Oh Myyyy!

George Takei’s “Oh Myyy!”

Want to read a diary of an old man’s perspective on the internet?  No?  How about...you want to read George Takei’s book, “Oh Myyy!”  Yeah?  Well the two are one and the same.  

This book was simple, and yet entertaining.  It came and went quickly.  The only reason it took me an entire month to read it is because I kept trying to read it while at work.  I have to learn to accept that I will no longer have breaks in my calls; that the rest of my time on the phone is going to be insane back-to-back getting screamed at, and I will no longer get a stress relief between.

I am instead trying to read a little before I go to work.  It was great for this book as the chapter’s were short and to the point.  It’s mostly George Takei explaining how he views things, and his perception of social media and how it grows.  A large portion of it is him remembering key moments of hilarity, while other chapters are him actually theorizing how social media is going to go.

Throughout the book, he compares himself as the crazy uncle of the family.  His book is much the same in that its awesome for short periods of times, but if you had to go on a long sprawling hike, his antics would become annoying.  Luckily, the chapters in this book are short.  They are entertaining, but you see the point that if he keeps talking about the subject things are going to start to either get very boring, or very awkward... or possibly both at the same time.  Takei is quite good at stopping at a point where you might keep thinking on the subject, without killing it.

My favorite part of the book was him discussing the ability to laugh at oneself.  I personally enjoyed it because many people I discuss things with find the insult in everything, and scream at it.  There are times to sit back and laugh.  There are times to allow yourself to be made fun of.  Still, Takei ignores the fact that some jokes are used to denigrate certain classes... but at times you can laugh and say “fuck off” to those who would the joke in such a fashion.

This book could probably be read in a single sitting.  It’s easy, quick, quirky, and at times fun.  But it also doesn’t have any sustenance.  He muses on social media and where its going, but he doesn’t add anything new to the subject.  The beginning ramblings of an Social Studies or Advertising firm.  But, much like “liking” his page, it’s not about sustenance, but about laughing and having a good time.  He provides that.

Bonk

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

I already feel behind on my goals for this year as I’m just now finishing my first book.  My first read of the year was Bonk, by Mary Roach.  I had read her previous book, Stiff, which is about death and how we treat our dead.  And as always, her book was entertaining while educational.

Mary Roach’s books, or at least the two I’ve read and what I’ve heard about the others, involve her taking a deep scientific research into a subject.   Her books feel almost as you traveling around the world with her as she discovers new knowledge.  The book is an exploration, not just of the subject but of how people study the subject.  And these journeys take you to places you would not expect to go, such as a pig farm, or a country that seems to despise sex and women.

This keeps the book from being a dry read.  While it is research of a subject, she doesn’t include pages and pages that contain graphs or statistical analysis.  For the most part, this is a good thing as it doesn’t bog the book down and allows people who don’t want to (or incapable of) digest numbers and research to come to the same conclusion.  At times though, I really do wish the research was right there, and not just because the subject is sex, but because I’m naturally distrustful of information given to me without evidence.  But, Mary Roach is not a distrustful writer, and will often report if follow up studies have been done or not (often times they have not), and if there was any discrepancies, and what those discrepancies were.  She also makes sure to point out when certain studies may be outdated or how cultural issues may have affected the outcomes.  She also admits when she might have a bias.

Each chapter is designated to a specific topic.  In that chapter, she’ll time travel through the research done that brings us to the current research being done, and how minds have changed about certain subjects.  For the most part, this just makes the reading more entertaining (especially laughing at what people once believed).  At times though, I found this to be confusing.  Especially the beginning chapters, where it felt like we were jumping back and forth between the same set of people.  By the end, it all made sense and I understood what was going on, but still I thought it might have been better handled to just talk about all the research done in the 1800s at once, followed by all the research done in the 1900s, and then all the research done by Kinsey and that crew.  That also may have made the book a lot more dry, and would have its own difficulties (such as that of following a specific subject).

Mary Roach adds a lot of flavor to the book.  There are jokes, there is sarcasm, and there is plenty of laughter in between all the knowledge.  This makes the book an entertaining read.  There are a few points where I, a discerning and hopefully intelligent individual, was almost confused if she was being sarcastic, sardonic, or actually telling the truth.  This makes me worried about the more foolish individuals out there (*cough* legitimate rape *cough*) who might not be as discerning as me.

