Working From Home: An Insider’s Guide

On August 9, 2015 By R. PettyIn Opinions2 Comments

About a month ago, I took a new job that allows me to work remotely. My location no longer matters. As long as I have a good Internet connection, I can do my job. I’ve had a lot of people ask what it’s like, or do I like working from home? The answer. Yes, it’s awesome.

I know many authors, illustrators, artists, etc. work from home, but this is the first job I’ve had where I’m able to. As this concept becomes more popular in the workplace, I wanted to share my thoughts on working from home:

Wear whatever you want. I love this for two reasons. 1) My thermostat is set to a warmer temperature than an office, so I can wear shorts and skirts and not freeze. 2) There’s no dress code. If I want to wear a T-shirt, I can. If I want to dye my hair bright pink, I can. I have not worked in my pajamas one time. I still like to get up and get dressed; although I may work in lounge clothes while I have coffee.

Set your own schedule. I’ve had some people tell me I’d sleep in. Or I’d work at night. Nope. I’m up between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m., and online within 10 minutes. However, I can sleep in if I want to. I can work whatever hours I want. I can work weekends if I need a day off through the week. Not having to work a set schedule has actually made me more productive, and I work about 45-50 hours a week, but it doesn’t feel like it.

Watch what you want. I cannot tell you how many Supernatural episodes I’ve watched – or listened to – the last month. Or how many movies. I also turn off the TV and listen to music some days. Every day is different, and I can work to whatever I’m in the mood for.

No more sick days. Last week, I had a virus for three days. Fever, no energy, the whole thing. And I still worked a full week. I worked when I could, took things slow, rested, and recovered quickly. There was no getting behind. I answered emails from my couch, and took naps when I needed. And I still got the work done.

It saves your car. It’s no secret I love my car. My little Z is getting older though. Not commuting so much has resulted in less wear and tear, less gas, very little traffic, and no road rage. A quarter of a tank lasts me two to three weeks. I still leave the house several times a week, but it’s only if I want or need to. If I don’t feel like it, I stay home.

You eat healthier and exercise more. I get up from the desk more. I exercise more and eat healthier. I take my dog for walks, and/or play with him. I swim. I drink way less caffeine. And my house stays clean. There’s no more laundry once a week, or I don’t have time to vacuum. A clean house keeps me at peace, so I use chores as little mini breaks. This keeps me active and happy!

There are a few things to keep in mind:

To avoid cabin fever, get out regularly. Grocery store, park, coffee shop, wherever. Also, take the time to meet new people. It helps break up the day.
You can feel a little cut off. To help, I schedule phone calls or lunch with friends, or I email and text. It keeps me up to date and gives me some human interaction throughout the day.
Stay disciplined. I actually cannot sleep in due to grown-up responsibilities, so I have to get up early. If I didn’t, I may sleep in, but setting a semi-routine helps keep you on the same schedule, and you’re not working around the clock.
Have a designated space. I seldom work away from my space. I want to relax on my couch, not work. Set up an office space of some sort, so your entire home is not a workplace.If you work from home, we’d love to hear your tips and experiences. Feel free to share them below!

The Evil that is Trophy Hunting: Remembering Cecil the Lion

On July 30, 2015July 29, 2015 By James CastroIn OpinionsLeave a comment

Infinitely more majestic and compassionate than the killer who ended his life.

This week a beautiful, long-lived, and non-threatening lion was murdered in Africa. A lot has been said already about it but everyone needs an outlet and this struck a chord with me so hard the strings broke.

Hunting has been a part of human culture, likely since before we developed tools. Man is nature, and nature is a place where a balance of creatures that consume other creatures to survive is good for the ecosystem. So, despite the fact that there are problems with the conditions in which some food animals are kept, people eating animals is natural. I’m not from a culture of hunters or farmers so the idea of killing something myself to eat it sounds horrific, but I can respect, just like the wolf eats a deer, that it is done for the purposes of survival. I’m not going into the vegetarian vs omnivore argument too much here, just pointing out that an excuse can be made for some hunting.

