Tag Archives: opinion

Tuesday on the Soapbox

If You Can’t Park It, Don’t Buy It!

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More and more, I’ve seen people driving cars, SUVs and trucks like the following:


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(Okay, okay, maybe that second pic is a little exaggerated. But to me, a driver of a very small car, these bigger vehicles kinda do look like monster trucks on the road. 😛 )

Most of the time, I coexist with these bigger cars on the road pretty well; in fact, I admire the people who seem to be able to wiggle through traffic in these tanklike creations. But what gets me about big cars and trucks is that the people who drive them…don’t seem to be able to park them very well.

Exhibits A through D:


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Though I didn’t take any of these pictures, I’ve seen examples of these kinds of parking everywhere I go. It’s almost as if the people who park larger cars/trucks in this way want others to notice them so badly that they have to take up all this room in the parking lot (or in fire lanes…or wherever they decide to stop their vehicle…LOL). Not only is this annoying for others who might have been able to park there otherwise, but it also comes off as selfish and insensitive.

Solution: Parking Test/Parking Classes

But wait! This is not just the regular “whine about bad parking” blog post. I actually have a solution!

My idea for solving the parking issue: before you leave the dealership with a new car, you should be given a parking test as part of the test drive, just like your driver’s license test. Dealerships have tons of parking spaces, after all, and you’re going to be test-driving the car anyway to make sure you can handle it on the road. Why not just make sure you’re buying something you can park effectively? Driving a new car is always weird because you’re not used to the size, and that definitely goes for parking, too…it would be worth a shot!

And, if your chosen car proves to be harder to drive than you thought, perhaps “parking classes” could be offered by private instructors or even the DMV. Driver’s ed fades fast in the memory, after all–who remembers how to parallel park, right? (That’s why a lot of cars now come with “Park Assist” technology and stuff like that…LOL)

…Okay, okay, the above advice is a little tongue-in-cheek, I admit…but think about it. Couldn’t we all benefit from a parking class sometimes, especially in those lots where the spaces are about THIS MUCH too small to just whoop in there willy-nilly? I know I could, even with an itty-bitty car like mine. Maybe if we all brushed up on our parking the way we brush up on our driving for license tests, we wouldn’t have all these parking fails that so frustrate us.

…But then again, that just might put the fail-picture websites out of business entirely. xD

Tuesday on the Soapbox

5 Most Useless Wedding Expenditures

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I’m still only daydreaming about my big day, but like most ladies with a Pinterest account, I have collected my fair share of wedding ideas on my “Someday Dreams” board, pinning what I’d like to remember in terms of decor, food, costuming, etc.

Along the way, I have discovered that people have found very inventive ways to waste money in weddings. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t really want to start out my married life in severe debt just because I wanted to have a lavish wedding. Plus, selecting and managing all those tiny little details? Not worth the stress and gray hairs!

With this “simpler-is-better” mindset, I thought about which expenditures give the least “bang for your buck,” and came up with the following five:

Floods of Flowers



Source for 1st pic Source for 2nd pic 		Fresh flowers are lovely but fleeting decorations. While they’re fairly easy to set up and easy to clean up afterwards, large bunches of them can also set off allergies (don’t laugh, I’ve seen it happen!), and can look over-feminized. And aside from a few stems and petals pressed and saved between book pages, fresh flowers can’t be saved as mementos very easily, so they end up literally being money in the trash.

As for fake flowers, they can be saved easily, but you’ll likely end up spending more per bouquet and they’ll junk up your cleanup attempts (and your attic/basement) later. Take it from me, a known packrat… 😛

When you’re looking to stretch your wedding funds, trimming down on flowers may be an easy way to go cheaper and still get a look fit for a party. Just a few flowers here and there may even make a more elegant effect!

Over-Detailed Pew Decorations

Seeing all these photos of wedding aisles trussed up in lengths and lengths of fabric make me a little nervous. Not only can guests easily disturb these during seating, they can serve as a tripping hazard when the wedding party is going down the aisle, too! (Leave it to me, the woman who can trip over a paper clip, to notice hazardous decorations like this. LOL)

Also, lengths of fabric connecting pew to pew decorations can look way too floofy (again, over-feminized). Yes, there will be a lot of females involved, but you want to make sure the groom doesn’t keel over of an estrogen overdose before the end of the ceremony! 😛 All kidding aside, having pew decorations that look like extensions of the bride’s dress can be a bit of overkill (expensive overkill, no less–you have to pay for all that fabric, after all).

Saving a little money on the pew decorations and going for something simpler–that isn’t a hazard–might be just what your budget calls for (as well as what your guests will enjoy more).



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Too Expensive “Wedding Food”



Source for 1st pic Source for 2nd pic 		Have you ever noticed that the more expensive food is, the less you get, and the less edible it is? Hoity-toity names, pretty presentations, dainty miniature portion sizes, and pricey ingredients don’t seem to make things taste all that good. Choosing good food that you and your intended enjoy may not mean that you have to go to the fanciest place in town to get catering.

In fact, you might want to go for booking a pretty location and having just home-cooked food, or awesome cheaper eats presented in fancy ways. (I’ve long joked that I’d have a PB&J table and a KFC table at my wedding reception, just because I actually want to be able to EAT. 😛 )

Remember, nobody said your wedding food had to be 50 bucks a plate. You don’t want to end up paying more for the presentation of the food than the quality, right?

Painfully Pricey Bridal Shoes

I see and hear of many brides choosing very high, sparkly heels for their big days, and…my ankles ache in sympathy. No matter how big or small you are physically, high-heeled shoes are a no-no when you’re going to be walking and standing a lot!

Take it from a choral singer who’s stood in hour-long concerts in enough pairs of high heels–you don’t want to punish yourself like that. You could even end up hurting yourself if you trip and fall over a long bridal dress train (broken ankles are not usually part of the ceremony). And remember, if you’re blistered and achy later, your new husband is going to have to put up with you…just sayin’.

In this instance, going for lower heels (or even supportive flats) could help you enjoy your big day a lot better. Usually, lower heels and less decoration mean a cheaper price, and honestly, with all the awesomeness of you walking down the aisle, who’s going to be looking at your shoes, anyway?



