Pocky Central

First, my apologies for the long delay between posts. A variety of things has kept me from putting my ideas down on ‘paper’.

Before I get to the other posts I’ve had brewing in my head, let me talk about why I’m keeping this blog at all.

The main reason is that I wanted to have a place to post my writings that wasn’t a publically owned set up, like LiveJournal. Nothing against LiveJournal or the people who post there - it’s a good set up. I just wanted more control, and the ability to archive.

The second reason is that I wanted to give myself a reason to post - my original idea was to post once a day, everyday, barring emergencies or complete lack of access. This has, unfortunately, fallen to the wayside, due to a variety of reasons.

So I’m going to redefine my ‘mission’ slightly. From now on, I’m going to try to write at least one post a week, preferably more.This will help with my dry spells (which come from my own forgetfulness, laziness, and scheduling issues) and my occasional tendency to go on writing jags.

I will hopefully have a number of posts up in the coming week, to make up for my missing the past week and some. I apologize to the people reading via RSS for the incoming flood. (The posts will be post-dated, just like before)

Nature and I don’t get along very well.

It generally goes like this:

Richard: Hi, Nature! You look very beautiful today.

Nature: I hate you. Die.

Richard: It’s such a lovely day, and you’re in full splendor.

Nature: *chokes Richard*

Richard: *is choked, dies*

I am unfortunately very allergic to most flowering plants, along with animal danders and apparently dust. This means flowers, cats, dogs, and my own apartment are my mortal enemies.

A good dose of antihistamines helps, thankfully, but it only holds off the symptoms. The best way to deal with my allergies is to avoid the allergens as much as possible. This is one of the reasons I don’t go on nature hikes and such, and why I don’t keep pets.

Ironically, I love cats, and used to want one as a pet. But the allergy thing kind of keeps that from happening. I’m not so fond of dogs, though I’m not afraid of them like I used to be.

Eventually I will either get allergy shots, a medicine that will really help will be invented, or I’ll burst into flames. We’ll see which happens first.

When I started college, I experienced a great many new things. College scheduling headaches, good and bad campus food, and of course, alcohol.

I have never been anti-alcohol or smoking, though I’m not really for them, either. (I used to smoke, too, but that’s another story) I enjoyed a drink or two when I was in college, and afterwards, too.

But these days, I drink very little. This started just before I graduated college, and has continued since. I’m not entirely sure why, though part of it is because my doctor recommended that I cut back.

This normally isn’t a problem. But when I moved to Japan, where a big after-work activity is drinking, “I don’t drink” is met with wonderment and confusion.

“You don’t drink beer?”

“No, I don’t drink alcohol (anymore).”

“Oh, so no (sake/vodka/etc.). How about beer?”

“No, I don’t drink.”

“Oh, is it because of your (health/religion/etc.)?”

“… yes.” (This depends on the question, of course)

It took some doing, but I managed to convince my co-workers that I didn’t drink, and nothing they could do would change that. Then again, these are the same people who boggled at me drinking Coke with my lunch.

I think that alcohol is a fine thing to partake when you feel like it. I do worry when it’s something that is drunk every night “just because”. Or when it’s the only way to “feel good”. Granted, I feel that way about any type of vice.

As for me, as long as you’re okay with “Nah, I’ll have a ginger ale” or something similar, you can drink all you want.

Just don’t throw up in my car.

And by recent, I mean the past ten years or so.

There used to be (and still is, to a point) a large multitude of game genres. Adventure, sports, role-playing, shooting (the side-scrolling kind, not the first person kind), you name it. Lots of different people were making games for lots of different audiences, and chances were you could find something you wanted to play.

Fast forward to today.

These days, there seem to be four major game genres, for both PCs (and by this, I mean Windows machines, Macs, and yes, even Linux boxes) and consoles.

Those four genres are First Person Shooters (FPS), Real-Time Strategy (RTS), Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), and Sports (sorry, no need acronym here).

Let’s look at these, one at a time, in no particular order.

Sports: there is no way to get around the fact that the sports genre is possibly the highest selling one of them all right now. Look at Madden, look at the NBA games, and the various driving games. I don’t know exact numbers, but I do know that there are tournaments dedicated to Madden with big prizes. That’s got to count for something.

MMORPGs: World of Warcraft. Everquest 2. Ragnarok Online. City of Heroes/Villains. There are hundreds of MMORPGs (and similar MMO-(type of game)s) out in the world now. Some are pay-to-play. Others are free-to-play, pay-for-neat-stuff. In the end, they’re all ’social’ games, where you play with other people. And some call them the ‘wave of the future’.
RTSs: Starcraft. Warcraft. Command and Conquer, Age of (noun of your choice). There are a lot of real time strategy games, some good, many not so good. While they’ve waned in popularity, they’re still fairly profitable. Some of the games are still very popular, like Starcraft, which is played at world level tournaments.
FPSs: There are simply too many to list. But since they’ve been called ‘killing trainers’ by some, I don’t think I really need to go into them. (If I do, let me know, and I will, though)
Of these, I only personally enjoy one - MMORPGs. I’ve never really liked sports games on consoles or PCs, with the exception of goofy ones, like Mario Tennis or Need For Speed. FPS games give me headaches, and unlike most Koreans (or so I am told), I suck at RTS games.

So what about puzzle games? Role playing games? Platformers and the others? I’ll get to those some other time. (But I will say - I love them all)