Under The Wagon

Did I happen to mention I’m writing video games now?

It’s nothing much really.  [Looks at ground, shuffles feet bashfully]  I’m only contracted for a couple of months.  Shucks.  ‘Tain’t much to brag about no-how.

I’m lying of course.  It’s fucking awesome.

We moved to Seattle because Jay was hired by a video game company that wanted to make a legitimately funny game.  Jay happens to be a man who knows his fucking funny.    And it turns out the video game industry, unlike the publishing industry, is NOT a dying dinosaur slowly being eviscerated by the cruel, instant-gratification savagery of the internet. 

So it was a good move.

Jay’d been working with this company for nearly a year (half while we were still in New York), when a DIFFERENT video game company came looking for the funny.  Since the first company needed someone to do sundry edits and write a couple additional scripts for missions and stuff that got added on after Jay left, they asked him to suggest a replacement.

They DIDN’T tell him it had to be someone he has sex with, but lucky for me, Jay included that criteria himself.  Even luckier for me, apparently all the other people Jay has sex with are crappy writers.

 Awesometown.

 Anyway, it’s been going well, though I’m nowhere near as disciplined as Jay when it comes to working from home.  Especially since I keep claiming that any day I spend playing video games is “research.”  Considering the game is an open world adventure game with lots of sex, driving, partying and fighting, my marathon Bookworm Adventures and Peggle sessions strike Jay as rather specious at best.

 That said, I’m booting along, and so far everyone seems fairly happy with my work.  If nothing else, I think I’m a pretty fair hand at matching Jay’s style - mostly because I tried so hard to imitate it when I was first starting out.  Though apparently I’m dirtier (the title of this post is a direct quote from one of the game’s producers).  However, I think the team is almost pleased with that. 

“You know that horrible thing you wrote that no one with any respect for women, other cultures, or the mentally AND physically challenged would ever dream of saying?  Now if we get in trouble for it, we can say a woman wrote it!”

It’s good to be a chick.  And it’s even better to be a video game writer.  Hopefully I can keep it up.  Unless I have to go to rehab for Peggle or something.

(I’m halfway through the Challenge Levels!  Woot!)

Tags: General Musings by Karla Pacheco
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Comics oughta be fun.  That’s what the ever adorable Bully says every week.  He’s a cute little stuffed bull who talks about comics, and P.G. Wodehouse and…well, come to think of it, that all sounds insane, but I assure you, he’s awesome.

Today his “friend” John DiBello had a more serious note about why comic conventions oughta be fun, too.  For everyone.

Overheard at San Diego Comic-Con while I was having lunch on the balcony of the Convention Center on Sunday July 27: a bunch of guys looking at the digital photos on the camera of another, while he narrated: “These were the Ghostbusters girls. That one, I grabbed her ass, ’cause I wanted to see what her reaction was.” This was only one example of several instances of harassment, stalking or assault that I saw at San Diego this time.

1. One of my friends was working at a con booth selling books. She was stalked by a man who came to her booth several times, pestering her to get together for a date that night. One of her co-workers chased him off the final time.

2. On Friday, just before the show closed, this same woman was closing up her tables when a group of four men came to her booth, started taking photographs of her, telling her she was the “prettiest girl at the con.” They they entered the booth, started hugging and kissing her and taking photographs of themselves doing so. She was confused and scared, but they left quickly after doing that.

3. Another friend of mine, a woman running her own booth: on Friday a man came to her booth and openly criticized her drawing ability and sense of design. Reports from others in the same section of the floor confirmed he’d targeted several women with the same sort of abuse and criticism.

Quite simply, this behavior has got to stop at Comic-Con. It should never be a sort of place where anyone, man or woman, feels unsafe or attacked either verbally or physically in any shape or form. There are those, sadly, who get off on this sort of behavior and assault, whether it’s to professional booth models, cosplayers or costumed women, or women who are just there to work. This is not acceptable behavior under any circumstance, no matter what you look like or how you’re dressed, whether you are in a Princess Leia slave girl outfit or business casual for running your booth.

On Saturday, the day after the second event I described above, I pulled out my convention book to investigate what you can do and who you can speak to after such an occurrence. On page two of the book there is a large grey box outlining “Convention Policies,” which contain rules against smoking, live animals, wheeled handcarts, recording at video presentations, drawing or aiming your replica weapon, and giving your badge to others. There is nothing about attendee-to-attendee personal behavior.

