Jumpstarting my career, but the engine is stalling…
As a child of the late 70′s (1977), I was part of the generation that grew up playing video games, both at home and at the arcade. When I think back on my history with this illusory past time, I remember all the fun and excitement that I had with playing them. Yet, at some point in my life I grew past playing video games all the time. I don’t quite recall when the turning point was, but I also know it never fully left. The last console I purchased was the Gamecube Nintendo and that all changed a little over 6 months ago. During a pre-black Friday sale, I bought an Xbox 360. For a brand new system, I paid only 99 dollars. I figured it was a good deal and given the hell of a year it has been, it was the first “gift” to myself in a long time (even before the lay offs). After buying this system, I got it home and opened it up, just to make sure everything was in the box. Then I packed it up and put it in a storage bin where it sat for a little over three weeks. And again, that all changed months ago. So, as of today, I have been actively playing my Xbox 360 and using the Xbox Live service. I’m meeting up with some friends online and meeting some new gamers via the online games that I have. I’m enjoying it a lot and the more I play the more I start remembering the part of me that I left behind, and how I used to be.
Over the past eight years I have had a few skirmishes here and there with playing video games, but even with my new console, I still haven’t scratched the surface of the hours I used to give to my gaming past. In many ways, I am glad that this is the case. However, there has always been, and I suspect always will be, a desire in me to get back into heavy gaming. Even though I have controlled the habit over the years, I still get that persistent itch once in a while and I have given into a few all night sessions. However, after getting back into the groove, I’ve started to reflect upon my memories as a child growing up in Seattle, WA, (more…)
On Saturday, May 16th, 2009, I went and seen the movie Angels and Demons. Personally, I thought this movie was a much better attempt at Dan Brown’s book, then the previous Howard/Hanks movie The Da Vinci Code. This post today, however, is not about the movie, but it is about the absurdity of disclaimer statements. As the trailers for this movie began to play, one of the trailers that was shown was Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp. Right before this movie started, there was the familiar green movie disclaimer statement that pops up before each and every trailer. What was inherently absurd, in my view, was the fact that its disclaimer had a line in there that noted that this movie contained “gangster violence“. As I looked at this statement for the few seconds it was on the screen, I couldn’t help but think how silly that statement is. As if there is a distinction between violence and gangster violence. If a movie has a guy running down the street who is looking to murder people, but is not in a gang, and shoots people down, how is that intrinsically different then a gangster using a gun to shoot people down? There is no difference. So, why does such a distinctive description need to be made?
I started to think how we’ve become a society of disclaimers. Everything we read, watch and use has a disclaimer. It’s as if someone out there knows that something is not right, but to compensate for having done it anyway, they slap a disclaimer on it to “make it OK”. I’m sure much of this has to do with legal issues, because companies do not want to be sued for someone who didn’t read that a movie was rated R vs. PG-13 and decided to see the movie or allow their kids to see the movie. However, I place that blame on the party for not being personally responsible and paying attention to the rating system. With that being said, if I am going to a movie like Public Enemies, Transformers, Star Trek and Batman; do I really need to be told that there is violence in the film? Isn’t that part of what we call the action of a movie any way and isn’t it part of the reason we go to see the film in the first place? In other words, when I go and see a Jet Li film, I’m not going to see or expect really great acting. I’m going to see what new Martial Art move he uses to beat someone up and take them out. If we’re going to have a disclaimer for Public Enemies called gangster violence, then shouldn’t we have a disclaimer for Transformers called robotic violence, another for Star Trek called space violence and lastly, for Batman called (I don’t know what to call this, maybe…) Bat-violence? And speaking of Jet Li, along with other Martial Artists, their disclaimer should be called martial arts violence or maybe ass-kicking violence (but then we’d have to have a disclaimer for the disclaimer, because we used the word “ass” to describe the violence and that word is profane). I realize that my blog is not going to do away with the inundation of disclaimers, but can we at least agree to reconsider the absurd descriptions contained within them?
——-@ds
For a couple of days now, a number of people online (myself included) have been trying to help a fellow Facebook friend and (for some of us) a former co-worker (who was laid off as well) win the “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut” contest. Her name is Kimberly Brooks and she has already been featured in one of the Orlando’s (Florida) local newspaper blogs, Orlando Sentinel. The article entitled, “Orlando woman needs your vote to win Dunkin’ Donuts contest“, has a lot more information on the contest as well as the other finalists. I won’t repeat much here (please visit the blog or Dunkin’s website for more information about the contest), outside of asking for everyone’s help with catapulting Kim to the lead. According to Dunkin’s donut contest site, she is currently in 8th place with her submission, “Frozen Assets”. This donut would be exceptional as it is stuffed with Bavarian mint chocolate. A few of us are also using Twitter to help promote her donut. This contest will continue through May 27th, 2009, so we do not have much longer (13 days to be exact) to help her win and you can only vote once per day. So, gather your friends and head to the Create Dunkin’s Next Donut website and vote each day until the end of May. If she wins, she’ll obtain $12,000 and her donut will be sold at some Dunkin’ Donuts locations throughout the country. I know I’ll be in line to grab one and you can to, if you remember to vote for her donut: Frozen Assets!