Part of the problem with a book like this is that I do my reading while at work.  If a customer calls in though, I have to drop the book and get right with the customer.  For any sci-fi or fantasy book, this is no problem.  For a book where I’m actually learning things, this means a lot of re-reading and trying process what was going on.  It is also really hard to go back to answering phones with the word “Clitoral Orgasm” being the last word you read.  This not only aided in my confusion at the early chapters, but also in that it took me an entire month to finish such a small book.

Over-all, I enjoyed this book.  It may have permanently ruined certain words for me (e.g. Ungloved), but over-all I’m glad I read it.  Its not a book about how to have sex, how to improve your sex life, or anything like that, but it is a book that explores various cultures and times views on sex, and how we currently understand how sex works, how it is started, and what side effects can occur.  It explores various hypotheses, theories, and some just plain weird ideas.  It was enjoyable.  I would strongly recommend not reading this where you will be asked to talk to customers at the drop of the hat though, as you may just say something accidentally.

Freaks and Geeks

Freaks and Geeks

In 2013, I watched a show filmed in 1999 about the early 1980’s.  Yes, I’m a Time Traveler, because that’s over 3 decades of history being covered.  Not only that, but this time travel allows you to see many stars when they were young, such as Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segel, and my favorite John Francis Daley (Dr. Lance Sweets from Bones).  The best episodes of the show were written by Judd Apatow, who has written many great comedies since then, including “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”

The show focuses on the Weirs, Lindsay and Sam.  Lindsay is a junior in high school, while Sam is her younger brother as a Freshman.  After a hinted at traumatic event, Lindsay starts burning out from school and hanging out with the “Freaks” of the school.  Sam himself is a geek, and is just trying to get used to school.  While there were some anachronisms, the show seemed to be pretty true for an era that I held in high regard despite not being in High School at the time.

The show starts off as if its a bunch of after school specials.  Episodes about premarital sex, drugs, skipping classes, and all those evil things high school students say.  Everything is given the hype that was instilled in the age, such as the father repeatedly saying “I know someone who did X, and you know where they are now?  Dead!”  Most episodes has Sam having to live in the fear of whatever X is, and freaking out, while Lindsay is being forced to deal with it.   As Lindsay is one of the main character, she rarely directly does any of the bad things, but has to deal with her friends and their actions and how they reflect on her.

Its cute and fun...for awhile.  Unfortunately, mid-season, I started getting bored.  The shows, while not formulaic, were predictable.  Lindsay’s friends are going to do something stupid, Lindsay is going to get dragged into it, and Sam is going to deal with a related problem.  The after-school specialness drug on, and I almost left the show.

I stuck with it though, and the let set of episodes is worth it.  Judd Apatow takes over the writing, and it dramatically gets better.  The issues are no longer just “don’t do drugs,” but actual real issues, such as finding out your best friends father is cheating on your best friends mom, and how to deal with that.  Sam and Lindsay’s plot lines are no longer parallel, and the side characters begin to learn and change.  The show also stops being so episodic, and more serial.

The show was cancelled after only 19 episodes.  I understand why it was; it simply got boring in the middle.  It was in competition with That 70’s Show at the time, which while much more silly, was also much more consistently entertaining. At the same time, I find it unfortunate that Freaks and Geeks did get cancelled.  Middle of the show I was ready to quit, but that final episode made me want so much more.  I wanted to know where the characters were going.  The issues they started to deal with were real and not just a bunch of silly stoners.  Under Apatow, I could see the show having been as good as The Wonder Years.  But, it didn’t learn to fly until it was too late.

My recommendation level for this show:  If you’re bored, or really want to see a young Dr. Lance Sweets.  It was entertaining, it was cute, and it had potential to be super cute and emotional... but it never got the chance to develop that way.  It could have been a show that would get me to cry, like The Wonder Years or Scrubs’ finale... but it wasn’t.  So it ends with cute, it ended up being worth my time to watch.  I also understand why it got cancelled.

New Years Resolutions for 2013

New Years Resolutions:

On-going Resolutions:

1. Physical health.  Basically, I want to see myself push myself harder.  I want to do more races, and see myself further improve.  Also, I want to do more upper body, and I hope signing up for obstacle course races will help me build up for that.  I felt great about my progress last year, and hope to see equally impressive growth this year.

2.Continue growing my comic book.  Obviously, I want to keep putting out pages.  In the month of December I had around 150 visitors to my comic book with minor to no advertising... I’d like to add at least a 0 to that number by the end of the year, if not more.  I don’t think this is the year to plan to go to a comic-con, but maybe bring my comic to a smaller Portland based comic-convention.

3. Read more.  It might be harder for me this year to read more than last year, as a lot of my “readings” were audio books, and I’m making less long drives and have less access to audio books.  Still, I’d like to at least read the same amount of books a I did last year.

