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Let’s imagine, for a moment, that you’ve been charged with the task of building a Robot. Let’s not worry about the Whys and Hows of this scenario, only that this is your job. You are going to build a Robot for Some Guy, and that’s pretty much all you need to know.

Oh, wait, one more thing. You’ve been told where to get the parts from. There’s Some Other Guy. He’s a pretty neat guy. You get along. You have shared interests. The problem is that this Other Guy is also providing parts for about nine or ten other people, so he’s not always able to get your parts straight away.

Now imagine that Some Guy, the same Some Guy who asked you to build the Robot, comes up to you to ask how his Robot is progressing. Well, you can’t answer him, can you? You don’t have the parts. It’s out of your control - Some Other Guy pretty much has the monopoly on Robot Parts, after all. It’s entirely out of your hands. You can learn how to build the parts yourself - that’s an option - but it’s going to take time. This Robot isn’t going to be finished any time soon. It’s annoying, but it’s out of your control and it can’t be helped.

“No,” said Some Guy. “You’re supposed to be building a Robot. Why aren’t you building a Robot? You should build me a Robot.”

So you explain, again, that you can’t get the parts. Some Guy doesn’t seem to care that you can’t get the parts. You’ve already got some of them, after all. He asked for a Robot. He should have a Robot. Where is his Robot?

It’s times like this, I’m sure you’ll agree, when you’ll wonder why you even bothered getting a job in Robot Construction.

I’ve been living in America for an entire year.

It feels… well, it feels odd knowing that. One year. 365 days. Just shy of 8,760 hours. I’d write out the number of minutes but then there’d be a dangerous risk of more than one of us bursting into song. Nevertheless, a year is a long time to be doing anything, and even though on the day I arrived in LA I was mostly spaced out from a lack of sleep it still counts.

A lot’s happened in that year. I’ve been working at Disney for 11 of those 12 months. Jump Leads launched a mere two weeks after my emigration and has received critical acclaim from a number of unlikely sources. I’ve made friends, I’ve failed to start learning to drive, and I’ve become the Producer for SoulGeek Media. I’ve been to Disneyland so many times I’m starting to feel guilty about it, considering the number of terminally-ill children who’d love to go but can’t because their parents can’t afford it. I’ve amassed an unhealthily-large collection of Mr Potato Heads (for those of you who want to know, an unhealthily-large collection is basically owning more than two - I presently have nine). I’ve been given free entry to Comic-Con because of Jump Leads, and received $600 from the American government just for existing. I’ve seen parts of California I didn’t even know existed, I’ve been to Houston in Texas, and in two months I’ll be trekking up to Seattle, WA for PAX08.

So what are the plans for the year ahead? Absolutely no ruddy idea. It’s all been very “as it happens,” really. I’m going back to England for two weeks in September, and again in December, and then probably again in March. I’m trying to get fit and lose a little weight (even though absolutely everyone who isn’t my Mum or my friend Westy insists that I don’t need to). I’m hoping to see more of America, to maybe head up to Canada, and to definitely, definitely learn to drive. Fo realz this time.

In the more immediate future I’m hoping to get rid of this ruddy headache.

Living in LA has given me a ton of opportunies and opened up a number of doors for me, and it looks like this next year could be very interesting and very, very busy. Here’s to another Awesome Year, I guess!

I seldom talk about general religion on my blog. It’s usually an annual occurrence, and I don’t usually have anything insightful to offer. It’s usually “I’m not a religious person, but I’m open-minded.” That’s a stark change from the opinion I held five years ago, which was “There is no God, and if you believe in God you’re a complete and utter idiot.” It’s a stance which has softened somewhat over the past few years, but it has effectively remained the same - I don’t think there’s a God. The difference is that now I’m open to the possibility.

I had a small spiritual crisis back in ‘06 in part because spent a lot of time thinking about how, when I die, I probably won’t go anywhere. The thought of evaporating into nothingness scared me. It still does. I try not to think about it much because the last time I tried to imagine what ceasing to exist would feel like I was so utterly terrified I actually cried, and I found it more than a little difficult to get to sleep that night. Experiencing that make it very easy for me to see why people choose to believe in some form of mystical energy force that controls their destiny.

On the balance, I’m generally rather accepting of people’s faith provided they don’t try to push their faith onto others, or use their beliefs to justify the willful harm others, or try to use elements of their faith as an excuse for inactivity. I also take exception to religious leaders - and religious people generally - who make silly statements about how Atheists are an inherently evil people with no moral scruples simply because they haven’t any religious textbook to give them instructions for living and a basis for what is right and wrong. Frankly, That’s bollocks of the highest caliber, and it’s for this reason that I don’t give to explicitly religiously motivated charities - I can’t see past their faith, and I can’t help but feel that the only reason they’re doing whatever it is their charity does is because they’re trying to curry favour with their magical space wizard of choice. That’s probably a little narrow-minded of me considering that they’re helping people regardless of motivation, but it does seem more than a tad disingenuous to me. It’s a little on the slimy side, to be honest.

