To say that this has been one of the most hotly anticipated patches of the year is an understatement. Hell, it's been one of the most hotly anticipaed patches of almost the past TWO years.
The information went up by mistake Thursday night in the midst of a Blizzard webserver upgrade, and it ended up getting a virtual Slashdotting as thousands upon thousands of information-hungry gamers descended upon the server.
The problem was corrected Friday morning, but so much of the information has disseminated itself around the Internet that Blizzard posted a partial update Friday afternoon to appease the masses. A Blizzard programmer who had been working on the patch commented independenty on a couple of other message boards that the information that had been uploaded was somewhat inaccurate (is he implying that the items as they are now are BETTER?).
Any time a patch comes out for a game nowadays, thousands upon thousands of hungry gamers flood the Internet to get it. In the case of Blizzard patches, it seems, getting even a *preview* of that information is enough to clog the hell out of a webserver. Just wait until the patch actually gets released... *g*
A workaround, and a musing
on
Ebay vs. Musician
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
First, the workaround. There are CD-Rs that are silver on the bottom, aren't there? By doing the burning on that kind of product, it makes it a more presentable product since eBay only tends to check on the most superficial level. Doujinshi (Japanese fan comics, usually risque) for example they will not bother with if you airbrush out anything that says "Adults Only" or anything to that effect on it. They don't allow you to mosaic out anything; though once again if you crop the picture just before the offending part(s) they will leave your auction alone.
Now, the musing. This kind of blanket policy in regards to anything is the proverbial throwing the baby out with the bath water. For example, back in 1997, a friend of mine got me anime (the first Tenchi movie) for a birthday present, which inspired me to start collecting the series. Finding a Suncoast that would sell it to me at the age of 17 was difficult, though, since almost every one I visited had "Must Be 18 or Over to Purchase" stickers on every title - even on titles with absolutely no content that could be justifiably deemed "offensive" to those not of legal age. I eventually just enlisted the help of an older sister to get what I was going after.
The irony of this is that when I turned 18, virtually every Suncoast in the area dropped that blanket policy.
Those are some gigantic heatsinks. The processor heatsink alone is frigheting enough. But there does seem to be one solution that can be even quieter and can cool both Pentiums AND Athlons...
It's certainly different, using water to carry off and circulate the heat. Obviously, it requires a large degree of trust, as one leak can short out your entire system in a heartbeat. I've been around these beasts, and they certainly seem quiet enough.
My father bought an HDTV about a month ago (a Phillips, IIRC). It's very nice, though all of the signals are still coming in analog (4:3) because the digital cable receiver *doesn't support HDTV output*, meaning he has to replace it with one that does. Oh bother. It's wonderfully ironic when the local nightly newscasts declare they're "broadcasting live in HDTV" yet the output doesn't change to match this fact.
At least DVD playback looks really good.
As for existing televisions, there are probably legions of geeks and middle-to-lower-class citizens that will either use their older game consoles with them, or simply choose not to buy into the hype and watch their older stuff that they've been taping but haven't had rhyme nor reason to watch, which is pretty much counter to what the industry wants.
I realize I am certainly almost going to draw fire for this, but I feel it's about time I chip in my two cents into the circle here...
First off, I'm looking forward to the Dreamcast more than the PSX2. Yes, I hear you say, the Dreamcast's specs are inferior. Yes, I hear you say, the last console Sega put out here (the Saturn) bombed. Second point first. Does nobody remember the glory days of the Genesis? At one point, it was the most popular system in America. OK, I will freely admit I spent more time devoted to my Super Nintendo, but the point remains that Sega has been on the top before.
Now to address the first point. Even if inferior, the DC's specs are pretty damned good in their own right. Second, it's already out (at least in Japan), and the US launch is just a scant four months away. Compared to the PSX2, whose launch still isn't until December in Japan and godknowswhen here. So, months ahead of time, titles are being released for the DC in Japan which I am already eyeing.
Moving on to that point. These are gaming systems; they would never replace my computer. Why would I want to get them if they didn't have the games I wanted? Right now, I know the following titles are out/will be out for Dreamcast, and I know I'm going to want to get a hold of them: King of Fighters '99, Marvel vs. Capcom, Soul Calibur, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, House of the Dead 2, and so on. On the other hand, I don't have a clue for what's going to be for PSX2, because the developers have been really tight-lipped.
