yes, you may

Hey everybody, I just want to drop in here and say a few words before the year is up.

First off, the vacation is going great. I was nervous about the baby but it turns out he loves America and everyone in it. Strangers and family alike delight him, he is being spoiled with toys and clothes at every turn, and he is sleeping here like he never sleeps back home. Not necessarily at night, mind you, but a happy, well-rested baby is a hell of a lot easier to manage than a cranky, crying baby.

In professional writing news, Wired Game|Life has been posting best-of lists recently, several of which I got to vote for and contribute towards. While I recommend all of their fine work, readers looking specifically for my words should direct their attention to Top 5 PlayStation 3 Games of 2009, The 10 Best Videogames of 2009 and The 15 Most Influential Games of the Decade. I'm particularly proud of that last one because I got to write about two of my favorite games of the last ten years, both of which will be appearing in my love/hate 00s countdown.

Speaking of which, the countdown is on hold but not over. I haven't had much time to write on this trip, so I'll finish my thoughts about my favorite and most disappointing things of the past decade after it is complete.

In the meantime, enjoy this final day of the 00s. For those of you in Japan, the year is nearly finished, but here in the US we've got nearly an entire day to get through. Wherever you're at, have fun and I'll see you in 2010 (digitally speaking).

Labels: family, number one son, site news, travel, video games, Wired, writing

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Can't believe I'll be in New York in less than a week. This trip is either going to be a nightmare or an extremely good time, and a lot of that is up to Go. Will he sleep on the plane? Will he adapt to the time shift? We'll all find out soon enough.

I was fortunate enough to be a guest on Alex's podcast The Dofuss Show again, although due to this being my third straight show he jokingly dubbed it "The DanFuss Show." I liked what we talked about but my voice sounds tired and I made a far too many pauses when I spoke. I don't know if it was the late hour or just nerves. Last time we did this I had just come home after a few drinks, so maybe I should make it a habit of loosening my lips with a spot o' booze in the future.

The show notes are on Alex's site this time, after we worked on them together using Google Wave. Have you heard about this thing? I got a random invite a few weeks back and let the service sit because I didn't know what to do with it. Now that I have friends on there as well as an entire community of Bitmob writers, I'm checking my waves daily to see what's going on.

In this case, Alex wrote the notes before we talked as an outline for our discussion. After we recorded I edited them, adding specific topics we brought up or articles we referenced. then put those into a wave that he and I could view. I added links to each item as needed while he was editing the show. When he was done, he looked at the notes and edited them to better reflect what made the final cut and what didn't. In the end, he was able to copy and paste the material from the wave, links and all, right onto his site. And unlike last time, the wave allowed us to collaborate and get the notes ready to be posted alongside the show. It's pretty cool.

Sure, I haven't seen anything in Google Wave that couldn't be done over e-mail, but the online nature of Wave makes collaborations like this a lot easier. Some of the stuff we're doing for Bitmob would be way too much of a hassle to attempt via e-mail, as dozens of different people are reading and responding in a single conversation would become an illegible mess of quoted text.

If you're on Google Wave, look me up. You can already guess what my username is. If you're wondering what it's like, you can ask me for an invite. Please note that you need a Google account to use Wave, but if you have Gmail that should count.

Labels: Alex, Bitmob, friends, Google Wave, podcast, The DoFuss Show, writing

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Sorry to break the flow of this 00 retrospective, but I figured this would be of interest.

I've often communicated my enthusiasm for the PixelJunk brand of games on the PlayStation Network. Every since I bought a PS3 last year, I have found myself drawn towards their distinctive, addictive little games. When they finally released PixelJunk Shooter last week, their first completely original product of 2009, I was incredibly excited. I played through it as quickly as possible so I could write a review.

That review is on Bitmob right now, but after posting it last night I was stunned to see another writer had posted his own thoughts on the game and they were already splashed across the front page. It was an awkward moment for me, because while I was disappointed that someone else got the front-page treatment over me, I was really impressed by what he wrote. Bottom line: we both love the game, so you should consider buying it. Even though I've "finished" the game I've still got things to go back and collect.

Look for my list to continue very soon, although some year-end writing opportunities may cause additional delays. But hey, either way I'll be writing something, so be sure to stay tuned.

Labels: Bitmob, PixelJunk, PS3, video games, writing

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I'm not normally a "count your chickens before they hatch" kind of guy, but I've got this idea that I want to let you know about it even before I really figure out how feasible it might be.

It has been brought to my attention that not only is 2009 coming to an end, but the entire decade of the 00s will soon be behind us. I've been reading the various lists over at The Onion AV Club and Insult Swordfighting and found myself thinking "I want in on that action" so I've quietly compiled two lists of my own. Unfortunately, I am not a professional critic so I do not have the requisite experience to truly lay down a gauntlet and declare something the "best" or "worst" of anything, let alone an entire decade.

Rather, I'm going to pick out and praise fifteen things that I absolutely loved and bemoan ten things that profoundly disappointed me over the last ten years. Actually, there's a lot more than twenty-five items on my lists because many of my entries will cover two or three different media creations that share a common theme (i.e. zombies). I didn't really do much research other than confirming that something I loved/loathed actually came out in the 00s as opposed to the 90s. Looking over my collection of favorites/blights I see a lot of movies, a fair number of television shows and video games, a few books and even a website. There's no music on my list, partly because I don't know how to write about music but mostly because I've all but abandoned listening to the radio or buying CDs so my tastes have stagnated.

I take some small comfort in the realization that I had a lot more things I wanted to herald than I wanted to bury, although that's also a reflection of my amateur status. As a consumer I tend to make pretty informed choices when it comes to media, so I steered clear some truly awful films/shows/games over the years. Professional critics don't have that luxury so while they got stuck watching Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever or playing Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, I certainly didn't. Most of the "bad" stuff on my list were disturbing trends in entertainment or movies that just let me down personally. So while I'm sure there were much worse things unleashed on the public in the past ten years, I either didn't see/play/read it or I saw it coming.

Also, I'm not numbering or ranking these. I've tried to order them in a way that will make for an entertaining read so the items are broken up by medium. Otherwise there might be a whole week of video game posts which would leave a few readers cold. I suppose I've tried to save the "bigger" ones for last, but I stress that I'm not trying to come up with a "number one" anything. I just want to tell you about things I remember fondly...and things I wish I could forget.

Assuming I write and post all of these in a timely fashion (and that's a big if) this project should conclude just as 2009 wraps up. I hope you'll enjoy it and possibly sound off in the comments section. That's right, you can click the bottom of every post I make and write what you think about it, remember?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Labels: I hate the 00s, I love the 00s, site news, writing

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Holy crap, it's December already. If time weren't already flying because I'm getting older AND having so much fun all the time, it's definitely quickening with every diaper I change. Seriously folks, if you want to completely warp your perception of time, have a kid.

For example, little Go is just past five months old already. He doesn't look any different, but each time we weigh/measure him the numbers don't lie: he's growing by leaps and bounds. Just take a look at the first week's worth of pictures we took and contrast them with these recent Twitpic shots (With Snoopy / With Mom and Cake / On a Scale). Now you see it, sure, but change like that is hard to spot when you see his li'l face everyday.

There's been a minor (major?) development in Go's, um, development. We've been waiting for him to start rolling over for quite some time now. According to some of the books Mako has, he should have done so by now. He certainly kicks a lot and can squirm his way around the bed when he's excited, but so far he hasn't rolled.

On Tuesday night we tried a little experiment. We rolled him onto his stomach to see if he could roll himself back into position. He did, more than once, though our attempts to record the feat have met with limited success. I've been told we should make a habit of these rolling sessions, as it apparently teaches him the coordination skills he needs to start crawling. As much as I'm looking forward to that particular stage, I'm less thrilled about all the cleaning up I'll have to do. There's a whole mess of wires and plugs in this apartment that should never be handled by a baby.

In very different developmental news, my writing was on a roll last month. Besides having four stories posted on Game|Life, my work on Bitmob got a lot of attention. The month started off great with my story about grinding in video games which got a lot of feedback and is, by far, my most popular Bitmob submission to date. More people have read that story in the last thirty days than have visited this entire website in the last three months!

Next, I was pleased to see that my suggestions of cheap/free games completely dominated their Bitmob Budget Games feature. I honestly thought they were only interested in games less than $10, otherwise I would have happily promoted the hell out of the PixelJunk series and given a shout-out to Bionic Commando: Rearmed, still my favorite game of 2008.