Page three of the book contains a “Where Is It?” guide to specific Comic-Con events and services. There’s no general information room or desk listed, nor is there a contact location for security, so I go to the Guest Relations Desk. I speak to a volunteer manning the desk; she’s sympathetic to the situation but who doesn’t have a clear answer to my question: “What’s Comic-Con’s policy and method of dealing with complaints about harassment?” She directs me to the nearest security guard, who is also sympathetic listening to my reports, but short of the women wanting to report the incidents with the names of their harassers, there’s little that can be done.

“I understand that,” I tell them both, “but what I’m asking is more hypothetical and informational: if there is a set Comic-Con policy on harassment and physical and verbal abuse on Con attendees and exhibitors, and if so, what’s the specific procedure by which someone should report it, and specifically where should they go?” But this wasn’t a question either could answer.

So, according to published con policy, there is no tolerance for smoking, drawn weapons, personal pages or selling bootleg videos on the floor, and these rules are written down in black and white in the con booklet. There is not a word in the written rules about harassment or the like. I would like to see something like “Comic-Con has zero tolerance for harassment or violence against any of our attendees or exhibitors. Please report instances to a security guard or the Con Office in room XXX.”

The first step to preventing such harassment is giving its victims the knowledge that they can safely and swiftly report such instances to someone in authority. Having no published guideline, and indeed being unable to give a clear answer to questions about it, gives harassment and violence one more rep-tape loophole to hide behind.

I enjoyed Comic-Con. I’m looking forward to coming back next year. So, in fact, are the two women whose experiences I’ve retold above. Aside from those instances, they had a good time at the show. But those instances of harassment shouldn’t have happened at all, and that they did under no clear-cut instructions about what to do sadly invites the continuation of such behavior, or even worse.

I don’t understand why there’s no such written policy about what is not tolerated and what to do when this happens. Is there anyone at Comic-Con able to explain this? Does a similar written policy exist in the booklets for other conventions (SF, comics or otherwise) that could be used as a model? Can it be adapted or adapted, and enforced, for Comic-Con? As the leading event of the comics and pop culture world, Comic-Con should work to make everyone who attends feel comfortable and safe.

Of course, this leads to no end of jokes about the poor social skills of geeks and nerds (I prefer to make fun of retards).  But at the end of the day,  you don’t get a free pass just because everyone assumes you’ve never seen a breast in person before.   SDCC and the other cons need to make sure that there are rules in place to prevent this kind of shit, and most importantly, that people feel free to report it.  It’s not cute anymore.

I know that it’s a very small portion of the geek community are mouth breathing gropers.  I’m a comic geek, and I married one. 

 But Jay and I both know it’s just good manners to wait until you get home to furiously rub one out to the chicks dressed as Catwoman.

 Note:  I realize that my coming out against sexual harassment may well be reaching a new apex of hypocrisy.  Hell, back in the day, I think there were a couple of times where I inadvertently FORCED people to sexually harass me.  But hey, at least I always made sure there was a security guard standing by, in case the attention (mine and theirs) got out of hand. 

Besides, someone had to hold the camera.

Tags: Essays, Manifestos, & Unsolicited Opinions, General Musings by Karla Pacheco
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For the record, there’s nothing lamer than a post about why you’re not posting…

A very nice dude (”Jerod,” if that is your REAL name) who comments on The Stranger’s Blog apparently thinks I’m funny, and wondered why I hadn’t been posting much lately. So here’s the short list. It looks pretty much identical to the long list.

1. I’m happy. My marriage is awesome, the apartment is great, the dogs are hilarious. It’s hard to be all pissed at the world and feel like you need to write when you’re happy.

2. I’m depressed. The weather is shit, the dogs are a pain in the ass, the apartment needs cleaning (marriage is still good). It’s hard to summon the energy to write when you’re depressed.

3. I’m playing too many video games. We get a lot of them free now.

4. I’m actually writing for a video game, so playing them is research, therefore I can write-off all the ones that we don’t get free. To both the government and my husband.

5. I’m writing for a video game, so people are giving me money to write, therefore I should probably be doing more of that, instead of just playing video games. Or blogging.

6. Jay and I have been really social lately and I haven’t had much time to write.

7. I don’t get out of the house much lately and I haven’t had much to write about.

8. I’ve recently gotten totally obsessed with politics, but didn’t want to bore you with my opinions.

9. I realized EVERY blogger is boring you with their opinions. On a related note, despite the evidence above to the contrary, I’ve mostly been avoiding forums and comment sections of websites. The internet has just been pissing me off lately.

10. I dunno. Guess I didn’t feel like writing?

Anyway, I’m not sure how so many conflicting statements can be completely and utterly true at the same time, but there you are. It’s not like I have nothing to talk about…I mean, I accidentally (yet instinctively) caught dog pee in my hand the other day, and my cousin and I got shitfaced with our respective spouses and lit a bunch of stuff on fire at Kalaloch Campground last weekend…but right now?