Moving on to developers. In a survey of 20 major gaming companies conducted by Weekly Famitsu (a Japanese gaming mag) on April 14, 1999, (being ArtDink, ASCII, Atlus, Bandai, Capcom, Data East, Enix, From Software, Game Arts, Hudson, Imagineer, Koei, Konami, Namco, NEC, SNK, Square, Taito, Takara, and Warp), all but *three* of those companies are committed to Dreamcast development. Enix is undecided, and ArtDink (who I have never heard of) and Square have said no.
Now comes the Square gambit. Some people are going to get a PSX2 only because Square is developing for it and not DC. Personally, in my opinion this gambit is simply not what it used to be. Square has put out some titles which have been the most enjoyable gaming experiences of my life (Final Fantasy 1-7, Secret of Mana 1-3, Parasite Eve, and Xenogears especially). However, and this is a big however, their insistence on using only the highest-grade technology available to them has caused them to lose sight of how to make good games and their core audience, in my opinion. Final Fantasy 8, while visually stunning, is a flat game. It's either too hard or too easy, depending on what features you abuse; there is no middle ground anymore. Saga Frontier was just far too nonlinear and far too confusing fr a console game; it probably would have worked better as a computer game. Then there are the myriad games coming out based on the chocobo mascot. I don't care for this much. I appreciated the chocobo for transportation, not to explore dungeons while looking cutesy (Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon) or participating in a Mario Kart ripoff (Chocobo Racing). On top of all this, they're producing a movie which is going above George Lucas's self-imposed limit: making fully polygonal actors who are indistinguishable from normal people! (Lucas has stated that he will never use CG to render humans, since humans aren't humans if they're not human. Or something like that.) Which brings me to my next point.
(Before that, though, a quick loopback to the support bit. On PSX2, of the above companies, only ArtDink, Atlus, Capcom, Enix, From Software, Koei, Namco, and Square are committed. Warp has said no; of the rest, they are all either interested or undecided.)
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I truly believe that we in the USA are currently being forced to evolve from 2D to 3D. I am an appreciator of drawn art, animation especially (my home page is proof enough of that; devoting a section to reviewing fan fiction based off of a perticular anime is probably the 5th level of fanaticism right there). I collect pictures. I collect posters. I even try to draw sometimes. There is a certain charm in the drawn art form which appeals to me; and very few of those pictures are 3D renderings. Soul Calibur is about where I draw the line; the characters are gorgeously rendered, but I notice in each of them just enough of the drawn style of art to fully appreciate them. Animation isn't animation to me if it looks far too real.
Well, this is getting probably long-winded of a read as it is, so I'll just reiterate the main points: so far the DC has the games *I* want to play, has plenty of third-party support (which the Saturn didn't have), and is far from selling out to the 3D-obsessed crowd. I may make a post later on the technical non-gaming aspects, but for now I want to hear what the/.ers have to say.
(warning in advance: VERY LONG article. Also much of my trauma has caused me to forget about 75% of my past, so much of what is written here is what has surfaced over time)
I've been there, to hell and back.
It all started in kindergarten, at Panther Lake Elementary School in Kent, Washington. It was obvious from the start that I was brighter than the other students; I got simple exercises done quickly, and was a good friend of the teachers. The other kids didn't like this.
In first grade I was transfered to Spring Glen Elementary in nearby Renton, the Kent School District's supposed "gifted" school. I blew through the first through third grades' math books in about four months and was up to the fourth grade level of spelling. However, it was soon evident that even in the "gifted" schools there are still vicious circles. I was still picked on, teased, even given Ritalin to correct my supposed "deficiencies" (but was only on it for three weeks when my parents discovered the truth behind it and yanked me from it. Nonetheless, even to this day my sleep patterns have been permanently messed up because of it.) At one point near the end of the year, I lashed out at my tormentors. Not only did they get off without any punishment, I was denied participation in Field Day! Needless to say, summer was the best time of the year for me.
I consciously decided to return to Panther Lake because I decided that I would probably be better off there. I'm still trying to decide whether or not that was true. Nonetheless, when I returned, people remembered me, and still harbored the same hatreds - because I was smarter, because I was less physically able. I always excelled at the proficiencies - reading, writing, arithmetic. "Recess" periods were especially horrible, because we couldn't stay inside the buildings during those times; I tried to play, but when I was beaten (which happened often) I was mocked not only for being weaker, but because of who I was.
