Pattern Recognition

My previous two posts have focused on, what the observant have undoubtedly noticed, movies and my experiences/critiques of them.

Roger Ebert is someone whom I model my writing style after. Seriously. If you can get past the lampooning he received in the shortly-lived television series "The Critic," and can actually force yourself to summon up an ounce of interest in the shitty movies he's forced to review these days, you're in for a treat in the form of an excellent writer and thinker. Ebert is fair, sarcastically sincere, and he can express in a simple paragraph a thought or observation that might take a lesser writer such as myself an entire page, however ill-defined that might be in relation to html.

I'm not sure if film critique would be something I would be interested in. There's that whole thing about the "ivory tower", and my lack of interest in having to even waste my time and breath in critiquing the latest Jessica Simpson shitstain on the human consciousness. If I'm going to watch a shitty movie and then make fun of it, I'd like that to be on my own accord.

Rather, I have found myself in the position of a cultural observer of many things American, far removed from the environment and society that engenders such byproducts of culture. Being here in China provides me with a unique position, whereas I am both integrated and removed from this landscape of creativity that I both abandoned and simultaneously missed.

It's weird: watching all these Oscar movies, and other cultural events such as witnessing Barack Obama being sworn in... weird. It doesn't feel like my culture, and at the same time, it does. This is perhaps the first time I've found myself almost completely immersed in an entirely different culture, as my wife and perhaps the only person I talk to on a regular basis is unmistakably Chinese, and the only language I find myself speaking is inevitably Chinese.

Movies, then, are those little slices of life back home in America that no force here in China can hope to take from me. My escape. All those insecurities about modern life, those fucked-up inconsistencies that only Americans can master, that decadence that arises and possesses close association with depression. And all the bad things that go with American culture, too. Sure, it's fucked up. But it's what I know. I've since become comfortable in the fucked-upness of it all.

I can safely say with certainty that China, although a fun place, is not somewhere I'd like to settle down for the long haul. I get along with everyone here, but at the same time, I'm tired of meeting the cultural expectations of everyone I meet, that is, being the good American and the good Chinese boy. I'm tired of being the uncultured traitor who's turned his back on his own people. It's not to say that many of the people here are culturally blind, or even more harshly, insensitive, to the plight of their overseas brethren. Rather, there's no foundation for them to base their assumptions and preconceptions on. That's fine and dandy, but it's not my position to put up with it, either.

My return back to China has dispelled, for the most part, many to most of my pangs of romantic longing and emptiness that I felt after returning back to America. There'll always be a special association I carry with me, and lots of unforgettable memories. But, ask me truthfully and honestly?

I can't wait to get out of this place.

I Actually Watched This

"Nick And Norah's Infinite Playlist"

In honor/homage/shameless rip-off of better and more skilled writers than myself at The Onion's "AV Club", I have taken it upon myself, nay, made it my moral and spiritual imperative to write about that little thing we all like to mention from time to time, that obligatory half-crooked smile hanging on our face like a badge on a member of Starfleet: it's an officiating sign of position, something that makes it okay for us to do or take part in whatever it is we, as human beings possessing intelligence and standards, should not normally want to. That is, the guilty pleasure.

Really, what's wrong with "guilty pleasures"? Aside from sounding like either a fragrance sold for two-fifty at a Wet Seal (remember that shit?) or a chocolate product, guilty pleasures are about the greatest thing known to man. They're a reaffirmation to us, a reminder that life isn't as serious as work, family, and taxes commonly try to enforce to us day after day. They're a medium that work on their own plane of existence, always ready for us to come back for more. Our guilty pleasures help us through our darkest phases, much in the way a Bible kept on the nightstand remains steadfastly vigilant, ready to spread to anyone who's willing to believe (ie. someone who's not a total spiritually-vacant dickface) the gospel and spiritual truths that mean to soothe us and nothing else.

Guilty pleasures, and I say this to you, average pretentious American obsessed with this mutable, very ill-defined concept of "individuality", are your friend. This has nothing to do with that counter-culture nonsense, lounging in local indie record stores and soapboxing for about three hours straight on why Jean-Claude Van Damme's Street Fighter, is, in fact, the greatest movie ever made, a statement made in perhaps half self-conscious irony and half-histrionically-grounded attention whoring. No, there's none of that.

