1365: Your Face

I find myself once again giving serious thought to the closure of my Facebook account. This is not something I should be agonising over as much as I have been, I know, but given that Facebook is such a firmly-entrenched part of modern society, it bears some consideration.

The main thing that's frustrating me with it at present is the fact that the whole "broadcast and amplification" thing seems to be getting far worse than it's ever been. My News Feed at present consists almost entirely of people making ill-informed political statements and sharing the latest scaremongering chain letter that they haven't bothered to fact-check. (Currently? It's an apparent epidemic of "false widow" spiders in the UK — these spiders do actually exist, but it's rare that a bite from one will cause anything more than a bit of discomfort, and certainly not require the amputation of a limb in any cases other than those which have suffered the most severe of allergic reactions.)

The point here is that Facebook's original purpose of communicating and sharing personally meaningful things has all but completely gone out of the window in favour of sharing the latest "inspiring" clickbait from Upworthy (seriously, fuck off, Upworthy, Buzzfeed and all of your fellow content farms), the latest moral panic from Daily Mail-like sources, or the latest "OMG hilarious!!!" video from whatever dark corner of the Internet produces nothing but "OMG hilarious!!!" videos.

The reason I hesitate so much and continually wonder whether cutting the Facebook cord is a good idea is that old chestnut — "it's the only way I'm still in touch with some people." Well, to be honest, a lot of those people for whom Facebook is the only means I can still contact them I haven't actually spoken to for ages, even on Facebook; those people who actually care will probably know how to reach me via other means, or will pay attention if I leave some sort of post with alternative contact information prior to closing down my account. Those people who don't care? Well, I guess they weren't that good friends after all.

In cutting the Facebook cord, then, it will doubtless be sad to effectively cut ties to some university and school friends, but it's also an inescapable truth of life: people go their separate ways following milestones, and sometimes that's for the best. I won't deny that there are people I miss, but I've been just as lax at staying in touch with a lot of these people as they have been lax towards me. It's no reflection on either me or them in most cases; it's simply the fact that our lives have moved on in different directions, and we each have our own different priorities, groups of friends and personal interests.

Typing this out has helped me think a few things over. I'm going to carefully examine my Facebook usage over the next week, and make a decision at the end of the week as to whether or not I'm going to close my account. If I decide to close it — which, right this second, is the decision I am erring towards — I will leave a message up on my profile for a further week with alternative contact information — where people can find me elsewhere on the Internet (primarily Twitter or Google+), or via email — and then close it. At that point, those people who want to get in touch can; those who can't will be confined to the past, likely never to be heard from again.

Anyway. Apologies for thinking out loud. Perhaps some of you are thinking the same things too, though.

1361: Hajimemashite

A new experience for me tonight as I started an evening class. That's a symbol of being a "grown-up" isn't it? Something like that.

I've actually been looking to do something like this for a while, as I've been missing the experience of learning stuff. And I'm not talking about the interminable tedium of corporate training or the equal horror of teacher training days; I'm instead talking about actually sitting there in a class, learning something that won't necessarily be directly relevant to your life and/or job immediately, but which will provide some sort of knowledge you can whip out on occasion and impress people with.

Those who know me will be unsurprised to hear that it's Japanese I'm learning. My choice of this is partly due to my own interest in Japanese culture, but also for the fact that it might genuinely be useful in the future depending on what directions my career goes in. If I can get good enough at Japanese — this is a big "if", obviously — I'll be able to talk to Japanese developers more easily, or move into localisation (something I'd actually quite like to do) or any manner of other things. The prospects are quite exciting — a hefty period of concerted study away, sure, but still exciting nonetheless.

I impressed myself with how much of the first session's content I already knew having picked it up from various places. Anime and games are not always the best place to pick up Japanese since there's often a lot of dialect and deliberately "wrong" mannerisms used (Squid Girl's use of "de geso" at the end of every sentence springs to mind, as does Compa's overuse of "desu" in Hyperdimension Neptunia) that will probably make you look rather foolish if you were to use them in conversation desu.