During this time (second through fourth grade) there was a particular book from the library which I checked out constantly. It was called the "Super-Colossal Book of Puzzles, Tricks, and Games". I apparently was the only person ever checking out the book, because I never received complaints from the librarians about other kids wanting to check it out. I always dutifully returned it and checked it out immediately again. I loved the book to death. Apparently, midway through the fourth grade, though, the librarians decided arbitrarily that I had checked out the book "too much". I was never allowed to check out that book, ever again, for the rest of my life. Not under any circumstances. When I was told this, I was (of course) outraged. But I couldn't do anything about it because I had no influence over anything. I, after all, was "just" another student.
Someone else brought up the issue of swearing. I also tried my hardest not to cuss, not to sink to their level. (I eventually abandoned this precept in the 10th grade.) This also set me apart as an outcast since I wasn't "blending in".
Fifth grade for me was one of the low points of my life. My teacher was a total sycophant. She literaly did not dare raise a finger against the students. By this time the class was taunting me when the teacher was out of the room for whatever reason; on one such occasion near December, it had gotten to the point where I had completely broken down in class and was crying my ass off when the teacher walked back in. (Keep in mind by now that even the GIRLS had no respect for me and had joined in the vicious circle). I begged the teacher for help, and over winter break apparently the scene laid out before her had affected her in some way; she quit teaching altogether. This turned out ironically bringing in one Mr. Helgeson (I oddly can't remember his first name), which turned out to be a blessing as he was one of the best goddamned teachers I've ever had in my life. He set the class straight and was very fun asides.
Sixth grade, things were starting to swing up a bit - I made my first few friends - but still, I got the distinct feeling that I was now being used as opposed to abused when I ended up doing all the work for a *group* project on one occasion (this has a lot to do with my hating group cooperation). Additionally, some very cruel students had taken to taking my words and using them against me, when I had said them with the best of intentions.
Then something else happened that really contributed to my hatred of people in general.
Over the past three years, I had excelled at the spelling bee competition (this would eventually end up being the last year those bastards at the Seattle Times stopped supporting the spelling bee). The past three years, I had won the school title (in fourth grade I made the district semifinals; the year before I made the district finals; this year I would ultimately make the Regionals). This gave me the bizarre air of an outcast who nonetheless was looked up to for being so dominant in this field. Unfortunately, this day would cause everything to flipflop to hell.
The previous week, I had the misfortune of reading a book in which a typo slipped by; "unanimous" had been spelled "unanymous". How this typo had slipped by me is beyond me. Anyway, it had gotten dowm from a field of 30 to just me and another person (who happened to be one of my friends); we were both advancing to the district semis anyway, but were now squaring off for the school title. Keep in mind that the entire school was in the audience in the gym at that time. We kept trading off for about 6 or 7 words. Then he screwed up something. I got it right, and in Spelling Bee rules you must spell one more word to be declared the winner.
Well, the judge then asked me to spell "unanimous".
I smiled, thought that this was in the bag. Spelled it the way it had been typoed in the book above.
When the judge rung the bell, the ENTIRE SCHOOL started cheering before he even began saying "That is incorrect"!
I was shocked, but calmly sat down, hoping my friend would misspell it. He didn't. The crowd cheered AGAIN. (I had received no such fanfare when I had capitalized on his mistake.) Then he was given a realy easy word, which he spelled, and the crowd literally went into a frenzy, carrying him out of the gymnasium on his back. I was completely humiliated; I locked myself in the gym instructor's office for a while, completely believing that I had spelled the word right.
Now, some of you may say "no, the crowd was getting fed up, they wanted it to end sometime". First, I point you to the crowd's cheering patterns above. And then, afterwards, for YEARS (many of these students would end up following me to the same junior high and high school), beginning that day, people would call out to me with "Hey, Frank! U~n~a~n~i~m~o~u~s!" in the most sadistic, mocking tone. I rushed a few of them. I didn't deserve that kind of shit.
Throughout this time, second to sixth grade, I was continually refered to the school counselor to try to figure out what was going wrong. These were not very competent counselors. By the time I was about to graduate from elementary school, these same counselors had told my parents, point blank (with me in the room), that *I* was at fault for what was happening to me. What the bloody fuck? Because I was smarter, meek, and not that hot at P.E., I was bringing the plague upon myself? To the shithole with that.