I recently finished watching An Evening with Kevin Smith (which I recommend to absolutely everyone ever, along with the second one) and he mentions how he was effectively roped into filming a documentary for The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince which was jointly about the release of his then-new album, and the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses. At one point The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist asks those with faith to step to one side of the room, and those without to the other, and then tells the Atheists that because they have no faith they have no moral code and are therefore inferior people. Those with faith have a guidebook (the Bible, natch) and are, it seems, utterly incapable of performing evil deeds.  Further evidence, as if it were needed, that The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince is no more mentally sound that the Pope (who is also stark raving bonkers).

I find it a little funny that those who harbour a Carrie’s Mother level of religious conviction are so vehemently against criticism of their faith of choice and yet they have no qualms utterly bashing Atheism. But then we’re talking about people for whom Hypocrisy is a way of life - people who say that God teaches love and then go on to say that he “hates fags” and wants to see them all killed… which isn’t actually inconsistent when you consider that in the Bible God kills a good couple of million people compared to the number of people Satan killed - ten. If they ever get around to making Bible: The Movie God will have to be played by Vin Diesel, Jet Li or Chuck Norris.

Below is a picture of actual text on an actual church sign that I actually drive past on my actual way home from the place where I actually work. Click to embiggen.

Have you ever seen a more self-contradictory sign in your life?

I keep forgetting that my birthday is coming up. I know the date - of course I know the date - but it never quite clicks in my head that my birthday is coming up soon. I’ve already had a couple of cards, and I didn’t expect either of them. Probably because I forgot my birthday was approaching on both occasions.

That’s it, really. I think this entry is more or less to remind myself that my birthday is coming up. Lawks.

I have a tendency to over-analyze things. I’m constantly over-analyzing my own actions for one, and that’s something I believe I’ve gone into previously. I have difficulty sometimes figuring out what motivates me, what causes me to say and do some of the things I do. Since learning that left-handed people are more susceptible to neurological disorders such as bipolarity, acute anxiety disorder and paranoia (largely due to the left-handed brain being wired up differently from the right-handed one), I’ve started mentally chalking up my bizarre actions to simply being left-handed, and have begun trying to pigeon-hole each action into a particular neurological disorder in much the same way that Harold Crick found himself tallying the Comedies and Tragedies that occurred in his life, the exception being I’m doing it purely in my head, and my list is rather bigger than just the two options. It’s entirely possible I’m looking for justification where none actually exists, and by considering this I’m now over-analyzing my over-analysis, which is surely a Bad Thing.

I have discovered, or at the least decided, that my main reasons for doing much of what I do is because I need to feel like I’m entertaining. I have an overwhelming desire to please people, to make them smile and laugh if at all possible, and that drives me to say and do things that I know will perhaps make me look stupid. I’m willingly making myself look the fool just to get a quick chuckle out of people - often people I hardly know - and that strikes me as very dangerous behavior.

In the interest of not getting tied up against a metal pole and thrashed to death by friends and co-workers who are far too curious for their own good, I’m going to share with you the details of the Fetish Ball. Considering there is probably at least one twelve year-old in England who might possibly be reading my blog, you can read this entry after the fold.

Read the rest of this entry »

There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

It still surprises me that buying a book in London in April led me to a Fetish Ball in Hollywood in December.

I imagine that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, so I’ll try and explain.

You may recall that way back in April I had to pop down to London for my medical. I had a lovely lady stick a bloody great needle in my arm and steal some of my vital fluids, although I don’t recall whether or not I was offered a lollipop by way of apology. I never understood why children are allowed lollipops, but grown ups aren’t. Heigh ho.

But anyway.

Before the medical, I’d passed the time by popping into a bookstore on Oxford Street and picking up an inexpensive book. The book in question was Yes Man by Danny Wallace, and anyone who has ever read the book or heard me talk about the book before probably knows where this story is going.

I’d started reading the book in London while waiting for my appointment. I then read more of it on the tube back to King’s Cross, and then a bit more of it on the train from King’s Cross to Luton. I read a bit more on the bus from Luton Train Station to my Mum’s home, and then a lot more that night. I plowed through the book in a couple of days, and when I’d finished it my outlook on life was irrevocably altered.

