XLVI.
Posted by Jeff Craven on January 20th, 2009 filed in Humor, LifeComment now »
So my friend James wakes me up at 3 pm with a question worthy of a quest:
“Dude, want to go to Arby’s?”
At the time, it didn’t seem like a bad idea. In retrospect, it still doesn’t seem like a bad idea. Arby’s is pretty awesome: chicken sandwiches, beef and bacon sandwiches topped with cheddar cheese, curly fries. I hadn’t eaten yet, and it sounded fucking delicious, so why not?
Why not indeed. The next four hours would teach me exactly why not.
I had agreed to go with James without having looked outside. I hadn’t actually checked the weather in a couple days. There was no need, really. I hadn’t been out of the house, and the whole of my time was mostly spent playing my 360. (Mirror’s Edge and techno really do go great together, FYI. If you ever get a chance, try it. It’s basically the new black.)
So, I part the window blinds delicately, in much the same way I would part a sexy woman’s labia, to find that it was snowing. Quite hard. I shut the blinds to think of the last time I saw more than three inches on the ground in my town. Two, maybe three years ago?
“James, it’s fucking snowing outside.” A pause on the other line.
“Yeah, yeah. I know. But the roads won’t be that bad. I mean, it’s like three in the afternoon, come on.” My mind, still in its post-REM state, could not think of a sufficient reason to object. James is a good driver, and I trust him more than I trust myself on the road. My reflexes are second to his. If anyone could make it to Arby’s, it would be him, so why not?
James informs me as I step into his ‘04 Focus that he saw about a half dozen accidents on the way over, and witnessed one himself. “People are fucking stupid when it comes to driving in snow,” he says, “I’m at least 50 feet away from the next car ahead of me while other people are just bumper to bumper.” As we pull out of my development onto the main road, James spins his tires so it throws the car forward out of the snow and onto the road.
Why not indeed.
He’s right, though. I can’t imagine anything that tests a driver more than snow. Not only do most people not know how to react to their brakes locking up, but they don’t know how to stop themselves from hydroplaning. They also don’t know how to react to other people swerving on the road, assuming that everyone around them is going to be a constant while they’re the variable. Wrong, bitches: on the road, everyone’s a variable, all the time.
I should bring up now to stir up controversy that most of the accidents we saw along the way were the result of women drivers. Sorry, ladies, that’s not sexism, just hard facts based on observation. If you want to prove that you’re not abysmal drivers, start by not having accidents.
James decides to take 202, since that’s how he knows to get to this Arby’s. Having no idea where the restaurant is, I agree and take his iPod Shuffle into my hands. One of the perks of his co-op, besides having entire days where he and his team did nothing but sit on their asses, was getting an iPod Shuffle for free. It’s not the most expensive or even the most intuitive version of the iPod, but its 1 GB capacity holds enough music for our 20 minute ride. So, the auxiliary cable switched on, and techno music blared from the speakers.
James and I enjoy techno a great deal. Neither one of us really go out to clubs (I especially don’t) but we enjoy club music because of what it is at its core: music you can enjoy. Easy listening. Perfect driving music.
This music would be repeated several times throughout the trip. Our first realization that our trip wasn’t going to be as smooth as we thought was when we hit 202, a major highway/byway in Southeastern PA.
It wasn’t plowed. Not in the least. The only way we even knew we were on the right side of the road, let alone in the right lane, was by seeing the tracks left by the cars before us. So, like kids who jump in the footsteps of their parents in the snow so as to not disturb the sanctity of a fresh snowfall, we jumped in the footsteps of trucks, SUVs, and struggling cars as we made our way southward on 202.
It’s still snowing pretty hard. Traffic is jammed, and I’m starting to doubt our quest. I make a joke about Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and how maybe our trip to Arby’s could end up just as ridiculous, but then I realize how retarded hang gliders are and shake that thought away. We pass an SUV that missed its left turn and is lying sideways in a ditch, with several trees on the roadside acting as a makeshift hammock for the fallen vehicle. Maybe there’s hope yet.
One thing you won’t find on the road in a lot of places are horses. Like, actual horses used for transportation to get from here to there. Horses are about as common as bicycles here: you don’t see them very often, but when you do, it’s not surprising. We pass a sign that tells us to watch out for people on horseback. I imagine how awesome it would be to ride a horse to Arby’s and James comments on how hilarious it is that mass transit can be crippled like this with just a half foot of snow. He has to catch a train later tonight and has no idea if the station is even open with this weather. While it may seem absurd that a train station would just up and shut down, a simple Google search for “SEPTA” and “transit problems” will highlight his concern.