Additionally, certain teachers were actualy offended with my technological prowess. I remember the days when computer labs were rows and rows of Mac Plusses chained together with a Mac SEx (um, oops, I mean SE/30) as the server. At one point I really got good with HyperCard, developing a stack for something I can't remember now that eventually outgrew the floppy disk (which at the time, the max possible on a Mac was 800k; however, we had to cram the system files on those disks as well, so it was more like over 500k). I found my way to a part of the fileserver where I could save my file, and continued to fiddle away on it. Well, eventually, the administrator discovered the file. Instead of being impressed with my HyperCard skills, she chastised me for "wasting server space" (which was bullshit) and forced me to delete the file. Needless to say, I was not happy for being trod upon just because I kmew my ins and outs of the system better than most of the others.
Seventh grade. New school (Kent Junior High), new atmosphere, better teachers (for the most part; see below), unfortunately most of the same students who had been tormenting me in the sixth grade followed me to the school. Life was not much better. I still remained a straight-A student, increasing my proficiency with computer ops and not cursing. This of course did not help me any because I was absolutely lousy in P.E.
Once again, arrogant network admins crashed down on me hard. In December of my 7th grade year, I was called out of my fifth period class to see the network administrator. (He was about to retire and therefore I feel he needed to take out all his mounting frustration on somebody.) He forced me to produce several floppy disks, with which I had been collecting games on. SHAREWARE games, for crying out loud. (He adamantly believed they were pirated.) For that, he formatted the disks and banned me from using the network until February. What the bloody hell? Not only that, but I was forced to delete ANOTHER HyperCard stack I had been storing away due to size problems. This is ultimately the reason I gave up on HyperCard; why make them if they're going to be deleted anyway? (I couldn't even take them home, since until 1993 my father had insisted on sticking with an old Atari 1040 ST.)
From the end of my 6th grade year, I had began to write. I was constantly writing, writing, writing. A big enthusiast of video games, I had started writing something because I didn't like that particular game's ending. If anybody is interested, I effected a partial rewrite, and you can check it out on my website, in the section called "Why I Dislike Self-Insertion". Sitting on my shelf here in college, I still have all 5 folders (entailing 500+ pages hand-written with pencil), two folders of profiles which read more like RPG stat sheets (I have never tabletop-RPGed in my life, but the King County Library System is as far as I know the only one in the country which carries large amounts of TSR and other RPG companies' materials, meaning I have extensively studied the game systems), and a folder containing the materials for the sequel, which I started writing before I even finished the original, which incidentally was unfinished. Why do I keep them despite their laughable awfulness? In a way, writing is what kept me alive until the 11th grade; I had aspirations to publish the story, and I still have aspirations to publish at least one book in my life. Thus they stay with me.
Just as an aside, alluding to the teacher comment from earlier: my 8th grade English Honors teacher was probably the worst teacher I've ever had in my life. First day, she lays down the law: no fantasy (except for what she picked out, which ultimately amounted to be the poem Jabberwocky), no science fiction (this was hardline; she hated science fiction like nobody else). There was one girl who actually spoke out against her one day, in the midst of the oppression; the next day, she had been ejected from school. This only reinforced this class's hatred of this teacher. But that wasn't the worst thing she did. Oh, no. One of the students was an American/Vietnamese who had been brought up in America. At one point, she had been having trouble with a particular paper. This teacher, easily frustrated, eventually threw up her hands and told the student point blank, "Well, maybe this wouldn't be so hard for you if English were your first language." (Which it was.) As far as I know, she is still teaching today (but is slipping more and more into senility). It wasn't just bad students, it was bad teachers.
Well, this is getting long enough anyway, but to make a long story short, the cycle didn't end until I reached Kent-Meridian High School; more specifically, the eleventh grade. Once I was there, I had enrolled in Running Start (junior college, to put it euphemistically), and ended up not even being physically at school half the time; in my senior year, I was only at school once every two days (more Running Start). People only began to respect me then; since I wasn't constantly in their presence, I guess they found me more likable. Which I found odd, but at least the cycle had finally ended. Hell, by graduation time, half of the student body knew me and fully respected me. The day I graduated was one of the best days of my life.