I was a little disappointed that no one took an interest in my thoughts on failure in cinematic games. I thought the Uncharted 2 angle would draw readers' attention but I guess all the hype surrounding that game was in October. I'm perpetually playing catch-up when it comes to video games that people are talking about because I progress through them so very slowly. It doesn't help that I have a choice of playing games or writing after Mako and Go fall asleep, and lately I've been choosing writing.

Not that I regret making that choice! I felt so jazzed after seeing Inglorious Basterds that I wrote two different posts on my blog about it as well as one item on Bitmob about how the movie made me want games that rely less on violence to provide conflict. That piece ended up on the front page earlier this week, much to my delight, and I was happy to hear that I'm not the only one out there who wants more non-violent games to play.

You can expect my thoughts on The Road very soon, both here and on Bitmob. I'm not sure what book I want to read next. Atlas Shrugged is just sitting around waiting to be picked up, but I'm not sure if I'm ready for another mega-text from Ayn Rand so soon after The Fountainhead. Frankly, all this fiction has given me a craving to return to non-fiction. I think the last one of those I read was The Chris Farley Show.

One more thing: in case you forgot, the family going to New York later this month. In fact, we're leaving in less than three weeks. Like I side, time is rocketing past my face these days. Slow down, life! I'm trying to enjoy the ride!

Labels: Bitmob, books, number one son, video games, writing

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The Tokyo Game Show is certainly Japan's largest gaming exhibition, but it's not the only event that's open to the public. Here in Osaka, the eighth annual Games Japan Festa took place last weekend. It may have lacked the bombastic spectacle of TGS but it was free and it was not without its charms.

To be sure, Games Japan Festa is a much smaller gathering with a much different focus. TGS is a business event first and a public event second, and the crowds that show up take gaming seriously. At GJF, there were no press conferences, no giant video screens, no real booths to speak of and I only saw one cosplayer all day.

Instead, GJF kept things simple. Far from the gargantuan excesses of TGS, GJF was housed entirely in a single room roughly the size of a gymnasium. Most games were simply shown on wall-mounted televisions without any statues or spinning lights to dazzle the senses. The room was also much quieter, with no music being broadcast and not a single megaphone in sight.

A large number of the games on display at GJF were already on sale, either here in Japan or overseas (or both). In many cases, the software was not a demo version but was the real deal, monitored by a staff member and reset for each player. I felt bad for the people playing Batman Arkham Asylum who had to walk through the entire prison entrance scene.

Microsoft had the largest installation and was the only exhibitor to recruit booth babes, though the word "booth" doesn't seem appropriate. It very much had the look of the TGS space but it was quite open and spread out with no clear division between it and the neighboring displays. There were a few stand-up demo kiosks around the perimeter but most of the gaming stations came with seats. The Tekken 6 display even included joysticks rather than gamepads.

If there is one word that describes GJF perfectly, it is "casual." The event was well attended but was never crowded, and people lined up to play games but without any of the epic waits that visitors to TGS must endure. The attendees were also much more varied than the typical TGS attendees. I saw plenty of young couples, families with small children, even single women. On the day I attended, a popular radio duo appeared on the stage and the entire room filled with the squeals of their female fans. It was the noisiest the show floor ever got.

From a news standpoint, there wasn't much on display at Games Japan Festa that I hadn't seen before but I found a few curiosities that weren't shown at TGS and wrote about them for Game|Life.

Local developer SNK didn't make the trip to Tokyo this year but they were at last week's event, showing off Metal Slug XX and a new 3D Samurai Shodown game.

I played Umihara Kawase for the first time on the DS. It's kind of like Bionic Commando without all that shooting.

I only played two Western games at the show, Avatar and Left 4 Dead 2. I didn't bother writing anything about the second one because I don't know what else I can say about it. Between my preview at TGS and our discussion on The DoFuss Show I think I've exhausted myself of L4D2 opinions.

The only possible thing I could add is that at the show I played it in Japanese for the first time and it was a mess because everything is subtitled rather than dubbed. This means that when the shit hits the fan and everyone starts shouting, the screen is filled with text. What a waste of visual real estate!

In other news, I just got my first check from Wired today. That means I am now, officially, a professional writer. Feels pretty cool. Now all I have to do is figure out how to deposit it in my US bank account, because Japanese banks don't do checks. But hey, it's still a first step, right? Right.

Labels: Games Japan Festa, Left4Dead, Osaka, video games, Wired, writing

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Yesterday was my birthday, and as a present to myself I decided not to spend the last hour or so of the day trying to write something profound about turning 33. Instead, I played Bayonetta* for about an hour and had fun. Honestly, it's been over a week since I played any game simply for the fun of it so I deserved that break. And so far, Bayonetta is lot of fun.

Oh yeah, check out the lovely birthday present I received from my lovely wife:



Speaking of games and fun, I made another appearance on The Dofuss Show, Alex's homemade gaming podcast. Last time we talked about TGS for a couple hours weeks after the show had ended, but this time we are a bit more topical. Here's an overview of what we discussed:

• My recent article on Wired Game|Life concerning crane games filled with desserts


• My fondness for Kongregate.com


• Alex's experience (and general distaste with) Sony's PlayFace campaign


• He has finished Bayonetta and Uncharted 2 but is still plodding through Wii shovelware like Ultimate Band


• I like Burnout Paradise even though I hate racing games


• My Left 4 Dead 2 thoughts segue into the news concerning its censorship in Australia


• Neither of us wants to play Modern Warfare 2 but we have some words over its infamous "F.A.G.S." viral video


• Remember my Bitmob piece on grinding? Alex disagrees with me


• Speculation about the future of the DSiLL, with anecdote from Gwyn's blog


• Darren's Old Games: Cybernator is better than you

I'm rather proud of how this show turned out (although my mic noise bugs the hell out of me). I felt like my first appearance was marred by my own anxiety mixed with sleepiness but this time I was a lot more lively. Blame/thank the evening of White Russians that preceded the recording session.

In other news, I am in the process of submitting stories to Wired Game|Life concerning my trip to Games Japan Festa last weekend. I will share any posts once they are approved. In the meantime you might be happy to hear that another one of my English stories was translated into Japanese (check it out). This doesn't mean any extra money for me or anything, but I do get a real kick out of seeing my name (and a photo I took) on Japanese websites. Once WiredVision carries a story, other Japanese sites tend to rehash that story elsewhere, so my name does get around.

I'm really looking forward to this three-day weekend. Mako's parents are going to watch Go for us so we can spend Saturday together as a couple. There's also a gaming party on Monday that sounds like a blast. Alas, I'd trade it all for a trip home for Thanksgiving. Turkey is so hard to find in this country!

*Read that Wikipedia article very carefully by the way...particularly the Pre-Release section! OMG

Labels: Alex, Bayonetta, family, friends, podcast, The DoFuss Show, video games, Wired, writing

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It seems that the Yankees have won the World Series, or at least that's what my mobile phone is telling me. I would have loved to see even one of Matsui's hits live on television today, but it just wasn't meant to be. Congratulations are in order, regardless. He might not be a Yankee next year but he can still play baseball so I wish him luck wherever he ends up.

Unless he goes to Boston of course. Fuck Boston.

I wanted to point out a couple of things I've posted over at Bitmob in the past week. First, I wrote a little something concerning how I feel about grinding in role playing games. The piece started off as a sprawling trip through my entire RPG-rich gaming history, but I cut most of that as it was irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. I saved it in a separate file though, as I think I can use it in the future.

In a more self-indulgent piece, I introduced myself to the Bitmob community in what is known as a "Meet the Mob" post. I decided to write mine using a third-person perspective, as if I was a commodity or product for sale. So far it hasn't gotten much attention but it made me laugh.

I've got a very busy week coming up, so I hope to take things easy this weekend. Expect fewer posts as my writing energy will be diverted elsewhere. I promise I'll put something up around my birthday though, if only to remind people of when that actually is (the 18th, thanks for asking).

Speaking of birthdays, I know someone else with a big one in the pipeline. I guess she deserves a mention on here as well...

11/6 UPDATE: The above-mentioned RPG piece got bumped up to the front page of Bitmob today, a rare treat. Then things got really nuts when another reader wrote an entire response article. How awesome is that?

Labels: baseball, Bitmob, writing, Yankees

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And now a quick look and three things I've written outside the friendly confines of feitclub.com

Over on Bitmob it's Horror Week, so I posted a love letter to one of my favorite scary games, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. It's a game I wish I could play again for Halloween because it is genuinely frightening.

In the rerun department, I posted a slightly-edited version of my Tale of TGS at Bitmob because I believed the story would be of interest to other writers. The only new content is at the end where I offer my own advice on not being gunshy about writing or trying to find work in that field. I'm hardly a shining success story but I am proud of what I accomplished in a relatively short period of time. A little pride, in this case, is a good thing.