This evening, we largely focused on things like introducing yourself, giving some basic details like where you're from, what you do and that sort of thing, and asking questions. A lot of it was stuff I'd already figured out for myself from a combination of my own deductions and occasional Internet searches prompted by an "I wonder if…" thought. I was pleased to discover that a lot of things I'd figured out for myself turned out to be correct, so I can now reasonably confidently introduce myself, say good morning, good day, good evening and good night, and say "excuse me" and "sorry" — both rather important.

I felt a little of my usual social awkwardness when we were required to talk and practice with the other students in the room, but no-one bit my head off, yelled at me or called me a prick, so I guess it was successful. I'm sure everyone — including me — will loosen up in the coming weeks, too; after all, the very nature of an evening class means that everyone there actually wants to be there to learn something, so it's unlikely anyone there is going to be a cock deliberately.

So a success for now then. I have absolutely no idea how much I'll learn over the course of the next few months, but I'm interested to find out, and the structure of a class will hopefully spur me on to keep practicing and studying in my own time too.

On that note, oyasumi nasai.

1358: The Bits You Fast-Forward Through

I'm struggling to remember the last time an advert actually had its intended effect on me — that is to say, I can't really remember the last time I actually bought something or made use of a service based on an advert.

The reason for this is that advertising appears to be getting increasingly infuriating and lazy as time goes on. TV ads these days are actively irritating rather than positive in promoting things, Internet ads are seemingly designed to be as obtrusive and distracting as possible, and print ads barely exist any more.

Consider TV ads, if you will. There seems to be an increasing number of people writing TV ads who seem to think that doing the whole thing as a rhyme is a good idea. No. This is never a good idea, because poetry sounds pretentious and arty-farty even when it's good; get someone without a literary bone in their body to write some sort of rhyme about yogurt or nappies or haemorrhoid cream or something and the result is just embarrassing, like the sort of shit children come out with for the usually short-lived "poetry" project they inevitably do as part of "literacy" lessons in primary school.

Then there's the ads that take a well-known song and "hilariously" change the lyrics to something to do with insurance or plasters or credit cards. Inevitably, the songs chosen are the most horrendously overplayed, clichéd shit that everyone is already sick of, and similarly, the ad itself is inevitably edited by someone who has no clue about musical structure or indeed how the original song actually went, leaving the whole thing feeling like a band of year 9 music students who think they're really good but actually keep forgetting the lines.

Worst of all, I think, are the ones that actively try to "go viral" or become a meme. This is always painful to watch, because it's something you can't force. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the fact that anything that has tried to deliberately "go viral" since the dawn of the Internet has spectacularly failed (is anyone following O2's advice to "be more dog"? Didn't think so.) while anything which did successfully permeate popular culture ("you've been Tango'd", say) did so largely through word of mouth rather than a group of marketing executives specifically trying to make people say things.

I think my least favourite ads in the world are "interactive" Web ads, though. They'll start as a postage stamp-sized version of a TV ad, and then those infuriating words "Get ready to interact!" will appear on the screen. Rather arrogantly, the people behind the ad then expect you to indulge in all the fun of, say, hoovering a carpet or wiping a dirty toilet seat, with your reward being the helpful information that you can buy the product you've just been "using" at all good supermarkets.

I should probably just use an adblocker if all this infuriates me so much, but unfortunately I'm all too painfully aware how much of the Internet is reliant on these stupid ads, and there's relatively little I can do about TV ads aside from not watch TV, which I don't really do that much anyway.

Anyhow. Bollocks, piss and fart. I am grumpy so I am going to bed.

1357: Le Chien Noir

Been having one of those "crisis of confidence" days today, for a variety of reasons. It's the culmination of a lot of things, really — a stressful week, tiredness, feeling ill for most of the weekend — and it just gave my sense of self-confidence a bit of a beating this evening. I haven't quite bounced back as yet, so you'll forgive the maudlin tone of this post.

To be perfectly frank, I've been feeling dissatisfied with my life and the several different directions it's been going in pretty much ever since I left university. I launched into a PGCE immediately after finishing my degree because it seemed like a logical thing to do with said English and Music degree, plus I'd done some private teaching in the past. Classroom teaching is not, however, the same as private teaching, as I found out to the cost of a considerable proportion of my mental health. I stuck it out for about three years — dealing with being made redundant at the end of my first year, and suffering a complete emotional breakdown at the end of my third — before deciding that continuing on that path would probably do bad things to me.