I acknowledge my love of American-made martial arts films, those special blends of obscured fighting moves and shitty hip-hop that they are. As someone who loves martial arts films of all shapes and sizes, I find these amalgamations of two vastly different cultures fascinating. I paid money to watch Exit Wounds, starring Steven Seagal and DMX, in the theatres. Fucking money, dawg. I was high school student at the time, where my money would've been better spent on In-N-Out Double double's and three-day trials at porn sites, but no. I saw a trailer for the movie, most likely during an equally shitty movie, and watched DMX do a backflip towards his dropped revolver, and my first reaction was, "I'm am so fucking THERE." Subsequently, something in me, something floating in that area between my ego and superego, something innate and on a very primalistic level, prompted me to call my friends and ask them with zero self-consciousness if they'd be interested in paying their retail-job-obtained cash in watching Exit Wounds with me, opening weekend no less. Most likely it was the same primal force at work that prompted my friends, also with nary a tinge of irony their voice, to respond with a hearty "hells YES." My guilty pleasures also include third-person action games that involve nothing more than running in a straight line and pressing "fire", and perhaps, from time to time, female-fronted goth metal bands that sing about dragons and that "darkness" thing with the kind of honest sincerity only possible when one's neighbor is, well, a dragon, or the darkness. Whichever.

So, after my long-winded introduction, I make the transition to this week's, or month's extension of guilty pleasure-mongering. Or, maybe not. Because, as a movie, I'm not sure where Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist falls. Basically, I'm not sure if this movie qualifies as a "guilty pleasure."


On a surface glance, Nick & Norah has all the trappings of a movie that should rightfully find it's way into my shoebox of guilty pleasures, gracefully tucked between "episodes of 'V.I.P.'" and "strawberry-banana yogurt smoothies". High school romance. Check. Hot up and coming young actors. Check. Decent soundtrack. Check.

But, wait! Let's go back to that last bullet point for a second, now. Nick & Norah, much like basically anything Cameron Crowe has touched in his life, is a movie very much grounded in this little thing called "music." It's obvious in the movie's title, and it was very obvious in the marketing for this movie, in which the trailer promised select tracks from bands and artists such as Vampire Weekend, Devendra Banhart, and Bishop Allen, et al. See your local Pitchfork.com for more bands I could've potentially named in that segment. The year was 2008, where soundtracks were less and less becoming selling points, and a trend essentially died out after Bad Boys 2 had that P.Diddy and Nelly reworking of that Atlanta Braves' fight song. A throwback to the days of movies such as Kids and Empire Records, maybe? No, hardly. Nick & Norah, right from the ground up, feels like a very carefully manufactured product, with no mistakes and zero cases of happenstance.

I'll start off by saying Nick & Norah is quite possibly, for reasons I've just elaborated on and for reasons I will soon get into, one of the most obnoxious movies I've ever seen. The opening title screen, when introducing the actors and crew involved, takes place on a yellow steno pad with the names of almost every single band featured on Myspace's front page for the last two years getting a shout-out in the margins of the pages, much like the way a high school student with a short attention span will do so during Geometry class. Not me, that's for sure. During Geometry class, I came up with ideas for fake Magic: The Gathering cards and rules, complete with their own backstory and everything. But that's a sad story for another sad day.

In the movie, Michael Cera plays Michael Cera (the king of awkward-cool, and yet another reason I'm finding it difficult to reconcile this movie as a guilty pleasure) under the alias of Nick, and has just been dumped by his hot girlfriend, played by this diminutive blonde chick I've never seen before, but probably someone who would never go for someone like Michael Cera in real life. Norah is played by Kat Dennings, who my wife is absolutely in love with because she has humongous breasts. Norah's never met Nick before, but there's this kind of indirect infatuation going on. Here's how: in a disturbingly familiar gender-swap of roles, blonde girlfriend doesn't appreciate Michael Cera for the lovable dope that he is and will throw out his mix "tapes" that he lovingly and painstakingly crafts on his WHITE MACBOOK, complete with album art and everything. Norah then salvages these mixes, telling her friend that what she's doing isn't stalker-y, and it's no big deal: "They're just songs I can put on my IPOD."


