10 Minute Rule

I want to get to a point in my life where, a la Jay-Z, I can say “What’s fifty grand to a motherfucker like me? Can you please remind me?” Think about it. What does it mean to be so rich that you drop $50,000 without even thinking about the impact it could have on your life. Kanye (in his medicated era) goes on to say, “What’s Gucci, my nigga? What’s Louis, my killer? What’s drugs, my dealer? What’s that jacket, Margiela?” That last bit is a Haute Coutre fashion house in Paris that makes $800 pants. I’m not even getting into Jacket prices here. All I am saying is that there is a ridiculous disparity in wealth between those at the bottom and even those in the upper part (not even the TOP) of the ladder. Heck, I’m not poor. I’m educated and make a decent bit of money, but what’s 50 grand to a motherfucker like me? Still life changing. I cannot begin to explain how much that sort of money would impact my life on a permanent basis.

In sum: Jay-Z does in fact ball so hard. Kanye does too. This is all coming from a writer who is spending the summer in Canada because, well, I can. Still I ball little to none in comparison, and that is what it all comes down to in American life isn’t it? Comparisons. We compare ourselves and our lives and our choices to everyone around us, and the favorable comparisons are supposed to make us happy. We measure ourselves by who we support and if who we support is cool or good, we are somehow elevated by our support thereof. Ask any fan of a winning team how they feel being a fan of that team and they will tell you they feel like champs (despite having never played a moment for the team). Ask any fan of a perenially losing team (read: Knicks. Also see: Mets post 1986) and they will tell you they feel like a part of something about to be wonderful. Or they feel like there is companionship in that misery as shown below:

So, yeah. This is how the world works in my mind. I’ll see you tomorrow.

Proud to announce that my mid-kid received his first D1 scholarship offer for football. Drake University offered today, putting him at two total offers for a scholarship to go to college playing the game he loves. I wasn’t a scholarship athlete. I walked on and it didn’t really go anywhere. He’s already surpassed me and that is wonderful. Next step is to accrue more offers and have the opportunity to decide where he goes. This process is an interesting one, because in order to be seen you have to have coaches that are putting you out there (he does), perform in the camps (he does), and often have a school with serious viewership (he does not). He plays CB, which is not often the best position to be seen unless you are playing other top talent and following their best guy around the field. If that isn’t the case then QBs can do what they often do to him: throw it to the other side where somebody is more likely to be open. So, it has been a struggle to get noticed. He’s looking to pop this season though, and I wish him all the best. I want to see him achieve his goals, because that is what love is between a father and son. You want them to be happy and do well. So here’s hoping he has a masterful season and collects more offers along the way.

Some Thoughts:

1. Victor Wembanyama is about the be the first pick in the NBA draft tomorrow. He’s already been anointed a basketball legend at 19 without even stepping foot on an NBA court.
2. The second pick is interesting. Scoot Henderson is a kid who left high school early to join the G-league and make his living getting better at basketball. Some folks think he’s better than Wemby will be. I don’t know enough to say any of that. All I know is that draft season = hype season. Paolo Banchero and Cade Cunnigham aren’t exactly household names and they both went first in the draft respectively over the past two years.

I’ve had a great day in the word mines. Funny how tuning in on the right project in the right space can really fire up the motivation. I made solid progress and that got me thinking about ideal days and life and age (getting old, I am). That got me looking back to the 2.0 version of the blog. I landed on 2.22 quite randomly and discovered that the person I was 6 years ago is, well, that same dude thinking about getting old and what that means as well. I am struggling with the weight loss and I do believe it is a process. I’m on that process. I’m taking it day by day and I am actually learning to enjoy it. That is a key change.

One other key change: I’m not really afraid of death anymore. In some ways the approach of it is more terrifying than the actuality of it. The halting state (thanks for that Charles Stross) is not something I can control or feel, and I have come to believe that the life we live is replayed in our death state. The existence we have experienced is our ‘heaven’ and our ‘hell’. However, this is philosophy for another time. It does explain how I am living life now, day by day, and trying to find wonderful experiences throughout. So what is a good day? Experiencing something. Connecting with the people I love. Telling stories. Playing games. This is what life should be. This to me, is a good day and I am having one.

