A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Newport News

First, I'd like to say that my vacation to Hawaii was AWESOME. I got to do all sorts of cool things, like hike in an active volcano (there was this guy who seemed to be wandering to his doom, where doom is sulfuric acid cloud), navigate through an unlit lava vein (a small cave that lava used to pass through--it was quite dark), snorkeling, regular beaching (begrudging the fact that I can't wear my glasses in the water AND that the only strangers that seemed to ever run into me while body surfing were old men in speedos or kids on boogy boards), and eating. That story, however, is not the story I am here to tell. I am here to tell the story of how I ended up stuck in Dulles International Airport (IAD) for two days.

My travels started on Saturday, 1 PM Hawaii time, when I departed Kona airport for San Francisco. That flight went ridiculously smoothly, and was really quite comfortable. In San Francisco, me and my brother parted ways with my mother and step dad, who later called us to warn us that there was a big snow storm about to go through the East coast. We worried a bit, but thought nothing much of it really, since it wasn't supposed to do much to Norfolk or Newport News. So, we board the plane for IAD and have a very comfortable flight indeed.

After we land in IAD (leaving us at 8 AM Sunday Eastern time--I am very very low on sleep at this point), me and my brother part ways, so that he can beat the snow storm that was going to reach the Dulles area any minute, and because my flight had been confirmed to still be on. I call my roommate, and he says he can't pick me up (his truck really doesn't handle weather AT ALL), so I start to contemplate other means of getting home from Norfolk (I even call a couple of co-workers).

A couple of hours pass, and the time to board my flight comes... but it gets canceled. "Oh great," I say to myself, "Just what I really need. Again."

As a side note, most vacations I have made to the west coast for the past 4 years has involved one of my flights being canceled. Fortunately, this usually only involved me having to wait an extra hour or two in the airport before being able to go on my merry way.

Anyway, I proceed to wait in a ridiculously long line to make new travel arrangements (BLAH), which was admittedly made slightly easier by conversing with others that are also bored out of their minds in the ridiculously long line. When I finally get to the end of this line (it took a bit more than an hour, I believe), I am told that the soonest available flight I could get on confirmed (so no random chance involved) is Wednesday. That's right, WEDNESDAY, a whole three days later (except more like 4, since it was early in the day Sunday). At this juncture, I decide it is best to ask to get placed onto a waiting list for the first flight the next day (so Monday at 8:54 AM), but to also accept the guaranteed ticket for Wednesday, just in case.

So, I call my brother (to get his address), grab a taxi, and go to his place. When I arrive, I grab a 3 hours nap, because I REALLY NEEDED ONE (post-nap sleep counter: 4 hours of sleep over the past 24 hours). After the nap, I play some video games with my brother (Block Ops Zombie mode is AWESOME) and get slightly drunk. His roommate arrives, and some shenanigans occur that result in a few very unfortunate things happening to my brothers poor, poor couch. His roommate (a fun and good guy, overall) then proceeds to talk with me until 3 AM, which was nice because I like conversation, but was evil because I really wanted to sleep.

I then take a 2 hour nap and head back to the airport, where I wait for my next flight (sleep counter: 6 hours over a 48 hour period)! While I'm waiting, I took a certain amount of masochistic joy in watching my placement in the waiting list for this flight (I stuck around because the list would be transfered to later flights in the day): I started at position 40. After an hour, I get moved to position 42. Then position 43, and finally position 46 when the flight leaves (that's right, I got FURTHER DOWN THE LINE as time went on). When the flight leaves, I talk with the lady at the counter, where she promptly says, "WOW, someone must HATE you!"

Fortunately, she worked some magic, and informs me that she has gotten me bumped up to position 6! Lucky me! So lucky, that I decide to reward myself with a Five Guys breakfast: egg, bacon, and cheese sandwich with jalapeños and onions. Possibly one of the best fast-food breakfasts I've ever had, and much better than their burgers, because it was infinitely less greasy.

Anyway, I wait around until noon (the next flight into Norfolk), talk with my buddy Luke on the phone a bit (he offered to pick me up at the airport--he's such a nice guy), talk a bit with my step-dad, and have a generally jolly filled time (note: I'm acting slightly drunk because my sleep counter is: 7 hours over a 52 hour period--I grabbed an hour nap in the airport). During this time, I learn that every flight into Norfolk had been canceled the previous day, which is why the waiting list was so long (and probably why I kept on getting bumped later in line, as higher-paying customers wanted spots). Regardless, the waiting list for the next flight finally comes up and I'm.... number 21! Which is not 6! This made me cranky!