James gets a call on his cell phone. It’s his mom. Something you need to know about Asian mothers, if you didn’t already know: they want to know exactly where their children are, at all times. Even if that means putting them in ridiculous danger by having them answer their phones while driving on unplowed roads. “No, we’re still going to Arby’s. No, mom, I’ll make my train in time. The roads aren’t plowed because it’s Martin Luther King day. Yes, we’re almost there. Okay, bye.” James got no less than four calls from his mom the whole trip, and the conversation stayed like that verbatim. I pretended to fiddle with his Shuffle. Kamelot is pretty awesome, though not techno.
Then we get to the hill. The hill. What some car illiterate people might not know about a Ford Focus from its description alone is that it is not a winter car. Hell, it’s not even a rain car. James had put on summer tires that were apparently “well-equipped” for dry roads but absolutely sucked for anything else. The car is also a manual, which means James has to have his foot on the clutch at all times while shifting gears to try to get his shit up the hill. James keeps it at a steady three thousand RPM, both of us not knowing if we are going to suddenly slip down and crash into the BMW behind us, who also had a similar problem. Great sports car, terrible for anything but sunny skies.
It takes us a whole fucking lot, but we’re inching up slowly as the engine strains prodigiously at the wheels turning up nothing but snow and slush. We’re gaining no traction. Trees go by, albeit very slowly. I laugh at the absurdity of a ten thousand dollar car rolling down a hill and taking out the cars below like bowling pins. After twenty minutes and a check engine light, ABS light and brake light, we’re up past the hill while the BMW, either in a moment of fear or caution, is still at the bottom of the hill, holding up traffic for at least a mile. God speed, BMW. God speed. James muses aloud about whether the trip was a bad idea or not. I muse aloud whether Arby’s is even open because of the snow.
“Dude, I would be fucking pissed. Don’t even joke like that.”
Why not indeed.
James makes a few wrong turns, but we end up on the right road to Arby’s. By now, it’s about 5 pm. We left my house around 3:30 pm. A twenty minute trip took about five times longer than it should have. It’s now rush hour, and we’re getting some of the traffic coming home from Philadelphia and King of Prussia. Suddenly, I have a genius thought.
“Shouldn’t we be listening to the traffic reports instead of your Shuffle?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. Here, let me change it.” He takes his eyes off the road and starts pressing buttons, which only seem to change the quality of the music coming from the speakers, not the inputs themselves. Loud, vocal, bass, stereo. Is he even paying attention to the road?
“No, no. That’s okay. I can figure it out,” I say, shushing his hand away and finding the right button. The sweet sounds of KYW, the local AM radio station, crackles in the car. Growing up on KYW, there is not a more soothing sound in the entire world. The traffic report comes on:
I95totheWaltWhitmanbridgeisjammedI95northtotheBetsyRossisn’tmoving309southisalso
jammedbothlanes202southofwhitpaintownshipisblockedoffnexttrafficupdateinlessthan
tenminutesthisisKYWnewsradiotrafficreport.
Not very helpful, I already knew everything was jammed. At least they aren’t closing roads anywhere we’re going, but I was hoping for more of a reason for why everything isn’t plowed. It didn’t start snowing until after I went to sleep around 5 am, so PennDOT had plenty of time to litter the road with salt. It’s one of life’s mysteries, I suppose.
We finally get to the Arby’s around 5:15 pm and there’s a single car in the parking lot that looks like it hasn’t been used in hours. Our quest is at an end. The taste of a Bacon Beef and Cheddar sandwich is absolutely godly after all that driving.
James casually mentions to the cashier that we drove an hour and a half to get to the restaurant and she doesn’t seem phased in the least. Could it be that this is a common mecca for hungry men? Maybe Arby’s is just that damn good.
The ride back was similarly-plagued with bumper to bumper traffic, but by then a lot of the snow had been melted from rush hour traffic. I had a moment where I wanted James to ride down a steep hill on a nearby road with his car to see if the momentum would be enough to push him to the other side. He declined, not wanting his car to end up in a clearing somewhere off the road. Pussy.
In any case, we got our sandwiches and we don’t regret a single minute of it. The next time you ask yourselves why, think instead: why not? Why not indeed?
That, my friends, is a worthy quest.
XLV.
Posted by Jeff Craven on January 4th, 2009 filed in WritingComment now »
I didn’t even notice
You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m late. So fucking late. Running out the door like the house is on fire late.
