Birthday Year in Review

So, another year, another birthday. 2010 has been quite the blur. When it started we weren’t pregnant yet, my mother-in-law was still doing somewhat ok, I was making significantly less money at work, I hadn’t taken a vacation in 5 years (a trip somewhere fun, not family visits) and none of our friends had babies yet. 12 months later and everything’s changed. We’re having a baby, 4 friends had babies, we took an awesome trip to Savannah, I got a raise and a promotion at work, I finished a huge project and launched a huge corporate website, and I’ve done a ton of side-jobs and saved enough for my own camera gear (7D here I come). A lot has changed.

I have to admit though, 30 doesn’t really feel like 30. Then again, the last 5 years or so didn’t really feel like themselves either. I still feel like I’m 22, in college, wondering what Nagle and Jason are doing this weekend and if we can get in a game of ultimate frisbee. Or I feel like I’m 18, and I should be driving around NH with the guys in the car, blasting techno from the stereo and wondering when the next LAN party is.

I do have to say that out of all three decades, this one has been my favorite so far. It includes all of my married life, college experiences, moving to Texas and getting settled and into great job. I have great friends, great family, lots of adventures. I really have enjoyed myself, as my waist line can attest to.

So, instead of looking back on my year and lamenting about how I’m another year older, I can honestly say that this time I’m looking forward and I’m excited about where I’m heading. I’m also glad that I’ve kept this website up. I know it’s updates are infrequent when benchmarked against my daily, near hourly updates from college, but I think the substance of the message has improved greatly over the years. I like the ability to write and express what I’m thinking and to share that with other. Whether anyone else appreciates the candor with which I do it is a subject of constant debate, but it’s continued existence is none-the-less a testimony to my belief that they do.

With that I’d like to thank you. All of you. I thank you for your years of putting up with me, humoring me, laughing with me, at me, or about me, and for always being there when I need you. Without you, well, I’d just be talking to myself.

I can’t believe 30 years has already gone by. It seems like a blur. It’s hard to believe that at least 1/3 of my life has already been lived. It’s also hard to fathom that the next 1/3 will be all about raising someone else. It seems like I just started to figure out what this world was all about, and now I get to pass that on to my little one. It’s scary, exciting, confusing and awesome, all at the same time.

Thanks guys. Thanks for everything. It’s been a great 30 years, and I can’t wait to see how the rest of it turns out.

Happy Birthday to me!

Matt out.

Black Ops: Black Eye

I struggled briefly with the idea that it was me. That I was perhaps the only one out of the 7 million copies sold that really dislikes the new Call of Duty: Black Ops. Then I realized that the culture of the FPS genre had changed and that it wasn’t so much the games fault as it was a reflection of the generation of poor game-design decisions we’ve had to endure. Simply put, today’s games are designed for the 15 year old in the same way that Mario was designed for me. Feeling old and cranky however, is also a recipe for a good ol’fashion “Aggravation” post.

There are so many things wrong with Black Ops that I don’t rightly know where to begin. Multiplayer seems to contain the majority of my grievances, so it’s as good a spot as any. In all previous incarnations of CoD multiplayer, the modern ones at least, there has been a “unlock” system. Hardly something unique to the game or the genre, it’s a time honored tradition. The longer you play the game, the more stuff you unlock. In the case of CoD, it’s guns and stuff for guns, and that’s fine with just about everyone. We also rightly have to compare and contrast Black Ops with it’s Modern Warfare 1 & 2 counterparts, and that’s where things really start to fall apart.

In Modern Warefare you started with a small handful of perks and some basic guns. If you used a gun long enough, you unlocked an attachment (red dot, silencer, etc). Same with the perks. Use “Marathon” long enough and you get “Marathon Pro”, and so on. Usage + Time and Skill = More Stuff. The “rank” of your persona and weapons you had access to depended solely on your experience points (XP), which you gained by doing well and playing more. I could name dozens if not hundreds of games that use this basic system or a system very similar to it.

Black Ops decides to take the formula, wave it in front of you face, and fuck your sister with it.

Now, instead of XP alone, you get credits ($) or in-game money and XP. XP allows you to rank up and credits allow you to purchase things. The trouble is, the things you want to purchase STILL need to be unlocked. It’s like they took the worst part of the system, added in the worst part of an RPG system, and let them create some ginger headed fuck spawn.

