“Gridlife” was a vision, a real vision. Not a fiction, not a fairy tale, a glimpse of the future. Today, twenty years later, the apocalypse it foresaw is nearer. But, whatever you read in the newspapers, we still don’t have any alternative reality. It’s all games now: all lies and deceit. What happened to the truth? What happened to the dream? What happened to all that lovely hippie shit?
Pete Townshend, “English Boy (Reprise)”

“Psychoderelict” is an album by Pete Townshend (guitarist of The Who) that was released in 1993. There’s not much point in trying to explain all of it, because it’s pretty deep and I might have a nervous breakdown trying to explain it.

This quote is from the final song of the album, “English Boy (Reprise)” and the words are spoken by Ray High, the main character of the rock opera. I listened to the album in its entirety tonight, something that people don’t usually do now with that “shuffle” button being so accessible, and I realized at the end that what he said has changed.

We have alternate reality and it’s existed for quite some time. No, I’m not going to tell you about this machine that you put on your head that lets you live out entire lifetimes in it. You can’t put it on and fight ninjas and jump tall buildings.

But there is another reality that lets you do this. You can fall in love, become a superstar, live on a tropical island, get a new wife, solve a murder, visit any country in the world, enter a beauty pageant, escape from a car sinking in a lake, lick chocolate off a naked model’s body, and work for Donald Trump.

What do we define “alternate reality” as? Personally I see it as something that appears to be real, but really isn’t. And what is “reality television”? I rest my case.

In the title, I said that this “alternate reality” is “accessible”. And it’s true; anyone can go on “Fear Factor” or “Big Brother” or what have you. Of course, like the “alternate reality” most people think of, you have to be rich to afford it. In Hollywood, being rich can get you places, as does being pretty, smart, or entertaining. This “reality” isn’t entirely accessible to everyone, just like the headware gizmo. But eventually, it will be. As the contraption goes down in price, more and more people will become instant stars.

And the “reality” does end when the show is over. These people become mini-celebrities and enjoy the “reality” of California, going to parties and making friends. Friends that appear to be real, but leave when things go wrong.

I always figured that reality TV would be a fad, and it would stop at “Survivor” and “Big Brother” and eventually just be over with. But it doesn’t show any sign of stopping.

And how could we go back? How could we go back to “‘Three’s Company’ [being] filmed in front of a studio audience” with no participation from the audience? People will lose interest. You aren’t involving them anymore, so they won’t like it. The programming isn’t being geared towards them.

Whoa, “programming”? Sound familiar? Isn’t that what “Lifehouse” and the Grid was? We’re there. Television and reality TV is our Grid.

And as for being geared towards us? Ever heard of the PVR? Can’t watch “Lost” right now? Tape it and watch it tomorrow. Or catch it online. We’re there.

Don’t like what’s on the local radio station? Get satellite radio and choose from hundreds of other stations. We’re there.

Pete Townshend predicted full body suits that would feed these things to us, our music, or TV, our reality. We’re not quite there. Are we going that way? I don’t know, I hope not.

One thing that Pete got wrong was the censorship. Sure, it still exists, but the Internet is not the Grid. It’s not owned by a sad, blue-eyed man who wants to ban rock music. If he does, I’ll just get it from The Pirate Bay. No one controls the Internet and it’s quite hard to police.

That’s not to say we aren’t in danger from Jumbo. In this version of life, Jumbo could very well be a collective named Google. There are a lot of people out there who refuse to use Google because they think it’s getting too big. They could buy up a lot of the littler (or bigger) companies (ever heard of YouTube?) and gain a monopoly on the internet. I don’t quite know what constitutes a monopoly, but I’m pretty sure they have one on search. Might we one day be changing all our hotmail accounts to gmail, too?

As I’ve written about many times before, people are so often unnecessarily afraid of technology. When we hear about the Grid or SkyNet or whatever some big (albeit fake) corporation is making, we get scared. No no no, I don’t want computers controlling everything. They can make mistakes. And you never know when they will become sentient!

Is what we have now something to be afraid of? Should we be worried about Richard Hatch and Will Kirby and Kelly Clarkson living out fake realities? (And can you tell I don’t watch much current reality TV?) Should we be worried that some internet company has bought yet another internet company? Is there really an enemy here, or are we creating one?