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Overloaded Wedding Favors



Source for 1st pic Source for 2nd pic 		You do want to thank your guests for coming and giving them a small token to remember the occasion. You don’t want your guests going home overloaded with a gift like they just left a taping of the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Going into way too much detail and too much cost on favors can backfire–it’s more stuff for the guests to keep up with, and many guests throw away their favors within a month of the wedding anyway. (SAD but true–well, except for me, the packrat. LOL) Even if you think the guests are going to “use them forever,” you don’t have any control over them once you’ve given the favors…and you don’t want money going into the trash (or into yard sales) unnecessarily.

Instead, edible favors, or very small “thank you” tokens of appreciation like a keychain tag or custom bookmark, could be easier ways to let your guests know that you appreciate their effort. (In the case of edible favors, be wary of common food allergens, like peanuts.) Either way, this will ensure that the guests enjoy the favors and don’t have loads of stuff to carry to the car later.

Summary

Weddings are awesome occasions, and every couple wants to make sure theirs is special and spiffy. Just remember that throwing money around doesn’t make a wedding special–it’s the people that come and the genuineness of the ceremony. Instead of going into debt for your big day, spend the money on things you know you’ll remember (and things you’ll need), and leave the unnecessary flourishes for soap opera weddings. 🙂

Tuesday on the Soapbox

The Ethanol Swindle

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If you’ve pulled up to a gas pump recently, you might have noticed a little sign either on the pump or nearby: “Gas Contains 10% Ethanol,” or “This station includes ethanol in all grades of gasoline sold here.” While most people might not take notice of it, I do–and it angers me every time I see it, because I know I’m getting swindled.

Wait, What?

Yes, I said “swindled.” Ethanol is included in just about every station’s gas these days, but I have consistently found that it reduces my fuel economy by nearly 3 mpg (from 28 to 25-26). And I’m still having to pay for it as if it’s pure gas–I only get maybe 2 cents off per gallon compared to pure gas. If that’s not a swindle, I don’t know what is.

What Is Ethanol, Anyway?

According to Wikipedia, ethanol is a corn-based fuel, meant for “flexible-fuel” vehicles, but in low concentrations (10% or lower), it’s seemingly safe to mix in with regular gasoline.

But I Thought Ethanol Was a “Greener” Choice?

Well, it kinda is and it kinda isn’t. It’s not a fossil fuel like pure gasoline, sure. And yes, it uses corn, a somewhat more “renewable resource.” But it also burns less efficiently than pure gas does in a gas-designed car, therefore reducing the MPG you get per tank. Also, growing corn solely for producing ethanol would reduce land area for growing food.

Wikipedia’s article, linked above, says that ethanol only reduces mileage by 3%, but I believe it’s much higher than that, since my little Ford Focus ZX3 gets only 25-26 city MPG with ethanol-infused gas, and 28 city MPG with pure gas. (I’ve tested it several times, accounting for tire pressure, driving habits, and other car maintenance; the only difference is the fuel, and that same 2-3 MPG difference shows up every time I have to buy ethanol fuel.) This is the equivalent of feeding my kid nothing but fruit and Chinese noodles; an hour later the kid is hungry again (and I would be, too).

Now, a few say that ethanol is cleaner for air and better for environment, which it may indeed be if we all switch over to vehicles that can use pure ethanol, perhaps. But an overwhelming majority of the articles I read in my research attest that ethanol, especially when blended into otherwise pure gas, is not a cost-saving or environment-saving maneuver.

For instance, Cato.org reports that ethanol will make us use more crop land, is more expensive than gas, will actually raise gas prices, is not renewable, increases smog, and costs more to produce. The New York Times seconds that assessment, and the Washington Post thirds it, with recounts of people’s negative experiences with using ethanol, especially in small engines like lawnmowers. The Washington Post’s article even mentions power equipment failing when given ethanol-infused fuel!

The Most Infuriating Thing

Not only is ethanol bad for little engines and raising costs of ethanol-blended fuel due to subsidies, but it also is just as expensive as pure gas, at least around my hometown.

Though the article I just linked to says that ethanol gas is often 25-40 cents cheaper per gallon than pure gas, I have not found that to be the case. Between the pure-gas and the ethanol-gas sellers, there’s only usually a 2-3 cent difference between the two, and that’s in many places in and near my hometown. Same money, less MPG. What does R-I-P-O-F-F spell?

How Can We Change This?

I know that we need to have an energy economy less dependent on fossil fuels, and we need to have fuels that don’t clog and smog the air up. But there’s got to be something out there besides adding something to gasoline that makes the mileage go DOWN, making demand for gasoline go UP and usage go UP. Plus, there’s got to be a way to protect smaller engines–since pure gas is so hard to find these days, I have to buy ethanol-infused gas, and I don’t want to have to pay for an expensive engine repair later because of it. I don’t know squat about economics or resource management, but adding ethanol seems a little counterintuitive when you consider these effects.

Personally, till we can figure out what to do about ethanol gas, I’m going to seek out the few non-ethanol-infused gas stations near me (pure-gas.org has a list of all the pure-gas sellers all across America), and try to keep my little car fueled with satisfying real gas. Maybe if enough of us raise a fuss about it, something will get done!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Let’s Stop Throwing Tantrums and Calling Names

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Watching the political situation erupt in America is like watching kindergartners fight on the playground. Well, except for one major difference: there are more public tantrums, controversial angry statements, and name-calling than any 5-year-old could dream up.

Whatever political party you affiliate yourself with, or even if you are no political party (probably due to this very phenomenon), it is embarrassing for all of us. Who wants to be represented by people who can’t get along long enough to talk like grownups, when that’s what they’re being PAID to do?

Is Politics Even About Leadership Anymore?

The upcoming election in November has only heightened the tensions between the two dominant parties. Mitt Romney has already said that the reason he wants to win is to defeat Barack Obama. The words came straight from him: all he wants to do is beat a political rival, not lead the country, not get us out of the economic mess we’ve been mired in since 2006 (at least!).

