Dear Journal: My Trip to Boston/PAX East Part II

Friday 6 April 2012

Waking up on opening day sucked for two reasons.  One was because I hadn’t sat down and had a normal person’s meal in over a day.  I had nothing but caffeine and sugar the day before, and not even that much of it either.  The other reason this morning sucked was because the dormant cold that had been slowly creeping up on me made its presence known bright and early.  No longer dormant, the cold decided to move in completely while I was unconscious, setting up a headquarters in my face.  It was a pretty crappy feeling to have upon waking up, you know, minus the feeling of my body freezing due to the lack of sufficient blankets and heating.  Nevertheless, after showering and getting my awesome Halo Combat Evolved T-shirt on I felt a lot better.  The hunger still bothered me though.  Thirty minutes later my Uncle and I made our way down to the Dunkin Donuts for some breakfast.  Conveniently it was located right next to the bus stop.  Inconveniently there were no other places to grab a quick breakfast, or any breakfast period.  We had already woken up later than planned so we didn’t have time to shop around.  The doors to PAX opened at 0800 and we were ordering food from a long forgotten donut shop that Colorado had apparently banned at the same time.  I decided that three donuts would do the trick this morning, even though I would normally only get two.  I also got a Dunkachino which I have to say didn’t compare to the great coffee the company is capable of making.  The only time I can drink their coffee is when I buy it at the store and brew it myself, and it’s amazing.  So I figured the Dunkachino had to be good.  In comparison to the regular coffee they’re known for, the crapachino tasted like someone urinated in it after brewing it with a mixture of dirt that was sitting in pot that was used to capture oil from someone’s car upon an oil change.  Holy crap, I just realized that I again only had caffeine and sugar, what the hell? 

Our bus didn’t make its way around to grab us until 0830.  I guess we weren’t really in a huge rush this morning because our first panel didn’t start until 1030, and we were totally focused on making every single panel that we could.  We later learned that it was impossible to do that.  I was rather pissed off that it took an hour to get to the venue.  Not only did we have to wait ages for the stupid bus to come and get us, but we then had to travel on the ridiculously gross (I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before) subway.  We had to ride one train to a certain stop, get on a different one, then a different one, and finally the one that took us to where we needed to be.  If that wasn’t bad enough, our first time trying to figure this out, we took the orange line subway in the wrong direction for about three stops before we realized we had to turn around. 

On our way back to the correct train, we made a stop to let people on and I could hear this dude talking all loud and being all about it before I even saw him.  I was already annoyed that someone could be talking this loud in a public place and I’m sure whoever he was talking to was mildly annoyed as well.  Moments later this bug eyed black man stepped through the doorway and to my dismay, he was talking loudly to himself.  I believe that it’s common knowledge not to make eye contact with the crazy person speaking to themselves in public, especially if the crazy guy is touching himself.  This guy wasn’t playing with himself, but I still forgot the unwritten rule and was transfixed. He plopped right down in the seat across from me.  Where the hell was I suppose to look then?

“HEY MAN!”  That was the moment I realized that I was staring because once he made eye contact, it was over for me.  I was stuck like a deer in the headlights. 

“Man I used to be the drummer in a band and…” the train began to roll its way towards our final destination, slowly and inevitably.  The sound of the train got louder but the dude didn’t raise his voice.  I was still stuck in his gaze and couldn’t seem to find a way out, so I just sat there nodding my head like a fucking idiot as if I really understood what he was talking about.

“And Woodstock, and Led Zeppelin, and Tower of Power, and The Who’s” muffled again, but this time as the train picked up speed, the dude broke out into some air drumming.  I couldn’t hear the music, but he was playing the shit out of those air drums.  The only thing that looked more ridiculous than a crazy bug eyed black man jamming to his fake drums, was watching an old pal of mine whacking his chest in public like it was his own portable drum set.  His crazy orange hair made it funny though.  Yes Chris, if you’re reading this, I’m telling you that your air drumming was so stupid that it felt like I was watching a special ed ginger with Tourette Syndrome beating the hell out of himself.  Man, I can’t believe he called The Who, “The Who’s”, haha wow. 