Just like in a RPG, after days and days of questing, you finally reach a blacksmith shop. Eager to spend your coin you pick out UberSword the Destroyer. Problem is, UberSword can only be used by a level 15 Barbarian and you’re only level 12. So, back out onto the road you go, killing anything in your path until you reach level 15. You go back to the blacksmith, ready to pick up your new and well earned booty. Too bad UberSword is $20,000 and you only have $8,000. So, back out you go again, killing more dungeon baddies and looting their treasure rooms. You return to the shop a level 25 badass with $50,000 gold only to find that UberSword isn’t looking so hot any more and doesn’t really give you much of a bonus since you already increased your skills so much… but… wait, there’s UltraUberMegaSword™ and it’s only $100,000…. and so on and so forth. It’s called THE GRIND. It’s boring and a pain in the ass in RPGs, it has absolutely no place in my FPS.

IF I UNLOCK SOMETHING, I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BUY IT ALSO!

I’ve played Black Ops for two nights now, earned $20,000 fake credits, reached level 14 and “unlocked” about 8 guns, of which I actually purchased… drum roll please…. two. Two guns. What’s worse is that I have no intention of purchasing another gun until I “unlock” the “privilege” of purchasing the gun I actually want at level 35. Half the fun of CoD was unlocking a new gun every level and trying them out. So what if you looked like an idiot running around with duel pistols and a Javelin rocket launcher, you had just unlocked them and by golly you were going to try them out. That was fun. They’ve effectively killed half the fun. Half. There’s no incentive to unlock anything you won’t routinely use.

To make things even worse, everything is both unlockable and a purchase, including the very very basic things. Grenades, a purchase, but you can’t get them until level 5. Camo, a purchase, but you can’t unlock it until level 20. Perks, the basic building blocks of the CoD franchise, a purchase at $2000 a pop. Did I mention there’s 15 of them? Player logos, gamer-cards, gun attachments, equipment, all purchases that your can’t buy right off the bat.

I don’t have any problem switching to a “credit” system instead of a XP based unlock system, but actually switch systems, don’t just straddle the fence. You can’t have it both ways. If I have the points to purchase UltraMcFuckYou™ gun, let me buy it. Don’t say I have to wait until level 40 to use it if you clearly aren’t basing my purchases on skill. If XP = Skill, then an unlock is my reward for having skill. If $ = skill, then let me spend it how I choose. If XP ≠ $ ≠ Skill, then why the fuck am I playing? Apparently my skill means nothing to purchases and my XP means nothing to my skill. You’re artificially and arbitrarily making me wait for something for no perceived reason. There’s no reason to not allow me to have a certain gun if you’re making me buy it in the first place.

It’s like walking into a store to buy blue jeans and the clerk telling me I can’t buy jeans, I haven’t worked hard enough yet, but that they have a fine selection of khakis to choose from.

They’ve even managed to make the mundane things a purchase. At level 12 you unlock “player logos” only to find out that you have to “build” you logo using various graphics pieces (numbers, letters, symbols, etc). You also have to pay for those pieces. No joke. $100 a pop. Oh, and if you want a blue star on a white background, you have to pay for two layers of your logo, $200 a layer.

It’s also a shame that they took a look at reality and said “nah, fuck that, that’s boring”. Last night, I was killed by a guy with a bright orange (paint, $200), tiger striped (pattern, $500) Uzi ($2000 gun) with a scope ($1000) that had a orange lens ($500) and a orange ($50) laughing skull ($500) cross-hair reticle ($500). I wish I was fucking joking about this.

So, somehow they’ve managed to completely fuck up a standard and basic thing. Awesome. Too bad it’s not the only problem with the game. Starting at the menus and going all the way down to level design, this game is complete crap.

The menus are easy enough to navigate, but jumbled organized by someone who clearly thinks the world is clairvoyant and will simply “know” where to look for things. Word to the wise, while it technically may be true that everything is an “option”, the only thing I expect to find there is gamma correction and controller layouts. I also don’t expect to have to enter the player editor to choose my kill-streak bonus.

