Randombullseye Blog

I am writing a book, called “The Bonerquest.”

The last year has been one of personal agony. Nearly a week after I last posted anything to this silly tumblr page, I fell ill. My podcasting shows, which meant quite a lot to me, both imploded in on themselves. My writing articles slowed. My days became shorter, my nights at work became longer. The nights I wasn’t working became longer still, full of laying awake staring into space, thinking. Thinking of my novel, a full real novel is what I’ve been doing, I’m nearly finished with it, and will be self publishing it within the year. This has been boiling within me for many years, buried deep within my soul. Finally, I’ve tapped into it and the words have came out in such a way that I’m comfortable with.

I’ve been a joker for many years, never becoming fully organized until last year when I decided to write a full length novel based on a computer game I made, The Bonerquest. I want to realize a fantasy satire that is full of comedic situations and silly things, and spread that with the world. I’ve tried to get to better states of consciousness to pull this from the ether, letting my words flow out of me onto a blank page I’ve written what I feel is hilarious. That sounds wacky, but it is exactly how it happens. I believe this book has to happen for me.

I’m not done yet, I think I’m going to take a long time to actually get this done, but I really want to make it happen. My hope is to write professionally and quit my night job stocking cereal. My book doesn’t need to be that successful, I don’t make that much money to live the lifestyle that I have now. I want to share this with everybody here, and have your positive energy influence my own energy.

If I can get this done, I want to write more books. I believe in myself. I have some notes and research for what my next novels should be. I treat this as work, doing exhaustive research on anything I think may be of use, even if it is a minor detail within my story, if I am to properly lampoon anything, I must know everything. It is my greatest wish that my book makes you laugh, hopefully this very thing you’re reading makes you laugh, because it is kind of funny actually that a guy put this much effort into something as silly as this, and that I’m trying to come off honest about how much I believe in it. 

The premise of “The Bonerquest” is all about a wizard who tells lies everywhere he goes and isn’t a wizard. He wants to rule the world. He also thinks he might be a homosexual as well. If that sounds interesting, hopefully you’ll buy a copy when I’m done with it, if it doesn’t sound interesting, then don’t buy a copy but talk about it. Tell people you know about a guy who believed in himself and wrote a book called Bonerquest. Maybe somebody else will accept The Bonerquest. Will you accept The Bonerquest?

The Bonerquest is a thing I want to make real. If I tell you guys, and set this goal, I can make it happen. This is a silly goal to have, but it is my goal. 

I want to self publish it as well through createspace on amazon, and find a way to digitally publish it for kindles, iPhones, iPads, and everything else that I can get it out onto. I will do an audiobook version too, maybe just myself reading it or hiring a professional to read it. I want this to exist for real, instead of just as an idea. I want to finish this within the next six months.

This is my dream, this is my goal. I have a story, that I need to share with the universe. 

Thanks!

Duke Nukem Forever expectations and ten things I want in the game.

My pal Ricky, in about the sixth grade introduced me to what was, maybe the greatest PC to console port in the history of video games. Otherwise, this now classic adventure would never have been experienced. Yes, I’m talking about Duke Nukem Total Meltdown, alias Duke Nukem 64, and originally Duke Nukem 3D for the PC. One of those games, like the later Postal 2, that sort of spread out amongst jokers, video gamers, and eventually going as mainstream as to become a part of our pop culture.

Unfortunately Duke fans were given piss poor sequels that were less of that originals charm, and more of a Tomb Raiser/Soul Reavery mess of a game. What made Total Meltdown for me, was that it was not only hilarious, using lines from movies like They Live and Admy of Darkness, but that it was an actual hoot to play. The second you get a double rocket launcher, and as your blasting away at aliens with John St. Johns saying “Let god sort em out!” is the exact moment the game clicked for me.

And now, fifteen years later, I’m nearly twenty five, bitter, and still playing video games. My love of every line from They Live and Army of Darkness fully intact. My cliche American confidence, with his cartoon action heroes so macho, they shoot first, get the girl, and say something cool and somehow still be try very seriously with a message about paramilitary groups or global warming still happens. The Expendables was movie of the year twenty ten. If that is still relevant, surely Duke Nukem is. He hasnt even had one of those third person games in years!

