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Here goes another (hopefully) regular blog feature that I always wanted to get to: “My Life In Story”
The idea essentially goes as myself narrating my own life as if it was a written story. MLIS will cover all across my life, but I think a majority of them will be in the present. In this case, this is an excerpt from today, and in fact, several minutes ago…

Chapter 2010.10.05

Lunch break. A time to wander off and collect yourself. A time to do all that you want within a small time slot. I decided to walk.

Right across from the building are some train tracks. They just lay there, having served thousands of trains before, and still do with several hundreds of cars each day. It does get annoying to hear them every so often, but you get used to it.

You know what they say about the other side of the train tracks, and it’s true here. While there’s some nice apartments on the other side, further down the street it gets a little worse. It goes into the other town, a town with a bad reputation. I decided to eat there for lunch.

It didn’t last long. The people were different and I felt out of placed. I packed my leftovers and went back. Back across the train tracks.

This time, I took my time across the tracks; Noticing how old they are, how gritty they are, how far along the land they stretched. Noticing how there was a tiny dot of light at the far end. I kept a blank stare at it. I looked at the streets: The little bars to keep cars from crossing weren’t down. I looked back at the minuscule dot of light again: It was very far. Far away, yet so bright.

I finally crossed the tracks back on my way to where I needed to be. Step by step I go, but yet literally a few feet away from the tracks: The bells rang. The lights flashed and the bars went down. Step, step, step away again, and the train finally roared by. The same train, the same light, the same dot I saw, had come across.

Had I stayed: I’d be a goner. Nothing. Zilch. I wouldn’t be here. It’s amazing and frightening to think how fast things can happen, and for some, maybe too fast. There’s always stories of people underestimating how far or fast a train is, and when it’s finally put into perspective, your own, your own life, it’s shocking…

But I can’t think about that now: I have to get back through the doors before I’m late…

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Hey there. This is my (hopefully) weekly and (hopefully more than) regular blog post series where I write out my thoughts on one topic that’s on my mind.

This week: It’s divorce.

Marriage is a beautiful thing. It’s a ceremony meant to unite two people for a lifetime. Or at least whenever they deemed fit. Fact of the matter is that divorce have become a very common thing, practically to the point that it’s a socially acceptable, which is a complete shame.

For me, I equate news of a divorce to that of death. I say that due to one line: “Till death do us part.” My grandparents, bless their souls, have been married all their lives. It wasn’t until when my grandfather passed away that they truly parted. My grandmother was all alone, and it was a really sad time. It was a year after that she too passed on, and in a sense, they’re probably together once again up there, no longer apart.

When I hear from other people I’ve met, more and more mention that their parents are divorced. Split. Apart. Sadly, this is just more and more common now. Even still, I always utter the same sad “Oh…” response to it. Those affected by it usually act like it’s nothing. Understandable: It was probably years ago, or barely remember it. Or probably even saw firsthand that the relationship wasn’t good anyways. But it’s still always a shock for me.

Shock because, well, it just doesn’t run in my family. My parents, and namely my relatives have never divorced. That is, up until almost a year or so ago when an aunt and uncle split up; Practically a first from family that I knew of. It was a little hard to see them go opposite ways, being that I knew them all my life. Especially their kids, my cousins, who again are somewhat unfazed by it all. But then, despite knowing them well, there’s probably something I don’t know about it.

Having a divorce decades into the marriage shows that there was something that came up. They wouldn’t have lasted this long without some big issue. It hurts to see divorce stories like that, but it hurts almost as bad, if not more, when couples split not to far into the relationship. Like, within years of being married, or before their kid(s) even turn 10 or so. I thought this is what dating is for: To figure out if the two of you were really meant for each other for life, not whenever you felt like it. There’s many early divorces now that it’s practically sends a message to the youth that it’s perfectly acceptable and something you do when you’re a grownup. Of course, it’s not the case, and those older and/or explicitly told by the parent(s) may realize it. Regardless of being told or knowing it, it’s still setting an example. There’s many people out there that drink and/or smoke and tell kids not to do it, despite continue drinking/smoking anyways right in front of them.

I guess my big issue with it all is the children of divorced parents, especially those at a younger age. They never were able to experience a ‘regular’ family lifestyle growing up, which is just a shame. However, in our society today, ‘normal’ families are almost far and few between now with a rise of divorce, adoptions, orphanages, and so on in our cultural landscape. Even still, it’s hard for me personally to get over the notion of it…

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Recent years I’ve been writing a bit. I’ve been writing most of my life, but recently it’s shifted. The past several years, I’ve been doing more blog posts, more informative posts. It’s even reflecting on what I’m reading, which is more non-fiction now a days. It’s like I’m becoming my dad or something.

But making stories was something I grew up doing. Something I enjoyed. And in the past decade, I just seemed to have lost that.

Lost with it were some story ideas lying around in my head. They were never fully developed, and after all these years they’re still just ideas.

