. . . Unemployment

My best mate in the whole world is unemployed at the moment, and despite the fact that he has this very broad and very deep pool of skills to draw upon, the area of the country that he is in -- Western Oregon -- is not what can be kindly thought of as a job-rich environment at the moment for codeslingers.

The whole idea of being unemployed in this economy scares the hell out of me. Being a writer I know that it is not easy to get work -- not without first putting in a lot of effort and building a contacts list, all the while taking anything you can get to tide you over until you get something regular. That is not to say that it is hard to get work as a writer because it is not -- it is just hard to get a good permanent gig as a writer, freelancing being the obvious path you take until you get something permanent.

Codeslingers don't usually work freelance -- but when they do they call it temping, not freelancing, and when they temp the pay is really bad and the jobs tend to be short. They only keep you long enough to accomplish whatever it was that caused them to look for a temporary codeslinger.

My discomfort with his situation has caused me to start encouraging him to look for work as a freelance writer -- in spite of the fact that he is a codeslinger, his degree is in English and he has solid skills as a writer, even if he has not written anything more complicated than code documentation in the past twenty years. That is not the point. The point is that he could write if he chose to, and there is work out there for writers.

I mentioned this on one of the community boards I am active on for writers. The general reaction was one of disbelief with comments like "you are telling him there are freelance writing gigs? There are not!" and other comments to that effect.

It was at this point that I asked the question their reactions prompted: aren't you guys working?

It turns out that I am one of a handful of writers on that particular board that is constantly busy -- and I just cannot figure that out. In the many conversations that ensued I learned that despite being writers very few of the people on that board know how to find jobs. Query letters? Not so much. It blows my mind that they actually sit around waiting for writing gigs to come to them! That is no way to stay busy, that is all I am saying...

When I get an idea that I think I would like to write about, I put out the effort to find an editor that will pay me for writing that piece, and then I write it. It turns out that a lot of the people on that board do it the other way around, putting out the effort to write the piece and then try to sell it, often failing. To me that makes no sense at all... It is a lot easier to write a good query letter and then the piece then the other way around, and nine times out of ten the editor that buys the piece wants a slightly different piece than the one I proposed, so if I had written it in advance I would have to start over anyway...

You gotta write -- it is what you do -- but writing on spec or worse yet, writing for free? That is no way to make a living.

So how was your week?

. . . Video Game Retro Uberness

We were at the mall in Hyannis where we were visiting specifically to obtain cloth from the cloth store for Yvonne to make (A) Autumn's costume for Anime Boston in April, and (B) Peter's costume for PAX East (which is next Friday) I wandered into the GameStop both because it was there, and because I do not do craft stores as a general rule, including those that sell cloth, but that is another story for another time.

The point to this is that into GameStop I wandered.

I was not there specifically to pick up a game, because I will not actually need to do that until two days later on Sunday, March 6th, when the new Pokemon games launch. So I was not specifically there to purchase a game, but you know how it is...

While I thumbed through the bargain bin with an eye towards finding a game from the distant past that I had meant to play but, for whatever reason, never did, my thumbs stumbled upon an ancient copy of Hitman: Blood Money for the PS2, which if you are keeping track, was released in 2004...

The PS2 was originally what I played the game on -- and in theory I could have bought that copy and played it on my PS3 since it is rated for PS2 game play -- but the reality is that even though my PS3 is capable of playing PS2 games in native mode, they do not always play as flawlessly as Sony would have you believe.

I sighed and frowned because I would actually have enjoyed playing it again, and was struck by a thought. Once I had the attention of the bloke behind the counter, I inquired as to whether they had a copy for the XBox 360?

They did! One copy. One slightly scratched and beat-up, well-used copy that looked okay. It was by no means pristine, but the scratches did not look to be the sort that would cause the game to not play...

Besides that all GameStop games -- even the used ones -- have a 15 day no questions asked warranty, so I decided what the heck, it is only $19 and if it is bad I can take it to the GameStop in Mashpee and exchange it! Besides that I really wanted that game.

Elite Retro Uber Gaming

If you never had the fun of playing Hitman: Blood Money you are really missing out mate. Yes I am aware that it is a game from 2004 - but bear with me for a moment and I will explain -- It may be a game from 2004 but it was also the game of 2004 -- and if you were playing games back then it was a hard one to have missed!

