Belligerence Theory

The Belligerence Theory states that people have the innate compulsion to disrupt or Hulk-smash the natural order of a given situation. Men, women, and children will induce chaos in order to satisfy their own sadistic, hedonistic urges. Put simply, when presented with a Lego city scape, the typical human being will "fuck that shit up."

The Belligerence Theory is evident and almost always demanded in various, video game franchises.

In Rampage, your goal is mass destruction. You, the player, control raging monsters in a super-belligerent mission to annihilate digital representations of real, existing cities. Your actions include car-crushing, building-punching and people-munching. Actions are rewarded with points and level progression. In Rampage, the choices are simple: demolish or be demolished.

In Burnout, you are the Michael Bay of luxury sedans. Your task is to calculate the degree to you which you can piss off insurance companies by instigating car accidents—with your own car. Possible actions include ramp-jumping, fuel-tanker collisions, car-crashing, and, uh, more car-crashing. Points are awarded in proportion to the level of damages you inflict on property, other vehicles, and yourself. In-game physical laws are vivid and hyper-realistic. Newly damaged cars are magically repaired at the beginning of each stage, as it is in real life.

The key element of Belligerence Theory is "unethical eradication," i.e., the deliberate disregard for human and inanimate life. Many of today's games require the maiming of digital but very fluid, life-like entities. In Call of Duty, you must compromise terrorists, helicopter, and dogs. In Worms and Gunbound, you hurl explosives at each other in lateral, platform madness. And in Grand Theft Auto, you are graced with the ability to destroy hookers with pimp-like passion.

This argument challenges Romero's Tidiness Theory. Use of the metaphor "cleaning" in explaining violence compromises any sense of ethical wrongness. Stabbing a Russian soldier is not "scrubbing," it is killing. Punching a hole through a building is not "renovating," it is mass destruction. And eating a maze worth of pellets is not "sweeping," it is gluttony.

The Tidiness Theory, according to Romero, posits that self-improvement is justified at the expense of others. What of worms killed-in-action who cannot return to their families? What of the city zoning permits that Rampage creatures so readily invalidates? (Oh yeah. And the people inside.) What of the dogs brutally assaulted in PaperBoy? These digital creatures matter, too. His theory disregards the sentiments of said victims and fails to address the destructive potential of man's actions.

Progression of my Brain: Philosophies throughout the Years

Video games are...

• My life. (Age 8)
  
• Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter; Battletoads and Double Dragon. (Age 9)
  
• Squaresoft RPGs and turn-based battles.(Age 12)
• Late night Super Smash Brothers tourneys. (Age 17)
• Escape devices through which I live alternate identities, i.e. The Sims, Oblivion. (Age 20)
  
• An art form and, thanks to Yahtzee, artifacts worthy of criticism and praise. (Age 22)
  

Music is...

• Mom's lullaby. (Age 2)
  
• Road trip mix tapes—ABBA, Beethoven, Bee Gees, Chicago. (Age 6)
• Old (here, current) school R&B—The Fugees, Boyz II Men, TLC. (Age 8)
  
• Emo—Dashboard Confessional, Bright Eyes, Something Corporate. (Age 13)
  
• Punk rock—Yellowcard, Linkin Park, Avril Lavigne. (Age 14)
• Break beats and techno—Kaskada, Robert Miles, Bobby Byrd. (Age 17)
  
• Classical—Nobuo Uematsu, Mozart, Yasunori Mitsuda. (Age 18)
  
• Japanese—Nujabes, m-flo. (Age 19)
  
• Eighties rock—Blur, Journey, Boston; Death Cab for Cutie; John Legend. (Age 20)
  
• Flight of the Conchords; Guitar virtuosity—Tommy Emmanuel, Andy McKee. (Age 21)
  
• The Beatles; Indie rock—Local Natives, Fleet Foxes. (Age 22)
  

School is...

• Life. (Age 7)
• A distraction from cartoons and video games. (Age 10)
• Dodgeball and flag-football (Age 13).
  
• JROTC. (Age 14)
• From a distance, the primary means to financial stability. On closer inspection, a breeding ground for pretentious intellectuals and social elitists; petri dish of the tech industry; just another business. (Age 19)
  
• A great place to meet fun and interesting people; my personal library and playground. (Age 22)

Girls are...

