume..." in our rooms as we sleep, like "remember...remember..." from Flowers for Algernon. Well, maybe we need a new cultural mantra? I thought about it a bit and for some reason, this really struck me. "Hey, people are obsessed with getting more for its own sake. Our world economy more or less depends on it. What if we changed that to innovation for its own sake? Money would still get spent, and stuff would still get made." I guess the reason this hit me so hard is because a)I have never taken an economics class and b)I think a change like that in the national character appeals to me, who favors individualism(which engenders innovation) in most cases over collectivism (which engenders keeping up with the Joneses and blind following of trends and routines).

I haven't really thought this through, but it made me think "I should start doing more innovation. And encourage others to do same."

...what

Would you buy this video game? I would then say I didn't.

(expletive deleted)

I like creative things. Lately I've been hooked on the website tvtropes.org, which is about more than simply television, and it makes me want to do many creative things! In fact, it kind of makes me want to write fiction. But what medium should I use: film, television, literature, songs, comics, video games, live performance?
At any rate, this is me trying to think of what sort of legacy I want to leave as a human being, but as for you, reader (possibly readers?), I suggest going to the website. It's fun.

"Hey Ladies Fans"

I'm feeling good-o. Over the last month or so I've found that physical activity is ridiculously, ridiculously good for my mental health.

The title of this post is the title of an Ill Mitch track. I tried to look Ill Mitch up on Wikipedia, but apparently the closest article is "The Sexorcist." Uhh, right.

Here's another installment of "Why Does This Song Affect Me Like This?": I just listened to "Waterslides" by the Aquabats, and I guess I've tied it to certain emotions and times of my life...It makes me feel somewhere between pensive and nostalgic, if that's possible at 23 years old. At any rate, it's really a pretty song and somewhat of a departure from the rest of the Aquabats' oeuvre. Listen!

To bring this full-circle, I also like the song "Hello, Goodnight" by the same band. I just read on a website that: "Whenever I saw them live, before they played this one, MC Bat Commander started saying how if you're really depressed to just call somebody, anybody, that it'd be alright."

I really like the Aquabats, largely because they strike me as decent people. What other bands are like this?

What?

My mind goes in odd directions sometimes. Over the break, I had a lot of free time and "nothing" to do. So I would have some days where I didn't even get out of the house, which led to a general, not-easily-put-into-words sense of dissatisfaction with myself/what I've become/what I'm doing. This was a hard problem to solve, but today I started thinking about my married brother, and how he and his wife have been caring for their newborn and not really getting out and about. I had been thinking that maybe I was disappointed because I wasn't being social, but my brother and his family haven't been doing much of what I'd call "social" in the normal sense. So I revised my opinion into "You need to make somebody happy." This sounds really people-pleasing and unhealthy to my ears, so maybe I should revise it again to "You need to show love for somebody."

Unfortunately, now my brain has started asking me to fill in the blank: "If you show love for somebody, then finally you will __________."

I think the only thing stopping me from being an emo kid is that my mind likes to be more confusing than straightforward when I'm having issues. ...Also, I'm not skinny enough, and I'm too lazy to grab any Dashboard Confessional or whatever is emo right now.

(P.S.: I wrote one time in my journal about an emo-lookin' kid in the college concert band I played with right after high school. He bleached his hair or wore a different sweater or something, so I wrote that he went from "sensitive black" to "weepy orange." It occurs to me now that these would be possible "threat level" colors if Michael Chertoff (yes, I had to look his name up) went emo.)

(P.P.S.: The emo kid played euphonium, or "emo-nium.")