I’m ready for Duke Nukem forever, but it looks like everyone else is not.

I expect anything from Duke Nukem. I’m hoping for somewhere a little higher than A Serbian Film level of excess. A game full of drugs, whores, aliens, alien whores, and possibly a scene where Duke does drugs while having sex wit an alien whore, then kills her, eats her, and proceeds to violently shoot diarhha out. This doo doo allows him to fly around the level, just like fucking Boogerman did, but in high definition. Did I mention his poo has sprayed an alien children’s choir? Perhaps a protesty church group, guys who really liked battlefield earth, of maybe just a group of hippies. I expect poop, and lots of it.

My aquatence, Jim Sterling, seems to think the game is drivel. That a rape level in Duke Nukem is somehow offensive. As I said before, after A Serbian Film this game could literally do anything and not surprise, shock, or offend me. Not that I watched that movie, but the fact that it exists and is out there, as well as more mainstream softer flicks Hostel that everybody has at least heard of, it should mark us as far as what to expect from entertainment. And compared to what is out there from foreign films, Hostel isn’t bringing the heat. With the UFC and reality TV, we are that much closer to a running man death race future, we are almost to rollerball levels of entertainment at this point. Duke Nukem is completely imaginary, and video game graphics are not that far removed from cartoons, especially considering the way pixar changed the animated feature. With cutscene movies being a thing in games, we cant deny that similarity. So assuming that we’ve all seen Frits the Cat or any number of Japanese cartoons featuring murder, rape, arson, and rape how can we consider Duke Nukem offensive in the least?

I’ve often thought most game reviewers seem softened to the world, hoping for things like “no kill” playthroughs of first person shooter role playing games. One prominant game writer was excited to try Red Dead Redemption with the least amount of shooting possible. I cant figure that out. Why limit yourself? Why go against the idea of a game I would describe with the words: rootin, tootin, and shootin, and be that guy who doesn’t want to shoot anybody. Even experiencing gun violence first hand, why even play a game with guns like that? Are you such a fucking loser, you can’t tell from those giant advertisements for the game that it features a fare amount of guns?

This is why in games now, I have the choice of not killing bad guys. I don’t get it. I’ve a simple eighties action film style video game, if it contains nothin less than alien rape and asses being kicked in, I don’t know what to think. The more they shoe horn one of those very special episode type allegories, especially poorly, can only enhance the game. I laugh at that sort of thing, buy I laugh at flamethrowers as well.

It feels like the world doesn’t. We want to thunk of the poor guy who got hit with the flamethrower, his children, or his poor wife who gets to identify the body. We are all about that for whatever reason now. Rather than condem anyone for their mistakes, we forgive people for us being too sensitive. This article is now about the pussification of American society! No really, I wished I was joking about all this, but ask yourself, when driving do you give someone the finger, or raise your hand asking “what the?” This soft feeling everyone seems to have, a anything goes attitude without any real feeling or emotion behind it. Is it the drugs everyone is on? Prescription of otherwise, there is something to be said about how drug use has effected people.

I myself, am not even a drinker. I’m a manaic. You’ve read what I wrote, and I would like to hope you’ve at least sampled a podcast I’ve done. I don’t need something to feel better, or worse. I’ve enough self control to know the difference between video games and the real world, but I’m starting to wonder if people around me do. All that talk about how realistic L.A. Noire looked confuses me. Those bodies and the same havok physics we’ve dealt with for years, floppy bodies as one of my contemporaries described it, is a thing we see in games. The idea that games are looking real goes over my head. We’ve entered into a certain valley, where cartoon people look like people, but they’re still clearly cartoon video game characters. Look at those bodies and how they animate running up stairs. Games like Enslaved and Heavy Rain have some great looking cartoon people, but they’re still not real. Until we’ve got Dana Plato back, looking and reacting to guys with hooks I’m doubting the validity of anyone who goes on about realism within our games.