This third item was a surprise: Mako plugged my name in Yahoo Japan (not sure why) and she discovered one of my articles in Japanese on the Nikkei Shinbun website. As it turns out, it came from this Japanese Wired portal where someone took my original post about a game for blind people and translated it. That translation then circulated among a number of Japanese news websites as a "culture" item. I think this was the first moment Mako was actually impressed by my work, now that she saw it in Japanese. Having a photo I took included with the piece helped too, although my photo credit is a little more obvious than my writing credit.

Alright, so one new thing plus two old things reworked, one of which was done by a stranger. Still, good news is good, right?

Labels: Bitmob, Eternal Darkness, Japan, TGS, Wired, writing

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I've fallen ill again. No big deal, it's clearly just a cold (and a mild one at that) but a stuffy head is a stuffy head so I've been feeling pretty tired the last twenty-four hours or so. Mako took Go to her parents' house, giving me a little peace and quiet which is nice. I know the baby has to get a cold someday but there's no need to rush things.

Unfortunately, my cold arrived at the same time as Alex's friend Darren arrived from the UK. Alex had talked to me about a variety of activities with his friend/podcast partner so I was really looking forward to the visit even though (or maybe because) I've never actually met or spoken to Darren myself. Since I wasn't feeling so bad yesterday and I really had an errand to run in Osaka anyway, I put on a surgical mask (when in Japan...) and went into the city to meet them.

I won't get into what exactly we did because I know Alex has plans to make audio/video materials out of it for his website, but I will say that at his house there was a kind of rapid-fire session featuring a number of video games, some that I knew but many that I never played before. Alex keeps himself very busy on the gaming front and he had a number of brand new shrink wrapped titles just ready to be played, yet he still bought Halo ODST while we were in Den Den Town. It was only 3000 Yen - a bargain for a new game, especially in Japan - but I am envious of the amount of material he has at his fingertips.

Once thing I will talk about is Burnout Paradise, a game that has kept itself in the mass gaming conversation for nearly two years now. At first I ignored it because, quite frankly, I loathe racing games. It's a genre that I've never accepted at home or in the arcades because the experience never feels right to me. Even when there's a steering wheel to play with (which helps in the "feel" department) there's this gigantic gap between what I do and what the car does on screen. It doesn't help that most racing games are as shallow as possible, consisting of nothing but roaring engines and turns turns turns. Of course, I've never been much of a "car guy" which makes most of what happens in the game completely uninteresting to me.

And yet Burnout Paradise blew me away. Darren did most of the playing but as I sat and watched I found myself actually getting excited. The big difference, as I see it, is Burnout Paradise gives you an entire city to play around in. Yes, there are races you can run, but there are other events for the choosing like "road rage," an impromptu demolition derby that has you crashing into sports cars on the streets rather than inside an arena.

More importantly, the city is just there for you to explore. Most of the time we weren't doing anything but screeching around corners and looking for things to smash into. Crashing in normal racing games is a drag, a failure, something that forces you to go back and redo the whole race from the start. In Burnout Paradise you are constantly wrecking your car in awesome slow-motion and all that happens is you "respawn" with your car somewhat restored to working order.

Alex made the comparison to the Grand Theft Auto series with the caveat that you never leave your car (though you can change vehicles in designated locations). I would posit that, based on the brief experience I've had so far, Burnout Paradise is better than GTA because it strips away the drama and violence while still offering an open world for vehicular mischief. There are no people in this city, only vehicles. It's like living inside a Hot Wheels track only the toy cars move a lot faster and can easily be replaced no matter how many times you crash them into a wall at high speeds.

The best news about Burnout Paradise is that Alex gave me a copy of the game for free. Somehow he ended up with two versions of the game (one on PlayStation, one on Xbox) so he handed me the Xbox one and told me to keep it. The downside is that there's no way for the two of us to play together now but the upside is that I have something new to enjoy that smashes my own assumptions about the genre. Few things are as exciting in life as discovering something that you thought you hated but is actually really cool. I haven't been this surprised by my own tastes since I learned to enjoy green vegetables.

Oh one last thing on the subjects of games and Alex. After I wrote about The Fountainhead last week, I uploaded a slightly different version of the piece to Bitmob, adding a few paragraphs to discuss the connections between the book and BioShock. Today I learned that my work was featured in a Spotlight post alongside an item that Alex had written. Small world!

Labels: Alex, BioShock, Bitmob, Burnout Paradise, Den Den Town, friends, GTA, Osaka, The Fountainhead, video games, writing, Xbox

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It took me nearly two weeks of writing in between classes and baby feedings, but my final stories from the Tokyo Game Show have all been submitted to Wired Game|Life. Now I can finally get to telling the story of the Tokyo Game Show as I experienced it. I've already covered the general thrill of being hired as a writer in the first place and how I handled myself when attending a party with actual industry professionals, but it 's time to talk more about the trip and what it was like to see TGS in a whole new light.

First of all, I want to reiterate that it is a big deal whenever I visit Tokyo. It's not that far away and I'm hardly living in the sticks here in suburban Kansai, but each time I go to Tokyo I experience a sudden rush. I'm used to living in cities that I can fully comprehend or at least visualize. The number of neighborhoods in Osaka that I've never seen far exceeds those that I have, but I still have a general sense of where X and Y are and how best to travel between those points. Kobe is tiny, all things considered, and Kyoto is actually a grid which makes navigation pretty simple.

Tokyo defies all my attempts to reign in its magnitude and break it into digestible chunks. Yes, the more time I spend there the more comfortable I am with the terrain and the complex interwoven railway maps, but I never come away from my visit thinking "OK, I understand Tokyo now." If I ever learn to accept that, perhaps I will come to love it as a city, but in the meantime its power overwhelms me in a way that is simultaneously frustrating and exhilarating.

Tuesday (Sept 22nd) was actually a quiet day considering I was traveling and attending that party. Checking in to my hotel, visiting Richard out in Chiba, finding my way to the party and then coming to terms with my anxiety were all manageable events. I made it back to my hotel without incident and went to sleep excited about waking up the next morning.

Wednesday (Sept 23rd) was my first chance to meet Chris Kohler and actually talk about the job he had hired me to do. Yes, we had spoken at the party the night before but it was brief. Wednesday we sat down, had lunch, and discussed a number of things relevant to the job, including the technical ins and outs of the Game|Life website. I learned that when I was done with a story I had to submit it and he would then review it before posting it to the site. I found this news to be very comforting. I had never worked with an editor before but I viewed the idea as a safety net rather than a hindrance. Chris has written entire books and covered video games for years; he should be trusted to know what's a good fit for Game|Life or not.

We ended up going to Manadarake after our discussion which was fun for me. That's one of those sprawling Japanese stores that seem to sell everything and anything that relates to games, anime, manga, old toys, whatever. They used to have two outlets in Osaka but both seem to have closed down. I didn't find anything worth buying but I certainly enjoyed the view and I was glad to know they were still in business.

When Chris returned to his hotel, I went back out to see Richard. I knew I would be too busy to visit him once the show started, so it was important to me that I hang out with him while I could. It was also a rare opportunity for me to play games with somebody. I know the Internet has opened up the world of video games so that people don't need to be in the same room to play together anymore, but having a baby to take care of means my gaming time at home is extremely limited. This trip was as much a business outing as it was a chance to get away from that routine of go to work/care for baby/go to sleep.

Thursday (Sept 24th) was the first day of the show. The doors didn't open until ten but being the eager person that I am, I showed up well before nine to ensure that I didn't take any chances. Also, I had to be with Chris to actually register as a member of the media in order to get inside at all. While I waited for him I saw a number of other journalists show up and register, many of whom I first saw at the party on Tuesday. As I hoped, the awkwardness was gone now. I didn't exactly freely converse with them because they're still people who don't know me, but at least I was no longer paralyzed with admiration.

The good news about visiting the Tokyo Game Show on the business days is the crowds are much smaller. They're not gone, of course, but the difference between 70,000 people and 25,000 people is readily apparent. All of the games I tried to see on that first day were easily accessible with minimal waiting. I also felt like I had more time to play the games than I normally would have. There just seemed to be less external pressure to keep things moving.

Internally, however, I was extremely nervous. After I played a few games I found the press room and sat down to write about them. It took nearly two hours to write that first post because I kept changing my mind on how to approach it. Should I try to detail the differences between the Xbox 360 version and the PlayStation 3 version? Is it worth explaining how the two demos were slightly different? Which screenshot should I choose? What kind of a title would go best with this story? Is this post too long or not long enough? It was mentally exhausting and by the time I was through, I was starving. It was also past two P.M. which meant the day was half over already. This made me more nervous, as I didn't want to waste time buying lunch but I couldn't ignore what my insides were saying.

