Lessons From L.A. Noire

The deeper I have delved into the darkside of Los Angeles, the more unfocused things have become.

With nine cases under my belt, I find myself currently working the Vice Desk. So far, in my career with the LAPD, I have learned:

All African Americans want to be like Shaft. Now I know that this game takes place in 1947, which is nowhere near 1971’s Shaft, but just hear me out. The African Americans in L.A. Noire are cool kats who enjoy stringing the f-word together in unique and creative ways. They be hustlers yo!
My police captain, who is Irish, is a foul-mouthed man who enjoys marrying religious imagery with the f-word. He also seems to have a penchant for drinking. Who would have thought?
Driving at high speeds and narrowly missing other cars is not a way to lose your license. If anything, as long as you don’t scratch the paint, you’re a war hero.
Perpetrators are going to run. You are going to have to chase after them. End of story.
If you visit a location once chances are you are going to visit that same location again. The second time you visit though things will fall apart and general chaos will ensue. Trust me.
Rain makes everything moodier and noir-ish.
Just when you think you are rid of one foul-mouthed partner, another one comes along. Kind of like real life.
The City of Los Angeles has always been a seedy place.

Sitting here at work watching the clock. In about an hour and 30 minutes I have an appointment with a surgeon. Hopefully a surgeon who has skills far greater than the ones I displayed playing Operation as a kid.

For most of my life, I have dealt with stomach issues. More recently, I have decided to get to the bottom of these issues and have since seen a gastroenterologist. After a bunch of fun tests, my doctor has concluded that my gallbladder is the problem. So today I am seeing a surgeon to see what can be done.

Part of me is nervous about having another surgery this year; the other part of me just wants the pain to go away in my stomach. Time seems to be slowing down as I get closer to going to this much anticipated appointment. I have to stop looking at the clock…

Update 9/30/11

My appointment went well. I will soon be parting with a not-so-valuable member of my body.

Career Ambitions: Part 1

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your Life.
The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t. -Sunscreen by Baz Luhrmann

When I was in elementary school, I wrote in my yearbook that I wanted to be a horse trainer. At the time, I was taking horse back riding lessons- I learned to ride bareback- and thought that that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. My passion for the American West and my constant consumption of Louis L’Amour novels further fueled this childhood dream.

Our career ambitions seem to change with age and the overall passage of time. By high school, I was convinced that I wanted to work as a killer whale trainer at Sea World. My love for the ocean, deep sea exploration, and the thought of living a laid back lifestyle in San Diego pushed me to actually check into this position. In my research, I learned that you have to be a certified scuba diver as well as an amazing swimmer. A degree in marine biology or psychology would also help with the selection process. Three things pushed me away from this potential field however:

I am not the greatest swimmer.
Outside of being a Sea World trainer, a degree in marine biology pays next to nothing. The only person I knew at the time, with a degree in marine biology, worked in a hazardous materials department due to pay.
I took a marine biology class at the junior college and barely passed. The class ate my lunch! The only reason I ended up passing was due to a girl I was sitting next to. Thankfully, she could easily follow along and was more than willing to help me. Lesson learned: Always sit next to the smart one.

Now I won’t lie, whenever I visit Sea World I still want to work there. Maybe not as a killer whale trainer but in some sort of deep sea explorer capacity. They have a department for that, right?

Satisfaction: Unquenchable in Thirst Like Death

Good morning,

Did you know that it is dark outside at 6am? Couple that with the freezing air conditioned air and you’ve got a certain someone who is not willing to surrender his blankets. This morning though, I got out of bed earlier than normal and ate breakfast with my wife. She had made a wonderful breakfast cake that tasted quite good! Afterwards, we dove into Proverbs 27. As we were reading, verse 20 really stuck out to me:

²⁰ Death and Destruction^[a] are never satisfied,
and neither are human eyes. (NIV)

Every day we hear about the latest death tolls and destructive forces menacing the planet. Death seems to have an unquenchable thirst. Think about this for a moment, every seconds 2 people die. In the time it will take me to write this over 1,200 people will have died. Weird to think that that many people can die within a ten minute span.

Destruction is also something that is constantly surrounding us. Places that have been untouched for over a hundred years are now experiencing the destructive forces of hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes. When destruction isn’t being caused by nature it is unfortunately being caused by fellow humans. War and terrorism seems to be a staple in our modern society. If it isn’t the United States fighting somewhere in the Middle East, it is some African country screaming out in pain under the latest warlord of the month. Death and destruction are universal, two forces constantly at work in our world.

So think about verse 20 again:

²⁰ Death and Destruction^[a] are never satisfied,
and neither are human eyes. (NIV)

Have you ever wondered why you’re never happy with the stuff you have? In the beginning you thought that, “If I just had this” you’d be made whole or at least happy. As you’ve grown older, you have discovered that this is not true. Just as death and destruction are never satisfied, neither will your desires for more. Ultimately, we can only find satisfaction in the Lord Jesus Christ.

¹¹ The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail. – Isaiah 58:11 (NIV)

²⁵ I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” – Jeremiah 31:25 (NIV)

The Collection Revisited

As I was reading an article by Syp over at BioBreak, from this past week, I suddenly had the urge to start collecting video games again. Different titles and systems paraded through my mind in all their 16-bit glory. I could see myself engrossed in games that I had loved playing as a kid.

Something stopped me though. I felt this weird sense of deja-vu. I have been down this road before. Now, I’m not saying anything negative against Syp, I think that it is great to collect different things that interest us. For me though, collecting video games became more of an identity. It was who I was. In fact, I wrote about it back in January of this year as copied below:

The Collection

Once upon a time, I collected video game systems and games as a hobby.

video game collection — Please note that my collection never looked like this...I wish!

I slowly built up my collection over time. A SEGA Saturn here; a random game there. Often I would plug in a misc. system and play some of the games I had for the fun of it. As time progressed, however, I found that my collection was gathering dust. Mt interests had changed. I mean, I still liked playing video games but didn’t feel the need to collect them anymore. So, I started to sell off the mounds of hardened plastic I had accumulated. I remember that upsetting me at first. No longer would I be able to play Panzer Dragoon for the heck of it. The collection that had been everything to me was being dwindled away into nothing.

We all find our identity, who we are, in the things that we believe and do. For a long time, my identity had been as a video game collector. With the selling of my collection, that was a title I would no longer bear. Perhaps this was a good thing though. Collecting chunks of plastic, consoles and games, only to let them collect dust and ultimately not be played makes no sense. It’s like me going into the public library, buying all the books up, only to never read them or let anyone else read them for that matter. “Captain it is simply not logical.”

Since the great video game purge, I have tried to limit my video game library. I have done this by becoming an avid user of Goozex, on online video game trading site. This has allowed me to obtain $60 games by getting rid of games that I no longer play. This has occasionally led me to slight dilemmas of which games to get rid of -the inner collector in me wanting to keep them all!- . As I stated above though, this makes no sense. Especially when I can take a game I no longer play and trade it in for something I actually will.

JohnnyBGamer