• Icky. (Age 5)
  
• Targets of harassment and fart jokes. (Age 7)
  
• Cute. (Age 13)
• Beautiful goddesses. (Age 16)
  
• Unattainable. (Age 18)
  
• Unrelenting, needy, self-righteous, self-serving twats. (Age 21)
• Intuitive but moody creatures; Nature's bees, burdened with the responsibility of labor; God's gift to nature and men...and lesbians; future mothers of our children (Age 22)
  

Religion is...

• Going to church and eating crispy slices of bread. (Age 6)
  
• Jesus. (Age 7)
  
• Forty beads and sixty minutes. (Age 10)
  
• Twenty-six pages. (Age 12)
  
• No longer important at a public high school. (Age 14)
  
• Illogical; based on superstition and unreliable sources. (Age 16)
  
• Guidelines miserable people use to make sense of a painful, stressful life. (Age 18)
  
• The reason why my parents and I fight. (Age 19)
  
• What gets my mom through the day. (Age 20)
  
• From a cultural perspective, unique; in its own way, a science and a magic; belief worth respecting. (Age 22)
  

Love is:

• Mom. (Age 4)
  
• A power that conquers all. (Age 8)
• Corinthians 13. (Age 14)
  
• A Hallmark marketing device. (Age 16)
• Often unrequited; short-lived. (Age 19)
  
• The chemical incentive for a biological imperative. (Age 21)
  
• A breeze of energy—something for which you should be grateful when it comes and accepting when it leaves; my family's concern; and her smile. (Age 22)
  

Life is...

• Street hockey. (Age 6)
  
• School. (Age 7)
  
• Video games and school. (Age 8)
  
• Skateboarding and sleeping in class. (Age 16)
  
• Breakdancing...and sleeping in class. (Age 17)
• Love. (Age 18)
  
• The end result of universal happenings upon happenings, the origins of which we will probably never truly understand, the occurrences of which have endlessly relative meanings and interpretation. (Age 21)
• Best kept simple. (Age 22)

Because the unexamined life is not worth yadda-yadda-yadda: a year in review

Are you happy for the New Year?
I don't like arbitrary labels. And I'd rather not get into the semantics of happiness. Happiness is just not that simple. So I'll just say "Gummi Vites."

What will you do for New Year's?   
Watching a pyrotechnic disco ball slide down an elongated shaft, not making any sexual references whatsoever.

What year is it/will it be?   
The Year of the Awesome. Tiger, that is.

Did you make a resolution last year?     
Yes. To get horrendously jacked. Of the mind.

What is your resolution this year?   
To dress cleaner, more professionally. If my job permits, however, I'm wearing pajamas all day.

Do you ever actually work on your resolutions?   
As much as I work on my laundry—infrequently with a touch of fabric softener.

How was the Old Year?   
Enduring and at times jolting. Like a Duracell battery...hooked via jumper cables to your spine.

How do you think the New Year will be?   
I think it'll last for 365 days.

Anything you didn't get to do?
Kick a midget.

Anything you want to do? 
I think it's about damned time I learn Canon in D already.

What was the best part of the Old Year?
Cancun with Juce and Chris.

What are you most excited about for the New Year?   
Hunting for a post-college job. No, I'm not being sarcasmic at all.

Your best friend of the Old Year:   
Failure. Okay, I'm kidding. Can't say. And I'd rather not get my friends riled up about it. So I'm going to go with temporary pet squirrel Optimus-Prime-Watson-Adam.

Your favorite thing to do in the Old Year:   
Late night hookah with Adrian and Salud.

Best memory:   
I'd choose one with her.

Worst memory:   
Not having enough best ones.

Most embarrassing:   
I got completely trashed on Adrian's birthday and puked everywhere. When my friends gave me Gatorade I started puking that out. It was the first time I vomited because of alcohol. And, arguably, Gatorade.

Thing you're most proud of:   
Can't remember. Say, do you guys remember who won Battle of the Barrios this year?

Something you learned:   
Don't go wandering around the streets of New Brunswick or Jersey City alone at night.

Something random:   
A non-sequitur. And Tourette's.

What was the biggest surprise of last year?
Michael Jackson's death. And then Kanye's subsequent idiocy at the VMA's.

What was the best song of last year?
Local Natives "World News." Though Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me" comes pretty damn close.

What was the best TV show of last year?
I don't watch much television. If I had to pick, I'd say House. Or Gurren Lagan.

What was the best book you read last year?
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. If you haven't heard of it, just buy the damn book and read it.

What was the best film of last year?
The first ten minutes of "Up."