I wait around anyway, to see where my number ends up (the next flight after the noon-ish one was at 3, and there were a couple after that). I even get pretty hopeful, since the waiting list was getting shorter... until the noon flight got canceled. And every flight to Norfolk for the rest of the day, because of strong winds (basically, every flight that used a small plane). After confirming my position in the waiting list with the lady at the counter (position: IN YOUR DREAMS), I call my brother; we decide to meet in the Tyson's Corner mall, since he works in the area.

I grab a cab, and tell the driver to go the Tyson's Corner Mall. He asks:

"Where's that exactly?"

"It's the big mall in Tyson's Corner. You know, the one everyone from a couple of states go to."

"Do you have a specific address?"

"No..." I say, while thinking 'There really is a guy who makes a living off of getting people places in this area doesn't know about the biggest, most popular mall in the area!?'.

"...But I can probably get your Garmen to navigate us there. Also, it's right off of route 7."

"Oh, so you do know the address!"

"No, I don't, but if you just look it up, the Garmen can find it."

At this point, the cab driver finally uses the Garmen, and gets the location of Tyson's Galleria. Desperately wanting to get out of the fucking airport, I tell him that's fine, which sends us off.

Thirty-four dollars later, we are at the Tyson's Galleria. I hand the cab driver my credit card (I saw that he had a reader when I entered the cab).

"Oh, I'm sorry, I should've told you before we left--my card reader doesn't work."

"Dammit, can you just wait here while I go to an ATM here in the mall? I'll leave my stuff in the cab."

"Okay."

So, I run through Tyson's Galleria (which is quite rich and ritzy), ask a store-clerk where the nearest ATM is ("Oh, you know, somewhere not in the store," with a bored expression). Finally track it down, get some cash, and run back to the cab, where I grab my stuff and pay him (he didn't charge me extra).

Of course, I hadn't agreed to meeting my brother at the Tyson's Galleria, so with an entire week's worth of stuff, I start to walk to the mall. Fortunately, it isn't far. Unfortunately, it is at the other side of Chainbridge Road and Route 7, which are not easy roads to cross, especially with a weeks worth of stuff on your back.

Regardless, I make it, and enter through the nearest entrance: Macy's. As I walk in, the "You're stealing shit!" alarm goes off. Fortunately, the store is PACKED with people in their post-christmas shopping frenzies, so no one notices me (a guy who looks quite disheveled, wearing a large coat, and carrying to bags full of clothes in a CLOTHING STORE).

Finally getting through Macy's, I navigate my way to the theater food court. This proved difficult, because the mall was PACKED and the hallway stall people were persistent (one was actually quite attractive, and was trying her best to use this to her advantage by getting very close to me and lightly flirting. It didn't work). Hoping that I had enough time to catch a movie (since I was there), I took a look at the movie times, the line, and the current time. The prognosis: IN MY DREAMS. So, I wait for about an hour and a half for my brother to arrive (I had an icecream at the Coldstone--it was good). During my wait, I look up train times and station locations (prognosis: excellent locations, but not happening today). My brother arrives, he offers to drive me home. I tell him no (since I didn't want to put him through that), and tell him that I can take a train from the Alexandria station (near where he lives) tomorrow morning. He agrees, we do some errands on the way to his place, get to his place, promptly turn around and go to Hooters.

I enjoyed hooters. Our waitress was cute, had a nice sense of humor (one of my brother's friends got burned, multiple times), and really quite nice (she ended up staying an hour after her shift for us). I really wish I was able to go when I wasn't feeling like crap (sleep count: 6 hours over the past 60 hours) and was feeling a bit more hygenic (note: airplanes don't allow most toiletries, and I wasn't exactly planning on spending more than an hour in the Dulles area). Fortunately, I wasn't too bad off (I still had a pair of clean clothes packed, and I was able to borrow toothpaste from my brother), but I hadn't showered (my brother doesn't have spare towels), so I was feeling kinda grimy.

Finally, the next day comes, and I arrive at the train station (sleep counter: 12 hours over the past 72 hours). I doze in and out of consciousness while waiting for the train. I get on the train, doze in and out the entire trip (note: trains are fucking comfortable. Fuck planes). At around 2 PM, I arrive in Newport News (much closer to home than Norfolk), grab a cab, and head home. After doing a couple of chores (feeding myself, reading mail, cleaning a foot of snow off of my car), I head to work for a couple of hours. Then I head back home, played some video games, and went to bed.

THE END.

Rant About the Future

Damn, it has been a long time since I put anything in here.

Anyway, so I came to a realization just now (just now being 10:08 PM, 9/8/2010) that I haven't really gotten out of the mindset that I forced myself into right out of college: I MUST FIND A JOB RIGHT NOW. I find this incredibly odd, since as you all know, I am currently employed, and have absolutely no need to look for a job at the moment.

And yet I still do.