“I have a future and you have a future.”  Was one of the final things I can remember him saying to me as he pointed his finger towards his temple, and then at my face.  Our stop finally came and I was relieved to get the hell out of that situation.  My Uncle brought up an interesting point shortly after we departed, what if that guy was a regular normal dude who was bad ass at improve and was just messing with me for shits and giggles?  I doubt it, but what a crazy thought.  If he was normal I’m sure he blogged about how dumb I looked trying to be polite.  So we finally got back on track and made it to the venue an hour and a half after we left the stupid apartment.  I was just relieved to actually get there.  It was kind of a culture shock for me to see thousands of gamers marching sporadically towards the convention center. 

Location of PAX East 2012

When we got inside we had no idea where we were going.  We saw that everyone was walking around sporting their PAX badges hanging from lanyards around their necks and we totally wanted to look awesome like that.  My Uncle asked the information desk where we needed to go get a lanyard and they directed us down a hall and around the corner for a half a mile and down some escalators.  The guy did literally say half a mile and the hallway was long enough to fit the description.  We followed his directions and wound up standing in a giant line that barely moved.  It took us almost half an hour to get down to the bottom floor where we had our badges checked as we entered this huge open area.  It was completely empty, well, minus the thousands of people who were herded into multiple lines like cattle gearing up for slaughter.  A lane would fill up with people and then be taped off behind them so the next lane could begin filling up.  The doors to the building opened up at 0800, so had we shown up earlier we probably wouldn’t have wound up in one of the middle lanes.  Our lane happened to be in front of two giant projector screens which kind of made me feel like this was the place the first panel was going down and the screens were our benefit to see better.  Although I really had no idea what was going on or why we were even waiting in line. 

The sign outside of PAX

The way were being lined up kind of made me feel like I was in The Hunger Games waiting to see who would be chosen as tribute.  The winner gets to see the show floor first.  I was even expecting Elizabeth Banks to pop up on the screens in front of the lines to say, “Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor, nerds.”  I suppose I got bored waiting in line for so long that my mind traversed to a dark place.  Shortly after my Hunger Games image, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Jews were herded around the same way.  There you go folks, that’s inside the mind of Halotitan, a man who thinks of terrible shit when he gets bored.    

The floor opened up at 10, but I didn’t see the lines to my right moving until around 1030.  It dawned on me then that we were probably headed to the expo floor with all the booths and fun stuff to look at.  I kind of figured we had other stuff to do, but since we missed our first panel (which was just a welcome to PAX panel) our next one didn’t begin until 12, so we made our way through the line and up towards the showroom.  As we got close we saw that the doors we had to come through an hour before weren’t making people go to the back of the line.  They were just letting people go to the same location I had to stand in line for.  What a load of shit.

Nerd central

Up to this point I thought that this convention was for video games, but I didn’t realize that all those nerds I picked on in high school for playing Magic and Pokemon during lunch were gamers as well.  They even had an entire section dedicated to their unique table top games.  It really made me feel a lot better about how nerdy I thought I was.  These guys definitely have me beat on the nerd scale, but who am I to judge.  Their passion for crazy card games is probably the same passion I have for normal people games.    

The computer area.  Here we come Diablo III and Torchlight II

Further down the way we made it to the main floor.  In between the main floor and the nerd floor was a massive area with hundreds of computers set up for tournaments and stuff.  Most importantly it was where Diablo III and Torchlight II were being shown off.  The main floor was even more impressive with how big it was as well as what was being shown off.  We saw that there were tons of titles to check out like The Secret World, Orcs Must Die 2, Borderlands 2, Far Cry 3, Max Payne 3, Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, Assassin’s Creed 3, Spec Ops, Xcom, and many more.  It was a crazy feeling to see all these things in real life when I’m use to watching them on G4TV or from my Xbox.  Though the expo floor never seems that crowded on video, it was indeed a mad house in person.

