Today I called this company to which I had sent a resume in response to an ad in the newspaper. That last part -- responding to an ad in a newspaper -- is generally a hopeless thing because once a job hits a newspaper, the compay is entirely flooded with applicants, many of whom appear exactly like me on paper. And so, since I really wanted to work in this career field -- PR/advertising that is -- and this totally sounded like a job I was qualified for, I wanted to stand out a bit. So I gave this company a call. You know, on the telephone.

After fighting my way through the receptionist by prentending to be someone who had a perfectly legitimate reason calling, I ended up speaking to the owner of the company.

"David Companyname," he said. No hello, so I figured I would provide my own.

"Hello. My name is Ray Blueline. Last week I sent a resume for the position of bookkeeper. Have you recieved it?"

"Uh..... Let me check. Ray Blueline?" he asked.

"Right," I said and was instantly on hold. No elevator music, no nothing. Just silence. Then David reappeared.

"Uh.... OK, l got it right here. Looks like I just got it today." I sorta laughed at that; I mailed it nearly a week ago. Dave continued to mumble "Uh" and "Um" for a few seconds. Maybe he was reading my resume or maybe he was recieving a blowjob under his desk.

"You sound overloaded," I said.

"Umm... how much QuickBooks Pro experience do you have?" he asked.

Shit, I thought, I don't have any. "Unfortuantely, I don't have any QuickBooks Pro experience," I said. I should have added that I am a quick learner when it comes to computers. Of course, I should have had a lot more sex in high school too. A lot more.

"That's the one thing I wish I had included in the ad," he said. He went on to talk about how that's what he was looking for, etc. At least I think that's what he was talking about; I sorta tuned out. When I sensed his kiss-off had come to an end, I went for the quick wrap-up.

"Well, thanks for your time, Dave."

"Sure thing." Click.

INT. BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO - DAY

The store is quiet. RAY, disaffected employee, is standing behind the counter preforming a menial task. ANDREW, the store manager and a British expatriate, flanks him while preforming a slightly less menial task.

SCHULER
I watched that bloody School of Rock movie. What tripe garbage!

RAY
Well I liked it.

SCHULER
If that had been one of my kids, I'd have been calling for that guy's head, not applauding the wanker.

RAY
If you remember, that's what they did want at first.

SCHULER
Oh right. I suppose they were won over by his performance--

RAY
No, it wasn't about him... It was their kids; they created something exciting and wonderful.

SCHULER
Bollocks! They didn't learn anything. That's why you send the little bastards off to school in the first place.

RAY
You are a sad, sad man. Those kids learned how to rock.

SCHULER
No English. No science. No bloody math. These kids have nothing that is going to help them get a job. I mean, do you Americans seriously believe that if you can 'rock' then everything else will be okay?

RAY
Yes.

I hope everyone out there had a warm Valentine's Day on this cold night. Sure I missed the cut-off by an hour-and-a-half, but I still think this sad and ironic link is so apropos:

Obviously as someone who at his most imaginative fancies himself a post-modern cowboy, I think it would be awesome to give someone an Outlaw Rose. Sure, I sense that the story is fake or a joke. But then, what isn't?

Last night I dreamed that a 30-foot tall rabbit was in my back yard, along with a smaller rabbit. And a fox, which killed the smaller rabbit. And then Ryan Carlos showed up with pop singer Nick Carter saying that he wanted me to record some tracks for him.

I ask you, dear reader, what the fuck?

Two-time, two-time, two-time Grammy award winners, Evanescence! Three words: Best. New. Artist. Choke on it 50-Cent!

Incidentally, the nicest thing was to see Evanescence castaways Ben Moody and David Hodges appear on stage with Amy. Especially since Ben Moody now looks like a castaway.

You know... the bizzare hair growth, the obnoxious sense of humor, the guitar playing, the religious devotion -- does Ben Moody remind you of anyone?

I just finished playing Metroid: Zero Mission, which is a remake of the original Nintendo classic. Considering what has been changed to make it more suited to modern audiences and what has never changed has me thinking that the games of today do not hold a candle to the games of yesteryear and, as Zero Mission proves, all of gaming is still standing in the shadow of 1986.

While I was sitting and playing Zero Mission, my mother happened in on me. Struck, I guess, by how nostalgic looking the game was, she started to reminisce about the NES days herself -- and, though they were mostly limited to watching me play, she displayed a surprising amount of recall about Mario and Zelda. She asked me who "the man" was I was controlling.

"It's funny you should ask it like that," I said not looking away from the iredecent glow of the monitor, fingers fervently tapping the joypad. "This is Samus Aran, and she's a woman. In fact, since she wears armor and destroys aliens, everyone thought she was a man. Until the end of the game, of course, when it was revealed that she was a girl. Which remains one of the biggest suprises in the history of gaming."

This history lesson was going well and I had died at the hands of a carniverous insect-plant hybrid, so my mother asked me "what do you think the greatest game of all time is?" I didn't have to think too long, before settling on The Legend of Zelda, but I could have just as easily said Super Mario Brothers or, indeed, Metroid. All games released on the original Nintendo in it's first year of life.

The reason those three games get the nod is because they each created a radically different style of gameplay. Sure, there were other types of games out there -- surrealistic puzzlers and one-trick ponies like Missle Command or Space Invaders, but no one had ever seen anything like those three.

Sadly, that's pretty much all anyone has seen for the last 20 years. Game design got stagnant, fast. New games are not described in conceptual terms but in terms of the games that they are like; 'genres' in gaming are little more than a way of saying that such-and-such game is a direct copy of an earlier gameplay mechanic. While that's well and good, these are copied through that most analgoue of mediums, the human brain, and the generational distortion is pretty high.

Take for example, Metroid Zero Mission. It's a great game, and it has some very interesting pacing dynamics, but it's easy and you never feel lost -- Of course, feeling lost in an unforgiving, challenging alien world was what the original Metroid was all about! Sure, the remake's level design is based on the 1986 version, but it has been neutered: the labrynth of unending vertical passages that was Brinstar is now little more than a shaft. Furthermore, the game holds your hand the entire way, telling you exactly where to go next. You don't have to listen to the directions if you don't want to, but that is cold comfort for someone looking for exploration sensations of the original.

With all these games I play, time and time again I come back to the originals. They were harder, they were cooler, they were more imaginative, they were more creative, and they set the stage for gaming for decades to come. Pretty amazing thing, that original Nintendo.

I have been asked to write about my life. This is not the first time you've asked me to do this, dear reader.

I've been told that all actions are motivated either by fear or love. Well, I'm afraid to write to you with my true thoughts and feelings.

I'm afraid that I won't have anything worth saying, much less worth reading. These days, I don't even know if the events of my life affect me; no matter what happens, it seems, I still feel the same. Sometimes I am happy and hopeful. Sometimes I am overwelmed with despair. But mostly I feel nothing at all. I wonder, in fact, if my mind, tired from years of yearning to feel everything as fully and as authentically as possible, has not made a concious choice to even its keel at a time when it would otherwise lose control of itself?

And it scares me that if I reveal myself here, you will read it. And I fear that when me meet in realspace you will know The Truth about me, that I won't be able to sheild myself with social mores. This fear is somewhat bizzare; I'm not shy and I don't have anything to hide from you, after all. Yet I hide myself.

So I hide behind movies and music, pop culture and politics. Things that, unlike my private heart, I can order and I can understand. Things on which I can form an opinion. And indeed, the original idea behind my website, before it became my Blog was not to record my life but to observe the artifacts of a life inundated with media.

Perhaps I should consider the reality of my life as just another medium: the events of my day another movie, my heart's desire another song.