Whenever I come across a company that makes me think, "Wow, they're doing something pretty neat," I almost immediately go to the employment section of their website. Usually these companies are gaming companies: for instance, I just recently (just recently being 10:06 PM, 9/8/2010) went to Team 17's website (since a friend of mine linked me to the newest game available on Worms Steam), saw that they were still actively making games (albeit small games, something I'm admittedly interested in), and then promptly went to their employment section.

In there employment section, I noted that I seemed fully capable of doing what they want out of an employee (at least, from one of the very short job descriptions they provided), and that they were based in the U.K. (specifically Wakefield, Yorkshire). This made me even more excited--IT WAS IN THE UK.

Which brings me to the next aspect of my rant: I seem to feel a need to leave this general geographic area. I want to go to Japan to teach English, I want to go to the West Coast and get a job doing something else there, and, most recently, I've had a huge, nagging urge to run off to the UK. Now, this could be fueled by a few things: perhaps it's because, on average, a European gets more days off/more leeway on the number of hours they work per week than your typical American; or perhaps it's just because I apparently might like it a lot there there. This does not, however, really explain my reasons for liking just about everywhere except here at the moment (although, I could give reasons for all of the listed places).

The real reason, I think, that I feel I need to escape here is this: I am afraid. I am afraid that I will get entirely too comfortable doing a job that I find okay (I do like my co-workers a lot though--I don't want to be a complete whiner here), in an area that I find just okay, simply because it pays the bills, it's cheap, secure, and because I don't completely dislike it (there are some days I actually enjoy it to a degree). The worst part about this: I can totally see myself settling for this, just because it's easy. Fortunately, I don't like that aspect about me, and thanks to the internet, I am being constantly reminded of all of the other things I could be doing (well, could be doing later--I'll definitely give CiBER at least a year), so the chances of me actually sticking around here too long are fairly slim (I hope).

And, admittedly, I am currently enjoying life--I don't really have many complaints with how I am right now.

Anyway, that's all for my rant for now (I'm stoopidly tired). G'night world.

The JRPG Predicament

First and foremost, I must blow off all of the internet dust that has collected on here...
...

Anyway (that's right, elipsies blow off internet dust), today I shall rant about the current predicament of JRPGs, focusing on this article by IGN.

I will start this by saying that I actually largely agree with this article. That being said, however, if one were to implement all of these changes onto a single JRPG, you would get WRPG, and let's face it, WRPGs are starting to become a bit... stale as well (perhaps that is a bit harsh of a word--what I mean is that Bioware hasn't exactly changed up their formula much lately, and neither has Bathesda). So, I am going to go through every item in this list and state my thoughts and opinions about them! Yey!

1. People Live Here? This one, I largely agree with--I often times that the cities in some JRPGs to be somewhat... lacking, and nothing incentives not talking to NPCs like NPCs repeating the same thing over and over. That being said, WRPGs fall for this as well--instead of standing still and saying one canned thing, NPCs wander about randomly and say one of 3 canned things randomly. And, if over-implemented, you get yet another open-world game, which is when you start transforming a JRPG into a WRPG (which is not our goal here).
   
   I, however, will not just criticize--I actually have some thoughts about how this can be fixed. Simply make a lot of dynamic background NPCs in your JRPG towns and cities. In this way, you can still have the linear build that is classic (and, in a way, almost desireble) of the JRPG genre while still giving the cities and towns a bit more life. Can you interact with it? No, but JRPGs are not about interacting with everything everywhere.
   
   
2. The Only Good Filler is Jelly in Donuts. I whole-heartedly agree. The final dungeons of JRPGs often times border on absolutely obnoxious. You do not need a ridiculously long and tedious final dungeon to make the conclusion seem epic--you need an appropriately epic final boss and a couple of maps you can grind in to level up if necessary.
   
   
3. Invest in Presentation. This one is simply miss-placed. Sure, doing dialogue almsot exclusively through anime-styled "card-board cut-outs" can be a bit of a cop-out, but stating that a JRPG should have "fully animated, interactive" dialogue sequences is somewhat insulting. For one, many JRPGs do not implement this feature (including every Final Fantasy game, Star Ocean game, and most Tales games--the exception there being the skits, which I will get to in a moment), but instead show the cast looking at each other, moving their lips, and talking (wow, that sounds strangely "fully animated" to me!). Also, I find that the implementation of the "card-baord cut-outs" during skits in the Tales series to be both effective and incredibly endeering--the down-toned feel of them reminds you that they are simply there for flavor, but altogether not necessary for the progression of the game (and thus do not get in the way of the progression of the game).
   
