Guys.

Guys.

I just made a video game. It’s a visual novel named “I’ll Pretend to Fall in Love in the Dead of Night.”

It’s the first video game I’ve ever made, so it’s sort of crap, and it uses default graphics which I’m pretty sure is a major sin of game design. Really, it was a proof of concept, that I could freaking make a video game.

The title is enough of a tidbit to describe the game- anything else, I feel, could be a bit of a spoiler.

You can download it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?3h23s2okgr4w5pc

Please note that the game requires DirectX9 or higher.

Holy crap.

I made a video game.

A short poem:

Thus, Thus and a thing,

With it of a that,

This then is a the,

Of on or but then,

When at who a how,

Without or a maybe,

Yes no sometimes,

And a flower shining.

Written September 22nd:

Into though,

For therefore there

are with collections

Into spinning canopies;

they are thoughtless

like a wire morse

code into rhythmic static

background radiation,

fire and proliferation

of heartbeats running

faster like the faucet

full of blood

limbs like trees

set upon the stakes

I’ve never seen a scream,

Forest a port catastrophe,

And scarred hands for a nickle,

Sell your troubles,

I’ll buy them,

And make a Master-

peace. 

In a few hundred years from now, language is going to be so different. Our vocabulary and speech patterns will sound like antiquated and obsolete. Just like how language a few hundred years ago sounds to us. For example:

He trusted to have equaled the Most High, 

If he opposed; and with ambitious aim

Against the throne and monarchy of God

Raised impious war in heav’n and battle proud With vain attempt.

Him the Almighty Power

Hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky

With hideous ruin and combustion down

To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

In adamantine chains and penal fire,

Who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms.

This is an excerpt from the poem Paradise Lost, circa 1667. You can get the jist of what is being said, but really, on a word by word basis within the context of the work, it’s hard to tell what is actually being said. The deeper complexities of the language is lost; there are people who actively study the language of this time to truly understand it. If you go further back, the words and phrases get increasingly and increasingly harder to understand, until you’ve reached the point you can’t even understand a word— English, at that point, has become another language entirely. 

This process hasn’t stopped, either. Even in the past ten years, language has changed dramatically, largely due to the expansion of technology. Words have changed meanings or have been created outright. In fact, I would expect language to change at an even faster rate due to rate at which information is now spread across the world. 

So, it’s an interesting thought experiment to consider, what, exactly, language could be like a few hundred years from now. You can already gather some idea of how it will change in the future from how it’s changed in the past- for example, the proliferation of the internet abbreviation— words like lol, brb, etc. With time, one could suppose that this trend will continue; language will condense more and more, with more meaning carried into an individual character or word. Take that as you will, but I don’t think that is necessarily a cheapening of language— this abbreviated English, in some cases, could even be considered poetry. The ability to convey more and more complex ideas in a shorter amount of time, in my opinion, would actually expand and better language as a whole.

But, really, there’s isn’t any real way to know what language will be like in a few hundred years- people from the seventeen-hundreds, I’m sure, would never think words like “googled” and “wi-fi” would become common vernacular. It’s really just speculation, a fun thought experiment that lets you consider the way language changes and the way people, events, and technology affect it.

Anyway, time to go to the future and sound like I’m an internetfolk from the EARLY 2000’s.

For my Grandfather, who died yesterday.

I met a man while wand’ring in fog

I spoke to him, he tipped his hat,

And together we kept brief company.

He told me a story, a parable, perhaps

Of a young man who lived his life,

(and lived it well, might I add)

He grew and he grew,

He loved and he loved,

Until he passed on to the next.

Death, at the time, was troubling my heart,

Its hands had rooted their fear,

And with a small voice that quivered and lingered,

I asked him why this was so.

He smiled a kind smile,

One of great love,

And composed himself a reply,

And in that wise, old voice,

Of wisdom and thought,

He spoke:

“When he died, he was remembered and loved.

His action’s changed other’s lives,

His word written down and recorded,

His mem’ry perished not.

His children descended from him,

His pupils grew because of him,

His friends laughed with him,

Minds discovered along with him,

Many would remember him,

His family would cherish him,

For as long as they all lived.

And even then, when man has forgotten,

Nature will still whisper his name,

His flesh will become soil,

His blood will become rain,

His grave stone, a memorial,

Many, many years from now.