I am late for work because for some reason my alarm never went off. I always set it at the same time every night: 11:23 p.m., right after I settle in with Jamie and watch the end of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Then, I turn over, look her in her beautiful sky blue eyes, run my hand through her bleached blonde hair, and turn the bedside lamp off. It’s like that every night.
So now I’m up, jumping around trying to find my clothes like some deranged monkey flinging its excrement at horrified zoo visitors and I can’t seem to find any excrement. It’s gone. In fact, most of my stuff is gone. I rummage through the dresser on my side of the bed to find that all my clothes are gone. My briefcase is gone, too. Completely missing. Did Jamie decide on a whim to burn the midnight oil and suddenly donate everything I owned to Goodwill while I was asleep? What the hell? There must be something here.
Finally, I find something. A baseball jersey and a pair of ratty old jeans from the “I’m unique” stage I went through in college. The guys at the office are going to love this. I pull on the pants, finding that they fit surprisingly well in the five years they’ve spent derelict in my closet. The Phillies jersey has a nice mothball smell to it and there’s a giant hole where the P should be. Hillies. My favorite baseball team. Just for good measure, I throw on a Phillies cap hiding in the corner of the shelf in the closet. Now I’m set for work.
I run out the door to find that the car is gone. Awesome. This day just keeps getting better and better. Remembering Al Gore’s infinite wisdom, I decide to walk the four blocks to the cubical farm rather than contribute to the destruction of humanity. But it’s not so much walk, and more like run as I realize that there is no way in hell my boss is going to let me live this one down. I was supposed to give a presentation today on how the company could cut costs to save money without cutting jobs. If I am any later, my boss would solve that problem for all of us by cutting my job.
I’m almost there. Less than two blocks to go. Maybe I’m overreacting a bit. After all, I’ve never really been known for being late to work before. I imagine what my boss, Tony, would have to say to me.
“Jenkins! We missed your presentation earlier. We’re wondering how it was.” Tony’s always been a smug asshole, but I don’t think he would fire me over just one day. One block left. I think I’m in the clear.
Until I hit yet another roadblock, but this one’s a bit more literal. There are two police cars horizontally parked across the intersection preventing traffic from going through. An officer dressed in a yellow vest waving traffic around the wreckage of a crumpled car. There’s no running here: I stop to survey the damage. I accidentally kick a suitcase lying on the ground and it skids across the street. I chase after it and pick it up, looking to deliver it to one of the officers wandering around.
I trod up to one of the officers surveying the wreckage. I yell out to him, but he doesn’t answer. I yell again. Still no answer. I shrug and set the briefcase down on the hood of the car. It’s here I realize that the smoldering pile in front of me is very familiar.
It’s my car. Did someone steal it? Did Jamie take it to—oh God, Jamie. Please tell me she’s all right.
I look at the briefcase and flip the scuffed locks open. All my documents, spreadsheets, and pictures are inside. The golden name engraved on the outside rim, “Robert T. Jenkins,” sparkles in the morning light.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
XLIV.
Posted by Jeff Craven on November 19th, 2008 filed in Journalism, Life, PoliticsComment now »
Wow, it’s been almost two months! I have a little bit until I need to go out on assignment, so let me fill the gap with how I’ve been keeping myself busy.
First off, you’ve probably noticed I’ve been posting stories. I am taking a magazine fiction writing class, and I’m posting my work on here as a gauge for how far I’ve come in writing fiction. Not very far, I’m afraid. This latest story is my favorite (and the best, to me) out of all of them, but it was the last major story we had to write for the class. I learned quite a bit from the class. While journalism has me occupied until at least the middle of next month, I’d like to get some fiction published by the end of the year, either by editing one of my old stories or creating a new one.
Second, my internship ends for the Philadelphia Daily News on December 15th. I need to speak with the folks there about the legality of posting published articles from them (even their online counterparts) in my portfolio section, since they are a bigger company and own a few more things than the people over at Metro. I’ve had a lot more time at the Daily News and the staff is a great help whenever I have a question, so I am getting a lot more out of this internship than I did at Metro. That’s not to say Metro was bad, it’s just the Daily News had a more organized intern program and Metro has less people to go around. Both were good experiences in their own right.
Thirdly, I am very interested Barack Obama. He is not going to be the person to completely change how Washington is run. He is not going to be the next Abraham Lincoln or FDR. He is most certainly not going to be the end of the world, as some Republicans are claiming. But he is relatively grassroots, which means he brings a different perspective to politics. He is fresh, but not revolutionary.