It hasn’t started out the best. I tried to use the Legislative library as a cool place to kick back and write, but was denied entry. That being plan A, B, and, unfortunately, C, I wound up at the nearest local library, which despite looking grand was a quite small one room affair (backed by a thousand empty offices just beyond my grasp). Whew… That was a long sentence to convey the frantic energy of the last hour. I started late with hopes of digging in and doing good work, but now I find myself reaching for anything that isn’t the project I was planning to work on. Facts being what they are, it is a loser project. It isn’t going to sell very well, the premise is flawed to the core, and it points what we are doing in a very bad direction. NDAs being what they are, I cannot and will not say more. I will try to write this thing to the best of my ability and turn it into at least a small slice of worthwhile.

And I’ll do it in the smallest and loudest library ever made.

I’ve been lauding and applauding Canada for their niceness. The library still is nice, but the people aren’t library sorts as I am used to or expect. The space also isn’t much on books even. I suppose this is the new way… Despite the sign hanging steps away that shows young Grogu with a print book and says ‘this is the way’. There is as much digital (read: Video) content here as text, which I find odd. I suppose I am a bit of a library snob at heart. I don’t go in for people talking loudly, and half as many racks of DVDs as books. Yet, here I am. Ranting as it were.

Still, there is wonder in every space and there is the possibility of creation in every place. I will make this work and I will make this project work in this space. This is, in fact, the way.

Some Thoughts:

1. I like Canada.
2. There is something about a city that is mindful that makes me want to be mindful in my own right.

I think as you age, different things are supposed to become more important to you. I find that I haven’t shifted too far from the core things I find that matter, though how much each matters in that give and take of my full attention varies. One thing that remains extremely important to me is being treated with love and respect. I get that, for the most part from over half my children. Even on Father’s day 5 out of 6 reached out to say Happy day. The 6th? Well, I cannot control everything in my life. I can only control my interactions and how I do things on my side of the interaction. I’m working on that part. I’m working on being a better dad and a better person overall.

I ought to add that I am working on being a better writer as well. By better in this sense I mean more creative and more creatively attached to the projects I decide to work on–and more selective in that sense in what I work on and when. I know what my level of ‘cognitive load’ is and I often butt up against that when I take on too much or too many different kinds of things. This is problematic in that it lowers the overall quality of everything that I do as well as my quality of life as my stress begins to build. Heck, my lifespan shrinks for that matter.

I am learning that all things we think and feel and do are connected and how you manage the one thing you can control–your personal involvement/investment/stance/emotion/effort–is how you can effectively manage your life. I am learning that my brain has suffered much over the decades from really being beat down by bad situations, emotional entanglements of the romantic and especially non-romantic kind, as well as poor inputs. As with birthdays, Father’s Day winds up being more about reflection than celebration, and that is a huge part of who I am–solitary reflection is my thing.

Now I just do it in a public forum.

Well, I finally saw the X-Mansion. No, seriously. It is a real place built by a famous coal baron and his family. They, the Dunsmuirs, built a lot of very cool stuff I’ve come across over the last few days. Makes me wish I’d been rich early in life–rich enough to be Dunsmuir rich later in life. nonetheless, I’ve done well enough for myself to put my kids in position to be successful–at the very least to get through college with minimum debt. That’s more than I can say for myself. That’s more than most of my generation can say for ourselves.

It has been an atypical day for me in RL. Beyond the X-mansion, I walked around for like half a day and wandered into a street festival and even saw a pretty good band performing outside. The thing is, that ought to be typical for me. I ought to live a life like that but I don’t. There are reasons. One being the level of attention and driving required as a dad to get my dudes to and from school. Another being the existential dread of being at home and waiting for a step kid to lose it and me to lose it right back, knowing what an endgame that begins and knowing I’m probably the only one out of that dynamic who cares. The other part is that I spend most of my year in a state that absolutely sucks. I’m there for the kids and the job, but it is a terrible place full of mean and vapid people. Sure, there are some amazing people there, but truthfully most aren’t that. Moreover, I think they know it.

The other thing is the writing. I’ve been struggling with it here, because I’ve yet to establish a real routine. I need to work on that with my partner. We need a plan that works and gets me through the work (and the new daily workout) alongside all of the wonderful living we’ve been doing. At least I need a plan for while we are here.

I don’t really have a plan for when I get back there.I know I ought to figure one out eventually.

Some Thoughts:

1. So… Madden is not entirely terrible. They’re trying to fix the errors, and I’ll probably buy the dang thing.

Leo’s Dead.

I knew from the moment I opened the door of the car. She–They–were laying in the backseat, the dim interior lights spotlit a mouth coated with foam and vomit. I stood there in the doorway, the darkness of the night closing in on me. Beside me my wife gasped and let out one long sob. She said, “is that?!”