Long story short, after a series of ridiculous circumstances, ie. Norah kissing Nick to make blonde girl feel awkward, Norah's best friend remaining drunk longer than any bipedal creature I've ever seen committed to either film or literature, Nick playing with his band and stuff, Norah and Nick soon embark on a midnight journey, jaunting from one area of New York City to the next in search of an elusive band called "Where's Fluffy?", a band so wrapped in the enigma of it's own cool that it refuses to announce the location of it's live shows. Normally, a band like this would be, with the exception of painfully cool and in-the-know hipsters, labelled by pretty any sane person as "wankers." But, this is a movie, with Fluffy primarily functioning as this total dickhead McGuffin to drive along the action, and, as expected, the already burgeoning romance of Nick and Norah on their first night of acquaintance, no less.

Let's fast forward a bit: Blonde girl isn't happy Nick and Norah are traipsing about New York with each other on a grand adventure, tries to get Nick back, fails, Nick does something un-PG-13 to Norah in Electric Lady Studios (which Norah's dad happens to own), they find Fluffy but rightfully say "fuck it" and go about their business. And yep, they (spoiler alert) fall in love. Like, hardcore in love. End movie.

Like I said, this movie is one in which I am struggling to decide whether or not it is worthy to of "guilty pleasure" status. Because I'm prone to mood swings much like a 16 year-old hormonally unbalanced teenage is apt to at this point in their life, this opinion might change, but as of now, I remain certain that this movie is not, in fact, a guilty pleasure. The movie is too damn self-conscious for it's own good.

Also mentioned before, everything feels very manufactured and very carefully constructed. Nick & Norah tells the story of a fateful night that two indie kids fall in love and find their connection, but the movie is very insistent on reminding us the indieness of the two title characters. On the back of the DVD box, the synopsis of the movie is very, very careful to point out that Nick plays in a Queercore band called "The Jerkoffs." But, then, here's the thing: The movie is so carefully marketed, in fact, that for all its referential dialogue and shameless plugs of Pitchfork-endorsed bands, it never comes off as smug or pretentious. This is an example of a product serving a very specific audience and viewership, namely this scenester, indie-emo band of angsty-but-not-really eleventeen year olds who thrive on their Myspace accounts for any semblance of interaction, a culture that, as someone who's too nosy and observant for his own good, I understand ever minute detail of but would prefer that I didn't understand it at all. Imagine if Rounders was released around 2005, during the apex of the Poker craze, instead of in 1998, before Chris Moneymaker trudged onto the final table, as it was. It would've received a markedly different response and box office turnount. Nick & Norah, to me, feels like the cultural equivalent of that example: Rounders released during the height of Poker-mania.

That's what I mean when I refer to this movie as neither pretentious nor smug, but healthy in it's obnoxiousness. Everything is so carefully planned and deliberate, the movie never feels offensive, but then it never risks anything, either. For a movie predicated on the unpredictability of youth culture today and the common bonds found in mutual love for musicians that operate on the fringes of what one might consider acceptable, Nick & Norah plays it safe. Moreover, it plays it conventional.

I can't say I hated the movie, but I can't say I liked it, either. I haven't found a word, either real or fake, to express my emotion towards this movie. "Meh" doesn't quite cut it in this regard, either, because here I am, writing about this shit as you read it. I've always found teen movies to be the best, albeit subtlest, barometer for the hopes and fears of the generation they were released. One could say that, given my above descriptions and criteria on which I judged Nick & Norah, a movie such as Pretty In Pink, or maybe The Breakfast Club, or maybe even Heathers, is just as carefully constructed. These movies all featured very familiar 80s tropes and character archetypes, with Heathers going as far as lampooning these characters. Moreover, the culturally insensitive material in Pretty In Pink and that search for identity amidst a seemingly totalitarian, thought-controlling society all scream, in hindsight, for me at least, the culturally decadent turbulence of the Reagan era. And let's not forget those first two movies, making Karaoke staples out of OMD's "If You Leave", and Simple Mind's "Don't Forget About Me." Ugh.


