A true masterpiece...

What was the start of all this?

When did the cogs of fate begin to turn?

Perhaps it is impossible to grasp the answer now,

From deep within the flow of time...

But for a certainty back then,

We loved so many yet hated so much,

We hurt others and we hurt ourselves...

Yet even then we ran like the wind,

Whilst our laughter echoed,

Under cerulean skies....

-Chrono Cross, PSX

I've been playing a lot of original Playstation games lately. I've been craving some of the mid generation games that I've always loved to play. My favorite game from this generation, and probably of all time, is Chrono Cross. Everything about this game attracted me: the story, the characters, the graphics. I've played a few RPGs on the Xbox 360 and haven't really been that impressed (I did just recently start playing Dragon Age and I guess I must admit I'm addicted to that game). Not many games have been able to grab onto me like this game has.

I've learned I'm a fan of the older generations of games, at least when it comes to RPGs. All the reasons I like this game pretty much sums up how these older RPGs are much better in quality than they are today. I miss when games had no voice acting. The only thing that accompanied the actions of the characters were the words that popped up on the screen. Chrono Cross came out during the time that games were starting to delve more into voice acting, but the makers of CC decided to keep their players reading instead of listening.

Each of the 42 characters had their own personalities. Many of these personalities are aided by the variety of accents given to the characters. Most of the characters have their own diverse way of talking. The heroine, Kid, speaks with a slight Australian accent, calling people "mate" and telling her enemies that she'll "kick their arses so hard they'll kiss the moons". Harle speaks with a French accent with the occasional French words and phrases gives a nice dash of sass to her character. Of course these accents can easily be done by voice actors, but it will always sound perfect when you're reading it to yourself.

One thing that will butcher a game for me is terrible voice acting. If the voices of the characters don't fit the actual characters and are just bad at acting out the certain situations, it makes me want to turn off the game and hide it in a dark corner forever. When you read, your mind takes over and forms your own version of the way a character speaks and acts. This is all ruined if the character is given an actual voice and the actor plays the part terribly. A character can be ruined by an actual voice. Part of the beauty of older games was reading whatever needed to be said. Players are able to interpret a character into the best they can be because they are partially formed within the person playing the game.

Something else that seems to be dying in the newer generations of RPG games is the silent protagonist. Since voice acting is almost a staple in games today, the silent protagonist becomes and unrealistic part of the scenario. If everyone else around the main character has a voice, there is no reason for him/her not to speak as well. Some games still hold onto it, but it seems to be a part of video games that is slowly dying. Silent protagonists gave the game developers a challenge. They had to give a character a personality through actions alone. The actions and choices are the only attributes that will give this character a bit of their own personality. The rest of the personality is up to the gamer himself. With silent protagonists, the gamer is able to create the character. A gamer can feel their own presence within the silent protagonist since they never speak themselves. I've always been a huge fan of the silent protagonist in Chrono Cross, Serge. I was able to make him into the ideal man for the situation he found himself in. The player knows something has gone wrong during the one part of the game where Serge gains a voice (well, text technically). He was a silent protagonist that was able to take his players and keep them interested in this magnificent game.

Even though Chrono Cross was one of the later original Playstation games, the makers chose to keep voice acting out when many other games were using this along with or instead of text. Now, it is hard to find a new game without voice acting, and as long as it is done well I can enjoy it. I will always have a soft spot for the more retro games though. No matter how amazing new games are, I will always be able to pull out my PS2 and enjoy playing Chrono Cross, as well as many other older games that existed before the mandatory voices were placed within video games.

From novel to movie...

As a future novelist, I look at authors like J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer and have mixed feelings about their success. Both have different reasons for their success, but somehow they were able to make their series' so popular that is made it to Hollywood. There are too many authors to count out in the world, and only a handful are "good enough" to reach star success.

Event though it is my guilty pleasure, the Twilight series is not exactly a well written series. The characters are cliche and predictable. I believe the story gives a bad message to teenage girls. Stephanie Meyer's success comes from taking the popular sexualized vampire figure and making it accessible to the everyday teenager. It has been done before, and Stephanie Meyer did it again, only with her own little twist. The Harry Potter series isn't a guilty pleasure. I'm okay with admitting I'm a fan of all seven books. I believe J.K. Rowling deserves her success. She is a brilliant writer. I did notice how many similarities there are between the Lord of the Rings series and the Harry Potter series though. That aside, she has a well written series compared to Stephanie Meyer whose book was meant for teens, and the book is at a 7th grade reading level.

