Holy crap, I have a c-blog!

I'm not gonna lie -- I kinda didn't want to do one of these blogs. I've been tagged by at least four different people on Facebook for one of those goddamn "25 things" notes, and I flat-out refuse to do one. But since this is only 10 things, I'll make a special exception for you, the Destructoid Community. And yes, I know I'm late to the party, but I wasn't finished with this last night. Sue me.

Obviously, some of you may already know one or more of the following facts about me, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. Sorry.

1) Before I became an editor here at Destructoid, I went by 'BrOnXbOmBr21' on the site (and pretty much everywhere else on the internet). In fact, that's my username on the forums. I came up with it when I was in tenth grade. Here's what it comes from: I'm a huge New York Yankees fan, and the team's nickname is "the Bronx Bombers." As for the number, well, on the Yankees of the mid- to late-nineties, right fielder Paul O'Neill was one of my favorite players; his number was 21. I have no idea why I decided to go with the ridiculous alternate capitalization -- it's so childish -- but now, I can type "BrOnXbOmBr21" unbelievably quickly, since I've been doing it for seven years or so.



2) I hope this doesn't come off as pompous, but ... I've always been pretty smart. I started reading at a rather young age, and for most of my early years (like, all through elementary school), I didn't have to try very hard to do well. Unfortunately, that had the undesirable side effect of making me quite lazy -- and let me tell you, there comes a time when you simply can't just get straight As anymore without studying. Not taking scholastic success for granted is a damn hard lesson to learn.



3) I love to read. When I was younger, I devoured books -- I'd read whatever I could get my hands on, and I was the kind of kid who'd secretly be reading under the covers with a flashlight well after his parents told him to go to bed (their stern warnings of "you'll ruin your eyes" had no effect). Sadly, I don't spend nearly as much time with books as I used to -- college took away all the leisure time I had for books, and frankly, when you're already doing a ton of reading for school, you don't want to (or have the energy to) read things for pleasure. I'm hoping to rectify that this year.



4) This one is sort of intertwined with #s 2 and 3. I have a tremendous thirst for knowledge, which is why I still read a lot (it's just that nowadays, most of my reading is done on a computer screen, with the medium being the internet instead of books). I'm the kind of guy who can spend an hour on Wikipedia just browsing and learning about new things (whether that's American history, physics, or classic rock). It seems obvious that my zeal for reading -- especially at an early age -- is why I became so good with English and its proper usage. I didn't become great at spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc., through English class or anything; I just read a lot. But because I do like to know things, I'm the kind of person who will make a note if he sees a word he doesn't know in something he's reading, and then look it up later. That's why I have a sizable vocabulary ... or at least I like to think so, anyway.



5) Like many of my colleagues, I always dreamed of a job in the videogame industry. But I never thought it would happen -- mostly because I consider myself a rather mediocre writer. Knowing the ins and outs of the English doesn't magically make you a good writer; I fear that it's one of those things that's innate (or if it isn't a natural thing, then it's certainly something that's very hard to coax out of someone or teach). My writing may not have comma splices, but I can't see it ever being as engaging (or entertaining, for that matter) as the work of any number of the Destructoid editors -- especially because I tend to be very verbose. But I've begun to come to grips with that.



6) I'm a very musical person. My mom is a musician -- she sings and plays the harmonium -- so I guess that's where I got that from. I've been singing since I was a little kid, I took piano lessons for five years or so, and I've been "playing" guitar for the past six or seven years (I put the word in quotes because I don't really play my guitar all that often). Don't get me wrong -- I'm no naia-the-gamer (that woman is talented!) -- but I've never taken any guitar lessons, and I was always able to figure things out (on both piano and guitar) by ear. I think I have some characteristics of what's commonly referred to as "perfect pitch", which certainly helps. For example, I can often hear pitches and identify them without any external reference (like, I'll hear a bell ring, and be able to say, "That sounds like a D to me"). And I can produce notes without, say, a pitch pipe (ask me to hum a C, for example, and I'll do it easily). But of course, my laziness (see #2) prevented me from ever getting good enough to do anything with my musical-ness; when I was taking piano lessons, the most common thing my teachers would say to my mom was something like, "Samit has a lot of natural talent for music -- he could be really good if he just practiced for more than fifteen minutes a week." Oh well.



7) I'm 22, and so far, I've managed to escape even mildly serious injuries. I've never broken, ruptured, torn, fractured, or even sprained any bones/joints/organs/ligaments -- and it's not like I always sat inside playing video games. When I was younger -- like, up to the last two years or so of high school -- I spent a lot of time playing sports outside with neighbors. I played Little League baseball for ten years (age 5 to age 14), I used to ride my bike everywhere, I'd play basketball at the park or throw a football around -- and I still managed to escape unscathed.