Video Nerd Central

Ha, speaking of G4, we were over behind the Xcom and Borderlands 2 booths when I got an inch away from ramming my shoulder into some dudes face.  Yeah he was smaller than me and about as thin as a sheet of paper, but the man spun around at the last second and walked in the same direction we were headed.  As I got a glimpse of his face it dawned on me that the man I almost laid out was none other than Adam Sessler.  Now I’m not the type of person who pees my pants when I see a celebrity in person, especially if that “celebrity” is a person who only gets that title for hosting a show about video games.  Adam Sessler is the co-host to G4’s X-Play, one of the only TV shows I’d be willing to suffer through commercials to watch.  It’s too bad that I don’t get to watch it anymore though because Comcast got G4 in the divorce.  Anyway, we kept walking in the same directions because we had to get upstairs to attend our next panel when we see Sessler talking to someone next to the Spec Ops booth.  That’s when I noticed that it was most definitely him.  I love watching the dude talk about games because he’s passionate about them the way I am and his opinions are awesome most of the time.  Watching him cracks me up too because he talks with his hands a lot and when he’s really getting into a rant he tends to stutter here and there.  He’s like a younger version of Joe Cocker, if Cocker was a television personality.  I wanted to walk up and stutter his name as a joke, but then I realized that it would turn me into a massive douche bag. 

Our first panel was A Day In the Life of Indie Developers (or something along that line).  This was my first convention and I was a little surprised to see how many people were out in the hall waiting.  Most of them were waiting for the Bioware panel that was taking place right next door, but still.  We had just come from the main floor where thousands of people where roaming around and it amazed me to see thousands more waiting to see some panels.  It gave me a better view about how many people were in attendance.  The event was sold out after all.  We actually got some pretty good information from the panel about how to get into developing and how the careers of the panel members got started, but the whole thing became a Q and A session and I really don’t like those.  People can ask the dumbest questions.

“Do you think your games would be better if you had a larger penis?”

“If I start making games, will girls begin to notice me?”

Video Nerd Central Pt2

I left about fifteen minutes before the end because I wanted to catch the Rooster Teeth Panel.  At least those guys are entertaining, even if they’re not trying to be.  If you don’t know who they are, just go Google Red Vs Blue and watch their videos.  They’re a machinima company that found amazing success with their internet web show, Rev Vs Blue.  The series actually uses the game Halo to make their videos, so it’s inspiring to see the success they’ve had from being enthusiastic fans.  I had to wait in line for a very long time just to get in, but it was kind of worth it.  They came out to talk to the fans and introduced quite a few new things.  It has actually been a very long time since I’ve watched their shows, but some of their new stuff looked hilarious.  They’ve also been branching away from using the actual Halo games as the hub to make their videos and have started to focus on animation.   Burnie Burns, one of the actors and the co-creators of the web series was there along with Gus, another voice actor/creator.  They too did that annoying Q and A thing. 

The Secret World/ Rooster Teeth is bottom right

“What’s the stupidest question a fan has ever asked you?”  The little bastard asked a second question, which I found rude because there was a massive line of people behind him hoping to squeeze in questions of their own.   

“Well you just gave us the lamest question.” Burnie didn’t skip a beat and passed the question down the line to the other panelists.

“Why does he get to ask two questions?”  What an awesome response because that’s what I had been thinking moments earlier!  Everyone gave an “awww” reaction but Burnie told them that if you’re in the spotlight for Rooster Teeth, it would burn like hell.  I wound up leaving the show early because I wanted to catch the next panel, but it turned out that it wasn’t something we would have wanted to go to.  PAX that first day was hard because we wanted to try and squeeze in everything that we really wanted to see, but we kind of realized that it would be nearly impossible to do.  I suppose I wanted to learn a whole lot about how to get into the gaming industry and how to be successful at it, but my Uncle informed me that PAX was more about the fans rather than the developers.  Apparently I want to attend the Game Developers Conference (GDC) to learn and I’m not even sure I can go since I’m technically not in the business just yet. 

So as we waited for our last panel of the day, we walked around the expo floor to decide on which events we wanted to participate in the following days.  Our Saturday schedule only had like two panels we wanted to attend and we had planned on playing some games.  After all, what fun would it be to attend such an event and not play some games that have yet to be released?  We toured the entire floor and decided that we wanted to check out Diablo III, Assassin’s Creed 3, Max Payne 3, Borderlands 2, and The Secret World.  With that done and out of the way, we grabbed a crappy meal from one of the places selling food at the venue and went to our final panel, “So you want to get into the gaming industry.”  At least this food had some protein in it, which was the first time since the trip started that I ate a meal that didn’t consist of all sugar and caffeine.

