Adam Oster's Blog, page 14

Video Game Review: Fallout 4

When I was a younger man, I spent far too much time playing RPGs. Games like the SNES Final Fantasies, Super Mario RPG, Secret of Mana, Daggerfall, and Chrono Trigger were things I would play again and again, seeking out all the secrets they had hiding in the corners of their game worlds. These well-crafted stories with gorgeous music and worlds containing any number of hidden elements were such an integral part of my high school years that I have spent a lot of time trying to relive those days in my adult life with varying results through emulators and the like.

So, one would think a game like Fallout 4, which turns all these elements up to 11 should be precisely my cup of tea. And, I’ve spent the past few years since it came out rather eager to explore the Wastelands, even if the previous entries in this series (which are far different) weren’t really something I was ever able to get in to. And the whole concept of having a game with a 30 hour main campaign, plus nearly 70 hours of extras, on top of all the just plain completion elements, meant that I should have more than enough game to get me feeling some of those old feels of exploration.

Instead, I found myself focusing on one of the things that I hated so much about so many of those previously named RPGs: the battles. Square-styled RPGs were incredibly formulaic with the battles. While there was certainly some strategy to winning the turn-based combat, and sometimes they had little button sequences you needed to remember in order to complete an attack effectively, it generally became quite repetitive quickly. This actually isn’t the case with Fallout 4, however. What was the case, though, is that I just couldn’t get good at it. The battles are real time, but there’s no real good way of knowing if a mission you’re working on is beyond your character’s abilities until you are well into it. And so, suddenly, you’re completely out of ammunition and health items, knowing you’ve spent countless hours and bottlecaps (the in-game currency) to get to this point, only to have to turn tail and run to go do some other mission, knowing you’re going to have to come back and deal with cleaning up this mess at some point in the future.

There were so many turn tail and run moments for me during my 25 hours of gameplay that although the main storyline is supposedly only 30 hours long, I wasn’t even at the halfway point according to any of the walkthroughs I consulted to determine my progress. And…I just wasn’t having that much fun.

But the thing is, this game really does take all those things I loved from those games I cranked through time and again in high school and turn them up to their highest level. By all means, I really should have been playing this game down to its last secret storyline. But the truth of the matter is, I just got bored and frustrated.

In reality, I only have so much time for games in my day-to-day, so my frustration probably comes down to not feeling like I actually got anywhere during my playtimes. If I were a younger man, however, with a much more open schedule, I have a feeling that I probably would have had a far different experience.

Which is probably why this game was so beloved. And probably should be.

Why do I Write?

As someone who has a fulltime job, is going to school, and tries to be a slightly better than average parent to his children and an okay husband for his wife, I tend to find myself rather overwhelmed when it comes to my life. And honestly, although I already have a hyper-busy life, the one thing that tends to be the biggest struggle to fit into my already crazy days is writing.

Now, sure, everyone needs a hobby, and writing is something that, to some extent, calms me, but at the same time, when I get stuck in these crazy deadlines I have from time to time and really don’t see any form of monetary compensation for what I do, it feels as though writing is the one thing that probably causes me the most unnecessary stress. When you toss onto the top of that the idea that I spend a not inconsiderable amount of time trying to market my writing and get it out there, well, writing is actually probably more of a pain in the ass than it’s worth.

So, why do I do it?

I honestly ask myself this exact question on an incredibly regular basis. Yes, it’s something I enjoy and it’s something which allows me to flex my creative muscles and it, from time to time, gives me an added bliss when people read my work or see it performed on a stage and let me know how much they enjoyed it. But, I could also spend that same time I spend slaving over a keyboard just sitting back in the morning and drinking my coffee while watching some mindless television.

I could have things a lot easier if I would just give the whole thing up, because it’s not like this stuff just happens. No, it takes countless hours to put together even the smallest of stories, or plays, or books, or whatever the heck I’m writing for whatever process. And I do so much of it purely for myself. Heck, even these blog posts take time, right?

I was actually asking myself this precise question this morning as I worked through my coffee and made it through my giant piles of emails, and I found myself feeling like I didn’t have an answer.