What about Nick & Norah? While it's a given that any teen romance will feature some kind of soundtrack featuring prominent musicians, Nick & Norah's focal point seems to be that of the music rather than the plight of the characters themselves. In contrast to the aforementioned movies, Nick & Norah is a reflection of a time where the internet reigns supreme as a must-have for any young American, and where mp3 players and DRM are very real things. No matter how cliched any of John Hughes' movies were, none of them felt as safely conventional as Nick & Norah. Perhaps this movie represents a cultural changing of the guard, with me, rapidly tapping away at my wilting laptop keyboard, representing that old guard that refuses to heed the call of time. Or maybe Nick & Norah, for it's careful execution, represents a shift in values, and new methods of marketing a product through the usage of preestablished products. It's a sad truth that nowadays, one's individuality largely and primarily hinges on the choice in tangible items, with one's own cultural relevancy predicated on perceptions from others. This includes philosophy, those nuggets of truth packed into tiny volumes awaiting your purchase. There is always that untangible state of mind, which we like to say that no one can violate or confiscate, but what young person growing up in America today actively defines their uniqueness through the way they think?

For someone like me, someone who's at this phase in their life, maturity-wise and maritally-wise, Nick & Norah was a movie I was expecting to tug at the ever-so-prevalent dwindling ropes of that thing we call nostalgia. I did manage to connect with the movie on some base level, but then again, I'm able to do that with any non-action or science fiction film (see previous entry, where I touch on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). Nick and Norah's romance is forced, hackneyed, and destined, in the most realistic cases, to not last. In other words, a perfect high school romance. That was the fucking great thing about our high school years: that uncertainty that felt like nothing but guarantees, every small inconsequential step we took filling us with optimism and prospects for that unforeseeable future we only wanted to welcome with open arms. That's what we used to call idealism, before the indie kids came and stole the innocence of that concept away from us.

I think ultimately, I was a little sad after watching Nick & Norah. A movie that should've, by any right, qualified as a guilty pleasure was eventually brought down by it's own self-awareness and lack of confidence in it's own product. I'm beginning to wonder if this strange, tech-driven and image-bolstered culture will ever subconsciously provide us, those dragging ourselves through the depressing finality of life and freedom, with those guilty pleasures we so need. Maybe it's a good thing, perhaps, that our culture no longer grants us access to these nuggets of artistic drugdgery, indicating a, no matter how artificial or fake, rise in standards. But what are standards if but another alien concept if we have nothing to judge them by?

Or, maybe, I really am that out of touch with youth today. Growing up should be a refreshing fact to face, not something that horrifies me enough that I write a pointless blog entry about it.

Aw-scars

...And new shit is here.

I remember I was about 15 or 16 years old when Titanic won Best Picture at the Oscars. Now, my high school years, up until about the end of my senior year when I really got into Tool, is a period in my life I commonly refer to as my "awkward years", or the years that "I had no standards", meaning, I listened to that boyband shit and I watched fucking terrible B-rate shit-flicks with no semblance of guilt in my chest.

Nowadays, I'm someone whom I'd like to consider as having standards, that is, in taste in movies, books, music, and politics (moderate-to-left-leaning Democrat ftw). You know, the stuff that matters. I am a product of the decadent 80s, where Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reigned supreme, my values and senses engendered by the mid-90s, where The Smashing Pumpkins were, at one point, considered by and large to be the biggest band in America, and I am currently feeding off the residual noxious fumes of the Myspace and Pitchfork generations, straddling a love-hate divide for these things that so actively promote this notion of "individualism" but frowns upon true creativity and expression. Naturally, I'm a difficult person to please. And my taste in movies is no different.

Cinema is one of the laziest hobbies/quasi-passions I have. By "lazy", I mean the amount of effort expended in savoring said hobby. Oddly enough, or rather, not odd at all, living in China has provided me a cheap means of watching almost every single Oscar-nominated movie that's received any kind of mention in popular entertainment outlets. I love bootleg DVDs. This is quite possibly the first time I've been able to do so, as I was previously unable to due to work, school, as well as the prohibitive price of buying a movie ticket.

So far, I've seen Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Wrestler, Slumdog Millionaire, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Revolution Road, The Reader, Doubt, Changeling, Frozen River, and etc, etc., all in the comfort of my own home, to boot.

My summation of all these movies in one fell exasperation? Meh.

Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed, to a degree, and obviously some more so than others, almost all of these movies. But I can also say with no irony that I've seen The Rock, the movie that unfortunately put Michael Bay on the proverbial map, about seven times already, and I've enjoyed it every single time I've watched it.

