For more cartoons, go here.

Also, see what Louis C.K. has to say here. 

I caved in to my materialistic demons and got an X-Box 360 a couple of months ago.  I bought a bunch of different games with which to entertain myself, and by different games, I mean I bought a bunch of first person shooter games and a football game that I probably won’t play much.* 

The game that is getting all of my attention lately is a little ditty entitled Call of Duty: World at War.  For those of you who don’t know, Call of Duty (CoD) is a series of first person shooters (FPS) set mainly during World War II (except for the fourth one, which I believe is set in the good old modern times of Iraq?).  World at War is the fifth iteration of the series, previous iterations of which featured levels based on the invasion of Normandy.  That’s right, if you so desire you can pretend to storm the beach just like Tom Hanks pretended to do in Saving Private Ryan, except instead of just watching people get shot, you get to pretend to actually shoot people.  Or blow them up with grenades.  Or burn them to death with a flamethrower.  Or stab them to death with a knife. 

And that is what makes the entire CoD series really weird.  What we have here is an entire series of video games dedicated solely to recreating the experience of fighting in World War II.  It’s like wanting to play air guitar to your favorite song, except the guitar is a gun and your favorite song is a collection of really violent and soul-destroying acts.  Now, I’m not saying that I’m against the United States participating in the actual World War II.  What I am pointing out, though, is that it’s really fucking weird for me to pay sixty dollars to buy a video game that, unlike the complete fiction of a FPS like Halo,  recreates an actual war, a war that many people can give you a first hand account of because they were there. 

The campaign mode of CoD: WAW features two stories.  At various times you play as Private Miller, a low level Marine in the Pacific Theater and Private Petrenko, a low level Russian on the Eastern Front.  The game features many real life battles, including the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Peleliu, the Battle of Okinawa, and the Battle of Berlin. 

A few snapshots of what happens in this mode of the game.  At the start of the game, you are Private Miller.  Miller had been captured by the Japanese previous to the beginning of the game, and through his eyes you watch the Japanese torture and kill another prisoner.  Keep in mind that although the game isn’t a film, it does look very realistic and I, for one, think it is pretty gross to watch a person get his throat slit, even if it isn’t real.  You, as Miller, are about to suffer the same fate, but you are saved by Sergeant Roebuck and a squad of Americans.  Sgt. Roebuck is voiced by Kiefer Sutherland, so, in a way, it’s like having Jack Bauer save you.  Which just makes it weirder.** 

Later on, at the beginning of one of the Russian levels, you (as Petrenko) have been captured by Germans and you are in a house and have been disarmed and beaten.  Germans are taunting you and are about to kill you.***  All of a sudden, the wall explodes and your compatriots save you.  In the process, they shoot but don’t kill your German captors.  One of the other Russians wants to kill the Germans, but the Russian leader says that they are already bleeding to death and so there is no need.  He then rather casually says that Petrenko (you) can kill them as the entire squad leaves the house.  You are then left alone in the house with the two Germans and you get to make a weird decision: do I shoot these two helpless Germans or just leave them to bleed to death?  The game gives you the option to kill.  As you move the aiming crosshairs of your gun over the German bodies, the crosshairs flash red, indicating enemy.  Shooting people who are already bleeding to death, just what I always want to recreate in order to entertain myself. 

One more snapshot of weirdness for you to chew on.  Fast-forwarding to the end of the game, you find yourself as Petrenko.  The final image of the game recreates the moment when the Russians fly the Russian flag over the Reichstag.  As Petrenko, you fight your way through the Reichstag, killing more Germans than you can count.  Once you get to the top of the building, you are wounded by a surviving German.  You are approaching the flagpole when another German pops up.  He is about to kill you, but your leader swoops in and you watch as he brutally kills the German, practically disemboweling him in the process.  Your leader then helps you the rest of the way to flag pole, and he cuts down the German flag while you plant the Russian one.  This is the climax of the entire game. 

And it feels pretty good.  Until you realize that you’re an American pretending to be a Russian.  And then it gets weird again.  Because not only have you spent hours pretending to take part in a real war, half of the time you weren’t even pretending to be an American while doing so. 

