I Need To Work On My Writing

A few days ago, I remember doing a little fun Facebook challenge where you come up with one way to introduce your friends. Someone comments and then you deliver a paragraph or two on how you'd introduce them. I thought, hey, this could be fun. I had some friends comment and, no disrespect, I wish a lot more commented though. Would've been a great writing exercise and it's clearly the only exercise I take. It took me around 10 minutes to finish up a little scenario and I really enjoyed it because I can tell I still have bits and pieces of creativity remaining after years of cynicism and suicidal thoughts.

What I don't like is how I can't transfer this little creativity I have to something more expansive. I wanna write novels, memoirs, compilations of short stories but I can't finish them because I can't focus. I can't try to make things unique. The tone is all over the place with the novels I write and I hate it. I wanna work on it. How the hell am I going to get published if I can't type anything, goddamn it?

Maybe I haven't found my writing voice yet. Maybe I never will. Maybe I never had one to begin with.

A Message From Cora Miller

I remember doing a post about how stupid these spam bots that pretend to be women and just advertise websites. I had fun doing that a while back and once in a while, I just read them for fun on how elaborate they get. I found a simple one so it's not as detailed as before so I won't be able to enjoy the lore that comes with the seedy sex website.

I might sound crazy to you but I am a huuuge attention-freak, that is why I'm posting lots of my near-nude photos or other spicy pictures.

That's just weird. If you want attention, just post on Instagram and follow 690 people. Surely you'll get all the attention you need. Also, "spicy" is a funny way to describe near-nude photos. I know memes are referred to as spicy but really, near-nude photos are just mild at best.

Nevertheless, it's been quite a while since I have heard an unbiased opinion, so I was thinking, maybe you'll be the the only one who can tell me the truth?

Sure! The truth is that there are chemicals in the water that TURN THE FREAKIN' FROGS GAY! Do you understand that? I'm sick of being social engineered, it's not funny!

(Thank you, Alex Jones from InfoWars for that joke.)

Have a great look at my sexy photos and please, don't tell me that I'm amazing, everybody else is saying that, I want to hear your real opinion and in case you have one, maybe I can buy you a coffee later?

Asking for someone's real opinion would cause the person being asked to lowball their answer to be nice. How will that scenario go anyway? "Your photos suck and you look like a smacked ass." "Thanks, let's get a latte."

Waiting your reply.
Many kisses,
Cora

No reply for you. Well, technically this is a passive aggressive reply but still.

That was fun. I'm going to look for more spam emails to make fun of for no reason.

Frank, I'm disappointed

I like cellphones, that's why I work at places that sell them. I like having a bunch of cellphones that not a lot of people in Canada would have like the OnePlus X and the HTC One A9, the latter of which I can't even get cases for in Canadian stores. I like cellphones and I like having a collection of backups so anything out of the ordinary in the midrange level is something I love keeping an eye on.

I saw an ad on Instagram about the Frank phone and how it'll be a cheap phone launching in North America. Benefit of the doubt kicks in and my mind said "hey, this seems interesting and seems like something different. Well, not too different since it apparently is 'just a fucking phone'. And I want it."

I'm disappointed in Frank though - the company, not the nonexistent-at-this-point Frank phone (well, it technically exists). This was being touted by the company as their own innovation and how prototypes were made and how it's gonna be huge and cheap. Hope into one hand, spit in the other, and see which one fills up first. Well, in reality, people online have discovered that Frank is actually a Chinese phone being resold as "original". Here's the link.

Alternate title for this would've been "A Middle Finger To Frank" but I'm not mad at them or anything. Just disappointed. And like this supposed Frank character, I've had enough.

An honest deal? Well, Motorola has been doing well with budget phones like the Moto G 3rd Gen or the Moto G5 Plus, both of which I own (I have a problem, clearly). That means no customer is restricted to one kind of phone as there are always options. Don't like Motorola? Try LG. Don't like LG? Try Samsung. Don't like Samsung? Try Apple. The list goes on and on. 

The Frank phone was probably going to be for people who aren't aware of tech and just care about phones being, well, phones. But again, no one is restricted to buying phones in the 4-digit price range.

It's also pretentious to say that a $1000 dollar phone costs $150 to make but that's not taking into account the marketing, customer service, engineering, manufacturing, software testing, and quality assurance like Samsung's 8-Point Battery Check to actually make that phone worth that price tag. That's why phones are flagships because that's going to be the leading phone in the company, marketed the most, and would be the huge selling tool for profit.

"Fuck the Big Guys," said the edgy company.