Maybe it's a combination of me being too jaded for my own good, or maybe I've seen too many good movies in the past that my personal scale has been skewed, but I remain unimpressed. Once again, that's not to say these weren't good films. But Oscars?


I think my lack of interest in this year's Oscar Awards might be entirely and subsequently unfairly directed at one film in particular: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. This might've been the film I enjoyed the least out of all the movies I watched, and this includes the sometimes-misguidedly preachy but ultimately enjoyable The Visitor, because, and I say this politely, the movie fucking meanders.

Let's get some things out of the way: Brad Pitt is really good in this movie. So is Cate Blanchett. The best acting job in the movie probably goes to Taraji Henson, very much deserving that Oscar nod. What people tend to get mixed up, though, is that good acting does not necessarily make the movie itself good. Benjamin Button strikes me as one of those movies that is so in love with it's own premise, production values, quality acting, soundtrack, and set design, that it feels content in simply swaggering about the room, with it's mighty wang of quality swinging to and fro pendulously like a grandfather clock. And swagger it does, at almost three hours of cinematic pacing that feels like an extended series of unrelated vignettes and montages.

Essentially, the titular character, who so heretofore be referred to Ben, has this weird condition where the older he gets in years, the younger his body becomes. Okay. So, he's born in the form of an old man, and that comes with all the frustrations and difficulties one might face. He's small in stature, naively innocent to the point of (gasp) senility, and he faces difficulty in walking. Alright, I see the parallel. As the movie progresses, Ben starts to become more and more spry, young, and oh-so-dreamy. Based on the logic of the condition Ben has, it's easy to guess what happens when he reaches the almost-predetermined age of 80+ years. Okay.

At the end of the movie, when the (spoiler alert) infantile Ben of 80 years closed his eyes one last time and then faded away into a slumber of death... I'll be honest, I shed tears. Appropriately enough, I cried like a baby. Because I don't like seeing babies, in their infantile state, shuffling off their mortal coil, their span of life equalling the chronological equivalent of a whisper. That makes me sad on a very base level. But my outpour of emotion wasn't based on what I had seen in the film. This brief five minutes was probably the only moment I truly connected with what I was seeing, and this was more based on the fact that I'm a softie at heart. Again, unrelated to the movie.

So, my problem with the film is, what's the point? I hate, hate, hate it when authors and writers leave their works open-ended and make that bold lazy, prententious statement that, "my work can mean whatever the viewer wants it to mean." No, no, no. As an author, it is your job to provide us with context, with some kind of palpable direction. As an author, you are obligated to provide some kind of emotional, if not satisfaction, then closure to the audience who has paid you both time and money to immerse themselves in your work. I can't stand it when people hide behind that all-encompassing badge of "post-modernism." It's lazy and unconstructive.

Now, I don't need someone to spell out the theme or meaning of a movie for me. Nor does any average filmgoer in America today. We as an audience are so familiar with the tropes commonly employed by filmmakers that we are mentally and emotionally prepared for what the filmmaker has to show us. And I say show, because a good director, like any author or artist, shows rather than telling. At the risk of sounding ignorant by comparing two vastly different films, let's take a look at No Country For Old Men as an example. No Country was a movie that I felt warranted a repeated, back-to-back viewing. I knew there was something, hidden beneath the narrative layer, that the Coen Brothers, or rather, Cormac McCarthy, wanted to say. I could feel it in the select choice of camera angles, the lines of dialogue at the end, and (quasi-spoiler) the sudden change in character focus in narration that stems from Josh Brolin's character's untimely demise. The second time I watched the film, the underlying message of the movie hit me faster than a nerd at an anime convention rushing towards the stand of free energy drinks.

Benjamin Button neither shows nor tells. I earlier stated that the movie ultimately feels like a series of unrelated vignettes, and that's what it is. The movie hopes we make some kind of connection with Ben, but how can we? We can feel sorry for an earthquake survivor, or a refugee who has just lost his or her entire family, but we cannot for a second fathom the amount of pain and hardship they have just experienced. The only thing we have are our shared experiences, namely the pain of losing loved ones, or the harrowing tugs of survivor's guilt. Likewise, we can feel sorry for Ben in the movie's final moments, but we cannot connect. The movie is told in a series of montage-like, Forrest Gump-esque sequences that show the experiences Ben has with his strange condition. But there are no shared experiences. We can marvel, but we're spectating from a distance.