——-@ds
This past weekend was a lot more active then my previous ones of late. On Thursday, I was at the FX International Show, because a friend of mine and her husband host conventions primarily in the southeast states. Their more famous convention, which her husband has been doing for about 7 years now, is called Repticon. Now, they are starting another convention in the Science Fiction & Fantasy/Comic Book genre and will be hosting their first annual Creature Con on May 30th and 31st at the Central Florida Fair Grounds. In an effort to drum up vendor support, she needed someone to host her booth on Friday, April 17, 2009. Basically, I just informed consumers of the FX Show about the upcoming Creature Con, which freed her up to meet and entice vendors to come to Creature Con. I was a bit hesitant about doing this at first, but I think I did quite well and was even able to get almost half of one of her sheets filled with email addresses from people who were interested in being reminded of the upcoming Creature Con. In addition to this, I walked around the convention floor and was reminded of my past interests in this industry that I used to belong to as an avid comic book collector. It was only 5 or 6 years ago that I collected comic books and other comic book related collectibles. Although I have since given this past time up, I am still very knowledgeable of this industry and its popularity.
During my time at the FX Show, I made one attempt to meet someone famous. I was able to shake hands and compliment James Kyson Lee, who is steadily becoming more famous for his role as Ando on the hit TV series, Heroes! It was quite cool. I’m not one of these fans that like to collect autographs or idolize anyone, so I just told him that I wanted to thank him and his colleagues for putting out a great show and then I shook his hand. He thanked me for the compliment and I walked back to my booth. All in all, not a bad Friday!
Saturday: April 18, 2009
I spent most of this day helping a friend of mine, Kelly, move into her new apartment. Even through all the sweat and heavy breathing, I had a great time and it was fun to help out. My arms are sore and I feel like I started working out again (something that I actually should be doing, read below), but it was a good time nonetheless. I was dead tired when I finally got home at around 7pm (I had been moving since 9am), but I had to take a shower and then get ready to head out to a local sports bar to watch UFC 97.
Let me just say this, outside of a few fights (Liddel, you’re still great man, don’t worry!), I should’ve really stayed home. I really like Anderson Silva, but maybe it was really Thales Leites fault for this being such a boring match. I literally fell asleep while sitting on a stool chair, in a noisy sports bar filled with cigarette smoke, 3-4 times. I kind of attribute this to also being excessively tired from moving. Second, the fight in the bathroom at the sports bar seemed to be more exciting then the UFC fight on TV! Yes, someone was beaten up, and badly, in the bathroom. I had seen him earlier walking around with his “tough guy” shirt on trying to hit on a few ladies, guess he hit on the wrong one! I really hope the next Anderson Silva fight is better than this, cause the last two have not been a testament to how good of a fighter he really is.
In terms of working out, I have some gear coming from Amazon.com shortly. I am going to give another shot at working out, now that I have time on my hands, using the P90x system. Not sure if I should cringe or not, but wish me well!
Sunday: That would be today
I woke up around 9am and got a few more things together on my laptop so that I can start doing backups of my data soon. Then I went outside and saw a huge turtle sitting out in the sun near my car. I went over to it and it literally hissed at me several times, while I touched it’s shell. I didn’t pick it up or anything, just rubbed it’s shell. It was pretty fast for a turtle, as it moved away from me. I guess it didn’t like me bothering it, but in an effort to ease its anger, I quickly went in and chopped up a green apple into pieces (first searching the internet to make sure it was OK to feed them apples) and took it out to him (I’m assuming it is a “he”). After throwing a few pieces on the ground, it soon ate them all up, then ate some grass and walked back into the woods. That was actually fun. It’s good to just do a minor thing, such as interact with nature from time to time. I seem to over look it more often then I should.
Outside of being unemployed, my weekend has been great. Enjoyed the convention, helping a friend move, watched UFC 97 and fed a turtle. If future days go as good as these last three (with Sunday being good “so far”), then I shouldn’t have too many problems. It’s nice not having any stress!