I think that’s a very telling statement; it reveals how at least one candidate views politics, and as you survey the rest of the political field, the adversarial attitude between conservatives and liberals seems to be a popular view these days. Politics, if you look at federal Congress all the way down to local levels, is no longer about being a public servant, but about being a victor in the public eye. It’s no longer about solving national problems, but about who can tell the best story and garner the most attention so they get elected or reelected.

This is shameful, and it’s not right. Why bother having politicians at all, if this is how they’re going to act? Why bother electing people to lead, if they are going to ignore the duty we chose them for? Politics has turned into a zoo, complete with people throwing verbal excrement at each other, often just as much within their own party as across party lines.

Republicans and Democrats: More like a Dysfunctional Couple than True Enemies

This may sound strange to some, but I view the vitriolic back-and-forth between Republicans/conservatives and Democrats/liberals as the fighting between a dysfunctional, long-married couple.

Picture this: they’ve lived together for so long that the smallest flaws in the other person irritate them to death; they spend their days together angrily hashing and rehashing the same old issues and never getting anywhere on them. And don’t forget, both of them go to bed mad on a regular basis.

Neither person is interested in hearing the other’s point of view anymore. Neither one is interested, really, in resolving the conflict between them. The conflict has become a Conflict, with a capital C, that defines their very lives; it’s gone on for so long that it has become normal and accepted behavior. Any of this sounding familiar yet?

I believe both major American political parties have fallen into this trap with each other. There’s almost no listening going on between the two parties, but there’s a whole lot of negative comments and blanket generalizations about the other party flying around each camp. What was it I saw on Facebook a couple of nights ago from a conservative poster? “Well, all LIBS want ‘respect’ and wave the race card at you when you don’t give it.”

Generalizations -> Stereotypes -> Prejudices

These kinds of generalizations, stereotypes, and prejudices against each other get us absolutely nowhere. Once you start thinking of another person (or another party) in absolutes, like “He always forgets to pick up his **** socks off the floor!” or “They always want big government and big spending!”, then your perception of that person/party becomes one-dimensional. Soon enough, their flaws and your own prejudices are all you see.

I’m guilty of this myself; for years, I thought of conservatives in just the same negative way. I hated their “closed-minded religion” instead of true Jesus-following beliefs; I hated their defiant “God, guns and anti-gay” platform; I hated how they preached of tolerance while being intolerant of others. As a nearly-closeted liberal in an increasingly conservative town, county, region, and state, I felt personally attacked and marginalized by these beliefs. Because this was how I believed all conservatives acted, I feared the ones living near me.

But I’ve come to realize that not all conservatives believe or act this way. I was largely led astray by the sound bites I heard in the media, and it wasn’t until I actually was friends with real-life conservatives that I began to see the varying degrees of political belief within parties, and realize it in myself as well.

Instead of Letting the Aisle in Congress Divide Us, Let it Unite Us

I’m not saying that all the members of Congress should literally marry somebody of the other party (though that would be kinda funny). What I mean is that instead of throwing things across the aisle at each other, maybe we should commit to “walk down the Congress aisle” together, pledging not “till death do us part,” but “till compromise shall we listen.” Maybe conservatives and liberals should try to work things out more like a married couple would instead of like bitter enemies.

America is a diverse nation, full of vastly different opinions and ways of life; of course we’re going to disagree. I may not understand why conservatives believe as they do; they may not understand why I, as a liberal, believe as I do. But at least I should be willing to sit down, listen respectfully, and compromise where necessary. As long as we keep trying to legislate without listening, we are NEVER, EVER, EVER going to get anywhere, just as a married couple who keeps shouting over each other will never solve their argument.

We Need Each Other–We’re ALL Humans!

Conservatives and liberals need each other to survive, to serve as checks and balances for each other. That’s why the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of government even exist in the first place: to make sure the government and all its employees are making balanced decisions that take into account all possible outcomes and effects. The duality of the political parties is no accident; each needs the other to keep them from going overboard in either direction.

At least, that was how it was supposed to work. The way Congress is behaving these days, I wonder if any of them listened in civics class. And I thought handling 30 middle-schoolers at a time was rough; I would not want President Obama’s job right now. 30 surly 13-year-olds are not fun to deal with, but I think over 100 stubborn Congressmen and women might be just a wee bit more difficult to handle.

If we can get over the stereotypes and prejudices each party has against the other, we might just be able to solve the huge problems our nation is facing. If not…well, we’ll have to resign ourselves to more years and decades of failures before we learn. All the roses and flowers in the world won’t solve this. It will take heartfelt communication, and then, if we’re lucky, compromise and hope afterwards.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Tales from the Picky Eater’s Plate

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As my parents could probably tell you, I’ve been a picky eater as long as I can remember (and probably even before that). One of the first coherent thoughts I expressed aloud, as a child, was “Don’t want. Not good. Bad taste.” XD

My relationship with certain types of food, therefore, has been a tenuous one. Most vegetables and “healthy” food has instead tasted horribly bitter to me–and I don’t think I’m alone in that. Not only that, I experience aversions to certain food textures as well, which I’ll elaborate on in a moment–and I’m also not the only one to be particular about food textures. Some consider it a mild eating disorder, some think it’s part of a sensory disorder, and others are simply talking about their own food texture hates.

Through my growing-up years and into adulthood, I have kept trying new foods that contain the ingredients I didn’t like. But I often find myself spitting out the non-favorite food anyway, either voluntarily into a napkin or involuntarily (gagging and sometimes even throwing up). This is not an entitlement issue–it’s actually quite restricting to my diet, and makes it 3 times more complicated when I have to order things specially made, or have to do “surgery” on a meal to remove all the crap I’m not going to touch.

Example: People don’t realize how lettuce and tomato flavors RUIN a burger, for instance–you can take the lettuce leaf and tomato slice off, but the bitter juices remain, tainting the bun, cheese slice and meat patty beneath, not to speak of all the condiments you lose in the “burger surgery” process. And if I ask for lettuce and tomato to be removed, I still have to pay regular price for it; I’m basically paying for lettuce and tomato I don’t want and don’t get. NOT fair, much?

