The Influence of a Single Act.

Sometimes the simplest, stupidest things can change a person's life dramatically.

Years ago, when I went to Jefferson High in Portland, I was about one inch shorter, twenty pounds of fat lighter, and ten pounds of muscle heavier.  I also lived in a land of giants.  It's no joke!  As a teenaged half-asian islander, I grew up amid a predominantly African-American population.  Most of my peers were (and still are) strong, proud, and extremely physically imposing compared to me.  In short, I was a sprout in a forest of redwoods.

In my freshman year, of course I had to take P.E.  Now, don't get me wrong, I was never picked last at sports but I was certainly never picked first.  Everybody knew me as the kid who sprinted like lightning but couldn't really excel at anything else.

Until one fateful day.

When it came time for Basketball to be the sport of the week, I knew one thing: this was where I was going to be among the last picked.  Not because of my shortcomings (pun intended), but because of everybody else's physical gifts.  Most everybody in that class stood at least five-eight.  I was five-three.  I remember the captains being picked.  Four of them.  One of them, I remember clear as day.  Eldrick Trevell Bolden.

I knew Eldrick from Middle School.  We'd been friends.  Not good or close friends, but friends enough to where we fed off each other whenever we goofed off in class.  He hung with his crew, and I hung with mine, but in the end, he and I knew we both had things in common.  We both loved basketball, pretty girls, and driving teachers nuts.

Eldrick had second pick that day.  The first captain, a talented athletic kid we called "Chach" took the tallest, strongest guy first.  It didn't surprise anybody.  Then came Eldrick's turn.  He had the pick of the litter.  Two guys at least a foot taller than I, another three who were undoubtedly stronger, my friend Ajay Hansraj who could drain threes with his eyes closed, and my other friend Rokie who was stronger, tougher, taller, and had an overall better game.

Eldrick wasted no time and picked me.

I couldn't believe my ears.  As I walked over, I couldn't help the smile on my face.  Not because I was feeling cocky, but because of the smile on his face.  He had complete confidence in his decision.  I'll never forget what he said to me as he reached out to slap my hand.

"You's my number 1 draft pick dawg..."

He had no reason to pick me.  No reason at all.  Out of everybody in that class, he chose the one person that made no sense for him to pick.  One thing was for damn sure.  I made sure he didn't regret his pick.  I don't think I've ever moved faster, pushed harder, or shot better than that week.  I drained threes, cut to the basket, rebounded, and played insane defense.  I made sure that this man who took a gamble on me would see his faith rewarded.  On that day, I discovered the first hero in my life who I wasn't related to.  He had the courage to defy the status quo.  He went against the grain.  Out of all the people that day who could have picked first, he chose me.  He believed in me when he had no reason to.  He gave me confidence during a dark time in my life.  He showed me just how kind people can be.  He gave me a reason to believe in myself.

After that week, I was invited to every pickup game in that gym whenever I was around.

Last week I found out that my good friend was murdered three years ago.

Apparently he was in Mississippi visiting family.  Some idiot took his life.  I had written in a part for Eldrick in my latest book.  I hadn't seen or heard from him since moving out of Portland and I wanted to know how he was doing.  When I found out, it felt like a knife stabbing my heart.  I wanted to cry.  I still want to.  I wasn't his best friend nor was he mine.  I won't pretend we were close.  But I will acknowledge that he was a hero to me.  He will be sorely missed, and I intend to ensure his name will live on.

Rest in peace, Eldrick.
I won't ever forget you.

I need that one-star review...

Doesn't that sound strange?

You're probably thinking I've gone insane (which translates well from my last entry, hah!) but I haven't.  After a month at my new job I've figured out something that I began to suspect awhile ago.

My writing thrives on negativity.

The creative juices flowed best when stuck in a situation I hated.  My first job at Chase was going nowhere, I saw no exit, and the monotony of the same old thing every single day had me ready to slam my face in the safebox vault door.

So I wrote.  And man, did I fire off those pages like lightning.  The premise, the plot, the scenes...everything came together with such clear vision that the dreaded writer's block never came close to infecting me.  I went to my breaks and lunches frothing with what I would type next.  I zoned out at my station, laying plans for upcoming scenes, setting up jokes, connecting the dots, and working like clockwork to get the first manuscript down.

Then the first reviews of the first draft came in.

It dragged.  Too many adverbs.  Too much exposition.  Grammatical errors.  Way short on the show, overdosed on the tell.  I was crushed...and motivated.