Is this intentional? Is Ben meant to be a blank state in which we infuse with our own fears and hopes? Maybe Ben desires, above all things, to live a normal life as hinted at in his relationship with Cate Blanchett's character, but this is never explored nor explained either through narrative or dialogue. Watching the movie, it feels like Ben's just going by the numbers. He does one thing, moves onto the next, and then so on. Nothing is ever explored nor explained in the movie. What's with the Katrina connection? Why Katrina? Something that could've been thematically powerful ultimately ends up becoming a gimmick, most likely exploited for some kind of critically prententious acknowledgement of skillful obfuscation, which, it isn't. The only thing I gathered from this movie is that the film itself is a meditation on life and death, but I mean meditation in the strictest sense, meaning you just think and, y'know, kind of think about it. "Live life to the fullest"? Maybe that's the message, but do we need a three-hour movie to tell us this?

I wanted to like this movie so much, I really did. Brad Pitt, as I said, is excellent in the film, and Alexandre Desplat's score is one of the best I've heard this year. But, in this case, the parts do not add up to a whole.

Now, mark my words, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button will win the Best Picture Award. It is destined, written in the stars. It will win. Do not dispute this fact with me, because I'm right, and you're wrong.

I'm still on the fence on whether or not I want to watch the Oscars in all it's edited glory (remember, the broadcast will be shown on China Central Television, an organization that prides itself on "harmonious programming"). I really thought this would be the year that a comic book movie, ie. The Dark Knight, would win or at least receive an Oscar nod, but it looks like that ain't happening anytime soon. If not The Dark Knight, then probably never. Ah well.

In comic book-related nonsense, Mr. Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman, will be hosting.

On second thought, no longer on the fence. Boycott in full procession. Unless Hugh Jackman pops out a set of REAL adamantium claws and proceeds to reenact a "Wolverine Vs. Sabertooth" stand-off with Mickey Rourke, then that position ain't changing. "Street Fighter IV" on Oscar night it is, then.

Update... in a way

As can be gathered from the lapse of time from this, my most current entry, to my then-most recent entry on December 5th, it's been a goddamn long time since I've written in this thing.

Obviously, much has happened since then. I entertained the company of a good friend and my brother in a non-sexual menage-a-tois of OC manly goodness, and of course, I got married.

Take a moment for that to sink in, non-existent reader that wouldn't know.

I realized that in the past, when I had long lapses in updating a blog, ie. something I should be doing if I take writing half as seriously as a I claim, I would choose not to update at all. Scrap, rinse, and repeat in the form of a new page. The reason is, I hate recap. Although I've maintained, or at least tried to maintain a politically-correct edge in all my entries, blogging has always felt like a very personal activity to me. There is that hypothetical "reader" I'm writing to, but it's always been more of a "dear diary" type of thing as opposed to an actual reader I'm "selling my craft" to. So, no recapping. From where I'm standing, it's counter-productive. Onwards to the new shit.

Title

I've come to realize, through the use of titles prefacing every blog entry I've written, how different of writing styles I had while writing on Xanga (years back then), and then now, on Blogger.

Titles, like what Randal says to Dante in Clerks, does not necessarily dictate behavior. But it definitely plays a big role in shaping personal expectations and direction. With the title function as well as the ability to paste photos on Blogger readily available and used to undoubtedly devastatingly witty effect by myself, I've realized my writing (ie. blogging, nonsense) has become more focused, with a sense of directional narrative. That's not to say that my stream-of-consciousness rants back in the day lacked any semblance of direction, but those entries were scattershot, at best.

This is not an observation or literary critique of the meaningfulness/uselessness of titles. Can't an observation be just that?

Other than that, I'm glad this week is over. One failed interview at a company I really liked, and one moderately successful interview at a company I'm mildly interested in, along with spicy Sichuan food almost every single Gad-dang night has led to me shuffling around my seat in discomfort due to the large hemorrhoid growing around the north-east quadrant of my brown-eye. I'm thinking being in a serious relationship and planning hardcore for the future, while receiving my nth rejection in China has led to some serious 上火 action up around my anus.