I think his opposition is overreacting just a little bit. Part of the political process is acceptance, which many people forget. People on both sides of the spectrum have claimed through the 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential elections that they will leave the country if [insert person here] is elected. I have never seen a person own up to it, to be honest. I had made a similar threat in 2007, but admitted it would take a few years in order to get myself prepared to leave. I eventually want to leave the country anyway, so it wasn’t an empty threat, it just fell into my plans at the moment. I disagreed with McCain’s policies not because I didn’t want to keep my money through his economic plan, but because I don’t have much money to begin with. I get to keep my own money? I do that already: it’s a $200 stipend for two weeks of working 25 hours every weekend, and I get to use $180 of it every month to pay for a train pass to get me to school. I have nothing to lose through the “share the wealth” plan. If Obama wants to give some working class family my bus pass while I grab a few grand from some corporate schmoe making way too much for doing way too little, I am all for it.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to open a window in here. My hyperbole is intoxicating and I want to be able to share the oxygen around me with everyone else.
XLIII.
Posted by Jeff Craven on November 19th, 2008 filed in WritingComment now »
Inner Conflict
They had only one plan in mind from the beginning: to destroy me utterly. To fuck with me, change me into a sobbing wreck so that even my closest friends and family wouldn’t recognize me. That’s what I keep telling myself, over and over. They wanted to destroy me. They wanted to destroy me. I remember how it all happened.
It was a cold December day, mild enough to avoid bundling up completely, but chilly enough to warrant a winter coat. That day, people were undecided. Some had rushed from their houses at the sight of a snowless day like they were heading to the beach, and were suffering for it. Others had carefully weighed the frigid nature of the previous few days’ piercing cold winds and extrapolated, throwing layers upon layers of clothing on like they were piling up dirty laundry in order to fend off the winter weather only to find that their planning was in vain. They were also suffering.
And then there were the people who let the weatherman make their decision for them. The weatherman had made his own calculations with precise machinery and could predict days ahead of time when a storm was coming. He told you what to wear in the morning and exactly at what point in the day you would need to wear it. But, more often than not, he was still wrong. He is a human and makes mistakes. Still, you can always blame the weatherman for whatever you’re wearing today.
I was heading to the beach, of course. I was late meeting with my boyfriend, Brad, and as the bus rocketed past I let a series of obscenities fly from my mouth into a group of birds, scattering them like pool balls after a break. I couldn’t believe it. I missed the bus again. The breeze from the passing cars formed an impenetrable barrier of freezing wind, both isolating me from the rest of the world and chilling me to the bone. He was going to kill me.
Reluctantly, I flipped open my cell phone. The picture of us I took with my phone at the bar the night before stared back at me. I had to pull him away from his Jäger to get a decent picture of us. He never wanted to take pictures. I had to hold him, my hand firmly in his pocket to get him to stand still for three seconds. After I loosened my grip, he slipped away and was at it again, chatting up the bartender in the black halter top that left nothing to the imagination. I silently wished that she’d slip a bit of rat poison in his drink to save me the trouble.
I cycled through my list of contacts, passing my two best friends, Aaron and Ali. We always sought each other out for advice, especially when we had boy problems. Aaron had Chris, and Ali had Rob. That’s the way it’s been forever. I was always the odd girl out, never able to keep a guy for more than a few weeks. In the three months Brad and I had been dating, they always told me he was wrong for me. He’s a jerk, he’s cheating on you, he’s never loved you. He just wants to get in your pants. And like I always do, I ignored them because I thought that it would work out. He was charming and generous in the beginning. I knew that eventually, he’d settle down and we’d be together and happy, content to lounge on a sofa for with a big fluffy blanket and a roaring fire to warm us instead of having to choke down the sickeningly sweet taste of German beer at the bar every Monday night.
Third contact down, Brad. I made a joke when we first started going out that I would always have him at the top of my list-aBrad, or even aaBrad-so he would be the first name I would see when I opened my phone. That joke didn’t seem so funny anymore as I hit send and watched the radio tower signal dance on the screen. I imagined it sent my request over the airwaves, soaring into the atmosphere at hundreds of miles per second, passing birds, planes, and UFOs until it reached a satellite in space, bouncing the signal off the reflective wings of those titanic overlords, and then sending the signal back down to Earth, past meteors, skydivers, and rainclouds until it smacked up against Brad’s cell phone, shaking it to life and off of his bedside table. A nice wake up call.
A voice groggily answered from the other line. “Ello?” a low voice, unconcerned with enunciation spilled into the phone, both irate and confused as to who would be calling him at this hour.
