Why Bother?

What is it about blogging that is so appealing to those who do it?

I’ve given it a bit of thought today while trying to consider what it is I really wanted to discuss. During those moments I couldn’t escape the fact that perhaps I’m just not a blogger even if there was a piece of me that really wanted to do it. To write something entertaining about what has been on my mind since last I spoke to my adoring zero fans. It dawns upon me that perhaps I haven’t really had much of substance in my mind to talk about. Random ideas of television and movies, upcoming games and experiences with work all interest me, but is this something that would engage someone that doesn’t know me. Would it even make sense to those that do know me? The answer I kept coming back to was a pretty definitive: probably not.

So I came to the thought: why do I want to do this so badly, to the point of stressing myself out. For a moment today I felt like I was in college again trying to justify why the majority of archaeology in the city of Chichen Itza was botched up. Yes, that is a paper I wrote and it did cause many sleepless nights with pen cap in my mouth and a mountain of books collapsed around the bed. I swear there were points during that paper that my, then, girlfriend was going to shove all the books off the bed so she could “sleep.” I digress, this is not the point, but as I wondered about my own ineptitude toward writing about myself I also considered if I was the only one. To this I know I am not, because every day there is some person that goes on and blogs about their experiences in World of Warcraft or Vlogs on YouTube just to complain about other users. This is a never ending cycle of new forms of media allowing people to communicate in new ways.

At its root though, this is still basic communication. It can be more anonymous now but it is still the desire to be heard by a person’s peers and perhaps have positive feedback. In an age of computers and high speed data transfer negative reactions can sometimes be just as effective as positive. So writers go about saying the most ridiculous things, holding the most ludicrous standpoints so that they might be recognized by those they feel are most important, almost like a slight God complex. These writers could be considered a pest on the internet stage but they are creating the feedback that they desire and always end up with followers that will happily ridicule them.

To continue with this thought I eventually; came to another revelation about bloggers: the majority of them are terrible writers. This type of forum is an open platform and allows any and all to publish their thoughts no matter how poorly articulated. As a personal thought I would hate to fall into this category but I realize I do not fall into the category of a professional writer or even blogger for that matter. This kind of writing skill comes from experience and practice. Without life experience what you write might not be at all interesting, it is always easier to write about what you know then writing a lot about something you know nothing about. The second factor in good blogging would be to consistently write. Good experience goes only so far if you cannot articulate it in an entertaining way that keeps your audience reading.

After all this thinking I came to realize I had a topic that I wanted to talk about, that I wanted input on. I wonder if there are other factors that go into good blogging that I might not have covered in my process. Moving forward, becoming more at ease with blogging, I will continue to practice and try to make my life more interesting in the hopes that perhaps someone will care enough to finish these extremely long posts to the end.

Please Welcome Me and Pardon Me Guitar Hero

Today is a momentous day for me (and it should be for you as well) for I have bent over and done something I said I would never do. Nothing nasty I assure you. I have started a blog of which no one will read. Yet, it does make me feel important. For those of you two people who might read this I apologize ahead of time for my improper use of commas and ellipses. I tend to be very random and ramble. So please if you have any thoughts of my writing please comment.

From time to time I will be on here. I will try to post as frequently as I have something of substance to say. Mostly I will discuss things of interest to myself and the many humorous things I might see from day to day. So since nothing really happens to a normal guy from Orlando I guess I will be talking about gaming quite frequently.

A quick back story on myself: I have graduated from the University of Central Florida with a Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology and work fulltime as a “Human Resources Receptionist”. I tend not to think of myself as a receptionist though… what is left of my manliness seems to melt away further every time I say it out loud. So for the present I refer to myself as “Human Resources” that seems to be general enough that people who ask are typically satisfied with said answer. I love the education I have but wish there was some way into spinning that into a career in the video game industry. After a failed attempt to go back to school for a Digital Media degree I decided to just focus on playing the games in an effort to at least feel closer to the industry.

Enough about my personal history, enough time for me to blab about myself later, I needed to discuss my growing distaste of Guitar Hero. I bought GH World Tour about two months ago to my excitement I finally devoted the money to the entire band set because my Rock Band drums had died and so had my guitars from repeated use. Now was the time to move on to the new sets of instruments. When I opened that box it was like Christmas had come early. After construction of the instruments I turned on the drums, synced everything, and went into the game just to find out that the drums didn’t work out of the box. Luckily everything else did but the idea that I wouldn’t be able to play the one instrument I bought the whole pack for quite frankly rubbed me the wrong way. Calling the customer support line I had no joy, I was told by the woman (who had never even seen the kit) that I would need to send it back in the original packaging.

After about two weeks of playing the great Guitar portion of the game I finally received the drum set and I’ve been less than enthusiastic by the way the drum is set up. From time to time it was registering double taps for the pads. I can live with a bit of these issues and did until today: the drum set did the same thing as it did the first night I bought it. Perhaps I’m just a bit more in love with Rock Band these days but I’ve come to the end of my rope with this one. I have no problem with the rest of this game at least when it comes to the actual guitar parts but everything new they implemented in this edition just seems a bit too little too late. The singing portions don’t seem to be anything more than a low volume version of your voice over the slightly louder version of the original artist. Sure you can increase the microphone volume but it never seems like it’s you who is singing more like a back up vocal. The bass guitar is good enough but the touch pad at the lower end of the neck seems like a fun hindrance then anything. To be fair I was never very fond of the lower portion of the guitar neck on Rock Band either. Perhaps this is just an unfortunate side effect of not being able to play a real instrument. Additionally, the song list is just passable with the difficulty spike much better than Guitar Hero 3 but this game feels stale compared to competition.

Now I realize I’m just being harsh right now to this game (and on the first blog post too) but I’m really disappointed with this game. I haven’t had it long enough to finish it fully (and I fully intend to finish it mind you), but this game refuses to let me play with it undisturbed. So pardon me Guitar Hero I will try to be more kind to you in the future, as long as you promise to be gentle with me.