The Sequel

And as such, I begin work on the followup far before the first one is near publishable form?

Why? Cause I'm at the stage where I'm waiting around for ages waiting for feedback from my readers and such to see what's good and what's bad. I need something to in the mean time of course, so what better answer than to get cracking on yet another book.

Series are viewed by a lot of critics as cheap cash ins of the original. And they are absolutely right - the publishers love cash ins because cash ins are money. I'm not saying I want to go to writing absolute shit for money - but aiming for money is a fine goal. To make money from your writing is the goal of many, and sometimes you have to appeal to the consumer to reach your goal.

Especially when your writing fantasy, and with fantasy, series are all the more common. Why? You're likely creating an entire setting from scratch full of ideas and concepts. It's kind of a waste to throw all of those away after a single book. I have a lot of concepts in the first book that are merely hinted at that I think are cool- but through the context of the story of Escape elaborating on them has no point. So I move on to my next idea.

The next book is a direct sequel, taking place days after the first. However, it's only a sequel in the sense that the movie Mallrats is a sequel to Clerks. Mallrats takes place a day after Clerks, references the events of Clerks, but doesn't use a majority of the same characters, sans Jay & Silent Bob. My follow up is in the same vein - the events of the second book couldn't of happened without the events of the first, but the focus departs the central three characters in that book for another set of characters in another town. As of my current plans, only three characters, all minor and secondary in the first, will make reappearances in the second.

Publishers love series. It's actually a promotional to the first - because if a publisher or agent knows you have the will to be prolific, they are far more likely to represent you or publish your book knowing that you aren't just some one off writer. A lot of readers, myself included, will seek out an author's other books even if the one they read was only passable and not the greatest thing ever. Ex: Robert Lynn Asprin's Myth series. I didn't love this series, of the three major series I've read entirely(Discworld & Brust's Vlad Taltos series) it is by the far the weakest. That said, it was entertaining enough for me to read the rest of them. If I wasn't such a cheap ass, this would of meant more sales, because I know Asprin's work is at least passable, vs. taking a risk on other Author's work.

It's kind of a sad way to do things, but it's the way things are. I wanted to write far more stories with the setting anyway, so if I can manipulate the industry in the process - well, yeah, I'm going to.

Editing Round 2

Went over the manuscript once again, and as usual, it completely consumed my time as I tend to not know the meaning of moderation. Most of what I did this time was cut useless words and excessive adverbs. I kind of like how it turned out given it all, makes the narrative seem more assertive and less sketchy. I could probably stand to cut more, but I need to stop OCDing over it all really.

Until then it's await feedback from my slow reading friends, before I accidentally lop off some part people really like.

But for now, random movie reviews ahoy:

Balls of Fury - A campy comedy that doesn't try to be anymore than that, thanks to the marvels of editing. It's kind of a testament to it- if you watch the deleted scenes, it's evident they would of brought the movie down by being too serious - which would be a kiss of death for it since it's a movie about a life or death Ping Pong tournament - a concept few would hear and remain straight faced. Very good for what it is. 7/10

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - I don't know how this got mixed in with my comedies as I initially thought it was another crime drama since I never really did any research into what it was about outside being based on a book by Hunter S. Thompson. Strangely enough, it's rightfully classified as a comedy and a pretty decent one too. It's all a bit random but given it's about some writer(Side note: Why do writers keep writing about writers? I know it's write what you know, but could you at least try to show some variance? Make them seem less like Author Avatars?) hopped up on more drugs than I honestly knew existed stumbling through Las Vegas for a story, it's a randomness that makes sense as druggies are never the most logical types. It kind of ignores the standard plot structure for "I got high and went around Las Vegas. This is what happened". Just goes to show you that there's no rules to follow if you just want to put something entertaining out there- and probably whatever purpose one could write for. 8/10

Blurb'O'Movies

YOU NEED MY OPINIONS. YOU CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT THEM.

Team America: World Police - A 90 minute South Park Episode essentially, with puppets instead of cardboard. With 50% of the jokes being about them being puppets. I essentially have the same complaint with this movie that I have with South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut - despite being a South Park lover, the type of humor just doesn't work on such a long scale. I firmly believe the movie would of worked so much better if it didn't just reek of so many South Park staples, but as is, it's mildly amusing, but I really didn't like it. 5/10

Thank You For Smoking - To the lowest common denominator to something a bit more high brow. I dug this movie for some reason, possibly because they made the protagonist someone you can't bring yourself to boo or cheer - to use a wrestling term here, he's the perfect tweener. He's a gigantic smug asshole, but he has just enough redeeming quality where you don't want to hate him, and I believe this was the intention, making it a very well done movie. 8/10

That's all for today, too busy to write too much but I figured I best toss SOMETHING up here.

Why I Should Likely Seek Help

So I was struck with a completely random power outtage several hours ago. It's pouring down rain outside, but there is no thunder. Jumped out as strange to me, until my bedroom door randomly thrown open. The Anti-Occam's Razor Theory I like thinking about(in which instead of the most obvious solution I think of the most ridiculous way possible to explain things) is that one of my great great great great grand uncles from the Cherokee tribe's ghost had to bust into my door to tell me about a sale on handbags at the J.C. Penny's at the mall. Which is odd since I have no interest in handbags, wondering why one of my dead uncles from the late 1700s even cares or knows what a handbag is, and why did he manifest himself in spirit to me randomly all this time only to annoyingly throw my door open then forget to tell me about the handbag sale.

But if you really want to disagree with my perfectly logical theory, I guess we can just say it was the wind. And while we're going with your crazy person logic, we'll say the wind was responsible for the power outage too.

So I was left in the dark with nothing to do, so I turned my Nintendo DS I never played into a makeshift reading light and set forth to tackling my fresh bounty I stole from the library today. It was either that or sleep, and we all know sleep is vastly overrated. I went forth and read the first 90 pages of Stephen King's On Writing. It was suggested by the Something Awful forums, and even though I disliked The Mist for the most part, hey it can't hurt. I mean, he's a ludicrously famous and rich writer and I'm not. Even if all his stories are about writers from New England. He might have something worth saying on the field.

The book is apparently half-autobiography and he brought up a decent point- lots of people can't remember shit when they get to that age. A friend of mine in her 30s's earliest memory is apparently one of kindergarten. Her memory might just not be good, but hell if I know, but I figure let's be hypothetical and say our young memories wither as we age. So on behalf of the unlikely chance I become ludicrously successful and famous enough to warrant writing my own autobiographical account, I shall now post here, for all of the Internet to see, and possibly myself in forty or so years, my earliest memory at the time of my age being 21 years, 8 months, 25 days.

I had to have been no older than one. I was still in a white crib, and I actually remember getting my head caught in there at least once. So that may have been my earliest memory, but screw that, I don't remember anything about it and I wouldn't be telling you this if it wasn't at least mildly interesting. I suppose my head getting stuck in crib bars is plenty interesting if you're some sort of infant-hating sadist, but I'm getting off track here. It was the middle of the night, must have been three at night or so- proving that I was never a sound sleeper, even as an infant. I gathered this, not because I was a super genius who could tell time at the age of one, but because my parents were both asleep. My mother was quite the insomiac and would commonly stay up to watch all the late night talk shows and not sleep until quite some time afterwards. People's practices never change much over the years when you start to hit that comfortable stride- so something she did when I was six was something very likely she did when I was a toddler. I sat up and looked around. One year olds don't know good enough to see that it's still dark out to turn over and go back to sleep, that's wisdom not gained until about age twelve- for me anyway.

Little old me of course, decided to engage in a conversation with a piece of gum on the wall. The Tetricks were never the tidiest of people, and I'm sure my brother just happened to love his gum, and slapping it against the wall wherever instead of putting it in the trash. It must of been grape because I clearly remember the gum being purple. I can't remember the foggiest what I was talking to the gum about, probably because as I couldn't yet speak I don't think I was the best orator. All I can remember is the gum taunting me, and it upset me. All I think I did was did my best to protest as much as this toddler vs. gum argument can go. I don't think I cried, as no one ran in to check on me. I must of got tired of it eventually as I realized I couldn't escape the crib and there wasn't really much I could do so I went back to sleep.

Only to one year old me, I wasn't arguing with gum. I was arguing with some anthropomorphic personification of the moon. A blue crescent moon wearing sunglasses, who I remember talking to me in some Barry White-ish voice while mocking me, probably because I couldn't reach him, the crib bars barring all the rage and fury my infant self could unleash upon his fragile Already Been Chewed Form.

Being older and presumably wiser, I now know who my oldest nemesis and rival supposedly is.

Mac Tonight.

Now at some point earlier that day I must of seen this commercial on television and it struck a cord with me. My toddler mind must have decided that I just didn't like this random and once used advertising McDonalds Mascot. Maybe I just dislike people with really long heads, or people who wear sunglasses at night time. I knew that was stupid even then.

Or maybe I should be more concerned with why I was a one year old kid who was hallucinating a conversation with a piece of chewed gum and should probably ask my relatives if there was a possibility I was being slipped LSD at such a young age. I know I was given a beer around this time as well, so maybe they thought one is the perfect age to experiment with drugs and alcohol. Get it out of my system early.