Different view of the floor

This panel was the most disappointing one we may have attended the entire weekend.  The panelists let us know that our passion for games wasn’t good enough because everyone else shared that exact same passion.  Now although they gave us a lot of information, like who the hell needs a resume when you need to show off experience, I felt very discouraged because I looked around the room of like five thousand people and realized that everyone wanted to do this.  Does everyone want to do it because they like playing games?  How many people are serious about making or reporting about games?  It was hard to define really, especially because the guy wearing the T-Shirt stating that Han Solo shot first and Chewy came second, didn’t look like the type of person that I would take seriously.  Then I looked down at my Halo T-shirt and realized that I wasn’t any different.  I’m exactly like all of these people who want in and I learned from this panel that I have to be one of the best.  Regardless, I plan on doing this for a living and if that means I have to bust my ass to be successful at it, then I will.  I also learned that people asking questions really are stupid.

“How can I find out what developers are in my area?”

“Try Google.” 

Hell, I don't even know my name

So we decided since the expo floor closed at six and it was pretty much that time anyway, we’d just go sit down at a restaurant to grab a bite before heading to the apartment for some well needed shut eye.  Unfortunately getting all the way over to Cheers took awhile as well as getting from Cheers to the apartment.  Oh, and we started off by going in the opposite direction so we could meet up with my cousins and Grandpa.  Can I just say that no one at Cheers knew my name?  Liars. 

Dear Journal: My Trip to Boston/PAX East Part I

Well PAX East 2012 has come and gone and I’m utterly shocked at how fast it seemed to pass us by.  I suppose in years past I didn’t pay much attention to them, so the length never seemed to be an issue.  This year was different though.  Why?  Well that would be because my awesome wife heard me talking about wanting to attend some kind of video game expo, mainly because it’s what I want to do for a living, and hooked me up with a three day pass.  I had a few blogs planned for those days, but since I had only come back to the blogging world on the third of April, I decided to do something different.  I cataloged my trip to Boston and have decided to give you a nice layout of my weekend.  I know this is over a week late, but give me a break.  The entire four part series turned out to be seventeen pages and you’ll never believe this, but I’m busy with tons of other stuff like school and kids.  Nevertheless I’ve accomplished it so sit back and enjoy reading about something you couldn’t be a part of because you were too cheap to buy a ticket.

Thursday 5 April 2012:

Going to bed at like two thirty in the morning was probably a bad idea.  Even worse was waiting until Wednesday night to get some homework done.  Sure, I procrastinated, but only because I was being lazy.  Not a good excuse?  Okay, what I meant to say was that rather than procrastinating, I had children to take care of and a house to maintain.  My garage still needs to be organized so I can fit some vehicular units in there and I have landscaping out the ass.  Whoever the hell owned this house before me was an idiot.  They loaded up the entire yard (well most of it anyway) with rocks.  Either they were too lazy to keep up a decent yard, or they were trying to save money on their water bill.  Either way, they can kiss my white ass.  There is probably a couple ton of rocks between the front and back yard that I’m going to have to get rid of, and with my luck, most of it will be by hand rather than a shovel.  Oh, and Scrubs has been consuming me, that’s another excuse for my delay on homework. 

Either way, I got quite a bit of that homework done on Wednesday night so I didn’t have so much to do when I got home from Boston.  Hell, that wasn’t even my primary concern.  I hate leaving my wife and kids because I’ve grown a vagina since I’ve been married and I have these weird feelings that make me miss people when I’m not around them.  On top of that, I can’t help but to be nervous about flying.  I hate flying.  I seriously would rather get ganged raped in prison than to fly.  Scratch that, I think I’d rather drink my own urine than fly.  I don’t want to be raped, so forget I said that.  Sure I could erase it, but I have a family to raise and don’t have the time to back track that far.  I’m claustrophobic and afraid of heights.  You tell me which part of that doesn’t make flying a living nightmare for someone like me.  They shove you in a giant fucking metal tube that goes up thirty thousand feet while traveling at five hundred miles an hour.  It’s enough to make me shit myself, especially when the plane shakes the whole time.  Oh, and don’t give me none of that, “flying is safer than driving” shit either.  I know it is and I don’t care.  It’s like telling a smoker that not inhaling smoke is a safer way to live.  He knows, yet he doesn’t care. 