I managed to squeeze in some kind of sandwich and a couple more games before returning to the press room shortly after three. Again, it took me a long time to get any serious ideas onto the screen, but even after the press room was closed I felt like I had accomplished something. There was a tangible uneasiness as I knew that I had a lot more writing to do before I could truly call it a day, but I knew that I could write anywhere at any time. The games were only available on the show floor, and I had seen five or six of them which was enough.

In checking in with Chris at the end of day one, he told me about a party being held by Microsoft at a nearby hotel. I was happy to discover the event was outdoors and relatively spacious, so I didn't have to wait in lines to get a drink and there was plenty of food. Pretty good food at that, particularly the lasagna which is a dish I hadn't eaten since I came to Japan. I had a few glasses of wine (kept it classy - we were poolside after all) and I was thrilled to see a demo of Left 4 Dead 2. Not only was it fun to get my first hands-on experience with the game, it ended up making a nice story for the site.

Day One Stories (based on when I wrote them, not when they were posted): Bayonetta, Darksiders, PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe, PixelJunk Shooter, and Left 4 Dead 2.

I got off to a late start on Friday (Sept 25) but I did my best to make up for it by taking Richard's advice and pulling out my new netbook whenever possible to write. I wrote while riding the train, I wrote while waiting to enter the show, I even wrote while standing outside Sony's booth waiting for a chance to play Heavy Rain. That last one proved to be a stunningly long wait, considering I went there as soon as the doors opened and there were only five people in front of me. Still, I made the best of the time as I finished up stories from the day before. In the end the wait was worth it, as I felt it was the most exciting thing I saw at the show.

I found myself running low on inspiration, so I started wandering around the "game school" area of the show. These were low-budget, independent projects on display, many of them created by students. I also went looking for a game I had seen on the NHK news the night before. The news coverage of the show was pretty broad and gawking, but you can always count on television reporters to dig up something that looks crazy. They spent a long time looking at Project Natal, something I couldn't see (the demo was invitation only) but there was a game that worked by scanning your brain activity. That one I managed to find directly across from another unusual work, a game made for blind people.

I found writing in the press room came a lot easier on the second day, as I had written so much so quickly I was simply getting used to the idea of pouring my ideas out at a faster pace. Due to the submission process and the fact that Chris was busy doing his own thing during the show, there was an odd disconnect where I really didn't know what he though of my work. He was publishing it to the site, of course, but there wasn't much of an opportunity to actually talk about how things were going. Even when we got together with his photographer Jon Snyder and Christian Nutt for dinner, it was less show talk and more casual discussions of Japan and whatever else was on our minds. I felt good, sure, but I was wondering where I stood as far as quality was concerned.

Everyone else at the dinner table made it a point that they were not going out to do anything on Friday night, a decision I emulated. I spent most of the evening in my hotel room polishing up some stories and talking to Alex on the phone. He arrived earlier that morning to cover the show, but since the two of us were busy working for our respective web overlords we were too busy to actually hang out at all. I never made it bed early but it was definitely an indoor, low-key night.

Day Two Stories: Heavy Rain, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, Quantum Theory, Blind Braver, Neuroboy, and Puyo Puyo 7.

I knew Saturday (Sept 26) was going to be tough because it was the first day of the show to be open to the public. I knew this was going to mean crowds at every turn, so much so that even walking from one booth to another would be an adventure of the sweatiest kind. Chris suggested I try to visit the Capcom booth and play Okamiden as it was the only game he was unable to play at a private event he was attending. I wish I had thought of that on the press days, because it took a solid hour to get in to the demo area (which was actually kind of lovely with its torii and fake cherry blossoms) and I barely got to play the game. Still, I kept working on previous day's stories while I waited so as not to waste my time.

The crowds did have one interesting benefit in that they drove me to seek out the unusual and less popular exhibits. This led me to play a bunch of smaller games that the masses were simply ignoring. In particular, I found a number of games at the back of the Square Enix booth that were being ignored, perhaps because they were behind the booth where few people walk. There were giant, multi-hour lines for other Square Enix games that stretched back there though, so I found it funny that while they all waited I was standing in front of them playing games and having fun - mostly.

I should point out that after my experience on Thursday I learned the best way to eat at TGS is to simply bring something small and keep it in your bag. I would buy my breakfast and lunch at the convenience store on the way to the show in the morning, eat the former while on the train and the latter whenever I found myself yearning for a bite to eat. It wasn't very glamorous but it was tasty enough and it enabled me to keep busy without wasting time at the food court. My hotel also gave me a free bottle of water every day which I took with me and drank as needed. It added a bit of weight to my bag but it was pretty hot in there on account of the thousands of gawkers slowly milling about.

I managed to play games all morning and early afternoon so that when I sat down just after two PM, I was comfortable just writing the rest of the day without feeling the need to rush back onto the floor. Again, it was getting easier to write the more I did so, so I got a lot done in those remaining hours. I ran into Chris in the press room and he told me there would be karaoke later that night in Shibuya. He also told me that I was doing a great job which was exactly the news I needed to hear. I had been building up my own confidence without any feedback from him simply by assuming that my work was worth publishing, so it must have been satisfactory. Hearing him actually compliment my writing was an even better response than I expected.

Alex swung by the press room to say hi and tell me he was leaving. He had decided to keep his trip really short by only spending one night in town and getting in as much gaming as he could before going home to write. I felt pretty strange about being unable to hang out with him at all but he was under a lot more pressure than I was. I was writing for one site over the course of four days. He was writing for multiple sites (at least three) and he had less time to do it in.

On the way out the door I met up with a guy named Kevin whom I had some contact with via Twitter. He had come down from Saitama to TGS and had organized a small group of other foreigner-in-Japan Twitterers to have breakfast together, but I had arrived too late to participate. Instead, we had a light snack at a nearby cafe and just talked about TGS, Japan in general, etc.

Saturday night was the first chance I really had to just go out and see the city while I waited for the call for karaoke. I went to Shinjuku to see the 8-Bit Cafe, a retro-game-themed bar. The atmosphere was really cool as there were toys along the top of the bar and a glass case full of video game memorabilia. There were also a couple of old consoles hooked up to a TV and a bin full of games to play for free. Much like Thursday night, I ended up playing a game that tied directly into my work at TGS. I found the original Thexder just hours after playing the new sequel Thexder Neo at the Sqaure Enix booth. Too bad both games sucked.

The downsides to the 8-Bit Cafe are two-fold. One is the cost, as there's a cover charge of sorts that is added to your bill and everything on the menu is pretty pricey. I really enjoyed my "Nuts & Milk" cocktail and "cake-cheese" dessert, but they were both 150 or 200 Yen more expensive than they needed to be. The other problem is the five flights of stairs patrons must use, meaning that I could never afford to get drunk there else I stumble and fall to my death on the way out.

I knew Richard had been invited to a party somewhere near Shibuya, so I left the cafe after one drink and made my way over there, although my trip to the cafe meant I arrived well after ten PM so the party was dying down. I had time for another drink and we talked for a while, but once eleven o'clock came everybody started bolting to catch the last train home. I was less worried because I knew I was staying out that night. I was prepared to take a taxi back to my hotel if I needed one. Richard lives way outside the city limits, however, so he couldn't be as cavalier. Sadly, he ended up missing the last train after we separated and his phone ran out of power before we could reunite near Shibuya. I'm told he eventually crashed in a capsule hotel.

I spent an hour or so just wandering around Shibuya, witnessing some amusing and fairly depraved behavior. I stopped in Burger King for a Whopper Jr. (my first in years - there's no BK in Osaka) where I waited in line behind what looked like a hip-hop dance troupe based on their outfits. They were all black and sounded American, though at least one of them demonstrated enough Japanese ability to suggest he was a resident. Watching them debate the menu choices was pretty funny to me. Less funny was the abundance of homeless and/or intoxicated people walking the streets. One girl was so drunk there were two men trying to pick her up off the sidewalk and failing miserably. I hope they knew her.

Chris did call shortly after one AM and I was able to find him thanks to the reference point of Mandarake. He was with a large group of people who seemed reluctant to go out singing, as many of them had flights to catch the next day. Eventually he made some calls and we tracked down a different bunch of people (including Christian) who were willing to karaoke it up. We shopped around a little bit (the first place wanted a crazy amount of money considering what time it was) but settled on a joint located above the Burger King where I had eaten an hour earlier. It was small and very low-rent (all the song books were torn and in very poor condition) but the price was right and we sang and drank for three solid hours until the trains started running again.