His genome, a thousand descendants,

And his breath, from the days he lived,

It changed the flow of air,

So that, a thousand years from now,

He will

Become

A thunderstorm.

Death is not the end, no,

Not if you lie and love,

I swear this unto you,

That in living, there is one great truth:

Invest in live, in all its mystery,

And it will invest

Back into you.”

OGDEN IS DOING BLOG LITTLE DIFFERENT TODAY. OGDEN IS SCIENTIST TODAY.

RECENTLY, OGDEN’S COUNTRY GOT ATTACKED BY SPACE ALIEN MENACE. IN RESPONSE OGDEN FIRED ORBITAL DEFENSE LASERS AND ALIENS BURNT BURNT BURNT AND BOOM! SMASHED INTO THE GROUND. IT WAS GREAT FUN. OGDEN GOT TO THROW JAVELIN AT SPACESHIP, TOO.

BUT THEN, OGDEN REALIZES, NOT ALL COUNTRIES HAVE ORBITAL SPACE LASER! ALIEN MENACE IS NOT A JOKE, BUT REAL MENACE FOR THEM! THIS MADE OGDEN UPSET.

AND WHEN OGDEN IS UPSET, HE TAKES ACTION.

THEREFORE, I HAVE COMPOSED ADVICE LIST FOR WHEN ALIEN MENACE ATTACKS HOME. NO ORBITAL LASER REQUIRED.

HERE IS LIST:

• JAVELINS. IF YOU HAVE GOOD THROWING ARM, THIS IS GOOD BET. SPEAR THOSE STUPID GREEN-FACED KILLERS! IF YOU CAN WIELD TREE-JAVELIN AND LIVE NEAR FOREST THEN YOU HAVE MANY AMMO.
• CARS. ALIENS HATE CARS. THEY FEAR CARS. RAM YOUR CARS INTO THEM. THIS PROCESSION OF CAR HATE WILL SCARE ALIENS AWAY. NO MORE ALIENS!
• IF YOU HAVE NAZIS NEARBY, BRING NAZIS INTO FIGHT. ALIENS AND NAZIS ARE MORTAL ENEMIES. THEY IGNORE BRAVE CITIZENS WHEN FIGHTING. THIS GIVES YOU TIME TO PREPARE, OR MAYBE THEY JUST MURDER EACH OTHER.
• REMEMBER, ALIEN MENACE CAN BLOCK GUNSHOTS! TRY TO USE ADVANCED TECH, LIKE SPACE LASER, OR MANLY OLDER TECH LIKE BROADSWORDS OR DISEASED COWS.
• DO NOT AMBUSH ALIENS!!!!! ALIEN MENACE HAS TELEPATHY THAT WILL DISCLOSE LOCATION! FIGHT THE ALIENS LIKE MAN!
• RICE. ALIENS LOVE RICE. USE RICE TO DISTRACT ALIEN AND THEN STAB THEM IN THE CHEST WITH BROADSWORD RWARGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• EMPLOY MYTHICAL CREATURES OR SORCERERS. ALIENS ARE BEINGS OF SCIENCE, AND MAGIC WEAKEN ALIENS POWERS. MAGIC MAKES THEM SKINNY AND WEAK LIKE BUG. SQUASH!
• SCREAM LOUDLY ALL THE TIME WHEN FIGHTING ALIENS. THIS CONFUSES THEM.

ANYWAY I HOPE THIS HELPS YOU FIGHT ALIEN MENACE. IF NOT I WILL GO INTO SPACE AND PERSONALLY BEAT UP EVERY ALIEN.

-OGDEN LACHENAUER

Odgen Lachenauer is the half-German, half-viking, half-Russian barbarian hobo spy mass murderer fighting aliens in my subconscious. He is perhaps the most legitimate evidence for making a case that I am actually insane. 

A Poem:

On a mountain,

Reaching into the sky,

Clawing at the face of night,

It waits.

I might avoid it,

Not recognize it,

Avoid it avoid it,

Avoid it,

It waits.

The starts are bright,

With justice unjust,

it waits,

I wait,

it waits

I try to avoid it

avoid it

I wait.

I see it wave,

To me from beyond,

I wait,

it waits,

My treasures await,

I’m royalty!

A KING!

Why must this curse be upon me?