——-@ds
On March 26, 1989, I was 12 years old and on this day premiered a television show called Quantum Leap. This was a series created by Donald P. Bellisario. It presided around a man known as Dr. Sam Beckitt and his trusty, patriotic friend, Al. They were aided by a computer system, named Ziggy, that was able to determine the probability of what “most likely” needed to be done on a leap. The crux of the show: Sam built this system and in the process of a test run, he started his downward (or upward, depending on your view) path of leaping from his body into the body of others who lived in the past. Al didn’t leap (well, except for one episode), he utilized Ziggy and appeared to Sam Beckitt as a hologram in the past. It was designed so that only Sam could see him (there were exceptions) and he always aided Sam on each jump. Yes, it was about time travel, fixing past wrongs, doing good deeds or striving to, and I absolutely loved the show! However, it seemed to be about so much more. It appeared to me to be a well crafted (at the time I would have described it as awesome or cool) show and really had a sense of purpose, even though many scene setups were cheesy and the use of colored blocks to represent a futuristic computer system was, well, let’s just say, laughable.
However, when I say it seemed to have a sense of purpose, I simply mean that even though at times it became a bit corny or clichéd, there seemed to be an underlying desire to actually make a good science fiction show with good writers who tried to craft a good plot, and actors who seemed to want to represent the characters of the past as best as possible, without heavily subjecting it to the realm of science fiction or using that to such a degree that it over burdened the show in a technical manner. It was more about an inner reflection of the desires of humans to have the chance to go back to something in their past to fix or correct. To try and make yourself consider other options or opportunities which could have lead you down a different path. It’s the desire for a do over. Another chance to do something different. I believe this struck a cord with those of us that watched this show and explains why, even after all these years, this show still has a strong fan following. Trust me, I do not follow this show and only once in a while reflect on it. I’m not a continuous fan, but I always come back to this underlying internal impression that I have of it and I always jokingly say that they need to bring Sam Beckitt home. Unfortunately, the series only lasted 4 years and came to an end on May 5, 1993.
I didn’t watch every episode of the show during its run and I was 16 at the time that it ended, but one thing that has always bugged me is the fact that they left Sam Beckitt leaping. Seriously, this guy is still (in this fictional world) leaping, now 20 years later. I know, I know, it is a TV show. It’s not real. It is purely a work of fiction. I know this and I do not care. I want Sam Beckitt to be brought home. Can you imagine that you are stuck in a paradox of perpetual leaping from one body to the next in the past and the only way to leap out is to accomplish some unknown quest or need that you can barely figure out? It really bothers me when things are left unfinished, and yes, even popular TV shows, no matter how real or fake they are. Now, if it was simply a crappy show, then I also believe in putting things out of their misery, finished or not. But this wasn’t a crappy show, it was pretty good for the time period that it was made in and for the perspectives it was constantly trying to portray. I just don’t like the idea of leaving someone behind and maybe this is what resonates with me about this character. The fact that he was left behind and that was it. I also become quite perturbed by cliff hangers and especially cliff hangers that are left unfinished, because the series that they are a part of has come to an end. All they had to do was write a suitable ending that brought Sam home or at least made it seem like he wanted to keep leaping. I could deal with someone choosing to keep doing something, because then it’s about choice and they have to deal with the repercussions of their choices. But the writers didn’t do this and they left this guy floating around in the past and it makes me wonder, what is going on with him now? It’s a perplexing thought, I suppose you could CYA it (no, no, not the phrase that ends with ass, I mean, Choose Your Adventure) and create your own personal ending for the series, but I want an official ending. I think they could even make a successful movie of the series and put an end to this problem.
With that being the case, this post today isn’t about promoting a movie or TV episode for the series; being laid off has given me more time to think about things, some important and others not so important. I’m not sure why I even thought about writing this with relation to Quantum Leap. Maybe it’s for nostalgic reasons, or maybe I feel that I am doing my own personal leaping and am finding myself relating to this series. It could also be true that I saw something on the internet that made me think about Quantum Leap and decided to do something as mundane as use up my time to write about a favorite TV show from my past. I’ve pondered about this show a few times over the years and wondered how I would feel if I was leaping. Fact is, I think I’d be really pissed off after 20 years. At some point, I’d figure out a way to leave messages for the future and really start messing with them as best as possible. Maybe for each person I leapt into, I would get on an airplane and fly my new body (when or where possible) to some place, maybe a place like Hawai’i or Puerto Rico and just stay there until I was forced to leap again. I would even leave a note with my former body explaining who I was and what had happened, and what to say when they were found. I would do this with every new person, over and over again, until there was a legion of new bodies on the same island, or at least had been on the same island, stating the same thing: ”I am Dr. Sam Beckitt. I am from the future and am part of a US government program dealing with time travel. Each of the persons reading this note are uniquely different and I brought them all here, while I was inhabiting their body. I am trying to get back home. Please help!”, or something to that effect (it’s probable that this wouldn’t work when you consider the potential true effects of going back in time and doing the things that Sam was (or is) doing on the show, but I don’t want to go into that line of reasoning in this post).