Snooping around the web I found some pictures of the event in Christian's Flicker stream. You can see me here, here and here.

I knew Chris wasn't going back to the show for the last day so when we said our goodbyes, that was that. He thanked me for the work I had done and told me not to push myself too hard if I decided to go one more time. I went back to my hotel for an extended nap of sorts but I was determined to get a few more hours in at TGS before leaving later that night.

Day Three Stories: Okamiden, Echoshift, Death by Cube, 0 day Attack on Earth, and Thexder Neo.

Sunday (Sept 27) was both the easiest and the hardest day for me at the show. My confidence in my ability to do my job was at its peak, but my energy levels and my overall enthusiasm for TGS were bottoming out. Operating on less than four hours sleep will do that. I figured the best course of action was to just play whatever I could before retiring to the press room and then leaving, writing on the train ride home as needed. Again, I stuck to covering things that no one else seemed to be playing or talking about online. I had hoped to meet Richard at some point, as he came to the show, but since his phone had no battery power we never got into contact with one another.

Ultimately I got in a few quick things, took an hour or so to write down some impressions, then went back to Tokyo station to have dinner and buy the all-important souvenirs for Mako, her parents (who hosted her and Go while I was away) and some of my co-workers (particularly the ones whose school I skipped in order to make the trip). While riding the Shinkansen to Osaka, I tried to play the Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker demo but it proved to be quite deep and I only completed the tutorial. I spent the rest of the trip writing and trying not to fall asleep.

Day Four Stories (some of these were quite late): Game 3 (working title) by The Behemoth, Tekken 6, and a wacky student game.

Overall, I am very pleased with how the trip turned out. The business of attending and writing about TGS proved to dominate my time in a way I didn't quite expect, so aside from the time I spent with Richard and the late-night antics in Shibuya I was too busy to simply amuse myself as I saw fit. I was unable to visit any of the restaurants or sights I had in mind before the trip. However, the show itself was my favorite one yet because I had four days to fully investigate all corners of the exhibition.

More importantly, I was hired to do a job and I did it well. How well? When the show started I told myself I was just a lucky guy who happened to be in the right place at the right time. By the end I realized that being lucky didn't mean I wasn't also a good writer. In a surprise affirmation of that fact, Chris Kohler recently offered me a chance to continue contributing to Wired Game|Life. I've already submitted two potential items and I've got a few other ideas on deck. Plus, there's another game show next month...in Osaka! I will, of course, link to any future posts on Game|Life but in the meantime a complete listing of all my posts is available right here, a link I will add to the Contact page.

Hey, I'm a writer now. Awesome.

Labels: Alex, awkward firsts, extra extra, friends, Japan, karaoke, Richard, TGS, Tokyo, video games, Wired, writing

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That's me, right? I just spent two straight days writing as much as I could while attempting to cover the Tokyo Game Show, and here I am writing during my evening hours. What other excuse do I have?



I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on how things are going - things are going very well. I'm certainly tired from working, and before anyone says "lol you play games that's not work" let me clarify: playing games is fun of course (well, when they're good) but then I have to do my job which involves writing my impressions of those games. Normally when I write about games I take my time, think things over, maybe even let it sit for a day or two and then revisit it. That is not an option here. I've already written eleven posts for Wired Game|Life (not all of them are live yet) and I should probably finish another one before I hit the show floor tomorrow. That's a lot of material in a very short time for me.

Which brings me to the good news: I am definitely getting better at doing this. Writing that first post was without a doubt the hardest I worked all week. I hemmed and hawed. I questioned my skills and my usefulness. All this stress over a game I was excited about and should have had a ton opinions to share!

Today was a totally different story. I took Richard's advice and started typing on my netbook whenever I had to wait. On the train or just in a line, I got a lot of work done during this normally stagnant time. More importantly, I just found myself getting my thoughts onto the screen at a faster pace. Normally I'd say faster isn't always better but this isn't the case. I am becoming a better writer by pushing myself in these conditions.

Tomorrow the general public arrives which I think will make my job a little harder. Certainly it will impede my ability to freely travel the floor as the number of people in the building will essentially triple. We'll see if my press pass grants me any line privileges, but even if it doesn't I'm going back for more. See you on the other side, people!

Labels: TGS, Tokyo, video games, Wired, writing

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I'm flying to Tokyo tomorrow for six days and five nights. I've got a dozen things I should be doing tonight, the most important of which is packing. But why pack when I can write for my blog and procrastinate?

There was a reason I didn't prepare much over the weekend. We spent Saturday with Mako's parents, doing some shopping and simple errands. I borrowed their fax machine to handle some paperwork associated with my new job. I had never sent an international fax before and was generally unfamiliar with international calling rules in Japan, but everything seemed to work out. Hopefully they won't get a massive bill next month because I inadvertently entered them into a new calling plan or anything.

Saturday also happened to be our second/fourth anniversary but, sadly, we couldn't really have dinner or do anything as a couple. I would say last year's post is worth reading if you like to look backwards. I certainly never would have guessed that by our next anniversary, we'd have a baby. I look forward to telling him about how we met someday. Maybe I can use this blog to put it all in perspective for him.

Sunday was another undokai or "sports day" which I attended at the same school I went to last year. The big difference (and I mean big) was that last year's festivities were postponed for rain and this year they went off as planned on a Sunday. This meant the community events occurred and a full audience was on hand for it all.

The entire spectacle was magnified thrice over. Last year I speculated that I only saw half of a show because so many events were cut. The event I saw on Sunday was clearly more than just a sum of its parts. The community members were organized into teams designated by their neighborhood. Not only were mothers and fathers in attendance, but so were grandparents and siblings of all ages. I saw scores of former students there, and since I've only been here for two years that meant there were probably dozens more that I simply didn't recognize.

With so many people on hand, the energy level was through the roof. Lots of people fell down during the (many) relay races because they were pushing themselves so damn hard. Nobody got hurt and nobody seemed to mind when they tripped over a fallen competitor. People were obviously trying to win but there wasn't any sense of failure for those who lost. Then again, when all of these events are rehearsed and rehearsed so many times in the preceding weeks, I suppose it must feel more like a show than a competition. Do the members of the Washington Generals ever feel bad about losing to the Globetrotters every single time? Of course not.

I was asked to perform on the microphone again this year, only this time I had to share time with two adult announcers who were clearly going for a "conversational" approach to announcing. I could only talk when they weren't talking, but when I did I tried to do a little play-by-play for fun. People said I did a great job and I can only assume they weren't just trying to spare my feelings.

Today turned into a rather busy day because I needed to go shopping. Chris Kohler informed me that the press room at TGS has very few computers but there is is free wifi internet for all. The problem there is that my laptop doesn't have a wifi adapter. I had always thought about buying one but now I suddenly needed one. Second problem: buying computer stuff in Japan is hard because a lot of software won't work in foreign language versions of Windows.

Mako came up with a bold solution: buy a netbook. Normally she's the one pushing me to spend less money but this time she was suggesting I spend $400-500 on a new PC rather than $50 on a wireless card. Her reasoning was sound though, not that I needed much convincing to buy a new toy. I often lug my laptop to work whenever I know I'll have time to write between classes. It's not a particularly light machine, the battery is completely dead and I often encounter schedule changes that make me wish I had/hadn't brought my computer to school.

The netbook both solves my TGS reporting dilemma and will give me a quick and lightweight alternative to bringing my main computer out into the sticks every week. Starting next week I'll be able to bring the netbook with me everyday, writing whenever the opportunity presents itself. I'll still have to upload stuff when I get home (unless I discover the schools have free wifi - fat chance) but in the long run, this means less lugging and more typing. This is a very good thing.

With that, I'll bid you farewell from Osaka (er, the Osaka suburbs anyway). Tomorrow I go to the airport. I can't predict whether there will be time to blog during my trip. There's always time for Twitter, of course, which is connected to my Facebook page.

In the meantime, I would ask you to please, please, please follow the TGS 2009 coverage at Wired Game|Life and keep an eye on those bylines. My name will be there at some point very soon!

Labels: anniversary, family, Japan, TGS, undokai, Wired, writing

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What is the big news I received that I've been concealing for over two weeks? What is the nature of my upcoming trip to Tokyo? And why haven't I just said what's going on already? Those secrets and more, in today's post!

You're looking at...um, rather, you're reading the blog of a newly-minted freelance writer. I've been hired by Wired to contribute to their online coverage of the Tokyo Game Show 2009. And when I say "hired," I mean I will be paid money to write about video games.

Yes.

