New Year's Motivational Speel

Life has been pretty grand. Christmas is over and 2019 is two days away. Its that time of year for that classic social media status: New Year, New Me. Yeah, yeah, we get it, you're gonna push yourself hard, work out, and get everything you ever wanted done, or at least try your best. Its good to be motivated, but its also good to be practical about things. Time is the killing blow for most people. If you don't have enough time you won't get things done. 

I've been trying to stay motivated with my usual activities; reading, writing, and playing guitar. In fact if I had a New Year's resolution its this: to play more guitar, learn more songs, and record more on my own as well as with friends. I also plan on learning more about computers in my free time. I don't think I'll become a computer programmer (even being a bad one is hard), but I'd like to learn as much as I can about programming just for my own personal knowledge and such. I've just finished this 500 page computer book on how hardware and software work, and before that I read Hackers by Steven Levy, and that's kind of what caught my interest. Also, about a year and a half ago I signed up for Codeacademy, a free online programming tutorial app. I think I'll actually give that a second go this year. Its complex stuff but its also interesting enough to look into. 

I also want to work more on recording, my own recordings in particular. Add more music on my YouTube page. Reading is a must as well. And I want to write more short stories and start an actual novel, a short one, maybe like 150 pages, something like that. I have some ideas for it already, it would be a near distant future sci-fi story about everyday type of people and workers, more literary than spaceships and laser guns. Maybe more like speculative fiction than true science fiction.

However, its hard to stay motivated. Sometimes after an eight hour retail shift I don't feel like playing guitar, I just want to listen to music or play games. The reality is that if I don't practice guitar at night after work I probably wouldn't have played guitar at all that day. I've realized that in order to get the results I want in life I have to push myself, I have to be disciplined because nobody will be disciplined for me. My music mentor, Frank Abbinanti, a new music composer, lives in Chicago so when he says to learn Sequenza by Berio, I have to have the motivation on my own to actually work on it, otherwise I'll never learn it. Likewise, if I don't learn how to record better songs, and actually do it, I'll never have new songs to post on my YouTube channel. 

Its not going to be easy and I suspect some nights I won't play guitar, write, study, or read. But I won't let that stop me from achieving my goals. 2018 was a good year for me but in 2019 I want to get more done. Read more novels, write more short stories, begin a novel, record more music, play and record more guitar, and of course have fun with my friends and family. 

Keep working hard at the things that matter to you and you'll really get what you want out of life, that's what I've learned. 

Life is good! 

Merry Christmas

Christmas is three days away and the holiday cheer is at an all time high, especially at my work. There's been a lot of 48 hour weeks for me, which is good. I've been playing a ton of Smash Ultimate at my friends' house and I've really upped my skills, especially with Ridley and Starfox. I've already got most of the gifts I wanted to send to my family as well. The only thing that really gets to me is the holiday playlist at work. Its the same playlist every day for the entire month! Its been crazy, to say the least...

I was thinking about treating myself this Christmas and buying some new games. I was interested in Starwars Battlefront 2 (for the graphics and Starwars skin), Battlefield One (WW1 is a great theme with cool archaic weaponry), Dragon Ball Fighter Z on Steam (maybe, my friend has it on the Switch), and possibly Fallout 76 (it sucks but it will get better). I also wanted to get the new World of Warcraft expansion Battle for Azeroth but I know if I do that I'll spend too much time gaming, as well as paying a pesky 14.99 monthly fee. Damn you Blizzard! (Side note: I've been playing a ton of Overwatch lately, and I've become a better player, mostly playing Mercy, Ana, and Moira. I'm still just slightly below Gold Tier level in Competitive but I'll get there eventually)

Other things I was thinking about was computer books through the video game publisher HumbleBundle. They're offering all these computer programming and hardware books for cheap, they're all ebooks. Other than that I was just going to save my money and just get my folks whatever last minute gifts I needed to get them. I have a lot of cool stuff as it is, I don't need anything too expensive.  

There's a lot of bad energy out there going on in the world, especially in terms of politics. I just had a Trump supporter wearing a MAGA shirt say some racist stuff to me at work. I had to let it go because I don't want to lose my job. These Right-wingers are really acting out in the public sphere, its like Charlotteville all over again. There's the government shutdown happening soon because Trump can't get his 5.7 billion dollars for his Wall, despite the fact that most Americans don't want to spend extra cash on a wall. Trump's supporters like Ann Coulter are saying that if Trump backs down and doesn't get the funding for the wall, Trump will be utterly humiliated and will definitely not get re-elected. However, I happen to think that it doesn't matter what Trump does, he won't get re-elected. I think the American people have smartened up, they're no longer willing to be political peons, they're going to fight back against everything that Trump stands for; tax cuts for the wealthy, increasing division against our allies, bad foreign policy, bad deals, ideas, and retaliation in trade, and evil treatment of refugees and those seeking asylum, especially regarding small children. There's a lot to upset about this holiday season! 