I'm not sure if I would want anything I write to be adapted into a film. It's another form of art to express a story that has been told. At the same time though, I feel it's an excuse not to read a book. I know plenty of people who simply see the movie instead of taking the time to read the actual novel. I'm a fan of movies, but I definitely prefer reading. There are plenty of obstacles in the reading world with constantly evolving technology, and this makes it harder for reading enthusiasts to express the importance of picking up a book and reading it once in a while. It works your mind in a way that movies are not able to. Everything is laid out for you within movies. With novels, you have the ability to create something of your own. The authors create the characters, but readers take it a step further and make them real.

Some actors are able to portray characters extremely well. I thought Emma Watson and Rupert Grint were amazing as Ron and Hermione . They act exactly like I imagined them within the novels. Daniel Radcliffe on the other hand isn't the greatest actor. He definitely looks like Harry Potter should (a bit more attractive than the one within the novels), but he just cannot act. He tries to hard to be emotional and just ends up looking bad in the end. People who simply watch the movie cannot be impressed with this character. If they read the novels, they would see everything in a whole new light. They can have their own Hogwarts instead of constantly referring back to the ones created for them by Hollywood. As for Twilight, I wasn't impressed with most of the cast. I hate Kristen Stewart. She's not an actress, she's an awkward girl who can only play as herself. I know there are plenty of people who agree with me, as well as plenty who will want to rip my guts out for saying such "blasphemy". None of the actors truly "wowed" me within this movie. I still paid to see it each time though...and I'll do the same thing for Breaking Dawn as well. Again, it's a guilty pleasure. My hormones ooze lovey-dovey awws at the typical love story. Cliches are comfortable; that's why people like them.

If a director came up to me and asked me if I'd like to have my future novel/series turned into a movie, I would probably let it happen. The movie industry is it's own art form, and I'd be curious to see what they would do with my stories. I'd also be able to just write for the rest of my life and put my future kids, and probably grandkids, through college. I would simply hope that they can do a good job with what I gave them, and I won't allow them to let K Stew play any of my characters.

The Dragonfruit...

This is Pitaya, also known as dragon fruit. This fruit has mesmerized me for some time now. It looks absolutely delicious. The inside look like real vanilla ice cream with the black specs throughout it from the vanilla bean. The insides can also be pink, or the outside yellow, but I would definitely prefer to try the pink on the outside/white on the inside kind. It's more visually appealing to me. I've been obsessing over trying this fruit, but of course it's native to Mexico and Central/South America, so it doesn't often make it's way to the local Buffalo Wegmans.

There are several types of foods I have discovered from watching TV/reading books that have just looked absolutely amazing to me. I'll write about the other kinds in other posts.

When my friend Mike told me he tried, I automatically got envious and obsessed more over it since he told me where he got it from, which is only a 15/20 minute drive from where I live. Of course, I never ended up going. I'm rarely in that area, and for the longest time the road it's on was going through major construction and was a nightmare to drive through. I have still yet to drive out to that specific grocery store.

My luck changed one day though. While food shopping one day, I saw it sitting in a basket in the produce section. A huge smile spread across my face, but it was quickly wiped away. The color was dull and unattractive and the spikes seemed to have lost their perkiness a while ago. It did not look as fresh as I have seen it within all the pictures on the internet and within books. I also saw that it was $10 each. I have never paid that much for fruit, and as a college student working part time in retail, I have to remain semi-strict with my food budget (that can be really hard for me who wants to experiment and try everything).

I had found my dream fruit, but I was stuck in a predicament. Did I really want to spend that much money for a piece of fruit that looked far from fresh? In the end, I decided it was not a good idea. I would once again have to wait for the next time I would come across this tropical wonder. I left the area with a slight frown and went about my regular shopping. I wish tropical, out-of-local-region fruit wasn't so expensive, but in the end it makes sense. One day though I will find my fruit again and suck up the fact that I need to spend a lot of money.

When that day comes, I hope the fruit is as delicious as I imagine it can be. I hope it'll be juicy, with a subtle but still sweet taste to it. All I can do now is imagine what this ice cream look-a-like will taste like. With my luck though, I will try it and hate it. When the day comes that I try it, I will make sure to write about it and let the world know whether or not it was everything I imagined.

Food: Educational and Fun!

Once I got into college and didn't have a good kitchen accessible to me, I conveniently got into cooking and baking. I dabbled in it a little in high school; baking a few cookies around Christmas, and having cooking get-togethers with friends but nothing to serious. I don't know what hit me, but all of a suddenly the world of food and cooking fascinated me (to everyone in my life's advantage). I would cook every time I came home from living in the dorms at Buffalo State College. I've baked Christmas cookies every year when I came home for winter break. I cook with friends here in Buffalo and I'm upset when I go a few nights without being able to cook something in depth for myself.