As I wrote all this, I’ve Ben at work stocking groceries all night. Anxious to play Duke Nukem Forever as I repeat for, somewhere past several hundred times, the same routine here. If for a few minutes, anything that is bumming me out doesn’t bother me, Duke Nukem Forever succeeds. I’ve a dark soul, and for whatever reason I revel in that darkness. Death and that which is taboo seem to be common discussio topics, I haven’t stopped talking about transhumanisim since I’ve heard about the robot a guy. At that same time, my cousin with collapsing lungs has my attention. The poor guy had both collapse about six months ago, and after several doctor visits, they’ve explained he is fine. This I consider an external crisis, we never really hang out or talk, but he’s in my life enough that I care for his well being. I’ve a lot of those. Everyone dies. It happens.

But my internal crisis are the ones that burn me the most. Those conflicts I cannot run from, and the repercussions of my own failings as a man of his day, those are the ones that bother me most of all. So much so that I avoid them, making them more severe.

Instead of leaving this all down on everything, and in many ways circling my own lines about dumb action heroes shoe horning in serious material, which I feel conflicted pointing out, but feel necessary to so so, I’ll leave with things I want in Duke Nukem Forever. I’ll limit the lost to ten things!

10: Duke shoots a guy, then says “I know Kung Fu!” that is a line from the matrix, a popular action movie from eleven years ago.

9: I want Duke to make jokes about Halo. Specifically the first one, which is now being remade. Maybe a line about a “chief masterbaiter.”

8: Duke says “why so serious” as he goes through that rape level. Like the joker in batman, several years ago. If they could aim it at Seeious Sam, that would be funny.

7: Duke to play with poop, and mention going postal. A refrence to postal 2 having urine, and Duke featuring dung.

6: “Welcome to urff!” as Duke Nukem kicks an alien in the face. Just like Fresh Prince in Independence Day.

5: How about a line about Duke hating grand theft auto? His car is stolen, and he hates that. See the joke is about a popular video game series, not vehicular burglary.

4: Any reference to Vin Diesel.

3: That Kid Rock song “forever” playing, or any Kid Rock song.

2: “oh my god, they killed kenny!” a joke even south park doesnt do so often.

1: If there is no “or else the terrorists win” line, I’ll be shocked. In 2001, a bunch of assholes flew airplanes into the world trade center. This event is known as nine eleven, and for the longest time things felt wired. People kept saying return to normal “or the terrorists win” which I don’t think will ever happen, how do we go back to normal after that? Postal 2, the standard at which I will judge Duke against had loads or material based on that.

I’ve said lots of things, but most of all, I’m still interested in this game. After so many years, and so much talk about how terrible it is, I’m incredibly anxious to see it. Will it be on par with Half Life from 98? Postal 2 from 2002? Will it be closer to Doom 3 from 2004? Could it be like Prey from 2006? Will it be like either Resistance or Killzone? Halo? Call of Duty? I don’t know. Everyone has said it isn’t what they were expecting, and here I am, at the time clock at work waiting to punch out and play this legendary game, I can’t help but think even the worst any game has to offer can be laughed at, not with, but at. Will I enjoy this game? I’ve disagrees with critical analysis of games before. I’m not even a big fan of first person shooters, most of my time with total meltdown was watching Ricky play as I laughed and occasionally played as I played all games: super aggressive, throwing caution out, and just running in guns blazing with Duke dropping one liners, just before I got stuck finding where to go, or died.

So yeah, Duke Nukem Forever is a game I’m ready to play. Now I’m sitting here with the game full blast, controller in hand. I am about to play, Duke Nukem Forever.

Friday the 13th part VI

Jason Lives, the subtitle from the film atply sums it up what this one was all about. The franchise was absolutely dead in the water with that fifth movie, which I never want to see or ever speak about again more than briefly dismissing it as terrible. I hate that fifth movie. All the momentum gained from three and four are lost, and the franchise felt soured. The storyline was worse than the usual bad storylines featured within these movies, and that is something I’ll absolutely have to elaborate on. Somehow, it involves a handicap school and Jason isn’t involved, having been killed by Corey Feldman in the fourth movie “once and for all.” It didn’t take them long to realize not featuring their villain in a Halloween 3 like mistake could ruin the franchise, and somehow the next year put out the greatest of all the Friday the 13th films. 

