An Ode to Alex Shepherd of Silent Hill Homecoming.

(Sung to Da Doo Ron Ron song by the Crystals except... longer.)

I saw the game at the store and was completely thrilled
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
The name of the game was Silent Hill
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Horay! It's Silent Hill!
This game's a thrill!
So I made my purchase and I went back home.
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

The first scene was creepy but that's the norm
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
There's a crazy kid drawing and mosters too
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

MAN the puzzles were hard as heck
FOUND the code on a desk
opened up the door and the kid ran away.
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Made it through the nightmare and found the first boss
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
Tried to hit it with a pipe and it kicked my butt
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

OH this game was hard as hell
But STILL I gotta find the brat
and just when I did I passed out
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

HOW did I end up in here?
WHERE the heck is my gear?
Now I'm in prison ... get me outta here!
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Deputy Wheeler is freaked out and I am too
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
Creatures are attacking and they're deadly dudes.
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

AAAAAAAAH! The mini boss is hard
WAAAAAAAH! I barely won
So I jumped into the sewers and ran like hell.
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Made it to the Doctor's office and what the hell?
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
Psycho nurses in the hallway and they have the key
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

OH now I'm in a little girl's room
AND now I'm fighting a doll
So I cracked it all to pieces and ran like hell
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Woke up on the floor and spewed my guts
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!
There's a key on the floor and what the F*k?!?
Hey! Dude! Run Run Run! ... Hey! Dude! Run Run!

Ever felt like your not wanted?

Have you ever gone to work, visit your favorite store, talk to the usual workers/waitresses/hairdresser/chiropractor/doctor/dentist and any other acquaintances and felt you were no longer wanted there? They simply lost total interest in anything you say or do? Or anything you did was just not up to their standards?

You get up as you do every single day, ate the same things, cared for your pets in the same manner, watered and talked to your houseplants the same way. But, yet, something is different?

I've been having these feelings for awhile, almost as if it were a premonition of sorts. I'm sure I'm just being a silly girl and everything is fine. But I can't shake the feeling. I know I haven't written my best, photographed my best nor did my best in laying out a newspaper page. But I do give what I have left to anyone who needed me.

Perhaps its all the changes that have been going on and I'm just feeling antsy because I may or may not have a job soon. But ... still ... there's just something there sneering and waiting for you. You can't quite shake it.

It's not a good feeling, but it is a feeling of uncertainty. I'll post more as things start to reveal themselves.

Game of Love is a serious business

This article was published in the Fort Bragg Paraglide on Sept. 29, 2008

It seems it’s my turn to write a commentary and since everyone keeps asking me about the gamer lifestyle and most recently Dawn asking me about love advice for a non-gamer married to a gamer, I decided to write about gamers.

Well, first let me explain the type of gamer I really am.

Despite the popular description of a gamer most people try to categorize us into, I’m not a pimple faced 13-year-old with a game room in her mother’s basement who stock up sodas, cheese puffs and pizzas for a weekend of gaming or non-stop Dungeons and Dragons at a friend’s house.

I’m not a girly girl either. I don’t go out of my way to buy 20 to 30 different pairs of shoes with matching handbags or worry about the latest fashion styles of the month. I’m pretty content wearing my game-themed tshirts and jeans.

I don’t enjoy chick-flicks. Want to end a date with me pretty darn quick? Surprise me with a movie like Titanic or Bridges of Madison County. You’ll find me in the lobby arcade room 30 minutes into the movie or breaking out my portable hand held game to kill time. If anyone went to the premiere of Titanic and remembers a ruckus at the end — yes, it was me cheering and screaming “about time” as Leonardo Di Caprio slipped into the freezing ocean as a human popsicle.

Seriously, the title of the movie was the Titanic … it should be no surprise as to what was going to happen after the ship hit the iceberg.

No, I’m just a person who enjoys her video games ... I’m just a gamer.

(Pay attention Stephenie … ‘cause here we go.) And for those of you who don’t realize that gaming goes beyond a deck of Pokemon cards (that’s pronounced ‘Poke-E-Mon’ not Pookie-man) and a handful of 8-year-olds hovering over a gameboy, there are hundreds of different types of games, styles in which you play them and the forms in which they come in.

For example, there are live-action role playing games (a game where participants physically act out their characters actions), collectable card games (like Pokemon, Yu-gi-oh and Magic the Gathering), fantasy role playing games (like Dungeons and Dragons and click-it set games that sometimes involves the use of miniatures and maps) … exhausted yet? … Browser games (any casual online point-n-click, java or flash games) and then console games to name a few. And that’s not even mentioning the types of console games like first person shooters, massive multiplayer online or racing games. I’m not sure there are enough pages in this newspaper to explain them all.