Now. Trophy hunting is evil. It is something that wealthy Westerners have been doing for entertainment in the Africa, often exploiting the desperate poverty of its people, for centuries. This is something that is not for food, not for safety, and not for population control (though admittedly in the US the reason we have to hunt animals like deer for population control is because our American ancestors killed all the natural predators…I’ve seen the payments for wolf pelts from the 18^th and 19^th Centuries…). Trophy hunting is so a person can, in the safety of a controlled environment, slaughter what is basically a helpless animal for ENTERTAINMENT. Ending a life, not for any viable purpose, but just because they get a gruesome thrill from it. It’s the kind of thing that, if you did it in a neighborhood, ambushing the local dogs and cats, would get you arrested by the police and probably killed by your pet-friendly neighbors.

Cecil was a lovely lion who never caused harm and helped researchers learn more about how lions live. His death has shed light on this issue because he was a bit of a celebrity. The sociopath who killed him said he “didn’t know the lion was known.” My argument: who cares if he was known? You killed another living being, dismembered it and attempted to take part of him back to hang on your wall. You lured him out of his home with food, hid in all the safety that $55,000 could buy, maimed him with an arrow, causing him to suffer for nearly two days before approaching him with a high-powered rifle and killing him in an even more helpless state. Anyone who cherishes life should grieve for Cecil. But I think we should grieve for every helpless animal murdered by some power-hungry killer. Celebrity or not. “Big Game” or not. What the vicious killer did to Cecil is the rich person’s version of kids pulling wings off of flies. And it’s done for the same reason; because they get a rush from harming others and the ones they harm are incapable of reciprocating.

The only punishment fit for people like this is to find a General Zaroff’s Chateau and let them experience the pain and fear they have caused on the creatures they’ve hunted. Though even Rainsford was given a fighting chance…

If there is a positive that comes out of this it will be that nearly every common-sense outlet has been united in the horrific, senseless, and likely criminal killing of Cecil the Lion. And those of us who care about the future of the natural world can only hope that Cecil’s Legacy helps save the lives of other animals endangered by the cruel selfishness of some of the humans who share their planet.

RazCat — This is Raz cat, who like every other cat, Rawrs for Cecil. If anyone ever tried to harm him or ANY other animal in my presence we’d see who ends up helpless and hunted without remorse…

Age of Sigmar and the Fear of Change

On July 22, 2015July 21, 2015 By James CastroIn Games, Opinions2 Comments

This past month Games Workshop tore down the Old World and built in its place the Age of Sigmar. The venerable old fantasy game as we all knew and loved died, replaced by something a bit different and a bit less complex.

During the End Times range lots of fans got excited about the fresh content and the progress of the world. Let’s face it the old world had terrific lore and amazing depth but was based in the typical world of fantasy dwarfs, elves, ogres environment. Which isn’t bad, it’s classic for a reason, and certainly the old world took it to new places, but clearly the market was speaking against fantasy.

To start with I never intended to get involved with fantasy, but I ended up loving it. All the complex movement reminded me of Napoleonic warfare, with wheeling and marching. The battle resolution took some time to get used to but made for some close fights and satisfying combat even when on the losing end. But in a world where 40k rules the table, fantasy has a heavy bar of entrance. Especially when the number of models used to play it is factored in compared to GW’s sci-fi flagship.

So GW tore it down. And replaced it with Age of Sigmar a new game built on the remnants of the old world but infused with new rules and a new, faster, more simplistic game play style. I’ll start by saying I haven’t played an AoS game, just watched them being played. And then viewed the rabid hate from fans on forums and comments. And I have to say…I really don’t get it.