This, folks, is why I don't drink and stay off the drugs. I'm giving my parents the benefit of the doubt that I wasn't a one year old who was on an acid trip, and that my mind is perfectly fugged up enough already that I don't need to mess with it's chemistry anymore out of fear of something completely fuggin nutbar happening like making me come up with the cure for AIDs or becoming the Prime Minister of France after a random night of hard drinking.

Reflecting, I have many more fugged up stories I could force out here, but that's another story for another time- maybe next time in fact. Join me next time as I tell the stories of how I almost die thrice at the tender age of four through random accidents, same I need to be committed time, same I need to be committed channel.

More Movie Reviews

Because my opinion matters so much.

The stuff that came next were all comedies, as as I stated earlier, I was quite tired of Crime Dramas at that point.

Clerks 2 - I consider myself a big fan of the five, albeit somewhat incorrectly but conveniently enough Jay & Silent Bob movies. Could also be called the Jersey Trilogy, but I also liked Dogma and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back so that'd be incorrect, and Pentilogy isn't even a word I believe. I haven't seen Jersey Girl so I have no way of telling how horrible that is, and as advertised, it's not really my cup of tea so it's very low on the old list. I was somewhat wary of the film given it's obviously a response to the backlash against Jersey Girl, but it turns out it was as good a sequel as I could hope to be. It's able to stand on it's own and not just a total cash in on the first movie that a lot of movies seem to be, with a few nods here and there referring to the other five movies here and there. All I can really say for the most part is I dug it- and it was even...strangely enlightening in a few degrees. It's not knowledge I'm proud to have, but I suppose it's somehow useful. Maybe. I'll get back to you on that. 9/10

Borat - This movie made me realize I talk to too many stoners, because they all loved this movie far too much than what it was worth. It's mostly just Family Guy humor- it's a long series of skits that are mostly unrelated outside the fact that Borat and his foreign friend are traveling across America. It has it's moments sure, but I really need to stop taking movie suggestions from stoners. They laugh too easily and I guess that's why they enjoy crap like this. It also loses points for far too much masculine nudity, and not even good masculine nudity. It should be disgusting to everyone across the complete spectrum of sexual preference. 6/10

Hot Fuzz - I don't say this often, but I fuggin loved this movie. A pretty much perfect parody of over the top explosive cop action movies and tries to remain as such being set in an apparently perfectly peaceful village in England. The plot keeps going at a great pace through the movie and keeps the gags coming straight through the whole time while avoiding being too excessive. There's also a solid plot twist in the middle I didn't really see coming, complete with a lampooning of it's own plot twist. This is probably the best movie I've seen in years quite honestly. The only complaint I can form would be for to have kept one of the deleted scene subplots in - explains one aspect of the story near the end so much better. 10/10

And that's the random movie review backlog kept up for now. Join me next time as I review more shit no one really cares about because my random opinion is good practice according to a bunch of books...and books never lie, do they?

Baltimore Sucks

Today, I took the SAT. This required me to go into a place I don't often travel, a place known as Baltimore City. It is a terrible, terrible place. Did I mention it was terrible? Oh yeah, it's terrible.

The place I was going to take the test was a place called Baltimore City College. It looked like a nice old building, probably the only nice thing about the city. What I quickly learned when I entered the building was in fact that it was not a college at all...but a high school. Why on earth do you call it a college if it's a high school? It's semantics, sure, but it just struck me as incredibly stupid. The only refuge of it's claim is that it seemed to be intended for gifted and talented students, as shockingly, they somehow exist in Baltimore, hence maybe earning it something more of a title than a High School- but it's still just a high school, not a college. Blahg.

The atrocities of the city came to ahead when I left from the SATs(I think I did above average. Much like my ACT. I'm confident in my ability to do Above Averagely in most things.). It's particulary windy in Baltimore, and I quickly was freezing my ass off. I had to call and wait for my ride, since I'm far too impoverished to get my own vehicle or be able to even find someone with a decent enough car to teach me to drive. I figured since at this point I'd eaten nothing all day(I intended to eat before the test but was in a rush) so I set forth to just look for some place I could sit, get something hot to eat, wait for my ride and not freeze my fuggin ass off. A McDonalds, Wendy's, Burger King- a fast food joint. Should be easy enough, I'm in Baltimore, the thirteenth biggest city in the United States. Surely, these fast food entrepreneurs will strike at the gold of a dense urban area and I should have plenty of choice.

Nope. Nothing. Two miles around the city, and I couldn't find one viable fast food restaurant. Or a pay phone, what I must use because I'm too god-damned cheap to get a cellphone and join the 21st century. Couldn't even find one of those, but I could find COUNTLESS liquor stores. COUNTLESS churches, and flat out hilariously(to me anyway), a liquor store and a church in one building, right next store to one another. If it was funny once, it was ironic twice, and flat out sad when I saw it a third time. Yes, three buildings with both a liquor store and house of God right next to each other - and I doubt they dealt solely in the blood of Christ. In addition, I found three places to get my paychecks cashed, if I had a paycheck on me. One offered to prepare my taxes, but I think I'll save my money and do them myself, while avoiding the likely fact it seems like a prime place to get mugged. While I could find no fast food restaurants, I found no less than six, yes count them ladies and gentlemen, six, Chinese food take out places. I was not in Baltimore's Chinatown, mind you, for as far as I know the city doesn't have one. There's a Little Italy, but no Chinatown. But one would think, with so many Chinese restaurants, the market would be saturated and all but two or three would go out of business. No, Baltimore really really fuggin loves it's Chinese food apparently.

So there went my plan of a comfortable lunch while waiting for my ride. At that point all I wanted to do was find a pay phone, and if I had to suffer the annoying as hell winds, so be it. After another half mile, alas, I found one. Two, actually, but one had lost the receiver. Someone must of ran off with it, and apparently stealing pay phones is a common occurance because there were steel plates in place to keep people from yanking the phones out of the booths. I went to work on the one working one, having to un-stick the 6 key before I could sucessfully dial my home phone number and acquire my ride. That was easy enough, despite the phone quality being...well quite shit.

Speaking of shit, a bird shit on me. This isn't the cities fault, birds shit. Can't be helped. But it just seemed horribly symbolic of the city that of all the places for a bird to shit on me, I get shit on in Baltimore. It wasn't that bad, but it was just a shitastic top to shitastic revelations about the city that I call my hometown, mainly because explaining where Dundalk is too much effort and I'm only a half mile from the city line anyway. I just made a point, and rightfully so, to avoid the city.

The adventures in the city being shitty weren't over yet. I went into a nearby convenience store- which honestly, I would not been able to tell it was even open for business outside a single neon sign. Apparently there was no room for decoration and advertisement of sales because they feared someone busting through the window and robbing the place, so instead of advertisements, they had huge iron bars protecting the windows. As I hate advertisements, I am not sure if this is exactly worth complaining about. Entering the store itself, low and behold, yes, the clerk was paranoid to put himself behind a huge plexiglass wall to protect himself from the customers. Having just been shit on by the Birds of Baltimore, I asked for a napkin or paper towel, and was denied. In the county, this was never denied, regardless if I was customer or not, clerks would always happily give you a towel. Here, the clerk was a dick because I'm 21, which puts me at prime age to pull out a glock and rob his store. I shrugged, and looked to perhaps buying something to eat here, given at this point I'd eaten nothing for about 20 hours, and as a mildly obese man, that is hell. My senses got the better of me given the condition of the place, so I stopped myself from ordering a hot dog of some sort, and my instincts were proven right as it looked moldy and literally had a hair on it when I passed the rollers with the dogs on it. I decided just to get a sealed drink, which cost me $1.05. That seems kind of irrelevant, but it was a can of Arizona Orangeade, which carries a price of 99 cents right on the can. It says something about the store really I suppose when they mark up stuff with the cost right on the can where every other store I've been to has honored the 99 cent price tag.

I took it outside and sat it down. I spit on my pleather jacket and rubbed it against the brick wall to get the blatant bird shit stain from not being no obvious. I then cracked open my only nourishment for the time and drank it. It tasted kind of off, so I looked at the expiration date. Low and behold, oh my god, yes indeedy, it was expired. I payed 6 cents more for an expired can of Orangeade. I just didn't care enough to bitch and figured I don't see what in it could of killed me it was past it's "Sell By" date so I just drank it until my chariot to get me the fug out of this horrible city finally showed up.

This is only a rough account of the screwed up shit I saw around the city. I saw countless things in disrepair, and I'm sure one could go on and on about the shittiness of the city, hell I hate it and I wasn't even mugged, raped, or murdered, all of which have horrifyingly high rates in Baltimore according to Wikipedia. This isn't really any sort of political call to fix the city, cause I'm sure that's not going to fix anything. The city is the way it is sometimes, and my grievances are of ludicrously light concern(Spoiled Orangeade is really nothing. Just a small sign in a bigger picture) compared to most people's, but the whole point of this little tirade can be summed up in two words- Baltimore sucks. As soon as I get the money to do so, I'm getting the hell out of here.

Short Movie Review Assault

Random opinions for filler content which may or may not be worth your time. Woo.

Been catching up on some essential and not so essential movies recently with Netflix, mainly keeping in line for inspiration with a crime-based world for Escape.