“Hey, it’s me…I missed the bus again, so I’m going to be a little late for breakfast,” I managed in the smallest voice possible. I braced for the response I knew was coming.
“Oh God damn it, Carrie. Again? Why do you always do this?” he screamed into the phone. “Is it so hard to wake up a few minutes early so you don’t put yourself in this situation? I mean, if you showed a little bit of responsibility maybe you wouldn’t be still living with your parents at twenty-five, you would have gotten a job out of college, and you wouldn’t be such a fuck-up.”
“I’m sorry, I’m trying…” I pleaded to him, but his volcanic eruption continued unabated.
“I guess you’re going to want a ride now, aren’t you? Now I have to drive a half hour out of my way, and then drive back, and it’s 8 in the freaking morning. God damn it, why can’t you just be responsible for once?” My throat welled up and tears formed in my eyes. I wiped my cheeks clean with my sweater as my mind raced to think of the one thing I could say to make it all better.
“I’m sorry, Brad. I really am. I’ll try harder next time, but I just need-”
“No, you know what? I’m done. This is fucking ridiculous. This is the fourth time this week I’ve had to do this, and-and I’m just done. I can’t do it anymore.” His words were laced with venom. Venom that ate away at his words to the point where they were unrecognizable, not only to the person who said them, but also to the person they were intended for. Venom that tore its path like a raging river through my strongest of wills. Venom that dripped, that melted, that ruptured. Venom that poisoned.
And it was all for me. My emotional wall was shattered. My throat choked me and I had to let out an audible gasp to breathe. And as I stood there bleak and broken, I wondered where I had gone wrong. Three months down the drain, just like that. A relationship that ended at the press of a button.
No-it was a series of relationships, all the same. Three days, three weeks, three months, it didn’t matter; they all ended the same way. Mark, Steve, Rich, Brad. The list goes on. At the time, I always thought he was the one and Mark, Steve, Rich, and Brad all promised he loved me and he was the one and he would be with me forever. And I fell for it, every single time.
Brad was the last straw. He was right in a way; I had let myself get out of control. I had let my feelings get the better of me. And rather than get an apartment for myself during college, I stayed with Mark in his apartment until he brought home the new love of his life without telling me. And rather than get a job, I stayed with Steve and we became close, until he started doing drugs and bringing crackhead friends home. And rather than not fucking up, I did every possible thing to fuck up with Rich, Brad’s best friend. Or should I say, ex-best friend. But I learned my lessons the hard way.
And rather than life continuing down that spiral, I met John. John was tall, endearing, and had beautiful hazel eyes that changed with the seasons. He walked with my arm in mine, moving slowly to make sure we took in the beauty of the world around us. He was patient, generous, and kind. He wasn’t seeing anyone else, wasn’t doing drugs, and wasn’t the kind to sleep around. Best of all, he didn’t yell at me when I missed the bus. He treated me like a person. John was perfect.
“Do you ever think about your future?” he asked me one May morning. We had spent all night in the park and watched the sun come up. The time of year was perfect for walking, for talking, for love. Everything was perfect.
“I’ve thought about it,” I said, referencing a point in the past where there may have been some pre-thought to my actions. Not a lot of things had made sense since that December morning.
“Well, I’d like you to think about it a bit more,” he said, inching beside me. When he placed his arm around me, my heart practically leapt out of my chest. Was he actually going to do what I thought he was doing? It was too soon, it was the wrong time of year, it was a mistake. My weatherman was telling me to break out my summer outfits, and here I was wearing a parka and boots.
I couldn’t bring out the words needed to express how I felt. My mouth opened and closed like a big-lipped fish, and I played the words I would say over and over again in my head.
Yes, I love you.
They want to destroy you.
Yes, I want to be with you.
They want to destroy you.
I didn’t bother to watch the weatherman this morning. It’s been a cold year, but I don’t think I need my winter clothes anymore.
XLII.
Posted by Jeff Craven on September 25th, 2008 filed in WritingComment now »
Time Wizard
I am going back in time.
It is my life’s greatest work. Tonight, at 7:15 p.m., my corporeal existence shall be transferred through space-time to September 7th, 1979. If all goes well, it will be as if nothing changed in the present—the moment in time I am going to alter will be a part of your reality without you realizing it.