So we got up early, kind of.  I actually thought my wife was getting out of bed at like 0615 because she wanted to shower and get the kids ready to go to the sitter at a decent time.  I was going to get up with her and help her out.  Instead I got woken up at like 0700 because my cousin, despite being warned the night before, tried to do a nice thing for my dogs.  He opened the door and set off my security system.  I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure to wake up to that, but it sucks.  I flew out of bed and was thankful that I didn’t sleep nude like normal because I hauled it downstairs to shut the alarm off.  No house guest cares to see their host running around naked.  Shortly after the alarm was stifled, ADT called and was all like, “yo dog, your alarm went off, what gives?”  I went through the routine of telling them it was a silly accident and that I was good.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if my wife didn’t set the damn thing off on a regular basis.  I swear, when a real criminal breaks into my house, ADT won’t even call me to make sure we’re okay.  We’re the house that cried rape.  What the hell is wrong with me?  That’s the second time I mentioned rape in this blog.  Oh, and in case you’re wondering, my cousin Brian was staying at my place because he too was headed to Boston and I live closer to the airport than he does.  He wasn’t going to PAX East with my Uncle and I, but he still wanted to see the sights.    

The rest of the crew was coming from Cheyenne and didn’t hit the road until around 0730.  Normally it’s like a good 70-90 minute drive to get to Denver International so we figured we had a little time to kill before heading off to the airport ourselves.  A good hour later we showed up at the park n ride place and I get a phone call from my Uncle telling me to suck it.  Apparently my other cousin Brandon (Brian’s brother) was driving and that had to mean that he did at least a hundred and twenty all the way there.  I think it runs in the family.  I can remember riding in the car with his dad back home from Nebraska one time and that man is a pro.

So thirty minutes later we were at our gate waiting for our plane.  I was pretty hungry because I hadn’t had breakfast, so I decided to grab a coffee and a cookie at the coffee shop.  It was a tough choice between that and dining at McDonalds with my cousins.  I figured consuming a plate of greasy laxative would be unwise right before I was placed in a metal tube with a hundred people, all of whom disregarded going to the bathroom before boarding the plane.  I mean seriously people, what the hell?  As soon as that seatbelt light comes off, everyone is headed to drop a deuce.   

Fortunately the flight came and went and we landed safely in Boston.  I think I had gotten this image in my head that Boston was this humungous city, but in reality, it’s not much bigger than Denver.  I think the way it’s all smashed together makes it look much bigger.  It could also be the fact that they have an underground subway and Denver doesn’t.  But then again, Denver is a clean city.  I don’t know how that’s relevant, but I just wanted the Bostonians reading this (if any) to know that Denver is cleaner, in your face.  I mention the size of the city because as we walked through the airport I noticed that there really weren’t that many people, not compared to DIA anyway.

So before I go on about this trip, you should know something first.  It was originally supposed to be just my Uncle and I going because we’re gamer nerd extremists all geared up for PAX East.  Apparently my cousins wanted to tag along so they could see Boston, and then my Grandfather as well because he’s awesome like that.  Well they all live in Cheyenne, except my cousin Brian who lives in Denver (but frequents Chey-town more often than I), so they spent a lot of time with each other planning the trip.  I basically got phone calls asking if I was cool with this or that.  I was naive to think that they had my best interest in mind and I was a dumbass to not pay more attention to what was going down, you know, for my best interest.  All I heard was the following.

Plane Tickets: 250

Instead of hotel, how about an apartment: 99 dollars each

I need that 99 now.  Why?  Because I already paid for it.  What do you mean you don’t want to pay for lodging before you actually use it?  You buy concert tickets ahead of time don’t you?  Well you’re the only dumbass that didn’t get it that we were paying early.