The Godfather - The only thing I really didn't like about this movie was that it kind of just suddenly ends, as if there were plans for a sequel, which there weren't at the time. I prefer my movies to be self-encompassing really, but eh. Drags a little, but that might be my modern attention span acting up. 8/10

The Godfather Part II - I liked this one a bit more than the first. Darker in the main plot, but I really preferred the subplot of the flashbacks of Don Vito coming to America and getting started through it all. Non-Ending with a purpose since you can assume everything that's implied to happen happens. 9/10

The Godfather Part III - As expected, always viewed as the weakest of the series and my opinion isn't much different. The higher production values of years later kind of kill the immersion of the jump between the first two. I saw no point in the Cousincest subplot, and damn you need to review the first two if you want to know what's going on here or you'd be clueless. I don't like movies that can't stand alone. 6/10

Casino - Joe Pesci must be typecast as a psychopath because he plays another one here. I will say alot of these movies could be made better by cutting em down more, but I'll give this one a pass because it's another 'might be a true story' thing and they want to show all the details. 7/10

Scarface - A movie with a bastard as a protagonist. Only difference is, that unlike most stories where the protagonist is a bastard, the protagonist is actually far more bastardy than most of the people he's in conflict with. He only does one redeeming thing in about the whole movie that goes beyond the call of duty - and then immediately invalidates that by killing his sister's husband. I can see where this movie gets it's cult like following. 8/10

Taxi Driver - This actually isn't a crime drama at all. It got tossed in the spree, probably because of DeNiro. Very weird but intriguing movie. Travis Bickle is a great character with radically different yet all the same believable motivations for his actions, one of those characters who could buy a modern day psychiatrist a house with all the therapy he'd need. Probably my favorite drama of all of them I've watched. 10/10

I think I would of enjoyed the lot of them a lot more if I didn't watch them one after another. I started to really get burned out on the genre once I was getting to Scarface. My attention was really getting killed. After Taxi Driver(although I wouldn't count it as a Crime Drama) I'm sure as hell going to take a break from the genre. Which is fine since Escape is more or less done barring any serious rewrites suggested or requested. Tomorrow I'll add a few more reviews(more of my favored genre of Comedy) but I got some SAT stuff to read up on instead of writing for an audience of one. (Hi M.)

Book Review: The Mist

The Mist
by Stephen King

The Mist was recently released in theaters last year. Of course, this means that there has to be a paperback re-release of the novella- complete with advertising that it is 'Now a Major Motion Picture' on the cover. I have little intention of seeing the movie and have mostly read the book due to the recommendation of a friend, and since it was re-released last year, it falls into my territory of cleared to review, or mock excessively enough.

Truth be told, it was an entertaining enough read for what it was. It has however, made it quite clear that I seem to be completely unaffected by horror. Nothing came off as too creepy in the book honestly, but then again I haven't watched many effective horror movies either. Maybe I'm just a bit too cynical to be taken into any sort of horror, or it may just be the book comes off a bit ridiculous at times.

When I picked up the book, I thought The Mist in question would be something cool and bad ass like some sort of flesh eating bacteria, or a poisonous gas, or some deadly neurotoxin that turns people homicidal. It turns out to be a bunch of gigantic man-eating creatures hiding in the mist. Personal preference strikes again, as supernatural monsters never really intrigued me.

I do not find tentacles frightening. Ever. The internet has made the concept of tentacles being instruments of horror completely absurd to me. Maybe if I am attacked by an octopus or squid and survive, my opinion will change, but until then, I just laughed at the whole scene of a bag boy being dragged away by the mysterious tentacle monster.

Then there was the completely ridiculous subplot where the protagonist, an artist from New England, a real stretch from the protagonist of most King novels of writers from New England, lusts after one of the women who happened to be trapped in a supermarket in fear of the strange mist. King then inserts a completely random scene where the protagonist and the women sneak off and have a random hump off which really added nothing to the story and just came off as bizarre. He later escapes the supermarket with the woman, but the fact that he drags along two other people(one his son, completely understandable), one being he has no sexual attraction to makes the love or lust link for bringing her along quite weak.

The characters get kind of absurd too – now I've never been trapped in a supermarket by some supernatural force, but I have enough faith in humanity that people wouldn't start taking crazy woman's ramblings for human sacrifice seriously enough to start forming a cult around her in that situation. Maybe one or two, but not as many as portrayed in the book. The woman they followed is portrayed as someone with a strong force of personality, yes, but strong personalities are ignored all the same if they start promoting insanity like human sacrifice, especially in a modern year like 1980, the year of the book's initial publication.

Then comes the biggest sin, which could of at least redeemed the book with a mystery element- the classic non-ending, which he even points out as a non-ending. Pointing it out, of course, doesn't really help things. There are hints to what caused the book's title event of a strange mist swarming over the region, but King goes with the non-ending, which ALWAYS has, and ALWAYS will piss me off. You read along to a story, hoping to get some resolution....then, nope, nothing. I guess it's suppose to instill despair for the characters for the reader, but doesn't change the fact that it's lazy. Another common criticism of King's work is that he rarely writes a good ending, and only the incredibly unlikely chance he ever reads it, and even if he does he's probably figured it out now- cutting out the ending is like not putting an answer down on the test. You still fail at the ending.

So much from taking a recommendation from that friend again, especially in the avenue of horror. The Mist isn't really scary to me at all. Maybe I'll try horror again down the line in my broadening of the horizons, but for now, I think I'm going to back off before I become that much more cynical. Again, it was entertaining for what it was, maybe you scare easier than I do, so maybe you should give it a try – but if tentacles make you giggle instead of the hair sitting up on your neck, you'll probably want to pass.

Editing Round 1 Done

After weeks of annoying distractions, I have finally plodded through my book to complete the first round of editing. I'm calling it the second draft, and have slightly changed the title to Escape From Allbridge. It's slightly more exciting and implies more of an actiony feel then the more political "Fall of" title. It will likely change again as soon as mind comes up with a good metaphor for it all.

I've given it out to two readers thus far, might be more if I can make two people who actually read care enough. One thinks the Halo novels are worth reading. I don't know what to say to that, except it kind of makes me sketchy of his opinion. It SHOULDN'T, given I've never read the damn things, but my mind has granted the verdict of crap until proven not crap, and most video game stories just don't translate well to book form since video game stories, much like action movie plots, are meant to be excuses for cool shit to happen not be a good, entertaining read.

The other is a woman with an unhealthy dragon obsession(She'll be disappointed at the lack of dragons showing up in EfA) and has apparently read more fantasy novels of varying quality than I can ever hope to do. I ought to try to get more of a sampling and force it on anyone who's gullible enough to read my nonsense, but I don't know. Maybe I should join some sort of writer's sites and grow on a critiqueing spree. Something called Scribophile being advertised on Something Awful(and oddly Agent-Query, the site I plan on using eventually).

For now, it's wait for feedback, and try to figure out Open Office so I can format them better for queries. Also, turning to edit The Aloysius, which really needs it cause I used a shitton of cliches I shouldn't have because I hate cliches.

Editing, Editing, Editing

I suppose this is one for the archives if this blog ever picks up, just so the people going over it and becoming my creepy internet stalkers have some frame of reference.

I haven't posted any new content in awhile because I'm on an editing roll. When I finish that I'm going to assault these archives with a bunch of stuff I have going around in my hand, going a new direction with some reviews because I don't really care anymore.

Editing wise, been focusing on the novel. Figure it's best to do one at a time. Short Story is secondary as I kind of view it as something I wrote to elaborate the world and as a promotional tool and not much else. So far, I'm currently 57/125 pages on Word, and have been making some good progress and finally have conquered my initial error of putting everything in present tense(which sounded weird in context).

Being on an editing mania puts a damper in your time to do much else, but it is a necessary evil.

Character Profile: Guy Fausto

Been editing. Which isn't that fun, but there's some writing here and there, so you have spots of brightness. In order to keep content coming for this blog, thought I'd post another of my writing ventures here. Haven't made any more novel character profiles, but I do have my E-fed character who I hold as having a lot of depth character wise. This is a repost from that E-feds Hall of Fame page.

Guy Fausto:
Age: 31
Profession: Professional Wrestler, Evil Genius
History:

June 9th, 1976: In the cool summer of North Dakota, a considerably delirious large woman ran into the local general hospital in Bismarck. Complaining of abdomen pains, the large woman was soon found to be pregnant, which shockingly startled the woman. The doctors were incredibly baffled at how this 31 year old woman would be so stupid not to know she was pregnant. She claimed she had been on the road for the past 8 or 9 months in pursuit of some wannabe rockstar, and that she didn't want to stop until the pain gave her no other choice. She received proper medical treatment, and soon delivered the child. However, as soon as she was left alone, they found her window open, her sheets tied together, and a few knocked over bed pans. The mother had fled the scene, leaving the child parentless.

With the hospital staff not knowing what to do, they turned to the documents that the mother had been suppose to fill out. She filled out the form very poorly, leaving her own name, and the name of her son as only marked as G Fausto. No social security number or methods of tracking her down available, they were forced to put the child up for adoption. He found a home in that town, and found his new name of Guybrush Ignatious Richards.