There is, of course, the possibility of error. I worked on the theories at first, in my spare time. Bit by bit, piece by piece, it all came together. At first, I realized some key elements of the puzzle were missing, and spent all my spare time trying to unlock the puzzle. I studied tirelessly; I pored through every piece of literature I thought would even come close to helping me understand. I believed that by discovering the theory of time travel, I could also discover the one mystery that every person put on this earth has pondered at least once: the meaning of life.
The chamber I built looks straight out of science fiction. It has the shape of a one-man submarine and stretches from the floor to the roof. Four knobs on a nearby panel control how far forward or backward in time you can go. My prototype machine had three knobs controlling days, months, and years. I recently added a fourth knob: decades.
The love of my life, my late wife Kirsten, was the first to point out how obsessed I was becoming. What had started as a hobby on the weekends quickly became a full-time job. Before I knew it, ten years had passed. My hair went from a blazing auburn to dull brown receding tide. She had aged as well. When she entered a room, it used to be that heads turned and eyes watched. Her golden blonde hair contoured to her every movement, hypnotizing everyone around her. She always had a genuine smile on her face that told people her feelings were real and that she really cared. Even now, I still remember that smile. All the memories of our younger years are beginning to fade away, and memories of more recent times together are practically non-existent.
One night, when I emerged from the basement, she told me she had cancer. The news shook me to my core. When did this happen? How long had this been going on? I noticed that the chemo had taken its toll. Her lavish appearance had faded and turned into a skeleton. Her body creaked with every movement. A knit cap replaced her golden locks. Her eyes begat sadness and misery, and yet she still smiled. She still cared. How could I not have noticed what was happening?
Her death on that September day only fueled my research. It’s been twenty years since then. If I could somehow go back—back before the cancer, before the theories, we could be happy. I could spend my remaining time with her and we could live together like we were supposed to. Live like we were meant to.
Most of all, I can tell her how sorry I am for how selfish I’ve been all these years.
So far, live tests haven’t shown promise. Even after all these years, living beings don’t survive in the chamber once the computer makes the final calculations. Even if I don’t make it, I’ll still be reunited with my love. Either way, we can be together again and start over.
It’s almost time. Remember, if all goes well, it will be as if nothing changed in the present—the moment in time I am going to alter will be a part of your reality without you realizing it. History will have been corrected.
If nothing is written after this, you can assume the experiment was a success.
XLI.
Posted by Jeff Craven on September 6th, 2008 filed in WritingComment now »
Killing Time
His eyes grew wide as the kitchen knife sawed at his wrists. He expected pain, but was surprised to find it hardly hurt at all. A dark liquid seeped from the blade’s wounds as the knife continued to rock back and forth. It almost looked black. He always thought blood was red. His spent his last moments before passing out chasing these ideas.
“Jeremy? Can you hear me?” A concerned, feminine voice was close to him, though he couldn’t tell where. As he opened his eyes, he saw a young girl, mid-twenties, clasping his bandaged hands. His wide eyes manifested themselves again, this time accompanied by a horror-stricken look on his face.
“You’re in the hospital,” she said. “I came looking for you when you didn’t show up after work and found you collapsed in the bathroom. What were you thinking? You could have killed yourself—and I’m so glad you didn’t—but why did you do this?”
“I don’t remember…” Jeremy said. He decided he had to get away. Just wait for the right moment, and then slip out when no one’s watching.
“I’m glad you’re safe, anyway. I took off of work so I can help you get better. We can spend this weekend together, too. How does going to Houlihan’s sound? Just like we always do?”
“Sounds good,” Jeremy said. He shifted uncomfortably on his hospital bed. He unsuccessfully tried to break the iron grip she still had on his hands.
“I can make a reservation at our usual table,” she mused. “I wonder if Nancy still works there? She was trying to find a job right after college, but then again, a Liberal Arts degree doesn’t really lend itself well to any job in particular. You know?”
“I know,” Jeremy said. The girl smiled. Jeremy managed a smile back.
“Well, I’ll let you sleep. Don’t worry about work. Everything’s taken care of. They said to take all the time you need to recover. You don’t have to do anything but sleep.” She kissed Jeremy on the forehead and left the room, a bounce in her step which made her every movement look like she was walking on springs. His face relaxed and his eyes lost the terror they held moments before.
Jeremy looked at his bandaged wrists. He was bleeding through. Pretty soon, she would be back, and would no doubt volunteer to help change his bandages amidst the protests from the nurse. And then, when he got better, they would go home and live their life just the way it was before. Everything would be back to normal.
All he had to do was wait.
XL.