I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s anything to worry about as long as we can keep it under control. Unfortunately, I think we’ve already started to let it get out of hand. And it’s hard. No one wants to be the one to tell Britney “you need help” and if she hears it, she won’t listen. That’s gotten out of hand.

And when there’s money at stake, people aren’t going to say “no” to being bought out by a multi-billion dollar corporation. Yes, our love of money has gotten out of hand.

But that doesn’t mean start over, abolish reality TV and the internet completely. Shutting it down for five years will not do any good, Elton. The internet itself is not the enemy. It is code. It is not sentient, and it will never become sentient until someone codes in a becomeSentient() function (and that would take quite awhile to debug, methinks).

Technology cannot do anything evil without humans to tell it to do so. We don’t need to fix the technology. If you think there’s something wrong with the internet, you need to fix the people.

I’ve reached this point so many times in my thinking. I never plan on ending up here, but I always do. I wonder if there’s somewhere further I’m supposed to go? I always get here and think that’s the end. Maybe not. I’ll need to ponder on this longer, but I start university tomorrow, and school is no place to think.

But wait. My fair town… isn’t my fair town anymore. Not when I’ll be an hour away at university!

And of course. Of course it’s on a Wednesday. A Wednesday! When I have my only 6:00 class. Of course.

Well, that just blows.

And it was the same with Def Leppard. They’re playing in my fair town, but when I’m on vacation. Souper.

Concerts just don’t work out for me anymore. The four day concert next week was rather messed up by the fact that I’m in summer school. And it’s been confirmed today that I’ll have tests on both the Thursday and Friday. So I’m pretty much screwed study-wise for those tests.

They had better get some good acts at the casino. But only after I turn nineteen. But I’m sure Led Zeppelin will just decide for the hell of it to play a concert there on December 30th. I’m sure.

I saw The Who twice on the last tour in an accidental sort of way, but that was fine because I was a huge Who fan at the time. Plus, it was cool to hear the new songs live for the first time, and then I knowing every single song the second time.

If it’s just gonna be the exact same show as last time, I don’t know if I’d really want to go again. They do apparently have a new album in the works, and if some songs from the Sparkle Lounge will be appearing on this tour, then I would want to go.

I’m different in that way; I quite like hearing the new songs, whereas most other people just want to hear the old hits. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but I like seeing a tour and being able to connect the songs with when the tour took place, and if they have a new album out, it’s obviously quite easy to do that. It’s not “I saw Def Leppard on any old tour” it’s “I saw Def Leppard on the Sparkle Lounge tour”.

I never really got how people could just dismiss a group after having seen them once, but now I kind of understand. Certain circumstances would make me want to see a group again, such as a new album and hence new songs, if tickets were cheap, or if they were really really good the first time. Watching some videos of Def Leppard at Bayfest on YouTube, well, I guess they weren’t as good as I thought they were at the time. But it’s just not the same as seeing them live, right up close.

Which is another problem. Going from seeing them a few metres away to being back in the stands? I don’t know if I like that.

The bands I would probably see again are Van Halen (since I’m really big into them now), The Who (because they’re still my all-time favourite band), Aerosmith (because they were just plain good, but again, my perspective may have been skewed from being so close), Bon Jovi, and The Rolling Stones (the last two because I didn’t really know their songs at the time, but I now can appreciate them, and because I couldn’t hear a thing at Bon Jovi). And of course, I’d be willing to see Micky, Peter, and Davy again, provided they were all together and brought along one of their friends with them. :)

People I wouldn’t see again are probably Paul McCartney (because tickets are so expensive, and I’m not a huge Beatles fan anymore, nor was I when I saw him, unfortunately), Eric Clapton (because it was boring), and Nickelback (because seeing them the first time was an accident). The rest I would see if the opportunity arose accidentally and/or cheaply, but have no particular need or want to see them again.

So, maybe Leppard again for me? Maybe I’ll just drive myself downtown if no one else wants to go, seeing as I can do that now (well, except for the whole needing a licensed driver thing, pfft). I’d consider searching around the city and trying to accidentally run into them, but apparently they have lots of crazy stalker fans, and I don’t want to be one of them.

Didn’t go so well. The program I picked for some reason decided instead to clip off the first second of the songs I ran through it and every once in awhile it decided to make the entire song slower. It seemed to also pick on Elton John and Queen songs, for some reason.