As dreams go, this is certainly a more recent one that I all but stumbled into last year. 2008 was the year I found myself drawn back into the video game culture. It started with a resurgence of interest in PC games (thanks largely to the extraordinary experience I had playing Portal) and then I bought a PS3 to compliment our brand-new television.

Ultimately, it was the Bioshock demo last fall that really knocked my socks off and put me in an unfamiliar position: I was so excited about the game that all I wanted to do was play it and write about how it made me feel. Sure, I had been writing this blog for a few years at that point, but feeling compelled to write was an entirely new sensation.

Ever since that weekend, I've been trying to produce more "cultural" writing whenever possible, be it a game, film or television show that was on my mind. I can't pretend that I ever had a plan or a concrete goal in sight, but I suppose I might have fantasized about it leading to a job opportunity.

When Bitmob launched earlier this year, I saw it as a good place to expand my audience and possibly draw more viewers to my site. The former was a sure thing; in case you don't know, 30,000 visitors over five years is not much for a website. The latter hasn't happened yet, but at least Bitmob (along with Twitter, Facebook, and the like) helped to increase my presence on the Internet beyond this humble, archaic webpage.

Opportunity suddenly knocked last month when Chris Kohler of Wired inquired via Twitter about writers living in Japan who could help cover TGS. This wasn't the first time I saw a chance like this present itself, but this was the first time I responded quickly instead of mulling it over and letting it slip away. After a few days without a response, I figured he found someone else.

Instead, I got a message from Chris asking to see some of my work. Again, I responded as quickly as I could, explaining that I had no professionally published material but I gave him links to a few of my favorite stories, both here and on Bitmob. I didn't just focus on game writing either, I tried to show my take on a variety of topics including the birth of my son.

He wrote back and said I had the job, clearly indicating that he had read more than what I had sent him. He referenced my Super Potato story even though I didn't mention it since he had already written about that store many times before.

So here's what I know: my trip to Tokyo has morphed from "pleasure" to a business/pleasure hybrid, the likes of which have yet to be understood. I was going to attend one public day of the Tokyo Game Show and hang out with some friends. Now I'm definitely going to TGS for both press days and possibly both public days so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to hang out.

What I don't know is anything specific about the job itself. What will I be seeing/playing at the show? How many articles will I write, and how long will I have to write them? Will I need to stay up late working or will there be time for karaoke?

One thing's for sure: I'm really, really excited about getting my shot at professional writing less than a year after the idea crept into my head. What happens after the show is anybody's guess, but I know I'm going to Tokyo next week and I can't wait. Stay tuned to this site (and Wired Game|Life) to read all about it.

Oh, and play that victory sound!

Labels: BioShock, Bitmob, TGS, Tokyo, video games, Wired, writing

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It's been ten years since 9/9/99, meaning today is the perfect day to talk about an old video game console that few people bought.

Before I get to that, I should perhaps mention that I have been submitting stories to Bitmob, a new website about video games that promotes fan-written articles rather than simply reporting on new releases. Since today is the tenth anniversary of the Sega Dreamcast (a beloved video game machine that bombed financially), the site encouraged everyone to write something about it. So I did.

I've been putting my game-related writing on Bitmob rather than this site lately because I'm under the impression that my readers are more interested in me than video games. However, my writing is always about me in a roundabout way, so I'm going to do a better job of cross-posting or at least mentioning here when I post something elsewhere.

If you want to read all of my Bitmob postings, you can follow this link. Believe it or not, all this talk about writing and video games might lead somewhere...

Labels: Bitmob, video games, writing

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The word this week is zansho (残暑, literally "leftover heat"). August went out with a cool breeze but September has begun by turning the heat lamp back on. The nights are still reasonable, at least, but I do look forward to an end to this summer weather.

Speaking of looking forward, I hinted on Tuesday that something big in is the works. Admittedly, posting a simple "got good news, can't talk about it" paragraph was a bit unfair, but that was only because the magnitude of the good news outweighed my ability to pretend like nothing's going on. In a perfect world I would have written more that day and simply thrown in the teaser to keep you guessing, but with work starting and Go being a little cranky lately I have had precious little time to write much of anything.

What I will tell you is that I'm going to Tokyo in three weeks. There's a string of Japanese public holidays that happen to all fall together for a change, almost like a second Golden Week except this is a rare event, so I have an entire week off and I feel obliged to take advantage of it. Originally, the plan was just to hang out, see Richard, potentially catch up with other folks I know in the area, and go to the Tokyo Game Show. Alex is going too, so we would no doubt meet at some point as well.

The big news, which I'm still reluctant to fully reveal, is that this trip has changed from simple tourism to business. I'm still hoping to see my friends of course, but I now have a job to do while I'm in town. It's something I'm very excited about and I actually can't wait to discuss it, but until the trip draws nearer I'm going to try and keep my mouth shut. Call it my fear of Murphy's Law or counting my chickens before they hatch, but I don't want to jinx this because it's something I've wanted and now it looks like it's really going to happen.

If you want hints, I can tell you that I've written about this desire before (if not this specific opportunity) and if you read my Twitter feed closely enough, you might just figure it out on your own. Otherwise, sit tight, I promise I'll tell you everything later.

Oh, one more thing: Batman: Arkham Asylum is lots of fun. My copy finally arrived Tuesday night and it's already threatening my ability to sleep. Not only do I want to keep playing instead of going to bed, I actually dreamt about the game last night. Not even BioShock infiltrated my brain like that.

Labels: Batman, mystery, Tokyo, video games, writing

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If there's one thing I've learned from five years of blogging, it's that a tiny post is better than no post and trying to save yourself for a mega-post is a really stupid idea.

I'm still on vacation and I'm still "sick," although I put that word in quotes because my symptoms of late have been limited to nuisance-levels. No fevers for the past week, no uncontrollable bathroom urges, and hardly any discomfort save for the general sense of anxiety I have over my lingering illness.

I did see a doctor this week (a specialist in fact) in the hopes of getting something other than the usual symptom-focused medication my local clinic was dispensing. However, he seemed far more concerned with my propensity for drinking cold liquids than my recent fevers. This idea that drinks can make your stomach "cold" is apparently a big thing in Japan, even though I've never heard of it. I'm no doctor of course, but it seems pretty fishy to me to blame my love of ice-cold water for my recent intestinal distress. I pour a lot of chilled liquids down my throat every year, and suddenly in the past month it's a problem? I don't buy that.

My family has come and gone. They had a great time, or so they claimed, and they certainly got to meet Go so they seemed pretty happy about the whole trip. I would have liked to have spent more time with them (considering I was on vacation and all) but a flare up of symptoms late last week kept me out of action for a day or two. They still came to see me and the baby but I missed a chance to go sightseeing with them, which is unfortunate. Here's hoping I get to see them and everyone else back in New York before the year is out.

Speaking of international flights, we took Go in to the consulate this morning to file the necessary papers to get him "on the grid," so to speak. In a few weeks he'll have his own Social Security number and passport! It remains to be seen whether he'll be ready to fly this year or not, but from a paperwork standpoint he should be all set by October.

That's all the news I've got for you right now. The better I feel, the more time I should have to write, although I feel like a tool because summer is almost over and I barely got anything new on the blog this month. In a way my hands were tied but that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.

Labels: family, Japan, number one son, poor health, writing

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I've got a meeting in Osaka this afternoon, so I don't have to go to school today. Lucky me...and by extension, lucky you because you get to read what I come up with during my day off.

Believe it or not, it was one year ago today that I started using Twitter. I'm not sure exactly how I got turned onto the mini-blogging service, although I suspect it had something to do with this charming video explaining how it works.Whatever it was that caught my eye about Twitter, I got hooked on it pretty quickly as you can see from my first sixteen posts. Once I learned how to upload photos and later integrate my tweets with my Facebook account, the feedback increased as did my compulsion to write. That's why I credit the fun of spitting out tiny morsels of my day with reigniting my interest in this blog, because after writing all those little stories I found myself eager to write longer ones again.

The results are clear: during my first year on the JET Programme (August 2007 - July 2008), I managed only twenty posts, but since I started using Twitter last summer I've written 155 posts and July's not over yet. I suppose I'll never reach the golden days of my Kansai Gaidai experience where I was writing long entries almost everyday, but with all the activity at home now I'll be elated if I maintain my current pace of two or three posts a week.