When I have tried to explain my particular food tastes to others, the general consensus is that if “I’d just try it, I’d like it.” But I don’t like wasting money on food I just flat won’t eat. And, most of the time, I have tried these foods, and I still didn’t like them, or I experienced such a violent negative reaction to them that it’s not worth it. It seems my taste buds are very particular, and though I’d like to get healthy and eat “healthy,” most of the good-for-me foods don’t even taste like food to me.

Non-Favorite Foods

Vegetables

  • Tomatoes
  • Carrots
  • Corn
  • Mushrooms
  • Onions
  • Lettuce (especially Iceberg lettuce)
  • Olives
  • Broccoli (if not cooked in anything)
  • Spinach (if not drowned out with cheese)
 Fruits

  • Pineapples
  • Apples
  • Oranges (if left whole)
  • Bananas
  • Strawberries (if left whole)
  • Cherries
  • Peaches
 Meats

  • Steak
  • Bacon
  • Southern-style barbecue
  • Most seafood
  • Fatty bits hanging on any meat product
 Desserts/Snacks

  • Chocolate in too large a quantity
  • Twinkies
  • Shredded coconut
  • Anything drowning in grease/fat
  • Yogurt

How This Stuff Tastes to Me

  • Broccoli and spinach are only good mashed up in casseroles with loads of cheese on top so I can’t really taste ’em. Otherwise, they both taste like crunchy grass. (As in, I eat it and I’m tempted to moo afterwards.)
  • Chunky chopped tomatoes/whole tomatoes taste like acidic water and soil, and nothing else. And the texture is nasty as well–slippery and slidy in my mouth, dodges my teeth. Yuck. But I can eat ketchup just fine; go figure.
  • Bananas have too flat a flavor to really enjoy, but it’s the texture that kills me. Soft and mushy right until you get to the middle, and then your teeth crunch through this hard bit in the center. Um, no thank you, I didn’t want cardboard in the middle of my banana.
  • Eating olives feels like I’m eating cooked eyeballs. HECK to the NO.
  • Eating cooked onions is like eating spicy slivers of tapeworms. Pull the onion slice out of a breaded onion ring sometime and you’ll see exactly what I mean. BLEGH!
  • Iceberg lettuce (the really pale green/white kind) is basically crunchy, bitter paper impregnated with water.
  • Mushrooms have an odd rubbery texture that kinda feels like I’m eating a bodily organ of some sort. Combine that with an utter lack of flavor, and you get why I hate mushrooms.
  • Pulp and fiber in most fruits and vegetables is like eating a wad of Silly String, or gum that has long since lost its flavor. Examples: celery (bite into it, and it looks like split ends), oranges (yuck, pulp that gets all over my tongue and I can’t swallow it)
  • I’ve tried and tried to enjoy Twinkies and other “just-sugar-and-fat” foods, and I can’t take ’em. They are literally too sweet–my mouth dries out and I choke.
  • Very greasy food, like Taco Bell’s new beef recipe = not awesome.
  • I can take chocolate in small quantities, but I have to have something to drink with it–otherwise, the back of my throat burns like I’ve tried to swallow rubbing alcohol.
  • Strong fishy odors make me think of women’s health issues, NOT food. Seafood is largely yuck for that reason. (Seafood is also very chewy/oily)
  • Yogurt is okay in smoothies–just PLEASE do not serve it to me plain. The “live, rotting bacteria” taste has to be covered up with a much stronger flavor.

Not Just Taste, but Texture, Too

It’s true–I generally pay attention to texture of food as well as taste. One more reason that I hate most vegetables and fruit is because of the natural crunchy or pulpy texture–I don’t like too much crunch and too little taste, like in Iceberg lettuce, nor do I want 75% of what I ingest to be tasteless wads of pulp or seeds, like oranges and bananas.

Along with crunchy and pulpy, the tough, chewy foods are generally not on my happy list; thus, why I rarely eat most forms of pork and steak. Bacon? No, thank you, all you are is crisp and grease, or too tough to pull apart. BBQ pork? No, you’re just possum meat in a different animal (longer you chew it, bigger it gets). Steak? Why pay 16 bucks for meat that either tastes like leather or is mooing at me?

Basically, if the food feels disgusting in my mouth, I’m not going to be able to eat it, even if it tastes okay. Example: as much as I love oranges’ flavor, I can’t stand the texture of the pulp in my mouth–thus, no whole oranges for me. Literally makes me want to gag.

Other Picky Food “Rules”

  • Vegetables and meats are supposed to be salty, and fruits and desserts are supposed to be sweet. No crossovers allowed (i.e. sweet corn, honey barbecue flavored meat, watermelon with salt on it, brownies with salted nuts included).
  • Sweet and salty flavors are not supposed to mesh in the same food. Instead, sweet should be cleansed from the palate first before taking a bite of salty, and vice versa.
  • If the meat is pink, has blood running from it, or if the meat looks too much like the animal it came from (i.e., leg of lamb that still LOOKS like a leg), no way I’m eating it.

Summary

Since we all eat but experience food differently, food is both an intensely universal and personal experience. My experience is just one among many–yours is likely completely different. But it’s interesting to share what foods we love and hate, and why.

I also wanted to raise awareness of the food texture issue, since that seems to be a much more common phenomenon than I ever dreamed. Who knew I had compatriots in the hatred of orange pulp and banana seeds?

Thursday in the Zone

Getting Out of Console Gaming?

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Time was, consoles were how gamers passed the time. From the time Atari made its first console, to the early 1990s when Nintendo created the SNES and Sega crafted its Genesis, and even on to when the Playstation 2, Xbox, and Gamecube warred for market dominance in the early 2000s, consoles have all but ruled gaming life.

But now, that is increasingly no longer the way of things.