Now, I sit here at Washington State University only ten months later, just two weeks on the verge of completing my first year in college. At last, I am in control; few people know me (and the students who did follow me here are very friendly to me), and I am in control. How sweet it is.
Slashdot Mirror
To say that this has been one of the most hotly anticipated patches of the year is an understatement. Hell, it's been one of the most hotly anticipaed patches of almost the past TWO years.
The information went up by mistake Thursday night in the midst of a Blizzard webserver upgrade, and it ended up getting a virtual Slashdotting as thousands upon thousands of information-hungry gamers descended upon the server.
The problem was corrected Friday morning, but so much of the information has disseminated itself around the Internet that Blizzard posted a partial update Friday afternoon to appease the masses. A Blizzard programmer who had been working on the patch commented independenty on a couple of other message boards that the information that had been uploaded was somewhat inaccurate (is he implying that the items as they are now are BETTER?).
Any time a patch comes out for a game nowadays, thousands upon thousands of hungry gamers flood the Internet to get it. In the case of Blizzard patches, it seems, getting even a *preview* of that information is enough to clog the hell out of a webserver. Just wait until the patch actually gets released... *g*
Now, the musing. This kind of blanket policy in regards to anything is the proverbial throwing the baby out with the bath water. For example, back in 1997, a friend of mine got me anime (the first Tenchi movie) for a birthday present, which inspired me to start collecting the series. Finding a Suncoast that would sell it to me at the age of 17 was difficult, though, since almost every one I visited had "Must Be 18 or Over to Purchase" stickers on every title - even on titles with absolutely no content that could be justifiably deemed "offensive" to those not of legal age. I eventually just enlisted the help of an older sister to get what I was going after.
The irony of this is that when I turned 18, virtually every Suncoast in the area dropped that blanket policy.
Water cooling!
It's certainly different, using water to carry off and circulate the heat. Obviously, it requires a large degree of trust, as one leak can short out your entire system in a heartbeat. I've been around these beasts, and they certainly seem quiet enough.
I imagine they would be great for overclockers :D
My father bought an HDTV about a month ago (a Phillips, IIRC). It's very nice, though all of the signals are still coming in analog (4:3) because the digital cable receiver *doesn't support HDTV output*, meaning he has to replace it with one that does. Oh bother. It's wonderfully ironic when the local nightly newscasts declare they're "broadcasting live in HDTV" yet the output doesn't change to match this fact.
At least DVD playback looks really good.
As for existing televisions, there are probably legions of geeks and middle-to-lower-class citizens that will either use their older game consoles with them, or simply choose not to buy into the hype and watch their older stuff that they've been taping but haven't had rhyme nor reason to watch, which is pretty much counter to what the industry wants.
If I choose Friend, I can get half or none of the Wayback Machine's content...
but if I choose Foe, I can get all or none of its content?
Better choose Foe.
Huzzah!
First off, I'm looking forward to the Dreamcast more than the PSX2. Yes, I hear you say, the Dreamcast's specs are inferior. Yes, I hear you say, the last console Sega put out here (the Saturn) bombed. Second point first. Does nobody remember the glory days of the Genesis? At one point, it was the most popular system in America. OK, I will freely admit I spent more time devoted to my Super Nintendo, but the point remains that Sega has been on the top before.
Now to address the first point. Even if inferior, the DC's specs are pretty damned good in their own right. Second, it's already out (at least in Japan), and the US launch is just a scant four months away. Compared to the PSX2, whose launch still isn't until December in Japan and godknowswhen here. So, months ahead of time, titles are being released for the DC in Japan which I am already eyeing.
Moving on to that point. These are gaming systems; they would never replace my computer. Why would I want to get them if they didn't have the games I wanted? Right now, I know the following titles are out/will be out for Dreamcast, and I know I'm going to want to get a hold of them: King of Fighters '99, Marvel vs. Capcom, Soul Calibur, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, House of the Dead 2, and so on. On the other hand, I don't have a clue for what's going to be for PSX2, because the developers have been really tight-lipped.