I followed this up with some work in retail. This went well. I enjoyed the work, and it involved working with computers and tech — which I love — and teaching — which I also enjoy, when it doesn't involve badly-behaved brats. Unfortunately, it ran into something of a dead end progression-wise, and then I suffered a pretty horrendous amount of workplace bullying that I still haven't really forgiven the people involved for.

I then went back to teaching for a bit. It was a maternity cover contract, so whatever happened, I'd have a relatively easy "out". It was also in primary school, so it was more of an attempt to experiment in that field than anything else. Again, I enjoyed the actual teaching side of things, but the dealing with horrible, badly behaved children (who, in many cases, had parents who didn't give a shit what they did) took its toll on me somewhat.

After that, I did a bit of supply teaching, which was pretty much the most depressing job in the world, and took up an opportunity to start writing for a little, low-paying games site called Kombo. I made some good friends and built up a decent, if small-scale reputation. Kombo eventually folded, sadly, and I was left without work, money or, due to unfortunate circumstances in my personal life at the time, a wife. I moved back home with my parents with great reluctance.

I spent ages looking for jobs, but I have no idea what my real "skills" are besides being knowledgeable about video games, being able to type like the clappers (at least 85 words per minute the last time I tested) and being able to write things very quickly to order. The qualifications I do have are very specialist — my BA is far from being the "good, general degree" I was assured it would be when I was deciding what to do, and my PGCE is pretty much a waste of the paper it's printed on now — and for the things I do know how to do, I have no real tangible means of proving I can do them. Essentially, I might as well be completely unqualified.

Fortunately, after a long and depressing process of jobhunting, I scored a position on GamePro, a magazine and website my brother had formerly been in charge of. This began as a part-time gig which eventually expanded to full-time after I made a very difficult decision between sticking with it and moving to London for what would have, in retrospect, probably have been a considerably more secure job. (But… London. No thanks.) I stuck with GamePro, as I was enjoying the work.

Again, I worked well, built up a decent body of work and a good — if, again, small-scale — reputation… and again, the site folded. This time around, thankfully, I had another job to jump into, reviewing mobile and social games and apps. It wasn't a fun job in the slightest and made me never, ever want to work in mobile and social games, but it paid well. Long story short, that site didn't fold as such, but the majority of the staff left (including me) and I was left without anything to do for a little while… although the possibility of USgamer, my current position, was already starting to bubble.

And, as you know now, I'm working for USgamer. I'm enjoying the work, though it can be challenging at times. On days like today, though, I can't help but find myself worrying a little about the future. Where do I go from here? What's the progression? Is this a "real job"? Should I instead be looking for something boring and joyless but stable with good promotion prospects? I'm 32 and I've never had the opportunity to say "I got promoted." Is that a problem?

I don't have the answers to any of those questions, and I doubt anyone else does, either. I'll probably feel better by the morning, but for now everything's just feeling a bit "meh."

Apologies for the self-indulgent moaning, but it helps to get it out of my head and on to paper sometimes. I'll try and be more cheerful tomorrow.

1355: Impending Lie-In

Good golly gosh, I'm knackered.

This is at least partly due to the fact that I didn't really have a weekend last weekend. (Actually, there's no "really" about it; I flat-out didn't have a weekend last weekend, since although Eurogamer Expo was enjoyable, I still had to work through it, and also had to overcome my not-inconsiderable social anxiety in order to actually, you know, talk to developers and stuff. I think I did fairly admirably, all things considered.)

Anyway. Consequently, I am looking forward to having a weekend this weekend, and the first thing I shall be doing with said weekend is having a lie-in. I've been waking up relatively late each morning this week and desperately wanting a lie-in — in some cases even dropping off until about half an hour before I need to start work (which, fortunately, as you probably know, involves walking from my bed to my study, and I don't even have to put on pants if I don't want to) — and not being able to have it. But tomorrow morning, I can have a lie-in, and it will be glorious.

Except going on recent past experience, the opportunity to actually have a lie-in is usually a signal for my body to wake up promptly at 7am and be unable to get back to sleep. This is infuriating when it happens, because any hope of catching up on sleep is then completely ruined. Of course, it's often quite nice to deliberately wake up early and have considerably more hours available in the day than usual, but come on. It's the weekend. I want to lie in bed and not move for more hours than I'm normally able to, then get up, have a bacon sandwich (or similarly greasy equivalent) and do nothing of any value for the remainder of the day.