The effects of this fateful day are still felt. I have a few Michael Blessing songs I never got around to downloading from my old Monkees mixed CDs that are stillllll verrrryyyyy slooowwww. Here and there I’ll find a song that the beat just doesn’t seem right, because it’s missing the first measure.

One of the songs that was so cruelly raped was Jan and Dean’s “Surf City”. I replaced it with a new version, but it wasn’t the same version I’d had before. Today I finally got around to looking for a new old version in my dad’s MP3 collection. Instead, I found an album where the first song was called “Jennie Lee”. I have various blog entries documenting my fascination with songs that contain my name in it, so I won’t go on about that here. But this song is especially especial — “Lee” is my middle name as well! Now true, both “Jennie” and “Lee” are spelled differently, but that’s okay, they’re still pronounced/sung the same anyway.

I’m not a big Jan and Dean fan, so hearing them say my name is hardly as exhilarating as hearing Michael Nesmith say it. And really, there can’t be many Tommy Tutone fans out there, but we all know “867-5309 (Jenny)”.

I have the song on in the background as I continue my search for “Surf City”. Once the song reaches the chorus “Oh Jennie Lee (Jennie Lee) / Oh Jennie Lee (Jennie Lee)” I realize the melody is strangely familiar, and I hum along with it. I figure it’s just one of those old rock and roll riffs that are used over and over, but then I realize where I’ve heard this melody before.

“Bucket T”.

By The Who.

On one of my favourite albums, “A Quick One”.

SUNG BY KEITH FUCKING MOON, MY FAVOURITE FUCKING MEMBER OF THE WHO!!!

…

…

Not fair.

Also, I’m searching Google for “bucket t” lyrics -”the who” and still only finding stuff referring to The Who, which makes me think they purposely rewrote the song themselves. Well, apparently not, which makes me feel a little better.

What. The. Fuck.

Great Keith, real good call there. Yeah.

And the song goes on to talking about being seventeen — which is how old I am!

I really don’t know whether to be happy or sad. I mean, I’m sure at one point in his life, Keith probably sang along to the original version in that oh so beautiful singing voice of his, which would mean he did in fact utter two thirds of my name, which really ain’t bad.

But I guess until I find the actual recording of this event, I will have to continue to be sad.

And Keith, if I do happen to have another lucid dream and decide to summon you, you have some splainin’ to do. I mean, you’re already in trouble after what happened last time, you can’t be dawlding around like that since you know I only have so long… but now, you’re in big trouble, mister!

Today Def Leppard was on “Regis and Kelly”. Well, all except Phil. They replaced him with some guy wearing a shirt. Pfft, like we wouldn’t notice. They only played “Armageddon It”, and they didn’t really rock it (ye-ah!). They are capable of so much more rockage than they displayed today. Or maybe I just think that because I wasn’t a couple feet away from them.

Van Halen. Hopefully I will be seeing them in October. Not “hopefully” because I don’t think I will be able to get tickets, but “hopefully” because, well, it’s Van Halen, and this tour is, dare I say it, somewhat of a “Chinese Democracy”. So, been listening to more Van Halen tunes. I have a “Best of” album, which I now realize mostly consists of Sammy Hagar songs. And you know, everyone’s so psyched that it’s a David Lee Roth tour, which I mean, yeah, I get it and I appreciate Dave, obviously, but I like quite a few of the Hagar songs too, you know?

I added some Van Halen lyrics to LyricWiki a few days ago, and seriously, every single line from a DLR album started with “UH!” or “AHH!” or some other similar grunting or moaning or groaning onomatopoeia (using something I learned in English class in real life? What the fuck is wrong here?). I found it quite hilarious.

I’ve taken a liking to “Jamie’s Cryin’” and I quite like the cover of “You Really Got Me”. Which scares me, because I liked Def Leppard’s cover of “Waterloo Sunset”, and I’m usually not a fan of covers of songs that I already know. So what, is it just The Kinks? I read the other day that Bon Jovi covered “Celluloid Heroes”, which made me crack up because I can so hear him singing that, but I’m afraid to listen to it, because I might like it, and I feel like I’m letting The Kinks down, or something.

Speaking of “You Really Got Me”, I was quite shocked when I found I didn’t even have the original on my computer. I can remember Sanjaya’s version more clearly than the original too. And speaking of Sanjaya, JOE PERRY!!!