We’ll take public transportation, cheap stuff bro.

It's Boston, Duh.

Okay, so first off, every hotel reservation I’ve ever made has either made me put a down payment on it and pay the rest after I stayed with them, or just made me pay after the stay, leaving out the whole down payment thing.  So no, I don’t trust staying in someone’s house that they rent out to tourists.  It’s not something I would have paid for prior to receiving the service.  It’s the same way I treat my escorts.  So I got shit on for that, but nothing like how I got shit on when we got there.  So just take note that I did blame myself for not being more involved in the planning process, so those of you who attended with me reading this can rest easy.  I am totally aware that you reached out to me about the plans and I said “uh huh” like you were interrupting the football game and I just wanted you to shut up.  So this stupid apartment was in the complete opposite direction than where the convention was.  I don’t mean to be a dick, but I kind of started this trip and I think it’s only fair that we stayed close to where I needed to go.  It wasn’t a bad idea because the tourist travelers in my party visited locations that were far away from the apartment as well.  We all could have benefited from staying in a hotel downtown.    

My next complaint is about public transportation.  Holy cow I hate it.  Not so much the bus, but the subway.  Actually the bus sucked more, but the subway is a cesspool full of what I can only assume to be the bottom feeders of Boston.  Maybe not everyone, but that’s just how I see it.  I grew up being able to get myself around and not ever having to worry about getting on an AIDS invested train three times a day.  Hey if you’re one of those dweebs that plans on leaving a comment telling me that I can’t get AIDS like that, I know, I’m just being facetious, jackass.  So we had to take a subway to get to where we needed to go.  Oh, then we needed to take a bus to even closer to where we needed to go.  Oh, then we needed to walk a quarter mile to the house.  Holy shit, I’d rather hop in the car and drive!  Even better, I’d rather have hotel within walking distance to where I’m going to be spending the weekend.  Again, I didn’t help plan, so I had to deal with it. They planned for budget, but that wasn’t a concern for me.  It was certainly too late for me to back out because Brian took my damn money because he paid for the lodging ahead of time.  I honestly think I may have backed out and found something closer to the venue; anything closer would have been fine by me. 

The place really wasn’t that bad for thirty three dollars a night.  But thinking of that cheap price reminds me of the Days Inn I used to stay in when I use to visit an old disease infested fiancé I had back in the day (she didn’t have diseases then) and I often paid about one hundred dollars for a three night stay.  My room was cleaned every day by someone other than me.  There were plenty of towels, bar soap, blankets, and it even had a television.  This apartment/house/hotel thing in Boston had three rooms with the hardest mattresses I’ve ever laid on.  There weren’t enough towels and the bathroom didn’t have anything to dry your hands off after washing them.  There weren’t enough blankets either because that first night I froze my ass off.  I wasn’t too upset about those things, but what really urked me was the fact that there wasn’t at least a TV.  All I wanted to do when I came home from standing all day was to sit down and see what was on the tube.  But nooooooo.  I suppose I’m being a little pessimistic here, so let’s just say I lived.  I was forced to talk to other humans, but it wasn’t that bad.  I actually hate TV.  I only use mine for movies, games, and sports.  Oh, Days Inn also had Wifi, this place didn’t.  So doing my homework on my Kindle Fire was out of the question.  Damnit!

Looking back on this, I can say that my pessimistic attitude could have been because the only thing I had consumed up to that point was a coffee and a cookie.  If you’ve ever seen those snicker commercials where the masculine dudes become whiny bitches because they’re hungry, just imagine that being me.  I’m a total bitch when I’m hungry and the only thing in my system is dwindling caffeine and sugar.  My cousin Brandon had hooked us all up with a ghost tour that first night and since my Uncle and I weren’t really going to get to see Boston (I actually only wanted to see the skyline in person, mission accomplished), it was a great idea.  The tour was of the haunted placed down town.  It was actually a pretty good time considering it was so cold outside I began swimming in my clothes.  Our tour guide was a hilarious looking dude.  He didn’t really have anything funny to look at, but I guess the reason I was so amused was because he was our “professional” tour guide and he looked like one of those dudes that lived on the street with his mangy dog.  He started us off by saying, “Follow me to one of my favorite spots.”  I couldn’t help but wonder if he was taking us to his favorite dumpster which happened to be behind the nearest Dunkin Donuts.  It wasn’t.  We went to a little area just outside an alley and he opened up the tour by answering questions that weren’t asked by anyone and then he asked us for tips. 