The hemorrhoidal cream helps. As does the depository, which is a first for myself. Also, the knowledge that I have a loving mother and father(s), brother, sister, an awesome girlfriend, awesome soon-to-be-probably-maybe-parents-in-law, my friends back home and my friends that'll be visiting, and my good health, disbarring the hemorrhoids, helps immensely as well.

A little bit of Zoe, doot-doot-doot

That's right, I just appropriated a shitty late-90s pop song from a one-hit wonder has-been as my title. I guess that's the weird effect being with somebody you care about has on you.

And by weird effect, I mean the good kind. Not recanting and paying undeserved homage to shitty late-90s pop songs. That's some la vida loca shit right there.

This is how happy Zoe makes me:

That's right: stupid happy, the best kind of happy.

Mwah ^_^

Epic fail

A few weeks ago, I attended an interview at Possibility Space, a game company in Beijing, for the role of associate producer. I thought I did a good job in handling myself, despite having no relevant experience in the games industry. That is, unless numerous broken controllers and torn mousepads count as experience. Then I've got that shit covered. In spades.

As someone who's been gay for video games since his personal inception of interest in people of the opposite sex, I was obviously looking forward to working at a company whose roster of talent included a former producer at Blizzard, and a conceptual designer whose credits include various game designs such as Bloodrayne, 007: Everything Or Nothing, and various movies such as Transformers, the messy, plot-hole adorned love letter to the United States military that it was. For all of it's fleeting glimpses at a franchise that is synonymous with "childhood" to many including myself, I'll be damned twice if that technical design didn't blow people's minds to gooey shit.

I finally received a response yesterday after a period of over three weeks after my first interview, in which afterward I was promised a second interview. It read:

Dear Mr. Robert Tsao,

Thanks for your coming to join our interview in last month. Your passion and professional English pronunciation are impressive.

We are sorry to inform you due to an experienced person is needed for this position, we can not offer you this time. We will keep your CV in our database and we may inform you for any other opportunities.

Best regards,

xxxxxxxx


Welp. Not one to be deterred, I responded back with a suitable closing salvo to their long overdue response to my lackluster performance.

Dear XXXX,

Thank you for informing me of your company's decision in this matter. I greatly appreciate the time that you, XXXX, and XXXX took out of your undoubtedly busy schedules to meet with me.

I fully understand that as a person of limited experience, I currently have little to offer Possibility Space in the way of applicable talent. However, I believe my strong dedication to any task I am given is something that has and will allow me to excel in any endeavor I partake.

When I was hired by Lehman Brothers in 2007, I entered my hired position with zero prior knowledge of finance or the American mortgage system. With very little supervision, I excelled at my job due to a combination of voluntary overtime and outside research once I returned home. After only three months of employment, I was promoted by my supervisor to assist her in creating and stabilizing a newly created department in our office. Although I had very little interest in mortgage, I nevertheless had a passion for the quality of my own work, as a person is oftentimes his or her most demanding critic.

I believe I possess a strong combination of intelligence, drive, and most importantly, a passion and fascination with the direction of the games industry, namely qualities that cannot be taught or conditioned. Moreoever, I have faith and great interest in Possibility Space's potential, and I would consider it an honor for myself to be associated with such great talent.

Although I currently do not possess the experience your company is looking for, I am nevertheless hoping that as your company grows and positions continue to open, you will consider me as a potential candidate. In the meantime, I will be finding ways to further increase my knowledge and ability in the hope of eventually finding my place with Possibility Space's future. Thank you again for your time! Sincerely,

Robert Tsao

As a person who is becoming more realistic and practical by the day, I understand the oft-fruitlessness of humbling oneself again in the face of defeat. But I wouldn't so much call it that. A second attempt after initial rejection; if one is capable of groveling at the feet of an insistent ex-girlfriend, why should an ostensibly faceless company receive different treatment?

Besides, if I want to create games, I'll fucking find a way. Not necessarily in China, not necessarily in the States, but perhaps on my own terms and my own accord. How exactly? Excellent question, one that I haven't really considered yet. As of now, the gaming industry strikes me as one of the few that are essentially capable of sustaining itself during a time of economic crisis. People need escape, after all.

So, yeah. Disappointed, but not deterred. Nothing else to do now but try, nowhere else to go but up. Or down, if a shovel and pitchfork are provided.

Stay gold, Ponyboy.