8) I'm very introverted. I didn't really have any friends from grade school all the way through to the beginning of high school; I was picked on by my classmates a lot -- usually for my nerdiness, I guess, but also because I was (and still am, in many ways) kind of an awkward kid. Sure, I have friends now, but that's the kind of stuff that stays with you forever, and while I was always shy to begin with, the teasing caused me to retreat into my shell and stay there for longer than I would have liked to.



9) The counterbalancing force to my laziness is that I'm something of a perfectionist. I'm the kind of person who doesn't believe in half-assing things -- I'm one of those "if you're going to do it, then do it right" people. But I'm also slow when it comes to getting things done, so while I might craft a great finished product, it'll take me forever to do so. For example, I don't know how Nick and Jim bang out news articles in 10 or 15 minutes. Usually, even a minor news article will take me half an hour, at minimum -- but of course, the fact that I'm a huge procrastinator factors into that. I was always amazed how my friends who were in AP English in high school could just crap out essays in twenty minutes and get good grades on them -- I'm an especially slow writer.



10) I watch an absurd amount of television -- video games aside, I probably spend most of my free time watching TV. In fact, I don't usually hang out with my friends on weeknights, because there's almost always a show to watch. For example, I watched House at 8 PM tonight, followed by 24! I'm also really "into" other forms of media -- namely, music and movies -- and I've got rather specific tastes. I'm really interested in the "nuts and bolts" of filming -- for example, I always stay through the end credits when I see a film in the theater, just because I want to see stuff like the filming locations and the music used in the movie.

Hey, everybody. I've already mentioned the following notes to many people: if you're an editor, you've seen the first announcement, and if you're on the community emailer, you've already seen the second one. Regardless, I wanted to keep everyone in the loop, so here goes...

Trip to India



Tomorrow, July 10th, my family and I are going on a vacation to the motherland. We'll be there for almost four weeks; I'll be back in the States on Tuesday, August 5th. I've been looking forward to this trip for a while, and I know it's going to be awesome. I haven't been back in six years, and most of my family resides there, so I'm sure there are going to be plenty of the requisite "My, how you've grown/changed" exchanges. I just hope I don't die of heatstroke or drown in a monsoon or something -- who would bring you updates on Madden NFL 09 then?

We'll be flying into New Delhi and staying there for four days, and then we'll head "home" to Kolkata, which is where my parents grew up and I was born. I don't yet know what the "internet situation," as I like to call it, is going to be like in India. When we went in the summer of 2002, I only was able to check my email a few times during the trip at "internet cafes" (they're pretty ubiquitous, but at the age of 15, I wasn't quite brave enough to strike out on my own in Kolkata; there are over 4.5 million inhabitants in the city proper, and over 14.5 million in the metro area). So I'm likely going to be away from Destructoid for the duration of my trip. I think you guys'll manage; I'm more worried about myself. I expect to be pining for Dtoid from the moment I get on the plane.

Now, for my second notice, which you could call a megaton announcement...

SAMIT SARKAR CONFIRMED FOR PAX!!!



I hope to see all of you there! From what I've heard, there will be Rapetraps™ galore...

Rest assured: a more substantial post is on the way.

manta!



Congratulations on winning the contest! I was born in 1986, so the number in my head this time was 86. The closest was manta, who guessed 52; the runner-up, to whom mix will donate his coupon code, was...

BahamutZero!

He guessed 34. So manta, please send me a PM or email (samit <dot> sarkar <at> gmail <dot> com), and I’ll pass along the coupon code. As for you, BahamutZero...you’re on your own, buddy; go bother mix about it by PMing him — his forum username is “Mixmastaspig”.

Seriously, though: I really appreciate you donating your coupon code to the second-place guesser, mix. Let me know if you want to do something similar in the future.

To everyone else: thanks for playing, and better luck next time. But who knows? Maybe next time, I’ll get a coupon for a game I actually want to buy.

Since my last Sony/Amazon coupon contest was a rousing success, I figured I’d do the same thing again the next time I received a coupon for a game that I wasn’t planning on buying. Well, friends, that time is here: I just got an email from the PlayStation Underground with another e-coupon; this time, it’s for Gran Turismo 5: Prologue.



Go figure...the one time I get a coupon for a game that’s actually on a system that I own, it’s for a game that I’m not going to buy. The coupon is, as usual, good for $5 off a pre-order of GT 5: Prologue, if you make that pre-order at Amazon.com ($39.99 is the game’s regular price). Here’s a quick refresher on the guidelines for the contest:

Pick ONE number from 1 to 100, and put it in the comments below. At midnight EST, which is in less than six hours, the contest will end, and the person who has posted the number that is closest to (or exactly) the one I have in my head will win. Guess more than once, or guess more than one number, and you will be disqualified. Sadly, the contest is only open to U.S. residents — Amazon says that the game “can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses.”