You have to remember that 2004 was back when they still made games without the Hollywood FX of today. If there was nudity in a game it was generally non-sexual unless the game was explicitly a sex game. This was back when men were men and protagonists were really men!

I am holding Blood Money in my hand with the sure and certain knowledge that I have one day -- one day -- that is totally free and that I can play any game that I want to play without any concern, and that day is Sunday. Why?

Because I will have finished the long-overdue Pokemon Emerald Guide on Saturday evening and will be uploading the last videos for it along with the guide itself on Sunday morning, and I can not start Pokemon Black until Monday afternoon because that is the soonest I can get a copy since Nintendo (unlike pretty much all of the other studies) does not give freebies to any newspaper smaller than the New York Times.

I decided right then that revisiting Blood Money -- after an absence of almost exactly six years -- was not imply a good idea, it was a great one!

Those Hot and Humid Hitman Days

The Summer of 2004 was a hot and humid one, and it was back when my son Peter still thought sitting in the room and watching me play video games was cool. For three weeks that Summer we shared a fascination with Agent 47, and my son watched me play and helped me to develop strategies for obtaining perfect Silent Assassin Ratings in its dozen-odd missions.

We had our cooler full of iced down glass bottles of Coca Cola, bags of Andy Capp Hot Fires and Doritos, and an overpowering urge to figure the game out on our own, without the help of game guides.

At the time Blood Money was cutting edge -- or as near to it as you could get on a PS2... And it was that memory in my mind's eye that held sway as I awoke this morning and without even thinking about it, slotted my new copy of that old game and booted up.

As my 360 hummed to life and the so familiar notes of its start screen music filled the room it was almost like time travel. Almost.

A Little Age on It

As I watched the familiar CS unfolding and took my first steps in over half a decade as Agent 47 the first thought I had was that something was wrong -- though I could not immediately put my finger on what it was.

The games of today -- and sacrificially the FPS titles that are made to feel the same no matter what platform they are played on -- barely put a strain on the modern generation of console hardware that the PS3 and XBox 360 represent.

If we are being completely honest about it, the PS3 and XBox 360 are not exactly "modern" in most senses, as the newer generation of console that will replace both of these aging dynamos are way past the drawing board stage and are already in their respective beta test stage, leaving us to anticipate their release if not any month now than at least within the next 12 months . . .

When I say that modern FPS titles sacrificially exist, what I am referring to is the almost 'McDonalds' like feel to them that -- I am not exaggerating here -- gives them the cohesive sameness that the studios desire so that no matter what platform you are playing on, the experience is much the same.

The reason for that? Because modern games are platform independent when it comes to online play, so it is important for the shared experience of play to be much the same.

It only takes a brief glance at games like Heavy Rain and Alan Wake to get an idea of what the two consoles are genuinely capable of -- but the mainstream FPS titles do not even come close to that level of hardware-straining depth because the idea is to make games that are entertaining and fluid. The jaw-dropping impact of pushing the envelope is not part of that process.

It was not long though before it clicked.

Back to Blood Money . . . The graphics seemed so old and yet. And yet. Not.

Agent 47 moved like his spine was fused, and both the aiming and movement while crouched in sneak-mode felt somehow off. Reconciling the game mechanics I was now seeing with what I am used to seeing today -- comparing it to GTA IV and the leap forward from that to games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age made it seem somehow older than it was.

It took a few minutes for the control scheme to pop back into my head -- but once it did it was like the intervening years had never happened -- I was quickly back in the groove; Agent 47 did my bidding without complaint, and I suddenly was Agent 47 again, just like it was back in that bad old Summer of 2004.

A little more than an hour into the game and that awkward feeling that the stiff movement gave me at first also seemed to melt away, gulped down by a combination of excitement and palm-smacking as the often disastrous results from simple mistakes made themselves known.

Being spotted with a weapon in plain sight transformed the otherwise peaceful infiltration into a running gunfight of epic and bloody proportions, and half-remembered strategies made it almost feel like a new game due to the genuine feelings of not knowing precisely what to do next. All of this helped to reassert that awe and satisfaction of a gamers feeling for a game that is genuinely fun...

. . . to be continued

. . . Vegas Stories

If you spend any time at all watching prime time TV you have seen one of the series of commercials paid for by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority that feature the tag-line "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" at least several times.

One of the commercials features what appears to be a wealthy man who abuses his chauffeur, having him tattooed, frozen in an ice bar, and thrown from a mechanical bull, only to see that half-way through the evening the pair trade places, implying that here is one more facet of the oddness that comes over us when we visit Las Vegas.

