Looking in the Mirror

The truth is: I am a huge nerd. I love watching anime, playing video games and eagerly awaited Street Fighter IV only to realize I can't afford it. There is a particular computer game I've been in love with for a while now: Warcraft III. No this isn't the same as World of Warcraft, otherwise known as the game that has consumed 10 million souls including those of beloved TV icons Mr. T and William Shatner (Although at one point I also let my soul be consumed, they returned it to me). Warcraft III is a real time strategy game (RTS) and allows it's players to modify it to create custom "mini games." One of the most popular is a game called DoTA, a game almost as soul-consuming as World of Warcraft. DoTA is a team game in which two teams of five players try to kill the other team's base using only one hero unit which can level up, gain skills and buy weapons. The good players will tell you that it's all about teamwork, skill will only take you so far. This has lead to many players creating small groups to team with. This also leads to players blaming their teammates for any and all problems in a game. On most weekends I can be found sitting in my apartment, like the nerd I am, yelling into the microphone at my friend Ringo, who also plays, about our shitty team. Not this weekend though. This weekend we had friends who had dropped the game in favor of their jobs or girlfriend (Y wuld u need a gf lolz! wut a n00b.) come to play with us. With these guys at my back, the four of us went on to dominate the entire night, picking up a new fifth man every few games to complete the team. We didn't lose a single game. Every single game was a complete victory ending often with opposing players leaving in frustration or the destruction of the other base in under half an hour (a game normally takes about an hour). After we parted, I began to think, was our domination tonight due to the chemistry that we formed while learning to play the game? Was it our individual, nerdy prowess at the game we loved? Maybe it was the incompetence of the opponents we openly ridiculed as "nubs" and fudgepackers. To be honest, I don't know. There were games in the past where just Ringo and myself lost and we attributed it to our lesser teamwork. There were also games where we lost and attributed to simply playing shitty. But more often than not our teammates could be counted on to suck or so I thought, but tonight something was different. Every victory seemed to come with ease. Every movement of our team was coordinated beautifully like synchronized swimmers. Ringo commented that trying some of the things we had done tonight with pubs (people we didn't know) would result in the immediate deaths of our units and certainly a loss. But what if we had just played extremely well tonight? Compound that with friends as teammates, it certainly seems like a recipe for success. The only way I'll ever know how good we truly are is to play against the best. Tonight's events lead me to wonder what other things I do that I lie to myself about. Am I really doing all that well in my studies? Am I really that intelligent and devestatingly good looking? To this, I only have one answer: stop and take a close look in the mirror, proverbial or otherwise. You may be suprised at what you find. And that could make you a better person.

Christmas Time is NOT Family Time

I've always found it silly that during the holidays, parents who still have children living with them tend to pay ridiculous amounts of attention to them. Maybe it's just because without work and other things to keep them busy their parental instincts kick in or maybe it's because they feel guilty about not spending enough time with their children during the rest of the year. Either way, SPEND MORE TIME WITH YOUR KIDS OUTSIDE THE HOLIDAYS. The increased amounts of love, care and nagging that we young'uns receive during the holidays is enough to drive anyone crazy. It's pretty obvious for children in this day and age when their parents suddenly begin to give them obnoxious amounts of attention. This extra love is even more obvious on the big days: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve. In families that seldom come together for dinner, it must be pretty awkward for everyone when they all must sit down together, eat and attempt to have a conversation. In a family like mine, where we do eat together every night, trying to add a feeling of uniqueness and togetherness to a big holiday meal on Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve is like trying to teach Bill Gates how to use a computer. It's fairly redundant since Bill Gates practically invented the modern computer and since my family already sits down together every night for dinner and have conversation. I love my family and they don't need to try to make what would have been a great meal even better.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, families that don't spend much time together in the regular year should spend more time together instead of overcompensating during the holidays. A little bit of time with your kids everyday instead of hours on end during the holidays will go a long way in keeping your kids (and you) sane. Happy Holidays!