At the start of the book, which incidentally is a true story, Danny had broken up with his girlfriend. He’s stopped going out, stopped being sociable, and had largely kept himself to himself. That was more or less what I’d been doing when I broke up with Amy - I kept myself to myself, I didn’t go out or do much. Danny’s life was changed when a stranger on a bus offered the advice “Say yes more” quite out of thin air, for no real reason whatsoever.

So Danny did. He said yes to absolutely everything, from “Would you like sugar in your tea?” to “Buy our amazing Penis Patch”.

I won’t go into further detail about the book, but suffice to say I decided that I was fed up of saying No all the time, and I decided henceforth to start saying Yes again. I wasn’t going to take it to the extremes Danny took it to, but I was going to be receptive to new experiences, open to new ideas, and above all accepting of new opportunities.

In a way, the book is responsible for my contacting JjAR to see if he’d be interested in doing the art for Jump Leads. A friend, Bonz, had suggested I get in touch with him, and after seeing his artwork I’d wanted to. The old Ben wouldn’t have bothered, figuring he’d get a negative response, if any response at all. The new Ben, however, decided there was nothing to lose. So I said Yes, I’d email him, and he said Yes, I’ll do the artwork.

The book is most certainly responsible for the Fetish Ball attendance, which I shall have to write about at some point later in the day as it’s gone 1am and I should be asleep. Until then!

JjAR and I are now officially the Webcomics Gurus over at SoulGeek now. Terrifying, I know - especially when you consider that we’ve got a bloody big act to follow - Kristopher Straubligh and Scottford Kurtzington. Silly as it sounds, this is probably the biggest thing to happen to us since we launched the comic.

I’m all nervous and giddy, and I have no idea if that’s justified but I’ll be damned if I’m not going to enjoy it anyway.

I’m going to start off this entry by addressing something that pissed me off when I discovered it. Every time I’ve gone to write about it it’s left me red in the face and just… angry. Here’s an excerpt from DeViney’s follow-up to my Microsoft article on GP (bold emphasis mine):

Then the whip came down: it became clear that in order for me to proceed in my efforts to finally capitalize on being one of Microsoft’s biggest supporters in the video game industry for over five years, Ben Paddon was going to have to hit the road. I was advised by a friend at Microsoft to “remove any potential sources of contention” and that would allow me to resume my efforts to bring about a Microsoft sponsorship of GamePartisan.

That sentence left me feeling really, really pissed off. I had been told by DeViney, and by another GP writer, that Microsoft had pretty much demanded it or else no dice. Instead it appears DeViney was “advised by a friend,” which is something entirely different. I’m not happy. I feel like I’ve been manipulated by DeViney, used by him to further his agenda with GP.

He called me on Tuesday to let me know he was stepping down as Editor in Chief for 90 days and offered me the position. At the time I accepted because when he called I was on my way home from work having been sick, but the more I think about it the more utterly repugnant an idea it sounds.

It’s a two-sided coin. On one hand, it gives me the opportunity to do something really good with GP. I feel that GP’s weaknesses are its lack of internal structure (meetings are called that never happen) and the fact that a lot of the news posts are just directly copied and pasted from Press Releases. That’s just lazy, in my opinion. These days I find myself more and more turning to Kotaku for my gaming news, and I really like the editorial manner they relay gaming news. I’d be inclined to lean towards reporting news in that manner, but with perhaps a bit more of an Amiga Power style humour slant to it. At the same time though, the idea of deepening my involvement in the site leaves me feeling cold. Following this revelation, I really don’t have any strong feelings one way or the other about the continued existence of GP, or my involvement in it.

The issue that started the entire Microsoft problem - my immigration - is being handled by Larry Hryb, better known to the gaming public as Major Nelson. We’ve been emailing each other back and forth this week and he’s assured me that he will at least try to resolve the problem within the next few days. Fingers crossed it gets sorted.

With that out of the way, how do I feel about life in general? Well, no sodding clue. Mostly, right now, I feel il. But you don’t want to hear about that. I’ve been paid today, so I have a very strong urge to buy something nice for myself. A family friend, Patrick, once suggested that I might have a shopping addiction and I’m starting to think he might be right. I’ve been going up and down my Amazon Wishlists thinking to myself, “Yeah, I’d quite like to buy that.” I’ve been looking through Steam to see if there are any games I particularly want. I’ve been looking at inexpensive laptops for writing on. I’ve been… well, I’ve been window shopping so far.

I think I’m going to try and chill out this evening, maybe throw a DVD on and go to bed a little earlier. I really feel out of sorts…

Having just read Neil Gaiman’s blog, I find it hard to come up with a new year’s wish for you that does the trick. So instead I point you towards his latest blog entry. Gaiman says it far more elegantly than I ever could.

Happy new year.