The series presents a typical cross-section of society, and the implication is clear: come to Vegas, get your freak on, and do not worry because nobody at home will ever know about what you did.

The implication is clear, and actually plays into another much older and broader series of tourism advertisements from the 1980's that give an impression of Las Vegas as a place where anything can happen -- that of the "Vegas Story" that everyone who visits is destined to experience.

Some odd or memorable event will take place while you are there, something profound with a unique but colorful impact that will, we are assured, give us a story to tell for the rest of our lives.

A story that we will want to tell.

2011 CES Stories

Yesterday I returned home from Las Vegas, where I was sent to cover the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Often called Geek Mecca, the show is arguably the largest and most important trade show for Consumer Electronics in the world. At CES we get to see the devices and products -- the technology if you will -- that is destined to be in the hands of consumers over the course of the next 12 months.

It was not my first trip to Vegas, and being a Vegas Veteran I fully expected to have some sort of experience there that would qualify as my Vegas Story for this trip -- but the first three days of the show quickly passed in a blur, with nothing even remotely resembling a Vegas Story taking place.

On the 4th and final day of the show I had a brief encounter with a woman who was obviously a man in the elevator at the hotel, but as that consisted only of the man/woman commenting on the crowd of CES attendees making it difficult to get a seat in a popular restaurant, it hardly qualifies as a Vegas Story.

My traveling companion and colleague on this trip was a long-time friend who is like a brother to me -- hey Geofry! -- and between the two of us we have probably been to Vegas two dozen times in the past 20 years, so there are stories to tell, but it seemed that this time, for the first time, we were going to have a trip to Vegas that did not include anything odd at all. Nothing memorable. No story to tell. The clock, you see, was ticking.

Monday morning arrived, we took our bags downstairs -- we stayed at the Sahara for this trip, one of the original nine hotel/casinos on the Strip -- checked out, and stood outside in a relatively balmy 55 degrees waiting for our shuttle bus transports (we somehow ended up taking two different services from the airport so we were not riding back together).

"There is still a chance for something to happen," Geof allows, but then the Bell Tran bus arrives for me and I am loaded up and take off to the airport.

I have time to check in at the counter inside -- I flew Southwest Air this trip -- and I have my bags checked and my boarding pass printed out before Geof even arrives at the rather busy airport. Geof arrives, gets his bags checked, and we then head to the TSA security checkpoint, a common barrier that we all must negotiate in order to fly these days.

"Maybe we will get strip-searched?" I suggest, glancing at the attractive female blond TSA Agent at the checkpoint. Geof follows the direction of my gaze and then laughs out loud.

"Yeah, you wish!" he observes.

We joke about having T-Shirts made that say "I got to Second Base with TSA" but we readily admit that we would not have the guts to actually wear them in the airport. As we are joking about this we reach the head of the line, and for the first time ever we literally breeze through the checkpoint, being given only a cursory examination that largely consisted of a few basic questions. No Vegas Story here.

Inside the secure area where the gates are located we arrive at the hub between the two main wings -- Geof is departing from a gate in the C-Section, while I will leave from a gate in the B-Section, and we intentionally arrived in time to have a leisurely lunch together before boarding our separate flights -- me to head back east to Cape Cod, Geof west to Oregon.

We eat at Chilies Too, and the food is great (but expensive), nothing exciting happens. We do not see or sit next to anyone famous, there are no brawls, no army of transvestites appears, and Wayne Newton does not dance singing down the wide corridor outside.

I go with Geof to his gate, as his plane departs an hour before mine, we say goodbye, and I head towards my gate.

What Happens in Vegas...

I reach the gate with nothing to report other than a crowded corridor and a near-collision when a melon-headed tourist cuts in front of my power wheelchair. At the gate I check in to be sure that they will have someone to come and take my chair below, where it will be loaded into the belly of the plane, but they are already ahead of me on that, having been tipped-off by the counter when I checked in two hours ago.

Knowing that Southwest has no food service on board I had saved some of my lunch, wrapped in tinfoil and tucked into my carry-on bag, to be eaten later. I have a book to read on the flight -- a gift from Geof called Whiskey and Philosophy -- but I need to grab water and gum so I head to the Hudson News Stand in the concourse.