Sometimes the very act of writing feels like I’m fighting fate. Like, I’m working so hard to create art with the hopes that it will somehow become the thing I can spend all my time on, instead of cramming it into the odd free hours I find throughout my day, only for fate to constantly remind me of my actual career and how much of my life has led to that being the culmination of all my efforts and not some silly wordplay.

And this very vision of fighting fate, of having this no holds barred battle with the very rules of my existence, it sounds both exhausting and exhilarating. Like, I don’t know if you can actually win a battle with fate. But, there’s also this whole rebellious nature inside of me who thinks that if you don’t battle fate, if you don’t work to get out of the cage it has placed you in, what the heck is the point of even being alive?

I often feel a lot like a caged animal, like I have only these very specific places in which I’m allowed to exist, and my options are either to become the fat and comfortable caged animal who has just allowed that cage to be the reality, or I can be the ferocious beast who is constantly testing the bars of the cage to see if they have gotten weaker, who is looking for the zookeeper to make a mistake and leave a door open, who is always ready to leap out to freedom whenever the opportunity arrives.

And, for me, that metaphor tends to work, even if it sounds so much nicer to be the fat and lazy creature. I like the idea of being the wild animal who yearns for their freedom. I like knowing that I’m keeping fate on its toes. I like knowing that I’m fighting for what I want out of my life instead of purely allowing fate to decide it for me.

And this is why I write.

Because just because I’m a caged animal doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Are You My Mothers?

Not that long ago, while I was at a scouting event, one of the ladies helping serve the food at the event kept handing me Rice Krispies treats whenever I would walk past her. I certainly asked for the first one, because who doesn’t want a Rice Krispies treat, but I ended up with four before all was said and done. While discussing this phenomena with one of my scout parent friends, she asked me why I didn’t just say no to getting more (I’m guessing she assumed that I wouldn’t want four Rice Krispies treats for some reason?) and my response was to joke that I just assume everyone wants to be my mother and I couldn’t let her down.

While it was a joke, I’ve spent some time considering this line of thinking, and I’ve started to realize that whether or not they actually want to be my mother, I have a standard relationship with people in my life where they try to take care of me, generally through food. When I was a younger man, I would always be the one sent home with the leftovers, something which, to be honest, still continues today, although I don’t have nearly as many reasons to be offered them in my life nowadays. In fact, it seems like whenever there is food available, I have someone who is ready to offer me way too much of it.

I actually had to make a decision at one point in my life to actively turn down food because, as someone who grew up feeling he needed to clear his plate, I would often end up feeling uncomfortably full. It’s honestly a surprise that I am not a much larger man, based purely on how much food I’ve been offered and then eaten because of my lack of want of turning down more food to my world of mothers.

So, maybe I’m living some sort of Freudian nightmare where all the people in my life want to mother me…but also, I’m not sure it’s that much of a nightmare. It’s nice to have people who want to take care of me. And I’m definitely not complaining about the extra servings. Besides, as someone who has crossed over a certain threshold of age, you have to latch on to every single one of those things that still allows you to feel young.

Introducing my Kids to my Art

As an artist of things that aren’t exactly the most young-one-friendly, I’ve spent a large portion of my time telling my kids excitedly what it feels like to be an artist, while also holding them at an arms-length from the stuff I write. Yeah, I have that chapter book I wrote a few years back that I still haven’t figured out what to do with that they enjoyed, and sure, they’ve gotten to read little things here and there, but mostly, I just didn’t see my books as being something they’ve even get interested in, beyond the appropriateness of the content.

A few years ago, my eldest decided to pick one of my books off the bookshelf (we just so happened to actually have them on the shelf, which is surprising because I usually give them away nearly as quickly as I get them in), and then quickly made it through all of them. She immediately became my biggest fan, and that was pretty darn awesome. My most recent book, the one I’m in the midst of trying to get published, she loved so much when she read an early version that she’s already ready to read the re-written version just because she wants to see the differences. It’s possible I lucked out that she’s just young enough to not quite see my books as being embarrassing yet, but she’s been one of the biggest proponents for my books, working to try to get her book clubs in the schools to read them and just all around telling her friends about them.