I was watching “The Monkees On The Wheel” today. The tag, the tag always gets me. But today, it didn’t. “Isn’t that funny kids?” Apparently not. Even though I’ve not been obsessed with The Monkees for years, I could still watch the TV show (mostly the second season) and think it was hilarious. But today, not so. And that makes me sad. I’m hoping I was just in a party pooper mood today.

The Who. Still my favourite band? I hope so. Aerosmith and Def Leppard, I’m starting to like more and more, as is probably evident. But again, as I’ve gone through twice before, I’ve heard all the songs. “Endless Wire” was awesome, but I don’t see any more new albums coming out. Still a possibility, yes, which actually, I never realized, wasn’t really a possibility for The Monkees or The Beatles. But then again, I guess “Justus” didn’t seem like a possibility back then either.

True, I haven’t heard “Waspman” or “Dogs” and various other singles and rare tracks, so yes, there still is stuff out there available and that to me, is new. As well as a few solo albums (although I’m not planning on buying any more of Roger’s, sorry kid (ha ha I called a man 46 years older than me “kid” (hey 46, that’s a pretty small number… me like! (but hey, Joe Perry is only 57 (actually, almost 57, so technically 56 (I found that out recently and was all WTF for several minutes (how unimpressive that sounds without exaggeration (now where was I? (let’s see the rest of this sentence not make any sense whatsoever))))))) and half of Moonie’s deluxe solo album, which I’ve decided I’ll be listening to on his birthday.

I’m know I made posts saying exactly the same thing with The Monkees and The Beatles, all sad that I’d found someone new, and not wanting to let go. I guess that’s the trouble with liking older music.

The Who had a good run, much longer than the other two. Is this the end? I don’t know. I don’t want it to be, because that would mean a new beginning and eventually another end. I don’t want to be forever beginning and ending. I want to have some consistency! Why can’t The Who be my consistent favourite band, while I consistently go through phases? Is that too much to ask?

Sigh. I wasn’t planning on writing this tonight. I didn’t want to write this at all, because then it would seem sort of like the end. I recall one time quite long ago that I stopped myself from reading a Led Zeppelin fanfic, because I feared that would be the end. And you know, it could’ve been, but it never happened, and I never became obsessed with Led Zeppelin. I do still quite like Led Zeppelin, but I never was as scared then about one curly haired king replacing another as I am now about two twins replacing one loon. Okay so I suck at whatever language device I’m trying to use, but at least I’m trying.

Is there a reason for this? It seems like a conspiracy to me. Starting with the sixties, The Monkees and The Beatles. Then there’s overlap with The Who, they went on into the seventies. And taking it from the seventies, to the eighties and beyond, is it… is that… Aerosmith? Are you just trying to bring me up to the present day and force me to like this new stuff, and be like everyone else? Well maybe I’ll just go fucking backwards and start singing about parting me hair in the middle and being crazy about animal crackers! How do ya like that?

Who the hell are you? Where am I?

*TRAVEL & HOTEL ARE NOT INCLUDED

Umm yeah. I don’t have the money to be travelling to New York. So… yeah, but no. Nevertheless, I read on…

Ever dream of meeting Pete & Roger?

Quite literally, yes.

TheWhoTour.com wants to make your dreams a reality – with the new “Who Are You?” Fly Away Contest!

Pete & Roger are asking their fans – “Who Are You?” Tell The Who about yourself by uploading a photo, photo collage or personally-created artwork to TheWhoTour.com. Pete & Roger will personally select the grand-prize winning entry based on creativity, skill and the entry that best represents “Who Are You?”

The grand prize winner (plus one guest) will receive a flyaway and 3 nights’ hotel accommodation along with front row tickets to the band’s July 9th show in Helsinki, Finland! AND…The grand prize winner and guest will MEET PETE TOWNSHEND AND ROGER DALTREY!
Flights and hotel accommodations will be provided by lastminute.com.

First off, “Pete & Roger”? Who are you? Mork & Mindy? Laverne & Shirley? Come on. But anyway…

Umm…. hello!? Hotel and travel paid for? AWESOME. Get to go to Finland? Well, I’ve never really had a desire to, but AWESOME. And all I have to do is take a picture? HELLLLL YES!

Okay. So obviously, it needs to be something that stands out.

Admittedly, a “Roz Nathan”-esque photograph was the first thing that crossed my mind…

But NO. SO many things wrong with that. SO many things.