Ah well. We'll see how it goes tomorrow morning. Perhaps I'll play some Sweet Fuse until the early hours and see if that will lull me into a deep sleep filled with bishounen.

(Speaking of Sweet Fuse, I'm still enjoying it a great deal. What a silly game. I'm glad it exists. If you'd have told me ten years ago that one day I'd be playing a game in which I took on the role of Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune's niece as she wandered around a theme park that had been taken over by a pig-like terrorist, I would have probably laughed in your face. I have since learned, of course, that anything goes in gaming, and when you take into account the possibilities of less interactive genres such as visual novels, you really can tackle pretty much any subject matter as a "game". But that, as ever, is a discussion for another day, I feel; time to head bedwards for me — Saki Inafune and her harem of gentlemen friends is awaiting me.)

1353: Criminology

I watched my first ever episode of CSI today. Or CSI: Miami, to be exact, since the original CSI isn't on Netflix as far as I can make out.

I enjoyed it! It reminds me how much I do enjoy police procedurals and crime thrillers — yes, even the cheesy, stupid, unrealistic ones — when I watch them, yet it's pretty rare I'll actually seek them out. It's one of those things that I forget I like, if that makes sense, and I'll just occasionally stumble across the, and remember all over again.

As with many forms of non-interactive media, I find myself thinking that there should be more procedural games. Trauma Team on Wii was a great example — particularly from the crime scene investigation angle — plus the Ace Attorney series has always provided a neat combination of private detective-style investigation and courtroom drama. I'd like to see more of that kind of thing.

There's the Police Quest series, of course, which I'm still yet to try, though those have the dubious distinction of being Sierra adventures (i.e. already brutally difficult, and not necessarily in a fair way) that are notoriously finicky about you actually following police procedure to the letter. There's nothing wrong with this, of course — how many other "police sims" are there out there? — but it doesn't necessarily push exactly the same buttons as a police procedural drama on TV.

I'm surprised that over the years we haven't seen more games branching out into popular TV genres. We've done sci-fi and fantasy to death, obviously, because both of those are eminently compatible with the most common means through which we interact with a game world: attacking it. We've also seen crime drama through the eyes of the criminals a lot thanks to titles like Grand Theft Auto and Saints Row. But what we haven't seen a lot of is a game about being a doctor, or a policeman, or a lawyer, or a journalist. I remember having a conversation with fellow Squadron of Shame members a while back about how cool it would be to play a war-themed game in which you weren't one of the American soldiers on the scene, but instead an embedded war reporter tasked with covering the conflict from the front lines. Plenty of scope for interesting storytelling there, plus gameplay that doesn't involve shooting people with a different skin colour to your character.

We could even expand that, though. Sci-fi and fantasy games don't have to be about killing, either; how about a sci-fi "future police" game? Or a "future medicine" game? (I guess that's Trauma Center, but still.) Or a game where you play a member of the Watch in a typical fantasy city? Plenty of scope for interesting things, and yet — at least in the mainstream — we still rely on the same old stuff.

Ah well. The times are a-changin', and we are starting to get more and more interesting thematic content in our games that isn't just about stabbing and shooting. I just wish there was a bit more.

1351: After Story

I was surprised to discover that Manga Video had a booth at the Eurogamer Expo over the weekend, so I took a moment to rifle through their collection between seeing various bits and pieces.

As good fortune would have it, it would seem that Clannad After Story has recently been released in "complete series" box set format, so I snapped up a copy — £25 is eminently reasonable for six DVDs, particularly when compared to some other anime DVDs, and particularly particularly when compared to the exorbitant prices Forbidden Planet charges for anime DVDs.

Ever since I got to the end of Clannad — which wasn't that long ago — I've wanted to see After Story, which picks up directly where the original leaves off. It's the anime adaptation of the second half of the original visual novel, and continues the story beyond the end of school over the course of the following seven years.