Just last week, I came across my middle child reading my first novel, The Legend of Buddy Hero. I noticed he was reading the first version, a version I published before I realized how absolutely terrible it was and took it down, completely rewrote the thing several times, became part of a few writing communities, and overall became a completely different level of writer before finally publishing the real version. I told him he should really read the real version, something I then realized we didn’t have in the house (because of the aforementioned giving-away-of-my-books policy that I should probably reconsider for the sake of my wallet), so I went ahead and ordered a copy of that, as well as copies of the four other books of mine that we weren’t in possession of.

And they arrived today. And my kid who has been fighting the urge to continue his read of the version of the book he had been reading, ran out to the mailbox this morning (because the post office was early on the delivery today for some reason) and excitedly tore open the box, before asking if he could take the book to school today.

Because he’s ready.

And for all of the successes I’ve had with my writing (which aren’t that few!), the excitement of my kids over getting to read it might be the biggest thing for me.

So, I’m feeling pretty awesome today.

Nobody Cares about Santa

I think I’ve mentioned to you all about how I’ve happened to find myself performing in a show again (in fact, I just talked at length about it on Monday). Well, as of the time you read this, the performances have already happened, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about just how weird of an experience for me this one has been.

I’ve spent plenty of time on the stage, and, more importantly, back stage, over the years. And I’ve never exactly been the most professional of performer. Back in my days of being on the stage all the time, I would often show up last minute for mic checks and kick out as quickly as I could afterward, not often being there for things like load in or strike, or any of those things that any good cast member takes a part in. I acted a little rock star-esque, as I just didn’t feel like doing those things I didn’t care to do, and I felt like I was doing enough by fulfilling the bare minimum required to be a part of a show.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve tried to be a bit more responsible. Even for the shows my kids are in, I’m there as much as I can be to be a part of all the things that keep the theatre moving along. I honestly believe I’ve done a solid job of turning things around and really trying to be a more productive member of the theatre community whenever I can be.

However, for this show, it almost feels as though I’ve turned my younger days irresponsibility up to 11. You see, although I would have loved to have been a part of the show for real, I didn’t audition because I simply don’t have the time right now to do a show. Between school and work and just trying to do all the carting of kids around necessary as a parent, I feel as though my days are constantly packed to the brim. But, when the director of the show contacted me about this role as a fake Santa performing for only one song and only needing to be there for six rehearsals (which turned out to be 12 plus the entirety of hell week), I decided it was a great low-cost way to be able to perform again. And considering the whole intention here was just for me to be a body to fill a stage, it was really something where the expectations for my involvement in the show were low.

As in, just make sure to be at the rehearsals during the brief period we work on this scene. In fact, the few times I’ve shown up early or on the days where they didn’t expect all the extra bodies, the director has pulled me aside to tell me that I could get out of there.

Which means that for the entirety of this show, I’ve showed up at rehearsals an hour late, done my song, and booked out of there less than a half hour later.

Where I liked to think of myself as a rock star back in the day, I truly feel like I’ve gotten the rock star treatment this time around.

And so, as we had our first rehearsal at the actual theatre last night (when I’m writing this), and I got there at the time the show started, knowing that I don’t need to be around until the start of the second act, feeling as though I was being all responsible and would stay until the end for notes to pretend I was a legitimate part of the show. And then, after sitting around for a couple of hours while they worked through all the technical issues, and I found myself constantly in the way of all the performers running from place to place while I tried to work on some homework, I suddenly realized that my being there more than I needed to be was probably actually more irresponsible than I had thought.

I was actually slowing things down just by being there. When looking for people to be involved in scene changes, they’d have to see me, remember that I’m not actually a part of the rest of the show, and then go on to find someone else. I was just another body in the pile of bodies in the changing room as the actual performers would rush in to do their quick costume changes. I was, ultimately, just in the way.

So, I’ve decided to take my perspective on this role in a different direction. I like to think of myself now as being like a person who has a cameo role in a movie, where they just show up for a brief moment and then leave immediately after, not being expected to do anything else because they really just need to get out of the way for all the people doing the actual work.