Its a political shitstorm alright. Its hard not to get angry at the direction the country is going. These Trump supporters are really coming out of the woodwork and they're not afraid to show off their racist and misogynistic views. Its hard not to talk and think about this stuff as a young progressive American citizen. Sure I live in a nice neighborhood and I'm safely sheltered unlike most Black Americans, but I believe in the progressive model. Old white men have always told me that the older I get the more I'll realize that being Republican is the smart thing to do. However, I think that's just their wishful thinking. I think the Democratic agenda is much more realistic, more humane, and will reduce the drastic gap between rich and poor regarding income inequality. In short, I believe the Democrats will help me more than the Republicans in life. I believe, if the Republicans had their way, that nobody would receive government benefits without working a certain minimum amount of hours, passing drug tests, and applying for jobs within a certain time period. Its already like that in certain states. This place has really gone to the dogs. However, its the only land I know, and love. 

But that's enough about politics. I read the news everyday and the everyday events of the Trump Whitehouse is infuriating but not shocking in the slightest. We have a long way to go in electing intelligent and thoughtful politicians (Obama anyone?), that despite their political ideology, can unify our blessed nation into a cohesive whole, especially after devastating shootings, natural disasters, and at the very least pay respects to our fallen soldiers. The Republicans are putting up with Trump because he's their guy; this is their last hour of power in Washington, if the government is going to be shut down because Trump didn't get his wall, then government be damned. As said in a popular Washingtonpost op-ed: The rats (Republicans) eventually tend to jump off the sinking ship (Trump agenda).

But all that aside the holidays this year hasn't been too bad. It hasn't been too crazy at work or in general. Life is good. I'm getting a lot of reading done and still playing guitar. Lately, I've been reading this book on computers; How Computers Work by Ron White, this book from 2008, that covers a lot of material, mostly hardware and software, how it all works. I'm getting a lot out of it and plan on reading more about computers. 

Its interesting because at first when I started reading it I thought it was boring and that I wouldn't be able to get into it. I returned it and then re-checked it out again, but this time the information stuck. It reads like a manual with a lot of diagram pictures but it makes sense and isn't too difficult to comprehend. One thing I've learned is that if you want to be good with computers you have to learn a lot of advanced mathematics as well as have a lot of patience. It would be super difficult for me to learn computer programming because I'm terrible at math and don't have a lot of patience. However, I think I can understand how hardware works and perhaps learn to be able to fix most problems on my computer with more knowledge and experience under my belt. My plan is to eventually build my own PC. I think that would be a great conclusion to my computer knowledge and experience. 

Happy Holidays to you and your family. Thanks for reading my blog and supporting my writing, whoever you are and wherever you are. And despite your politics, God bless you, and God Bless America.

Merry Christmas!

Super Smash Bros Ultimate

So the new Smash Bros came has been out for a little over a week. Its one of the greatest games I've ever played. A few months ago I was reading more than gaming but now I'm back gaming a lot, due in part to this game. Things have changed. This game is amazing. I'm going to copy a quote that I saw on the back of the Final Fantasy 7 Greatest Hits edition for Playstation back when I was in middle school: Quite possibly the greatest game ever made. The same could be said for Smash Ultimate. 

The freaking roster in this game is insane. There are 74 playable characters in this game. Which says to me that there's no way they can balance this game. Balancing is the process the developers do to make sure no characters are better or worse than others. I don't think there's any real cohesive way to do that in a game with almost 80 characters. But I ain't complaining! 

All the main heroes and villains are here: Mario, Bowser, Link, Samus, Ness, Kirby, Yoshi. And then there are tons of new characters too: Inkling, Ridley, Simon Belmont, Dark Samus, Chrom, Ken. Simply because of the 74 characters you can never get bored. If you lose with your best character you still have 73 other ones to try against your opponent, with endless possibilities with your combos. I play a lot of Ridley right now but I've also been playing a lot of Fox. 

The gameplay is your bread and butter smash. However, the physics in Ultimate actually seems a bit faster than its predecessor, Smash 4.  Perfect pivots seem easier to do. Characters run faster. Slow characters don't seem as slow as Smash 4. In Smash 4 Gannondorf seemed like an elephant. In Ultimate he's more like a rhino. The combos from the old games still work in this game and the strategy remains the same; knock your opponent off the stage and 1) KO them with an attack or 2) edge guard them so they can't make it back to the stage, resulting in them falling to their death. 