That’s about as simple as contests can get, so if you’re thinking of picking up this game (*cough* Y0j1mb0), there’s no reason not to enter. Of course, we’re working on the honor system here — I’m going to take it on faith that you’ll actually use the coupon code, and aren’t simply entering to prevent someone who genuinely wants to buy the game from getting it for five dollars cheaper. In other words, don’t be a total fuckwad. And now that we have those unpleasantries out of the way, get guessing!

Valentine’s Day is the stupidest “Hallmark holiday” anyone could have come up with. Oh, let’s take a day out of the year to celebrate love! What kind of sappy bullshit is that? Actually, forget the sappy qualities of the day. This day just makes me realize even more how money makes the world go ’round. How many corporations (candy & card companies, along with restaurants) make millions of dollars on February 14th each year? It’s yet another example of the endless mass marketing of every semi-celebrated day out of the year. But Valentine’s Day is one of the biggest — you hear about these famed “romantic” restaurants where people reserve tables a year in advance, among all kinds of other absurd situations. (The underside of a Snapple cap once provided me with “Real Fact” #369: On Valentine’s Day, there is no charge to get married in the Empire State Building’s wedding chapel...the more you know, eh?) Corporate America has attempted (and it’s succeeding more and more each year) to equate this “holiday” with celebrations of equally abstract, yet immensely more significant concepts and events such as the birth and rebirth of Jesus (Christmas/Easter), being thankful for life (Thanksgiving), the birthday of arguably this country’s greatest civil rights leader (Martin Luther King Jr. Day), and our freedom (Memorial Day/Veterans Day). Am I saying that love is inconsequential? Hardly, though I’ve been accused of it before. My quarrel is not with celebrating love; it is with the bastardization and commercialization of that celebration. The whole thing just doesn’t make sense to me.

Wikipedia’s article on Valentine’s Day says this: “The Greeting Card Association estimates that, world-wide, approximately one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association also estimates that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.” Yuh-huh. And there you have it.


This doesn’t represent how I feel; I’m perfectly happy being single!Oh, god...I’m living a lie...the pain is too much to bear...

I can understand doing something nice for your significant other (in fact, I’m all for it), but the idea of this holiday has formalized “doing something nice” and turned it into this huge spectacle. Now, there’s this image of what girls expect on Valentine’s Day: stuff like a nice romantic dinner, a box of chocolates, a bouquet of roses, yada, yada, yada. I mean, it’s so cookie-cutter, so ordinary, so...unspectacular. If I was a girl and I had a special someone, I’d want something special. I mean, anyone can go out and buy a $4.99 box of Russell Stover chocolates from Rite-Aid or order roses from 1-800-Flowers, and while that’s all well and good, I’d want that guy to go above and beyond. You know, surprise me...skip the flowers and truffles and get me my favorite romantic comedy on DVD or something. OK, so that’s not exactly special...now you see part of the reasons I don’t have a valentine. I think you get the idea, though...I ask people what they’re doing today, and they all say stuff like, “I’m going out to dinner with my boyfriend,” or “I’m taking her to the boardwalk,” or something along those lines. I mean, I’d like to hear someone say, “My boyfriend invited me over for some chips, some salsa, and a night of Audrey Hepburn flicks.” See, that’s at least semi-original...and because of that, it’s commendable. It shouldn’t be about how much money you spend, but how much thought you put in.

All I’m saying is this: there’s no reason not to do nice things for your girlfriend/significant other/wife/hooker on all the other 364 days of the year (or 365, as 2008 is a leap year) — this “holiday” seems to exist solely for people to spend money in ways they otherwise wouldn’t, and who ends up winning? Corporate America. Sure, some of the people end up winning as well (see: Y0j1mb0, Eschatos), and that’s great. But all in all, there really is no logical reason why anyone should be marking this day off on their calendar. Either way, if you do have someone to celebrate the day with, do something special with him/her...like playing some video games together.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with something I found on my homepage, MSN.com: the “Top ‘I Hate Love’ Songs of All Time”. Most of the songs on there are crappy, but I like a few of them. So break out your iPods and cry yourselves to sleep, friends; tomorrow is a new day, and there’s someone for everyone...right?

Disclaimer: This may just be my opinion because I don’t, you know, have a girlfriend at the moment or anything...but I suppose that’s what forms my views. At any rate, that fact shouldn’t invalidate my views or reduce their credibility at all...

P.S. Another interesting point to ponder, also courtesy of Wikipedia: according to the Roman calendar, the thirteenth of February would have been called the “ides of February.” Damn...so if Valentine’s Day was just a day earlier, it would have another name (along with, of course, Singles Awareness Day, or “SAD”) that would bring much more negative things to mind, simply because of the word “ides”...

P.P.S. Oh yeah, for all you guys tryin’ to get some tonight...remember: No glove, no love.