   As for the "interactive" bit, this is again showing how IGN is suggesting that JRPGs should become WRPGs--a JRPG isn't often about creating a character's personality through a series of dialogue options (although, there are a few noteble exceptions, like Persona 3 and Persona 4), but about watching a story about a set of characters unfold (I must admit, it almost hurts me to say "watching", but I truly believe it is true), with a limited amount of story-interaction (thus, only giving the player dialogue options at key points). If this is something you do not like about JRPGs, then you are seriously playing the wrong genre of game.
   
   
4. The Road Less Traveled. Around at this point, it became incredibly clear that this particular writer wants JRPGs to become WRPGs. Once again, the point of JRPG is not to be able to interact with everything and its uncle, but mostly to experience a story. One does not need a world map to experience a story. Also, not having a world map does not mean that there won't be any side-quest or non-story related excursion are to be had--it just means that you do not have to travel to the far ends of the world and back to do them. In fact, if the point of this article is to point out how JRPGs have not changed enough, one should note that JRPGs have been doing world maps for decades, and usually fill no purpose except to add in extra uneeded gameplay hours wandering around. Finally, keep in mind that many JRPGs still use the mechanic, if it matters that much to a JRPG player to have one (i.e. the Tales series).
   
   
5. Cliches are for Chumps. Honestly, I agree whole-heartidly with this one. This writer is not implying the removal of the anime visuals, just some change in characters' personalities, which I am all for--JRPGs have mostly become quite predictable and stale with their characters' personalities, which is bad considering that that is the pull for JRPGs.
   
   
6. Voice Acting Approaches. OH MY GOD IS THIS DOT ON (mostly, but I'll get back to this). I will never forget Farleen's voice from Star Ocean 3, which was almost bad enough to make me want to rip the game out and burn it, to exorcise the bad voice acting demons (fortunately, she plays an incredibly small role in the game, and thus on does not have to listen to her much at all).
   
   However, a "lack of localization funds" should not be the issue here. In fact, the best solution is also the cheapest--just use the fucking japanese voices. Not only does this cater towards the audience most likely to play a JRPG (namely, anime nerds), but it would also cut down costs for highering voice actors (since you wouldn't have to). In fact, localization is generally an evil act--it takes away from the experience of the game while not succeeding at its intended purpose of attracting a larger audience.
   
   
7. I Feel So Alone. This one is not too horrible, but still completely unecessary. Once again, JRPGs are about experiencing a story, not about a deep, multi-player experience. Doing this would be largely like adding a microwave oven to a cell-phone--sure, it'd be a great in a pinch, and it would attract some people, but at the same time, it's just not right. Also, with the generally linear character progression (power-wise) of JRPG characters, online matches would pretty much just come down to who has grinded for XP and items more.
   
   
8. No More Save Points. I also agree with this one (holy crap, I'm starting to sound agreeble!). Save points were widely present in the old-school JRPGs because of space and programming restrictions. However, with current technology, this is no longer necessary. That being said, if you want to retain the "tension" of getting through a whole section without an opportunity to save, once could implement a feature where you can make a temporary save that boots you out of the game when you create the save, and deletes itself when you load it--OH WAIT, this is called the "quicksave" feature that Squeenix and many other companies have been releasing for their handheld games! That being said, I have yet to see this be implemented for a console JRPG, which is kind of lame.
   
   
9. Write a New Story, M'Kay? YES. YES YES YES YES YES. As an advent JRPG fan myself, I will readily admit that I am getting sick and tired of a rag-tag group of rebels going out on a quest that eventually leads to saving the world. Are there a limited number of stories to be told in existance? Probably yes. Does this mean we have to always use the same story for every JRPG? God no. All that being said, the occassional JRPG switches up the story enough for this to not be universally true (for instance, the Shin Megami Tensei series [including the Persona series], The World Ends With You, and Fragile seems like it's heading in that direction).
   
   
10. Battle Systems: Kick it Up a Notch. I also agree with where this one is coming from. I will admit, the screenshot included next to this one made me fear that the writer was again suggesting that JRPGs become more like a Bethesda or Bioware game, but once I read the description, it isn't really suggesting that at all. That being said, it is obvious that this writer hasn't actually played a wide variety of JRPGs, because if he had, he would know that this is already not true. For instance, FFX-2 (although many of us would like to ignore it's existance) had an incredibly innovative battle system derivative of Square's ATB system. The Tales series implements a very high-octaine, real-time battle mechanic that plays much like a brawler. The Star Ocean series also implements a similar game mechanic, except it works on a more 3D plane than the Tales games. Finally, to fully reveal the scope of my JRPG experiences (mostly to my own embarrassment), the Ar Tonelico series has implements a very interesting battle system revolving around using your front-line fighters to keep your real damage-dishers alive while they charge their nuke spells in real time.
    

And that is all of them. Again, at times, it feels like this IGN writer wants to see JRPGs that are... WRPGs. However, this does not mean that all of these points hold no merit.