This alone makes it noteworthy in anime, since most "slice of life" or school-based drama shows restrict themselves to just the school years, so it's unusual to see the characters actually grow older and move on from school and into their lives proper. Indeed, this is usually the case with visual novels, too, which often tend to have high school-age protagonists and heroines, and stick that way. There are exceptions, of course — Kana Little Sister and Kira Kira immediately spring to mind — but it's something that, in my experience anyway, happens more often than not.

I've only watched a single episode of After Story so far so I can't comment with any great authority on what the new series is like, but I'm looking forward to exploring it. The original Clannad series didn't end how I was expecting it to end — no spoilers — but in retrospect, I think this was because I wasn't aware that After Story was not just a direct follow-up, but the continuation and conclusion of the complete narrative.

I can guarantee now that it's going to make me cry at least once, though. I found the Fuko arc in the first Clannad series incredibly emotional, and if After Story is going to go where I think it's going to go, it's going to be about three bajillion times worse. That's okay, though; the reason I'm even watching Clannad in the first place is because I know it's sad. This may sound like a strange reason to watch something, but there's something oddly enjoyable (if that's even the right word) about getting emotionally engaged with something to such a degree. People still watch sad movies and listen to sad music, after all — and, despite the fact I know absolutely nothing about Breaking Bad (and don't want to right now, thanks; I'm going to watch it when everyone else shuts up about it, which should hopefully be soon now that it's finished) I understand that it's not exactly the most cheerful thing on the tellybox.

Further reports as I continue watching, I'm sure.

1344: Problem?

I fucking hate the word "problematic".

I've been struggling to articulate exactly what it is that bugs me so much about "problematic," (and please imagine me screwing up my face, using a sarcastic voice and making exaggerated air-quotes while you read that) but an idle insomnia-fueled wander around the Internet the other night led me to the Urban Dictionary definition of the word, which conveniently sums up pretty much how I feel about this word and how it it used today:

A corporate-academic weasel word used mainly by people who sense that something may be oppressive, but don't want to do any actual thinking about what the problem is or why it exists. Also frequently used in progressive political settings among White People of a Certain Education to avoid using herd-frightening words like "racist" or "sexist."

I've heard the term "weasel word" in the past, but it had somehow slipped out of my mind. Reading this definition brought it all back, though, and made me realise what a wonderfully descriptive term it is. "Weasel word" — a word or phrase designed to weasel your way into (or out of) a difficult topic without saying anything truly confrontational. Or sometimes without saying anything of substance at all.

Alongside the fact that "problematic" is a particularly slimy example of a weasel word, it also bugs me that it seems to be the first and only word people turn to when attempting to discuss Important Matters of Social Justice That We're All Supposed to Get Really Fucking Angry About. Whenever it's used, it just makes me think of people trying to sound more intelligent than they actually are. In fact, what it makes me think of — and here's a random memory for you — is a time shortly after my Grandad Davison died and my parents were having a Serious Conversation in the front of the car. I was very young at the time, but I felt that it was Important for me to join in said Serious Conversation, so I listened, nodded and murmured "Mm. True. Very true," at moments when I thought it would be appropriate, but actually ended up looking like a bit of a tool. I get the same feeling any time people start dropping "problematic" all over the place in conversation — like they're trying to have a conversation that they're not really quite mentally equipped for. Unfair? Perhaps. But that's how I feel.

My teeth-gritting annoyance at the use of this word was actually concerning me somewhat since so many people were using it, so I looked it up and attempted to determine if it was actually some sort of established sociological term, but no, I found no evidence to suggest that. It's just a word that's caught on and become fashionable for some inexplicable reason — much like "entitled" was a year or two back — and now everyone and their radical feminist dog is using it. The English language is rich, diverse and full of multiple ways to say the same thing. Use it.

If you're similarly frustrated with the prevalence of this weasel word and want to do something about it, may I suggest that when Christmas rolls around, you purchase a thesaurus for everyone on your Twitter and/or Facebook feeds who has expressed an interest in being some sort of militant crusader for social justice. And maybe by next year we'll have a new overused word to get sick of.

1342: Hidden World

I've been continuing to watch Clannad, and I'm thoroughly enamoured with it. I haven't yet finished it, though I am pretty sure how it's going to end and I am also pretty sure that if it follows the path I think it's going to follow it's going to be very, very sad in the way I perversely enjoy so much.