Moving on to developers. In a survey of 20 major gaming companies conducted by Weekly Famitsu (a Japanese gaming mag) on April 14, 1999, (being ArtDink, ASCII, Atlus, Bandai, Capcom, Data East, Enix, From Software, Game Arts, Hudson, Imagineer, Koei, Konami, Namco, NEC, SNK, Square, Taito, Takara, and Warp), all but *three* of those companies are committed to Dreamcast development. Enix is undecided, and ArtDink (who I have never heard of) and Square have said no.
Now comes the Square gambit. Some people are going to get a PSX2 only because Square is developing for it and not DC. Personally, in my opinion this gambit is simply not what it used to be. Square has put out some titles which have been the most enjoyable gaming experiences of my life (Final Fantasy 1-7, Secret of Mana 1-3, Parasite Eve, and Xenogears especially). However, and this is a big however, their insistence on using only the highest-grade technology available to them has caused them to lose sight of how to make good games and their core audience, in my opinion. Final Fantasy 8, while visually stunning, is a flat game. It's either too hard or too easy, depending on what features you abuse; there is no middle ground anymore. Saga Frontier was just far too nonlinear and far too confusing fr a console game; it probably would have worked better as a computer game. Then there are the myriad games coming out based on the chocobo mascot. I don't care for this much. I appreciated the chocobo for transportation, not to explore dungeons while looking cutesy (Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon) or participating in a Mario Kart ripoff (Chocobo Racing). On top of all this, they're producing a movie which is going above George Lucas's self-imposed limit: making fully polygonal actors who are indistinguishable from normal people! (Lucas has stated that he will never use CG to render humans, since humans aren't humans if they're not human. Or something like that.) Which brings me to my next point.
(Before that, though, a quick loopback to the support bit. On PSX2, of the above companies, only ArtDink, Atlus, Capcom, Enix, From Software, Koei, Namco, and Square are committed. Warp has said no; of the rest, they are all either interested or undecided.)
Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I truly believe that we in the USA are currently being forced to evolve from 2D to 3D. I am an appreciator of drawn art, animation especially (my home page is proof enough of that; devoting a section to reviewing fan fiction based off of a perticular anime is probably the 5th level of fanaticism right there). I collect pictures. I collect posters. I even try to draw sometimes. There is a certain charm in the drawn art form which appeals to me; and very few of those pictures are 3D renderings. Soul Calibur is about where I draw the line; the characters are gorgeously rendered, but I notice in each of them just enough of the drawn style of art to fully appreciate them. Animation isn't animation to me if it looks far too real.
Well, this is getting probably long-winded of a read as it is, so I'll just reiterate the main points: so far the DC has the games *I* want to play, has plenty of third-party support (which the Saturn didn't have), and is far from selling out to the 3D-obsessed crowd. I may make a post later on the technical non-gaming aspects, but for now I want to hear what the /.ers have to say.
Navaash
(warning in advance: VERY LONG article. Also much of my trauma has caused me to forget about 75% of my past, so much of what is written here is what has surfaced over time)
I've been there, to hell and back.
It all started in kindergarten, at Panther Lake Elementary School in Kent, Washington. It was obvious from the start that I was brighter than the other students; I got simple exercises done quickly, and was a good friend of the teachers. The other kids didn't like this.
In first grade I was transfered to Spring Glen Elementary in nearby Renton, the Kent School District's supposed "gifted" school. I blew through the first through third grades' math books in about four months and was up to the fourth grade level of spelling. However, it was soon evident that even in the "gifted" schools there are still vicious circles. I was still picked on, teased, even given Ritalin to correct my supposed "deficiencies" (but was only on it for three weeks when my parents discovered the truth behind it and yanked me from it. Nonetheless, even to this day my sleep patterns have been permanently messed up because of it.) At one point near the end of the year, I lashed out at my tormentors. Not only did they get off without any punishment, I was denied participation in Field Day! Needless to say, summer was the best time of the year for me.
I consciously decided to return to Panther Lake because I decided that I would probably be better off there. I'm still trying to decide whether or not that was true. Nonetheless, when I returned, people remembered me, and still harbored the same hatreds - because I was smarter, because I was less physically able. I always excelled at the proficiencies - reading, writing, arithmetic. "Recess" periods were especially horrible, because we couldn't stay inside the buildings during those times; I tried to play, but when I was beaten (which happened often) I was mocked not only for being weaker, but because of who I was.