I won’t spoil everything from Friday the 13th Part VI for you, but I will go over some brief highlights of why this film is amazing. First of all, the way Jason comes back is ridiculous, but in a genre where a dog can piss on Freddy Kruegers grave in a dream and bring him back to life, this is exactly what I’m looking for from these type of movies. The more “out there” and wild things get, the more into it I can be. I love these sorts of moments, as people not into horror films usually rush for the chance to call them stupid or cheesey, as if anyone into the genre didn’t know that. If you’re not into crappy plot points, why would you want to watch a movie like this in the first place?

Beyond that, Jason manages to kill just about everyone in this movie without any effort at all. He kills mainly utilizing a spear for the majority of the film. For whatever reason, this amuses me and many people I speak to about the film. Furthermore, the film includes many humorous scenes such as a girl saying she knows how to survive horror movies by running away. By far the best is a bit of dialog where a guy says “why’d they have to go and dig up Jason?”  ”Some folks got a strange sense of humor!” Yes, I suppose some folks do. 

By far the most humorous thing about this entry in the series is, that is actually has scenes of Jason stalking through his beloved Camp Crystal Lake with actual children in attendance. Every other film has him doing that, but there are never any kids involved. Bringing a group of terrified children into the picture ups the ante, but never to the next level that a Steve Seagal movie does. Seagal movies have higher death counts than any Jason flick, and for whatever reason any kids or wives Steve has usually end up being violantly murdered. Jason just stalks around scaring the kids and killing the teenagers. It would seem out of character for Jason to just suddenly kill a bunch of kids, but never the less, just the hint that that could possibly happen makes this a more interesting movie than all the other Friday the 13th films. 

And I find this film hilarious. Go find a copy, and watch it! Tell me I’m wrong, agree with me about how brilliant this movie is, or whatever you want. Thing is, I think this is a really fun movie, that just about everybody has to watch. If you only watch one Jason movie on this most sacred holiday, watch Friday the 13th part VI: Jason Lives. 

About Me perfected

As I said in my previous tumblr post about writing about me, it is sort of a bullshit thing. As such, I like to use quotes for mine and I found a quote that beats out that comic book quote ten fold. Sure, I love that quote and it equates my feelings of dissociation with everything perfectly, but this one is so much more me without any pretentious thoughts or feelings, just a perfect descriptor for me. And I’m not even an actor!

The quote comes from Steven Seagal, whom you might know from his movies where he plays Steven Seagal ass-kicker.  I’ve never once seen a movie where he isn’t saying something delightful, a word I now say with some newly attached melancholy connotation, when he isn’t saying something delightful, he’s kicking someones ass. Which makes him awesome. No, he doesn’t need any fancy backstory or explanation of how he kicks so many bad guys asses, he just needs to be in a movie. Especially now that he’s over two hundred fifty pounds and still kicking ass!

And unlike most of the pussy heroes in action movies that don’t kill the bad guys, Steve is relentless. At some point in any Steven Segal movie, expect him to use a gun on someone, snap a neck, or maybe just throw a knife in someones neck. At any moment. If he walks into a store in the middle of the afternoon to buy a cartoon of milk, you know things are about to happen.

But this isn’t about my enthusiasm for Steve Seagal - no. This is about my enthusiasm for something he said. Which I will now use whenever I have to put an about me or bio for anything.

“I am hoping that I can be known as a great writer and actor some day, rather than a sex symbol.” Steven Seagal

Here’s hoping I get some more legitimate writing work where I’m asked for a bio. Without even a moments hesitation that is getting sent in.

Writing an About Me is bullshit.

Often on the internet, most places will have that section that has a big blank with the words “about me.” It assumes you’ll fill it out with something about yourself. Which is rather silly, because I don’t know about you reading this, but when I’m talking or writing about myself, I’ll tell the legend of randombullseye.