I’m just fuckin’ tired, dude.  Oh, and TOTALLY drunk.

But thanks for hanging around anyway. You’re good people.

Tags: General Musings by Karla Pacheco
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Like most complexes catering to upwardly mobile urban professionals such as my husband (I’m more of a laterally meandering hanger-on), our apartment building likes to post little notices in the elevator. Sometimes it’s a sternly worded, disappointed sounding letter regarding people dropping “items” off their balconies (cigarette butts? Babies? No idea.), other times it’s a menu from the Asian place that I’m pretty sure is giving the manager a kickback.

Today’s offering was a weather forecast (Rain. Rain. Less Rain. Rain.) and a listing of concerts and events that would be of interest to upwardly mobile urban professionals. I got all excited when I saw “Dave Brubeck and Ramsey Lewis at the Paramount Theater, April 25th.”

This is not because of my overwhelming passion for Jazz, which would require a modicum of culture. It’s because I’m a retarded nerd.

When I read the name “Dave Brubeck,” my mind saw:

Ed Brubaker is a brilliant comic book author, and one of the best crime writers working in any medium today. Great, gritty stuff, like Gotham Central, Criminal, a great run on Daredevil…you should go buy some of his stuff right now. He lives in Seattle, and like any comic book geek, I keep hoping I’ll run into him one of these days so I can fan-girl out, though it will not be on April 25th at the Paramount Theater, because ED BruBAKER, while many fine things, is not a legend of Jazz.

Nor, as I first thought, is Ramsey Lewis this man:

Now it’s bad enough that I mistook another ancient Jazz legend for Gordon Ramsey, belligerent restaurateur of Hell’s Kitchen fame (though the BBC “Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares” is far superior, check it out if you get a chance).

But what the hell did I think Ed Brubaker and Gordon Ramsey would be doing together at the Paramount Theater?

Seriously, somehow I saw “Dave Brubeck and Ramsey Lewis,” mentally substituted a beloved crime writer and a British chef, then tried to give my brain a big “THUMBS UP! THIS’LL BE AWESOME!” signal. I mean, I was already reaching for my (Jay’s) credit card, for Christ’s sake. And then when I took a second to remind myself I’m a moron who should not be trusted to read (or buy) things properly, I was actually disappointed.

Pathetic.

Anyway, so it’s Jazz on April 25th, not whatever feats of book reading and obscenity laced cooking I was apparently hoping for. If you’ve got a modicum of upwardly mobile culture, you should probably go.

I’ll be curling up with the trade paperback of “Lawless” and DVR’ing some Hell’s Kitchen.

Tags: General Musings by Karla Pacheco
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So it turns out I’m not just humiliating my dogs (as you can see, yep, I made the costumes), now I’m actively trying to kill them.

I thought I was doing pretty well for the furry little bastards, what with 2 hours at the park every day, lots of toys and only the finest semi-premium dog food.

I mean, I check labels to make sure the main ingredient isn’t something like “sawdust and glass chips,” but I don’t buy it from the special dog bakery (That shit’s just for their birthdays, am I right? Christ, I hate me).  I love ‘em, but my eyes go buggy when I hear someone at the park talking about how “Dakota is SO picky! He hated Deluxe Lamb Fricassee, so I switched to Venison Party Platter, but it’s still a bargain at $200 dollars a week!” The one time Jay “Soft-touch for Big Puppy Eyes” Pinkerton bought the high-end stuff, the $6 bucks a can Cowboy Cookout and Turducken Supreme, Orwell had the worst, most eye-watering beef farts known to man or beast. Foul, lingering, MOIST, “when did a gut-shot raccoon defecate in my sinuses?” farts. And sure, Orwell loved the stuff, but I put my foot down and the little stink-machines get dry kibble now. The way I see it, dogs don’t get to be picky. I’ve seen Orwell and Edison happily munch down on enormous piles of sticks at the park, I’ve found yarn and entire metal screws in their poop, so I’ll be damned if they’re turning up their noses at grocery store puppy chow. That’s what I’m serving, that’s what they’re getting, if they don’t want to eat it, that’s their own damn problem. As you can tell, Jay and I will make awesome parents.

And yet, surprisingly, this was not what makes me the worst dog owner in the history of canine domestication.

I bought some TULIPS.

For the first time in our adult lives, Jay and I have a home that we can finally be proud of. Or rather, we have an apartment we could be proud of, if our furniture wasn’t still the craiglist and “oh look, someone left a perfectly good chair/bookshelf/prosthetic leg on the curb” findings of a 19 year old’s dorm room. We have a grown up apartment with arrested development furnishings. So we finally hit IKEA, just like any other 30-somethings that are still living like we’re 20-somethings. “Who cares if the furniture only lasts five years? We live in the NOW!”