My friend's best character is Yoshi and he wins against me using the same tactics from Smash 4, usually a spike off the ledge. Some characters get new moves too. For example, Kirby got his fireball dash attack from Melee (Smash's Gamecube version). Using combinations of old strategies from the classic games and new moves from here you can create interesting new strategies and ways to play. Nintendo has made an art form out of kicking tail. 

The soundtrack to this game is pure bliss. It contains mostly every song from mostly every famous Nintendo game. You can change the music on every stage. The music grows on you. Once you play the game for about a week you start to memorize the music and it gets stuck inside your head (my experience). However, the music is so good here that I can hardly be upset, this music is great! 

There's only one bad thing I can say about Smash Ultimate. Its just the fact that you can clearly tell that Nintendo doesn't put much effort into their online systems. Sure, the online experience is 'free', but Nintendo's free means laggy servers. You can't play Smash Ultimate four players online because the game will lag and 'break' (lag so hard you can't do anything). 

Not only that but I've also heard bad lag stories with people even using the wired connection over wireless. This is 2018, wireless gaming is a norm. The fact that Nintendo can't get this right is a little pathetic. Yes, I'm being harsh. But you see, I'm a connoisseur who's been playing Smash since 64 days in grammar school. 

But that's not all. "The matchmaking process was further criticized for making it difficult for friends to join matches over random players, and not allowing multiple local players to join in online matches. Fans of the series had complained so much on Ultimate's Reddit page that the administrators forwarded all complaints to a separate thread." (wiki) 

But despite those negatives the positives overflow here. This game is so great that I've been playing it nonstop since December 9, when my friend got it. Because he has a Switch and I don't, I can only play it at his house. Even after playing it many hours almost two weeks straight, I don't feel bored. This game has a very good new car smell, so to speak. Its captured the zeitgeist, a moment forever trapped in time, in 2018, a golden age of video gaming. As a hardcore Smash 4 player who went to tournaments, I look forward to continuing my Smash tournament runs in this game. And although I'm too broke too afford a Switch this holiday season, I'll eventually get a Switch when the price goes down, and I'll own this fantastic work of art. 

You done did good Nintendo.

The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid's Tale is a feminist dystopian fiction novel written in the 1980's by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. Thirty years after publication, the novel has captured the zeitgeist and inspired many female writers to take up dystopian feminist fiction, inspiring a new breed of science fiction writers. There's tons of nytimes articles about this sort of stuff. I can see how influential Atwood has been on the genre.

The Handmaid's Tale is told from the first person, from a woman called Offred. It takes place in a near future New England (2005), where women's rights have been taken away, and government has been replaced by a totalitarian state called The Republic of Gilead, resembling a theonomy (theo-god, nomos-law), basically a Divine Christian law. Most of the novel takes place at night and during the day when Offred is out with other handmaids running errands around town as well as the descriptions of other handmaids from Offred's point of view.

These Handmaids bear children for women called Wives, who take care of the kids. There are male Commanders that rape these so-called Handmaids in an attempt to impregnate them. In this world women are commonly infertile so a woman with healthy reproductive organs are usually the Handmaids. Although initially the Commander's relationship with Offred was supposed to be strictly limited to an initiation ceremony, a ritual of rape with the Wife in attendance, she ends up hanging out with the Commander and seeing him regularly, enjoying sex with him despite the rape ritual.

The Commander plays Scrabble with her in his study, something scandalous because women aren't allowed to read and write. In addition, the Commander takes Offred to a brothel, where she meets her college best friend Moira, and is told that these women are yes, prostitutes, but that they get drugs and alcohol as well, and that this is better than being a government rebel, ending up cleaning radioactive waste in the colonies. However, Moira says that its frowned upon to reject any man. So there's a strong sense of control over prostitutes as well.

Through another handmaid Offred learns about the Mayday Resistance, people who are working against the government. Eventually the Commander's Wife finds out about the fling with Offred and Offred contemplates suicide. However, she doesn't kill herself. Instead, Offred tells Nick that she thinks she's pregnant. Some time after that she is taken away by men in uniform (The Eyes, or the Eyes of God), basically the secret police. As she's waiting to go inside a van, Nick tells her not to worry. Offred goes but she isn't sure if these men in uniform are the Mayday Resistance or the Eyes, and if Nick is apart of the Resistance or part of the Eyes.

Lastly, I would have to say that this is a fine work of speculative fiction. Its very difficult to say this is science fiction, although its been up for the critically acclaimed Hugo award, an achievement in and of itself. Atwood has created a world not very different from our own, but goes to the dystopian extremes-of totalitarian religious government, male dominated hierarchy, and class, caste, and status symbols. Although not much happens plot-wise throughout the novel, you get a sense that this is realistic, that this has happened in other countries, and that yes, it could even happen here if powers go unchecked, unbalanced, and out of control. In fact, when Trump got elected this book became more popular, unsurprisingly. Although its a dark and at times deeply disturbing book, it really gives you a sense of ourselves, our country, a mirror not quite reflected yet, but could if we went out of bounds.