Before End Times what I saw the most on fantasy comments was a desire for updated rules. Even from Tomb King and High Elf players. Hell I started with Skaven and Beastmen, we’re still in softcover books with the Bretonnians! I saw a lot of complaints about balance, how it was broken, some factions were useless, some were absurdly overpowered. The convoluted systems and complex special rules. So many people begging for a revamp of the game. So GW completely revamps everything about the game and the comments are worse than ever before. It’s a game for kids, the new special rules have proven how stupid it is, it’s far too simple and far too dumbed down…

Age of Sigmar is a HUGE gamble. I’m currently building and painting Ultramarines so I can’t invest in the new factions…but here’s the thing… If I wanted to play AoS with my Skaven or Beastmen or Ogres I could. For free. All the army books have rules. The basic rules are posted. All on the site. All in PDF. All free. Strangely I’ve heard very little positive about that (maybe I’m visiting the wrong sites…) but there they are. I’ve already dl’d every ruleset I might ever want (and Queek is there!) in case I want to bust into the game at any time. But it’s accessible. That in itself is a big change for GW who has recently been pretty litigious about it’s IPs, which probably has more than a little to do with the world/faction reset in general.

At it’s heart I have a feeling that those who hate GW do so because it’s popular to do so. Like all those people who announced they were boycotting Modern Warfare 2 then turned around and pre-ordered it, a lot of fans just like to complain. A company could give an individual everything they asked for and a part of the population will claim the company is pandering. I have no love for, nor feel the need to defend a multi-million dollar company. It’s more a desire for fans to act like fans and less like entitled kids. Especially when, in my experience, the GW company has been pretty good to work with. When my subscriptions had problems a simple email contact got new issues FEDEXED to me overnight. And they still sent the back issues they missed after the fact. When one of my kits (Marneus Calgar and Honour Guard, purchased at an independent retailer no less) was missing a part, they sent a replacement, and let me keep the duplicate parts (which included the champion figure); and when an accidental duplicate Sgt Harker was sent instead of Castellan Creed they Fed Exed the right figure and let me keep the dupe. Yes one could say that that’s actually three mistakes the company has made over the past 6 years of Warhammering, but I’d assert that is WAY more cooperation I’ve ever gotten from Microsoft, Sony, and god help me Comcast and I’ve had way more problems with them over that same timeframe.

Furthermore this is a game company. That makes a series of rules for fighting tiny battles with toy soldiers. Reading the goofier AoS rules I can’t help but feel a spirit of fun is being injected into Warhammer. Like a lot of board games, they are incorporating fully optional systems that allow a player to made a fool of themselves, give their mates a chuckle, and get a couple of bonuses if they act out, or dare I say role play, some of their characters. That’s NOT a bad thing. If players think it is that may be taking their toy soldiering a bit too seriously.

warhammer-aos-ogre-kingdoms-en_Page_03 — Do you see this? You can try to bribe your opponent. With anything! Yes. That’s silly and yes it’s in the name of fun.

More than anything I’m the kind who doesn’t want to hate change because it’s change. The rules may be simpler and the battles smaller, but the biggest complaints about fantasy have been they cost barrier to entry and the difficult rules. It also seems these rules permit a scaling up, if you want to bigger battles. AND most importantly, no one from Nottingham came around to all our houses and took out WFB 8th edition books away. That’s right, you can still play your favorite version to your hearts content.

Once I have some cash I’d like to invest in AoS just to see the new factions. The models look like a bridge between 40k and fantasy, probably to lure the die hard sci-fi gamers who think fantasy is too la-dee-da for them. The factions are interesting to say the least (ogres “ogors” with orcs or “orrucks” whatever, yes please) and the new system is different from anything I’ve played so far.

So once again I think it works to appeal for calm and maybe focus more on the positives. Less game snobbery the better (let’s face it, we’re model wargamers…it’s a stretch to say that a slightly different kind of model wargame is “beneath” us). More inclusiveness the better. If you like the system, good for you enjoy. If you don’t, fine enjoy the games you do like. But let’s see where this goes, maybe it’ll be like New Coke and will result in an amazing return of the old world. Maybe it’ll supplant 40k in popularity (I doubt it but it is possible). Let’s not fear change, and let’s not hate those who adapt to it faster than we do. We’re gamers so I say we game. Tabletop games are special this way, as once you have them you can play them forever. Remember: no one can kill the games you love except for you!

Remembering Iwata: Thoughts from an NES Kid

On July 17, 2015 By James CastroIn Games, OpinionsLeave a comment

I was an NES kid. Starting with Atari Computer I was a gamer from a young age and I came into the true world of console gaming, as many of my generation did, via the NES.