Guybrush grew up under the watch of Maxwell and Rebecca Richards. The couple ran into infertility problems, making them choose to adopt. Maxwell was a strict military man, and demanded strict discipline from Guy. Guy tried his best to comply to the pressures and high expectations, always bringing excellent grades home from school. But the pressure always worked on his young psyche. He worked, worked, and worked, but he never got much time to do what most kids did- not like he had much of a choice, as they were in a very remote section on the outskirts of Bismarck. Outside of school, Guy was never exposed to many kids his age. His only form of relief and entertainment came on Saturday nights- when the AWA, the American Wrestling Alliance, ran it's weekly show. As a hobby outside of school, Guy made sure to never miss it. It became his big dream. Other kids in his class wanted to be astronauts, he wanted to be the next Heavyweight Champion of the World.

The adoptive parents thought he would grow out of it. They were wrong. As soon as he turned 15, Guy snuck out and began attending live shows. It was only a matter of time before Warren Reece, a local promoter and trainer caught sight of the large teenager constantly in his crowds and mezmorized by the show. He offered Guy an opportunity to get his foot in the door of the business and Guy took it without hesitation. He kept his training a secret, and kept it for years, as he spent most of his time not spent in school or sleeping training. He made his professional debut at the young age of 16, in secret, knowing of his parents disdain of the sport.

He kept it a secret by claiming he was studying, which was partially true- he somehow studied just enough to keep up the ruse between being torn apart. Explaining being torn apart itself is another story. School fights, falling down stairs, getting hit by cars, being mauled by a wild boar- the excuses began to get ridiculous and Guy's true actions more and more became apparent. At his High School Graduation, The Richards cornered Guy and demanded an answer- either cease with this professional wrestling nonsense, or be tossed out on the street. Being young and stupid at the time, Guy chose wrestling... and has never since heard from his adoptive family since. Every attempt to make things right has been blocked on their side. Feeling ousted and betrayed, Guy reassumed his birth name of Guybrush Ignatious Fausto.

For the next 11 years, Fausto worked as hard as he could on the indie circuit. He was living on small show check to small show check. He could barely afford enough food to sustain himself, and lived in what was no more than a glorified shed on the outskirts of Bismarck. He never got anywhere, despite all his hard laborious work. He couldn't catch a break, he jobbed openings of events to whoever was the new flavor of the month for that local promotion. The dream, however, of one day being on national TV with millions upon millions of adoring fans kept him going. It's all he ever seemed to want to do with his life, and what's a toothpaste sandwich between him and glory?

Until one fateful night in 2005. Fausto was booked against a new juggernaught, the promoters son, greener than the greenest object you can think of, and then double the greenness. Fausto knew this wasn't going to be his night, but he was going to give it his all. And that he did- until the green behemoth gave him the least technically precise piledriver one had ever seen. Guy couldn't move. It was terrifying...and the behemoth didn't stop. Boots, elbows, knees, and legs came down on the helpless Fausto, and no one was coming to assist him. The promoter came in and declared the monster the winner, and that he had killed a guy in the ring. And the crowd went wild, and still no one came to assist Guy for the longest time. By some stroke of a miracle, Guy managed to regain feeling in his limbs, and pulled himself up. He staggered backstage, and tended to his many injuries. No one came to apologize. No one came to check on him. No one cared. He had almost died out there and no one cared.

What had Wrestling brought him? For the past 13 years of his life, he had been beaten, broken, and battered. What did he have to show for it? He was 29 years old, and he had done nothing with his life. And it was all the fault of professional wrestling. He had lost his family, his money, his chance at a good education...and he had almost lost his life. No more of this- he would no longer chase some dream that would never come. He would honor all of his remaining bookings and then no more of godforsaken sport. He's going to go to school and make something of himself that doesn't risk life and limb every night.

Well...so he thought. His last show was a big one in New York in the Hammerstein. Like in all of his matches since the scare, he cowered and fled from his opponents around the ring. He begged his opponents to not hurt him- however they always did. He later learned that his pleas of "Please Don't Hurt Me" came out as "I Wish to fornicate with your mother as I kick your Grandfather in the shin" which definitely explained why they always hurt him. Unbeknowst to Fausto, this act of begging his opponents off would grab the attention of what has controlled his life ever since.

A hard night of drinking and partying followed his final night- well in his own corner of the bar as he drank alone. He got absolutely hammered, to make up for the complete lack of other people drinking in his honor. He woke up the next morning, massive hangover, but feeling great about himself. This was the beginning of a brand new chapter in his life. Maybe he could become a motivational speaker and warn children about the dangers of pro wrestling. Maybe he could finally get his family to forgive him as he leaves the career they cursed behind...maybe....the phone will ring and break his focus on what to do with his life.

The phone had decided for him. He wished he was dead. He wished the person on the other side of the phone was dead. He wished that something would happen to free him. He cursed. He cursed so loud that people back in Bismarck may have heard him. Apparently during his long night of drinking alone...someone had joined him. Someone who had saw him at the Hammerstein show. Someone who liked his style. Someone who wanted him exclusively in their promotion with an iron clad contract. That someone was Jaysin Clinton Sensation. Incidentally, he has never touched an alcoholic beverage since.

After some panicking and thoughts of suicide, he calmed down. It really wasn't all that bad. All he had to do was go a few months, do the job, and he'd be granted his release as he would have accomplish nothing. Right? I mean, it's not like he'd be a run away success and be too invaluable for the company to ever dream of parting with him. That would never happen. It couldn't...could it?

It did. On December 14th, 2005; Guy Fausto made his OCW debut against Seth Aringrosa. Despite failing to emerge victorious in his debut, his neurotic antics soon won him much fanfare. Win or lose, he was the talk of the OCW world with his anti-superstar attitude, complete dislike of actual competition, and excessive cowardice. He received both OCW North American and OCW World Title shots, despite never wanting either. An impressive showing against 2005 Hall of Famer Nate Ortiz in the aforementioned OCW Championship made him someone to look out for in the ring despite having one of the worst win/loss records this side of David Jackson.

But fame came with a price. Fame itself. Guy Fausto wanted none of his attention. It was all accidental. He wanted out of the industry, yet he was becoming a superstar against his will. He begged CEO Jaysin Sensation for his release, and was time after time denied, not wanting to give up his new meal ticket. With no hope left in sight, Fausto began to look for alternate methods of accomplishing his goal. He found unstable support in his allies Majin, Mad Michael Morrison, and Casey Paine. The four called themselves the Theatre of Pain.

Using Theatre of Pain as a loophole, Fausto found temporary relief to his fear of active competition. He served as manager for the group, playing the run in man on many occasions, including one instance involving a ten gallon hat, Nathan Gaines, and mocking people with Bells Palsy. He was instrumental in bringing Steve Jones and Poison under the groups banner as well. But his meddling would not go unnoticed forever. Gaining the ire of Jaysin Sensation, the CEO challenged Majin to a match, with the stipulation that anyone who interfered in the match would be fired. Seeing a golden opportunity, Fausto gleefully ran in and dropped the CEO with a cutter. His triumph was soon cut short as Sensation revealed that Fausto was indeed fired, but not from OCW. Sensation terminated Fausto's managerial license, making him once again an active competitor.

Shockingly, Fausto's return to the ring proved much more sucessful than his first stint as an active competitor. Suffering very few losses(of notable importance is the legendary Chop & Headlock Match against fellow ToP Member Majin) and gaining the ability to make his opponents tap to a mere reverse chinlock, Fausto plowed through much of the OCW midcard, fulfilling the prophecy some saw after the March '06 OCW Championship Match vs. Nate Ortiz.

During this time, Fausto and Theatre of Pain were in conflict with Revolution Inc. Fausto developed specific problems with Versus, who had initially stolen Fausto's bags as a harmless prank. Fausto's neurosis reemerged as his dependence on a self help book to get him through the days was exposed. In a rapidly detoriating state, he failed to defeat the stoner at September 2 Remember 2006. Casey Paine, in a effort for her own sanity, recovered the self-help books. But Fausto's conflict with Versus were not over. Fausto, newly invigorated from his recovered self-help book celebrated by reading the Necronomicon and taking it entirely too seriously. He gathered the ToP troops and began to horribly screw up the reading of the reanimation spell over the casket where Nate Ortiz was knocked out in after a grueling bout with Mayhem. With the help of Michael Morrison and a well placed shovel strike, Zombie Nate was born. Despite Fausto being the supposed Necromancer, Zombie Nate would completely ignore his orders despite following the rest of ToP's orders without question. Versus did not find his heavily concussed friend being the lackey of his enemies amusing, and made several attempts to recover him from ToP's grasps. The two met again at Devil's Night 2006 in a Last Dork-Or-Stoner Standing match, with Fausto emerging victorious after a grueling 40-minute battle. Nate snapped out of his concussion-induced waking coma, and beat the hell out of Fausto for his crimes.