4. Write more.  I started this strong last year, but it kind of dwindled at the end of the year.  I’d like to try to do more with my collection of short stories, to try to write / finish some old scripts, and prepare more for Dameon Strykes.  Hell, if I just have to blog more, that’ll work.  Writing is my art, and I really need to put more effort into it than I was at the end of the year.

5. Continue being awesome.  This means I want to continue to be an amazing friend, a great son, a hard worker, someone who is over-all happy with life, and most importantly, someone who I am proud to be.  It’s worked well for me so far, so lets just keep it up.

Failed Resolutions I’d like to try for again:

6. Video editing.  As has been my continuing resolution since I graduated, I’d like to get a paid editing gig. I don’t care if its temporary or not, I’d like to finally get paid for my work that has received acclaim in the past.  This might be the last year I try for this before I just realize its not meant to be.

7. Find a job I am happy with.  I’m not sure if I count this “Failed” last year as I was pretty okay with my job last year until the dramatic changes occurred.  Still, I’d like to have a job / career that I am happy with.  I’d like to mention that this doesn’t necessarily mean getting a new job, but could entail changing my mindset about my current job and focus on the positives of it.

New Resolutions:

8. Go on an adventure.  Last year I went to Las Vegas and Asheville.  This year I already have plans to go to New Orleans.  I’d like to try to get another big vacation / adventure in this year where I do something new.  Maybe this will be the year I finally do a road trip (although, a road trip really needs friends willing to participate).  Still, I’ll think of something new to do.

9.  More tattoos.  Already scheduled for one, and I think I want to get the Norse one before the year is up.  This is one of those “Gimme”  resolutions so that I can end the year without failing all of them.

10.  Geek out more.  I think this should be the year of the geek for me.  I am a nerd, and a geek at heart, and I really should let that out more.

11.  Get good at something new.  This is an “Eh” resolution, but I would like to see myself get “Good” at something new.  I’m mediocre at bowling, I’m mediocre at playing pool, I’m mediocre at fencing, I’m mediocre at comedy.  I’m mediocre at a lot of things, and I’d like to be good at one of them.  I’d also accept me joining a team sport kind of thing, like baseball.

12.  Family.  Last few years I tried to fix, repair, or salvage my old definition of family.  I don’t think I have enough duct tape to make the shattered remnants of my family look like how it used to. So as opposed to trying to “fix” my family, I believe I’m going to have to redefine my perception of family.   I should reach out to my extended family more that lives in the Portland area.  I also want to make sure that my friend is still included in my definition of family.

13.  Help my friend graduate from graduate school.  It’s been a long time coming, and I’ve been beside her through the whole process, but this year my best friend is graduating, and one of my personal goals is to make sure she gets there, sane, and with a damn amazing thesis.

2012

The Year was 2012 (AD).

Was.  Soon it won’t be.  Soon it will be 2013, and its time to see go back and judge 2012.

2012 started with me in tears.  2011 ended with me breaking up with my GF, and returning to being her best friend.  But at the beginning of 2012, I realized I was still pining to get her back, and I had to get that out.  I spent the first 2 days of 2012 listening to Modest Mouse, The Cranberries, Alanis Morissette, and writing perhaps one of the most personal scripts I’ve ever written.  As one friend on FB put it, “I’m surprised you didn’t kill yourself.”  Well, the goal was to kill part of myself, or to get it all out of my system.

It worked.  One of my 2012 resolutions was to get over her, and return to being her best friend...and I’m going to say I accomplished that well.  2012 might have started with me still longing for her, but it ended with me feeling like Family.  It ended with me celebrating Christmas with her and her family, and then her with my family.  Throughout the year there were some fights, some low and high points, but at the end of the year she is my best friend, and I’m thankful we worked through the problems that have arisen. This is most definitely a positive for the year, as there were many times things could have gone wrong.  While I’m sure more problems will arise as time goes on, I am confident we’ll fight through those, too.

I also rekindled some old friendships, too.  My move to Portland has allowed me to spend more time with one of my high school best friends here.  Ironically, moving away from Eugene made me realize I was leaving friends down there, and since then my Eugene friends and I have been talking more.  Surprisingly, an old work colleague and I got re-acquainted as well.  We hang out quite regularly, and she’s become my movie buddy.  How could this be a negative? It’s not.