Admittedly I haven’t been a fan of Nintendo for the past decade or so. Attribute it to personal taste more than anything, but the franchises and input methods proffered by Nintendo just don’t grab me anymore.

That being said, Nintendo is the only game console and game publisher who truly concentrates on making games. While AAA publishers scramble for DLC, cliche storytelling, and the biggest and best engines and graphics, Nintendo has been essentially making the same Legend of Zelda game since 1986, just in varying wrappers and finding success.

More than anything I feel Nintendo has a continued focus on what made games great when the modern console industry began in the 80s. Their games almost never put anything above pure entertainment. Of course it doesn’t always work but even in their failed attempts the game is a game, designed to entertain. No blown up pretentious nonsense, just fun. They can have extended depth but almost never at the expense of the fun.

The loss of Satoru Iwata this week gave me a moment to really think about the gaming industry as a whole. Nintendo’s success with the Wii (even though I didn’t care for the system) and the handheld market shows a totally different kind of thinking than other hardware companies. Nintendo has always felt inclusive rather than exclusive in its design and marketing philosophy. Even in the 8-bit days the games could be played and enjoyed by an eight year old or by a thirty-five year old. That still holds true, even after their latest hardware was toppled from primacy in the current generation, I know as many adults who love their Wii-U as I do kids.

Iwata always seemed to embody the whimsical spirit of Nintendo. He had a playful personality that undermined the stoic “cool” personalities on display from competitors.

Every company can make mistakes, read consumers wrong, and even unintentionally alienate fans with decisions. During this week too many have focused on the recent failings in Nintendo’s policies. Even as a current, distinct non-fan of Nintendo I feel Iwata’s loss was a tremendous loss to the whole of the industry. He was the human face of the “fun” side of gaming. And in an environment where frame rates, exclusivity, and fan-boyism can spark shocking hate campaigns the fun of gaming is something I think everyone could use far more of. It’s entertainment, people, and Iwata’s philosophy was that it should be entertaining always and first. It should always be just for the fun of it. Like him I’m a gamer at heart and I’ll miss him.

Welcome to the New Age Part 2: Gaming in the Current Generation

On July 8, 2015 By James CastroIn Games, Opinions, ReviewsLeave a comment

Last week I described how I took a bold step into 2014 and got a current generation console.

This week I thought I’d share some thoughts on the games I’ve played so far and general thoughts on the generation as a whole. I actually jumped in at just the right time as I was able to get a lot of big releases at discounted prices since most of them had been out for months when I finally got my PS4.

Shadow of Mordor: As a Lord of the Rings fan this one looked fun and even had the chance of doing predatory stealth without the strange Assassin’s Creed background or the baggage of being Batman…again. It’s a new story with a new character and takes place in a formative stage in the Middle Earth history not often covered. The gameplay is some of the most fun I’ve had doing 3^rd person combat. You can string long chains of attacks, defenses, counters, and kills without missing a step and it makes diving in and carving up Uruk Hai as much fun as sneaking up and jamming a broken sword in their skull. The Captains of Mordor mechanic is both brilliant and diabolical depending on the extent of the player’s OCD and wrathfulness. Since I am both OCD and wrathful I obsessively hunted down captains and evilly and relentlessly hunted down any of them that had the luck to best me… A great game, but it didn’t feel like a big leap to the new age.

Wolfenstein: The New Order/The Old Blood: I played these in reverse order as I got Old Blood first and beat it before getting New Order. Both are terrific fun, and I don’t even care for 1^st person shooters. I haven’t played a Wolfenstein game since they were corridor shooters that could be played from a floppy disk. It says something that these games had the “new” 1^st person feel but still captured the strange charm and 90s attitude of the original games. Old Blood especially had the classic sensibility, and even had a boss fight with a big armored dude with Gatling guns on each arm. I actually recommend playing the prequel before the original game. New Order is a deeper, more complex game and Old Blood’s simplistic game play got me back into console shooting again without having as many mechanics. Again it didn’t feel “next gen” moving up from PS3 but is still damn fun.