Having made my purchase, and with just 10 minutes to go before they call me to board, I roll towards the bathroom back up the corridor, safe and secure in the certainty that there is no longer any time or opportunity for there to be a Vegas Story this trip, and maybe just a little disappointed at the prospect of returning home without a story to tell.

As I approach the bathroom I see that someone has left a mechanical wheelchair partially blocking the entrance, and to get around it I have to cut in sharply around the corner. As I roll around the corner a half-seen body lunges at me, kicking out at my chair...

The heavy smell of alcohol assails my nose as the control display on my power chair begins bleating its alarm -- someone has disengaged the motor on the left side, which causes it to warn me that the automatic braking mechanism is no longer engaged. The man who attacked my chair must have kicked the yellow lever on the left-side motor I realize.

He backs away at this point, and someone with him starts to apologize to me...

"Sorry man, he thought you were trying to hit him with your chair. It's okay -- you aren't hurt are you? Andy, come on!" they say.

"Something is wrong with my chair," I note, leaning down on the left side to reset the lock-out lever on the left motor.

Before I can do that, the drunk makes an unpredictable high-speed approach.

"Lemme help!" he slurs, and then loses control and falls on top of me, then begins to flail around as his sober companion tries to get him off of me. With the assistance of another man who is entering the bathroom they get this drunk off of me, and I finally get a good enough look at him to recognize him. I don't know him personally, but I know who he is.

"Sorry, really sorry man, Andy is a little drunk. Come on Andy!"

I forgive You Andy

The story of my encounter with comedienne Andy Dick did not end here, and in the earlier version of this post I gave the blow-by-blow of the events... But later I realized that the events that took place, though they are my Vegas Story, are also the blueprint for a personal tragedy of a sort that I just cannot wrap my mind around.

I was never a Police Beat reporter, and I never covered the Family Courts. I have not worked for the Social Page and I have never covered the celebrity beat -- my specialty is Business and Technology folks, and the only drunks you encounter on that beat are the reasonable ones who can handle a three-Martini lunch.

There is never loss of control; there is never inebriation to the extreme. There is absolutely never the sort of personal humiliation that this man was subjecting himself to in so public a forum.

Drunk on my beat is really just a warm and pleasant buzz, a fact that leaves me ill-equipped to understand... To comprehend... The enormity of whatever it is that has caused this man to allow his life to run off the rails, and folks it has, clearly it has.

After I arrived in Providence and then home, I spent a few days decompressing from the trip, in fact I spent most of the time either writing, filing copy, or asleep. There was no time to think about anything other than the assignments that I was working on -- but once I managed to catch a breath, once the more pressing deadlines had been met, I had time to actually think about what happened in that bathroom.

My journalistic inclination took over, and I began to dig out the details and to reconstruct the previous 72 hours of the life of Andy Dick -- to obtain a snapshot of that brief moment in his life in order to try to make sense of what happened in that bathroom -- and I did not like what I saw.

In the course of the previous three days -- a weekend in the life of Andy Dick -- he was thrown out of CES, the Adult Video Awards, and two different clubs on the Vegas Strip for being drunk and obnoxious.

He had propositioned a porn star and a transvestite, if reports are accurate, and he may have made a more than indecent proposal to a waitress in a casino, but that report was more official than gossip, and it appears that Mr. Dick will not be welcome back in that casino any time soon.

Perhaps it is true that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas when it happens to mortal man, but not when you are a Hollywood star -- or perhaps more accurately not when you have once been a star and are now fading into the distance, which is an accurate description of Dick.

Andy if you are reading this, you need to find the people in your life that actually care about you and surround yourself with them so that you do not find yourself vulnerable to the temptation of drinking and then venturing out in public. I am not going to tell you to get help, because I know from my research on you that you have tried -- and failed -- repeatedly.

At this point your best hope is to manage your problem mate, and that means putting the sort of people around you that care enough about you to prevent you from making this sort of mistake.

I do not grok LA -- I do not know if you even have that sort of support network where you live. Where I come from your neighbors are your friends, and there are a lot of people I know I could count on to help me if I showed so serious a lapse in judgment. You need to find those people in your life and get them to help you, mate.

Like Fate, Vegas will collect what it is owed; nobody gets to leave without a Vegas Story, it seems, and if you try delay it, or God forbid if you try to avoid it, when Vegas notices -- finally notices -- that feckless gesture it delivers a story in spades. Or Dicks, depending upon how you look at it... That is the sum total of my Vegas Story.