Fausto became excessively paranoid of the formerly zombified hall of famer, and lived in fear of him until Red Sunday, where he met his stalker in a cage match, in which Nate won by the very skin of his teeth. Also on Red Sunday, Theatre of Pain and Revolution Inc. did battle in a massive gauntlet. Despite Theatre of Pain's defeat, Fausto was the clear MVP of the match, defeating Versus, Tyler Ewanchuk, and Nick Kage before falling in an incredibly weakened state to Nate Ortiz once again. Fausto then claimed his sudden bursts of inring skill were blackouts, some self-defense mechanism for the coward. Seeking to test this phenomena further, he did something incredibly out of character and challenged Nate Ortiz to a rematch at Chill Faktor after sending Michael Heaton to get the snot beat out of him many times for an answer. Fausto, despite revealing to the world that Nate Ortiz hated the black people, kicks puppies, and is responsible for the Bubonic Plague wiping out Europe in the 13th century, failed against the then two-time OCW Champion in an Ironman match.

Fausto soon found himself by happenstance the Number One Contender for the OCW Television Championship. Making it clear he wanted nothing to do with the belt, he threw the match against champion Trips, focusing his attention more on CEO Jaysin Sensation in a more direct approach to get fired. Making the CEO blow up his limo, assaulting him with nets and Poison dressed as lawyers, it built up, but someone else caught Fausto's attention.

Recon, another Hall of Famer, who Fausto was using for explosives to antagonize Jaysin Sensation, had enough of his shenanigans. In a move to protect his honor, the soldier met Fausto at the yearly patriotic event Road 2 Glory. He failed to defeat Fausto, but lost with honor. Later that night, Fausto finally snapped and gave Sensation a vicious beating, the likes of yet to be seen in OCW.

The score was set to be settled at OCW Wreslution II, with Fausto's freedom from his contract at stake. Despite seemingly having victory well within his grasps, Fausto was said to have taken his assault of the CEO too far, gaining the spite of former Revolution Inc. Member Blade. Blade cost Fausto his freedom, and for his charity, Blade had a statue dropped on him. The grudge was on, as in the mean time Fausto captured his first OCW championship in the World Tag Team Championships with Michael Morrison. The change of heart was said to be for some yet unrevealed sinister plan. At End Games 2007, Fausto & The Steve, filling in for Morrison under the Freebird rule, fought Blade & Nate Ortiz to a controversial draw. Blade & Ortiz would later capture the tag titles in a ladder match during the following month on Riot.

Fausto then began his run through the King of OCW 2007. He defeated his own tag partner, Michael Morrison, Adrian Bold, Trips, Brad Bauer, and finally DJ Chino in the finals to earn himself the rights to a OCW World Heavyweight Championship Match. The same night he ended his rivalry with Blade dominating him in a steel cage match. Following Damnation 2007, Fausto revealed his latest plot to achieve termination from OCW: He was going to take the OCW World Heavyweight Championship and under mutually assured destruction, breach his contract and burn the title live on a competitor's television program.

Until an accidental suspension put that on the sidelines briefly. Sensation had a lapse of wisdom and forgot not to use conventional punishment on Fausto, and ended up suspending his #1 Contender, who moved far too quickly away to stop Sensation from changing his mind.

But he soon returned, and began to antagonize then Champion Nate Ortiz with his threats of disrespecting the belt which he called a mere prop to the downfall of OCW, going through extreme measures to drive his point home. At The Clash in July 2007, Fausto met Ortiz for the title. In a shocker, Sensation turned on Ortiz and helped his enemy of over a year grab the Championship, despite his threats to destroy OCW.

Fausto revealed his alliance with Sensation as a much better deal for all of them, and developed a taste for horribly gaudy suits. He had to deal with two rabid challengers after the title who couldn't be procrastinated away by Sensation due to rematch clauses. Nate Ortiz and AJ Phoenix both wanted the title, and the three met at Summertime 2007, where Phoenix pinned Ortiz, causing Fausto to lose the Championship without even being involved in the decision.

Fausto attempted retirement the following Riot, but was denied by Sensation turning on him, as well as his former Theatre of Pain allies snubbing him as well. Fausto had a nervous breakdown from the incident, and spent many weeks being the walking definition of 'Emo.' With the help of former rival Versus, Fausto snapped himself out of it and turned his attention on vengeance against those who had wronged him, primarily Mad Michael Morrison, whom he defeated in a Twisted Steel Mustache Warfare Match at September 2 Remember 2007. The grudge continued, Morrison not accepting his defeat to such a pathetic competitor. He competed in another innovation, the House of Pain, at Devil's Night 2007, in which Fausto emerged victorious, having to defeat Morrison with his own Grip of Madness.

In November, Fausto competed in the 2007 S-Cup, and in a single night defeated Seth Irving, OCW Champion AJ Phoenix, and CCW Champion RD Money to win the cup. During that month, old friends turned into enemies once more, as Poison sought to once again make Fausto his subordinate much like he did in the old ToP days. Fausto refused, having moved on from the group and wanting nothing to do with them. Not being one to take no for an answer, Poison antagonized Fausto into accepting a match for Chill Faktor 2007 where if Fausto lost, he would have to join Poison's cult. Fausto did lose the match, but under dubious means from a 101% clean sweep in the voting making Poison's lackey Gertrude the official for the match.

Guy Fausto is easily one of the most bizarre cases in OCW History. Desiring nothing, expecting less, he received so much more than he could ever dreamed of getting- which he still wants none of. Apathy, Lethargy, Nerdiness are not suppose to be adjectives you use to describe a wrestler who has reached the pinnacle of the business, but in this case, they are.

Book Review: Making Money

Hey, I'm finally tossing up a review that has nothing to do with Pro Wrestling! Don't expect this often as when I read standard fiction, I view it as far too old to bother with doing a review for. I wasn't even going to do this one until I realized it was published in September 2007.

I'm using the Canadian/UK cover art for the book by the way, as Pratchett's American publisher is apparently blind and makes just about the worst covers ever for every book of his released here, when there is absolutely nothing wrong with Kidby's art. His Discworld art is probably my favorite art for anything fantasy related. The US Publisher hates America, so they replace Kidby's finely well done highly marinated and cared for cut of grade A steak with a freezer burnt patty that may may or may not be beef. And smells oddly of dog urine.

Making Money

by Terry Pratchett

If Making Money shows anything about Pratchett's work, it shows that his writing style can more or less make anything seem interesting, even among what would be viewed as downright hack-ish done by just about anyone else, such as an overall plot recycling.

I enjoyed going through Making Money. So much so that I did my usual “Must find negative in every positive” glance at it. It was easy to find the the sole glaring flaw of the book. In the most cynical simplification one could make about it, it's a rehash of the first Moist Von Lipwig novel, Going Postal.

Both books relatively start with Lord Vetinari threatening Moist with a dreadful thing called opportunity. Both times Moist doesn't really want anything to do with it, but Vetinari... Vetinaris him into compliance. Both times Moist finds a facility in horrible disrepair, poorly managed, and completely ignored by the public. Both times Moist solves the problem set before him with unorthodox methods. Both times Moist deals with someone antagonizing him from completing his plans. Both times Moist is sucessful and Vetinari plots shoving another public service upon Moist.

Does this mean if you've read Going Postal you should skip Making Money, or you should read Going Postal instead if you haven't? No. Despite a whole paragraph's worth of ideas he has plagiarized from himself, he still manages to do the most important thing to someone reading a Discworld book. Entertain you. For that alone, I'd suggest you'd get it, for there are so many books out there which fail to do that.

Making Money is a shining example of the journey being so much more than the destination. A bad concept being executed excellently is much more entertaining than a great concept executed poorly(I'm looking at you, Tolkien.) Pratchett's characters, dialogue, and narrative will once again push you to finish the book as they have in the thirty or so books before. The satire is still fresh in spite of the redundant plot, and tosses you some food for thought here and there about how we do things here in reality.

That being said, when he inevitably gets to the next Moist book, which is likely to be on the subject of taxes in Ankh-Morpork, I do hope he doesn't commit the same sin again. Making Money could be compared to a routine episode of a television sitcom- entertaining but formulaic. You enjoy it, but it could be better. It really prevents Making Money from being great, forcing it to instead only be good.

Characters and Concepts

Been groggy today so I really didn't feel like doing any editing on FoA or Aloysius, or doing any serious writing either. Not even 100% decided on what to write next. I came up with what I think could be a damn interesting mystery novel set in modern times(to not cornhole myself writing in one genre), but I don't want to do it until I read some mystery novels for theft...err inspiration. Not much idea where to start, but I do like police dramas. Catch the odd Law & Order after WWE Raw now and again, and I got ideas. But I also have ideas for further fantasy writings in the Orenero world.

Since I didn't feel like doing anything heavy today, I decided to go over one of my characters and elaborate on the concepts of the world, to flesh it out more. I'm trying to keep the profiles separate from the events of the books to a degree so that the plot doesn't shape who they are before the plot happens. I want them to be realistic, living people as much as they can be and then react to the plot as realistic, living people as they can be being created from some twenty-one year old punk's mind. The more history you give a character, the more human they become.

First up, the first character to appear in the novel. His role in the novel is quite small honestly, but I figure giving him a full history will flesh out the world much more than a blurb, as he's vital to the setting.