With the advent of gaming on the Internet, consoles are not often needed to play games anymore. People are now able to use computers as TVs, media creators, Internet browsers, and now even gaming consoles. It’s possible to play monthly-fee online MMOs like World of Warcraft, League of Legends, and City of Heroes (OMG LINK) as well as single-player online Flash games for free. Indeed, gamers of today can get their gaming fix without ever buying a console or its games (especially due to the pirated game downloads and emulators).

I am one of the gamers who has all but ditched console gaming in favor of online gaming. Though I buy and use my games legitimately, turning on a separate machine besides my computer just to game seems almost alien to me now, even though I literally grew up playing video games on systems like the SNES, Playstation 1, and N64. I haven’t touched my Playstation 2 in weeks, and my Wii sat so long unused that it doesn’t even turn on anymore. And, from what I can tell, I am not alone; many old-school gamers have turned to computers as well.

Why Might Consoles Go the Way of the Dodo?

  • A computer keyboard can be easier to manipulate than controllers (especially for kinetic controllers like the Wii–I still can’t completely figure ’em out)
  • Games online are free or small-fee to play, and can be played anywhere you can set a laptop; console games require special equipment, a set place to play, etc.
  • We increasingly require more and more online components from our consoles, so they end up being small computers in and of themselves
  • We are living downsized lives economically, and people can better rationalize paying for a new computer rather than for a new gaming console

But Wait a Moment: The Social Gaming Perspective

As much fun as online gaming is, there is a vital component of gaming that it’s still missing: true social gaming.

Much of online gaming is single-player, unless you get into MMOs (Massive Multiplayer Online games). And even with MMOs, everyone is hooked up to different computer screens and communicating via typed or voice chat. It’s just not the same as playing with three or four of your buddies in front of a single TV screen, with controllers hooked up and a ton of laughs (or muttered curses) going on.

There’s something about playing a game with others in the same room and on the same screen that engenders more honest, real communication and socializing, much more than playing online with others does. Even playing an online game with someone while they’re sitting in the same room with you is different; you’re still looking at different computer screens, still disconnected from them somehow. Social gaming–the kind only seen in console gaming, 4 players at a time–is in danger of dying out.

I found an XKCD-style, long comic panel about a year ago that really explains this all visually, but I’m darned if I can find it again. (Hating dialup a whole bunch right now for not letting me search faster!) Basically, it showed how computers make many facets of modern gaming easier (buying, stealing, playing multiplayer), but the social gaming aspect, the “playing on my couch with a bunch of my friends” concept, is woefully lacking. Poor little stick man just cries alone in his room, with only fond, poignant memories of gaming with friends.

Next Week: What’s So Special About Social Gaming?

As wonderful as social console gaming is, it deserves its own blog post. Tune in next week to hear the rest of this story, full of personal anecdotes and nostalgia. 🙂

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Horror Movies Ain’t Got Nothing on My Imagination

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I like to tell people that I’m not very interested in horror movies or literature, because I’ve got a whole horror-movie production studio in my subconscious.

Most people think it’s a joke…but they aren’t the ones with a horror movie going while they sleep, and no way to turn it off!

A Few Selections from My Gleefully Wicked Subconscious

  • The recurring dream featuring running through a very sticky substance, and KNOWING I have to run from something that’s going to eat me, but I’m stuck to the floor. My chest is heavy, and I can’t breathe at all–there’s a crushing pressure on my body that makes it nearly impossible to take in air. Oh, and did I mention I’m completely blind in this dream? (I hate hate hate this one–I always wake up feeling like I’ve been strangled!)
  • A flashback from teaching middle school, where I get arrested in the lunchroom for allowing the kids to go absolutely batpoo crazy, and the judge pretty much throws the book at me, telling me “a criminal like me should not be allowed back in the classroom for any reason.” His version of “throwing the book at me” is chopping my hands off and cutting out my voice box. (Aw, God, the sheer amount of blood, and knowing it was MINE…nastyyyyyy)
  • The one where I’m the servant of a minister and his kinda-creepy mother, and they ask me to come to the basement of the church after I finish work. There’s a barrel in the corner of the gray-brick room I arrive in, which looks to be filled with water…but when I look in it, there’s rotting flesh in there. A scream rips from me, and I wake up lying on the floor, watching the minister burn one of my leg bones on a makeshift altar. I realize that I’m now just a pile of fleshless bones on the floor–my flesh has been stripped from me and is in the barrel–but I can still feel everything he’s doing to that bone of mine! (I was literally screwed up for HOURS after waking up from this…THING)

And yes, these are all real dreams that I’ve had over the course of my lifetime. (The blind running/difficulty breathing dream has haunted me since childhood, at least since I was three.) My brain seems to be very good at giving me frights while I sleep–it’s like, “Hey, you’re sleeping–let’s make a really scary movie that you can’t wake up out of!” (I have had numerous instances of being unable to wake easily from these dreams, more than the pretty and lovely dreams I’m always jarred out of by the cursed alarm clock.)

Why These Dreams Equal No “Scream” or “Halloween” for Me

Couple this vivid imagination and wicked subconscious with a strong empathy for others’ suffering, plus a little bit of paranoia about experiencing pain, and you get exactly why I can’t sit through a horror movie without needing a barf bag or a sensory deprivation tank afterwards. I don’t like seeing great gouts of blood all over the screen, because I can all too easily visualize it as being mine. Seeing people get stabbed through the eye or having to run screaming from stuff is not my idea of fun…it’s too much like my own nightmares. Why pay for this when I can get it for free (admittedly, in an uncontrollable fashion, but still)?

Unpredictable Nightmares

The frustrating thing about my horror-movie dreams is that I can never predict when they’ll happen, but they’re always nerve-jarring when they do. I could have the most awesome day ever, come home, go to bed, and experience something like one of the three dreams I mentioned above. Or, I could have the most awful day of my life, come home and flop in bed only to have an amazingly wonderful dream.

Is this my subconscious’ way of giving balance to my life? “Oop, you’re too happy, let’s give you something to freak out about!” or “Whoa, you need a pick-me-up–here ya go!” Whatever it is, I guess this is another of my brain’s quirks…

For the Readers

Do you suffer from similar kinds of nightmares as I do, or have you ever had one that stuck with you for a long time after waking? Let me know in the comments!