I don’t know what real war is like.  I’d venture to say that I never want to know.  I don’t want to know what the real life versions of the game would feel like.  What would it feel like to watch a fellow prisoner get murdered, knowing that if he could have held on for just ten more seconds that he would’ve been saved.  I don’t want to know what it is like to shoot people who are already bleeding to death.  I don’t want to strap a flamethrower on my back, shoot flames from it, and then listen to the dying screams of other men burning to death.  And yet, I and whole bunch of other people apparently want to pay money to pretend to. 

In the end, it all boils down to how we want to tell stories to each other.  How do we, as a culture, remember WWII?  It seems that we’ve decided that video games are an appropriate medium for such memories.  The question, though, should be asked: is this a good way to pass on memories?  Should we conflate our entertainment with our important cultural history? 

Here’s another problem.  At the end of the game, before the end credits roll, there is a tribute to those who died in the war, as if the game was made as a memorial to those that died in World War II.  Is this how we make memorials now?  Our memorials have to entertain us?  Did our grandfathers storm the beach of Normandy, thinking that some day their great-grandchildren would take their life experience and turn it into disposable entertainment?  Probably not. 

Ultimately, the CoD series commoditizes our history and then sells it back to us as entertainment.  This is troubling.  We should probably be more wary of the commoditization of our own history**** than we currently are, because to sell our history as entertainment cheapens it to the point of triviality.  If we aren’t careful, the line between history and entertainment will become so blurred that will it will become impossible to tell the difference.  Not everything is meant to be entertaining. 

*It’s nothing against the football game, I just don’t have the patience to learn about all the defenses and offenses and what goes against what and all that “real life” football stuff.  I’m a child of the NFL Blitz style of football gaming.  No penalties.  4^th and 30 from your own 10?  You better believe I’m going for that shit.  If I want to play real football, I’ll just watch it on television. 

**Can you imagine Jack Bauer in WWII?  Yikes. 

***Why they don’t just get on with it and kill you instantly baffles me.  Your German captors seem to stupidly take their dealing-with-enemies strategies from every terrible Bond villain.  In this sense, the story of the game falls victim to the same lapse in logic that most of these kinds of stories do: when your enemy has you captured in real life and determines that you aren’t worth anything, they will just kill you.  But because killing you would screw the story up, they jabber on until the cavalry arrives. 

****We should be especially wary of the commoditization of someone else’s history.  Why are we pretending to be Russians?!  Why are we co-opting important moments of their history for our own entertainment?  Just because they were our allies during WWII does not mean that we get to tell their side of the story. 

So I'll probably have to wait until I'm at work and print out pages during my down time, if there is any to be had this week.  In the mean time, I think we can all agree that this is pretty funny: http://www.vpilf.com/.  

The Mist
Interesting meditation on what happens when paranoia strikes.  Absolutely brutal ending.  Darabont presents a completely opposite world view than he did in The Shawshank Redemption, which makes the movie even more fascinating.  

The Golden Compass
I don’t really remember much about this one, which tells you how good it was.  Hint: not very good.   

Juno
A little too cutesy talky at times, but otherwise excellent. 

I Am Legend
First two acts were great, last act… not so much.  

Charlie Wilson’s War
It’s Aaron Sorkin, so of course I loved it. 

Sweeny Todd
I suppose it was executed well, but I just wasn’t that into it.  Come to think of it, I guess I’m not the biggest Tim Burton fan.   

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Some hilariously absurd scenes.  Doesn’t seem like a cohesive movie at points, but worth renting for sure. 

The Great Debaters
I actually didn’t see this one, but I just wanted to point out that the title is terrible.   

There Will Be Blood
Borderline great film.  I didn’t think that Plainview was as nuanced as others seemed to think, but the cinematography and scope of the film more than compensate for that. 

Hitman
Miss, man.

The Savages
A heartbreaking little character study.   

Cloverfield
Great concept, decent execution.  Worth seeing once, but really will only work one time (just like The Sixth Sense).

In Bruges
It’s too bad this movie was buried in February, because it was great and quite possibly contains Colin Farrell’s best performance.  Martin McDonagh is a great writer, too.  Theater people know what I’m talking about…   

Be Kind, Rewind
Be kind to yourself and don’t see this movie.