Despite my attempts, I didn’t really make any new friends.  I put myself out there to meet new people, and while I got many new acquaintances, I didn’t get any new friends.  A few people that were also regulars at such and such bar, some of the comedy crew, but not any people I’ll be calling to hang out with.  If they are there, awesome...if not, *shrug*.  So I’m not really heartbroken about this, and won’t count it as a negative.

Same is true with my attempts at dating.  I got to go on quite a few dates with a variety of women.  One is in line for “rudest” end of date I’ve ever had, and another is in line for “craziest.”  There were also lots of mediocre ones inbetween.  One girl I saw regularly for a period of time, but it became obvious early on that we desired different things in the long run and that we wouldn’t ever work out as a couple.  I feel some remorse that nothing really worked out for me this year, but at the same time... I’m glad I’m not settling.  As one friend, who had years of bad dates before she met someone whom she fell head-in-over-heels love with said, its worth waiting for someone good.  It’s a minor negative.

I was in the ring for comedy for a bit there.  One of my resolutions was to really try for it.  For awhile there, I was going 3-4 nights a week.  I got up on Helium, and I was getting to the stage I felt like I could do a paid set.  For that reason, I’ll say I accomplished my goal.  Problem is, it was really taxing on me, both financially and on me as a person.  I’m an introvert, and I felt like I had little energy for anything else.  That’d be great if I felt like I was growing as a person, but I wasn’t.  Comedy is competitive, and I’m a person who does things because I enjoy them.  I like being that person, and comedy was changing me away from that.  There were other problems as well, but thats the main thing.  I might do more in the future, but it will be because its fun for me, and not because I want to make a career of it like so many of my fellow comedians.  While I lean towards a positive, I’m going to count this as a neutral aspect in my life.

I also moved a lot this year.  I lived in three different houses, which I guess when compared to some friends who were homeless for awhile, I should be thankful for.  The first place I loved, but due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to move out earlier than expected.  The next place I found seemed like it was the perfect place.  While the place itself was great, the next 6 months with my roommate made my life miserable.  Near the end, I didn’t leave my room unless I had to because I hated the encounters that occurred.  A quick summation would be “Bad times.”

But after that, I moved into my current apartment.  My current place is less of a financial strain, but more importantly, I have a much improved roommate.  We get along, have great conversations, play the same video games, and overall its a good experience.  I am reluctant to call any place “Home,” and I haven’t had a “home” for years, but I am very comfortable here, and look forward to staying here.  So, despite the “Bad times,” I would consider my living situation as an overall positive.

I had a lot of bad things this year, too.  Opposite of my relationship, I started this year in the job I loved.  I was Quality Assurance as well as a Price-Shopper.  I listened to people’s phone calls, and gave managerial feedback.  I also looked up the rates of our competitors, and made price suggestions for us.  I never dealt with customers.  Hell, the only time in my job I talked to someone is during my monthly reviews with my manager.  During this time, I was able to watch TV while at work and marathoned all of Doctor Who, Torchwood, How I met Your Mother, Babylon 5, and other amazing TV shows.  It was low stress, but I still busted my butt and got a lot of work done that I was still getting high praises from my boss.  Then my manager changed, and all of a sudden my job was thrown into turmoil.  In just a few months with my new manager, I lost my job.

By that, I don’t mean I was fired.  I mean, the heads of the company didn’t like the direction my department was taking (*cough new manager cough*), and decided to get rid of the department in its entirety.  I chose to stay in the company, where over the next few months my duties seemed to change on a regular basis until they finally settled me into a job that has been qualified as “The most stressful, and hardest job” by many of my peers.  I started the year bragging how much I loved my job and appreciated (and felt appreciated by) the company I work for, to feeling completely used and mistreated by my company while having a stressful job.  There are some silver linings in the future, but that won’t happen until 2013.  I’m trying to make the most of what I got, and be happy with what I have (a decent paying job that also gives me benefits), but this is most definitely a large negative.

It did motivate me to look for a new job, which was one of my resolution.  Another one of my resolutions was to do more video work.  I started the year off strong with my search, found nothing, learned how much I liked my job, and became complacent.  With the change, I started looking again.  I went all out.  I used my contacts, I called random people, I asked acquaintances who might know a guy who might know a guy who could have worked on Leverage.  I applied to every film and video job I could find.  So far, I’ve only heard one response, and it doesn’t sound very positive.

During the year, I’ve also been doing volunteer work on a project.  This project has been the project from hell, and I’ve more than once almost tore my hair out because of it.   My part of the project will be finished on December 31st, thank god.  Beyond that, I didn’t get to even volunteer on any other projects, despite what I feel were pretty heavy efforts on my part.  I pushed myself to meet new people and apply myself, to e-mail stranger and reach out.  Nothing.  Hope is awesome when you feel yourself getting somewhere.  But for me, it was crushing.  I almost got more responses when the economy was dead then now.  Film resolution and find a new job resolution are both big fails, and a negative for the year.

