To play or not...

Today I got a taste of the future of gaming, and by god does it taste like shit with a capitol SH…IT. I have two games that I want to play. One is online, and the other is or rather said on the box – requires internet to install. Now working in the film industry I know all about copy right and so forth and so on, and I understand that in a bid to ensure that their games are not copied and distributed computer software giants are resorting to online security checks. Fine. I support that. I’m a proud member of STEAM, PUNK BUSTER, XFIRE, SEGA, ACTIVISION, LIONHEAD, the list continues.

Today it has taken me nearly an hour to launch the one game. Steam likes to update itself, check to see if Mother Theresa has risen from the dead, download a few porn (Heterosexual no doubt), scratch it’s digital balls and then decide to update the game. I remember when it used to take 30 minutes to load a game. It was called the COMMODORE 64, and the game was on cassette tape. Oh and that was nearly 20 years ago. We’re going backwards? Or is South Africa not keeping up? Well certainly on the net side of things I know SA is behind. But hopefully in 2010 that will change.

So then lets look at the other game, the one that has taken 5 gigs of downloads, two weeks of updates and two reinstalls. Lord of the Rings Online. Now I don’t mind paying R150 a month for a game like this. It updates regularly, I can play with my mates and all is good and well. Or so you’d think? They recently changed their billing company who are now separate. OK, well I haven’t played the game for a while now, but sure – I’ll give yet another company my digital DNA (name, addy, credit card etc). Except that before I’d even seen a hobbit’s hair foot, the website cheerfully tells me to phone the UK because my card and account has been blocked.

No reason, just blocked. Phone the UK. Guess what – the number doesn’t work! Hahahahahaha. OK, so I look for my land line telephone (it’s usually lying next to the ADSL router which is permanently connected. Can’t find the phone. Turn the house inside out, upside down. No phone. Either my flatmates have shoved it up their asses in some bizarre sexual version of broken telephone, or the maid has tossed it out, or simply put it in the cupboard with the dishwashing liquid… brb –

-no, not there either.

So I can’t use Telkom to call the UK. Now the reason why I’m trying to call them is because three weeks ago this happened. And so I sent them an email – as they suggest. Fuck all. Not even an automated response. Nothing. So I wrote to Codemasters (makers of Lord of the Rings Online) and complained. How was I supposed to give them my R150 per month if I couldn’t even resolve why I wasn’t allowed to sign up? Their response was swift.

“Regretfully we are not licensed to operate in South Africa and so cannot provide support.”

Regretfully I bought their FUCKING GAME in a South African store. To me that means, if you ship if to a country and take people’s money, you license yourself to provide support. But anyway… so today I tried another credit card, after going through the shlep of creating a new free email address (won’t allow my username to even enter a different card… just blocked), go through the whole D DNA thing again, and what happens? Guess? You got it – FUCKING BLOCKED – AGAIN! A different card! I give up. I bought a game and I can’t play it. And the people who sold it to me – won’t help me. And the people who made it – deny it’s their problem. Where does that leave me?

Wait – it gets better – it leaves me trying to write my blog about how frustrated I am. EXCEPT THE BLOG THING IS FUCKED!!!!! And yes I’m using multiple exclamation points because it’s necessary. The blogger I use loads up to the sign in page, and then sits there. So I’m writing this in word pad (a good, tried and tested fucking program that doesn’t need fucking internet or STEAM or anything to work). I will, when the blog site is back and running, try to upload this. If not, I’ll go cut my fingers off for something to do and be mildly entertained by.

Good bye cruel digital world… like you give a fuck.

I was having dinner with two friends the other day. Two friends who are at opposite ends of their lives in terms of change. The one friend has a stable job, owns a house, has a car, and knows what he wants from planet Earth. The other just got his girlfriend pregnant, lives with the in laws to be, and has a part time job. In six months time that little critter is gonna pop out of the mother and turn his world upside down. His social life is about to change forever. I have another group of friends who - although they have planned for their spawn - will also change their lives forever. And then there is me, who was supposed to go on a blind date the other day (it was canceled by him and moved to this weekend). I've never, ever, ever been in a relationship that I've taken seriously with intent. So my world is going to change as well. I've noticed that no matter how much one says: Oh, it'll still be the same, nah we'll both join you - you'll see. And I've seen. Couples - no matter how wonderful they are, and I know a few - are just that - couples.