Bloodborne: Good god. I haven’t played completely through a souls game since Demon’s Souls but it was my second favorite game on PS3 (the first being Valkyria Chronicles). It was tough, rewarded patience and thinking, and was ruthless in its player correction. You make a mistake…you pay. And not in the lame Heavy Rain way, in a gameplay way that makes you even more careful and extremely tense. I played Dark Souls but it was at the end of my last console gaming phase and I stopped halfway through. Bloodborne is a work of art. It’s beautiful, brutal, fast, and aggressive. The level design is truly extraordinary and this is a rare game that can make you cuss like crazy out of frustration as some human-sized hunter owns you in seconds…then moments later makes you cuss in admiration as you exit a tunnel only to appear in a location you last saw 9 hours ago in a place that was previously gated. It’s is wonderfully balanced, intuitive in its controls, and masterful in gameplay execution. It’s the first and only game I’ve played that has truly felt like a step into a new generation from PS3 era.

The system is far, far from perfect and the choice of games really shows how much things have changed. My PS2 had dozens of titles I couldn’t wait to choose from. This system has only a few games coming out over the next two years that I will probably end up with (though I DID pre-order the Pipboy Edition of Fallout 4 thank you very much). It may be the change in the industry as a whole, like the difference between boxing now and boxing in the 50s…Sugar Ray Robinson might have fought 10 times a year…but Manny Pacquiao only fights once or twice a year. Games have become too much money and too much development too much investment to release bunches of titles in a year to support a console.

This is where Steam on PC and the indie and small games on PSN have it right (though I really want some of those Devolver Digital games to hit PSN…) These smaller, more reasonably priced games can fill the gap between the more expensive releases and make a system more cost effective. I don’t care about 90% of the AAA releases coming out, but with the smaller digital games I can get plus the other 10% I can only play on PS4 I get my money’s worth.

The Alamogordo dump site in New Mexico where a number of Atari products were laid to rest after the crash

With the advancement of PC as a gaming and market delivery platform I wonder if the console market will ever be the same. I don’t know if it’ll ever crash like it did in the 80s, but it feels like console as market king that we saw in 90s and early 2000s might be slipping away as companies force us to buy weakened versions of PCs with proprietary software, exclusivity limitations, and features many TVs and media players can accomplish with less trouble. The reason I don’t feel there will be an Atari-scale crash is that always be a market for console gaming due to its relative simplicity (you can always play the game you buy at the appropriate settings without having to mess with hardware, video output, or file structure) but as each generation becomes more tech-savvy those limitations become less onerous and more normal, relegating consoles to the lowest of the gaming spectrum.

I probably won’t ever buy one of these…so console gaming may be where I land for “current gen” titles.

I won’t lie, it’s nice to have a “current gen” system and it is a vast improvement over its predecessor, just in design and usability. Still, I can count on one hand the number of times I decided to go back and play my PS3 and PS2, but I can always find time to load up Streets of Rage 2 on the Genesis or Dragon Warrior on the NES. Even as the graphics get better, the features more extravagant, and the games more “realistic,” I feel the major games that drive these systems have lost some of the iconic beauty of the games drove their forebears. I’m sure there will always be a place for “current gen” on my media shelf. Whether or not each generation stays on the shelf after their time is past remains to be seen.

Welcome to the New Age: Kicking and Screaming into Current Gen Console Gaming

On July 5, 2015 By James CastroIn Games, Opinions, ReviewsLeave a comment

Toward the end of the PS3 generation I started to become exceedingly disillusioned with the gaming industry.

Games that started as well-paced horror franchises became absurd action shooters, beloved turn-based RPGs became mash-up amalgamations of MMOs and action games, platforming vanished (except the three franchises Nintendo makes every year), and everything became about all the additional content you could buy once you bought the original content.

On PC it was even worse; franchises I grew up with had morphed into poisonous, hateful incarnations of themselves. Diablo 3 came out with no use for weapons (despite the original Diablo having a memorable dev quote “When I pick up an axe I want it to look like an axe”) and that awful real money auction house. Sims 4 and SimCity arrived with forced online and reduced content, not to mention broken states. Not to mention the mess that Steam has become.