Sunday in the Wild

Eleven Things 2011 Taught Me

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To appropriately ring in the new year, I am reflecting on things that the old year taught me. How can I go forward if I don’t know where I am, right?

Eleven Things 2011 Taught Me

1. It is possible for your wisdom teeth to be severely infected for months, without your actual teeth ever hurting.

2. My parents are awesome, supportive people, and I am darn lucky to have them both still living.

3. 5,000 words typed in a single afternoon? Yes, it happens. 😀

4. Winter precipitation is a particularly large pain in the posterior region. It’s fine to be in a warm house looking out at said precipitation; trying to walk in the cold among inches and inches of icy, slippery snow leads to many falls and much fist-shaking.

5. Summer precipitation is no better–hailstorms are nothing to mess with, and leave your car looking like it’s been driven through a rough part of town. (LOL, my little Sydney has “street cred” now)

6. General anesthesia is a blissful nothingness, usually…but I had a dream while under general anesthesia, in which I talked peacefully with one of my relatives, long gone now. I wonder what I glimpsed?

7. Trying to sleep through a headache doesn’t work. Period.

8. Zumba, on the other hand, works. I lost 5 inches off my waist in 5 months of a little less-than-regular weekly attendance. 😀

9. Never put your faith in a single hard drive. Sooner or later, all hard drives, whether they are flash drives, external drives, or internal drives, will fail. Multiple backups are awesome!

10. Living without a personal computer is very annoying at best and creativity-killing at worst, at least for someone who creates files on a daily basis like I do.

11. Holly bushes absolutely COVERED in beautiful, big red berries = free Christmas decorations for the outdoors. 😀

Tuesday on the Soapbox

The Long-Standing Feud Between Math and Me

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For much of my school life, I have hated math. It was the one subject I didn’t always do very well in. The studies of literature, social studies, and science came easily to me, as did the studies of foreign language, music, and drama; they were like favorite cats, purring in my lap and winding lazily around my ankles. Math was a different beast entirely–learning math was like trying to catch an eel with Vaseline-slicked hands.

And yet, strangely, I remember a time when I didn’t hate math. I would ask my father to come up with adding and subtracting problems with big numbers when I was first going to school, just to show how I could do it. But that was within the safety of my home, where I knew I wasn’t going to be teased within an inch of my life for being wrong.

First Problem with Math: I’m Either Right or I’m Wrong (and Usually, I’m Wrong)

At school, I didn’t feel I could afford to be wrong in front of everyone else. If I called out a wrong answer to a math problem, I heard about it for the rest of the week in vicious taunts and insults (more than normal ribbing)–the other kids couldn’t get enough of me failing, because usually I did so well in classes.

And, unluckily for me, wrong answers just became more and more common on my math tests and homework as I grew up. Soon, math wasn’t just adding and subtracting anymore, but “multiplying” (something I barely wrapped my brain around before the end of third grade), not to speak of the devilish art of “dividing”. (I believe long division is practiced most often in one of the circles of Hell described in Dante’s Inferno.)

Multiplying and dividing were longer, more involved processes, which were harder for me to concentrate on anyway because they were a pain to learn and a pain to remember. And because they took longer to do and I didn’t like focusing on them, they were harder to get right. Moreover, I didn’t understand WHY I had to do them. Adding and subtracting were easy because they were quick to do and I could easily see where they were used in the “real world.” Pardon the Southernism, but I thought, “When in tarnation am I going to have to know how to divide 256 by 8, or know the result of 12 x 17?”

As I got into these somewhat higher realms of math in upper elementary school, I was at the same time studying more advanced literature, social studies, and science, since I was in the Academically Gifted program. No one, not my teachers or the other students, could understand why I was so good at everything but math, and I could not tell them why either, but I could tell them exactly how frustrated it made me.

Second Problem with Math: It Makes Me Look Stupid

Much later, I was able to understand what it was about math that drove me nuts. Math proved to me how imperfect I was. The subject of math showed me that no matter how hard I tried, I was always going to be stupid and wrong at SOMETHING, and that other people would likely focus on the one thing I did WRONG rather than the 99 things I did RIGHT. We, as a society, focus on errors in someone else’s performance much more than we focus on their successes. (Can I get an AMEN?)

As a perfectionist, math and its nearly-inherent difficulty infuriated me beyond reason; I, too, focused on the one thing I did poorly on versus the many things I could do well. How could I spend literally HOURS working and working at a problem and get it WRONG? Was there not credit for effort, for the number of times I had to erase and start over? (I hate erasing almost as much as math–you never quite get the paper clean again!)

Not to mention that there was no way to “skip a step” to make the process of each problem faster; if I tried to make it go faster, I ended up getting horribly wrong results. To do it right, I had to do it slow, and I hated going slow. I wanted the answers yesterday, and I wanted them to be right, too, but my brain just wouldn’t do them. The processes I was asked to use were always so long and drawn-out and boring to my mind, and you had to do them JUST SO or everything would tumble down like a house of cards you breathed on too hard.

Third Problem with Math: It Became the Largest Source of Anxiety in My Academic Life

By fourth and fifth grade, math became a seat of anxiety in my mind, and anxiety, as I now know, “locks up” my thought process. All I could think about while trying to work on math problems was how much of a pain the problem was, not how to do it, and I ruminated around and around in circles till I couldn’t focus anymore. Even multiple-choice tests were no help; I often came up with answers that weren’t even LISTED. I could work myself into a nice big crying fit just trying to do five math problems, because each of them made me look stupid and helpless with every fruitless minute I spent on them. The other students’ teasing voices and laughter only served to heighten my anxieties even further–not only was I having trouble with math, but my troubles were public knowledge. The shame of it!

The Math Hatred Flowchart

The only thing this flowchart doesn’t show is that my math hatred was cyclical–once I got to the “math hatred of epic proportions,” problem-solving got longer, and longer, and longer. This, as you might imagine, led to more anxiety, more teasing, even more anxiety, and even more of a sense of futility. Why even keep TRYING to do well at this subject, when it was obviously in God’s will that I keep failing?