But… what the hell could I do really? I tend to think of myself as a person with lots of crazy ideas, though I tend to not follow up on them. I mean, honestly, I did only read this email a few minutes ago. I haven’t had any time to think about it. And I do have until June 15 to think of something.

And… Fuck. There it is. I must be 18 or over. Fuck fuck fuck. There’s always a catch. I knew it.

I mean, it’s disappointing, because I’m 17. I’m so close. I mean, it’s even worse for someone who is turning 18 on June 16 or summat. So I’m not that close, but I’m still close. It’s like those times when I was 12 and couldn’t sign up for cool websites like Neopets. But when I turned 13, I don’t think I really noticed. I didn’t realize that all these new things opened up for me.

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that all these places wouldn’t take me because I was 12. But by the end of this year, well, I can do pretty much anything. Well, some things come with 21, don’t they? But at 18, you’re an adult, right? And by the end of this week, three of my friends will have just turned 18.

…so they can enter the contest for me! OHH YEAH. I’ll be your guest, be your guest, put your service to the test! Ohhh yes!

Buuuut. Realistically… don’t think that’s happening.

I suppose I’ll just have to keep on dreaming…

Hey, wait! What the fuck, Pete! “Early morning dreams come true?” Well APPARENTLY only if I’m legal! Damn it!

I planned on finishing it all during March Break. Ha! I did get a good portion of the graphics done (not enough, as I’m realizing now though) and nearly all of the dialogue. I had the first few scenes done, but when it was time to make a map for the town, well, that didn’t go too well. I really don’t much like the actual map making part. Or drawing characters. But the coding-ish part is all good and fun.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read the dialogue I wrote. And every once in awhile while I’m coding the dialogue, I just need to stop and appreciate my wonderful sense of humour. I really hope other people find this stuff funny and actually get it, because a lot of the funnier stuff are Who in-jokes, y’know. Which, I mean, Who fans are my target audience. But some of it, kind of obscure.

Anyway. I’m at the Lifehouse. Thank George. That means I’m nearly done.

I also realized I really hate making mazes, but every single freaking game I’ve ever made has had a maze. I guess because I’m not quite good enough at the coding to make real mini-games. I’m trying to turn the path to Lifehouse into a game instead of a maze, but so far, no good.

Another one of my worries is that the story isn’t accurate enough. Well, the main character isn’t even in Pete’s vision of Lifehouse. But that way, it allows you to go everywhere and see everything that’s going on, because if you were Jumbo or Ray or Bobby, you wouldn’t get the whole picture. This character does. So yes, I’m very much taking advantage of artistic license. But I mean, there are probably all kinds of little mistakes that would make people who really know Lifehouse just die. Hopefully the little jokes make up for that?

Johnnie was stunningly beautiful. She was so beautiful that whenever she left the house at night, stars would fall out of the sky and down to the earth, simply so that they could be closer to her beautifulness beauty. Her beauty could not be matched by the most delicate flower or the most majestic mountain or even the most perfect freehand circle. She was just that beautiful. She was so beautiful that she could stop even the most determined sled dog hot on the trail of some delicious, crispy bacon in his tracks.

Ginny knew more than you could ever hope to find in all the libraries in all the world, for she had traditional knowledge, like grammar and arithmetic, but also knowledge that was actually useful. She could win chess games in a single move, calculate pi to its repeating point, and recreate the entire works of Shakespeare on only one typewriter with absolutely no monkeys.

Janey was adored by people wherever she went and was always the life of the party. Whenever Janey was around, people could not help but smile at her crazy antics, such as the time that she walked on only her elbows for nearly a year. It would have been a full year had she not encountered that dear old hippopotamus in her neighbour’s swamp, but that’s another story for another time. She has no sort of preoccupation with firearms whatsoever.

June was a kind and loving soul who always put others’ needs before her own. She was the best friend a person could have, and if you called her up at 4:30 in the morning in desperate need of a banana peel for an elaborate prank, she would grab a banana peel and hand it over without a single sigh. And if no banana peel was lying around, she would eat one. And if no banana she had in the first place, then by golly, she would go straight to the supermarket and buy one, and then eat it, and then give you the banana peel.

Despite these girls being perfect in every imaginable way, they all suffered horrible, tragic, sorrowful pasts, for they were aborted in the first trimester, adopted by a poor street family, forced to work in sweat shops overseas, and abused by their evil step-uncle, who then killed their three parents and fairy godmother and locked them in his basement with no food or water for eight and three quarter years, after which they were released and forced to become prostitutes where they all developed a nasty dependency on various illicit drugs. They were then raped and pillaged and downloaded by pirates.