So I essentially gave up. I played my NES and Genesis more than any system, reliving the old days when games were just games, not virtual market vectors for publishers to extort money.

Luckily Warhammer and other table top games kept me pretty satisfied, because at least those price vectors give me physical products with palpable advantages.

So when the current gen started I decided not to get a new console and that my days as a modern console gamer were over. I’d been one since the Atari days and I’ve participated in every generation since so it was a momentous decision. I never even considered an Xbox One. Despite their desperate back-pedaling, the fact that Microsoft even considered limiting used games, tried to force always online, and initially forcibly bundled with Kinect made me completely dismiss it as an anti-consumer product. Sony’s new pay wall for some features didn’t make me happy, but everything I normally use still came with the free online so it wasn’t too off-putting. Still nothing was out that I cared about so I wrote off console gaming. Until…

Walking through a local Target with Miss Misty I decided to check their clearance section. There, in a box, with a little red tag…was a PS4. I stopped and actually said, “Is-is that a PS4?” It was and it was 289.90. More than 100 off. It was noted as being “repackaged.” I rolled the dice and took it home.

After setting it up I found someone’s account info was still in there. No funding data, but there were some kid’s gaming install info. “Huh…must’ve been a return…” I thought. Then scrolling through the games, just before factory reset, I saw there was a little disc symbol on the GTA5 icon. I selected the “eject” option and sho-nuff, the GTA5 disc popped out. Even though I’m not a fan of the franchise, a free game in system added to the value of the purchase. Essentially I got a slightly used discount bundle.

Fortress of Games — PS4 with free GTA5 at home with my other systems. The PS3 was moved to my gaming room so I could have a Bluray/Netflix player in there too.

I’ll talk about some games in the next post for now here are some late-to-the-gaming thoughts on the system itself:

Aesthetics/System Functions: It looks nice. It looks more solid and dense than the PS3, though the front buttons are a pain to get to. Also the constant glow is a little much especially for creatures of the night like me. It isn’t loud and doesn’t get as hot as I thought it would.
User Interface: The PS Vita style UI is much more effective than the old XMB. So much so that when I turn on my PS3 and navigate it I realize how clunky that interface is. I like the sorting of icons, and applications, and find it far easier to use. Also the PS Vita style continuation function, where my videos will pick up where I left off, my games will pick up where I left off, etc., even when changing applications or putting the system in rest mode is glorious.
Controller: Yes it has that weird touch pad button that I haven’t found a use for yet, but the controller actually feels better than the old PS3 version. One thing I don’t like about it is there is no turn off for that LED which means it’s always glowing all the time. I do like that the PS button is the only one that can turn it off and on…I can’t tell you how many times I kicked the PS3 controller only to have the system start up by accident and have to wait for the system to load just to turn it off. The battery life is pretty good and the first time it made sound during Shadows of Mordor scared the s**t out of me. I could use a media remote tho, as I still use the system for videos more than games.
Network: The network took a LONG time to set up. Not the actual process of me setting it up, pretty standard actually, but it was about 24 hours before the system recognized my network and gave me internet access. So much so that I thought it was why the system was returned. Once it was set up the network has actually been more reliable than the PS3 one (though that might be my aging PS3) and navigating the network options and network applications is much better thanks to the UI mentioned above. The PS Store STILL needs work. It takes a while to load and the lists of games on there are organized in such a way I still can’t find stuff I know is there. The PS Vita store is much more user-friendly.
PS Plus: I never even considered this as a feature. I don’t like paying for intangibles and this always seemed like a Book-a-Million discount card or Gamestop Rewards card: pay us money for a bonus or discount. If you DO happen to own a PS3, PS Vita, and PS4 you really do get your money’s worth. Two games for free every month each system. Even though they usually aren’t MAJOR titles (depending on your definition thereof anyway…) there are a TON of great games that show up for free. What talked me into PS+ was when I first went into the store Oddworld New and Tasty was free so…sold…

Next week I’ll do a short list of the games I’ve played. I came in at just the right time where a lot of good launch titles are now discounted and the generation is hitting its stride in terms of software support.

Revenant Publications

Category: Opinions