And I could really get used to that…

Which, I guess, means I’ve finally made it, right?

Regardless, I’m excited to be back on the stage, singing and dancing, and really having none of the other overhead that comes along with that. It’s almost relaxing. You know, if I didn’t have all the hundreds of other things I should be doing while waiting for my scene to come up…

Book Review: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Did you know that French fiction is almost like its own genre of books? I mean, now that I write that sentence, it doesn’t feel all that strange of a thing, but before I read The Elegance of the Hedgehog, I didn’t realize that the French have such a foreign way of writing fiction to what I’ve become accustomed to. It’s not like this is the first translated book I’ve ever read. I’ve read plenty of German translations, a couple of Japanese, and even a North Korean, but for whatever reason, The Elegance of the Hedgehog is one of the most foreign feeling books I’ve ever read.

It’s not like it’s technically all that different from a standard fiction narrative format. There are well-developed characters, they do things, there’s an issue to overcome, and things generally get resolved. It’s just that it’s so doggone slow and plodding. And the only reason that I’ve come to determine that the Frenchness of this book is a major contributing factor is because of doing a little research to determine why this book received so many accolades, even though not much happens throughout a majority of its pages.

That’s not to say this book has no redeeming qualities. While it is incredibly slow and throughout most of the text you’ll wonder if there’s a point, this book dives deeply into a number of philosophical concepts, as well as just the overall nature of existence. We get to see a main character struggle with classism in a way where we learn through her internal monologue that she is brilliant while she hides it from nearly every single person she interacts with. We get to read the diaries of a young girl who is dealing with her own similar issues. In fact, the structure of this book is downright amazing. The parallelism between the old concierge and the young girl is so well done that I didn’t even realize they were two different characters for far longer than I care to admit.

And the prose is so poetic. We watch an awkward love story play out between the concierge and one of the people who have recently moved into the building she works for, and see these two struggle with the concept of bridging their class divide while trying not to resist their obvious chemistry.

And then we get the little suicidal girl slowly come to terms with the fact that the world is actually not nearly as hopeless as she had originally believed.

There’s a ton of great stuff in this book.

It’s just really slow.

And I haven’t yet decided whether or not that’s a bad thing yet.

But the translation is remarkably done. I obviously can’t speak to how faithful the translation is, but the verbiage utilized in the translation shows the workmanship of a true master of the English language, who, presumably, is just as masterful in French. And it might be in this alone that makes this book worth a read.

It’s not a page turner, by any means, but it’ll certainly make you think, and will paint the most beautiful images in your mind as you work through it.

The Community of Community Theatre

As I work through all of the emotions of the past few weeks of being involved in a show at the Eau Claire Children’s Theatre, I’ve begun thinking about what the Community part of Community Theatre really means. And I didn’t really get this feeling until I found myself unintentionally being a part of strike for the show until 1am yesterday morning.

For those of you unaware of the term, strike is what happens after a show is completed when you take down all the sets and props and costumes and put them away. Although this can happen a number of ways depending on the troupe or the venue, it often happens immediately following the completion of the last performance, and often involves a bit of a cast party either during or after you finish the clean up process.

And I’m going to go right out and admit that I had intended to skip this part of the process for this show. While I respect strike as the responsibility of cast members in community theatre to help wrap up everything that has been done over the previous weeks/months, I simply didn’t have the energy for it and had a busy day ahead which required me to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. However, as I started to leave the venue that night, I saw they were already loading sets and props into the U-haul to go back to where they belong, and so, I figured I’d help out for a bit. That bit of helping ended up meaning I stuck around for another 3+ hours, actually being one of the last people there to help clean up from the show. In many ways, it feels like I spent more time working on strike than I did on preparing for the show itself.

And this morning, I’m still exhausted, looking to see if I can try and fit a nap in during my lunch break at work. But, at the same time, I find myself thinking about being a part of strike and realizing how much community building happens in those few hours after a show when you’re all working quickly (and in this case in the heavily-falling snow) to wrap up all of the work that everyone has been putting in to get this production to the stage. And I’m incredibly happy I didn’t skip it.