Open Mic 12/5

Here's five tunes I played at last week's open jam at Petie's Place. I played Sunshine of Your Love, Hey Joe, Electric Funeral, and two extra jams of improvisation. It was a good night. Enjoy the music. 

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/sunshine-of-your-love-125 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/hey-joe-125 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/electric-funeral-no-vocal-125 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/four-on-six 
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/satriani-style-jam-125 

Open Mic Night 11/28

Here's three tunes I performed last week at my local open mic on 11/28/18.
We did three songs
Electric Funeral by Black Sabbath
Hey Joe by Hendrix
Spirits of the Dead (original tune)

It was an interesting night because I had a full band, a trio with my friend Martin on drums and his friend on bass. During Hey Joe the friend got off, and another guest bass player quickly plugged in.

It was a fun night. Not very often that I have a full band. Enjoy!

https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/spirits-of-the-dead-1128-full-band-arrangement-trio
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/hey-joe-1128-full-band-arrangement-trio
https://soundcloud.com/orlando-figueroa-17/electric-funeral-1128-full-band-arrangement-trio

Holy Fire

Holy Fire is a great science fiction novel written by Bruce Sterling. It came out in 1996. It was nominated for the British Science Fiction Award in 1996 and the Hugo and Locus awards in 1997. High praise for great art. 

The story follows a medical economist named Mia Ziemann, a ninety-year old woman who transforms into a twenty-year old girl through intrusive technological means. Now (post-op) and borderline psychotic she goes by the name Maya as a young lady, traveling across Europe with nothing but a bag and the clothes on her back. She makes friends with all kinds of artists, bohemians, hackers, and fashion gerontocrats. The story is about life, death, the human condition, art, fashion, a very poetic sort of philosophy and ontology. 

The world of Gilead is somewhere in the year 2100. Gerontocrats control mostly everything and young people are like the scraps on their shoes, living on the margins. However, most things are free, including free health care and food, provided you don't harm your body or anyone else. Its a near future but its not a totally implausible one.

Once transformed, Maya gets caught up with thieves and drifters, eventually making her way into the fashion/modeling industry because of her sexy look. From there she makes friends in high places, mostly programmer types that help her with her palace, a digital life-space given to her by her now dead husband, complete with ruins and stuff. This is a cyberpunk story and the technology here is out of this world. Even with Sterling's esoteric explanations, the tech can get lost in between the dialogue, which is what helps make the novel move along nicely. 

Sterling gets very in depth with the virtuality within the story. His scientific explanation for Ziemann's transformation was quite complex. It was like reading Greek for me. However, it was mostly just advanced biology terms. The tech stuff here reminded me of William Gibson. Although I think Gibson does it better because he's able to make more out of the tech with his literary technique. 

Anyways, Ziemann gets caught up with a bunch of rich, radical anarchists and they plan on 'living forever' and taking control of the system, and this and that...But it turns out in the end that Ziemann gets caught up with the police, who were tracking her down because she skipped out on paying back her medical bills for the youth procedure. And not only that, but her dead husbands' talking dog Plato was always in the virtual palace, he'd been looking for her too. 

Ziemann goes through an ontological transformation. She realizes that she doesn't want to go back to being a gerontocrat, and that she wants to be a young photographer, even if she's really bad at it. It takes becoming a full blown criminal, a celebrity (at the end), a widow, and a Frankenstein-esque monster to realize what she wanted in life. 

The novel contains many debates between these young bohemian types over the immorality of immortality as well as the aesthetics of fashion. The underclass here are also talked about frequently, the class of people who can't become 'post-human', those are the real disenfranchised of the story. 

The writing of this story is free flowing with great metaphysical ideas. This is mostly done through dialogue and small events that happen over many pages-fifty pages here, another fifty pages there, etc. Although there are heavy cyberpunk elements here the ideas presented command more authority than mere tech. This isn't an easy novel to understand but its easy to read because the dialogue is interesting and the characters have artistic and idealistic charm.

If you want a different sort of cyberpunk novel this is for you. If you want a different sort of science fiction novel, this is it. They don't make science fiction like this anymore these days. And this was only from 1996! 

I'm currently waiting for my order of Bruce Sterling's Schismatrix. I heard from my father that's his most important novel. After reading his amazing collaboration novel with William Gibson, The Difference Engine, this was a great follow-up. On his own Sterling has grandiose philosophical ideas to go along with his cyberpunk technology. It has legs.