Mild spoilers ahead?

One of the things that has struck me throughout is how quietly weird it is. For the most part, it's your usual sort of slice-of-life story complete with all the clichés that usually involves — someone trying to resurrect a long-dead school club; a harem of female characters who each initially seem to encapsulate one main defining factor but later reveal themselves to have hidden depths and/or dark pasts; a protagonist who is down on his luck but inspired to become a better person by said group of girls.

But then it goes and throws a few curveballs along the way, the first of which is the character Fuko, whose physical presence and relationship with the other characters is seemingly impossible due to the fact that she's really lying in hospital in a coma. After her particular story arc is finished, she disappears, not only from regularly appearing in episodes but from the characters' memories, too — though every so often she shows up for a brief cameo in a future episode, usually in some botched attempt to make a difficult situation better. Since I haven't finished watching the series as a whole yet, I don't know if the deal with Fuko is truly and conclusively explained, or if it's left somewhat open to interpretation. I'd be fine with either, actually, though at my current point 18 episodes deep into the complete run, I'm torn between a few theories.

Then there's the character Kotomi, who initially appears to be the resident socially-inept "weird genius" character, but whom it transpires has some forgotten history with the protagonist. Not only that, but her parents were supposedly researching some sort of theory about when the universe was created, a tiny dimension was sealed away. I don't know if that gets resolved, either.

And then there's the occasional cuts to "the girl who lives alone in a world that has ended" with her mechanical companion. These sequences are almost Nier-like in their bleakness, and at present I have no idea how they fit into the narrative as a whole.

I'm absolutely and completely intrigued by what's going on, though. Someone is clearly going to die at some point, or perhaps they're already dead. There's a feeling of "fever dream" about the whole thing, where it's not quite all making sense yet, but I feel I'm getting closer to the truth.

In other words, I'm very much looking forward to seeing how the whole thing plays out — and it's pretty much a given that I'll be checking out Clannad After Story once I'm done, too. Expect some more spoileriffic thoughts when I've made it through the whole lot.

1340: Bzzzzz

Think I've had too much caffeine today. I sometimes feel like caffeine doesn't really affect me all that much, but then I drink as much as I apparently have today and I get all jittery and anxious. It's not an altogether pleasant feeling, but at least I think it's finally wearing off and I just want to sleep. It's like that moment in The Sims 3 where your temporary caffeine buzz positive moodlet wears off and is replaced by a caffeine crash negative movement. Actually, it's not "like" that at all, it just is that.

I should have probably heard the warning signs when I went to work in the coffee shop earlier, and I ordered my usual "first drink of the working day" if I'm working in there — an iced white Americano. I'm pretty sure that up until today, the people there have been making said iced white Americanos wrong, because previously they looked more like iced lattes. (I don't mind; I like iced lattes. Iced Americanos are marginally less calorific, though.)

"Four shots," said the girl serving me to her colleague who was preparing my drink. Four shots? So I was essentially drinking four espressos in one go? Hmm.

I thought nothing of it at the time, and it certainly didn't feel like it had much of a "kick" while I was drinking it, so once I'd got on top of all the work I had to do I had a latte to keep me going through the rest of the afternoon.

That was the tipping point, I think. While it was delicious as usual, once I finished it I started to feel a little queasy. Not to the point of actually wanting to be sick or anything, just… not quite right. And as the day continues to progress, I started to feel more and more anxious and jittery. As I said before, it's not an altogether pleasant feeling.

There's probably a lesson to be learned amid all this somewhere. Will I learn it, though? Probably not. I give it a few days before I do this exact same thing to myself again, completely accidentally.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go and try and sleep. Or, failing that, I'm going to stare at the ceiling for a few hours while trying very hard not to let all the chattering inside my brain distract me too much. Or, failing that, I'll go and play some more GTA V, which has hooked me a whole lot more than I thought it would. The police chase I had earlier, which culminated in me driving an open-top sports car up a mountain and then flinging it off the summit at top speed, only to cartwheel several times on the way down and land right way up on the freeway while in the middle of a phone conversation, made it all worthwhile.

Anyway. Sleep. Attempted sleep. Whatever. Bzzzzzzz.