On the Issue of Racial Injustice

Before I start, let me clarify: I am not in any way a racist. I myself am a minority and often get called derogatory names by my friends and by those who actually hate me because of my race. There are some things you can bring the race card up for. But some people take it too far.

I was talking to a friend today, we'll call him "Taylor Hanson." Taylor had just shown me a gallery of animated ASCII art using common internet acronyms (http://www.rofl.name/asciiart/) when I came upon the titled "Lollercaust" depicting little ASCII figures getting killed by LOL and two little ASCII swastikas underneath. Being the jackal I am, I could not restrain myself from having a little laugh. Taylor said he felt bad about it and I couldn't help but wonder why. The Holocaust, although a terrible tragedy and a scar that marks human history, is in the past. I have a couple of Jewish friends who laugh it off whenever someone else makes an off-color Holocaust remark but I have also met several people who simply go fucking nuts when they hear something like that. They go on a righteous crusade explaining why we shouldn't make jokes like that and the obligatory story about someone they know who was a victim of the Holocaust (The exception is my roommate, The Roommate, whose great-uncle was actually a Waffen SS officer at Auschwitz. He laughs about it. I do too.)
Same thing with African-Americans. I often have to put up with rap music from my neighbors who are African-Americans. They have one song they play over and over. I can't hear most of it over the deafening bass, but the basic gist is that Blacks should be afraid of the Whites because the Whites really aren't sorry for slavery and if the Blacks don't watch out, they are going to get re-enslaved. I just don't fucking get that. That happened 400 years ago! It ended 150 years ago! Same with the Holocaust, that was over 50 years ago. I'm not saying forget about it and pretend like those things never happened. But get over it! We all learned about these things in school so we don't really want to hear the opinion of someone who doesn't even have a Ph.D in this area of history. Even if you did have a Ph.D specializing in the Holocaust or slavery, we probably wouldn't want to listen anyways. Most importantly, it didn't happen to YOU, the person who is throwing a fit because someone else brought it up in a negative light. Unless you are either (A) a very, very, very, very, very, very, old plantation slave or (B) an actual survivor of a Holocaust or (C) a person whose life has been DIRECTLY affected because of the Holocaust (None of this Grandpa Bagelstein didn't play with me when I was a child because he was too busy thinking about his old life back in Germany shit.) you don't get to talk about or bring it up.
If you want to talk about slavery or genocide, talk to me about Darfur or Somalia. There are people out there still getting killed while you bitch about a relative who has been six feet under for the past five decades or more. Hundreds of thousands are dead in Darfur with millions more displaced from their homes. In Somalia, children starve as a war rages on in their country. Instead of jabbering on uselessly with your trap, put it to some good use and spread the word about Darfur and Somalia.
Final thing, take a look at Japanese-Americans. They were unfairly interned by their government during World War II and you don't hear them or their descendants bitch and moan about how terrible it was sitting in a US detention camp. They realize that it's in the past and they should just get over it. If it happens again, which it won't, they'll deal with it when the time comes. Until then, they will look toward the future and try to take over the American economy and car market.
If you think I'm wrong in what I'm saying, feel free to drop me a line. Or you can ask your friends who don't feel the way you do how they feel whenever you burst into a rant because someone asked "Whats the difference between a Jew and a Pizza?" Yes, it's a horrible thing to say. Yes, that person probably should not have said it. But there is no need for you to scream in his ear about how insensitive he is. If you think I'm right but are not sure on how to properly behave now that you know what you do pisses the hell out of everyone, here's a few simple and easy steps:

1) Ignore the urge to say "My great-grandfather/grandmother was a slave/imprisoned at Buchenwald.
2) Calmly go up to the person and say, "Excuse me, I found your comment/joke offensive. Could you not do that again?"
3) Watch in amazement as all your friends look up in suprise and unplug their ears.
4) E-mail me to thank me now that all your friends want to hang out with you more often.