Ellipses

I guess me dusting off this blog is becoming something of an ironic routine. What’s been going on, you ask? I’ve signed on for a new job here, and I’m moving to a new apartment here. More to come.

A Road Mistravelled

He sat, defeated, against his now-defunct car. The sun reflected off the hot tarmac as though it were a mirror, blinding him as he grimaced. With face contorted in a futile attempt to beat the sun, he looked first west and then east. The vacancy of the horizon suggested the advent of unwilling solitude on a stretch of unfamiliar highway hours from home.

After a moment of struggling to make out little more than the shimmering waves of heat lying low along the road in the distance that straddled him, he slowly let his head fall into his hands with brows furrowed and eyes shut tight. He rued the moment.

Begrudgingly, he lifted himself off the ground. He supported his clumsy rise with her body—an unlikely source of aid, given the circumstance. Standing upright, with shirt glued to his back as only perspiration can adhere, he again surveyed the landscape. His fears were confirmed as he lay his hands on her for support.

I am alone.

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I’m The Sheep That Got Lost, Madre

Oh yea, I have a blog. I almost forgot. It seems like it’s been ages since I’ve written anything for myself, and yet, I find myself hesitate to dig into it now. If I’ve been quiet recently—minus one particularly-necessary interjection during a recent vacation—it’s only because life has been insanely busy as of late.

Between my much more hectic and demanding work life, my significant other and the uncertainty of what’s to come, and the regular rigmarole of trying to minimize the amount of excess that has long been and continues to be central to my livelihood,  I’ve had little time to just sit and rue.

That shall be remedied now, though it is ironic that I’m seeking solace in Wordpress given that countless headaches have been induced with the usage of this tool over the past few months. For as “good” as things have been lately, I find myself nonetheless slave to the same old, defeatist mindset that has been my calling card for years. Let’s get on with the introspection, then, shall we?

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On Corporate Blogging, PR, and The Slow Demise Of Passion

What seems like a lifetime ago, I was a game journalist. I was one of the few who enjoyed the luxury of zooming around the globe to play the latest games, chatting casually over drinks with the industry’s key players, and getting a chance to make an impact on the way that the gaming industry moved forward. I consider myself lucky for having said opportunity, and I’ve done my best since to help others break in.

“Breaking in” is a topic of conversation that has been coming up a lot in my daily readings as of late. Twitter, in particular, has been abuzz with talks of what to do—a recent back-and-forth between Destructoid and the One Up’s Dale North and former Shacknews writer Aaron Linde jumps to mind.

It’s not an untouched subject by any means—it seems there’s a wave of posts and talk in the blogosphere about breaking into the game industry on a yearly basis—but for many reasons, the topic of breaking in always seems to drive a bit of traffic, even though the advice is almost always the same: don’t think about the money, enjoy the exposure, do it because you love it, and so on and so forth.

What I find most interesting about these discussions, though, is that the topic rarely turns to the subject of what comes after one has made it as a journalist. Unfortunately, in that profession, the money isn’t great. A few key figures make enough to survive on from just their main gig, but the rest of us usually float around on a contract or freelancer basis in an attempt to earn end’s meat.

For many of these people, game journalism is a passion that is worth fighting for. But for some, that passion ultimately dies due to simple numbers. If you don’t earn enough to survive, how long can you really chase the dream before reality catches up to you? Perhaps I’m a defeatist, but I ultimately opted to jump ship once I saw the chance. Many writers do this out of necessity. Some begin to write for more general tech outlets or rags. Some change subjects altogether. Some even begin to write books.

One of the more interesting but lesser-mentioned career changes for games journalists, though, is to jump to the opposite team and enter public relations. Given that we as journalists spend so much time dealing with the industry’s PR people, we get to know the PR side of the business quite intimately, and we develop a Rolodex of PR people and firms. When I ended my time with Ars, the most valuable contacts that I walked away with were not the industry’s lead designers, programmers, artists, and creative folk: they were the PR and marketing reps who I’d talked with, drank with, and worked with.

And so, with that in mind, I entered the PR side of the gaming industry. To me, it seemed the perfect transition from a job that never truly seemed “real” and “legitimate” into a profession that would hopefully provide a stable future. Sadly, I soon came to realize the old cliché remains true: the grass isn’t greener on the other side.

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Aural: An Anagram and a Narrative Experiment

Music has an incredible power. This is common knowledge. Music can instill emotion just as easily as it can trigger floods of forgotten memories. And like everyone else, I too am deeply affected by music. But my love for music is strange in that I happen to feel obscenely strong emotions from music that very few actually listen to. Thus, I present an experiment: “Aural.”

Turn your speakers up. Turn the lights off. And read.

People usually balk when I say that the music that moves me most is “trance.” They usually say something along the lines of, “Oh, you like techno.” Trance is a very different beast than most electronic music, and yet it is incredibly hard to pinpoint why exactly. I have a terribly tough time trying to articulate the reasons why I like trance. That’s why I’ve decided that I’m going to try a small experiment here.

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