EVE: Online

This one time, in EVE Online, I flew a $50 million ship into null space. This bitch cost me like six actual, tedious, stupidly wasted hours of virtual paranoia and at least three months of subscriber fees to fly, and I was flying it dry and heavy -- into the most dangerous reaches of this hellish game, where Swedish junkies stayed up at godawful hours to protect swathes of make believe for their Irish fleet commanders.

I flew my ship deep into player-owned territory in search of relic sites. I don't go there for money, which is what those Euro fucks are protecting. I just like to look. The developers saved their finest work for these areas because only the bravest and brightest came here without panic in their hearts.

After hours of aimless, profitless drifting through empty space, I warped into a system populated with about 10-15 people. They're all part of an alliance composed of 1,800 real people who work together to protect this space and the riches it contains.

I cloaked up, jumped to a "safe spot" -- out of the way, to avoid any traps laid on the straight and narrow -- then I skipped right to the next gate.

I stopped in a "bubble." This means they've caught me. I can only move slowly, unable to warp to safety. There are three of them on my radar. My life is not at stake but these are real people. This is a real interaction.

They are hostile.

Someone, the leader I guess, said in chat:

Leader: Word on the street is you have Tech 2 BPOs on board. Hand them over or fight to the death. We have you locked.

Something like that. But I was still cloaked and the closest guy was 100 km away so I knew he was lying. He had no idea where I was. He only knew that I was in the system.

Me: Sure, I'll leave them at the sun. ;)

Leader: Blah blah blah, get this fucker.

I slowly made my way out of the bubble, where I was free to warp to another safe spot to think it through. I did, and sat there a while before deciding I had to head back the way I came, toward home. I knew they would have a trap waiting but if I approached it from a wide angle maybe I would avoid it.

I warped close, missing the bubble, and watched as two ships circled the gate. If I approached, they might bump into me, uncloak me, and take me down. If I warped away and warped back right on top of the gate, they wouldn't have a chance.

I picked an asteroid, way out there, so I wouldn't come anywhere near the bubble when I shot back. I bounced off the asteroid straight to the gate. The guards were there, but they couldn't lock me before I shot through to the next system and left them in the dust.

If you play EVE long enough, that shit will happen. And it will be fucking awesome. But holy shit is it complicated, and you do have to pay $15 for every month to play.

Oh man but wow, right? All I'm saying is that doesn't happen in other games. You just have to be patient. And rich and have a lot of time on your hands. That's all.

Ulysses

I'm going to start off with the most pretentious item on my list, because that's how I roll.

Full disclosure: I read Ulysses of my own accord, not because I thought it would be an enlightening experience or because I was a fan of post-modern whatever-the-fuck, but because I had heard that it was one of the hardest books to read and I wanted to be able to say that I had read it.

It took me four years.

Some parts were excruciating. There are hundreds of pages of complete nonsense. If you're familiar with T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Ezra Pound's Cantos, or Rimbaud's Illuminations, it's like that.

Here's an actual quote from the book. It's from chapter 14, Oxen of the Sun, which is where I really started to slow down:

Universally that person's acumen is esteemed very little perceptive concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitable by mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in them high mind's ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation more efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately present constitutes the certain sign of omnipollent nature's incorrupted benefaction.

If you try to make sense of it, you are insane.

Like that long chapter in Dorian Grey, where Wilde goes on about all the pretty junk Dorian was keeping, this book is more an immersion than a narrative. Reading it without stopping brought more meaning to the text than trying to assign meaning to every word or phrase.

Do I recommend reading it? Not really. At least, not in the way you'd read most books. I think Marilyn Monroe understood it:

She said she kept Ulysses in her car and had been reading it for a long time. She said she loved the sound of it and would read it aloud to herself to try to make sense of it — but she found it hard going. She couldn’t read it consecutively.

That's a good way to look at things that are perhaps too weird, too lengthy, or too complex to absorb at once. We have a lifetime to satiate our senses. Why rush them?

Mission Statement

My life is going nowhere. I used to be a writer. Then people started paying me to write, and I stopped writing for myself. Now I feel like I have nothing to say.

I'm finding my voice again. This is what it sounds like.

When I first landed a job in journalism, I did it by reviewing music. No one read the blog, I just wrote it and sent it to potential employers if they asked. That was more integral to getting my job than having a college degree.

I want to pick up where I left off, but I have a serious problem with reviews these days. I use them constantly, but they're so... negative. I'm not going to do that. It's not my thing.

Instead, I'm just going to post about shit I like. I'm not going to score it, because that would be stupid. I'm not going to try and convince you to like it, because I don't care. I'm just going to tell you about it. Is that okay? Is that cool?

I'll probably cover music, books, video games, and YouTube channels primarily because that's what I waste most of my time on, but if I pick up some kick-ass camping equipment or an exciting STD I won't hesitate to share.

This is a record of my influence. Motherfucker.