Alexander Maitland IV

Race: Human

Age: 39

Profession: Consul of the Republic of Uzinia, Wizard focused on Knowledge magics

Appearance: Ponytailed Brown hair in a well groomed matter. Magicked to not have a hair out of place. Clean shaven face, blemish-less face. Face barely shows age, hairline is perfect. High forehead, face at rest in a pretentious frown. Wears a long open faced blue robe with white frills on the outlines. It drags along the ground as he walks, but never seems to get filthy. Beneath is a fine white silk shirt and black pantaloons. He wears black leather boots that barely even seem to touch the ground as he walks.

Personality: Cold and calculating. Always pursues knowledge, must know everything. Knowing the unknown is his biggest motivator and lying is the biggest insult to him. Will do damn near anything to further his understanding of the world and the forces that make it turn.

History: Born to two wizard parents who themselves were a simple marriage of power. Despite having no true love for eachother, they cared deeply for Maitland, and wanted the best for him, pushing their son to follow in both of their footsteps, pushing his studies hard. He could read the common Uzinian language by the age of four and could decipher arcane runes by six. Strangely, the natural rebellion that comes with youth did not repel him to the lifestyle forced on him. If anything, his rebellion fed the curiosity that would fuel him later in life. He found himself spending his teenage years using what he was taught in adolescence to spy on both of his father, a man who served as Governor of Zagfey, and his mother, who did much to keep her husband's links to the higher ups strong, in hopes to one day grant the Elder Maitland the position of Consul. His magical eavesdropping, his parents kept woefully unaware too continued well into Maitland's twenties, inspired him to make his move into politics. His lust for further arcane study continued as well. As his father was beginning to gear up to make his bid for the seat after the natural death of the previous Consul, the younger Maitland quickly put a stop to it, threatening to expose his fathers various dirty secrets he had gathered if his father did not support to make the younger Maitland Consul instead. The father's dreams were dashed, but he agreed. He ascended to the seat of Consul by arranging the convenient deaths of his major political opponents, winning an unprecedented 90% of the vote in the election. This is typical of Uzinian politics, but it's usually enough to squeak by with a 55-65% victory. With the exceptional lead, he quickly sealed himself up in the Tower of Zagfey to further his studies in the tower's great library. Has mostly ignored the welfare of the country, choosing to release those who complain into the forest in a form that lacks the ability to complain further. Currently twelve years into his term, he has been a veritable expert in keeping his power, refusing to let anything, including plots against him, go unknown. The people of Uzinia don't see Consul Maitland's term ending any time soon.

Concept: Just expanding on the whole government system.

Uzinian Magocratic Consul- The position is considered indefinite, and can only be terminated on the holders death or a sucessful recall headed by all the other Magocratic senate members. They hold nearly absolute matters in anything involving the Uzinian state, although the power is rarely used. In the rare event that it is used, the Consul can only be overruled by a unanimous vote from the Senate. The position usually only sought after by most of it's candidates for possession of the grand library in the Tower of Zagfey, containing nearly all of the research on arcana in Uzinia's history, including the notebooks of past Consuls.

The position is a democratically elected one. Under the plain laws of the nation, anyone may run for the position, regardless of social status, race, gender, or magical skill. However, the chances of someone who the senate would view as an undesirable succeeding in acquiring the status of Consul is nil. When one does get bold enough to do it, they are quickly politely asked to reconsider running for the position. If their consideration does not fit in with the wishes of the Senate, something tragic usually befalls them, such as attacks by assassins, brain aneurysms, heart attacks, suicide, or in one rare case, old age, despite the victim only being the age of twenty four.

The voting process is a complex one, as all citizens have the right to cast a vote, including women after the strange campaign of Latonya Love in becoming Consul despite voting being an exclusively male right at the time. It has been said that she did not have the support of the people of her country, most of them still viewing a woman as unfit to control their country. But the thing about Uzinian politics, is that the voice of people, despite the country technically being a democracy, does not matter. If the common people voted for one candidate unanimously, their opinion would only amount to a grand total of 6% of the vote. The other 94% of the vote lies in the hands of the Senate, split between them, and not evenly. Senior Senator's vote would count far more than one who was just admitted into the Senate. The weight of one's vote in an election is commonly determined by the last Consul, who has a twice a decade duty to assign the weight of a Senator's vote. The victory of Love, combined with her threat towards the senate to incinerate any of them who doubted her ability to hold the position of Consul, begins to make a lot more sense in this regard.

The Senate itself is comprised up of thirty people, five from each of the six provinces of Uzinia; Zagfey, Morgenholm, Merton, Allbridge, Tashran, and Jana's Way. Each set of five consist of a master of each of the four disciplines of magic, and the governor of that region. The governor is nominated by the Consul himself, and confirmed by the senators of that province. It is legal under Uzinian law to become a senator with no magical skill, but it is not likely as new senators are chosen by existing ones, and as wizards, if they are dedicated to anything, they are dedicated to the tradition, especially when a tradition that keeps them in power.

Game Review: WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008

Game review time! But it's more wrestling! Yeah... I'll do something not wrestling eventually. I promise. Swear. Really.


WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008
Xbox 360(Review also likely valid for PS3/PS2 versions)
Published by THQ
Developed by Yukes

A monopoly. In spirit alone, the WWE holds this in North America when they bought their main competition WCW back in Match of 2001. But the WWE is a monopoly only in spirit- they still must compete against everything else on television for that crowd who seeks entertainment on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday nights. So while their product hasn't been the best recently, there is still some effort on that front. But their wrestling monopoly has effected another aspect I do quite enjoy – the wrestling game, in which they do hold a damn near monopoly on. Sure, there's a rare outside game, ranging in quality from the abysmal Simpsons Wrestling, to the excellent if somewhat dated Fire Pro Wrestling Returns to the DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball Wrestling Edition in Rumble Roses. But their all fringe games. In America, pretty much the only source you have to turn to for a traditional 3D wrestling game is THQ's WWE Smackdown! Series.

And the lack of competition for THQ is definitely starting to show. Year after year, are seemingly progressively getting worse since WWE: Smackdown! Here Comes The Pain in 2003. That said, due to certain things, I end up playing these games far more than I honestly should, especially due to their abysmal quality. But this allows me to pick through the game for what it is.

On the surface, WWE Smackdown! Vs. Raw 2008 looks good. The graphics are quite excellent, the ring's texture has been much improved and the models are slightly improved. It's not a vast improvement over 2007 graphically, but it's there. Sadly, that's where the improvements end. As soon as they start moving in the ring, It all begins to look jerky and robotic, with most of the animations simply recycled from the year before. Moves are hard to connect properly at first, but this is leaving graphics for game play, which I'll enter into later.

On the audio front, it's the exact same as 2007- and that's a bad thing. I'm not going to force my musical tastes on people as I still think the licensed tracks in the game are horrible pop metal bull with maybe two songs I can tolerate on the whole. Although, thankfully, the horrible rap song MONEH IN DUH BANK SHALLAR IF YA CRANK or the 2006 abomination CRUSH....KILL...DESTROY do not return, nor does anything jump out at me to replace them, much to the glee of everyone's sanity. The voice over work, however, is horrible. Once again, the commentary recycles most all the lines from 2006's game with a few extras for the new superstars. This becomes blatantly obvious when Joey Styles, who is a new commentator for the game, is simply reading Michael Cole's lines from last year. Why? So they can recycle Tazz's commentary who was with Michael Cole the year before. The same thing happens with JBL, the other new commentator in this year's game, who is mostly redoing Tazz's lines and shows appropriate enthusiasm for such a hack writing job. The story mode voice overs are also shoddily done, most people matching JBL's enthusiasm for all of this, with a few gems and apparent ad libbing here and there. Additionally, all the sound effects are copied over from 2k7, including the annoying grunts and groans that ALL of the wrestlers share. If you're going to include it, how about some variation instead of this complete lack of effort?

Presentation wise, this game needed more work. The roster is quite frankly the weakest it's ever been, lacking many fan favorites that clearly should have been in this year such as Balls Mahoney, Kevin Thorne, Stevie Richards, Paul London, Brian Kendrick among others. Even the wrestlers in the game seriously lack polish, as Edge does not enter with the trenchcoat he has continually worn in his ring entrances since his debut in 1998, Johnny Nitro – an outdated character who has since re-dubbed himself John Morrison four entire months before the game ever hit store shelves – does not enter with his ludicrously ornate furry jacket. Both of these characters had their ring jackets in the 2007 edition of the game, making it's sudden exclusion kind of baffling.

But onto the meat of the game, and where SvR2k8 suffers the most. Right off the bat, they've changed the controls for the game yet again, as they did from 2006 to 2007. But this year they don't even offer the option for the old controls, only the option to use the D-Pad for movement instead of the left analog stick. There's a bit of sense to it, as they added free running this year and that'd be hard to do while pressing Y or Triangle to do so. But it's not enough reason to remap the entire control scheme almost, and they still could of offered the classical 2k6 controls if they would of bothered to think a little. Not everyone is madly in love with analog sticks.