So, for the hell of it, I’m deciding to just put them out there. Hopefully it will somehow help me get back to that old writing self I knew.

First up is a story idea simply called “Brown”
People always wondered why I liked the color brown and always wore brown. And it’s a question worth raising: It’s not a color often worn by people today. It’s all either all black or dark colors, or at least where I live. Anyways, I wanted a story that kind of explained why I wore brown, or at least give a mythos to it.

The basis of Brown is about a young girl, living in an urban environment, who one day notices a young boy, who appears about her age, wearing just all brown. However, it seems as if only she can see him and nobody else. From there, they form a friendship and help each other out, him trying his best to help any of her issues, and her helping him trying to unravel his mystery, which even he’s not sure about.

Between the two, there would be a quite a contrast. Not just speaking in color, but also in personality and how they both do things. And as they go deeper into the rabbit hole and get closer to (as she just decides to dub him) Brown’s mystery, everything just becomes even weirder…

The other and last story idea I’m sharing for now is “Eye Of The Forest”
Speaking in terms of storms, the ‘eye’ is the safest area in a storm and is generally in the center of it all. The surrounding ‘eyewall’ is the most dangerous. I decided what if I apply that logic to a completely different setting: A forest.

The very basic story idea is that our protagonist decides to sneak out late at night with some friends during a camping trip, and after what seems just a few steps away from the campsite, he finds himself in the eye of the forest.

All that surrounds him is just a wall thick of trees and danger. And it doesn’t take too long for him to find out that this is no ordinary forest…

Naturally, he needs to find a way to escape, but it’s not at all going to be easy…

Also, “Eye of the Forest” may also have another meanings to it…

Think Castaway meets Lost, but in the woods…

And that’s all I had with these ideas. Again, they were never fully developed. I think my problem with these was that, like many story ideas, it started with a “what if” situation, and I just never went beyond that. Not to mention that these ideas were there when I started to just drift away from fiction nearly a decade ago, so they’ve just been left untouched since…

This year, one of my other new years resolutions was to flex more of my creativity muscle, which really needs to be exercised. Hopefully just sharing these ideas will help me get that spark I’ve been looking for: A first step.

And when that happens, I’ll be sure to tell you the story…

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Trying and playing around with http://ping.fm/ Let’s see how messed up my Twitter account might get…

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It was recently revealed that the Xbox 360 version of the much-anticipated Final Fantasy XIII will come on three disks. Naturally, there is some outrage, but really, this is nothing new. As Kotaku mentioned, Final Fantasy VII on the original PlayStation came on 3 disks as well, along with Blue Dragon on the Xbox 360. Hell, Lost Odyssey on the 360 had four disks.
And all of these are Japanese roleplaying games (JRPGs). It’s pretty much natural for JRPGs to come out with multiple disks, and RPGs in general (the recent Mass Effect 2 on 360 came out on 2 disks).

Some anger to this is, again, natural, but that got me thinking: When is it too much?

Games now are pushing their systems to new limits with high definition graphics, tons of voice work, large areas to explore, and many things to do. Developers on the PlayStation 3 are given a lot of freedom with the amount of data the Blu-Ray disks can hold, but porting a PS3 game over to the 360, which seems to be the case for FF XIII, that would mean multiple DVDs for Xbox gamers.

Is it developers/publishers at fault for not fitting a big game onto just one disk? I was still surprised years ago to find that Grand Theft Auto IV was going to be on a singular disk for the Xbox 360 version. One DVD for that massive game. Granted, developers Rockstar has been known to really push systems and compress big games like the GTA series onto one disk: They managed to fit a big GTA-experience on a little PSP with little UMD disks.

But honestly: Do gamers care? Again, there has been several games that have come out on several disks, and there hasn’t been much objection about it. As long as the gamers enjoyed their experience, does it really matter how many disks was required to hold it all?
I think we’re OK with multiple-disk games right now since not every single big new game release had to go to that option. A multi-disk game only comes one every so often. Had every big release come on several disks, will gamers start to really throw a fit?

Imagine every-other-month or so when we get that one (or more) blockbuster video game everyone is looking for came in 3 disks, or even more. I think that would be a little frustrating, but would the gamers really care?

Though, I’m sure many would rather go for the multi-disk route rather than what’s going on with the PS3: Mandatory installs.
On the PlayStation 3, several big games required an install to the PS3’s hard drive (this is due to, i believe, is the fact that blu-ray drives are slower/reads slower than dvd drives or something). Having these installs meaning more waiting instead of playing your game as soon as you get home to play it. Games like Metal Gear Solid 4 had a required game install, and it’s been just mentioned that the much anticipated Heavy rain will require a 4.2 GB install.
I think it’s safe to say that many gamers would very well rather pop in a disk and instantly play the game they picked up and switch disks later instead of having to wait for their game to install and just play. 

So while the PS3 is able to hold large games on Blu-Ray, several may require an install you have to wait for. The Xbox 360 however may also have some big games, but it will require several disks that you have to switch.
Which do you prefer?

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