All the adventures of Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Sly Stallone are now my stories. I was not only bitten by a radioactive spider and have billions of dollars, but also came from an alien planet where I was king. At some point, I traveled back in time with my car to the medival ages. Kicking ass and taking names. Literally getting medieval on demons as I shot them to pieces with my boomstick. Then banged every playboy playmate, Robin Quivers, Barberalla (in zero gravity no less!), and the cast of that show with witches that got canceled, and all while Elvira was commenting on this.

Of course, all of that is bullshit.

That’s my life as perceived by the movies and TV. What really can you say about yourself that isn’t narcissistic? You’re either selling yourself short or overselling yourself. All these accomplishments, all your goals, or just a load of bullshit. That’s all a bio is.

Just a quick blurb about the author doesn’t really tell me anything about anyone. Read any blurb on the back of a comic by Alan Moore. Never mentions once his relationship with two chicks at the same time. Knowing he had two chicks at the same time and practices “magic” changes my perception of the guy. However, if you’ll read this quick blurb about him none of that is in there at all.

Taken from Amazon:

Alan Moore is one of the most respected and admired writers in comics today, with a host of industry awards and accolades. His credits include The Ballad of Halo Jones, Watchmen, V For Vendetta and Swamp Thing. He is currently working on his own line of comics, including Tom Strong and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

That seems like total fluff. Just a quick listening of some of his books and what he’s up to now. Nothing about banging two chicks or magic at all. However, reading any in depth fansite or interview and its all about the magic. The two chicks thing comes from an interview in this article.

“I was living then with my former wife Phyllis and our girlfriend, Debbie Delano in sort of a…experimental relationship, I suppose you’d call it. It was something we were very serious about, and it endured for two to three years, which was a mark of that seriousness” - Alan Moore

So in writing my own biography, I should disclose my own relationship history. It’s infinitely more interesting than plugging all the websites I wrote for or Abortion Man comics, or that I made Bonerquest. I tend to distance myself from the Abortion Man comics. I wrote them, I thought they were funny, but in looking back their in bad taste and poorly drawn. I would never erase them from history or not talk about them if asked, but I still rarely bring them up. Plus the limited print run on a joke publisher, the only types of publishers who publish stuff like Abortion Man, kind of puts a halt on anyone finding or reading my work there.

As for Bonerquest, I’m still working on it. In so much that I switched to XNA, then flash, then unreal, and now things have stalled completely. I don’t have the time to devote to this. If I could just throw a couple hundred dollars at a programmer and say “make it work.” I would do that in a second. Things aren’t terribly complex in the world of Bonerquest, but the dialog chains that drag on and on get confusing. And multiple endings don’t help either or the misdirection throughout the game. If I do get it finished, all the misdirection is the first thing to get tossed. People are too busy to understand confusion.

Simply selling yourself shot with something like awesome guy” doesn’t work. It doesn’t describe anything. Awesome used to mean something, it was the only term used to describe the power of god. Now it seems like an eighties surfer would describe seeing a woman’s breasts as, awesome.

I’ve always found it easy to go with a simple quote, the one I most famously used was from an Alan Moore book. It comes from the Watchmen, issue six. About half way down the page towards the middle of the book, you’ll find my quote. The quote that I always thought summed me up and made people get a sense of who randombullseye is and what he’s all about. It comes from the lunatic vigilante in the book while under psych evaluation.

Existence is random. Has no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose.

The idea that nothing is certain and that only what we imagine being there has no real meaning, other than what you assume its meaning to be. Which is pretty much how I feel about things. I can’t control nothing. I’m a joker who plays video games. There is nothing of meaning or significance, unless I say there is. Which brings me to writing a biography of myself.

This is the draft I’m considering:

When not playing video games or at their night job, Joshua Hayes can be found on twitter, their personal tumblr, doing a Friday video games column on nukezilla, or contributing articles about toys for Tomopop. Also an accomplished game developer, creating the critically acclaimed Bonerquest.