These girls are completely and utterly selfless and their entire being is for the good of humanity. They believe that love truly is the answer. Some people would think that after such a tragic history, they would be bitter towards humankind, but no, for they are truly perfect beings, and they know only how to love.

“Hey, I’ve never noticed this large hole in the floor. Whoooa!”

“Oh dear, she has fallen into the hole! Come on girls, we’ll have to follow her!”

“Okay!”

“Wow, wouldn’t you believe it? That hole led us to this strange looking city! The people are all wearing strange clothes and talking in strange voices like they’ve forgotten there’s a letter “h” at the beginning of words and they call Paula Abdul ‘Pauler’!”

“Paula Abdul? Who’s that?”

“Oh my god, that means we must be in the sixties!”

“Groovy!”

“OWW! SOMEONE JUST RAN OVER ME WITH THEIR CAR!”

“Oh no! I think she might be hurt!”

“Whoops, did I just run over you with my car?”

“YOU DAMN WELL DID AND I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW I’M REALLY UPSET ABOUT IT!”

“I’m terribly sorry, miss, but I didn’t see you there!”

“EXCUSE ME, MISTER! I’m really mad at you and I hate you and I absolutely never want to see you again and don’t you dare think I would ever fall in love with you because that’s the last thing that’s going to happen in this story, and I don’t mean ‘last’ like ‘last chapter’, but like it’s never gonna happen because even though we’re obviously a perfect match, despite me not knowing a thing about you, you ran over me, so I HATE YOU!”

“Well, that’s awful harsh. I mean, all I did was run over you a little bit, and now there’s only a tiny bit of blood gushing everywhere.”

“Oh, I guess that’s all right then. Sorry abo — OH MY GOD! THERE’S BLOOD ALL OVER MY BEAUTIFUL GO-GO BOOTS! Hey wait, these aren’t my clothes! Hey wait, these are some really weird clothes that don’t belong to me! …But they’re kind of growing on me!”

“Oh my god, the clothes are alive! THEY WILL KILL US ALL!”

“No, not like that, I mean, they’re terribly ugly, but I’m kinda starting to like them.”

“Hey, why are you wearing clothes that aren’t yours?”

“Huh! I should ask you the same question.”

“GASP! You mean — !”

“Hey, you guys are kind of ignoring me here.”

“Oh, sorry Pete.”

“No problem. Actually, I prefer to be called ‘Pait’.”

“But we don’t speak British.”

“Why should that matter?”

“I guess you’re right. So now what?”

“Well, I guess you girls will all have to go in my van and I’ll take you to my flat and we’ll get you cleaned up. Cheers!”

“Don’t you think we should go to a hospital first?”

“…Nooo.”

“Umm, actually guys, what happened was I tripped and fell onto a conveniently placed pile of leaves and I guess my first reaction was to think this guy in the car hit me!”

“But what about the blood?”

“Oh, I really like ketchup.”

“So I guess we don’t need to go with the strange man in the strange van, then.”

“No, I guess not.”

“Wait! If you don’t come with me… you won’t be able to blink your right eye!”

“What? That’s rubbish!”

“Well, it’s true.”

“…I think we should go with him just in case.”

“Right, hop in.”

“Hey wait, this van is full of people!”

“What, do you drive around town hitting people and throwing them in your van?”

“No! Of course not! Let me introduce to you me mates: Rogah, Keef, and Jun!”

“‘Ello!”

“Roight then, everyone in the van!”

“But there’s no room!”

“You can just squeeze in on top of the other blokes!”

“But they’re squeezed in on top of the instruments!”

“Oh well, pile in anyway!”

“Tra la la, we are taking a nice car ride with these nice people to their nice house.”

“Oh my god, I’m pregnant! Rogah, you bastard!”

“Wot?”

“But he’s all the way over there!”

“Wait… you mean… Keef?”

“OH MY GOD, IT’S A MURDER MYSTERY! Everybody, stand back, I’m an expert; I read all the Nancy Drew books in seventh grade!”

“We’ve arrived at the flat!”

“Great, everyone out of the van!”

“Oh Jun, I love you!”

“MRMRMAFMRAMFM!”

“Yay! It’s a wedding!”

“…or forever hold your peace!”