To which I reply,

Samsung and LG have great phones, even in the midrange level. Heck, I've sold a dozen Samsung A5 2017's and they've always been wonderful. LG G5 has a great dual camera setup and is surprisingly a decent phone. So why bother "disrupting" something that these phone companies have been doing well for years now with 17-year old college dude trying to run baby's first phone company?

Anyway, I gave the Frank phone a shot because it's a phone and it's cheap. And I want cheap phones. Benefit of the doubt, again.

Option three? Who is this? Austin Aries? In what way does "I don't want to pay $1000 for a phone" lead to "I'm going to straight to the manufacturers to save money"? Instead of just buying a midrange phone for a quarter of that price and move on, the founders of Frank are trying to do an underdog story and want to "disrupt" the mobile world - by being another brick in the wall that BLU, Maxwest, and Sky Devices are already part of. High tech and low cost is something that companies already achieved before like OnePlus with the OnePlus One and Motorola with their Moto G5. Heck, count in Xiaomi and Oppo with their underrated phones.

Also, instead of saving the money for his future education, he'd rather go to the manufacturer and get a phone? Big priorities.

Had they just been upfront with it by saying "Hey, we're selling this phone and we want you to like it, it's nothing special" instead of "We're actually designing it ourselves from scratch! See? Fuck the big guys, this'll be big! A MOVEMENT!"

Their campaign has been suspended by Indiegogo, which was originally supposed to be on Kickstarter, since their emails hyped up Kickstarter. Most likely because people have caught on and realized that the marketing for the phone was that it was designed on a white board rather than just being bought from a Chinese website.

"The Big Guys can't bully us," they say. What "big guys" have actually bullied the Frank company? What "big guys" have actually mentioned Frank? Do Samsung executives, who are likely busy with their Note 8 launch, say "Hey, Phil, goddamn, this Frank startup is giving us the FINGER and would probably steal our customers!"?

And what idiot would fork up THOUSANDS of dollars on a device? The Porche Design Huawei Mate 9 costs a bit above $2000 Canadian so maybe that's what they were referring to, even though that phone isn't really sold in brick-and-mortar stores like Best Buy or Staples. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 is around $1300 Canadian and that's the new shiny phone that everyone would be talking about. Frank is making it seem like people don't have other options and it's either go big or use a rotary phone.

The ad is way worse since it's just some dude giving the middle finger to stores, most likely filled with hardworking people.

Yes, they have a right to advertise how they want, freedom of speech and all, but that doesn't mean that everyone wouldn't disagree with how they present themselves. One middle finger? Maybe, sure, make it meaningful in its use. 250 middle fingers? Not so much. The seconds of just the dude with his middle finger out isn't really that practical when the company trying to sell a phone instead of a "principle" of fucking the "big guys". The same "big guys" whose phones are being used as daily drivers of the Frank people.

Again, am I mad about this? Not really. Just disappointed.

I wanted this to be good. I wanted them to have been honest from the beginning. But the constant spouting of "fuck the big guys" - the same big guys who are constantly developing phones and have a track record - is just too much. The pricing is also terrible since it's advertised as $180 US for the first few hundred people. The lying about originality and designing the phone from the ground up was the last straw and just made me want to just stick to a company that knows what it's doing instead of cheeky entrepreneurs trying to capitalize on the supposed people who apparently don't know any better about buying phones and how retailers are trying to screw everyone out of thousands of dollars.

I'm Ralph Corleone and that's my opinion.

Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires - Easy Empire Building

As mentioned before, Dynasty Warriors is the series that got me into video games so I apologize on behalf of it. Sure, Grand Theft Auto is what made me actually enjoy video games but Dynasty Warriors is what opened the door to the bottomless pit. Specifically, Dynasty Warriors 4 but I’m not going into that today since I feel like I’d be repeating myself. As much as I love said fourth iteration of Dynasty Warriors, Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires is my favorite game in the “Compilation of Dynasty Warriors 4”, which also includes the main game and Xtreme Legends.

“Screw you, Final Fantasy VII. Compilation of FF7? More like Complication of FF7! Hahaha wasteland!”

Lemme tell you how I even got this game in the first place. I saw it was for sale in the Philippines but I didn’t have the money for it. A year later, when Christmas time came about at fifth grade, I asked for Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires for the Secret Santa wishlist thing we had in class. Sure enough, my best friend at the time got me that game as a gift. Nine years later, I bought a used copy of the game for 50 cents on Amazon. Well, 3.95 for shipping. So that’s still less than 5 dollars for a game that I still absolutely love.

So, let’s talk about Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires, the first iteration of the surprisingly fun Empires spin-off. You pick a character to have as a ruler and you get two random dudes to start you off in your simple task of conquering China. You start off with three characters at first because in the original game, there were three characters unlocked in each kingdom when you first start the game so it's a nice callback.