This leaves out the ten years I worked in comic books, my life with two chicks at the same time, my almost marriage with a live in girlfriend, my work as a telecommunication, all my radio broadcasting experience, beating Persona 3, my love for Godzilla movies, horror movies, my enthusiasm for Andy Capps Hot Fries, that I have no preference between Coke or Pepsi, that I don’t like voting, that I watch cartoons, or that I own a dachshund.

None of those facts break the surface of who I am or what I’m all about. None really dig into what my night job is either. For all that says, I could be a scientist hell bend on creating undead. Whose only work it is to eat the flesh of the living! But that’s nonsense. The reality isn’t as interesting as any bullshit I could come up with. I stay at home and play games until I either have to go somewhere to buy something or have to go to work. And either of those leads off into another answer, which could leave off elsewhere. Random patterns that have no meaning, save what we choose to impose.

ULTRAMAN!

So at FYE Saturday I got a DVD set of Ultraman. This is the very first Ultraman show, not counting the show that featured some Ultraman, Ultra Q. Confused yet? Me too. But I’ll try to explain all this.

Godzilla and giant rubber suits were popular in the sixties, and so they made a TV show called Ultraman to do it every week. Ultraman was the first series, followed by many, many more. In fact, Ultraman has the most spin offs of any show ever in the Guinesss book of records!

The basic idea is that Japan has a self defense force to deal wtih monsters, one of them gets the power of the “beta capsule” from a space alien who bonds with him somehow, which lets him turn into Ultraman. This is the only way they can really defeat the giant monsters, with their own giant monster. Normally he does a body slam followed by an energy attack to defeat his enemies. He does some taunting and suplexes as well, I love when he does those!

One thing I really enjoy is that the military doesn’t seem completely worthless. They have a jet plane. It might be a jet plane on a fishing line, but it is a jet plane. It seems to do some damage to the monsters. They also have bazooka lasers that they use, which also seem to hurt their enemies. I like that.

All my toy blog time has gone towards Ultraman toy hunting. Researching and finding different websites to find out whose who and whats what. The prices on the figures are pretty wild too. I didn’t expect them to be as cheap as they were, but they’re pretty affordable. Hopefully I’ll have a first Ultraman toy post ready soon and have all the first show watched. I’m going to order Ultraseven and Ultraman Returns, the two follow up series, and try to get a head start on that. 

If you’re into wrestling or remember whats it like to love giant rubber suit monsters, you’ll love Ultraman!

Tumblr

Today I signed up for Tumblr. Instead of having eight user blogs all over the place, on other peoples websites, I wanted to centralize my work. Almost like a portfolio. So instead of just reading my thoughts on horror movies, Japanese things, comic books, video games, movies, cartoons, and toys, you’ll be able to read all that in one spot.

Plus I’m using the real name instead of the nonsense screen name. Again, this is to be a good portfolio for myself. I told myself no blog stuff today and here I am signing up for tumblr.

A little about myself in bullet points:

• Play video games every day. A day without video games is a bad day.
• Horror films are my favorite movies. Best genre ever.
• Unless rubber suit “kajiu” is a genre of their own, then that is my favorite genre of film. Godzilla is the greatest character ever.
• I read a lot of comic books. Punisher being my favorite character.
• Love to look at toys but rarely purchase them.
• Worked on several comic books in the early 2000s for the internet and small press labels. Making me both an experienced writer and published.
• Writing for two of the greatest websites: Tomopop and Negative Gamer.  Bless Colette and Wardrox for hiring me and making me feel like what I say matters.
• My day job is at a grocery store working night shift stock crew.
• Hot Fries are the greatest thing in the world.
• My girlfriend and me own a dachund. Her name is Abbey. She looks like a weenie.

Other than that I don’t sleep or eat regularly. Usually one meal a day and two nap bursts are what I go for. I work at night, except two nights a week, and then during the day I’m busy with writing, as well as all the things I like to write about. Such as right now, I’ve Monster Zero on as I type this out.

Until next we meet later today, keep it real Tumblr.