Fourth Problem with Math: It Was the Only Way to Be Respected Academically

By “failing”, I mean getting less than 90% on tests and homework. I was supposed to be one of the “smart kids,” but math threw me into emotional tailspins and locked me on a straight downward course with the ground. I was supposed to be a “smart kid,” but I was hamstrung when it came to math. It dragged down my GPA and made others doubt my gifts in other areas.

And of course, in the mid-to-late ’90s, being hyper-good at math meant you were considered a genius, while being hyper-good at everything else BUT math meant there was something wrong with you. All the “math and technology” special schools and the math competitions that sprung up everywhere told me that. Math was how you “got ahead” academically, how you got respect from other kids (and teachers!), and I just COULDN’T DO IT.

The frustration I experienced! I coveted that respect more than anything–I sure as heck wasn’t getting any friendship at school, after all. If I was disrespected and generally repudiated by most of the kids I went to school with, where did I belong in the academic society? Nowhere, and I wanted to belong, very badly.

Fifth Problem with Math: It Threatened to Ruin My Fragile Social Status

Other than my academics, I really didn’t have much going for me during much of my public schooling. I had no friends, no social life; for much of it, I had nothing else I did that was just mine, like a special gift of any sort. I was just “smart”, but I didn’t feel I deserved the label of “smart” because I stunk at math. My social status in school, for much of my public school life, rode on my grades, and those darned low B’s in math made me feel worse than average–again, like there was something wrong with me because I wasn’t good in a subject full of absolutes and just numbers.

Up until 7th grade and the discovery of my musical and written gifts, math kicked me in the shins over and over again, making me feel that no matter how old I got, I’d never get any respect for my intellect. I’d always be judged as lacking, by both my peers and my authority figures. To the boys, I was just another “stupid girl” who wasn’t good at math. To the girls, I was some unpopular whining thing who cried over her math books all the time. And the teachers just couldn’t get a handle on WHY math made me so angry. At the time, I could not tell them all of this, because I couldn’t self-analyze. All I knew was that the sight of numbers on a page with the instructions “Do 30 of these problems” locked my brain into obsession with my imminent failure.

The Math Feud, From Middle School to Present-Day

All of the above problems and fears popped up at irregular intervals throughout middle school, high school, and even up into college. I began to see myself as a complete failure when it came to math, so I didn’t expect hardly anything of myself when working with the subject matter. Though I hated seeing those B’s in math appear next to my perfect record of A’s in all the other subjects, I knew it was no better than I could do. I was stupid in math, and the sooner I realized it, I reasoned, the sooner I could perhaps get over this crippling anxiety and fear of failure.

But it rankled in my gut that I couldn’t do any better, and occasionally anxiety still gripped my mind again when faced with problems I just didn’t know how to do. (Example: my College Algebra midterm, in which I stared at the paper for about 10 minutes before bursting into tears. I think I hate solving for x, y, and z just a wee bit more than scrubbing tile grout with a baby-sized toothbrush.) I struggled with math as long as I had to, and as soon as my college credits for math were satisfied, I avoided it as much as possible.

These days, math and I are not on speaking terms. I imagine if I saw math coming down the street on the same sidewalk as me, I’d switch over to the other side of the road, much as I avoid the real-life bullies I went to school with. I do as little with it as I possibly can, to keep from the feelings of futility and fear that ruled me in public school and college.

(I’ve also found that other highly-technical, absolute right-or-wrong subject matters, such as dynamic website coding, sentence diagramming/explicit grammar rules, and music theory are also difficult for me. An overly-long, involved process with lots of itty-bitty, easily-mistaken steps, leading to a result that might or might not be right, seems to be the perfect recipe for a Robin meltdown. PHP, MySQL, I’m lookin’ at you. :P)

Will There Ever Be a Solution to the Math Problem?

Math still means failure, anxiety, and tears to me, and I think it always will, just as literature and music will always mean success, comfort, and smiles. Even now, I kid that my brain is just “not wired” for math, and I willingly leave mathematical operations to those who wish to do them.

However, I do not believe that there is absolutely no hope for me when it comes to math. Perhaps, if I had a very understanding teacher who could help me gain more positive psychological associations with math, I could potentially break down the centrifugal anxiety ride long enough to actually do stuff with it. The curiosity about math that I once had as a child is still there, because it’s a mental frontier I have yet to conquer; it’s, however, a frontier whose native animals have bitten and stung me more times than I care to admit. 😛

Thursday in the Zone

When Gaming Has Become Un-fun

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It’s slowly been happening, over the course of the last year and a half. Gradually, my weekend trips to the gaming shop my boyfriend and I frequent have become more work and less play. At first, I thought I was just being annoyed by some of the people who go there, but it’s not that. Disturbingly, it seems I’ve lost interest in playing many of the games I used to enjoy.

When I had my laptop with me at the shop, I could use it as a “shield” from all the bothersome conversations; I didn’t have to sit there thinking, “Do we REALLY have to spend 5 hours doing nothing but discussing new Magic cards? Do we REALLY need a long and involved discussion over dinner about the new HeroClix set?” I could surf the Internet in relative peace, doing what I really wanted to do (blogging, Facebook, surfing sites I never get to see over dialup), instead of being immersed in this gaming culture that I increasingly felt outclassed in. Now that my laptop baby is in the shop (and has been for almost two months), the situation’s scabbed top layer has peeled back, revealing a deep resentment and no small amount of anger about it.

My frustration with gaming (and my apparent loss of interest in it) is frightening and strange to me. This is an activity I used to enjoy greatly with friends and my boyfriend–in fact, my boyfriend and I bonded over HeroClix and Magic. Now, I find it useless to even play anymore; I know what’s going to happen as soon as I choose one of my Magic decks and he chooses one of his. It seems pointless to play. Same with HeroClix…I feel like I don’t have enough mental energy for the strategy required anymore, and even if I did, everyone would be using all the new “hot” figures and I’d be swept off the board before 5 rounds had passed.

