Friday, January 16, 2009

I am a poor man, I haven't wealth nor fame. I have my two hands and a house to my name. (Day 43)

Day Six of the Lamictal at 100mg's. After tomorrow I begin 200mg's. That seems like an awful lot of milligrams.

So yesterday I got hit with the plague and I lost a whopping 12 pounds, but I'm glad to report after drinking a lot of gatorade, my cat keeping me company after I was done dry heaving and a pretty girl dealing with me I'm exponentially better. So you know, thats always good.

I don't wanna risk further vomitus exploits, so for now I'll just stick to toast and gatorade. Why mess with what works?

Just a side note, and I know a few of you will care about this, but EGM has shut down it's doors.

That sucks completely because it was the ultimate toilet read I feel, plus it was always a pretty interesting read and I always felt that the staff really cared about what they were putting out, and had a passion for gaming. What sucks most, I think, is that the entire staff was laid off, out on their ass, and I know as well as anyone that for a writer it's not exactly easy to get back on your feet.

But also coming from a writing perspective, I don't like that none of them got to have a true parting word. That the Wolverine Issue is the last one, period, and they basically never get that chance to at least give their two cents on something they dedicated their lives too.

A sincere thanks is honestly due to the guys and gals that made 1up.com, and EGM as much fun as they did.

The problem with online content, while it is free which I guess is nice, is that in the magazine format it's so portable. It's actually nice to kick back with a magazine and mildly read through it when you're in the mood to do some light reading that you won't get too vested in for the time being. It's a great resource for checking new things out (in this type of medium) you may not have known about, or necessarily even thought about reading.

If you've spent as much time in airports, bus stations, car trips, buses, planes and in transition as I have, then you know that the convenience of a magazine is nothing short of life saving.

What I liked about EGM was their outside approach to everything. Theres still plenty of portal magazines, but I always feel like everything in that is glowering for the sake of selling a product, rather than catering to the consumers needs.

And it goes beyond even gaming magazines for me, but all magazines in general. What I liked particularly about this magazine was that it was just flat out interesting, even if you had a passing interest in the genre.

Whereas other genres of magazines like music, sports, tattoo, photography, car magazines, fashion or popular science...you pretty much have to have a pretty heavy interest in to begin with.

And most become so convoluted; look at Rolling Stone and Alternative Press. Both are disguised as music magazines...but Rolling Stone can't make up it's mind anymore. Is it music? Is it political? Is it just pop culture all together? The lay out of that magazine tends to give me a headache because it's formatting is so dizzying. They try to cover so many topics to appeal to any, and everyone that in the end they just alienate themselves in the process. Not to say some of the writers aren't awesome. I really like Rob Sheffield, who wrote an amazing book called, "Love is a Mixtape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time."

Alternative Press went somewhere from being a magazine about "alternative" music back in the 80's giving the cover to the Cure, to in the late 90's giving it to Puddle of Mudd, Korn, Limp Bizkit and Slipknot. Ever since then they can't rightfully claim to be an alternative resource when what they primarily cater to is whats in, whats trendy, whatever.

I'm sorry to make this all about magazines. But the truth is for a long time I considered being an actual honest-to-god journalist. And the truth is I can't do it. I can't kiss some ones ass I just don't care about, and unfortunately if you wanna make it in this market as a 'journalist' you pretty much have to shit where you eat, in terms of having any wiggle room whatsoever.

Theres no honesty in it, theres not truth to it, and it's just kind of revolting to be honest. I like WWTDD as much as the next person, but to call them anything outside of the realm of paparazzi is quite asinine. It's tabloids with balls, basically, and it's funny and all, but it's just filler.

But thats most of what passes for suitable journalism and press these days; filler. I was watching Conan late last night, and there was a commercial for Extra on, and the commercial said, "tune in for dramatic pictures of the US Airways plane crash". I had to pause for a second and question, "really?"

We need to throw in the word 'dramatic' for a plane crash? I suppose because the crash itself wasn't captivating enough, now theres dramatics involved?

It's a reflection of a culture thats so completely off base with reality, and I firmly fucking blame reality TV for that.

Everyone's so jaded. Something as terrifying as a plane crash, and even more miraculous that everyone survived...has to be punched the fuck up with god damned buzz words like "dramatic" and I can't stand that.

Thats what passes for journalism, and I don't like it, and I don't like seeing people I actually enjoyed lose their jobs and be released into a market that won't notice them or utilize them properly.

Thats all I got. I'm not sure if there will be an update for the next two days, as I may be going out of town but I'll make sure to recap!

Until tomorrow?

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