Things also died on me this year.  My great-uncle, who was always a hoot to hang out with, saw his health drastically fall and then he died.  We weren’t close, but I always saw him on Thanksgiving, and one or two other times throughout the year.  Thanksgiving will come into a play again here soon.  I also lost not 1, but both of my dogs.  First Lily went blind, and over an excruciating amount of time, her health dropped slowly until finally she had to be put down.  Before we even started recovering emotionally from her loss, her sister Taz, a dog I’ve loved since we raised her as a puppy, got sick.  Her health plummeted.   We thought she was going to recover, and then over Thanksgiving she took another nosedive.  She died shortly after.  There are no positives that can be seen here.

My parents did adopt a new puppy this month.  Ziva, another boxer.  Absolutely cute and wonderful and playful.  I have lots of pictures with her which are absolutely amazing.  But, she is my parents dog, and I’ll get to see her maybe once a month.  I look forward to the next time I get to play with her.  It doesn’t make up for the loss of Taz or Lily though.  People nor pets can be replaced... but it is nice to have her, and I am in love with my little Calamity Jane.

Backing up a little...Thanksgiving.   I’ve talked about it a lot before, and a lot of this will be repeat.  
My Thanksgivings have always been large family events.  This year it was just my parents.  Watching my father and mother “communicate” was heartbreaking, having a dog dying was heartbreaking, and having such a small family was heartbreaking.  I knew that I had lost what I had once considered family.  The word that could be used for this is...heartbreaking.  I am grateful that my best friend was going through a similar life dilemma, and that she was there for me, and that over Christmas I got to experience a large family with hers.  It really helped restore something in me.

Let’s end on two upswings.  One of my resolutions was to get myself in better shape, and do more races, and finish them.  I competed in 3 races this year, the Prefontaine, the Dirty Dash, and the Pumpkin Half Marathon.  I completed the Dirty Dash, that was no problem, but I didn’t “finish” either of the other two.  Despite that, I still feel accomplished.  I ran at least 5 miles of the Pre, but was injured and had to walk 1 mile. Even with injury, I still got an amazing time of almost 10 minute miles.  The race did leave me unable to run for about a month, just enough time to “train” for 2 weeks before the Pumpkin Half.   I ran at least 10 miles of that, maybe even 12!  For having been injured for so long before the race, I feel incredibly accomplished for both.  I am already signed up for three races next year, and have plans to do even more.  Who knows, maybe this year I’ll finally beat my best friend in one of these races!

A big positive, and my major resolution for the year, was to start my comic book.  I found an artist early on, and have been working with him since then.  By the end of September I had pages, by December I was doing minor advertisement, and the very beginning of 2013 I’ll be doing more work.  I’ve been getting lots of feedback, both positive and negative, and I really look forward to seeing it grow.  It took longer to start then I desired, but it has started, and it is rolling right along.

Over-all, I’ll say this year ended on Neutral grounds. It’s very mood dependent, but in a rational mind I think things evened out.  I think the events of this year leaned negative, but my life over-all is better than it was in 2011.  If it weren’t for some very possible, and real changes, coming in 2013 (a big change in my current job, a possible paying job in video, my comic book growing, and some new dating possibilities) I’d be leaning more towards negative... but already 2013 looks like its going to bring good things to me due to my diligence, and possible suffering, through 2012.

Coming soon to a blog near you:  My 2013 Resolution list.

Hipster Puppies

Hipster Puppies

So last night I was at a Holiday party.  I was sitting in the middle of the couch, which meant I had a conversation going on to the left of me, a conversation going on to the right of me, people conversing on the other side of the couch, and I was completely overwhelmed and unable to focus on any of it.  Luckily for me, on the coffee table my friend had placed a copy of “Hipster Puppies.”

This book was perfect for me.  After have finishing my my 2 Towns Ciderhouse hard cider (I had the Incider, which was delicious), I wasn’t in for any heavy reading, and a book that has nothing but pictures of cute dogs dressed up funny with quick quips about hipsters was amazing.  I was able to finish the whole book in one sitting!  I mean, really, that should sell the book right there.