This year's big advertisement is fighting styles. Every wrestler gets two of them, eight in total, to grant them new abilities and techniques to fight with. Sounds good right? Except very little of it is actually new. With the new advancements, many of the little things everyone could do such as power whips, fake whips and three hit strike combos were broken up. For most characters, you have less options than what you could do last year. Addition by subtraction is not addition in my book, and some may claim this may make the game more realistic by preventing giants from doing shooting star presses and 450s over the top rope, but I hold that as nonsense. A little ridiculousness in a video game is fine, but it also restricts realism in the event of some agile big men, such as The Undertaker with his awe-inspiring suicide dive from a man of 6'10 in height, from doing there awesome forays into flying. Never mind the scores of agile big men you'll now struggle to create, such as Mike Awesome, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Vader, all known for magnificent acts of agility for their size. It's simply THQ rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic to look like they're doing something even though they're not. On the positive side, the styles did bring in quite a few new moves for hardcore and flying styles, although they could of easily brought that in without neutering the game otherwise.

Also boasted is a brand new Struggle Submission system, which was sought to bring an end to the button mashing system of the older games. This seems all well and good until it becomes clear until you realize it's a system dependent entirely on luck and removes much of the drama of potentially reversing the hold in the Submission B system or battling to the ropes like in the Submission A. You either are in the hold or escape it immediately. Additionally, if you're particularly unlucky, the attacker may be able to gain a submission victory incredibly early in the match, allowing easy cheap wins. The worst offense of all, however, is the limited options. There are now only roughly 10 submission holds in the game, versus at least fifty in last years. They removed most of the moves, and the few non-struggle submission holds that remain in the game are now lame 'yank and release' holds which feel awkward to the game. While the intent to move away from archaic button mashing is fine, it is horribly, horribly executed here and hurts the game far more than it helps.

Speaking of moves, as a whole, it's been greatly cut down. Instead of 16 strong grapples, 4 quick grapples, and 4 ultimate control moves you received in SvR2k7, you're cut down to 8 strong grapples, 2 ultimate control moves, and 4 quick grapples. This seemed wholly unnecessary, and just seemed to dumb the game down to the point of retardation. Not that you have a lot of moves to put in those slots again, as you have even fewer choices than you did in 2k7, which in itself a step back from 2k6(The 2k6 to 2k7 transition removed 200+ moves from the game, for some unknown reason). Primarily this is because the styles, which were suppose to open new options of game play as advertised by THQ, also limit your entire move set. Expect two people with the dirty fighting style to fight very similarly, as they get to pick typically 3 or 4 from every situation out of a massive selection of say, 12. Less and less options every year hurts, and really hurts the longevity of the game as a whole.

The final insult of THQ's game play changes is the removal of a targeting system entirely, which quite frankly makes matches with more than two people border on unplayable. This wouldn't be so bad if it had a good auto-targeting system(much like the one found in Fire Pro Wrestling Returns), but the one in the game is atrocious. You'll commonly ignore the person who is striking you from behind in favor of staring at someone in front of you, dozens of feet away. It's simply not fun to play the game with more than one other person, if even that. THQ, if you make it so 4 people are sitting around a console, an event usually entertaining even with bad games, are spouting more annoyed profanity than enjoying themselves, you've really quite screwed up the hard to screw up aspect of multi-player gaming. It's an achievement you shouldn't be proud to have.

New to game modes this year is the ECW Extreme Rules match. Except it isn't really new. It's simply an expanded hardcore match(yet they kept the Hardcore match in) with more weapons(many of which already appeared in older games so they aren't really new either). It seems to be such a half-assed addition, much like last year's 'new' match type in the Money in the Bank, which was simply just a Ladder match, which has been in every Smackdown! Game since the second one. For some unexplainable reason, however, they removed the Special Guest Referee match, and have changed the Ironman match for the worse. Now you can no longer recreate hour long Ironman matches from games past, as the limit is strictly 20 minutes and somehow being pinned completely invigorates you of any damage completely, removing the 'fatigue' aspect of it all.

The Create mode this year is another mixed bag. This year the created wrestlers can look quite good for the most part, as many options were brought back. But it's really only up to 2k6 standards, and I don't give points for simply realizing ones past mistakes. I'm not going to enjoy Coca Cola more just because only New Coke was available for awhile- it's not marketing we should praise. The Create mode was tweaked again as well, for whatever reason, requiring you to add/delete entrance attires entirely instead of just enabling/disabling them to switch them on and off. It's an annoying little nuisance I don't see any logic bringing into being. Much like 2007, you still cannot use many of the designs on your wrestler without being barred from online. This is supposedly Microsoft's doing, but it's still worth mentioning. Entrance Creation is slightly tweaked for the better, although they removed many animations throughout for no reason whatsoever. Custom Soundtracks are indeed a nice addition, but they hardly save the game. Create a Move-set, as I noted, suffers from a severe lack of move choices although a few nice new moves were added. It can be considered a common theme for 2008 as a whole- add three things, remove six.

Story mode is also quite the disappointment this year. You cannot even use every person on the roster – and it excludes a lot of fan favorites who people were anticipating to get to play as in this year's game. Want to play as CM Punk? MVP? Or even the man WWE liked pushing to the moon, Bobby Lashley? No chance, for whatever reason a good deal of the roster cannot be chosen to play as in season. You can use created wrestlers still, as one positive in a sea of negative. This year, season is dubbed 24/7, and has two modes. One as a wrestler on a quest to become a legend- in which you play it the exact same way as you would the 2007 season, just longer and having to accomplish a bunch of tasks repeated times to get your “Legend Meter” up. General Manager works much the same, but in quest for General Manager of the year, with the same concept of completing tasks to slowly fill that meter. As a 'head slamming against the wall' Why, you still can only have one of EITHER playing at a time. For whatever reason, in 2007(year of the game's publishing) you have a game with only a SINGLE save slot for it's main story mode. Why?

As an aside, The “Quest to be a Legend” story mode in 2008 is just plain stupid in the fact of the story lines make no sense. On the RAW side I started in a storyline with Jeff Hardy, Shawn Michaels, and Randy Orton out for the number one contendership for the WWE title. Right off the bat at 0% legend status. Long gone is the story mode that makes you build yourself up or give you the opportunity to go for a secondary title such as the Intercontinental Championship. In it's place, are cookie cutter scenarios that don't make much sense. After winning the number one contendership, obviously, I should get an opportunity at the WWE title, correct? Nope. Doesn't happen. My title shot is forgotten completely as I'm thrust into a storyline where I feud over a movie role... and I have no option to say I don't bloody care about a movie role I want the WWE title. When the game does give you an option, it's mostly meaningless, in classic “But Thou Must!” lazy story telling. The stupidity is really something that has to be seen to be believed. It even gets out and out offensive at times, as there is a story line where your wrestler is accused of rape, regardless of if you agreed or denied to go out with the accuser. It's as if they hired Vince Russo to help write the game's storyline.

The online aspect, at least in the 360 version, is plagued with horrid netcode problems, exclusive to 2008 and it's prequel with lag and dropped games. You are still for some awful reason limited to 4 players despite the game being able to handle 6 – another sad thing since you'd think a modern game could outperform last gen with 8 or even 10 wrestlers in the ring, including online. But playing online is barely even a bonus, as it is by far one of the least pleasant experiences one could have with online gaming. If playing against any random person, prepared to be cheaped more so than any game you've ever played before, people not out to have fun with it, but to just win as quickly as possible, damn other people's enjoyment. It's cheesy, not very fun, and you're just bound to be called a faggot at a significantly higher rate than other online games I've played.

It's all in all a poor game when compared to it's predecessors. If you want an actual good wrestling game for the 360, I'm afraid you're quite frankly out of luck at the moment, as even the X-Box 1 wrestling games aren't particularly good. PS2/PS3 users have the past library to draw from, including Fire Pro Wrestling Returns, and the previous games in the series such as WWE Smackdown! Vs. Raw 2006(which is a bright spot in the otherwise lackluster SvR half of the series) or WWE Smackdown! Here Comes The Pain. All three of the previously mentioned games are all better, more polished, and more fun to play - alone or with friends, than WWE Smackdown! Vs. Raw 2008. It's a lazy annual cash in and you shouldn't take it unless you're some sort of fanatic and must have the latest game with the newest graphics. All I can hope for is that TNA's Impact, due this May, can destroy this milking monopoly on the American wrestling games industry.

Grade: 50% F

Book Review: Batista Unleashed

Batista Unleashed
by Dave Bautista & Jeremy Roberts

Dave Batista, one of WWE's current big stars, while his autobiography was in the planning stages, stated that he was a pretty boring guy and was only going along with this because the WWE wanted to push a book about him. He was right – through no fault of his own, his book is not exactly must read material.

Batista Unleashed, likely as told to Jeremy Roberts by Dave Batista, is the life story of the sudden sensation of a big man who started in the industry late in life, debuting at the age of 33. As the man is only 38 when the book was released to store shelves last October, most of the book is mostly based on his personal life.

And that's kind of the problem. As a fan of a lot of wrestling autobiographies, I read mostly for the road stories and other industry workings in the strange and unique business of professional wrestling. Batista and Roberts do try to make the best of it, trying to put in as many interesting diversions as they can, since the book is an obvious cash in on Batista's current popularity.

The story follows Batista from his childhood on the rough streets of Washington D.C., into a run with a bad crowd and a brief life of crime. He spent much of his young adult life serving as a bouncer, a natural given his height and build. He goes into his time as a bodybuilder, which he credits to saving his life. He spends much time speaking of his relationships with various women, and the resulting unplanned children from those unions.