During this time (second through fourth grade) there was a particular book from the library which I checked out constantly. It was called the "Super-Colossal Book of Puzzles, Tricks, and Games". I apparently was the only person ever checking out the book, because I never received complaints from the librarians about other kids wanting to check it out. I always dutifully returned it and checked it out immediately again. I loved the book to death. Apparently, midway through the fourth grade, though, the librarians decided arbitrarily that I had checked out the book "too much". I was never allowed to check out that book, ever again, for the rest of my life. Not under any circumstances. When I was told this, I was (of course) outraged. But I couldn't do anything about it because I had no influence over anything. I, after all, was "just" another student.
Someone else brought up the issue of swearing. I also tried my hardest not to cuss, not to sink to their level. (I eventually abandoned this precept in the 10th grade.) This also set me apart as an outcast since I wasn't "blending in".
Fifth grade for me was one of the low points of my life. My teacher was a total sycophant. She literaly did not dare raise a finger against the students. By this time the class was taunting me when the teacher was out of the room for whatever reason; on one such occasion near December, it had gotten to the point where I had completely broken down in class and was crying my ass off when the teacher walked back in. (Keep in mind by now that even the GIRLS had no respect for me and had joined in the vicious circle). I begged the teacher for help, and over winter break apparently the scene laid out before her had affected her in some way; she quit teaching altogether. This turned out ironically bringing in one Mr. Helgeson (I oddly can't remember his first name), which turned out to be a blessing as he was one of the best goddamned teachers I've ever had in my life. He set the class straight and was very fun asides.
Sixth grade, things were starting to swing up a bit - I made my first few friends - but still, I got the distinct feeling that I was now being used as opposed to abused when I ended up doing all the work for a *group* project on one occasion (this has a lot to do with my hating group cooperation). Additionally, some very cruel students had taken to taking my words and using them against me, when I had said them with the best of intentions.
Then something else happened that really contributed to my hatred of people in general.
Over the past three years, I had excelled at the spelling bee competition (this would eventually end up being the last year those bastards at the Seattle Times stopped supporting the spelling bee). The past three years, I had won the school title (in fourth grade I made the district semifinals; the year before I made the district finals; this year I would ultimately make the Regionals). This gave me the bizarre air of an outcast who nonetheless was looked up to for being so dominant in this field. Unfortunately, this day would cause everything to flipflop to hell.
The previous week, I had the misfortune of reading a book in which a typo slipped by; "unanimous" had been spelled "unanymous". How this typo had slipped by me is beyond me. Anyway, it had gotten dowm from a field of 30 to just me and another person (who happened to be one of my friends); we were both advancing to the district semis anyway, but were now squaring off for the school title. Keep in mind that the entire school was in the audience in the gym at that time. We kept trading off for about 6 or 7 words. Then he screwed up something. I got it right, and in Spelling Bee rules you must spell one more word to be declared the winner.
Well, the judge then asked me to spell "unanimous".
I smiled, thought that this was in the bag. Spelled it the way it had been typoed in the book above.
When the judge rung the bell, the ENTIRE SCHOOL started cheering before he even began saying "That is incorrect"!
I was shocked, but calmly sat down, hoping my friend would misspell it. He didn't. The crowd cheered AGAIN. (I had received no such fanfare when I had capitalized on his mistake.) Then he was given a realy easy word, which he spelled, and the crowd literally went into a frenzy, carrying him out of the gymnasium on his back. I was completely humiliated; I locked myself in the gym instructor's office for a while, completely believing that I had spelled the word right.
Now, some of you may say "no, the crowd was getting fed up, they wanted it to end sometime". First, I point you to the crowd's cheering patterns above. And then, afterwards, for YEARS (many of these students would end up following me to the same junior high and high school), beginning that day, people would call out to me with "Hey, Frank! U~n~a~n~i~m~o~u~s!" in the most sadistic, mocking tone. I rushed a few of them. I didn't deserve that kind of shit.
Throughout this time, second to sixth grade, I was continually refered to the school counselor to try to figure out what was going wrong. These were not very competent counselors. By the time I was about to graduate from elementary school, these same counselors had told my parents, point blank (with me in the room), that *I* was at fault for what was happening to me. What the bloody fuck? Because I was smarter, meek, and not that hot at P.E., I was bringing the plague upon myself? To the shithole with that.