Levels reflect the single player campaign. The only problem with that is that the game switches locations every damn second and there’s no consistency. You know why I liked MW2? Because although all the levels were different, each level had the same “feel”. Dirty town, dirty farm, dirty hillside mansion, dirty laboratory, it all held the theme. Going from snow covered peaks to ancient jungle ruins to missile launch pads to 1940’s American towns is not really variety, it’s fucking confusing. I can see what they were going for, but they took it a little too far. Likewise, the level layouts betray design basics. There’s no flow to them. One or two aren’t bad, I won’t condemn them all, but some of them are so jumbled and all over the place you spend 20 minutes trying to find where all the action is only to get shot and have to hike all the way back there again. Levels should be typically circular if you think about it. They might seem linear at first, one side versus the other, red vs blue, but there’s always routes around the perimeter and the balance slowly shifts and rotates around the circle as the game progresses, usually coming to a point in a skirmish for the middle ground. That’s a good level. Having a giant spaghetti bowl of confusion, mixed into rubble, broken buildings and underground passage ways means that there isn’t any flow. Teams are scattered, spawn points are random and while you might pick up a kill here and there, you never really feel like you’re playing as a, or against another, team.

So, all of this is piled on top of the problems the series already had (12 year old campers, cheaters, exploiters, aimbots, etc, etc, etc) making it really hard to actually sit down and enjoy. The series has a tremendous starting curve, it always has, meaning that your start with nothing and have to play for at least a couple hours/days before finding anything useful to use. Those little bits I actually did enjoy were also sadly overshadowed by the time period as well. Set in the cold war, the game doesn’t really have any modern weapons, just late Vietnam vintage stuff and early models of things like the M16 and the AK47. So, you’re starting out with an Enfield rifle with iron sights, no attachments, no camo, no perks and you’re expecting me to enjoy myself enough to keep coming back for hours and hours of fun?

Black Ops had so much potential that it’s really sad that they dropped the ball like this. Here’s a couple suggestions for the next game (which I won’t buy). Start everyone off with perks, a handful of acceptable guns, and access to basic customizing tools (since that’s what your touting as a feature). Make the first 10 levels easy to reach for even a super-noob and have them unlock helpful additional things that compliment the basics you already gave them. Do not lock out other playlists for lower ranked people. Even noobs like Domination and Capture the Flag. Lastly, if you’re not going to get rid of the purchase system (which you seriously should), make people pay for upgrades to things, not basic things. You want an even better version of your gun? Ok, $1000 gets you a stock that improves accuracy, or a scope that increases range. Don’t make people pay for green face paint (serious), or silly logos for their gamer cards (which are also silly). That’s just insulting.

Lastly, bring back the fun. Not once in the last two days did I think “Wow, that was awesome”. I played with crappy guns on crappy levels against crappy campers with fucking tiger painted guns. If that’s the first impression a player has to your game, they’re not going to stick around very long. Then again, there are also 7 million fucking idiots with tiger painted guns who probably disagree with me.

Fuck me… when is Battlefield 3 coming out?

Self-Aggrandizing

By definition, a blog is fairly self-aggrandizing. In this instance however, it might serve a purpose. Obviously, with a baby on the way, my thoughts are turning more and more towards “daddy” type of activities. That includes getting excited about “stuff” for the baby. Do you have any idea how much “stuff” a baby requires. I had no idea. I really didn’t. I figured it was mostly diapers and bottles. That doesn’t even really scratch the surface. Apparently it’s also tradition to create gift registries for said “stuff”, and, you know me, if there is one thing I enjoy, it’s scanning bar-codes (I know, bad joke).

So, I present to you, with the understanding that you are in no way under any obligation to actually purchase anything for my little one, our two registries for our baby. I’ll also put these in the sidebar as a widget, perhaps even including a “doomsday countdown timer” or something, lol.

Babies ‘R’ Us

Target

7 years

It seems like only yesterday, but seven years ago today I was married. Most of you were there. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. It really doesn’t even feel like it. I feel about 20, and like I just graduated from college, but that I’m some how mysteriously 40lbs heavier, lol.

I just need to say Happy Anniversary to my completely awesome and amazing wife. She’s put up with all my crap, been there beside me through everything we’ve gone through, loved me, taken care of me and been the best companion I could have possibly wished for. She’s my rock, and without her I just don’t know how I’d ever make it. I love you so much!