Also, there are more and more adults playing games than children these days, despite the popular mythos from the “normal” population who are under the assumption that gamers wouldn’t know what a boyfriend or girlfriend was unless they were digitally enhanced and came with weapons and body armor.

We do go out and mingle with the human race every now and then to hang out with fellow gamers for dinner and a movie or just a cup of coffee and a deep philosophical conversations or debates about the controversial topics we’ve seen on the Internet or television the night before.

What I’ve found as a gamer, is that we are as selective in who we choose as a potential partner.

But we do get tired of the head games we often have to endure just to make them happy. It starts with, “I understand your need to game” speech and often ends a few months later with, “you spend more time with your game than you do with me” speech.

If we’re lucky they won’t sell our games on eBay or give them to the neighborhood kids as payment for a well-mowed lawn following the break-up.

I’ve had friends who have been happily married for years and both partners game … together.

My friend, Lisa Moore, often schedules family time in which she plays a sports video game with her family on the weekends.

It’s not an issue of whether we can find a date on our own, we’re just as selective with finding a significant other as we are in choosing which game we want to play.

I’ve had my share of shortterm relationships with nongamers before. I say short-term because they say they understand my gaming needs for a week or two, then it becomes a whine-fest about how I spend more time playing a game than watching re-runs of CSI Miami.

It’s not like I play the minute I get home. I have responsibilities that include cooking dinner, feeding the cats, watering plants, laundry, answering e-mails and spending quality time with my family even if it’s a 30-minute phone call to hear about all the fascinating things they do or complaints about why I’m not married yet.

That’s what I do every day on the weekdays. On the weekends, I require at least a two-hour block of gaming … so how is that spending more time playing a game than spending time with them? Hmmm ... it isn’t.

Shutting off my computer or removing my game system to get my attention because you felt ignored will only result in you and your belongings scattered across the front lawn.

Gaming is just a lifestyle I enjoy just as golfing, bicycling, motorcycling and car racing is a lifestyle for others. If you want to get our attention and become a part of our world, simply play with us. I’m not speaking for the entire gamer nation, but if we are able to share our world with you and feel you understand our needs, we will join you in your world. We will come up with a schedule that involves things we do separately and things we do together. If you don’t like the game-style being played, most gamers will try to find one both can enjoy.

Just know that sometimes at the end of the day, especially if it was a bad day, we need to escape our reality for an hour or two.

So there will be times when you just need to let us work things out over a game and not take it as being ignored. We hear you … we just need to refocus our frustrations before we interact with those we love.

The contract is up and its getting scary.

I have had the experience of working with different managing editors of a newspaper over a 16 year period. Each bringing their own style of editing and managing. I've had some really great editors and some I thought hated my guts and waited for the moment I crack under pressure and laugh at me.

I'm not complaining, because obviously it was a lesson in life I needed to learn on how to tolerate others as well as learn to adapt to the changes and overcome any obstacles they throw my way. But working at a military newspaper, I knew I only had to put up with these young bucks sergeants for three years and a new one comes on board. So you try your best to keep your cool when they assign you what seems like a gazillion assignments that either overlapped or conflicted with one another.

Believe me. I worked them. And at one point in 2005, I worked four days straight with no sleep, $2 microwaved banquet meals from home, starving cat at home chewing through the box of cereal I forgot to put away three days prior and a reprimand for being caught taking a ten minute nap in my car when the coffee/caffiene pill/soda pop cocktail stopped working. And end the night at 4 a.m. negotiating with an Army Lieutenant General over a story he didn't like and wanted to replace with one he wrote himself which was two paragraphs shorter than the one already placed in the paper, but can't find it. So the paper is at a standstill until he finds which thumbdrive he remembered to save the story on.

You want to have a nuclear tantrum but you have to remember he's the customer ... and the customer is always right ... even if they are wrong.

You ask, why am I writing this? Because recently I've had to deal with a co-worker who is having a tantrum because they disagreed with how the editor is running the newspaper. More or less, they won't let her cover an event that has nothing to do with the military and because they asked me, "how can you stay cool and calm about this, when the editor is obviously an idiot?!?"

To which I responded, "first, you must remember. These are our customers. This is their commander's newspaper ... we publish news about the military and their way of life. Therefore, if the customer does not want a photo of a bunch of non-military ladies dancing and drinking at a club that is off post ... then don't run it. Second, that editor is our editor ... the boss, and as long as they sit in the editor's office. They will pick and choose what is published in their newspaper."

Am I right or wrong? What life lesson's have you learned in your career as a journalist?