The Life Of A Writer ...

Who comes up with the most pretentious titles imaginable? This guy.

This really has almost nothing to do with the so-called "Life Of A Writer", so much as it does with An Unemployed Writer Who Only Wants To Write But Can't Because There's No Money In It.

I recently joined a freelance writing site, and the bids for jobs that I would do are astoundingly high. Even when I try to undercut my fellow unemployed writers by taking a few hundred dollars off the lowest bid, I can't because there are apparently rules to bidding.

Every day, I sit at this desk, write (various things; scripts, video game freelance work, etc.) and I stare at this (poor quality picture ahead):

That's a bottle of antacids next to stacks of books that are supposedly geared toward helping me sell my screenplays. And Watchmen by Alan Moore.

Spoiler Alert: They don't work.

Saving "Reach"!

Last night, I made it a semi-late night after having dinner with my beautiful fiance and our friend Ryan, who is a fantastic vocalist, dancer, and performer. We played some games, Karaoke Revolution, for example.

The turning point of the night, however; was when Ryan admitted he was a "Halo" virgin. Not accepting this, I popped in Halo: Reach, arguably the best game in the franchise. We made it through a bunch of levels, Ryan getting progressively better (he's a fairly vicious sniper, I must say), until finally, with exhaustion, we gave up right as The Covenant began striking back at the UNSC's facilities on Reach, much to Jorge's dismay.

Oh, Jorge. I love you.

Anyways, it was nice popping Ryan's gaming cherry. He's a solid player, and hopefully, we'll be able to finish the campaign together.

The Company Men ...

The Company Men

Written and Directed by John Wells

This movie pulled me in different ways. On the one hand, I adore the cast. On the other, I hate corporate stooges. Which is what everyone in this movie is. Except for Kevin Costner, who is a blue-collar hero in the truest sense, a role he should play more often.

I found myself simply not caring about any of these somewhat selfish men in suits. These are the enemy, as far as I'm concerned, and while that is purely my hippy side coming out and raging against Corporate America, I am also jealous of the things these guys have. Porches. Huge houses. High-paying jobs.

I'm a writer, for God's sake. Unless I come up with something that makes me the next Stephen King, I'm always going to be middle of the road, money-wise. Right now, my job situation sucks, so my complete lack of care that Ben Affleck, with his $850,000 house and Porsche has lost his job means nothing to me.

Another character, Chris Cooper, a 30-year corporate vet, loses his job and is facing difficult monetary times. If you work somewhere for thirty years and are living beyond your means without a few years of cushion to help you should you find yourself expendable, then that's your problem, I'm sorry.

Finding jobs is not easy. This movie points that out. I'd give anything to have had my beautiful fiance' with me to show how shitty the job market is right now, if only to get her to understand what I go through every day. I would never compare my abilities to that of someone as highly trained as Ben Affleck's character and his MBA and 12 years of corporate experience, however; I can relate to the young guys trying to make their way.

It's hard for me to rate this movie. My knee-jerk, anti-corporate reaction is to pan it, but the acting and overall story is fantastic.

I'll go middle of the road and hand it three out of five stars.

Game Dev Story ...

So video games are important to me. I've mentioned this before.

Game Dev Story is a game for the iPad, iPod Touch (my platform), iPhone, and Android that is all about running a video game company. Here's a video review from two tools.

I have spent hours in this game, building a company with the ridiculous name Ape USA Studio (very influenced by these guys), my company initially focused on making shooter games starring robots in a dystopian future, then moved into the handheld sector, creating casual games for all ages to pick up and play, while also releasing the occasional action/rpg/shooter game starring Samurais, Robots, Ninja, or Pirates.

You'll never understand how much fun this game is, so I suggest trying out the "Lite" version first. The game only costs around three or four bucks, and already, I've played it more than some of my 360 games. It's truly a phenomenal game with a lot of love poured into it's creation.

I never thought I'd pimp an iPod Touch game. Jeez.

Fuku-San!

There was a time where I didn't play video games. That time existed in high school and lasted a few years. I had played video games my entire life, and yet, I wasn't into them anymore. I started with simplistic computer games, moves onto an Atari (my brother and sister's Atari, mind you), then it was Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Playstation, Nintendo 64. It was around this time, the Playstation 2 dropped and I lost interest.

I can't say why exactly. It just seemed silly to me at the time. Video games were kids' stuff, right? It was 1999 or so, and I didn't give a damn anymore. Sega was about to unleash the greatest video game system of all-time on our collective asses, on 9/9/99, no less, and I still didn't care.