What change would you like to make to your life next year?
I want to be more productive artistically. I've been holding back a lot—blogs, sketches, short-stories—for fear of criticism but me thinks I shouldn't give a shit so much anymore. Three or four published pieces a week?

What change would you like to see in the world next year?
World peace via nukes that detonate rainbows and butterflies. I'm actually quite serious.

Any final thoughts?
The new year is an astronomical checkpoint to which we often attach some arbitrary desires for change. This is a comforting thought and all, but come the second week of 2010, you'll probably be doing the same damn things, believing the same damn beliefs as you did last year. New Year changes are only as significant as you make them. Should you plan a goal, make it attainable. And then make it happen.

For your eyes only.

Relevant Rantings

When one is outgoing, he/she is considered to be friendly. When one is introverted, does that mean he/she is ingoing?

A fireplace is really just an open stove with better back-lighting.

Whoever thought of the word fireplace is either a mad genius or a lazy bastard.

If adamant alternatively means to be stubborn and if Wolverine possesses adamantium claws, does that mean Wolverine uses "angry nails?"

I find a cappella songs are really easy to play on the piano.

It's impossible to have safe sex on a creeky bridge. Or is it?

Person who share your name = namesake. Person who looks like you = face-sake?

If you don't know the correct pronunciation of the word swatter then you disgust me.

I got a Facebook for the sole purpose of wanting to be able to say, "Stop poking me." But now that I have a Facebook, no one's poking me anymore. In real life, I mean.

Sometimes I mistake the fridge for something else, like a counter or my eyeglass case. Objects I have accidentally placed in my refrigerator: eyeglasses, a steaming cup of hot chocolate, a pencil, and a box of Honey Bunches of Oats.

A long overdue Christmas list

From freshman year high school to junior year college, I had stopped making Christmas wish lists. This is on account of several reasons.

1. My wish lists have consisted of outrageous, nearly impossible demands. For instance: girlfriends, bodyguard monkeys, and the ability to shoot fire from my hands.
2. Coming from less privileged roots, my parents have often shot down the majority of my holiday wishes. I have accepted that high-priced items are nigh-impossible to acquire, at least, by any fair means.
   
3. I don't believe any gift will make me as happy as imagine them to be. In my mind, good friends, good exercise, good adventures, and good lovin' are the true components of happiness.

Because of these reasons, to me, Christmas, as it should be, has become more a holiday of substance than one of materialism.

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Damn right, Charlie Brown.

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But that doesn't mean I'm a completely wantless guy. There are things I would very-much appreciate, that, had I been in baby Jesus's shoes, would have very much liked the Magi to deliver unto my stable.

So in the spirit of change (and partial selfishness), I have decided to post a list of my Christmas wishes in the hopes that someone out there can fulfill one of these wishes or, at least, point me in the direction of acquiring them.

These wishes read as such.

• A laptop. With my ADD becoming more progressively erratic, I have been in dire want of a portable word processor capable of keeping up with my sporadic thoughts. PCs are too damn heavy. And paper and pen just don't cut it anymore. A laptop would provide a generous outlet to my surging thoughts.
  
• A Swiss Army knife. If you venture into the wilderness/ghetto/parties as much as I do, then you'd understand why I need to carry pliers/a blade/a corkscrew with me at all times. These things are damn useful.
• An electric keyboard. I picked up the piano last year and have since fallen in love with its ivory touch. The catch? My piano back home is horrendously out of tune and the one that was loaned to me is on the verge of breaking. As beautiful as lobby pianos sound, I don't want to rely on venturing to my old dorm lounge for a chance to make music.
  
• A car. Or as early twentieth century historians call it, THE big ticket item. Not having a car in a suburban setting—with suburban friends—really demonstrates how vital it is toward fulfilling, well, basic living needs. Personal transport is more valuable than many of us afford it credit.
  
• A bookshelf. I am a voracious reader. If I could compare myself to any fictional character, it would be Henry Bemis of the Twilight Zone—you know, the book warm who survives a nuclear blast and basks in his newly afforded reading time, that is, until he ends up breaking his glasses. Ahem. But I digress. With over two hundred odd books in my collection, I would like some means, of organizing/displaying my knowledge out in the open. It's difficult to share your love of books with others when they can barely make it through your stockpile.
• Job referrals. With about three hundred dollars to my name, a steady income would do wonders for my checking account. And seeing as how I don't really spend much on anything else but food, simply put, a weekly paycheck equals another month at, well, living.
  