Their psyche has changed, and their loyalty as well. It makes social engagements a little trickier, as now you have TWO peoples calenders to align. For as much as couples like to do things on their own, they're more inclined to do things as a couple. In short what I'm driving at is that once someone becomes part of a couple restraints appear (intentionally and unintentionally). Now that causes change. Big change, in many small ways. The couples with kids - well, their offspring become the most important part of their world, and rightly so. Everything else is merely a wonderful distraction. As for those in relationships doing things alone seems empty without the other.

What's your point I hear you groan? Well my point is - this dinner conversation I was having with these friends. The bloke who's life is as stable a rock was concerned over a statement of mine:

"Friends change and move apart. That's life. We go with the flow to be happy, and that flow invariably shifts. Why should we try to keep old friendships alive, just for the sake of friendship?"

What I mean to say is that I don't feel that one should need to 'work' at friendships. I've heard countless people say: oh you have to work at them (friendships and relationships). My question is why? Why should I put in any work to something that is supposed to be there ostensibly for enjoyment? I mean we have friends because initially they entertain us. Then we move into the close friendship role, where one then starts discussing idea's, dream's, hopes etc. Finally our really 'close' friends we use as sounding boards for our life's big changes. We seek advice from one another. If you ask me it sounds like we look for people whom we can then use to help us with our OWN lives. I know people will say there is more to it. But is there really? If a friend of mine says he's struggling financially. I'd offer him what little money I had, and I'd offer a room in my house. But once the phone call was over, I'd think - poor so and so. And that would be it. I'd move on to my own problems.

So when a friendship naturally starts to drift...I say bon voyage. When my friends all have kids and they have their little kid's parties and fears and phobia's, they'll develop their own friendships with other couples with kids. And they can all share in the delights of their kids. I don't like kids. I don't find their actions funny, interesting, or remotely entertaining. If I did like kids maybe it would be a different post. But sadly I don't. I don't relate to them. But should I expect my married friends to be interested in my world? Sure - they're still humans. Do I expect them to interact in my world? No. Maybe once or twice a year, when the kids are at grandma's. Because I sure as hell don't want kids in my house. But I also expect them to assume that I'm interested in their kids. Read above - I'm not. Why should I be? Just because they're my friends kids? Who cares? They do, naturally. I don't. So when we go out to dinner, and the kids are there making a noise, or being kids, or being perfect I'll have to adapt. I can't refer to that mother fucker bitch lesbian who lives down the road. I can't extol the virtues of decapitating a son-of-a-bitch and bleeding him like a pig. I'll need to be restrained. For the sake of the kids? At least I would be, regardless of parental decision.

But what about the friends who don't change? What about them? My mother hates change. She derives her sense of self worth by how much things haven't changed. I have friends who don't seem to change. Always constant. One of them changed his job the other day, in a massive leap of faith he quit his existing job and found another. Damn was I impressed. For years he hadn't changed. Then suddenly. My point is - people change. It is a requirement of existence on this planet. Those who actively seek to go against change, usually end up with lots of cats in a house alone. I don't know why. I on the other hand embrace change. I openly flaunt change, seeking to develop new idea's, myself, and my existence, and I write these blogs to hopefully inspire change in others.

So when I look at friendships, as one friend pointed out - I've never had to look for friends. They've always found me. In heaps. I have lots of friends. But when I look at those friendships, I am incapable of feeling sorrow when they end. And I don't feel any justification for keeping a friendship running when the two friends have nothing left, except history. Sticking together because of history is to me a sad and miserable existence. It means you're friends because of what happened in the past, not because of what's happening now. That is an incredible view point. If I'm not having fun now, what is the point? Hoping or trying to force fun to happen in the future? Because it happened once before in the past? I'm sorry but that's just silly.

So this blog then is a question to all of you out there - what is friendship, and what does it actually mean to you, and why do you cherish it? Why do you mourn it's loss or 'fight' to save it? Because I don't know those answers. To summarize:

Friendship to me is mutual entertainment. I make you feel good, and so do you. I push you to change, and so do you. It means to me the ability to be entertained by you, and for me to feel good that I've entertained you. I cherish it because I like to be entertained, and I like to entertain. I don't mourn it's loss because there are 6.5 billion people on Earth and I'll find someone else to entertain, and be entertained by. What we had was great, but that doesn't mean it will never happen again with other people. And I don't fight to save things. If they end, they end. I accept it, and move on. Because if I don't - well nothing will stop, care, or well... everything will still happen. It's the same attitude I have to death. My grandmother died. I was... put out. I wanted more information from her, I wanted to spend more time with her to learn her stories, and hear her insights. But that was over. So I said good bye at her funeral and that's it. I didn't mourn. It was just over. Move on.