Of course, the best present I could ever ask for isn’t here yet, but we each got each other a little something. After 7 years, and with a baby on the way, diamond rings and a XBox weren’t really in the cards. Lauren got me the wallet I’ve always wanted from Saddleback Leather. They make what they call “inheritance leather” items. Things that your kids will fight over when you’re dead. She got me their awesome leather wallet. It’s stiff, it’s thick, it’s not broken in even the tiniest bit, and I love it. It’s a wallet for me to break in over the next 50+ years, and then pass down to my kids someday. For Lauren, I got a collect of various baby items including hard to find kids books that we had when we were little and have been lost to time. Finding rare, out-of-print kids books is apparently harder than I thought, but she loved them.

We also went out on Saturday, despite a terrible cold I’ve come down with, for a nice dinner. Every special occasion we have we like to try something new. This time it was III Forks in downtown Houston. Not a bad place. The atmosphere was nice, the waiter was accommodating, and the meal was quite enjoyable. It’s nice to find a quiet place to have dinner these days. Most, if not all places these days seem to think that a “dinner experience” is best when it’s super loud and noisy in the restaurant. Call me old fashion, but when I’m paying $50 for a steak, I don’t want it to sound like I’m at a TGI Friday’s. Thankfully III Forks was nice and quiet and we had a nice time.

Besides that it was a pretty restful weekend. I’m recovering from a really bad cold and sinus infection, so I pretty much laid on the couch all weekend and drank Theraflu. FYI, after going to FIVE pharmacies, it’s now clear that they’ve officially discontinued the “good” NyQuil, the one with the pseudoephedrine in it. They continue to sell the now-shitty version, but they’ve removed the good stuff. You can randomly find some off-brand stuff, but it’s getting harder to come by. So, let me include a warm fuzzy “I hate you” to all the bath-tube meth heads out there who have essentially helped ruin and outlaw the one drug that helped people with head colds. If I ever find any of you, I’m going to beat the shit out of you, just on principle.

Matt out.

DC Aftermath

That sounds like some sort of CBS post-apocalyptic drama doesn’t it? Well, I’m back home now. I would have posted sooner but it took nearly the entire weekend to simply recover. The last two days of my trip were especially brutal. I won’t bore you with the minute by minute details, but the highlights include shooting all day, not eating lunch, shooting an insane VIP party, not eating dinner, having my hotel threaten to kick me out of my room (corporate booked my room… and didn’t give them a working credit card), throwing out my back, breaking a shoe, not sleeping and finally a rough return flight coming out of Chicago. Normally most of that would be minor background noise in an otherwise mundane business trip, but when all that happens in the span of 8 hours, it gets a little more insane. Either way, I did my job and got the shots I needed.

Let it never be said that artists don’t work hard. I even have proof.

Those are were my work shoes. Shoes I’ve had for a couple years now and that I’ve worn to nearly every wedding, corporate gig, VIP event, party, and photo shoot I’ve ever had. Photographers and videographers are exceptionally hard on their footwear and it’s incredibly hard to find a pair nice enough to fit in at a black tie event and sturdy enough at the same time to take the inevitable beating that they’ll have to endure.

So, the next time you hear anyone say that running around with a camera is a “fun” job that anyone could do, you can tell them to kindly go fuck themselves.

What really amazes me, even more than the fact that people think my job is easy, is that they expect me to ignore common sense and hunger and focus solely on whatever it is they’re asking me to do. At about 90% of the wedding I’ve done, not a single consideration is made for letting the poor photographers eat. Especially at seated dinners. You all have SEATS, and waiters bringing you food, so, given that I don’t even have a seat, how do you expect me to eat? Oh, what’s that? I don’t need to eat? No, you’re right, I’ve only been on my feet, photographing Bridezilla since 11am, why should I eat before midnight, that’s just silly. Corporate parties are the same. Just because YOU ate, asked me to photograph X while you did, and then finished eating, don’t assume that somewhere in there I actually ate, because I didn’t. I was doing what I was told, and getting my shot. So, when you say something like “(fake laugh), oh, why don’t you grab a bite” after the catering company has cleaned everything up, it makes me want to punch you in the throat.

The point is that it’s what I do, and I’m ok with it, I just enjoy bitching about it every now and again. I’m also home now, so I really can’t complain. A constant stream of Advil is helping my back and I’ve already ordered new shoes. Back to the grind.

Matt out.