We didn’t actually end up buying any furniture - between the two of us, you’ve never met a more indecisive, passive-aggressive pair of design-retarded nerds in your life. “That’s a nice couch.” “Sure, but I’m not convinced on those end tables. Are we allowed to buy it without the end tables?” “What the fuck is a “Grundung Schlormstang” anyway?” “I think it’s something they did to people during the Holocaust.” “Well…that makes sense, I guess.”

However, they ended up having some nice plants, so, taking baby steps, Jay and I snagged a pink wiggly thing, a purple froofy thing, and a couple of greenish leafy things. And finally, a cool vase thing that had tulips growing in it.

While I thought I was just “livening up the place,” little did I know I was actually DEADENING up my dogs. Deadening them up…to DEATH.

Inspired by our new, ultra-green lifestyle, I decided to tackle our patio. Living in Seattle, people have plants EVERYWHERE. I’ve been envying our neighbors’ lush evergreens and terracotta pots for the past 6 months, so I started looking up dwarf lemon trees and mongoloid firs to adorn our own balcony. But before I hit the “order” button (like I could be bothered to go to a damn garden store, I don’t buy tampons unless they’re online), I had a passing thought - “I should probably check and make sure none of these things are, you know, poisonous to the 20 pound idiots that eat everything in sight.”

Oh lordy.

According to the ASPCA, every plant you even THINK about putting in your house will kill the fuck out of your dogs.

Day Lily? Deadly.

English Ivy? Exterminating.

Fiddle-Leaf Philodendron? Phatal.

Deadly Nightshade? Well, I probably could have figured that one out on my own.

But tulips? For real? I mean, the things are fucking everywhere. But no, according to the site, canine consumption leads to “Intense vomiting, depression, diarrhea, hypersalivation, inappetence.”

I freaked out at first. Holy crap! I’m killing my dogs by even bringing a tulip within fifty feet of them. I’m worse than HITLER. At least the Jews sorta had to walk into the showers by themselves! [note: Should probably not say something as horrible as this, try to substitute less abhorrent thoughts before publishing.]

But then I thought about it some more. “Intense vomiting, depression, diarrhea, hypersalivation, inappetence.”

Depression? Really? REEEALLY? My dogs are gonna get DEPRESSED if they eat a goddamn tulip? Is it like the good Sylvia Plath depression where you’re really creative, or the bad depression, where you write a lot of meandering poetry that makes you want to kill yourself?

Plus, they might drool a lot (you know, like dogs) and they might not want to eat their boring-ass kibble (because I don’t buy them Turducken Supreme), and they might get the shits (which may or may not be related to the cubic ton of sticks and metal objects they eat on a daily basis). Also, Orwell pukes if he gets too hot, which he does at least once a week because he insists on running around the house non-stop and then burrowing under our down comforter with no air access for hours at a time (unlike Edison, who also likes burrowing under the covers, but always makes sure to poke his nose out at the edge of the bed, so he can, you know, breathe).

So basically, if I’m understanding this right…Dogs, if they eat tulips…might act like…dogs.

Fucking A.

Anyway, I DO want to, you know, not kill my dogs. And I try to make sure they don’t die on a daily basis. But as Jay put it so succinctly, “If the only thing stopping my dog from gobbling broken glass or lapping up a puddle of bleach is me reefing like a crazy guy on his leash, I’m curious how dogs have lasted as a species all these millennia when I wasn’t around to yank rat poison, car keys or pinless grenades out of their mouths.”

And to that list of puppy-killers, we apparently add tulips.

Ultimately, I did a lot of soul searching, and finally decided…Fuck ‘em. I want me a damn little lemon tree in a terracotta pot. I figure dogs were genetically engineered by humans to do and look like what we want, tiny little lemon trees were engineered to make me tiny little lemons on my balcony. I’m gonna let the dogs and the plants duke it out and see who Darwins who.

Either way, in the end, I should have some tasty eats!

P.S. Yeah, I got rid of the tulips.

Tags: Essays, Manifestos, & Unsolicited Opinions, General Musings by Karla Pacheco
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Turns out that bloggers are not changing the world as much as we thought/feared.

Damn, and here was I with all my “Major Media Can Suck My Ass” t-shirts.

Anyway, interesting article, kind of breaks down a lot of the things Jay and I tend to debate/discuss late at night, just laying in bed.

Wow. Our life is sad.

Tags: General Musings by Karla Pacheco
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