“Yeah, Leo.” My voice felt like it came form a place very far away,

“We have to call Jon. We have to call the police!”

I stood stock still, hand still on the door handle, other hand holding the backpack I’d been about to toss into the backseat when I saw them. I stared down at the body–clothed in a half open Hawaiian shirt and jean shorts. Their legs were as blue white as their face. Their shoes were missing. “What the hell is Leo doing here?”

“I’m calling the police.” My wife said.

That got me moving. “No wait!”

“What do you mean, wait?! Jon’s daughter is dead in our back seat!”

“Yeah, but how did they get here?!”

My wife was silent at that. We were standing beside the car in an empty parking lot three thousand miles away from home. Jon, out neighbor and friend, told us his daughter ran away a few days before we left for Victoria, BC. Now here they were in the back of a car we’d only rented a few hours ago. I said, “What the hell is Leo doing in the back of our car?”

If you’re a die-hard Madden lover, you ought to just skip tonight’s post. It isn’t going to be happy for you.

Madden 24 is a mess. I’m attempting to boot up the game right now following yesterday’s closed beta updates… New update means the franchise lost is lost forever with a new error message: Franchise format out of date. That’s rich. It turns out they switched file formats mid stream in order to create a better experience, but we lowly playtesters didn’t get the memo. So, I’m back at it again trying to learn if this game mode is going to be better. It isn’t from what I’ve seen so far. It is longer and there are new elements, but the fundamental ‘collegiate’ way they handle scouting is not only wrong but entirely outdated by their upcoming NCAA game. See, they must’ve taken the early release core of that and made it their own. But those college cats are sneaky good… I cannot wait for their game to drop. Heck my kid may even be in it.

Bottom line is this: Game play is similar, but the deeper experience in franchise that was promised is not that deep. The option to improve positions in the draft is super good, but doesn’t entirely deliver better players–just a deeper draft class. Likewise, the trade difficulty and player motivation sliders offer more hoops to jump through in order to create a more realistic experience. So, good start but you aint there yet, Madden.

I’d like you to join me for a brief exhibition. Stick out your lips like you are about to kiss someone. Take your left hand. Press it firmly you your lips. Blow as hard as you can. That sound you hear? That’s Madden 24. This make or break year has swiftly devolved into ‘break’ which argues that truth is relative still. We know Madden is not going to give up the cash cow. We know that the efforts being made are also the best their present administration and tech can develop. We know it isn’t even close to being enough. Madden 24 is already broken. It is broken in some of the fundamental ways that Madden 23 was broken. Because of this, the game is destined to plateau as a failure on all metrics, even if it does receive a higher score than last year.

I’ll start with the bad: I already lost a franchise. This core problem with servers losing franchises has not been fixed. I’ve been at the game for two weeks and 50% of the franchises I began are already inaccessible. I’ve been playtesting the game, helping to track down glitches and errors and the biggest one is still entirely in play. This is huge. They brought thousands of people into the playtest and offered %50 off the game at launch because we suffered from this issue. Now we are faced with the same issue again. It is a game-killer to say the least. It is no mystery why the best working part of the game is the only part that involves micro-transactions and the worst performing sector is the one designed for individuals playing long-term. This fundamental philosophical break is what I believe will end the 25+year reign of the EA game. Eventually the NFL will nix the private contract, and we all know what is going to happen next. A better platform game will emerge. Quickly.

In the meanwhile, we have glitches-both visual and from a save game/franchise standpoint as well as shortcuts that make gameplay just meh. To name a few: graphical anomalies among drafted skill positions make the the jerseys glitch incessantly. Increased (albeit unrealistic) locations for moving your team but the same exact set and number of name and jersey options–which are no longer limited to a specific city. Mini games now are required to improve skill points during training.

All of this is bad. I haven’t even gotten ‘granular’ yet, so I suppose another ten minutes is required…

I want to go back pre-blog. I want to go even further back to the days I was running Multi-user battle tech dungeons on a hacked German server. Those were in many ways the highlights of writing. Things are great now but different. For one I’m older and lack that creative energy. I don’t know that it is gone—more like I feel disconnected from it because I don’t try new things nearly as much. I spoke on this recently: try new things. Experience new things—this is what you need in order to fuel and refuel your passion.

To continue the metaphor, my passion has long been in need of an oil change. I need to try different fiction and be inspired by that. Reading the same old stuff and writing the same old stuff does little to help me grow.