Sloth Love Chunk

Black Ops: First Impressions of a Love Child

2010-12-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

Black Ops is the love child of Treyarch and the late great Infinity Ward. You can see similarities from both parents, but it brings qualities all its own. Black Ops as a game holds in its hands a terrible power over the future of the COD universe: If it rocks, it may breathe much needed life and hope into the COD franchise, but if it turns out to be awful even diehard COD fans may finally give the franchise the bird. Does Black Ops have what it takes to keep the COD family together?

As this is still the honeymoon phase of the game, it’s hard to answer that question just yet. Speaking for myself, in the last few days since its release, Black Ops has left me pleasantly surprised. Treyarch seems to have listened to the cries of the fans and leveled the playing field in many ways. The removal of both Stopping Power and Painkiller/Juggernaut, the elimination of one shot sniper kills (except of course for headshots), and maps structured to favor run n’ gunners seem to bring a fresh gameplay to the arena. And thank you Baby Jesus, I was only killed by a Noob Tube once last night! Disclaimer: I play primarily objective-based games like Domination and Headquarters, so I cannot vouch for TDM or Hardcore anything yet, so I don’t know if they are like the camp-fests I experienced regularly in MW2.

The incorporation of Kill Streaks is still in full effect, and I’m actually glad that they only extend to eleven, as this decision may discourage Nuke Camping and make people work harder for their kills. There are always places for people to hide out above the map, windows they like to sneak to and pop you in the head. But the adapted Scavenger perk prevents the picking up of claymores, so you can usually root out that sniper-type without encountering a Claymore garden.

Gun Talk: I love the customization options for guns, that attachments are available instantly if you have the cash. And the necessity of buying guns may make you stick with one weapon longer and get to know it, take it on dates and romance it a bit, and then if you like it you can buy it pretty things, suppressors and red dots and shotguns oh my! Or, if you’re a playah, you can just buy every gun that comes along until you find that special one with which you want to spend the rest of your life. At the moment, the AK74u and I are getting to know each other and I’m pretty excited. I don’t want to jinx it, but I think it could be love. He looks good in a suppressor, shoots fast and doesn’t ask questions. I like that in a gun.

Again, the maps are great: not too oversized and they give good close quarters combat. Side streets and buildings give you a good option when avoiding hot spots. And corners in buildings are always fun places to plant your claymore for sweet surprises.

My only beef with the game so far is the servers. Getting large parties into a game has been a challenge at best, and wildly, game-delaying frustration at worst. This game takes a team of your own making to strategize and dominate, so when you can’t get your team in, you’re more vulnerable to getting rocked. And it’s just not as much fun without your friends!

So, at first flush, COD Black Ops may be the answer to the prayers of COD fans everywhere, no matter what their developer loyalty may seem to dictate. So far, people of every persuasion are playing it, and seem to be enjoying it…only time will tell if it has what it takes to keep us all together.
PS: Here’s a random and possibly not so secret secret: in killcam, press the start button to reveal the enemies map and location! It always helps to add to your arsenal of enemy location!

new skin

2009-07-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

The pressure is amazing. Bullet holes, sunlight fingers into an empty hull. A now familiar cocktail: dull ache shaken with sharp knowledge that if this button is pressed your world will come apart. But what if you long for self destruction, for some kind of change, what if you're convinced that you are a Selkie, trapped in human form while a man holds your skin? what if you long for the ocean like breathing, but love of what you have keeps you here or maybe it is fear, fear of losing that strips you of your skin again.

Then one day you find your smooth seal skin hidden in a closet behind so much accumulation, your heart races to ocean wave as you remember who you were, what you could be again. it is that decisive moment that is ripping, that is 2 parts hesitation and 3 parts revelation that will decide who you are now. Who you were, does it matter? You have grown new skin, hairless and alien, taking place of the smooth water-born pelt that housed you so long. Why is this new skin not enough? Why do you long for the cold ocean, the gliding freedom? Why is anything just not enough?

Two Pages of Apologies

2009-02-08T10:54:00.000-08:00

I would like to apologize in advance for the nature of this essay. I apologize that it is self-deprecating in a possibly grating fashion. I apologize for the rosy-cheeked, eager moral failings I have offered the world but without them I’d be out one essay. But how to go about logging in the goods…Chronological? Alphabetical? Event-based, or just free-floating failure? Free association. Why the hell not.

I apologize for losing my faith, finding it, and losing it all over again. Like a rogue set of keys. Like that dog I let out into an unfenced yard. Like an important paper I was supposed to bring to my probation officer but lost right before our meeting and there I was freaking out because I had it, I had it, but now it’s gone gone gone.

I apologize for kissing a guy who looked like a turtle, kissing a guy I told I loved to get kisses, saying yes to other marriage proposals even though I never wanted to be married because I knew that it never worked, I’d never seen it work, have you ever seen it work? I mean really? A woman once said that your wedding march is your death march. That once you’re married you have to ‘die to yourself and your selfishness every day to make it work’. I’m sorry, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet. And I have a sneaking suspicion that I never will.

I apologize for the tragic series of haircuts I sported during the years 1985-1990. The progression of boy-cut to Italian afro to a head akin to a mushroom put my mother near death each time my school pictures arrived home. I walked slower those days, knowing that when the glossy prints were revealed she would get that look—one part horror, two parts disgusted shock—that said “why would you do this to me again??”
“Why would you do something like that to your hair??” she said in the year 1987, remarking on a daring side-ponytail I had donned for the photo-op.
“I thought it was cute,” I said.
“Well, think again,” she said, placing the pictures on a table somewhere to disappear, over months, under random paperwork and debris.

I wanted to end the apologies with a “most-sorry”, something I have always wanted to apologize for above all else. But to be honest, it all blurs together, and not in a “easier to blur things so I don’t have to be specific way” but in a “general sense of extensive failure” blurring. I’m sorry I have only thought of myself I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of that dog I’m sorry I forgot to pick her up I’m sorry I took those drugs, took that last drink, took that last lay, took too much, too many. I’m sorry that you’re sorry and that I’m not. I’m sorry I can’t find the remote, the letter, the detention slip, the way back inside. I hope you find it in your heart to forgive me someday.

The Lie Closet

2009-02-05T21:49:00.000-08:00

The closet by my Grandparents' front door is designated as my toy closet. It is open and spilling its treasure, inviting me to play. I choose the olive green satin high heels, the oversized dress, and pose in the hallway mirror. My 5 year old body is swallowed in shimmery fabric. Grandma's lipstick teases me from the hallway table, some loud shade of red. "Pick me, pick me!" it cries, ready to be included in dress up time. I long to pick up the smooth silver tube, but I remember how Grandma's lips disappear whenever she takes this lipstick off; how strange her face looks when the extra colors of her makeup are erased.

I remember then the horror of finding Grandma's wigs the previous summer, hidden at the top of her own bedroom closet, stuck with pins to Styrofoam dummy heads. Her Lie Closet. Her signature black beehive was not her own. I remember wondering for a second who she took the hair from. Was someone else walking around bald for all the hair she'd stolen? Those poor women! What else was she hiding? I was too scared to search for more answers, scared of getting caught, scared of what I'd find.

I look at the heels and the lipstick and feel dirty, a pretender. I kick the heels back into the closet, take off the dress. I will wait until I am older to worry about disappearing lips, engulfing portions of fabric, my own Lie Closet.