Alpha Counter

I hate to sound like a whiny, ignorant little tax payer, but can nothing be sacred? I’m just tired of how every time money is exchanged between two people, the government insists on taking a piece of it. Technically, money given as a gift is subject to income tax. And any time someone buys something from someone (like a garage sale), it supposedly could be applied to sales tax. Even just owning shit like a car, the IRS sends me a property tax bill.

They say that taxing downloads will rake in $12 million a year. Great. That’s $12 million I’m sure will be mis-managed and ill-spent, just like all the other garbage that brought us to the point of resorting to ideas like this. How about we learn to properly spend the budget that we have first. If we can get that worked out, we can probably find about $12 million in elbow room right there. Then we can figure out if we really need to start taxing more shit.

The good news is that the plan would be incredibly expensive to organize and execute, which could be our saving grace. However, if all state governments got together or if the feds thought to get something like this set up nationwide, we’d be boned.

I don’t watch much TV, but I do have some favorite shows. My one guilty pleasure of those shows is Hell’s Kitchen (and to the same effect, Kitchen Nightmares).

I do enjoy looking at food. I’ve never complained whenever my girlfriend puts on the Food Network while we’re snuggling on the couch. But more than that, I think I just enjoy British people yelling at Americans. It tickles me whenever Gordon Ramsay abusively calls someone “donkey”.

There’s been a trend of that over the past ten years, I’ve noticed. From The Weakest Link to It’s Me or the Dog. Either there’s such a void of creativity coming from Hollywood that they’ve opened the doors for a British invasion or Americans just welcome the idea of us getting schooled by the English.

I just saw one of the most ridiculous movies ever. It’s called Pumpkin and it stars Christina Ricci. She plays a sorority girl who falls in love with a retarded kid she met training for the Special Olympics and their forbidden love affair.

At first I thought that it was just a really weak, lame “After School Special” type of movie. But about 30min into it, it went from stupid to ridiculous. The kind of ridiculous that can take something that’s bad and wrap it around to being good.

I’m just a fan of what Adam West once described as the “Theater of the Absurd”.

Today, I was chilling at home, laid out on my couch and playing Castlevania: SotN. I’d just been killed in a very frustrating area filled with enemies that are hard to avoid. As I pulled up the game save load screen, one of my cats leapt up to snuggle on my chest.

Naturally, I had to swing my arms (PSP in hand) out of the way to accommodate. When my cat had finally gotten comfortable, I was able to again pull the PSP into view. That’s when I saw on my screen the frightful words “File Deleted”. I guess my thumb bumped the ‘delete’ button in the commotion when I suddenly had a kitty in my face.

That suuuuuuuucks. Fortunately, I have a back-up save file on my computer. If it’s as old as I think it is, I may have only lost about 4 hours of play time. I’ll make a habit of backing up my data every couple days that I’m playing.

My other blog is named “The Grey Ghost”. It used to be my own online name (and I guess it kinda still is), adapted from The Gray Ghost, a character from Batman: The Animated Series. I took it because 1) I’m a big fan of that cartoon, and 2) I used to feel very alone in a crowd. Like I existed, but no one could see me, kinda like a ghost.

Luckily for me, life got better and that no longer applies. However, I’m pretty stuck on the name. So I think I’m going to re-brand it with a more old school video game feel. It’s no longer referring to myself; it’s the name of the site. It’s like there was a Pac-Man ghost with an unpopular color, but had something to contribute. My site is like that contribution.

I got the response to my interview questions from Omi Gibson today. I’m very excited and happy to hear from her. I tried my best to not be star struck. Ironically, she appears to be a very normal person outside of the cosplay scene. Just another desk worker, much like myself. Today, I cleaned up the English in some of her answers and put on the finishing touches to the rest of the article.

It will be a few weeks before the interview is published at GotGame.com. I gotta make sure that the first article of the column gets up ASAP, then I have another article that needs to be up within the first week of February.

I’ve just entered the (much harder) inverted castle in Castlevania: SotN, so I’m giving that game a break for now. I’ve left Hotel Dusk: Room 215 neglected for far too long.

The trouble I’m running into is that since it’s been a few weeks since I’d last played Hotel Dusk, I can’t remember where I am or what I’m supposed to do next! The game does offer some help in the chapter summary and character profile sheets, but otherwise I have to review all my items and just knock on every door in order to regain my bearings.

Let this be a lesson to me to make better use of the in-game notepad.

The trouble with both writing and playing video games for the majority of one’s day is that it doesn’t offer much opportunity for exercise. I like to use my DS or PSP whenever I do get to work out, but the chilling winter weather has shied me away from going for my usual walks or visits to the gym.

I wish there were more that I could do at home, other than the usual sit-ups or jumping jacks. Wii Fit would be great, except I don’t own a Wii nor a sufficient TV to play it on. There’s always DDR, but I’m pitifully uncoordinated.

Now that we’ve survived this most recent snowfall, I’ll brave the elements.

You may have heard on the news, but North Carolina got his with a pretty harsh snowfall the other night. Most businesses shut down and many people (including myself) stayed home to avoid the dangerous road conditions.

This gave me the perfect opportunity to catch up on my writing projects. I didn’t get much done in the case of my own site , but I did get a lot done for GotGame.com . I’m starting up a new weekly column (which I hope will launch very soon) that covers console gaming and otaku fandom. I managed to get a major head start on my first three articles.

And of course, I dove deeper into Symphony of the Night. I never thought I’d get this hooked into that game!

A couple years ago, I did an online radio show for the Team Sportscast Network called Alpha Counter (much like the name of my blog here). One of the things I’d hoped to do for the show is to get interviews with interesting people that have a presence in gaming culture, but aren’t the usual corporate figures.

My first attempt was with Asia Carrera, former porn star and self-proclaimed gamer. I managed to get her contact information, but her only response was “I’m sorry, I don’t do porn anymore.” I could understand, but it wasn’t really relevant to my interview request.

My next attempt was an Australian girl who was a passionate cosplayer and fan of Cammy (which we had in common). She replied that she’d love to, except that she’s deaf and that wouldn’t work too well for a radio show. Touché.

Today I finally hit paydirt! For my new column, Robot Punch, over at GotGame.com, I’ll be conducting an interview with my absolute favorite cosplay model, Omi Gibson. She agreed to do the interview and I sent out my list of questions. Now I just have to wait for her answers.

I’m so excited!