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I miss the view, man. When everything was so much better.

I wish I was better at what I do back then.

“The End of The World” by Sean Wenham - Phantom Pain

I don’t know why I even review mobile games anymore when they just make me miserable in one way or another. Well, this is gonna be a depressing review, isn’t it? Maybe, maybe not.

The End of the World is a side-scrolling exploration game for mobile platforms. You play as a Benedict Cumberbatch-shaped fellow in going through a few days of misery and regret set in what is apparently an eradicated Newcastle, England. You explore around the city and interact with flickering objects that give you more detail on how the relationship with his girlfriend played out.

Fire Emblem Heroes - Line In The Sand

With work consuming a ton more time and energy from yours truly, I've been in the mood for a quick game that's accessible with either of my cellphones. There have been strategy RPGs on Android but usually they are either way too boring or just really want your money with little to no gameplay or story at all. At least Fire Emblem Heroes is here to show us that not all mobile games are terrible. 

I have played other Fire Emblem games but they just weren’t cutting it for me and that's not the series’s fault at all, more of personal taste. I did enjoy Sacred Stones for the Gameboy Advance but didn’t bother finishing it when I reached the final boss. I didn't even finish Shadow Dragon even if it was more serious and streamlined than Sacred Stones. I even downloaded a fan translation of New Mystery of The Emblem for the Nintendo DS and surprisingly found it appealing due to the bare bones character customization and optional “no permanent death” option. I only played around six hours of it, however, before thinking “Bored now!” and headed over Call of Duty: Black Ops instead. I admit I’ve been spoiled by the tactical leniency of the Disgaea series so Fire Emblem has been something that just slightly intrigued me at best, not that there's anything wrong with it. I definitely see the appeal of it.

“NoStranger” by Black Vein Productions - Strangers In The Night

Remember that review I did of a mobile game called Seen? Yes, the game that's causing me to get too many views after all this time. Now I’m enjoying a lot more mobile games because they're easy to pick up and play, or at least they should be, right? Well, I’m back with another one about chatting with people online. This one is called NoStranger, available on Android and iOS, developed by Black Vein Productions. 

What’s that? Still think this is another run-of-the-mill mobile game that's terrible? Well, buckle up, Buddy Murphy, because we’re going on a wild ride through this mobile game. 

The story takes you to a private chat room app where you’re matched with Adam, an interesting nerd who likes to talk about how humans are programmed and how we’re all in a program. Surprisingly, no super powers here so sorry, Saints Row IV fans. You talk to Adam about life and how he’s living his. The writing is interesting as it tries to immerse you in the game in order to help a human being instead of an AI. You do get to pick certain replies which sometimes makes you sound like a sarcastic weirdo or a milquetoast nerd as well but hey, it’s a game and not a chat bot. 

Video Game Thoughts - Potential Slightly Passed (PSP, get it?)

10 years ago, handheld gaming for me was the coolest thing ever. How could it not? It kept me sane from boring family gatherings, school outings, and therapy. Now, I and other people have considered the smartphone to be the most convenient handheld gaming platform nowadays. “Convenient” doesn’t necessarily mean “the best”. 7-Eleven is a convenient place for fried chicken but that doesn’t mean it overshadows KFC or Bon Chon (shoutout to you South Korean chicken lovers). 10 years ago, cellphones were still dominated by Blackberries and Nokias instead of the sleek iPhones and Samsungs of today so gaming was out of the question mostly. The best handheld experiences have come from dedicated gaming consoles instead of phones that happen to play video games. Handheld consoles were always going to be a step better with their dedicated hardware controls and gimmicks.

When I was a little boy rather than the actual big boy I am today, the PSP was something I wished for. Instead of buying a PSP though, I bought a Gameboy Micro for my birthday because it was the more familiar choice. Even if the Gameboy Micro was fun, the PSP was revolutionary for my untrained mind because the idea of 3D gaming with PlayStation or PlayStation 2 levels of graphics on the go was an awesome thing to have. My rich classmates had it and seeing a full 3D Dynasty Warriors game on the go was awesome at the time.

Shall we talk about the PSP? We should, otherwise I wouldn’t have used that oh so clever title. High five, Ralph! Yeah! Big boys!

Happy New Year Once Again

Another year of living for everyone! Congratulations/Goddamn it!

Quick and dirty because I feel like it's just gonna it's gonna be another drudging year of video games, cellphones, and singlehood. Another year wasted, another year going to waste.

Happy new year, if ever it is happy!