Edward's August 2012 Mix
The summer for the history books is behind us. Of course, since I work inside it really seemed to be little more than a blur for me, something happening to everybody else. Were I ditchdigger or a landscaper I'd probably feel differently. Oh well, it's been another busy month nonetheless. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008 and I had a bad parting of the ways. 140 hours and 2 years lost. Down the tubes. The game glitched and corrupted. I tried everything. I tried a reinstallation. I even tried a system restore. For some reason my rig thinks the game has cooties now. It simply will not boot up whatsoever. And to think I was 3 guys away from the monster himself. Fate, honestly, has a gross sense of humor.
1. Battlestar Galactica: Season 3 on DVD
So much has happened in a mere 3 seasons of this incredible show. The humans have landed and settled on a serendepitiously discovered planet they christen, New Caprica. And all is golden until the cylons discover and invade it. Allegiances come into question as Gaius Baltar turns traitor and the Galactica makes a bold rescue. The cylons turn Baltar over to the Colonials, and he is put on trial. The court room episode is truly some of the best writing on television I've ever seen. And then who can forget Admiral Adama's heart rending speeches.
2. The Mary Onettes on CD
Take a little known band from Norway, throw in a bit of The Church, and a pinch of The Jesus & Mary Chain, and top it off with an icing made of The Cure and you have this wonderful band who sound as if they stepped out of an 80's time machine. You can't help but feel totally cool when people ask you, "Hey man, who is that band you're playing?" Spinning this CD I've gotten that a lot lately. Look up "Lost" or "Explosions" on Youtube. You'll see what I mean.
3. Manny's Search by Edward C. Burton
My novel. It's done! Yay! Well, not 100%, but the manuscript format is completed and has been accepted. Next comes the cover. My friend Michael Tran crafted it for me with his uber artistic skills. Unfortunately, saved as a .pdf file created from Photoshop Elements it's entirely too big. I'll have to work on getting the file size down without sacrificing resolution. I don't care; I can do this. The hard part was getting the manuscript down to 0 formatting errors so CreateSpace (who finalizes it for Amazon.com) would accept it.
4. Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
Maybe she's a chick author, but I love Anne Tyler's writing. I fell in love with The Accidental Tourist years ago. Her characters are the people next door, and she writes them with such aplomb--all the little daydreams, the regrets, the woulda-coulda-shouldas. She writes passages that make me grin silly and reread them over and again. I've said it before, but she reminds me of a female counterpart to Norman Rockwell with the blank page being her slate. This novel concerns a 53 year old widow who lives with her deceased husband's family because she feels so much a part of the family. It's an endearing tale already, and I'm only 100 pages into it.
5. PC Gamer Magazine 2007
I'm reading my back issues of the year 2007 now. Ah, a rather memorable year, actually. Who could forget the release of Windows Vista, nothing short of a complete train wreck. (Although I did like DirectX 10 and the new Games Startup Menu.) And lest we not forget Bioshock and Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl. Will Wright released Spore, which was speculated to be an almost Sims killer, but that didn't happen. Instead the game had DRM that launched a cavalcade of Amazon 1 star reviews.
6. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl on PC
Speaking of Stalker, yes, I'm attempting to tackle it again. Easily one of the most haunting games I've ever played I first started playing it on release (2007) and found it simply too difficult. I got angry and uninstalled it. Then I tried a year later and like an idiot got far into the game and forgot to save. I saved right before an untimely demise. And then I got pissed and uninstalled it again. Well, now that I'm 4 years older and more mature I've decided to reattempt it. I've made great progress; I'll get it this time. It has all the eeriness of a X-Files episode mixed with the design path choices of Deus Ex coupled with the loneliness of Fallout 3. It's a game well worth playing.
7. Battlefield 2 on PC
This is one of my favorite games of all time. I started playing it again to get used to my new Razer Naga mouse which I purchased for Guild Wars 2 when it ships. (You need it to survive PvP.) Battlefield 2 is truly one of the only online games I'm good at but only because I've played it for so long. I've played it since its release in 2005, and it will always be on my hard disk drive as long as the breath of Life resounds in its servers. Crazy as it may seem, the maps in the game always exude a sense of home for me, and I find myself thinking about them even when I'm outside and away from the game. Is this even possible, can you be homesick for someplace that exists only virtually? This game is my Matrix. And it probably always will be.
8. Prison penpals
I write to two people who are incarcerated. One is a distant relative and the other is a family friend. I can't imagine living life like a caged canary, but these two people do it everyday. I think I'd be headed for a padded room. I wrote the relative the other day and explained how DVDs have been surpassed by Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray is being surpassed by online streaming. That totally blew his mind. My letters seem to be a ray of sunshine to these people, or at least that's what they tell me. Do I really make a difference to these people? In the grand scheme of things, maybe not. But I feel like I do. And in the immortal words of Emily Dickinson, "If I can save one heart from breaking, my life will have been worth it." I think my letters save lives.