“Peace, man! Far out.”

“I hate fucking hippies!”

“WAIT! STOP THE WEDDING! Jun, I love you. I’ve always loved you. And… you’re the mother of my child.”

“Keef, stop interruptin’!”

“But I couldn’t hold my peace any longer! I demand to be heard! This is a legitimate concern!”

“Now I love you, Pait.”

“He’s mine! Take that, you bitchy bitch-faced bitch!”

“Stop it, all of you! There will be no karate-chopping at my wedding!”

“Oh my god, you killed her!”

“OMG WTF!!!”

“Hurry, let’s bury her before anyone sees!”

“Umm… there’s a whole wedding party here that saw everything.”

“Shut up you idiot! Maybe they didn’t hear us!”

“There, now that that’s done, let’s shag!”

“‘Kay!”

“Ohhhh Keeee-errr-ROGAH!”

“Wot did you say, luv?”

“I said I love you Rogah!”

“Good ’nuff for me!”

“Wait, you two, hold it! I can’t believe I didn’t see this before, but Rogah, you’re beautiful, and I’m beautiful, and so we were obviously meant for each other! Tee hee!”

“Sorry, could it wait a second, luv?”

“No! You’re breaking my heart, Rogah! BREAKING MY HEART!”

“You’re breakin’ her heart, dear boy, yeaaah!”

“My heart, I can just hear it breaking!”

“Yeah!”

“It’s falling on the floor!”

“Yeah!”

“Into a million pieces!”

“Yeeheh –”

“SHUT UP, RASTUS!”

“Okay, wot didja say, luv?”

“I said it’s obvious that we were meant for each other because you’re beautiful and I’m beautiful and we’ve got all the same character traits as if some divine writer made us that way and we were destined to meet despite you living in another country and era!”

“Well, I certainly didn’t see that one coming!”

“Okay, so now we need to get these other peeps hooked up with their respective peeps!”

“Right, Pait? You love her. Good? Good!”

“Fine with me.”

“Yay, let’s go swear profusely and smash things up!”

“Hey, you there! You’ve said nothing this entire time. Just like Jun! You were obviously made for each other as well, seeing as you both share the common character trait of not talking, and even though we know nothing more about your characters other than that, it’s obvious that you guys go together like shananananananana bippity boom de boom.”

“Actually, we’ve been shagging in the closet this whole time because we already realized that hours ago.”

“Come on, you obviously love each other, don’t deny it!”

“We’re not.”

“We’ll lock you in a closet together until you admit that you love each other!”

“Fine with me.”

“Ohh! Maybe we’ll even die!”

“Hey, look at these two! They’re so happy together, smashing up things, and jumping into pools with cars tied around their bodies!”

“Hee hee hee! Smashie smashie!”

“Well, it looks like our work here is done.”

“Oh no, it’s almost twelve o’clock!”

“What does that mean?”

“Young girls are coming to the canyon!”

“Ohhh! Well, what are we waiting for? ORGY!”

“No, that’s twelve thirty, you dolt! At twelve, we must return home to America and whatever time period it is that we came from!”

“Oh no, and we just realized how much we love each other and life was so perfect!”

“Oh well.”

“Yeah, oh well.”

“…Bye then.”

I’m starting to understand why this “team-building” thing that they talk about in Entrepreneurship is important. This would be a lot easier if I had someone to do the music, and someone to do the art, and someone to do the writing, and someone to do the coding… but I have to do everything. Of course, that way I’ll get it to be how I want it, but then it’s just a lot of work.

Today was mostly working on music. Matching musics with different scenes and stuff. I found a midi with the vocals for “Baba O’Riley” and a Guitar Pro file with instruments that were much better than the midi one, and I tried to figure out how to get them into one file, but it just didn’t work. That was frustrating.

So then I tried my hand at transcribing “Goin’ Mobile”. The guitar parts are already done, which is good, because I never could’ve figured that out. I did get most of the vocals, though the middle part really screwed me up. Then as for drums, well, I took a wild guess at the basic pattern Keith was playing, and it sounds all right, but it doesn’t sound like Keith. I’ve kind of given up on it though, and I’ll probably end up using what I have and maybe just looping it.

I did get quite a bit of the writing done today though. I’ve got everything up to the actual Lifehouse done, and I’m working on some tasks the player has to perform at the Lifehouse.