Charlie Bartlett
Derivative of other movies, but hey, I still liked it.   

Drillbit Taylor
I took my brother to see this one, so that’s my excuse.  What’s yours?

The Grand
Better in concept than execution. 

Leatherheads
A misfire.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Not as funny as I would’ve hoped… still worth renting, though.

Baby Mama
Tina Fey should be in more movies.  And hopefully they’ll be funnier than this one.

Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Why did this one suck so much!?  Very disappointing.   

Iron Man
If you haven’t see this one yet, you’re kind of an idiot. 

Redbelt
“Ah, but you train people to fight?”  “No, I train people to prevail.”  Fuck yeah. 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
George Lucas and the Continuing Ability To Fuck Up Everything He Touches. 

The Incredible Hulk
The Iron Man cameo is the best part.  The rest of the movie is… all right. 

Wall-E
Another Pixar home run.  Or maybe it’s a triple?  Can’t decide, but either way it’s a good movie.   

Wanted
Wanted: a better script.   

Hancock
Another example of a great concept ruined by (presumably and hopefully) studio interference.   

The Dark Knight
This one deserves its own write up, and it’ll get one soon.  For now: great.  Great, great, great. 

Step Brothers
Preview ruined the best jokes.  Not good. 

Pineapple Express
Possibly one of the funniest last scenes I’ve ever seen.  And some other funny stuff too, although the trailer gives away a lot of the best punch lines.  Still worth seeing, though.    

And that about catches us up for now…  once the new movie review website goes live I'll provide a link to that.  More to come soon… 

A lot has happened since we last spoke.  I have no excuse for my reticence except to say that it has been a busy few months.  Ultimately, it is nice to have the problem that I currently have: I am too busy.  But, oh, the lessons I have learned.  Let’s talk about them.  Today’s topics: time and moving. 

As I look back at the time stamp of my last entry (March 9), I realize that almost three months has past since I have posted.  And heyo, there is lesson number one: time flies in this city.  Of course, time flies everywhere; an hour in New York is no different from an hour in Texas or Oklahoma or Japan or any other place in the world: the same sixty minutes go by.  The difference between New York and every other place I have lived during my life is the pace.  So much happens here.  The same amount of events that would take place over three days in Texas seems to take place in one day here.  This makes remembering events from two weeks ago feel like a month, and it makes February 2^nd, the day I arrived here, feel at least half a year ago. 

And yes, I have been busy.  I spend about fifty hours a week doing work related things (8 hours of work per day, 1 hour for lunch, and about 90 minutes commuting overall).  The rest of the time is spent going out and writing.  Of course, it’s not hard to be busy here.  In fact, if you live in New York and you’re not busy, you’re doing something wrong.  Now I don’t mean that I am necessarily doing more things than I used to when I lived elsewhere.  In point of fact, I actually am doing more than I used to, but even if I wasn’t, I’d still be very busy because every single task of daily life takes longer to accomplish here than it does in other places.  It takes at least a half hour to get anywhere.  Going to the post office will take an hour (and also, screw the USPS, only use them for letters).  Going to the store will take at least an hour.  If you want to do anything remotely time consuming after work (which doesn’t end until six), chances are that will be the only thing you do that night. 

I’m not complaining about any of that, I am merely observing.  Time is at more of a premium here than it was when I lived in Houston, Austin, and Tulsa.  So the lesson about time is that you really have to plan ahead if you want anything to happen, otherwise the requirements of daily life will suck away all your free time. 

* * * * * *

I no longer live in Brooklyn.  Since the end of March, I have lived in Astoria, which is a region of Queens.  I made the choice to live here because it gives me relatively easy access to mid-town (where I work) and because the rent is cheaper in this neighborhood than it is in desirable parts of Brooklyn or Manhattan.  Astoria is also nice because the buildings aren’t as tall and intimidating as they are in Manhattan.  Manhattan is a metropolis, it is endless cement.  Astoria is too, but at least the cement doesn’t rise so high into the sky.