Posted by Jeff Craven on August 19th, 2008 filed in Journalism, Life, WritingComment now »
Extra large. Which this entry is not. This is just a quick update to say that I finished my Metro internship on August 12th and have been working for the past week or so to get my money supply up before school. Train tickets cost a lot when you go to the city several times a week, and food isn’t cheap in the Temple area. I won’t have a lot of time on my hands to work once/if my Daily News internship starts, so I need to start saving now.
I added a new section: the Progressive Gallery. I got around to taking some pictures this month, and, if you haven’t already noticed, they went up a while ago. Some of the pictures may seem a bit bleached out, but it was midday and my first time taking pictures outside of an “I’ve been to this place on vacation” environment. So, enjoy that.
Also completed is the Portfolio section, which details all the articles and debates I did for Metro while I interned there. I was there for almost four months, and while it doesn’t look like I completed much in that time period, I did balance a summer class and two jobs during that time. It was an awesome experience, and I’d like to think I made a lot more than just contacts while I was there.
Something to look forward to: I hope to have some exclusive content here by the end of the month, be it short stories, or something else. Stay tuned.
XXXIX.
Posted by Jeff Craven on July 7th, 2008 filed in Video GamesComment now »
If you’ve having trouble reaching my page lately, I’m about to explain why.
On the right side of the screen, you’ll see a link to The Mega Man Network.
Right now, though, it’s broken.
This is a website I’ve affiliated myself with for many years, back in the days when it used to be three separate entities: mega.man.x.online, Mega Man Outpost, and Planet Mega Man, respectively (a nice little history, found on Mega Man Network’s old server, can be found here). Through a series of website mergers, these sites have come together to form this one major website, which is considered the ultimate authority on all things involving Capcom’s Blue Bomber.
And then, something happened. Something that hasn’t happened in over ten years happened, and the website practically exploded with excess traffic.
Mega Man 9 was announced.
“Mega Man 9,” you ask yourself. “Wasn’t that a game made for the Super Nintendo?”
No, no. A common mistake, and one made because of how much of a joke Mega Man 9 is. In fact, Mega Man 9 was the ultimate joke in the Mega Man community for over a decade. Mega Man 8 came out in 1997 for the PlayStation (uno) and Sega Saturn. And, as the years passed, the likelihood of a sequel to the game became almost nonexistent.
Capcom had other spin-offs of the original franchise up and primed for milking: Mega Man X, Mega Man Legends, and, later, Mega Man Battle Network. After that came two more: Mega Man Zero, a spin-off of Mega Man X, and Mega Man Star Force, a spin-off of Battle Network. Mega Man was so subdivided, even its spin-offs had spin-offs. The idea of another entry into the original series was such a farfetched idea that it had its own category on popular Mega Man forums: unwanted spam.
Even if it was decided that Mega Man 9 would be made, it wouldn’t fit in today’s market. To understand why is to understand a little bit about the mindset of developers as well as publishers in the late 1990s leading up to right before this current gaming generation, with the 360, Wii and PS3. Sony had created the PlayStation, a video game console capable of displaying 3D graphics, and wanted to market the console as such. This means that games like Mega Man, sidescrolling games on a two-dimensional plane, were unsightly spots on an otherwise cutting edge system. The idea of another 2D Mega Man on a console seemed all but impossible.
This is Mega Man Network’s web traffic for this year. Notice anything special? Why does the end of June have such a ridiculous spike in traffic?
This is why. IGN linked to it. Kotaku linked to it. Every single big gaming website linked to The Mega Man Network when they broke the news. And in doing so, they broke TMMN, along with the bandwidth for jvmwriter.org.
This gaming generation changed the minds of all the developers and publishers. The PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii all have one thing in common: downloadable content. The Wii has the Virtual Console and Wiiware, the 360 has Xbox Live Arcade, and the PS3 has the PlayStation Network. What these enable publishers to do is to release arcade games and pre-existing games over the internet via digital distribution. Just enter in your credit card number and you can enjoy the sounds of 8-bit goodness on your Wii in the form of Super Mario Bros for a nominal fee. It’s a goldmine for everyone because the packaging and distributing process is completely bypassed.
This also allows developers to break into the business by creating small arcade games to release on these services for a fraction of the price of what they would normally pay for creating a game and putting it out on store shelves.
So, Capcom decided to take a chance. They got together with Keiji Inafune and decided they were going to make a brand new Mega Man game and release it on Nintendo’s Wiiware system. Not only was it going to be new, it was going to be in the style of the old NES games to try to appeal to older gamers who used to play the games. I know quite a few people who said they would buy a new Mega Man game if it were like the old NES games. They’re eating their words now.