The downfall of this book is that I kept randomly bursting into a-little-too-loud laughter (that might be the fault of the cider) and caught everyone’s attention.  As I wasn’t participating in any of the garbled noise going on around me, I’m sure my outburst was definitely at the wrong time.  But the books saving grace, coupled with me living in a hipster Mecca, is that I could then pass the book to my friend, she’d read it aloud and show everyone the accompanying picture, and everyone would laugh.  It was like, for a moment, I was the life of the party!  Except, you know, it wasn’t my book and my friend is the one who read it, but still I contributed to the party for a moment!  Then everyone could return back to their conversation as if my interruption never occurred, but deep down inside, I knew they were all thinking “I can’t wait until that weird guy on the couch bursts into laughter again so I can look at another picture of a dog.”

My favorite line was something to the effect like “Daisy sometimes gets ‘irony’ mixed up with ‘being a complete asshole.’”  As I was surrounded by writers and other artists who know what the word irony actually means, this one got quite a laugh and everyone had to pass the book around and read it before giving a chuckle and handing it to the next person.  It took awhile for the book to get back to me, which gave me enough time to grab more hard cider. I think it was called Gnarly Tree Cider, and it was the Crisp Apple. As the name sounds, it was a crisper Cider.

That was my holiday read.  The rest of my summation of holiday parties is that Yule Logs are delicious, but impossible to serve without destroying it, and that gravity is not a gentlemen and will slam a door closed on your friends mom.  Stay tuned, because my next read will be “Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex,” or as I like to call it “Bonk: How I answer phones and try not to say “Clitoris” or “Vaginal wall” while on the phone with a customer.”

The Mass Effect Series: Books vs. Video Games

Only one video game has brought me to tears, and that game was Final Fantasy X.  Tonight, a second game brought me to tears, and that would be Mass Effect 3.

Some people dismiss video games as mindless entertainment.  As just shoot-em sprees that dumb down the population.  Some would argue the same of movies.  Some would argue the same for everything not a book; and I’m sure some could argue the same for books.  They are all different ways of expressing and displaying a story.  Yes, if you look at a game like Castle Wolfenstein, where the plot is “fuck! Nazis are attacking! Kill them all!,” or its offspring Doom (either the movie or the game), where the plot is fuck! Aliens are attacking! Kill them all!,” to Love and Peace, yeah video games are mindless entertainment.  But compare a Final Fantasy to a romance smut novel, and its the book that is the mindless entertainment.   All forms have their great pieces of artistry, and all forms have their cheap entertainment.  There have been movies that have redefined how people look at science fiction, and books that cause no original thought.  There are video games which are only about blood, and video games that have compelling story lines where you only play through the action to get to the next bit of the story.

From here on out, I may be spoiling major parts of the game.  I am not reviewing these games as video games, but under the concept that video-games can provide just as amount story, emotional attachment, and the reader can learn just as much as from a book.  That video games can be just as good of a tool to tell a story as a book.

The Mass Effect series has a huge amount of story through it.  The base concept is one I’ve talked about before with Babylon 5, and the council science fiction.  There are a bunch of alien races that all have united, and the three strongest of the races rule on a council that rule over the laws of the galaxy.  Space travel is done through a series of “Mass Effect” relays.  While the game never mentions the Higgs-Boson, the concept is that we find ancient alien technology that allows the races to create “Mass Effect” fields.  These fields reduce an objects mass, allowing for faster than light travel, and with that comes space travel.  This is one of the theoretical applications of the Higgs-boson.  Humans are one of the most recent races to be allowed onto the Citadel, which is a giant base station that serves as the hub for galactic life.  It also an alien relic.  While I don’t necessarily like the relic bit, it is important to the overall story.

The base storyline is that an entity from dark space is coming to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy.  The first game you learn about these Reapers, and that they come whenever sentient life reaches a certain level of intelligence, and then these races are exterminated.  The reapers have done this for many “Cycles,” for longer than the known history of the galaxy.  In the first game, you stop the Reaper known as Sovereign from taking over, and so reinforcements are sent.  In the sequel, another reaper known as Harbinger is sent to assess the situation.  In this game, we learn about what monstrosities the reapers commit upon the sentient races, and get more of an idea of what the reapers desire.  You manage to stop Harbinger and his race of Collector’s, but that does not mean you won.  The third game is all out war, against these giant monstrosities, which not only outnumber the collected races, but also have technology well beyond our own.  They come straight for all the major races homeworlds.  Being a human, you get to be on Earth when they strike.   The rest of the game is you attempting to align the races as well as make a super weapon to fight back against the reapers.  The entire game you get to listen to battle reports on Earth, and well...Earth is losing.  In the end, victory is achieved, but not without making some very difficult choices.