But Twitter has been rewarding in its own way because of all the random encounters it has given me. When I mentioned going to Cold Stone Creamery, the company's Twitter feed suddenly started "following" mine. All of those weird little Japan moments that I've mentioned has led me to meet (in a virtual sense) other foreigners in Japan and read about their experiences here. When I complimented Tropic Thunder I was followed by a "Sgt. Lincoln Osiris" who was tweeting in character. I even won a free Xbox game for participating in a MTV poll. The game turned out to be crazy hard and not for me, but the thrill of free stuff remained long after I lost interest in the prize.

The highlight of all this silliness came just the other day when I had a close encounter with a musician I greatly admire. When Robert Ashley (creator of the wonderful A Life Well Wasted) asked his followers for music suggestions, I recommended the now-defunct Cibo Matto as well as lead singer Miho Hatori who is still making music. Mr. Ashley didn't respond but Miho Hatori did, thanking me for recommending her music. The very idea that Miho Hatori read anything that I wrote was a thrill that I'm still riding high on.

So to all my friends out there, especially those of you who enjoy writing or use Facebook, I recommend giving Twitter a try. You never know where those 140 character messages will take you.

Labels: celebrities, site news, Twitter, writing

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Five years of feitclub.com? It's true, it's true.

Yes, I made my very first blog post on April 1st, 2004, beginning my journey into the blogosphere. I knew my primary motivation at the time was to force myself to get back into the habit of writing, a task I have always struggled to perform. My failure to write papers and essays in a timely fashion drove my English and Social Studies/History teachers crazy and nearly failed me out of high school (and practically sunk my initial college aspirations). I simply couldn't get myself motivated enough to sit down and start writing when school demanded it, even though I was always OK with writing stories about myself. Eventually my disdain for writing drove me to leave school altogether, much to the chagrin of my parents.

Even as I scorned the usefulness of academic writing, I occasionally had flashes of productivity for my own needs. I kept a very thorough journal during my first visit to Japan in 2001, filling an entire notebook in only three weeks. I found the experience extremely satisfying even though hardly anyone read it. I wrote about myself for myself and it felt great. Three years later, I was nearing the end of my postal service career and on the verge of launching myself back into school, so I knew my life would undergo some major changes and I would have to start writing again. This knowledge, combined with the general "hipness" blogs were enjoying at the time, prompted me to start my own blog in the hopes that writing regularly about my life would help break down my resistance to writing on an assigned topic.

I've already admitted that my grander ideas for the site have completely failed, but aside from a dry spell than covered most of my initial year in the JET Programme, the blog has been a success for me. It didn't exactly make writing papers in school easy but it certainly trained me to sit in front of a keyboard for long stretches of time. Its greatest moments were unquestionably during my study abroad experience at Kansai Gaidai, serving as both a portal into my life for my family and friends back home as well as offering me a record of falling in love with Mako. Spending nearly every evening writing about my new environment as well as my new relationship forced me to really think about what was happening to me.

What does the future hold for this site? I would say my aspirations have changed even if my motivations remain the same. I still want to practice writing but the new goal is not academic but...dare I say it...professional. As insane as it sounds, I think my future is in writing despite all of the problems I've had with it over the years. I don't know whether that means trying to break into journalism or trying to write fiction, but I know that when I write, I feel like I am genuinely accomplishing something. Even though I haven't "improved" in any tangible sense (my readership and my productivity are a fraction of what they once were), my attitude has completely changed towards writing. It's no longer a burden or an obligation, but an opportunity.

Speaking of the future, the birth of my son is now a mere ten weeks away (give or take). I know that once the baby is here there will be a struggle on two fronts to maintain my interest in writing. One will be the simple issue of finding time to write while taking care of a brand new human being. The other is avoiding the perils of becoming a vacuous "baby blogger," where suddenly every single post is about my son and the issues that come with raising a child. I've seen so many others turn their blog space into banal accounts of diaper-changing, baby's-first-everything, and cutesy photos that it frightens me.

On that note, I feel the time is right to finally reveal the name I have chosen for my son. I know I resisted this but I can't stand sitting on my brilliant idea any longer: the baby's name will be...

5

Yes, 5. Not Five, but 5. With my son growing up in an international, bilingual household and having to juggle at least two different cultures as he matures, it is unfair to label him with a name that is rooted in only one language. By naming him 5, my son can adapt to any environment because numerals are universal. English speakers can call him "Five," Spanish speakers can call him "Cinqo," and Japanese people can call him any number of things because Japanese numbers are weird like that. But that's the point: with an entire globe of different words and ideas, my son cannot simply retreat into one familiar tongue and insist that strangers address him in one way. He will be forced to open his mind and learn new words with each new person he meets. At the same time, he will be free of the burden of correcting anyone on the pronunciation of his first name. His last name, sadly, is another story.

Why 5 instead of 7, 10, or 42? Well, I felt a single digit was important for brevity's sake (have you ever heard 99 in French? Interminable!) and of all the numbers from 0-9, 5 felt both masculine and manageable. It's a nice round number that's easy to count with. Plus, if he ever forgets his business card or a pen, he can simply open his hand and point to his fingers. 0 sounded cool, but it has some negative connotations and, let's face it, you can't count to 0 easily. 1 looks like I, 2 looks like V or "peace" on your fingers, 3 is too mockable (it looks like boobs or an ass), 4 reminded me of golf, 6 is too close to "sex," 7 is written in Europe with a line through the middle, 8 looks like "infinity," and 9 would cause too many problems in Germany.

No, 5 it is. I'm weighing potential middle names just so he can have another initial to work with (5F isn't quite right) but I'm not sure what other symbols I can use. It can't be another numeral because that would complicate his first name. People would see 5 0 Feit at start calling him "Fiddy" or worse, "Five-o." Perhaps we could use a kanji as a nod to his Asian heritage? How does 5 伍 F look to you? If you don't know what it means, you can look it up.

Labels: anniversary, family, fuzzy memories, predicting the future, site news, writing

つづく...(Click here to read more)

That's a wrap! See you in two weeks!

Guess I should elaborate: today was the end of the school year. No more teachers, no more....you know the drill. Except in Japan, everything starts again in April. I know that syncs up nicely with springtime, the season for renewal, cherry blossoms, etc, but isn't it a bit anti-climactic? We say goodbye to everyone today, but they're back in only two weeks. Compare that to the States where we say goodbye for two months. Japan has a summer vacation too, but it falls mid-year. That means kids have regular study sessions and *gasp* homework in August. That's just cruel!

There was, of course, a "closing ceremony" with a few words from the principal and the singing of three songs (the school song and something else, twice). After that the kids went back to their classrooms to move all their desks into the hallway. While the smaller schools have a set layout (the same grades occupy the same rooms every year), this large school rearranges the grades each year to suit their needs. Since there are very few new students coming next year, they will only need one classroom instead of two. This gives them a chance to move some students out of the "annex" and back into the main building.

Meanwhile, guess who's moving to the annex? ME! Yes, they have decided to relocate my English classroom to another building entirely. While I feel strange to be so removed from all the regular classrooms, at least this new location will prevent all the jumping/singing/running we do from distracting any other students. In its present location, the noise from my classroom was definitely a problem for the sixth graders underneath us. I will miss the air conditioner I had access too though. The new room is on the third floor and I bet it gets hot there in July!

Other than that, all I did at work was eat lunch with the staff. It was a special meal that we all paid 2000 Yen for, which felt expensive to me but it was certainly filling. There were more speeches during lunchtime and I was stunned to learn that they wanted me to say a few words for some reason. Everyone else who spoke was either brand-new or retiring. I am neither. My guess is they forgot how long I've been here or they just like watching me struggle during impromptu Japanese speeches. Whatever, I got through it without any embarrassing errors.

So tomorrow I go back to work for the first of many days where I truly have nothing to do. No meetings, no students, no responsibilities. And no, the books I ordered aren't here yet. Drat.

OH, one last thing: my story about the earthquake/disaster center was printed in the local JET newsletter today. It's more or less the same as the web version, but I was really happy when Joe (the guy responsible for the bi-monthly publication) told me he liked what I wrote. Sadly, there is no money involved. Just the pride of a job well done...and a free plug for feitclub.com that I added to the end. Web counter, prepare to be OVERWHELMED!

Labels: Japan, JET, teaching, writing

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"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." - John Lennon

I listen to the excellent This American Life weekly podcast and every episode gives me a lot to think about. I suspect that if I was diligent, I could write an entire post each week just reflecting on what I had heard. Maybe today will be the first of many such posts.