“Yes, the last question is that this does pay my rent, now I’m not asking for tips, but they are appreciated.”

 My Uncle and I heard that differently.

“I’m not supposed to ask you for tips, so I’m saying this as nonchalantly as I can.  Will you give me your money?  Thanks.” 

Taken right before the ghost tour.  Sam Adams.

The guy was a fantastic story teller though.  He took us around the corner, which happened to be the very spot the Boston Massacre took place and told us of a dead black guy that is often seen crying for help.  Then he walked us around the city for awhile telling us different stories about ghosts and events that took place.  It was a very fun tour and the guy, claiming to be a ghost hunter, was very persuasive in letting us know that he tries to debunk things before claiming them to be haunted.  He actually gave us quite a few examples on the way of things that could be debunked.  My favorite part of the tour was the part where we went inside a hotel.  You might be thinking it’s because it warmed me up, and that’s partly true, but it’s also because of the hotel’s history.  Apparently Stephen King was inspired to write that short story, “1408” based on a ghost in that hotel.  I guess some dude killed himself in a room on the third floor and has since become a ghost who likes to bitch slap his guests.  I’d go Google the name of the hotel so you could look it up, but I don’t really care to.    

So by this point we lost my Grandfather and my Uncle to the cold, but we were almost done.  Our street bum was walking us through the park towards some ancient gallows.  No, it was a tree that they used to hang people, and apparently two dogs, from.  He wanted to call the ghosts to come out and say what’s up to us.  I believe in ghosts, but I have yet to see one so at times I can be a skeptic.  This was one of those times where I was like, yeah whatever.  The dude pulls out a flashlight and loosens it enough to make the light go out.  He told us that it could just turn on and off by itself, but ghosts can control it too.  The first couple of times it did turn on and off I remained unimpressed because it was a loosened flashlight.  The wind was probably strong enough to kick it back on and I can’t really believe that a ghost is doing it.  It’s like the one time I was working on a ranch in the summer and the trailer they had me sleeping in had those rectangular shaped light switches.  Well the bathroom light switch got caught in the middle between off and on and in the middle of the night it decided it wanted to be on rather than off.  It scared the shit out of me.  Watching a scary movie in a creepy trailer by myself at ten o’clock at night probably didn’t help my fear any.  I realized the next morning that the switch was stuck in the middle and could have gone either way.  So I stayed up half the night clutching my remote control as the only weapon I could find for no reason at all.  The same concept goes with this flash light this guy set down in the middle of the windy park.

I felt like a weirdo being in this group while a bum was asking if there was anyone who wanted to reveal their presence to us.  If I was a ghost, I would just want to scare the shit out of people, so no; I wouldn’t want to show my presence.  Instead I’d like to rip your mangy pony tail out of your head, or drag you around the park by it.  How creepy would that have been?  During this drawn out “ghost hunt”, I happened to catch our “trustworthy” tour guide putting his hand in his pocket to fidget around with something every single time the flashlight came on or off.  Brandon noticed it too because he leaned over and said, “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”  We must have made quite a commotion about it because the dude kept looking at us while we were staring at his hand.  But from there the flashlight “mysteriously” stopped working.  Wow.  Great tour guide, I just don’t get why he had to act like he found a ghost for us.  The stories he told were worth what I paid to hear them.  We at least we got that sort of enjoyment out of it.  I just don’t like when people treat me like some ignorant asshole that isn’t going to notice a shady tour guide controlling his flashlight from his pocket.  This is the same tour guide who tries to debunk everything by the way.  Phony. 