Along with my new love for cooking, I discovered the wonder of the Food Network. I can watch this channel for hours and never get bored. I learned a decent amount from watching this channel, and I like sharing my knowledge with others that I gained from watching TV. This channel made me want to cook and try new things. From this discovery came a new obsession: Alton Brown and Good Eats.

This man is my idol. He knows all there is to know about any type of food. He doesn't just explain how to cook something, he explains the science behind both the food and the cooking process. He's funny (in a cheesy kind of way) and he's more informative than any other chef I've seen on the Food Network. If I was better with the concept of science, Alton Brown would have swayed me into studying food science.

I literally get excited when I see that Good Eats is coming on TV. I make time to watch that show when I know it's coming on in the near future. I wish I could follow him around for a year and learn everything I can learn about food, cooking, and baking from him. I own one of his books (thanks to Benjamin) and I plan on buying all of them when I can afford it. The book I have explains different ways to cook things (grilling, poaching, baking, etc) and gives several recipes to try. I want to poach a chicken in the near future.

Along with Bruce Coville, this is another man I'd love to meet. He keeps me interested in all the food that is available to me. His influence is probably why I love to go food shopping and can probably spend a good two hours in Wegmans picking out what to get for myself. I will always follow Alton Brown through his career until he retires.

On a food note, I need to go to Aldi's and pick up some essentials for baking. I already have baking soda, baking powder, and vanilla extract. I need to buy flour, sugar, brown sugar, shortening, and confectioners sugar. I have several baking goals for this winter:

-A good apple pie,

-Experimenting with yeast, mmmm real bread

-Rainbow cookie cake

-Something with lemon in it

-coconut cream pie

-the perfect chocolate chip cookie

-meringues, of course

I need to get the oven going....

Why I want to write fantasy...

Of all the books I've read as a kid, one novel always stuck out in my mind. The memory is blurred, but I'm pretty sure I was around 7 or 8 years old and I was at some store that sold books with my mom. I saw a book with a unicorn on the cover and had to have it. I have read this book more times than I can count, and at 22 I'm still in love with it. This book was Into the Land of the Unicorns by Bruce Coville.

I still have the book and it rests comfortably in my bookcase. It is bent and tattered with love. I remember doing a book report on this novel at some point in elementary school. I also remember being upset because I couldn't write about it for however many other book reports I had during grade school. This book became a part of me, and has helped me become who I am today.

On top of the book, it said "The Unicorn Chronicles". I assumed this meant that this book was part of a series. For the longest time, I never saw the next installment of this series. I remember working at the public library in my home town I was putting some books away in the children's section and I saw this book. I looked around the shelf for another book from this series, but the book stood alone. This was either during my junior or senior year of high school. I had pretty much given up on my search for the continuation of this series until last year around this time. Something made me look up The Unicorn Chronicles and I was pleasantly surprised.

There were two other installments of this great series out. I asked for them for Christmas and read the second novel of this series, The Song of the Wanderer, after rereading the first novel. The second book was just as good as the first. I finally learned what happened next in the life of Cara Hunter. The images and colors of the land of Luster burned bright in my mind. The characters still held a special place in my heart. It was everything I expected from Coville.

I still have yet to read the third book in this series, Dark Whispers. I have a bad habit of waiting a long time to finish something I greatly enjoy. I never want them to end. Coville released the last installment of this series, The Last Hunt, June 1st of this year. I have yet to get the novel, but I will add it to my collection soon enough.

I believe Bruce Coville is one of the main reasons I want to write fantasy children/young adult novels. Into the Land of the Unicorns made such a strong impression on me when I was a kid, and I want to be able to do the same for kids of future generations. Writing fantasy is hard. You have to take an idea that is far beyond reality and make it real, even though it is believed to be fake amongst most of the public. Writing fantasy for kids is different though. Kids have not had enough experience in their lives to close their mind off to the idea magic and the surreal. Coville does a great job in making his readers believe that somewhere out there, Luster exists.

I hope one day I will be able to meet him and thank him for everything he has done for me through this series. He lives right in the Syracuse area, two hours from where I currently live, so hopefully I can catch some event he will be attending in the near future. I want him to sign my copy of Into the Land of the Unicorns.

I think tonight I will suck it up and start reading Dark Whispers. Hopefully re-entering the world of Luster will help me to create my own world and start writing soon. Coville has already had such a huge impact on me, hopefully he can be the final push I need to dive into the world of fantasy writing. The Unicorns Chronicles has the power to reopen up my mind to a world of magic.