I found a roommate via craigslist.  My search for a roommate and place to live was done completely through craigslist, and it can be a useful resource if you’re willing to sift through some bullshit.  For instance, I interviewed with a potential roommate who was offering a room half the size of the room I am currently occupying.  He wanted me to pay a couple hundred dollars more than I am paying for my current room.  He also openly admitted that we would be sharing the cost of the apartment in a 50/50 split, even though he got the bigger and better bedroom (he babbled on about “tenure” or something, and seemed to indicate that, if I were to sign on to the lease, I would be able to move into the bigger room once he vacated the apartment next year).  He seemed like a nice guy; he was also full of shit.  That is a bad deal. 

I spent a solid week looking at places, traveling all over Astoria in my time after work.  Perhaps that doesn’t sound like enough time to get a sense of things, but it was.  A pattern began to quickly emerge: every place I saw was overpriced for the amount of space that was being offered.  And every person was trying to sell me on how awesome the place really was, when clearly it was not awesome at all.  Sifting through all this crap makes it easy to find a place that you will like, because it will easily stand out.  I finally found the room that I am currently living in during one of my last interviews, and my roommate and I worked out the deal within a couple of days (things move incredibly fast in the rental market here).  It was an exhausting process, which was still only half over because I hadn’t actually moved into the space yet.  And if you think going to the store takes forever in the city, then moving is a nightmare that you don’t want to experience. 

Well, okay, nightmare is too strong of a word.  It’s just a big damn hassle, much more of a hassle than other cities.  Between buying a bed and furniture, it took many weeks before I had my room set up in a fashion that felt like a “lived-in” room, and this is just a bedroom.  The first two weeks there was nothing but a bed; the place was actually depressing.  My trip to Ikea, which is in New Jersey, took half of a Saturday (otherwise known as valuable free time).  Patience is the name of the moving game, patience and praying that all the stuff you’ve bought isn’t damaged during delivery, thus further adding complication to a complicated and expensive process, which of course happened to me.  But that’s okay.  Everything is fixed and in good working order now, and all that frustration is a thing of the past.  Or at least it will be until I decide to move again.    

More to come, and in less than three months… 

It’s been five weeks since I moved to New York.  On the whole, they’ve been good weeks.  Sure, I’ve spent some nights wondering what the hell I’ve gotten myself into, silently freaking out and thinking that perhaps this decision is the latest in a string of bad life decisions that I have recently made.  That’s about par for the course, though.  Mostly, things have gone well.  I got a job, I’m slowly starting to meet people, I’m figuring out a routine, I’m beginning to learn the neighborhoods a little bit, and on and on.  It’s been good.

Something’s been gnawing at the back of my mind from the moment I stepped off the train five weeks ago, though.  Something has always felt off about this entire place.  For the first couple weeks, I thought it was just me adjusting to the move.  And I bet part of it is… but I knew then and know now that it is something more than that.  I figured it out last night.  Last night was weird in that I left the apartment to search for a DVD rental place and I ended up just walking down Bedford Ave for about forty five minutes (all the way from my place to the Bedford stop on the L train aka 2.5 miles).  It was on this walk that I realized what’s been bothering me for the last five weeks: New York is not the country I grew up in.

Take, for example, how I enter my current (sublet) apartment.  I have to walk through three locked doors just to get inside.  And the third door has two pretty serious locks.  For those doing the math at home, that means I have four keys to my place.  On top of that, the first two doors both have two locks a piece (one key per two locks).  Sometimes, then, I have to unlock six locks just to get inside.  Say what you want about Texas, but you don’t need six locks to protect your home there.

My current neighborhood of residence, Bed-Stuy, is quite different than any place I have ever lived.  I am in a pronounced minority here.  I don’t have a problem with that, but I’ll also say that it’s a bit jarring when the only white face you see in your neighborhood is the one that looks back at you in the mirror.  It’s also more than a little jarring when you realize that cops patrol the streets here around the clock (they are especially conspicuous at night).  I won’t lie; I’ve heard gunshots in the distance at least once or twice since I moved in.  Which isn’t to say that I don’t feel safe here, because I do feel safe enough.  Constant police presence is a new feeling.