At this time, I coming into my own with my literary and film-land heroes. David Lynch and Bret Easton Ellis were taking up my brain space and names like Hideo Kojima and Shigesato Itoi didn't mean much to me anymore.

At a friend's house one day, when the Dreamcast was on it's way out, sometime in 2001 (pre-9/11, mind you), I played this famous Sega system. The game was Crazy Taxi, a masterwork of racing and excitement that still gets my blood pumping when I happen to flip the Dreamcast on and play it, hearing Offspring blasting through my television speakers. I even dyed my hair green, that's how obsessed I became with this game. It's hero, Axel, was like a god to me. I don't know why. He would be my first video game man-crush.

The Dreamcast was my reintroduction to the world of gaming. The system was dying, however; and would soon see its games drying up, as well as seeing third-party support vanish. A shame, really, because the system did every genre justice. The 2K sports games were revolutionary on the Dreamcast, as were so many 2-D fighting games, like my all-time favorite, Street Fighter.

In reality, though, it was one game that would become one of my three all-time favorites. That game was called Shenmue. There wasn't a single thing wrong with the game, though, of course, many would find faults with it years after release. The game was cinematic in a way no other game has been since. The music was pure magic. I make this promise now, should I ever be given a sum of money to make any kind of film or piece of entertainment I desire, I promise it'll be a Shenmue film.

The story is simple, really, a young kung-fu expert's father is murdered by a mysterious assailant, who is seeking some kind of "mirror" that will be used to give him mystical abilities to make himself nearly immortal. That's the basic gist. Along the way, your lead character, Ryo, uncovers mysteries, gets into fights, gets a job, and swears vengeance for the death of his father. A simply perfect revenge story where the game ends on a massive cliffhanger.

A sequel was released on the XBOX, but I never beat it. I don't know why. I'm a fool, I know.

Maybe one day, we'll get the final installment to the Shenmue franchise, Maybe Ryo will avenge his father. Maybe he'll become a victim, as well, in a beautiful twist of fate by Yu Suzuki, creator of the game.

So, thanks to Shenmue, my thirst for video games was renewed. An epic, cinematic journey from a small city in Japan to China. I promised myself that one day, I would visit the real region that Ryo Hazuki is from. I would set foot in a traditional dojo. I would attempt a move he makes. Any move. It doesn't matter which.

I'm such a geek for this game, it's unbearable. I'd even want the hero's leather jacket, if I could get it.

I could always make one, like this dude.

Oh Shenmue, you ruined me.

More like Anne Hag-A-Way?

Anne Hathaway is supposedly playing Catwoman. Catwoman, a super heroine who is busty, sexy, and all-around juicy, to be played by a waif with the largest mouth this side of Julia Roberts.

This doesn't work for me. I said the same thing when this guy was cast to play this guy, and while I was absolutely wrong on this subject, I still stand by my trepidation.

I launched "The Heath Ledger" experiment to document my findings in regard to determining whether the late Ledger would be a solid Joker, the Clown prince of Crime. I ended up finding that he would be fine. In reality, he turned out to be incredible.

Maybe Anne Hathaway, someone who's past has crossed with Ledger (she was in Brokeback Mountain) will bring the same veritas to the role, but I still have my doubts. Her acting ability is "solid", however; she's just not sexy enough.

That said, Tom Hardy is too sexy to play Bane, so, whatever. This cast baffles me.

Thanks for the book, now my table is steady!

There was a show called "The Walking Dead", which everyone got hard for, mostly because it had zombies in it. I love zombies as much as the next schmuck, however; this show didn't work for me overall. I realize it ended a while back, but I just wanted to get my feelings out there on this subject. "The Walking Dead" comic book is weak. The show is just about as weak. Now, there's going to be a video game.

The problem with zombies is that there are only so many stories we can watch about the deterioration of society with only so many variations and takes on a theme. How many more times can we watch people tear up and lose themselves in the face of apocalypse. It's the new 9/11 allegory and it's lame. After all, zombie films reached their peak with Day of The Dead, the greatest zombie masterpiece of all-time. And if there's any itching for a zombie game, there's Left 4 Dead and it's sequel.

The reorganizing of my dvd collection today was a fiasco. I have too many, it's unbelievable. At least over two thousand, for sure.

Ugh, the price of loving film.