The series of games allows you to make decisions as you go through.  Are you going to be the paragon, the renegade, or something between.  The choices you make affect you throughout the series.  An example is that in the first game, you find a captured Rachni Queen that you can either kill or save.  The rachni were an insect like race where the queen is the only one needed to rebuild the hive.  There is a huge backstory on the Rachni that you can choose to learn about, but basically they nearly annihilated all life before they were beat back and supposedly every single one was killed.  Human scientists found one remaining egg, which turned to a queen, and they started cloning the Rachni for their own purposes.  If you save the Queen, you run into her in the third game, and she desires to help you.  If you killed her though, the reapers make a clone-like race which are hell bent on seeing you fail.  You didn’t know what the consequence would be, and either could be hard.  Not all the “Good” decisions are the ones with positive outcomes either, and some evil decisions turn out to be one that needed to be made at the time, and save you a lot of time and hardship by the finale.

As the game goes through, you build a team to go with you.  While this team changes somewhat between the games (only three characters are playable through all three games saying you download all the additional content), all the characters and decisions from the first follow you through to the finale (if they survived!).  The team grows alongside you, even in each individual game.  For example, one of the lead characters is Liara.  In the first game she is a fledgling archaeologist looking into the preceding race known as the Protheans.  She is young for her race, and naive, and you save her from a simple trap.  She grows, develops, and by the end of the third game she is the leader of an intelligence organization where she is laying the traps.  Many of the characters go through similar changes.

She is also a possible love interest.  In the game, you get to choose to be male or female, and from that you develop relations with your crews.  If you do the right things, some of these relations can lead to sex, or even love.  Some of it is in your hands, some of it is based on your choices.  Through the series, the game allows for lesbian couplings, and the third allows for a gay coupling as well.  It treats each coupling the same, there is no more of a big deal talked about the gay man and his losing of his husband than there is of the wife who lost her husband, or the soldier who lost his wife to the reapers.  Your character gets to experience love, and lost, and you can choose to listen to the developing tales of others love lives.  In the second game, as the game plays through you can walk through the ship and listen to the crew.  One crew member’s families were stuck on a planet expected to be attacked by the collectors, who leave no survivors.  You get to listen to a replay of a tape of his son’s birthday party.  You get to hear that the planet was being evacuated.  You listen to him losing contact with his family.  We hear that the collectors did attack the planet.  And you overhear from the character, crying at his table, what happened.  If that doesn’t evoke any emotion, if you’re not interested in what happened to his family...I don’t know what to say in that case.

The part that made me cry is that I played as the male Shepard, and romanced the character named Tali.  Tali is a Quarian, and the backstory of them is they created a synthetic race known as the Geth to help them.  What they noticed though is that their Virtual Intelligence (VIs) were becoming Artificial Intelligence (AI), and were becoming smarter and smarter.  Before things got out of control, the Quarians tried to kill off the Geth.  This caused the Geth to rebel, and the Quarians fled their homeworld.  Much like Battlestar Galactica, all the quarians live on a fleet of ships, called the flotilla, that fly through space as they plot to retake their homeworld.  They wear body suits that regulate their bodies, and after a few generations of this, all their natural immunities have gone away, and now they are forced to be in their suits at almost all times, or potentially get fatally sick.  You also learn that the Quarians live somewhat like the Amish in that when the Quarians reach a specific age they are cast out to learn about outside society, and they can (and more often than not) choose to return to the flotilla with a gift to help the fleet.

In the first game, you meet Tali during her pilgrimage, so she is young and learning the galaxy, although not quite as naive as Liara starts.  While you don’t get to romance her in this game, a close friendship is obviously struck.  In the sequel, you save her from an attack, and some flirting begins (paraphrased:  “are you flirting with me?” “Now why would I do that?  I mean, you’ve only been my knight in shining armor twice now, and what girl wouldn’t fall in love with that.  I mean, did I just say that...I’m going to go back to working on the engine...”).  You are there when her father dies, you are there to clear her name when the Quarians suspect her of sabotage, and you watch her grow from these experiences, and your character can grow as well.  Despite the riskiness of the whole act, Tali finds a way to quarantine a room so that she can remove her suit and couple with Shepard.  She appears halfways through the third game, and is still much in love with you, but the weight of the Quarian world is on her shoulder.  Still, in this game the words of “love” are exchanged between the two of you multiple times, as well as some great emotionally bonding scenes, including one silly one where Tali gets drunk by drinking through an “emergency induction port” (aka: a straw).  You help liberate her homeworld, and for the first time she gets to be home.  Shepard points out that she now has a home, and she hugs him and tells him “I already have a home.”  These particular words have great significance to me, but still I think it demonstrates the emotional connection that has grown.