The whole idea of public transportation is completely different in New York.  In Texas, everyone has a car.  Public transportation is an afterthought, and if someone brings it up they are thought to be joking.  People from Texas know what I mean, but if you’re not from Texas I’ll just say this: the Houston area road system is always under construction.  Not because it needs repairs (although many roads do), but because new roads are always being built.  Because instead of spending money on public transportation, Texas would rather spend it building roads.  And that’s fine.  That’s just not how it is here.  Here most people are concerned about improving the train system.

I could go on and on about what’s different up here in New York (and I will in the weeks to come).  Suffice to say, though, that it feels like living in new country.  I did not grow up this way.  I did not grow up in a liberal, fast paced, multicultural, massive metropolis.  Which is what New York is.  Everything is so different here that I don’t even know that I’d call it America.  At least, I don’t know that I’d call the America that I know.  Hence, it’s my new country.

NOTE: This is the first essay in an ongoing series about life in New York City.  Stick around as I expound upon each of the topics touched briefly upon in this essay and explore many other topics…  we’re just getting started here. 

Psychologically.  

I was riding the 7 train home from work today and I was lucky enough to get a seat.  I found myself sandwiched in between two women, one young and one a bit older.  

Now, my nose starts to get a little runny in the cold weather.  I can't help it.  And I still haven't remembered to carry around tissue during my commute, so I guess I was sniffling a bit as I sat down next to these two women.  After one relatively loud sniffle, the older woman turned to me and said, "would you like tissue?"

And I said, "No, thanks, I'm cool," even though I did kind of want a tissue.  

And she snorted and said, "We'll see" as if I was about to infect her with some horrible disease.

And I thought to myself, "You know what?  Fuck this woman.  I'm going to show her.  I'm not going to sniffle again until I get off this train."  

Fortunately, my stop was only three stops away and so this plan of action was incredibly possible.  

So we sat.  I with my backpack between my legs and her with sixth grade writing technique book.  And even though she was (supposedly) intently reading that book, I knew, just knew, that she was waiting for me to sniffle again.  

But I didn't.  I read the advertisements that are plastered along the top parts of the train (correction for hammer toe surgery!).  I turned toward the younger girl and tried to see what music she was listening to on her iPod.  I occasionally touched my hand to my nose.  But I did not, by God, sniffle. 

I made it to my stop.  The doors opened and I darted out as fast as I could and when my foot hit the platform I wiped the everliving bejesus out of my nose.  And then I snorted it all back up there as loud as I could. 

And as I walked down the stairs to my next train I thought to myself, "So we did see, didn't we?" 

Oh yes, woman on the train, we saw.

I can't say for certain how it must felt for her to see me walk off that train having never snorted my nose again.  I can only imagine that it felt a lot like losing.  

Cause for me, it felt a whole lot like winning.   

Actually, this is pretty much all good news.  It does mean I have less free time now, but let's face it: I've had way too little to do over the last few weeks.  

I am going to celebrate by going out and buying some food and enjoying the hell out of it.  I might also buy myself a DVD to watch.  Really, there's no end to how crazy it might get around here.  

All in all, though, today is a most excellent day.   

Well, it's been a little more than a week since I moved to Brooklyn.  And… not much has yet happened.

That's because it takes a little time to set up shop.  And also because I decided that working at Borders wasn't the right call.  Of course, I'm going in to talk to the manager tomorrow, so I might get roped into a few shifts.  But really, I have no intention of working there.  The pay is terrible.  

Which means I'm rolling the dice with the temp agencies.  They will pay better.  The key, though, is getting in the door.  I've had many agencies recommended to me and I'm still going through the process of following up on those recommendations.  In fact, I'm going to an interview tomorrow (after the Borders meeting), so we'll see how that goes.  I went out and bought some nice clothes for all of this, which makes me find kind of silly because the suit and tie look is not my normal look and I don't yet feel comfortable in that kind of skin.  But if I have to wear a suit to get paid well, then that's what I'll do.  I even taught myself how to tie a tie!  Using youtube!  Seriously.

