From Mom's Basement

I’m not a regular when it comes to fan-made games. I don’t peruse forums looking for the newest Barkley Shut Up And Jam Gaiden, and I very rarely stray outside of my selected favorites when it comes to the SNES, but when I heard that there was a sequel to Chrono Trigger, my ears perked up.

After a viewing of quite a few of the Youtubes the developers put up, I managed to find the game via torrent and sat down to try my hand at it. Right away, the fact that this game was only 98% complete became pretty apparent. Some areas of the game are completely inaccessible, some of the maps aren’t finished, and there are errors in spelling and punctuation that would drive an English major crazy. It really makes you appreciate just how much work goes into a game when finishing it up to 98% produces a game that has so many obvious flaws.

Continue reading ‘Video Game Review: Chrono Trigger Crimson Echoes (98%)’

Posted in essay
Tags: chrono trigger, crimson echoes, video games

It’s not uncommon for a person to say or think that they have the best mother anyone could have possibly picked for them. What is uncommon is for that to be an absolute truth.

Susan to you, Mom to me, was a woman who had such passion for everything she threw herself into. She was an avid gardener, a terrific artist, and carried herself with a charisma and grace that was as rare as a red shard of the beach glass she liked to collect. I know that just about everyone here has some knowledge of the person that Susan was, and I’m sure that if you talked to her at length you knew how much her children meant to her, but what you might not know is that she was more passionate about being a mother than anything else she did. My parents separated at a young age, and I can vividly remember times when I was a child where my father had fallen asleep early while I was at his house, times where I was feeling extremely lonely. I would call her up and she would drop everything and speak to me for however long it took to bring me back to content. She would always try to make me think of things that would bring me the most joy, and inevitably we would wind up planning my next birthday party over the phone for hours. What kind of cake we’d have, who I’d invite, where we’d host it. We’d make lists of pros and cons to every part of it.

Mom had a heart attack in early 2009, and when she did I expected to have to take on bigger roles in the household. While I was able to do some things for her, like taking my sister to school in the mornings, she would never let me make the really big sacrifices in life. She implored me to keep taking my own path towards finding a good job, and not to settle for something trivial that I didn’t want to do just for the sake of money. She defended me when that approach was criticized. As I had started climbing the ladder to my own path, she began to see us more as equals rather than mom and son, but she was never above mothering me to the extent that she could. She always wanted to cook for me, she always wanted to make sure that I was sleeping well, and even despite her poor health, she wanted to absorb all of my problems from me just as she had when I was younger. A couple of months ago I’d received a ticket, and because I was driving a car that was in the name of my recently deceased father, I hadn’t yet updated the title, and the officer had told me that the only way they would waive the ticket is if I’d had it all updated by the end of tomorrow. After driving there with her with all the title information, and standing in line for what was something like an hour-and-a-half, they informed us that we’d need to pass the car through a county emissions test before the paperwork could be taken care of. I was flustered and frustrated, and as it was already 4:30, it seemed rather unlikely that I would be able to pull off the three separate trips I’d need to make the next day while still doing my job.

Mom took the car for me, I still don’t know how, and found a place that would pass the test for me. When she needed to be for her kids, she was superhuman. I know when the word hero is mentioned, it conjures up images of men in capes fighting crime and saving entire cities, but if you escape comic books and try to think of what an actual hero would say and do in this modern era, I believe Mom is the kind of person you’d come up with.

Her passing has saddened and shocked a legion of people. She had been diagnosed with bladder cancer just weeks earlier. By the way, don’t let her catch you calling it that. To her, it was a growth, nothing more and nothing less. Despite that, she was in good spirits. She was looking at diets to starve those cells, she was right back to work the next week, and she felt more guilty for inconveniencing the people close to her than she was scared of any of the particulars of her diagnosis. In fact, when I was able to talk to her for the last time, before she slipped into unconsciousness, one of the things she made sure to tell me was that she was sorry. Every day of her life where she had drawn someone away from the rest of their life unwillingly was total agony for her. For that reason, I know she’ll be at peace when we’re all done here, because she’ll finally have stopped being, in her mind, a burden to us.

To paraphrase a couple of writers that I highly admire, the fact that her absence has caused us so much pain is proof alone of the kind of person she was. To feel this kind of sadness over the loss of someone is a blessing, because it shows that for a very long time, we were all lucky to have her in our lives. Feeling this way makes us human, and that humanity in itself is so beautiful that we have to remember how wonderfully alive we all are. I know this sounds illogical, and it may seem like I am compensating for my grief, but ever since she’s died, I feel that if I really listen, I can hear her voice in my head. I know that this won’t be an easy time for anybody, and it’s not an easy premise to accept that someone so great has left us before her time, but remember that she loved every last one of her friends here. Remember that she’ll be looking after everyone who she was close to in some way, and she’s closer to you than you might think. Most of all, remember the way she lived her life. The actions that she took and the way that she went about challenges. Nobody will ever be able to replace her physical presence on this planet, but if we can spread enough good around to compensate for her loss, I know that she will rest easier.