• Cargo sweatpants. The amalgamation of my love for comfortable clothing and unnecessary pockets. Nothing says sleepy pack-rat than this underrated article of clothing. I feel naked with only two pairs.
• A digital SLR and a 50mm lens. Not many people know this, but I'm a huge, photo-geek. In my rare hours of boredom, you can find me perusing the weekly highlights of flickr and crying because my CyberShot can only hope to capture visual milestones with such clarity. The most expensive item on my list and but definitely NOT the most desired.
• A bottle of liqueur, like Tequila Rose, Kahlúa, Allen's, or Bailey's. I don't need to explain the necessity of alcohol to a college student, do I?
  
• And lastly, soft-baked chocolate chip cookies. Because nothing says "I love you" more than a gooey mouthgasm in, as my friend JR says, "yo' mouf."

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Heart shape not necessary.

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That's it for now.

Though I acknowledge Christmas as an idealization of "what really matters," it would be nice for once to get something this Christmas that I have, before December 25th, actually wanted. If nothing else—if not the laptop, my lethal Swiss Army knife, or my bodyguard monkey—then by God, I want my cookies.

I promise to share them with those I love.

21 Questions

"It's a plant," he says and our game begins.

"Is it taller than the average human adult?"

"No."

It's small. Excellent.

"Is it poisonous?"

"Yes."

I smile, but I am clueless as to what it is. I am clueless at the realization that I know jack shit about poisonous plants. It's just something I don't know nor would care to find out given the time and energy to. I feel as though I've already lost—but the stubborn jerk in me refuses to concede defeat so early in the game.

"Is it a flower?"

"Yes."

If I don't know anything about poisonous plants, I most certainly don't know anything about poisonous flowers. I'm a dead man on legs. But I continue. Pause for thought.

"If you were a pharmacy major, you would know this," he tell me.

His comment is patronizing. For one, he enunciates every consonant with razor sharpness, evoking the stereotypical nerdiness you'd only find in an exaggerated, family sitcom. The typical American college student does not enunciate so it's a well known fact that when you sharply pronounce your words, you give off one of two vibes to your audience: a) I am a foreigner and I have no idea how to speak your language or b) I am smarter than you and you must hear it in my verbal precision. This man is no Mexican.

Secondly, I had told him fifteen minutes earlier that I was a communication major and that I was into the arts—of course I wouldn't know the answer. But maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. Maybe he forgot that fact. Or maybe he assumed that I was as smart and as knowledgeable as I pride myself in being. Or maybe—just maybe—he's the elitist I'm pretty sure I made him out to be and, at the moment, is. Regardless, I withhold my belligerence.

"Hold on," I tell him.

I might know this. I pause again and my random thoughts lead me to "Breath of Fire III," a video game I once played back in high school. In it, there's an item that inflicts instant death on an enemy, an item I clearly remember being a poisonous flower. It had a pleasant-sounding name, something with a tint of renaissance and royalty. I enter dork mode, replay the game in my head, and in seconds, the name comes back to me.

Yes. I am a huge nerd.

"Is it belladonna?" I say, grin across my face.

"No, but that's a good guess."

"You're a bitch," I silently speak.

In anger, I throw a reckless question.

"Is it colorful?"

"Yes."

His response doesn't help me because relative, subjective questions like "Is it colorful?" are vulnerable to misinterpretation. I don't normally ask relative questions but I lost my temper. I gather my thoughts again but he interrupts me.

"Yeah. It's difficult playing this game with me because I pick really esoteric topics."

Translation—I'm an intellectual jerk and I want to watch you suffer trying to figure out the answer to a question I'm confident you don't know.

Translation—I'm going to play a game you won't win because it validates my ego.

Translation—If you were blind and deaf, I'd danced circles around you and spout acidic remark about your mother.

Translation—I'm being a prick and enjoying every second of it.

I can't take his arrogance any longer—it's time for the forbidden question. It's a question that I'm pretty sure, in the judicial spectrum of guessing games, would be illegal enough to get me arrested in thirty-five states. It's a question that would most likely invite a huge "what the fuck" from "Twenty-One Question" purists and beckon a mob beating from twenty-one different angles. It's a question, I myself, am uncomfortable using but find myself employing because the man in front of me is playing me like a piano. Enough games, already. I throw out the trump card.

"Does it start with any of the letters from A-K?"

And for the first time since our work shift started, since the thermometer hit forty, since we started this little game about half and hour ago, since the rain start coming down, since the time I labeled him to be a humorless, spineless intellect, a person incapable of real laughter—he chuckles. Heartily.