A king cannot wait,

He takes!

I take!

It takes!

I wait.

Oh mount oh mount

You taunt me so.

Where is my silver?

Where is my gold?

(I’ve taken it up to you,

who waits

I wait

for my heart to subside.)

Pestilence is upon the land,

My inequities have added up.

How can I sacrifice unto you,

With a debtor’s noose,

and a screw loose,

too precious for me to lose?

“I cannot,” is the answer,

“Not now.”

So wait!

I want to avoid it,

avoid it avoid it

I’ll wait, I’ll wait, I’ll wait. It waits.

Tapping foot I want to take,

What you’ve stolen,

From my kind,

You take

You wait

I wait, not take.

On a mountain,

Reaching into the sky,

Clawing at the face of night,

I wait,

For a moment,

To give.

And the weight of another world falls away.

And then,

We wait.

OGDEN HAS THOUGHTS. BIGTHOUGHTS. OGDEN WILL SHARE SOME BIGTHOUGHTS TODAY. 

OGDEN’S FAVORITE SHOW, PUNCHING ANIMALS IN THE FACE, HAD JUST ENDED. FLIPPING THROUGH CHANNELS, OGDEN SEES…

AMERICAN TELEVISION!

BEFORE I COULD THROW TV REMOTE AT SCREEN IN DISGUST, OGDEN SEES THAT THIS IS NEWS. OGDEN THINKS: “OGDEN SHOULD WATCH AMERICAN NEWS FOR WHILE. NEWS HELPS OGDEN UNDERSTAND WHY TANKS INVADE HOMELAND.” SO OGDEN WATCHES FOR A FEW MOMENTS.

AND TO MY DISGUST, OGDEN SEES IT IS NOT NEWS BUT POLITICS. OGDEN HATES POLITICS. POLITICIANS ARE PANSY MEN WHO DO NOT SKEWER OPPONENTS IN BROAD DAYLIGHT. THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO USE BROADSWORD, AND OGDEN HAS NEVER SEEN ANY POLITICIAN WIELD A TREE.

POLITICIAN SAYS THIS: “BLAH BLAH BLAH WE HATE THE REPUBLICANS.”

THEN, OTHER POLITICIAN IN ROOM GOES: “WE ARE ANGRY ABOUT THAT STATEMENT! WE HATE DEMOCRATS.”

AND THEN OGDEN PUNCHED TELEVISION IN DISGUST. AND NOW OGDEN HAS BIGTHOUGHTS.

WHY DO AMERICANS PUT UP WITH THESE PANSY MEN? THEY PICK AT EACH OTHER LIKE A GREEN SOLDIER PICKS AT HIS CANNON WOUND TO THE CHEST. THIS DOES NOT MEAN OGDEN SUPPORTS COMMUNIST MOVEMENT. COMMUNISTS ARE COWARDS, LIKE PANSY POLITICIAN MEN. OGDEN IS MAN OF WAR, BUT A WAR OF MAN ON MAN MAKES BOTH SIDES WEAKER. WHY DO THEY NOT JOIN FORCES AND BECOME BONDED TOGETHER IN A RITUAL OF TRUE MANHOOD. IF OGDEN HAD TO FIGHT HIS PARLIAMENT EVERY TIME BEFORE HE COULD STOP ALIEN MENACE FROM DESTROYING HOMELAND, HOMELAND WOULD BE DESTROYED. OGDEN SUSPECTS AMERICAN MENACES WILL DO THE SAME THING SOON, IF THINGS NOT CHANGE, AND THEN AMERICANS WILL BE COMMUNISTS.

AND THEN OGDEN WOULD HAVE TO PUNCH EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN IN THE FACE.

-OGDEN LACHENAUER

Odgen Lachenauer is the half-German, half-viking, half-Russian barbarian hobo spy mass murderer watching the television of my subconscious. He is perhaps the most legitimate evidence for making a case that I am actually insane. 

By the request of a friend:

When he came over the hill, three days ago, neither of them spoke. He was simply just there, an entity, the two of them existing in the wastes. Words were no long necessary. Words were trivialities. They found each other, bound together, and then were.

The relationship, although silent, was not a meaningless, abject one. Information traveled between them, always always traveled. Data flung, to and fro the physical void between them. In those three days, it was, perhaps, the closest thing she had had to a lover since the world ended.