As expected, he doesn't actually start to speak of the wrestling industry until he's a good ways into the book. For what's there, he makes it entertaining and is seemingly not afraid to throw mud, which can be a positive or negative depending on one's opinion on the maturity of that. There are some fine gems of passages in the book, such as Batista's altercation in the WCW Power Plant with a small pasty white career jobber/trainer by the name of Sergeant Buddy Lee Parker saying that the future Wrestlemania Main Eventer would never make it in the industry.

Another plus I'll hand the book is that Batista actually reflects on his past and is actually regretful of some of his past screw ups, such as the aforementioned delving into a life of crime, and even in the wrestling industry such as his known backstage brawl with fellow star Booker T. This is a nice change of pace to other books in the genre, where the author was always in the right and everyone else has no idea what they're talking about.

On the flip side, as a duality, he still comes up as bullheaded a lot of the time, almost to the point of comicality. As an example, are his claims to be sleeping around with many of the WWE's Divas – women wrestlers. The need to promote this fact(if it is a fact) is a strange one to stick in one's book, especially given it's talking about a relatively current time of not even a year ago. One would think you'd keep your current sexual exploits to yourself until a later date, not publish them all for the world to see.

It's by no means the worst wrestling autobiography you could buy. But you could do better. If you're a big Batista fan, it's probably worth a read. A general wrestling fan? I'd place it low on your list behind A Lion's Tale, Have a Nice Day, To Be The Man..., Etc. For a non-wrestling fan? I wouldn't even bother, as I do not see much universal appeal here in this obvious WWE Cash-in.

Book Review: A Lion's Tale

By suggestion of a friend, I have to decided to throw up a stray book review up here and again. Practice is practice, so eh. There will be a LOT of wrestling books, as for some reason I like reading about the people behind it all. Some strange obsession, but one of the worst things I can potentially do as a writer, in my opinion, is read nothing but one genre. Wrestling Autobiographies are a strange genre to choose behind fantasy, but what the hell.

A Lion's Tale: Around the World in Spandex
by Chris Jericho with Peter Thomas Fornatale

Chris Jericho is one of the most charismatic and talented wrestling superstars of the recent era. During his recent two year hiatus from the ring, he took the time to put down in his memoirs and story down in book form for the world to follow. For a shocking change of pace, there is actually a contender to Mick Foley's first two autobiographies(Have a Nice Day & Foley is Good) for king of the professional wrestling autobiography, the book that spawned dozens upon dozens of other autobiographies in a genre previously empty, primarily due to the existence of Kayfabe(Professional Wrestling's code of Secrecy).

A Lion's Tale: Around The World In Spandex, written by Jericho himself with Peter Thomas Fornatale credited as a collaborator, is one of the few books of any genre to make me read it from beginning to end and become annoyed when I was interrupted from my reading time, a rare breed of book indeed with good pacing and few spots that drag on and on. Jericho keeps you reading with much of the flair of his microphone work in the ring- good solid content with a witty one liner here and there to catch you off guard.

A Lion's Tale follows Jericho from the less than humble beginnings of being a Sports star's son in the form of New York Ranger Ted Irvine all the way to to Jericho's WWE debut in August of 1999 where the Lionheart moniker ended and the Y2J moniker began. Along the way, Jericho gives you entertaining insights into the road of the international wrestler, all while showing that he's quite possibly a bigger nerd than us all, drawing pictures of himself as tag team champions with Owen Hart in high school.

His story goes from being in a Training Camp with the Legendary Hart family. Well one Hart who shows up once then hands it off to some other guy. The fun of trying to get started in the pro wrestling industry, which consists of a lot of low paying jobs where you work with sleazy people who may or may not pay you depending on the alignment of the planets on that day – proving pro wrestling has much more in common with the other jobs in entertainment than most people would believe.

First breaks where he screws up his first impression in Japan royally, starting a curse that dooms his first match to suck wherever he goes, but getting his first major break in Mexico where he goes from being some pretty boy gringo to El Corazon De Leon, who stars in comic books alongside magical talking frogs and has to buy his own bootleg merchandise. Traveling to Germany, he then has to adapt to the strange, and apparently exclusively German pro wrestling practice of wrestling the same man every night in front of the the same crowd every night, thusly being forced to come up with a new match every night or not get payed.

His time in SMW, Smokey Mountain Wrestling is worth reading if only for his description of an insane fan tape titled 'Strange Kentucky People'. While that may be strange, it goes to just plain sad when you get to see the mess that WCW was from Jericho's perspective, where he got paid fabulously well because it was all Ted Turner's money anyway and the people who ran it didn't care. At all.

Jericho keeps the book flowing by giving the potential readership of his book exactly what they want- the meat of the industry and entertaining stories. He keeps any mention of his personal life light which is fine by my watch as other wrestling biographies went too far into it and it really hurt the book as a whole. The few delves into it are kept in good faith, such as a particularly awesome scene of him grabbing a guitar and rocking out with a street band in Mexico City. He does express his Christian faith throughout, but he never gets preachy.

It's not perfect though. While he keeps the mood of the book light and cheery throughout it all, it would have been nice for him to go into some pressing issues that effect the industry such as steroid and drug use. The most he says about it is admitting to some pot use while down in Mexico. Additionally, he falls into one of the most common pitfalls I've seen in autobiographies, the 'I'm always the good guy' philosophy. Which means you should always take his side of the story as just that – his side of the story.

Overall, if a non-wrestling fan were suggested to pick up wrestler's autobiography, I would whole heartedly recommend A Lion's Tale right along the holy grails of the genre Have a Nice Day & Foley is Good, being a solid insight to what it's like to try to make it in this industry. I personally anticipate the obvious follow up, as the book ends in August 1999 – giving Jericho nine more years of certainly eventful material involving his WWE career and hiatus to tell us about.

The Joy of Editing

Ideally, one could potentially live off of their writing.

Ideally, writing is an entertaining diversion for me.

Ideally, I'd never be experiencing work if my dreams were to come true.

Ideally, I'd be a starry eyed idiot who forgot to edit shit.

The Joy of Editing. Most writers fear it, and it's a necessary good. Not an evil, because it always makes your writing better. The Aloysius story I just posted is the raw, unedited(outside a simple Open Office spell check run) word for word copy from my notebook. I've noticed a lot of glaring inconsistencies.

1) Something so damned cliche I don't even notice it's a cliche until someone points it out. Shade the Black Stallion. The fumes of the Print shop m ust be getting me because that's just about the most cliche thing I ever wrote. I'm serious, even my 8-year old self wrote off beat stories of weird shit happening. I think my elementary school teachers believed I was destined to become the second coming of Ted Bundy or something like that despite being as close to a pacifist as one can be without really being one. I try to avoid cliches unless there's a lot of not-cliche I can do with that cliche. For instance, I have gnomes of most closely resembling the tinker variety in the Orenero book setting. Cliche, yes. But I have a lot that I can do with them, and I give my own spin on the race. So I suffer that cliche. But Shade the Black Stallion? I'm 2 letters away from giving myself a brain aneurysm from the clichedness. It's a meaningless character(if you can call a horse a character. I also hate talking animals) and it's just shoddy and uncreative. What the fuck was I thinking? Editing will change that, likely into a horse that's brown or something(Brown is the universal "This horse doesn't matter" color) and still call it Shade, and likely have Sterling wonder why it's called Shade, and blame it on the seller's habit, whatever it may be.(I want to have the equivalent of crack or something in the world. Just something overly addictive and bad for your health, but the problem with writing Fantasy is that real world technical jargon is out of place. I also hate the fantasy habit of calling something something else. A pig is a pig, not a Porkbeast. Although Porkbeast is at least sensical. Many fantasy writers just have a long random string of letters with apostrophes like Ag'fer'na'zanen'ti. That makes me want to shoot myself reading it.)

2) Going off on unrelated tangents. While this isn't as much of a sin in a novel(in fact if I can make sense of it, it's a good way to expand the world and give it depth) in a short story it's long winded and unnecessary. But it's a hard habit to break. I went on no less than two in the previous section of this post. (Again, this is a blog post, so my rambling actually makes it more entertaining than anything.) I need to cut these out.

3) Too Much Detail. Short stories are suppose to be short. You don't need to know every little detail about a character. Just anything relevant and maybe a skirted over appearance.

4) Say everything twice. Say everything twice, ohhh yeah. Another habit. I'll state something blankly, then state it again more creatively. It's redundant and shoddy so I have to go through and cut those out, both novel and short story.

5) Annoying Novel Fuck Up #1: I wrote the first 30 pages in present tense. Sounds wonky for a novel, so now I have to convert everything back to past. Gee golly, nonstop fun.

When I named this blog "The Long Road Ahead" I wasn't kidding. It'll be a long, long time before I get anything significant done.

I still have yet to start to edit The Aloysius, but I'm going to leave the rough draft of the post below. I'll eventually post the first revision of The Aloysius to demonstrate how editing and everything can warp a work.

I don't feel I'm going to charge anything for my short stories personally, although I may attempt to sell them to a literary magazine just to get my name out there. I don't read many of because I'm a cheap bastard who can't afford anything, but Publicity is ultimately key whenever your trying to sell anything.