A friend said I'm a stark realist. I like to think so. I spend enough time deluding myself and pretending not to care about money, my health, and my own talent that I don't have time to then fight or hold on to the past. It's over, and here's the key - it has no, zero, less than nought, bearing on the Now. A friend lost is gone. They cannot help you now. Thus I ask: What is friendship to you, and why is it so important?

The orgasming whistling duck of Withelingweath...

I am currently listening to Pietr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony. It's one of the most beautiful  things I've ever heard. It's subtle, violently passion, bold, timid, daring, scared - playful, serious. It's fucked up, down, left and right. It's awesome. I can't help but whistle along, because screaming would worry the neighbours. It floats around on some kind of mad, maniac, zephyr in my mind making me feel calm, peaceful, joyful, hopeful, wild, free, creative, and makes me want to burst with energy. At times I find myself holding my breath, waiting for the explosion... my head to burst into a billion balls of light and for my soul to mix with the music and turn into a super dragon of pure holiness and burn through the fabrics of reality into the heavens of quantum and there to become one with the all glorious eternity of the perfect sounds of all the other liberated souls. It makes me write like this... 

Why?

And why Tchaikovsky? I mean The Beetles wrote some good stuff, and you can't help but like Madonona... and who could forget 'These are a few of my favorite things'? But it's specifically opera and at the moment Pietrs work that has my soul moving. And this worries me. These amazing passions that stir up within me, that build to such climax - is this my soul? Or just intense human emotion - connecting to what? If it is my 'soul' dancing in pleasure, by god - literally - I'm fucked. I don't believe I have a soul. But then how do I explain my intense inner feeling of wonder, contentment, excitment and joy? What is being contented? What is being consoled? My mind? Am I sitting here marveling at the way in which the lead violin is not to strong, or the way the brass hit the notes with perfect clarity? Not that I'm aware of. It's the pervasive 'soul' of the music that is doing something to my inner self. My mind is being affected and I don't know why. I'm not going to stop it, in fact I just turned it up. MY GOD THIS FEELS GOOD. GOOD! Blast your music deep with me... see I can make listening to music read like sex. But its not about sex. It's not about a physical. It's a non-physical thing, a vibration in my head (literally) that seems to set off the right chemicals. 

But not in others. 

Why?

What music do you listen to, and have you have any of these kinds of -awesome, god-touching, soul creating - moments. Come to think of it, has any experience (apart from a church experience) touched you in a deep and personal way for real reason? Share with me, I'm curious. My ears burn with the music, my mind sings with the noise, my heart beats with the drums, and I'm cleanesed. Of what I don't know. But I've never been touched by music like this before either. And no, I'm not drunk, on drugs, or just finished paint stripping the bathroom. The music is just fucking awesome. Someone with knowledge on this stuff please tell me why - I know the old saying: Music to sooth the savage beast... and I've been labeled a Hutt so I guess I qualify but... damn this is intense.

Anyway I had to share this with you. So I encourage you - find a piece of excellent music (Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony!) lock yourself in your room, turn on the volume and let it wash over you. Let it swell around your ears, pour down into your brain and lift you off of this shitty planet with it's shitty problems to a place of perfect noise. I have to stop writing now, it's too much. Catch you on planet mars kids, I'm fucking off.... yeah baby yeah...

Friends and enemies...

I play a game each week called Dungeons and Dragons. It's a wonderful game that tests narrative capacity, improves intellectual response, trains leadership skills, develops communication (if not spelling) abilities... I could go on. Now in this game you have a Game Master who essentially sets the scene for the players to then interact with and overcome (typically the scene involves rescuing virgins from dark towers filled with the forces of evil). Now there are literally hundreds of rule books that describe a multitude of systems that can be employed to bring structure and balance to the game. These rule books contain hundreds, if not thousands of rules.