Thank you, Mom.

Posted in memoir, this isn't livejournal anymore, Uncategorized

When my father died, I’d like to say that I was mourning or in grief, but because he’d prepared me for it so well, I was mostly just numb. Detached is another good word. I understood that there were a lot of logistics that needed to be done, and a lot of paperwork that needed to be filed. For the most part, things were pretty simple. People were polite about everything, a number of good Samaritans, including my aunt, helped fund his cremation and assorted other things that I couldn’t really afford. There was one place, however, that did everything in their power to make things difficult for me.

Continue reading ‘Trashing The Trailer Park’

Posted in Uncategorized

I’ve been running in a relay for most of my life. Imagine a high school track meet, imagine the baton being passed to me by my mother, then imagine both of us running with every ounce of our body to outlast the elderly person who overshadows our lives with every step he takes.

Imagine one of those cliche genies who will grant you a wish, only you can’t know the full implications of what will happen when you make it. You wish for world peace and aliens take over Earth, so the monkey paw says. My life is semi-charmed in that sense. I had a fairly sheltered and comfortable life as a child. A maid came once a week, I went to a private Montessori school, nobody hit me, and I’ve never had to fill out a financial aid document at college. I point this out in advance because I have a pretty immense guilt complex about the whole thing; I haven’t earned shit. I’ve been incredibly lucky in my life, I’ve squandered opportunity after opportunity, and every day for me is a battle between making up for lost time and keeping my stride just ahead of him.
Continue reading ‘From Mom’s Basement: The Metaphor That Wasn’t’

Posted in memoir, this isn't livejournal anymore

Rudy: Coach I just wanted to thank you. If it weren’t for your dumbass not playing me, I would have never known how to carry myself with the knowledge that I am the best player on the whole damn roster, which is paradoxically a great thing because it somehow intimidates people.

Ara Parseghian: To be honest Rudy, I had often thought about cutting you. I mean you’re such a little bag of shit that I think I could pick you up, and I’m about to start getting social security checks. But then you started not showing up to practice and I realized that you simply carry yourself with so much swagger.

Rudy: [staring at Ara like he is an annoying chihuahua] I realized that God makes certain people to be football players, but that if I wanted to get on the field, I had to stop pretending I give a shit about anything and just walk around with a chip on my shoulder.

Ara Parseghian: That’s the look! God, I love that look. I wish I could put your swagger in some of my players bodies, Rudy. These guys are just too talented and clean-cut, you can tell they’re all unemotional robotic sissies.

Rudy: Haha, yeah. So here’s the deal, my dad is coming down to see me play in a game. And you are going to put me in the game, believe that. I know you think this is some great program or something, but trust me, in 20 years this school is going to be a shitstain on the face of college football. A dreadfully overrated program full of whiny kids who look like the Brawny paper towel guy. But if you reverse your stupid decision to keep not playing me, then people will at least still manage to talk about the program as if it still has relevancy, and you can go to some prestigious bowls and get your asses kicked by a real football team.

Ara Parseghian: You know Rudy, if I activate you, I have to deactivate someone else. Someone who has talent. And plays a position. I don’t even know what position you play, I haven’t actually watched you in practice. Anyway, it’s a completely illogical storyline twist that I’d ever play you in a game since there is a roster limit. But now that you have come in and let me know that you want to play football, yet you didn’t really care about playing football, I am confused and aroused.

Rudy: Yeah, thats the weird thing about having swagger. It always seems to be a handy excuse for whatever action you take. So anyway coach, this is for everyone who has ever told me that this would be impossible. Because I wanna rub their faces in it. Unless you don’t let me play, then it’s not for them at all and I never asked you. And I think you’re fucking ugly and I’m going to try to bang your granddaughter.

Ara Parseghian: [sighs] OK.

Rudy: OK?

Ara Parseghian: I’m overwhelmed by your completely logical appeal to my senses. I think you’ll be a great asset to our team for some reason, even though you can’t actually play football. You can dress up like a football player next season. Just make sure to keep acting like you don’t care if someone calls a penalty on you. Especially if for some reason it’s pass interference.

Rudy: Great. I hope I can get run over by someone then act like it never happened the one time I actually manage to tackle someone. Speaking of tackling, give me your granddaughters phone number.

Ara Parseghian: Oh right, sorry. [hands over slip of paper]

Rudy: [keeps angrily scowling at coach] Thanks, fuckface.

Oh, and one more thing, I want $10,000 under the table just for improving your sorry team with my visage. I’ll be a fucking folk hero for a bunch of boring Midwesterners who chomp down mushroom and olive pizzas long after you’re dead.

Ara Parseghian: What?

Rudy: If you don’t, I’ll write “Pay Me Ara” on my shoes.

Ara Parseghian: I really don’t understand why, but I’m impressed by the stupidity and callousness that shows. I’ll tell the AD to steal the collection plates just for you, Rudy. Your swagger is unassailable!

Rudy: [leaves without saying a word]

Posted in fiction
Tags: intensity, rudy, swagger, swagtensity