They worked together to improve their conditions: building a place to live, exploring the area, hunting and gathering. Plans were made for a farm. Suddenly, her race wasn’t dead. There was another, a man with a different set of genes. There was, perhaps, hope for the damned, after all.

So when he died, culture and a society died with him. Again.

A building collapsed. After years and years, the construction of the nearby town had deteriorated, and became unstable. He was dead as soon as the iron beam came crashing through his skull.

When he died, she did not speak. He was simply gone. She was alone. There were no tears. Tears were weak. Tears were-were-were-

The small shack they built together in those days burnt to the grown. She had lit it. She had lit the fire. The fire, which she had lit. Fire. Burning. There was no point to it anymore. Houses are for societies that aren’t dead.

She wanted to die, so desperately. So she ran, ran in grief and in anger and in pain. Further and further and further, desperately crying out for exhaustion, for her mechanical legs to fail and fall apart. She wanted to run herself to death.

Her body, however, a machine, a shell. It never tired. It could do everything she asked of it, but his one thing: to die.

So she kept running. And running. For days, months, years.

Until finally, she was back where she started. And then, she could finally rest.

And then, she could finally stop. Stop forever, and never move again.

And that’s exactly what she did.

OGDEN WILL TELL YOU STORY ABOUT TIME IN VIETNAM. IT IS VERY GOOD STORY I HAVE TOLD MANY TIMES.

VIETNAM IS VERY HOT, STICKY PLACE. THERE ARE PLANTS EVERYWHERE AND YOU CANNOT SEE ANYONE. THE COMMIES ARE COWARDS THERE, AND DO NOT FIGHT OUT IN THE OPEN. THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND WAR. REAL WAR IS TWO MEN STANDING IN A FIELD SHOOTING AT EACH OTHER UNTIL ONE OF THEM DIES. THE COMMIES WERE NOT MEN OF WAR. THEY WERE CHICKEN PLANT-MEN. 

SO ONE DAY OGDEN IS HIKING ALONG TRAIL THROUGH JUNGLE, AND THEN GUNFIRE STARTS. BANG BANG! SOLDIER IN FRONT OF ME DIES, BLOOD ALL OVER THE PLACE. USING MY VIKING VISION I SAW COMMIE COWARDS WERE HIDING IN THE TREES, TAKING POTSHOTS.

SO WHAT DO I DO? I TAKE OUT MY FROST GIANT BATTLEAXE AND CHOP THEM FROM THEIR TREES. THE PITIFUL COMMUNISTS TRY TO SCREAM FOR MERCY, BUT NO, I CHOP TREE DOWN, AND THEN I CHOP HEADS OFF. I SEND THEM TO MY FROST QUEEN WIFE AS GIFT LATER ON. 

THE COMMUNISTS HAD GOT A HOLD OF A TANK, HOWEVER, AND THERE IT WENT, ROLLING DOWN OUR PATH. ALL OF THE PEOPLE IN MY COMPANY WERE PANSIES AND HAD RAN AWAY OR WERE SHOT. SO IT WAS ME VS TANK.

THIS IS WHAT I DO: I GET TREE I JUST CHOPPED DOWN, AND CLOBBER TANK WITH IT. TANK IS NOW SCRAP. COMMIE SCUM IS DEAD.

BUT I DO NOT STOP THERE. I GO ON. I BEAT UP EVERY VIETNAMESE CITIZEN IN FIFTY MILE RADIUS WITH MY TREE. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. THIS WEAKENED COMMIE SCUM MORALE TO THE POINT THAT ONE DAY LATER THEY SURRENDERED TO THE AMERICANS. ONE DAY! WHAT PANSIES. 

AND THAT IS HOW I GOT THE MEDAL OF BEING TOTALLY FRIKIN’ AWESOME, THE HIGHEST HONOR A MAN WIELDING A TREE CAN EARN FROM THE GOVERNMENT. MORAL OF STORY: FIGHT WITH TREES. NO ONE EXPECTS TREE FIGHTING. I SWEAR THIS UPON ODIN.

-OGDEN LACHENAUER

Odgen Lachenauer is the half-German, half-viking, half-Russian barbarian hobo spy mass murderer raiding the fridge of my subconscious. He is perhaps the most legitimate evidence for making a case that I am actually insane.