I’m kind of stuck on the task I’m doing now because, well, I’m trying to keep this game rated G, and the subject matter of the task is not exactly G rated, but that’s what you get when you draw inspiration from ripoff Who songs.

Also, I’m hoping that I’ll let the user pick their “avatar” at the beginning so that they can be male or female, so there are quite a few instances where I want a character to say “sir” to the player, but I can’t if they’re a girl. So that doesn’t work very well.

Anyway, I don’t really know exactly how I’m going to end it, I mean, I know how the ending goes, but I don’t know how to game-ify it so it’s not just a scene that plays out in front of the player. I need them to be involved, you know?

But I’m pretty close to the end, and maybe I’ll be able to finish the writing today. I mean, I want everything done this week, which could make for a pretty crappy game. But I can’t see myself having too much time later, you know? I also want to get a lot of other things done this week, so… eh…

And don’t even get me starting on figuring out how I’m going to distribute this thing! My friend’s games were like 16 MB, so I don’t know, this one might be around 20 MB… isn’t that a lot for one file for the web? I certainly can’t host it here, lest I be shut down again. Well, I could upload it on YouSendIt… but again, download times, well, not so great. Hmm, well, I guess I’ll figure it out when I get there. I mean, it’s one of those things that could just totally stop the project, and something I probably should already have figured out, but… well, I guess I’ll take my chances. :/

But the worst thing today that made me feel old? I flipped on Much Music Retro to have something to listen to while eating my pancakes. And you know what they were playing?

Do you know what they were playing!?

Say You’ll Be There. By the Spice Girls.

ON MUCH MUSIC RETRO?!? SRSLY?

Wow. That was… just… disturbing. But sad. But funny. But mostly it made me feel old.

The other day in Computer Engineering there were some kids listening to Q107. And you know what they said? “Why don’t they play some new classic rock?”

There are just SO many things wrong with that statement. First of all, these people are oxymorons. Second of all, why would they voluntarily want to play CRAP?

Geesh. Just listen to Y108 if you want “new classic rock”, and leave the good music to us who can appreciate it.

On an unrelated note, I watched “Citizen Kane” today. It must be Oscar time or something, because they’re playing the Oscar-winning movies. Oh, right right, it must be, and that’s what the whole “best Clive Davis photos” thing was about. I stand corrected. The “Clive Davis” thing was the Grammies. I am writing this here for posterity, because one day in twenty years, Kristen and Jada are going to be looking at our yearbook and saying “what the hell? Who is Clive Davis?” and they are going to look on the internet to try to figure it out, and Google will give them no results except for possibly this page. And so, assuming this site is still around then, and seeing as it shall be preserved because I shall be famous, then I will be ever so gracious and explain to our future selves what exactly this Clive Davis thing is all about, despite myself being the least qualified to explain it, for I am not even sure myself. However, as I understand it, there is a certain television talk show with a certain host named Ellen DeGeneres, and she has a certain segment on her show with crappy baby pictures called “Best Pictures Ever” or something like that, and for the Oscar photos, she had a little song that went something like “these are the best, Clive Davis photos ever! From the best, Clive Davis party ever!”. And there you go. I’m so glad I’ve cleared that up for you, future selves.

But what was I talking about? “Citizen Kane”. It was a nice movie. A little slow at times, but I blame society for that, for our short attention spans. I liked the plot. It was pretty cool. But overall, I mean, it didn’t leave that big of an impression on me. A lot of these movies that are so-called the “greatest” movies ever, just don’t do much for me. I think because I expect too much. Oh well.

So, from music, to movies, to television.

I saw a commercial with, umm, what’s her name? Queen Latifah? Anyway, it’s a mascara commercial, and it’s all “mascara that won’t clump!”. And I mean, this commercial is the same commercial I could’ve seen ten years ago. All these commercials comparing their product to another brand, they just… don’t make sense.

If this new brand actually works like it’s supposed to, why are there still brands that don’t work? I mean, they should be bankrupt, or at the least they should have stolen the technology from the good brands to make their own product work.

Which brings me to the conclusion that COMMERCIALS LIE.

I know, shocking stuff, but it had to be said.

klapaucius !;!;!;!;

I was reading some old blog entries and noticed this little part talking about Lisztomania:

The best moment was when Roger got dressed in this awful purple dress and he fell down.
Me, Ba de ya, say do you remember?

There you go. Mystery solved. Roger is the man in the purple dress.