Additionally, certain teachers were actualy offended with my technological prowess. I remember the days when computer labs were rows and rows of Mac Plusses chained together with a Mac SEx (um, oops, I mean SE/30) as the server. At one point I really got good with HyperCard, developing a stack for something I can't remember now that eventually outgrew the floppy disk (which at the time, the max possible on a Mac was 800k; however, we had to cram the system files on those disks as well, so it was more like over 500k). I found my way to a part of the fileserver where I could save my file, and continued to fiddle away on it. Well, eventually, the administrator discovered the file. Instead of being impressed with my HyperCard skills, she chastised me for "wasting server space" (which was bullshit) and forced me to delete the file. Needless to say, I was not happy for being trod upon just because I kmew my ins and outs of the system better than most of the others.
Seventh grade. New school (Kent Junior High), new atmosphere, better teachers (for the most part; see below), unfortunately most of the same students who had been tormenting me in the sixth grade followed me to the school. Life was not much better. I still remained a straight-A student, increasing my proficiency with computer ops and not cursing. This of course did not help me any because I was absolutely lousy in P.E.
Once again, arrogant network admins crashed down on me hard. In December of my 7th grade year, I was called out of my fifth period class to see the network administrator. (He was about to retire and therefore I feel he needed to take out all his mounting frustration on somebody.) He forced me to produce several floppy disks, with which I had been collecting games on. SHAREWARE games, for crying out loud. (He adamantly believed they were pirated.) For that, he formatted the disks and banned me from using the network until February. What the bloody hell? Not only that, but I was forced to delete ANOTHER HyperCard stack I had been storing away due to size problems. This is ultimately the reason I gave up on HyperCard; why make them if they're going to be deleted anyway? (I couldn't even take them home, since until 1993 my father had insisted on sticking with an old Atari 1040 ST.)
From the end of my 6th grade year, I had began to write. I was constantly writing, writing, writing. A big enthusiast of video games, I had started writing something because I didn't like that particular game's ending. If anybody is interested, I effected a partial rewrite, and you can check it out on my website, in the section called "Why I Dislike Self-Insertion". Sitting on my shelf here in college, I still have all 5 folders (entailing 500+ pages hand-written with pencil), two folders of profiles which read more like RPG stat sheets (I have never tabletop-RPGed in my life, but the King County Library System is as far as I know the only one in the country which carries large amounts of TSR and other RPG companies' materials, meaning I have extensively studied the game systems), and a folder containing the materials for the sequel, which I started writing before I even finished the original, which incidentally was unfinished. Why do I keep them despite their laughable awfulness? In a way, writing is what kept me alive until the 11th grade; I had aspirations to publish the story, and I still have aspirations to publish at least one book in my life. Thus they stay with me.
Just as an aside, alluding to the teacher comment from earlier: my 8th grade English Honors teacher was probably the worst teacher I've ever had in my life. First day, she lays down the law: no fantasy (except for what she picked out, which ultimately amounted to be the poem Jabberwocky), no science fiction (this was hardline; she hated science fiction like nobody else). There was one girl who actually spoke out against her one day, in the midst of the oppression; the next day, she had been ejected from school. This only reinforced this class's hatred of this teacher. But that wasn't the worst thing she did. Oh, no. One of the students was an American/Vietnamese who had been brought up in America. At one point, she had been having trouble with a particular paper. This teacher, easily frustrated, eventually threw up her hands and told the student point blank, "Well, maybe this wouldn't be so hard for you if English were your first language." (Which it was.) As far as I know, she is still teaching today (but is slipping more and more into senility). It wasn't just bad students, it was bad teachers.
Well, this is getting long enough anyway, but to make a long story short, the cycle didn't end until I reached Kent-Meridian High School; more specifically, the eleventh grade. Once I was there, I had enrolled in Running Start (junior college, to put it euphemistically), and ended up not even being physically at school half the time; in my senior year, I was only at school once every two days (more Running Start). People only began to respect me then; since I wasn't constantly in their presence, I guess they found me more likable. Which I found odd, but at least the cycle had finally ended. Hell, by graduation time, half of the student body knew me and fully respected me. The day I graduated was one of the best days of my life.
Now, I sit here at Washington State University only ten months later, just two weeks on the verge of completing my first year in college. At last, I am in control; few people know me (and the students who did follow me here are very friendly to me), and I am in control. How sweet it is.
And that's my story.
Navaash
Navaash