While I enjoy performing, regardless of how insecure I am about my own abilities to do so, it was strike in which I finally felt as though I was again a part of this community I’ve loved so much over the years. Because of working with these dedicated cast and crew members long after the sun had set and not long before it was going to come back up over the horizon again, I keep thinking about how ready I am to be back to do another one again soon.

I don’t have time. I definitely don’t have time right now. Or energy. But although being on the stage and hearing the audience cheer as our not-so-merry band of fake Santas did a kick-line was amazing, it wasn’t what brought me back to my old days in the theatre. It was the backstage moments like strike where the community is actually built and where we all get to see how we’re all working together to try to do something special while hoping the audience gets to appreciate what we’ve done.

It’s the not-so-fun parts that really make you feel as though you’re a part of something truly special.

And I’ve missed that.

More than I had ever could have realized.

While there’s always going to be a lot of drama involved in being a part of something like this, there’s also an amazing community of people who are really just trying to do something spectacular. And it’s those people that I miss more than anything else.

So, thanks for the opportunity to be a part of that. Even if I really need to find a place for a nap now.

Flash Fiction: Alternatives

Jackson Block was a stay-at-home father, who had long wondered what his life would be like should he have continued working after he and his husband decided to have kids. While he didn’t regret giving up his career on most days, as he found the time spent with their three children some of the best days of his life, he still couldn’t help but think of the alternative versions of himself living out their lives in other universes.

Before kids, he had worked as an insurance adjuster for a small auto insurance firm. While that position itself didn’t offer much in the way for career prospects, he did have it on good authority that he was going to be offered an option to start his own office in a city only three hours from where they currently lived.

And yes, he knew they offered these manager positions to pretty much anyone with a pulse, but it felt to him like this could have truly been the first step toward something big.

But he couldn’t never quite envision what that was.

Jackson was never big on five-year plans. He liked living in the moment. Part of this was because he never felt like he had a great grasp on what could happen next. There were always too many variables. How could one truly know how his life would have been different if he had decided to finish school or if he had gotten married to his high school sweetheart before she left him, claiming she knew he was gay. In hindsight, she might have known him better than he thought.

So, when Jackson sat back and tried to consider where his life could have been if he had only made this one different choice, he couldn’t picture anything. Outside of life continuing on in the same way it had before he had decided to stay at home with the kids. Where he would travel from home to home and repair shop to repair shop, reviewing damage to vehicles and attempting to determine how much the insurance company would pay, if anything, to have them repaired.

In a way, that life wasn’t much different than his current one, where he hauled his kids from location to location, haggling with after school activity locations about how much he should have to pay, working as the local cubmaster and trying to get the treasurer to release their funds so he could pay for the upcoming campout, or trying to make sure to do the grocery shopping while keeping to their increasingly tightening budget.

In fact, the more Jackson thought about it, the more he realized this was most of what life was: bartering. Trying to determine how much money you would be willing to receive for the work you do in order to be able to determine how much money you are willing to pay for services provided by others. The more Jackson thought about it, the more his head spun with the cycle of money going around and around and around and around.

“Money is what makes the world go round!” Jackson sang lightly to himself as he rocked his two-year old daughter in his arms.

Was he going crazy? he wondered. Or was this simply a brief thought experiment that got caught on loop because although he didn’t work a day job, he hadn’t found a time for rest in the five years since he had quit.

Maybe that was it. Maybe he was just tired. Maybe if he just closed his eyes for just one second, maybe then…

In the other room, Jackson heard his husband arrive home and realized he hadn’t yet prepared anything for dinner. It wasn’t that his husband was going to be mad, but that Jackson was just that far off schedule.

How much would he be willing to pay to have some pizza delivered this evening? he laughed to himself.

He got out of the chair carefully, so as to not wake his resting child, his new song about money and its global impacts still playing on his lips as he walked into the living room to greet his husband. I wonder how much I’d have to pay him to get the pizza? Jackson mused.