So, that’s why traffic’s slow on the server. Hope you enjoyed the history lesson.
XXXVIII.
Posted by Jeff Craven on June 24th, 2008 filed in Current Events, Journalism, Life, TVComment now »
Just a quick update to say I’ve accepted an internship at the Philadelphia Daily News for the Fall semester.
I’m grateful for the opportunity, as I always am with any chance to be published, but my plate is full enough as it is. I can’t imagine being a full time student and still managing an internship and two jobs. Something will have to give.
—
Edit: Holy crap, they fired Larry Mendte. I associate him with CBS News, so this is a really shocking turn of events. He apparently broke into a coworker’s computer and read her e-mail, but the article doesn’t say why. Was he curious? Was he trying to one-up her on some stories? I’m not seeing the purpose here.
XXXVII.
Posted by Jeff Craven on June 16th, 2008 filed in Current Events, JournalismComment now »
Yesterday was the first Meet the Press without Tim Russert.
From MSNBC’s announcement:
Tim Russert was the Managing Editor and Moderator of “Meet the Press” and political analyst for “NBC Nightly News” and the “TODAY” program. He anchored “The Tim Russert Show,” a weekly interview program on MSNBC. Russert also served as senior vice president and Washington bureau chief of NBC News.
He died Friday, June 13 at the Washington D.C. bureau. He was 58.
His two books-Big Russ and Me in 2004 and Wisdom of Our Fathers in 2006-were both New York Times #1 bestsellers.
He has received forty-eight honorary doctorate degrees from American colleges and universities and has lectured at the Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan Presidential Libraries.
Russert took over the helm of “Meet the Press” in December 1991. Since then, MTP has become the most watched Sunday morning interview program in America and the most quoted news program in the world. Now in its 60th year, “Meet the Press” is the longest-running program in the history of television. Russert has interviewed every major figure on the American political scene.
Russert joined NBC News in 1984. In April 1985, he supervised the live broadcasts of the Today program from Rome, negotiating and arranging an appearance by Pope John Paul II, a first for American television. In 1986 and 1987 Russert led NBC News weeklong broadcasts from South America, Australia and China.
Washingtonian Magazine dubbed Tim Russert the best and most influential journalist in Washington, D. C. describing “Meet the Press” as “the most interesting and important hour on television.”
In 2008, Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
TV Guide selected his use of the white dry eraser board (Florida, Florida, Florida) on Election Night 2000 as one of the “100 Most Memorable TV Moments” in history. The Washington Post credits him with coining the phrase “red state” and “blue state” to explain the nation’s political divide.
In 2005, he was awarded an Emmy for his role in the coverage of the funeral of President Reagan. He is the recipient of the Golden Plate Award of the Academy of Achievement. His Election 2000 Meet the Press interviews with George W. Bush and Al Gore won the Radio and Television Correspondents’ highest honor, the Joan S. Barone Award and the Annenberg Center’s Walter Cronkite Award. Russert’s March 2000 interview of Senator John McCain shared the 2001 Edward R. Murrow Award for Overall Excellence in Television Journalism. He is also the recipient of the John Peter Zenger Award, the American Legion Journalism Award, the Veterans of Foreign Wars News Media Award, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society Journalism Award, the Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism, the David Brinkley Award for Excellence in Communication, the Catholic Academy for Communication’s Gabriel Award, and inducted into the Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame.
He was a trustee of the Freedom Forum’s Newseum and a member of the Board of Directors of the Greater Washington Boys and Girls Club and America’s Promise –Alliance for Youth.
In 1995, the National Father’s Day Committee named him “Father of the Year”, Parents magazine honored him as “Dream Dad” in 1998 and in 2001 the National Fatherhood Initiative also recognized him as Father of the Year.
Irish America magazine has named him one of the top 100 Irish Americans in the country and he was selected as a Fellow of the Commission of European Communities.
Russert was born in Buffalo, New York on May 7, 1950. He graduated from Canisius High School, John Carroll University and with honors from the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.
Before joining NBC News, Russert observed firsthand the inner workings of the executive and legislative branches of government as counselor in the New York Governor’s office in Albany in 1983 and 1984 and a special counsel in the United States Senate from 1977 to 1982.
He was a member of the bar in New York and the District of Columbia.
Russert is survived by his wife, Maureen Orth, a writer for Vanity Fair magazine, and his beloved son Luke.
A great man was lost on Friday, and a fine journalist. Life will go on, but no one man will be able to fill Russert’s shoes. Rest in peace, friend.