Recently and not so recently this simple little game of make-believe and group story telling has nearly ripped my friendships apart because one of the fundamental concepts of the game is: The rules are always right, unless the Game Master (GM) decides otherwise (in effect - use the rules till you don't want them/need them etc). The other fundamental is the Game Master is always right. It's his world after all. But something that has always been a major issue in my life as a Game Master is a balance between GM rules, and Book rules. I hate book rules. I really and truly do. I find them so restrictive in terms of narration. It limits the players in what their characters can do, it limits the GM in terms of what he can do. On the other end of the scale though is a game without rules is simply chaos. And different players see actions and requirements differently.

So of late we've been bumping heads - my players and I. Those who love the rules (Rules Lawyers) and those who hate the rules (Rules Anarchists) have been at logger heads. Then compound this with the fact that players misread the rules (both intentionally and unintentionally), apply those rules haphazardly, or in some cases ignore the rules this can cause some major issues. Finally add in a GM aka me who simply uses the rules as pretty pictures and makes up his own anyway. What you get is a potential clash of wills. The Rules Lawyers fight amongst themselves (its amusing to see the squabbles over whether a dwarf can jump a ten foot chasm without being tossed), the Rules Anarchists ignore everyone anyway, and the GM is simply keeping the monsters coming until someone dies.

Not a pretty picture. All those intellectual virtues, those communications skills... collapse into a heap as the kids fight over a +2 or +4 bonus. Finally when you add to the mix vast quantities of caffeine, pizza, salt, sugar, and lack of sleep those tempers shift from being within the game, to without the game. And friendships start to crack. It's the funniest thing. And for a while I couldn't work out why we would prefer a game over a human. Why we blame bad players, and not bad rules. Curious is it not? The conclusion I came to the other day whilst screaming a dear friend of mine over the phone about whether or not a jump forward and down would incur more damage than a simple jump down (who cares?) is that this is the ultimate form of escapism for those of us with the capacity to imagine.

For the game involves/ed using paper, pencils, dice, and occasionally a map. Nothing tangible. The new version of the game now involves little miniatures, but the majority of the play is on paper and in your head. There is the nub of it. In your head. It's a personal experience that you're sharing with others. No wonder we get fidgety over a +2... it's a personal +2. +2 inches could be a whole big difference in the real world, and its more so in the fantasy world. And then I realized as well that there are not only the Rules Lawyers and the Rules Anarchists - but there are also the serious players and the non-serious players. And within those two categories there are two camps. The Serious players are dedicated to the rules first and foremost. The rules, the numbers, the values, are all that matter. Application of those values will in some way give them immense pleasure. The second camp within the serious players are those who play their character for life. They are desperate their this extension of themselves to succeed. And will not vary until they have. Naturally you get people who do both - rules and character obsession.

The other camp - the non-serious guys, play the game because it's interesting to see how the story will unfold for the particular character they're playing. They might be rules lawyers in which case they want to see how far they can push the rules, and how much fun they can have with those rules. Or like myself the non-serious player is there to have fun. He uses the rules in the opposite direction of the fanatical achiever to create characters with flaws, with weak values just to see what happens. And when his character dies, he simply pulls out the next one. For example last night we played, and I rolled (created) two options - a near sighted dwarf or a paranoid elf. I just wanted to see if these could become heroes. The paranoid elf, although afraid of everything trying to kill him, so far, has managed to avoid death.

But what amazes me, and is the actual crux of this post is that whether you're serious or not, a lawyer or not the result is the same: Frustrations in the game spill over into the real world. A slight of honour in the games applications slap the real players. Again as Humans we have managed to create a set of rules that have as much meaning as fairy dust, and those self created rules rip us apart. I'm sure that each of us could go off and write our own rules (hell I've done that three times already in 10 years). Start our own games where we call all play the role of GM.. of god. So is this what we'd call a closed system experiment? A small simple system describing a larger system? The rise of religion? Perhaps I'm stretching the analogy too far, but all I know is that it's really not worth destroying real friendships because of some self created rules...

But then again... why do we do it? Imagination is a powerful thing, perhaps the only thing that separates us from the other animals. After all imagination is what we need in order to develop our skills with manipulating the intangible. So is an attack on our imagination, an affront on our creative mind, then the greatest attack that one can make against man? Attack the only thing that makes us Human? Now there is something to think about...