So why did it make me cry?  We get all this connection, all this closeness, and the game ends with your character losing a war.  You are running to your final objective when a reaper lands to attack you and your team (note: full reapers are taller than skyscrapers).  It grievously injures your party, and Tali can’t go on.  You carry her to the evac ship, and she cries out “Shepard, don’t leave me behind!”  And the way she says it...  I just watched the clip again, and the water works almost started again.  Especially considering that the game continues, and the choice I made sacrificed Shepard... and Tali is left alone.

But a good book is more than just the emotional connection. It should explore themes and ideas.  As discussed above, it already covers some science fiction, and when I use those words I meant theoretical application of actual science.  Another science fiction theme is Synthetic, or AI, versus Organic.  Throughout the entire series there is a lot of AIs, good and evil and inbetween.  As mentioned with the Quarians, the Geth took over the Quarian homeworld in a war, and throughout the first game and the majority of the second game, the Geth are your major adversary as they worship the Reapers as the ultimate form of synthetics.   Of course, there are also the Reapers, which are AIs bent on repeatedly destroying all organics.  But then you meet EDI, which is the AI that helps coordinate your ship, the Normandy, and at one point you have to “Unshackle” her, letting her be a full AI without restrictions.  In the third game, she acquires a synthetic body, and becomes one of your key team members.  Throughout the game, while she has lots of questions about humans, she eventually falls in love with the pilot, Jeff “Joker” Moreau (played by Seth Green) and decides to become more and more human, and is most definitely a positive AI.  There is also Legion, a collection of Geth programs (Geth are not their physical bodies, but the individual programs), and while he does not regret the war on Quarians, he does want peace between his race and the Quarians.

Despite the good AI, characters repeatedly mention that AIs and humans are always destined to war with each other.  The reason I like the best is given by Javik in the middle of the third, which is: Organics do not know their purpose, nor whom their creator is, so they can make their own purpose and can imagine an infallible God.  Synthetics are created with a purpose that they know, and they also know who their creators are and more importantly that their creators are fallible.  These fundamental differences are what will always lead Synthetics and AIs to war.  You further learn its the reasons the Reapers exist; to “preserve,” in a very sick way, both organic and synthetic races of the cycle before the war between AI and Organic continues.

With that also comes the question of doing what needs to be done.  You have to make many hard choices throughout the game.  The very concept of the reapers is, while a monstrous solution, is a solution that prevents all organics from being destroyed and allows evolution to continue again.  The game isn’t saying there is no right nor wrong, but that not all choices are so clear cut.  The Rachni queen is an example, releasing her could release a race that once almost destroyed all the galactic races, but killing it is genocide.  Another significant choice is that there is a major mass relay near the Batarian homeworld.  The specific Mass Relay is the ones the Reapers use to get into the galaxy.  Destroying it will greatly slow down the oncoming Reapers, but in doing so you will destroy the homeworld of the Batarians.  Now, Batarians are a race who view slavery as a cultural right, so they are total assholes... but you are destroying their homeworld!  Do you make the choice to destroy the relay and kill millions, to potentially save billions?  

One great writer, Isaac Asimov, spent much of his career writing about the potential problems with AI, alongside many other authors who have explored similar scenarios.  This video game gives the same inspective depth as other books.  The story is there, and displayed through dialogue.  The major difference is that you have some choice how you respond to what a character says, and that you are watching and listening to a character on your screen as opposed to reading it.  Countless books, especially post-WWII era, have explored the idea of doing what must be done.  This game was able to explore those concepts, but in a different fashion.  The game put us in the shoes to make the decisions, and it teaches the lesson.  While similar to some books, its a different tool to teach the same lesson.

The game does have lots of violence in it.  Much of the game is running around with your team killing Geth, Cerberus agents, Reapers and their minions, and doing lots of little side missions, some of galactic importance and others are settling personal vendettas for individual characters.  But, between the gameplay is an in depth story line.  A friend of mine hates playing video games, but the story was so interesting that she asked to be invited to listen to the plot points, or would sit beside me reading a book and paying attention when I got to dialogue.  It, like many other video games, has spawned a series of books, comic books, and a potential movie.  It’s not the mass violence that has attracted people to create these other pieces of art, but the rich and beautiful world and the in depth storyline that not only provides in character growth, but can gleam new thoughts upon the gamer / reader / viewer.