I dove back into the manuscript, obsessed like never before.  I had to fix it.  I love being tasked to fix broken things, and this was even better.  I had to fix my own creation.  So for another six months I hacked, slashed, and burned the manuscript until it resembled 99% of what it looks like today (I still make corrections as they find them.  I know, I know, I should get an editor.  If anybody wants to foot that bill for me, by all means...).

Then I got promoted at work.  Settled in with a great staff and on top of that, the first reviews of the finished book came in.

And...the opposite happened.  Sure, some fixing here and there needed (and still needs) to be done, but for the most part, I scored a small win.  Those who took their time to offer their opinion of the book have given mostly positive comments.  Even the negatives weren't really negative.  So I started book two and found my energy sadly lacking.  I struggled so much with the first eight chapters that I'm doing a complete revamp of everything between one and nine.  What makes chapter nine satisfactory to me?  I wrote it in misery.

I don't hate my new job, but it's not the same.  The people are good, but it's not the same filial atmosphere.  Everybody does their own thing and checks out.  I haven't sensed a brand loyalty.  The pride isn't there.  I'm staying strong, but at the cost of great personal stress.

Now my writing has come back as fierce as ever.  Chapters nine and ten FLEW out of my mind.  Eleven is nearing completion.  I've done more in the past three weeks than the past three months.  I needed to be miserable.

A one-star review will accomplish that.

I'm not a stickler for punishment.  In fact, a one star review will help beyond upsetting me, it would tell me what needs to be fixed!  I hate not knowing what people think of my story.  And don't think I wouldn't appreciate some more rave reviews, I'd be equally grateful for those, but man, if there's anything that drives me to start churning out the words, it's misery.

So to those people who felt ripped off for downloading my ebook, who are upset that they took time out of their lives to read my worthless waste of e-space, to those people who can't stand the sight of my amateurish prose; lay it on me!  I can take it!  Tell me how much you hated my plot holes or weak premise or lack of characterization.  Bemoan the forced  humor and point out every typo or grammatical error you can find!

Gimme those one-stars.  I can take it.

Focker, OUT!

I'm beginning to think I'm weird.

Seriously.

I'm from the pacific northwest, I've never been to New York, but I'm a huge Knicks, Jets, and Yankees fan. 

On top of that, my political views are all over the spectrum.

And then there's my writing habits.  Minimum 1-hour a day, with varying genres of music playing during the process.  By far, classical dominates the playlist, but it's followed in close second by...Rob Zombie.  Yep, he of the original White Zombie.  Dragula, Superbeast, Meet the Creeper and Living Dead Girl usually get the noggin flowing for me.  When I'm not in the mood for the fast paced riffs, I go for nineties New Jack.  Boyz II Men, Bobby Brown, the good ol' days of R&B.  I also have an incredible weakness for 80's hair bands. 

When all else fails.  I turn to Michael.

Yep, I'm weird.

Sony Patents New Anti-Resell Tech (Supposedly)

In an interesting article I read at IGN- Here's the article (I know, I know, *groan*) it seems that Sony has filed a patent application which will prevent games from being resold through a contactless chip which emits a signal to the console.  This signal embeds a "code" within the console, thus allowing content on the disc to be played/installed/whatever.  Read the article for details, I'm just glossing over here.

Of course, the flame wars immediately begun, with Xboxers vs. the Playboys not only swearing off PS4 (which I think is stupid in many ways) but threatening to jump to different consoles and slamming Sony.

I find it ironic that nobody addressed the real problem though: Piracy.

Simply put, NONE of these draconic measures would even be necessary if people simply didn't steal software.

I'll admit first off, that yes, I have downloaded software in the past without paying for it.  Initially.  If I found I liked the software, I purchased it in full and made sure I gave my share to the devs.  But this was usually only when demo versions of said software are unavailable.  I generally distrust torrent and torrent sites (you can only get STD's if you sleep with potentially infected people right?) so I avoid them like the plague these days and have such been burned a couple times after purchasing something only to find it was a piece of crap afterwards, but hey, at least I'm honest.

But back to the point, if people would just STOP STEALING GAMES, then crap like this wouldn't even need to be implemented.  Although there is still one problem.

Reselling.

The devs make no money of resold games.  Which is a shame.  Personally, I buy 70% of my games used.  Mostly because nobody buys my books and my day job pays crap lol.  What needs to happen here, is the big 3 need to establish some sort of infrastructure for resellers to report sales of used games.  While the demographics would be incredibly useful to marketing, finding a way to track used sales would be a  good start to finding a way to profit of said sales, even if it's only a fraction of what they would get from the sale of a new game.  Hell, I'd rather make 1 cent off every book I sold than nothing at all, and for the devs, every little bit helps.

If only all gamers could get on the no piracy, no hax bandwagon...