The End of an Era (Of Sorts?)

So, I’ve had this post in various drafts for quite a while now. It’s not nearly as fleshed out as I wanted it to be — I think I had some kind of analogetic relationship between one of those lizards that run on water, and …well, not running on water, but that’s kind of lost. So take in this picture and think what could have been. Now, onto the post…

I hate to delve too deeply into personal garbage, but holy crap did Summer go by way too fast. The first week back to school is through, and to be honest, it feels damn nice to finally have a goal to work towards once again. Though, I won’t lie — the past month or two have been gracious enough to grant me with some of the more entertaining, significant, and fun moments in recent memory — it’s tough to put into words, but things feel so much different lately (in a good way).

If you’ve kept up with this blog (and really, who hasn’t?!!) you’d know that most of my “writing” background is primarily videogame-based, but I haven’t really been able to pick up a controller long enough to extract any entertainment value out of it lately. I’ve always had this strange sort of semi-obsessive-compulsive reaction to adapting to hobbies, in which I seemingly surround myself in a bubble of culture. For the longest time it was skateboarding, which eventually moved to guitar, to videogames, and now I’m sort of at a crossroads between music and once again, guitar. The former of which I’ve discussed a few months ago.

Music…yeah — I can’t really seem to get enough of it lately. I’m at the point where my music consumption is increasing faster than I can accumulate it, and there’s always that one “new” band out there to fall in love with. Presently, it’s The Raconteurs and their latest album Consolers of the Lonely, which is reverberating quite well with the kind of bluesy guitar sound that made me pick up an instrument in the first place. I’ve always been able to say I liked The White Stripes, but they never completely clicked with me — for the most part, The Raconteurs settle most of my differences I had with Jack White’s prior efforts.

And maybe I’ve been staling out on the rock genre lately, but I’ve found myself listening to quite a bit of rap lately…and significantly enjoying the crap out of it. Lil Wayne is downright terrible for the most part — but I’m not really sure how many times I’ve listened to the awesomely-produced “A Milli” or Jay Z-cameoed “Mr. Carter” (OK, I am sure — and it’s way too many!). Maybe it’s that the lyrics are intentionally ridiculous and that’s always been something hilarious enough to keep me listening — I still to this day listen to one of “Weezy’s” first collaborations, The Big Tymers…and it’s still fucking incredible.

Oh yeah, and Say Anything. They’re (in my opinion) damn amazing. They’ve been pretty much the sole focus of my guitar playing, and singer-songwriter Max Bemis‘ lyrics are fairly often floating through my head. They’re not for everybody, but I’ve always been a fan of the written word (surprise!) and the density of Bemis’ lyrics keep me coming back to Say Anything daily.

In the end, I’m not really sure where I’ll end up in the whole writing game — whether I jump back into the “games journalism” bandwagon or not — but writing in some capacity is still definitely on the agenda. I know I’m hardly the first “writer” to ever say this, but I tend to immediately hate everything I post not long after I hit the temporarily-gratifying “Publish” button next to a post. That Say Anything post? It feels embarrassing already…but it’s fine. If anything it’ll be a reference point in the future when I (hopefully) write something I feel a little more proud about. I’ve really been into music and movie journalism lately, and I’d like to explore that avenue a little bit more in the coming months, so keep an eye out for that.

Speaking of the written word (well, not really), I’ve found it pretty interesting to check out how a lot (and by that I mean very few) of people end up here. WordPress has this handy blog stat feature that takes into account what users search for on, well, search engines to get here. It’s pretty cool flattering interesting to know that I, or more likely, some other Devin Grimes is Google-worthy, if only on an extremely small scale. I try to remain as interesting of a person as possible, and I’m sure that if you know me “in real life,” you’ll see my writing voice is a little different than my spoken one — but yeah, enjoy. I now leave you with some words of wisdom:

Damn, I hate a shy Bitch
Don’t you hate a shy bitch?
Yeah, I ate a shy bitch
She ain’t shy no more
She changed her name to My bitch
Yea nigga, that’s my bitch
So when she ask for the Money
When you through
Don’t be surprised bitch
And it ain’t trickin if u got it
But u like a bitch with no ass
You ain’t got shit

Back to Blogging

Here’s some random thoughts and responses I’ve been juggling through my mind lately:

Music

I’ve been getting crazy into music lately.  Formally close-minded towards anything not-classic-rock, I’ve actually discovered that they do make great music these days–you just have to dig for it and look for it in unconventional ways.  What kind of music you (probably didn’t) ask?  Well, here’s a few bands I find myself listening to recently:

• Say Anything
• Death Cab for Cutie
• Queens of the Stone Age/Kyuss
• Saosin
• LCD Soundsystem
• Every Time I Die
• DAATH
• Chimaira

It runs the gamut from Electronica to near-Death Metal, but along with some of the classics it feels great to have a little variety.

I set up a Last.FM account (Dgrimes14), which is actually a really cool service that catalogs every single track you play on your computer, integrating charts (exciting, I know) and other data about your music-listening habits, coupled with a few social networking tools (something I don’t really feel like I need another website for).  I have it set up to sync everything from my iPod and iTunes library, but I’m pretty sure it works with other music players as well.  You can actually see a sample of this in the sidebar to the right of this blog.

Writing

Just over a year ago I started writing for GameStooge.com — a smaller gaming-related blog that most gamers (or anybody else) have most likely never heard of.  Thanks to college taking over the majority of my writing time, I kind of lost track with posting and even following the gaming industry — and I totally regret doing so.  I occasionally would check out a few of the bigger blogs out there, but for the most part my role and interest in the gaming community was severely diminished.

But that’s behind me now.  I’ve resumed duties in posting news and the occasional review over there, but it’s hard to get the same feeling of love for the site when all of the other writers that I enjoyed “working” with stopped contributing.  I’m not really going to go into details on here, but several factors just left me feeling uninspired to continue what I was doing there.  Ideally, I’d like to move on to a blog I’d feel more comfortable writing for, but in the meantime all of my gaming-related posts can be found at GameStooge.

I’ve also been looking at the way music and movie reviews are handled in comparison to videogame reviews (something I’m more familiar with).  Because their media is inherently different and absent of a lot of the things you see in gaming reviews (graphics, framerate, story, controls, etc…) there really isn’t a set “mold” or structure to the way a review of a movie or album is penned out.  Instead, it’s more about the emotional response to, and analyzation of what’s presented.

To me, gaming reviews typically follow the same trend of describing the story, the controls, the visuals, the sound — it’s very dull and boring, and feels like something that belongs in a Consumer Reports magazine, rather than something that seriously critiques the artistic merit of a given title.  Movie and music reviews tend to stick to what an artist has accomplished, and game reviews seem all too much like a “Should you buy it?” reccomendation.  I feel like there should be some kind of lapse here that will allow us to talk about games in a new way, because frankly, most people have already made up their mind about purchasing a game months before it comes out.  A more interesting take should be considered, and it’s definitely something I’ll keep in mind when writing in the future.