"That's a really good question."

I turn to him with a found dumbness.

"Was it?"

"Yeah," he agrees. "Does it start with the letters from A-K? I would have never thought of using that! That question drastically narrows down the possible answers! Oh boy. I've got to try that next time!"

We both laugh. I laugh at the realization that this nerd is actually capable of laughing and I'm sure he's laughing at the irony of how someone who throws out aimless answers is capable of cleverly cheating the system on which Twenty-One Questions is based. Our reasons for laughter are, at core, different but both acknowledging of the other's potential. It's a feeling that comes with finding out something redeeming about someone you loathe, the kind of relief that comes with finding out the bear trap that's crushing your leg is doused with soothing morphine.

It makes you feel warm and gushy on the inside.

After our chuckling episode, the game continues and I continue to guess with amazing inaccuracy. After ten minutes of stumbling through floral obscurity, I finally concede.

"So what was it?" I ask.

"It was foxglove."

And all I can ask myself is, "What the fuck is a foxglove?"

You bastard.

Not meant for your leg

There's another hole in my pants. The incense burnt a freaking hole into my pants.


Ahem. Excuse the brashness. Let me explain.

You see, I take excellent care of my clothes. I launder my T-shirts, fold my underwear, and iron my dress shirts when necessary. (And sometimes, when I'm feeling extra nurturing, I tuck my socks in at night.) But for some God-forsaken reason, I can't seem to protect my damn pants from getting holes drilled into them.

(As odd as that sounds.)

Victim #1. Gap khakis.

Sometime in high school, my friend Bryan lent me his mountain bike for test-cruising. Seeing this as an opportunity to polish my long-rusty biking skills, I road around his block at slow velocity. On the second lap through, however, my leg sleeve got caught on the bike chain and—well, let's put it this way: when you thread loose textiles through a high speed conveyor, the end result is something of a giant sewing machine. The sleeves were obliterated forcing me to duct tape my pants from the thigh down. (The tape failed eventually forcing me to simply roll them up—like shorts.) And no—I could not sew the pants back together.

Victim #2. Blue, newly bought sweatpants.

Junior year college was the year of the long board. My friends and I shredded campus facilities with illegal but extreme veracity. Cruising through lobbies, slamming into walls—it was as tasteless and unbelievable as old sitcom humor. Anyway, one day, on my way to class, my friends dared me to ride a long board while lying on my stomach. Given my experience at the time, it should have been a simple task. But it wasn't. I was cruising peacefully on my belly until the board started to jolt—my sweatpants had gotten caught on the hind right wheel. The result? A thigh hole the size of a tennis ball.

Victim #3. Hand-me-down corduroys. And me.

Feeling generally shitty about financial life and needing to clear my head, I took a stroll down to my old grammar school—at the peak of midnight. Mind you, I don't live in a peaceful, mild-mannered suburbia—I live in Jersey City next to one of the most ghetto neighborhoods in town. However, that risk did not process. In my depressed state, physical safety and logic were the least of my concerns. Needless to say, fate paid me for my recklessness and I was eventually mugged. In the ensuing scuffle for my wallet, the thugs ended up tearing a near perfect strip along my corduroy belt line. In layperson's terms, the tear left my ass completely exposed.

As odd as that sounds.

Victim #4. Green cargo pants from Goodwill.

In need of a wardrobe revamp, my friend Adrian and I visited the local thrift store searching for some low-budget treasures. My gold came in the form of well-fitting, green cargo pants. At five dollars, the purchase, I felt, was a steal. That was, until I got back home and realized that the there was a hole on the right ass cheek. With no bike chain or long board in sight, I could safely assume the hole had been there all along. But I guess that was my fault for not checking.

Victim #5. Gray sweat pants.

I enjoy neutral colors because of their visual versatility. Maybe that's why I was so keen of the gray sweat pants I had recently purchased at Modell's—they were soft, cheap, and great as pajamas. Anyway, one quiet night, my friend had the pleasant idea of lighting incense cones on one of my storage shelves. With no free candle holder in sight, she opted to make one out of thick, cardboard like paper. (You see where this is going.) Attention diverted, we left the incense until, of course, the smell of smoke began proliferating throughout the room. To my chagrin, the incense cone had burnt a hole through the makeshift concoction and, after falling though my cage of a shelf, had burnt a similarly-shaped hole—yeah—through my coveted, gray sweat pants.

Another thigh hole.

A word of advice to you (and to myself): take care of your pants. And they'll take care of you.