It’s like I’ve lost my gaming mojo. Pardon the Austin-Powers-ism, but there it is. This activity, which I used to take such pride in and such pleasure in, is now almost worthless to me. I’ve suffered depression enough times in my life to know that “loss of interest in favorite activities” is a hallmark, but I don’t feel depressed in any other aspect of my life. Just gaming.

Since I at least have a passing knowledge of psychology, I sought to delve into this problem, and I came up with a few possible explanations for this:

  • I am female and the rest of the gaming crew is male
  • The current gaming crew is more cutthroat and competitive than my old gaming crew
  • Every weekend, I have to “share” my boyfriend with these competitive guys and I get almost no quality time with him
  • The old gaming crew has splintered apart, with most of them becoming competitive jerks like the current crew
  • With all the new expansion sets coming out in both games, I feel beaten before I even begin a game
  • I don’t feel like I’m friends with anybody in the current gaming crew
  • I can’t be my whole self with any of the current gaming crew because no one there cares about my writing, my music, my church activities, etc.

Let’s delve into each of these reasons, just a bit.

I am female and the rest of the gaming crew is male

I am bewildered at how much this bugs me. It never used to–I always got along better with guys than girls when I was growing up, and I never was particularly “girly” in terms of fashion and gossip. But I am an adult woman now, an adult woman with very few female friends left in my home state, and I find myself suddenly more isolated from “girl talk” than I realized. Most of my female friends have already “grown up”; gotten married, had babies, gotten jobs, etc. And here I am, still playing in the sandbox with the boys. The boys might be okay with a girl in their midst, but I increasingly feel that it’s not “my place” anymore, as bad as I want it to be. What began as a great way to spend my Saturdays is now the worst day of the week because I don’t feel like I fit in.

The current gaming crew is more cutthroat and competitive than my old gaming crew

When our old gaming shop closed, it seems, the old casual gaming crew went with it–we all went our separate ways for a few years. In the interim, we began attending a shop in another county, another city, with all new players. All was well and good for my boyfriend, who has a great love for games and blends in well with the other players because he knows rules better than anyone else. I, however, did not feel as though I had a place, because my casual style of play was simply outclassed by the competitive styles preferred by the “new” crew. I don’t like 5-turn defeats and alpha strikes, but I’m forced to play against these types of strategies just to ward off the painful boredom of sitting and watching.

Every weekend, I have to “share” my boyfriend with the new competitive crew and I get almost no quality time with him

This is a pretty big beef I have. We’ve been going out 3 1/2 years, and some Saturdays I feel more like a glorified taxi driving him up to the shop rather than an active participant once I get there. He tries to engage me in games, but more often than not he’s called away from our game to answer a rules question in another game, or he ends up talking strategy or new expansion sets with some of the other guys and it leaves me completely out. I feel like I have to “share” my boyfriend with everyone else on Saturdays, when I barely get any real quality time with him during his crazy-busy work week or on Sundays, and it leaves me feeling cheated. It’s hard to even bring this up with him because I feel like if I complain, then I’m being a typical whiny girlfriend and yanking him away from time with his friends, which I know he needs. But if I don’t complain, then it looks like I’m perfectly happy with the arrangement, which is not the case at all.

The old gaming crew has splintered apart, with most of them becoming competitive jerks like the current crew

I used to love playing with the old crew because we just HAD FUN–we weren’t trying to one-up each other all the time, or win money, or gain any kind of prestige. Now, at least 2 of our former number are always talking “best strategies to win tournaments” and playing like they’re in competitions all the time instead of playing against friends. There’s only one of the old crew I still even talk to like a friend anymore, because the others have become strangers to me. We all grew apart, I guess, and I find myself more nostalgic and wistful for what has been lost rather than trying to build anything new, because it just won’t compare.

With all the new expansion sets coming out in both games, I feel beaten before I even begin a game

I don’t play Standard format in Magic, and I don’t play Modern Age in HeroClix. Most of my cards and figures come from Vintage format and Golden Age…which singles me out among the players at the new shop. My strategies, therefore, don’t match up to a lot of the “new hotness” that is being produced by both game companies. I’m not drooling over the latest 13-attack Clix figure, nor do I care about the latest monstrous Infect creature that’s starring in all the Poison Counter Magic decks. I just want to play MY strategies, the ones I made up MYSELF, not something I got off the internet. But my strategies are not good enough to beat Tier 1 strategies, and like I said, I feel beaten before I even begin a game these days.

I don’t feel like I’m friends with anybody in the current gaming crew

Because I have withdrawn from the current crew’s gaming scene, I feel like I can’t get close to anyone. I desperately would like to make friends with them, even just to chat about random stuff, but no one seems to bother with talking about anything that doesn’t have to do with competitive Magic or HeroClix, etc. I feel hamstrung; I don’t always WANT to talk about gaming stuff because it’s become a smaller and smaller portion of my life, but what do I have in common with these guys otherwise?

I can’t be my whole self with any of the current gaming crew because no one there cares about my writing, my music, my church activities, etc.

I am much more than the sum of my games. But you’d never know that if you saw me at the gaming shop. I feel unable to talk about anything but games (see previous subheading), even though I have tentatively tried to broach other topics a few times. I have tried to share my poetry, my music, my church activities, the fact that I’m writing a novel, and tons more stuff about me, but no one seems interested. My forum threads are stillborn; no one is interested in me, and thus, I find myself less and less interested in them. How can I enjoy myself if I’m limited to talking about (or more often, listening to) stuff I don’t find interesting anymore?

A Kind of Summary

One thing’s for sure, this loss of interest in gaming goes much deeper than just hatred of a particular shop, a particular player, or how the games have evolved. It seems as if my very identity is shaken by this. I used to identify myself as a “gamer girl.” Now, I find myself wondering if I even want that label anymore. According to this very blog article, many things have changed in this situation, including myself, and…I am now at a crossroads. I’m sure I’m not the only female to find herself in this situation, but I am powerless to do much about it except write.

Perhaps, by writing this and getting some of these poisonous feelings out, I can find a way to either renew my interest in gaming or withdraw from it completely. After all, gaming is not life…at least, not for me anymore.