Think about how odd it would be if a bunch of people appeared, in the same area, over and over again, saying the same thing, while truly being confused as to how they got there. At some point, someone would have to acknowledge what I was doing. It would be written about in the papers. I would do this so that the future would know that I was still alive and that it was time for them to “put right what once went wrong”. Yet, something tells me that the character of Sam Beckitt wouldn’t do this, he was too hard-headed about doing what he felt was right and I believe he would’ve kept doing the same thing over and over again; helping others to fix what was wrong in their life.
Given all of this, I also recognize that there’s a problem with going back and changing things from what they were. You inevitably wipe out who you are and what you’ve become. Those who know you may never know you and the elements that were introduced in your life throughout the years to shape you, could be different and thus, shape you differently. And, this has another effect: you change everyone that knew you as well as those who know them, and so on. Because your interaction with them may have shaped them in some way and with time being as fickle as I believe it to be, who are any of us to be so selfish to go back and change things that may be so insignificant to each of us, but can have great transcending effects to everyone that have eclipsed our circle of life? Even the person who may have a life that is currently in turmoil or may have been hurt in a manner that is beyond any experience of being laid off, may have found strength in that circumstance that have impacted others to bring awareness to their cause, or to make someone strong enough to go through their personal dilemma.
I think about this now, because I am curious if I had the opportunity to go back in time to change something, would I? Would I change the fact that I am laid off, by letting myself know of the impending doom really early and finding a way out? Would I had even went farther back in time to put myself on to a different course? Would I have told others and impacted their futures as well? Sure, I have some regrets and desires that I wish I had done differently. Vices that I took part in that I wish I never had. Even with all of this, I recognize that who I am today is based on who I was yesterday; last week; last month and all the years before today. I’d like to believe that I wouldn’t go back to change anything, no matter how bad or great it would be to see how it would play out (in reality, I would never know how it would play out, because it wouldn’t be new to me anymore), but it’s hard to say what you really wouldn’t do when the situation presents itself to do something you normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to do. If I were to make this change, I would simply walk a different path and possibly eclipse different people in my life’s journey, inevitably becoming something different then I was (even though there would have never been a was). It would be such a dynamic change that all of the people that I know now and have impacted my life; I take the gamble on erasing from my life and their effects on me, due to a few sour experiences, which in their own way have groomed me into the person I am today, for better or for worse. And, as it was stated in the movie Batman Begins, “Why do we fall down? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.” Those sour experiences have taught me how to pick myself up, and if I were to go back in time and make changes that lead to an easier and wealthier life, then what would I have learned? To be honest, that is a question that I’ll never be able to answer, because there is no way to make that comparison.
In dealing with this idea, I have to also come back to Quantum Leap, because as I said, Dr. Sam Beckitt is still leaping and I want him to come home. He is still changing the past for a future he is unable to be a part of anymore. Constantly doing what he deems to be right, to fix a wrong, to continue leaping with the hope that he will leap back home at some point. Nevertheless, isn’t the dilemma of doing something like going back in time to change the past to affect your future, or someone else’s future, one in which you potentially continue doing over and over again? When would you stop and how would you know when you should stop? What if you missed some minor detail and that leads you to have everything you ever wanted, but some other detrimental effect comes with it? As we all know, life isn’t perfect and neither are we. Given this fact, it’s highly improbable we could ever do something so perfectly as to fix every element of time to give us what we wanted without affecting something else negatively. With that being said, if the show hadn’t ended the way it did, I probably wouldn’t even care enough about it right now to write this blog post and maybe that was the hope of the writers, to care. To realize that nothing is perfect and we all can’t have the outcomes we would like, but we must deal with our choices or the choices that have been pushed upon us (after all, it was Sam’s choice to start leaping by using himself as the first major test of his system) and strive to do the best we can with what we have been given. Maybe this was their way of “putting right what once went wrong”.
——-@ds
I never said I wouldn’t take the opportunity to go back in time. Seriously, who knows, I could somehow luck out and make choices that are so imperfect that they yield a perfect outcome. You know, like being in Costa Rica with that beautiful woman next to me; sipping the pleasures of a great drink; plenty of cash to fund this lifestyle and maybe the only detrimental effect is that I am missing a toe from my left foot! That’s a scenario that I could live with and I hope my friends, family or acquaintances of this timeline wouldn’t be mad at me for changing my past that yielded this out come, 
. On the other hand, to be truthful, I probably would go back in time to experience the act of time travel and observe myself in the past, from the perspective of a third party (that third party being me, as an adult from the future). That would be enough, because that would be awesome or cool enough for me, I think.
To "run without condition" is a metaphor for doing all that I can, with all that I have; to be boundless. It's my acceptance of an unconditional spirit and thriving to move beyond the constraints of myself.
Visit my About Me page to learn more. I'll be updating it with more information in the near future!