Living in the Simulation

A few months ago, in response to the trailer for The Matrix 4 being released, I finally convinced my kids to watch the original 1999 film, The Matrix, and introduced them to the idea of living inside a simulation. Considering I was exiting high school when this film came out, seeing this movie through the eyes of my much younger kids was incredibly interesting to me. Where I had some idea of what was going on the first time I watched it (although, admittedly, came out of the theater still having plenty of questions), my kids spent the first half hour of the film trying to figure it out. And they still had far more questions after.

So, I tried to put myself in their place, to try to see how I would have understood such an enormous philosophical concept at their young ages, and the truth is, I probably still would have had the same response that I did as a senior in high school.

You see, for as long as I can remember, I’ve toyed with the idea of reality not being real. However, instead of thinking of life as being a digital representation of reality, I actually held more of an idea that my life was some sort of entertainment, with a cast and a script and, well, you know, The Truman Show. In true highlighting of my mental illness, I was toying with this idea well before The Truman Show ever came about.

Growing up with the belief that there was an almighty being who controls everything about my life and has a plan for me definitely helped me get on the path of believing that my life is some sort of television show. It’s really not that big of a jump from “God has a plan” to “living in a pre-written narrative”. And actually, this always somewhat helped me with the concept of free will. The idea that everyone around me is working to put me where I need to be and what I need to do for the purposes of a story, but I still have the ability to just go off on my own and do my own thing.

What I’m trying to say is that although I don’t ever allow myself to completely fall into the belief that reality isn’t real, there’s always a part of me which views this world that we live in with some skepticism. Like, I’m not entirely sure I’d be too thrown off if at some point Dom Deluise suddenly appeared and let me know that this has all been some sort of long-form episode of Candid Camera. I’d probably be like, “Man, why in the world did you make my life so boring most of the time? Was that actually good television?”

All of this is a long way of saying that when I came out of watching The Matrix back when it was first released, my questions were more about whether this fake reality could be a digital one, verses my long-held theories about it being some sort of filmed entertainment for someone, as opposed to having a world-shaking revelation that there might be a way in which everything we hold to be true is, well, not.

Which means, I’m not sure I can quite ever get the same view as my kids did when they watched this movie for the first time. Because I was ready for it. I was ready for someone to tell me something like this. Because, although I know only mental illness lies in the path of fully committing to this theory of life, I also know that some part of me is already there.

How to Manage Projects

As an Information Science and Technology major, it turns out a big part of what is expected to be learned is the skill of project management. As someone who has spent a lot of time managing projects, I honestly felt as though this was a ridiculous thing for anyone to expect me to learn. I mean, sure, I knew there were concepts that I wasn’t using, because I don’t exactly follow any sort of rules for project management, but I really just assumed it would mostly entail the simple basics of thinking and then doing. Things I do normally, but, you know, with a few more rules set around them.

And for the most part, I was correct. But then, I started realizing that there are all these cool tools to do these things that I’ve been doing in my head for forever. And they do them far better.

The specific item that I’ve been working with today is called a Gantt Chart. This is, quite simply, one of the dumbest charts ever. It simply allows you to split a project up into multiple different steps, along with estimations of how long you think it will take to complete the project, and even the ability to assign them to different people, giving you not only a relatively good estimate of how long a project will take, but also an easy way to see how delays in one step can impact the turnaround time of the overall project.

It’s so damned simple. I’ve even spent months decrying why anyone would ever feel the need to use it because it’s so simple. But the more I look at it, the more I find myself trying to figure out how I can use it in my daily life. Like, this thing is so dang stupid, but at the same time, it might quite possibly be the best way for me to manage all the things I’m trying to do at any given moment. It very likely could be the one thing I need to complete my vision board so I have a full line of sight into where things go as I move forward.

In other words: I might be in love.

This wasn’t love at first sight. No. But, I’ve grown to love it, little by little.

At the same time, this is also the one thing I have yet to have to implement into any of my coursework thus far, and I’m sitting here at the moment in which that is the exact thing that I’m supposed to do for my class, and instead of actually doing it, I’m writing about it and thinking about what other coursework I could do first. Because it also still really feels like busy work, and I’m already too busy.

So…maybe I don’t really like it that much.

Because, well, project management is really kinda the worst. Just let me do the thing already, and let’s stop planning for how to do the thing, right?

Stupid Gantt Charts…