Ah, do you see what I did there? I started making plans. A recent episode was all about "Plan B," telling stories about people who found themselves mired in their backup plan and wondering how to get back on track. The first story was the one that stuck with me the most. John Hodgman (yes, the one you've seen on "The Daily Show" and the PC vs Mac ads) told a story about Cuervo Man, a guy who made his living as a "party catalyst" hocking tequila at bars and other social events. Cuervo Man happened to be a well-educated guy who always dreamed of being an actor and a series of unlikely events landed him what seemed like a dream job - being paid to drink booze and act like an ass so that others would be inclined to drink more booze. Although the job eventually wore him down (particularly once he stopped drinking out of concern for his health and state-of-mind), he came to respect it as a part of his Plan A - being an actor. He played a role, it just wasn't one with a script or any cameras.

I thought about this a lot this week, especially after something that happened yesterday at one of my larger schools. I make it a point to be BIG in the classroom. Not just in size (that's a given - these are children after all and I live in Japan) but in presence. I move around the room as much as possible, use broad, sweeping movements to punctuate what I say and I constantly point to myself to get the student's attention. So when a little girl yesterday stood in front of the class to do her presentation, she openly channeled/mocked me by waving her arms around with each word, speaking much louder than necessary and generally acting like a crazy person. It was a huge hit with the children and I was amused at how much thought she clearly had put into her act. I was also impressed at her presentation, since few students were able to audibly address their peers in English, but that's besides the point: watching her "zing" me by reflecting my own performance back to me, it forced me to consider what it is I do for a living. Am I on Plan A right now? What is my Plan A, honestly?

I mean, I obviously spent years going back to school so that I could apply for the JET Programme and get a job in Japan as an English teacher. I'm here, mission accomplished. But now what? Even as I studied and worked towards achieving this goal, I was thinking about what I wanted to do next. It was as if my goal was just another step towards a new goal, only I couldn't decide what the new goal was. Did I want to be a translator? Was I going to live in Japan for ten, twenty, forty years? I never actually answered these questions but they kicked around inside my head throughout my senior year.

So now I'm here. I'm teaching English to children in Japan. Is this what I want? I used to consider this job my gateway to a greater and more rewarding life in Japan as some kind of translator or (dare I say it) voice actor, Now, I don't want to say "never," but my lack of progress in studying Japanese has made me realize that becoming a translator in any professional sense is probably impossible. My listening skills are terrible and even if my reading skills were to improve (and that's a big if), it seems like any job worth taking would require a nearly-instantaneous Japanese-to-English response. There would be no time for dictionaries or late nights of exploring odd vocabulary. The translating life I led at school cannot exist in the working world. No one would pay me for doing what I did.

But this is not gloom and doom time. Rather, what that girl did yesterday helped me to recognize that I am, in fact, living out a dream I've had for years. I am more or less an actor right now. Think about it. I have never received any training as a teacher. Everything I do in the classroom is following direction or improvisation. I know the goal (as the Board of Education sees it) is English education, but let's get real here. These kids get so little time with me and that time is so non-academic that this is less of a teacher's role as it is an acting performance. I could do what I do on the streets of Osaka and people would start gathering around me and taking pictures. I'm a human statue that can't sit still, a mime that never shuts up, a busker with a steady gig inside a classroom. Things can always change, but for now this is Plan A.

Once again, this post was made possible with the Write or Die web app. If I keep this up, I wonder if my fantasy of becoming a writer may become the new Plan A?

Labels: Japan, JET, teaching, This American Life, Write or Die, writing

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I recently listened to a new podcast called A Life Well Wasted. The program was created by Robert Ashley, a writer I first heard of from listening to the now-defunct GFW Radio podcast on the 1UP Network. That show was ostensibly about computer games but the free-ranging discussions often veered wildly (and hilariously) from any meaningful topical content. The show was much closer to a wacky drive-time radio show, minus the obnoxious sound effects and commercial interruptions. A Life Less Wasted is also like a radio show but rather than continue the unchecked roundtable format that so many other podcasts embrace, this new program is much closer to This American Life from NPR (which has its own excellent podcast). While the first episode is titled "The Death of EGM," referring to the recent closure of the long-running magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly, the program touched upon a few points regarding the decline of print media as a whole in the United States. While normally I would be the kind of person to say "let it go, Indiana," this show actually made me reconsider my position by reminding me of my own, distant connection with publication.

It was just last week that a teacher asked me what "scrapbooker" meant, forcing me to recall a period decades earlier when my parents actually kept a scrapbook of sorts about me. Beyond the usual vacation snapshots (which my father still has), there were a surprising number of clippings from local newspapers about me, be it school related or just random photographs from a soccer game. I don't know if I just kept getting lucky or if the local paper was simply starved for material. Either way, there was a real thrill to seeing my name or face in print (provided I was fully clothed and not eating when the picture was taken) even years later when looking at childhood photos was otherwise considered humiliating.

Years after that local paper which must have been tailing me closed down, I was a very excited contributor to our high school newspaper. Well, by "newspaper" I mean "simple packet of pages stapled together," but it all we had in our small school and I was thrilled whenever I managed to get an article included. Mostly I wrote movie reviews covering whatever I happened to get to see at the multiplex. Knowing my quirks, the movies I watched probably weren't interesting to a majority of the other students, but if it was interesting enough to the editors of the school paper it qualified for inclusion. While my review of Star Trek VI was an easy sell, they were less convinced when I pitched a lengthy series of James Bond trivia questions.

The point of all these fuzzy memories is that there was always something special about having my image or my words published in any format, and that feeling does not translate well in the digital age. With my own website running for almost five straight years, I have easily transmitted my ideas and photographs around the world to thousands of people. Yet I do not feel as proud of feitclub.com as I was of the time that my pitifully simplistic student website in 1995 was heralded in a UR alumni newsletter. At the time, being selected for inclusion in a printed publication, any publication it would seem, trumped all electronic forms. Part of me still feels that's the case today.

Perhaps it's not a matter of being printed on paper as it is passing the necessary vetting process for making it onto the pages of a newspaper or magazine. The ease of digital "publishing" lowers the stakes and subsequently the standards of choosing what material is "fit to print." If something is misspelled or if a fact is mistaken, it's never more than a quick online edit away from being corrected. When ink and presses are involved, everything must be checked and rechecked before making the expensive commitment to actually publishing anyone's words. I can't recall ever reading a typo in copy edition of The Onion, but I've certainly come across the odd error or two in the electronic version.

I'm not going to be one of those people who feels that everything was better when they were a kid or that the convenience and affordability of the Internet somehow invalidates its ability to send ideas worldwide instantly. I know an upgrade when I see it and the speed at which information now moves is an amazing leap forward from the lumbering card catalog days of my youth. However, just like every touchscreen voting machine protestor in the world, I know that there is an added value to recording something onto paper. The idea that somewhere in our village library or inside a filing cabinet in my high school lies a collection of my old material is very comforting. I'm not going to shed any tears over EGM in particular, but if print ever truly dies it will be a sad day.

Labels: A Life Well Wasted, fuzzy memories, writing

つづく...(Click here to read more)

...that's me! I declared last Friday that I would update the site daily, like a diary. Sure enough, I posted two odd bits and then nothing for three days straight. Of course, I do have an excuse; my computer hasn't exactly been my own lately. There's been a lot of third-party usage that has left my blog stranded. But with no work today I've got all the time in the world to spout off about anything and everything:

Movies

I've seen a lot lately. After months of accolades and a billion dollars, I finally sat down and watched The Return of the King. Frankly, it wasn't that hot. Certainly no surprises whatsoever, except for the ludicrous "ghost army" that shows up. What the hell was that about?

Last night I saw Control Room, a documentary about the sometimes controversial Al-Jazeera news channel and their coverage of the war in Iraq. I thought it was quite interesting, although I must wonder if anyone at the channel produced or otherwise funded the film.

Baseball

Insult me if you want, but I am a New York Yankees fan. Sometimes I feel like writing an explanation as to why, since magazines and TV programs openly mock Yankee fans as bandwagon jumpers or arrogant jerks or sometimes just morons. However, since I know I am none of those I don't have to apologize. But I may someday, just for the hell of it.

Anyway, the Yankees got off to a slow start this year. The lowest point was losing three at home to the fucking Boston Red Sox. At that point, they were a dismal 8-11. Forecasters of doom were everywhere, and anyone with a forum to do so proclaimed the Yankees were through. "End of an Era," they said. Well I thought that was ridiculous. It was only April for Christ's sake, and my Dad always taught me that the standings are meaningless before Memorial Day. So I (quietly) predicted that the Yankees would rebound and improve to 41-21, a mark they reached this Monday in Arizona. Now that I have a forum, I'm prepared to face public humiliation as I predict the Yankees will be 60-26 at the All-Star break.

Well I'm exhausted. Later!

Labels: baseball, movies, predicting the future, sports, writing, Yankees

つづく...(Click here to read more)