The tour got done shortly after nine PM and I was still deprived of food.  Maybe a cookie wasn’t the smart choice.  It sucked because everything in Boston closed at the late, late hour of nine PM.  Wow.  I had to settle for a Mountain Dew and Snickers from Seven Eleven.  Yay, more caffeine and sugar.  Smart guy I am.  Have you ever seen a gas station downtown in any large city?  I know I’ve never seen one, and this place didn’t have any gas pumps, just the convenience store.  Oh well, we went off to the apartment for some shut eye.  I wound up sleeping on the couch, which was much more comfortable than the sheets of rock they laid on a bed frame at that crappy house apartment. 

I’ll post part II sometime tomorrow. 

I'm Back, Miss Me?

It has been awhile since I've been able to get this mess of words out of my head.  I've tried sitting down to blog and to work on my book, but I have an utter hatred for everything I write.  My buddy Patrick has repeatedly told me to pull my head out if my ass and just write.  Even with his amazing words of inspiration, I've still fallen short in the "I enjoy my writing" category.  So I decided to try something new.

Actually I was sitting here flipping through my awesome Windows Phone 7 and came across the Office app and figured I could use Word to try and type my first real blog from a phone.  Sure, I typed three sentences last November from my dinky Droid, but that sucked.  I figured this would be a nice way to break this writers block or whatever this stump I'm in is called and start fresh again.  At least this way it takes a lot of the pressure off of how anal, haha I said anal, I am about my spelling and grammar.  I just want everything to be perfect, but typing out a blog on a cell phone has made me realize that this could be a disaster and I'm okay with that.

I've always tried to make it so my blog was a writing stepping stone to help prepare me to write a book, but it's not even close.  It has become a very fun hobby though, that is when I don't try to make everything perfect.  I decided to give up on where "This Gaming Life" was headed because it was eating my insides.  Seriously, I'm sure it was just as painful to read as it was for me to write.  Hours of my life were wasted on three of those blogs and they have been my least viewed posts.  That segment was supposed to be about how gaming has impacted my life and I plan to get it back there, so no more rating past games. 

Another thing that has bugged me about my writing is the fact that I'm trying to be funny.  Why?  Because people like funny and they'll continue to come back.  They'll also continue to come back if you write more than once every other month.  I suppose I let myself get a little overwhelmed when it comes to seeing the success others have in an area I'm attempting to have talent in.  Cracked.com has made me want to be funny while The Hunger Games has made me want to talented enough to make the world crazy for awhile.  I know I have the talent, I just feel like my son must feel when he haunches himself up on all fours and rocks back and forth as if practicing a future sex move all because he knows he has the ability to crawl.  I have the ability to write, I guess I just need to hump the air long enough until I figure it out.

Oh, I just thought of another reason I think I let myself fall into this slump.  Other than pretending to be a comedian when I'm more talented being myself and just hating my writing regardless, it was competition.  I wasn't trying to be competitive, but a person I had worked with started a blog almost a year after I started mine and I think it was partly because I pepped mine up so much that it may have inspired him.  He is a talented dude artistically but I didn't enjoy his writing.  At first he began hounding the shit out of people to subscribe to him, check my page to see how many people I have, and then talk to me more about how much people like his shit.  It kind of pissed me off because I pride myself on the fact that the 23 people who subscribed to me did it because they enjoy my writing, not because I tried to make myself feel superior because my subscribers number is higher than someone else's.  This is my hobby and I don't need to compete, but damnit to hell if he didn't make me feel like I needed to.  Was this his intention?  Maybe, I don't know, I just got that vibe when he kept telling me how many people signed up for him every other hour for two weeks straight.  I had to unsubscribe from his blog though, one to cut that tie that we were in competition, but also because he writes about his kids and family and it's a demographic I'm not a part of.  I feel by staying subscribed I'd be as fake as any of the other people who don't read his stuff because they don't care.  He should have subscribers that give a damn and I hope that the 23 of you care about this fucking blog because it isn't going anywhere.  No hard feelings man, just my way of thinking.

So on my phone I have no idea how long that last paragraph is going to look, but one thing im taking away from this experience is the fact that I don't care.  I like having ideas of things to blog about so shoot me a message or an email and let me know your ideas.  Don't be a bitch, just do it.