What's really happening is that I am holding out for a permanent job at a hedge fund in Manhattan.  They advertise themselves as encouraging those with "other agenda" priorities to apply to work there, and their corporate atmosphere is very laid back (no suits!).  They also pay well and have insurance and all that other jazz.  In essence, it's perfect for someone like me.  Unfortunately, their hiring process takes forever.  My contact there apparently went through in excess of ten interviews before he was offered a job.  Obviously, that kind of process takes weeks.  Which is why I am looking to work at a temp agency.  Why not work for Borders, you might ask?  Because the pay is terrible.  And more practically, if the hedge fund doesn't work out, then I need to be gaining office experience in order to go after other administrative work… experience I cannot gain at Borders.  So Borders is pretty much out.  

Otherwise, Brooklyn and Manhattan have been treating me well.  I've caught up with some old friends, been to a couple shows, seen a movie, and spent some time walking around some Brooklyn neighborhoods.  It's been fun, thus far, and I hope it continues to be. 

Here’s a list of things I have already learned in my first eight days:

-however much time you think it will take to get somewhere, add fifteen minutes.

-don’t leave to go drinking on the Upper East Side at 10:30 P.M. on a Saturday night if you live in Brooklyn, unless you’re cool with getting home at 5 A.M.; in fact, just don’t go to the Upper East Side to drink on a Saturday night if you live in Brooklyn, just go to Brooklyn because you are already there.

-it’s very cold here in February.

Well, we're two episodes in.  And… eh!  "Eh" for the premiere, and "!" for the second episode.  

Don't get me wrong, I still wasn't super excited during the second episode because, honestly, Lost doesn't excite me like it did during it's awesome first season.  But that's all right.  At least stuff happened in the second episode, titled "Confirmed Dead."   But let's not get ahead of ourselves… let's talk about the premiere. 

As is now typical of Lost season premieres (with the exception of the first season, of course), episode 4.1 was underwhelming.  For one, it's pretty much impossible to live up to the expectations that have festered over the months since season three ended.  So I'll grant that; the writers just can't be expected to completely live up to those kind of expectations.  I do kind of expect things to happen, though, and not much really did.  In fact, 4.1 was a good example of the one thing I hate about Lost: its absolutely glacial pace.  Sure, we learn that there is the "Oceanic 6" and that Jack and Hurley are confirmed as two of the six.  But given the lack of context of the 6, I find it hard to care about who is and who isn't a part of that number.  For example, not being a part of the 6 doesn't guarantee that a character is dead.  We don't know enough about what it means to be a part of the Oceanic 6, so caring about who is and who is not a part of that number seems like a waste of energy at this time. 

I guess what really bothered me was the handling of Charlie's death.  I expected Desmond to get back to everyone else and warn them, and for everyone to band together and figure out what to do.  What I didn't expect was for everyone to kind of just sort of move quickly but also take their time because what the hell, we're on a beach and everything is pretty.  The whole episode lacked urgency, is what I'm saying.  Which is kind of strange considering the information that Charlie imparted seemed to be very important. 

What else?  The group splits in two.  Whoopee.  Ben gets beat up.  Been there, done that.  Tension between Jack and Kate.  Again, retread.  Naomi dies.  Don't care about that, either.  Who the hell is she anyway, right?  The cliffhanger at the end of the episode, if you can call it that, was ruined by the commercials.  Overall, just a stagnant episode.  

Which brings us to 4.2.  This episode was a lot better.  Yes, things are getting even more convoluted with the introduction of these new characters, but at least the new people add some interesting mystery to what's going on.  More than that, the episode seemed to have a pulse, seemed to be moving toward something, and therefore it was interesting.  I could care less about the Oceanic 6, I want to know more about the helicopter people and the freighter.  The idea that Dharma had polar bears all over the world is interesting, as is bringing the original pilot of 815 back to the island.  And what's the damn deal with creepy Oceanic lawyer dude?  And who faked the wreckage of 815?  All questions that tie into the mythology of the show and don't seem arbitrary, and enough clues were given in this episode to make it feel like the writers weren't just answering a question with more questions, but were instead laying the foundations for the answers.  So kudos.  

Love the casting of these new characters as well, especially Ken Leung.  And c'mon, get Fisher Stevens on screen! 

So far, so not so bad… we'll see how this truncated season plays out.