Thanks Mr. Coville, you're the best.

A random visit to see Wanda Coleman...

On Thursday, I had to go to campus to see a friend to sign a letter a group from one of my classes is giving to our professor because she's vague and it seems to have effected our grade. I met my friend that day because he was going to see Wanda Coleman, a famous writer, who was speaking at our campus. He said I should come watch as well, so I did.

I've never read (at least not that I can remember) any of her work. I need to broaden my reading horizons anyways. I sat patiently and waited for one of the English professors to finish her long introduction and Coleman finally took the stage.

I was happy with the half hour/45 minutes I spent listening to a poet speak her words. She was a good performer as well, not reading her poem in a monotone voice. She made a character out of all of her poems. She talked from her own experiences and from others. I was glad Eric made me go with him, and I couldn't help but wonder why I never went to anything else like this. I'm sure in the 4 years I went to Buffalo State, there were other writers in Buffalo.

After she read some of her work, she had a question and answer session with her audience. One girl asked what she did when she was not in a writing state of mind to bring back her inspiration. Her answer was "art feeds art". She then talked about how she likes to cook and that can inspire her. This made me smile. I like knowing I have something in common with a successful author who has made writing a part of her life.

I felt it was good for me to see someone who has done what I would like to achieve at some point in my life. I wish I could have talked to her, maybe had her sign a book, but I would have felt foolish seeing as I never read any of her work. They were selling some of her work, but I didn't have any cash on me. I don't think they take credit at book signings. I'll have to be aware of what's going on in Buffalo from now on. Seeing other successes might help lead me to my own.

It's a scary world inside the console...

I love the horror genre in video games. I also hate it at the same time. Two weekends ago, I went to Gamestop with my friend Jim where he bought Silent Hill: Homecoming for the Xbox 360. I was jealous, but he said I could borrow it when he's finished with it, and also when I'm finished with the current horror game I'm borrowing, Alan Wake.

I takes me a long time to beat games unless it really catches my attention, like Persona 4 for the PS2. I like to take my time and get as much enjoyment as I possibly can out of a game. I also have a super bad habit of playing many different games at once. It takes me even longer to beat any game I come to own in the horror genre. I enjoy the dark themes and the intriguingly suspenseful stories that come along with these types of games, but I'm also kind of a wimp. I can't ever play these games after dark, or else I get super freaked out. I also don't like to play alone. There has to be someone in the house when I'm playing or else every little sound I hear will make me super paranoid. The current apartment I'm living in likes to make odd noises, so playing these games will constantly remind me that there might be some sort of presence within my house.

I really like the game Alan Wake. It's not one of the scariest games I've played, but I still have issues playing it alone. I also seem to like the games with the normally weak female lead characters that find themselves in a terrible situation. Clock Tower 3 only truly scares me when the murderers come out of nowhere. The deformed guy in Haunting Ground chases you in hope that he will get to have you for dinner; fun, fun. The minds of children gone awry makes me want to figure out the mystery behind The Rule of Rose. I see more horror games all the time that I want to play, but I know how badly they'll react with me.

I don't know why I freak out so much about anything related to horror, but I do. I'm beyond aware of the fact that it is all fake. Certain images will be stored in my mind and as I let my mind rest, it wanders to those images and I start to panic slightly. Of course, this happens mostly before I go to sleep. Thanks to my wonderful subconscious, I dream about morbid things that wake me up in the middle of the night and force me to think happy thoughts for a good hours. I know this happens, most of the time, and yet I still continue to do it.

We all want to know what happens past all the fear and the terror. We hope for an answer, we hope for justice, and we hope for a happily ever after. We take our nerves through hell in order to see a story of survival. We are happy as long as one main person is able to live through the catastrophe. We forget all the others that suffered and died as long as as one person is victorious. That's why getting the "bad endings" in these games are so disappointing. You spent hours trying to make it through alive only to come across anger and sadness in the end. It just doesn't seem worth it unless something positive comes from the end.

I watched Silent Hill last night. It's a terrible movie. The acting is awful and it's not nearly as scary as the original game for the Playstation was (or so I've heard...never played the original game but I plan to). I got my fill of gore and creepy no-faced creatures for the night though. I also saw the mother and daughter "saved" in the end. I still went to bed with the creepy, tied up, dead guy from the bathroom in my head. I still watched the movie even though I know I don't really like it. My love/hate relationship with this genre will continue.

I need to beat Alan Wake so I can give it back to Jim. I will push through the darkness and help Alan Wake figure out why his horror fiction is coming true. I will scare myself towards the happiness that wouldn't exist in the end if all of this was really happening.