My Akoha Backlog #5 – Goodbye Compulsive Pairing

Sometimes there are ideas for Akoha missions which have good intention, but are badly executed. One such mission was “Give It Up!” which asked participants to, “give up a bad habit at least for one day,” and…that’s just plain stupid. Not giving up legit bad habits, because that’s incredibly earth shattering stuff to change one’s self for the better (hopefully). The problem is giving up said habit(s) for a single day. Honestly, what does a single day matter in the scheme of things? Vices of this nature are hardwired into our system, and cause real problems when they are kept away. And don’t say, “This just shows how easy it is to drop a habit if that’s how one day felt.” Try dropping something completely and see how well your mind and body handles the shock of never being able to have that one thing ever again. Just try.

No, please try. It’s really for the best when on the goal of self discovery and reinventing yourself into a more ideal you, especially if that ideal is in your head and beyond the scope of whatever you can really do. But discovering that is a very important part of knowing yourself, which is something which only you can do and gives you the most joy in your life. Knowing is different than doing, however, though I did do plenty of the doing back in my 40 Days & 40 Nights faze. Through it all I found myself to be a very sexual creature, that I can never seem to be rid of chocolate and other tasty food, and I have a hard time breaking habits when they start.

My Akoha Backlog #3 – Duct Tape Flowers are BETTER…but…

We once again return with more Akoha Backlog, because being obsessive is a pain in the ass. This weeks mission is called Power Walk and required me to, “Walk somewhere that [I] normally commute to. Photograph something [I] wouldn’t have seen otherwise.” A little complicated to complete, given that the locations I would drive to are farther than my bike would take me (sensibly), and I otherwise need the car to haul items. And if I need to head somewhere close, I just bike to it to save time. Because walking is for losers. But I guess I needed to bite the bullet on this one, and at least try to find a location I haven’t been to many times before, because I’ve explored the hell out of my locale in the past year.

But walk I did, however…I did something a little unorthodox: I did this mission in conjunction with a prior mission. Just as that mission had the benefit of taking out many birds with the same stone, I thought I would work the same here. Doing this makes me feel as if I’ve broken a “rule” and I find myself wanting to stray from such things in the future. Hopefully it shall be the case, or at the very least I’ll be kinder to myself because DAMMIT, I’m supposed to be making mistakes, right?

My Akoha Backlog #2 – George Carlin was a (Cynical) Genius

Back in Christmas 2005 I received a George Carlin 2006 Calender, because I apparently loved his work along with the rest of my family. Never mind I was too young to really grasp what he gave the world or even bothered to find out (even to this day), George was still appreciated by me, so the calender was a thankful gift…in the form of getting it, that is. See, I never used it once through the whole of 2006. I read through the first few days of quotes, Then left the calender sitting somewhere through the whole of the year. It was otherwise a wasted purchase upon me.

And bless my young stupid heart, I understood that failing, and made a decision to make the investment in me worthwhile by finding some means to use the calender in a creative project. On what that would be I had no idea, but it was going to make proud those who gave it to me and especially George Carlin. The aspirations of the young are ever ridiculous, especially with the lack of self understanding. While I always understood myself to be stubborn, it took awhile for me to understand I was a lazy ass, and the calender was still valued as important in the process of the four times I’ve moved. I recently got sick of it just sitting in my drawers and finally made my move.

My Akoha Backlog #1 – Honesty, Decency, Integrity

I am in the midst of another downward spiral, and find myself wanting to retreat from people as I did in the Fall of last year. And while I am aware of this and that it’s a bad for me in the long run, it’s hard to find reason to care. When every affirmation you give yourself is accompanied with ridiculous amounts of doubt, you’re better off just simmering in the misery you already have without being reminded of the crap you view your life to be. As such, I’m not really pressuring myself to do much of anything these days. Anything I can do (and need to do) is far too tainted with vile emotion for me to feel safe with it, making it so I never follow through at all. In other words, yet another pathetic perpetual state of sadness.

So I do need to make sure I’m doing something, but finding a task is a task unto itself. House chores help, because aside from the fact they need to be done, the sense of accomplishment is a tiny boost to keep going on things. They are things that I can see, and clearing them up clears up my mind. I try and make it a habit to be Spring cleaning 24/7, though habits are hard to keep when you don’t feel much of anything. Having a living space that is in a constant state of flux must be quite surprising to others, but given that no one sees it to begin with…*shrug*

My Akoha History #24 – About Evan Emory

Free Crime. That was the title of the last mission played on July 14, 2011, before Akoha was shut down for good. It’s a fitting mission, given that it’s actually a good question (if taken seriously). What crime would you do if there were no repercussions to be had against you? It’s a show of your character if you can actually manage to dwell on it, and how far you would go against society if you would get away scot-free. Or you could have been the majority of what was left of Akoha at the time and make silly comments. I like to actually dissect things when I can, which can be quite the negative if put in the wrong situation.

In regards to this mission, there aren’t too many things I would do illegally, given that I find illegal actions to be illegal for good reason (or at least most of them). To go against society usually shows something is wrong with you, and you deserve to be in prison to keep the lot of us safe. Usually. The rest of the time I’m offended at what people can get sent to jail for, and what people are doing with the Law to enforce actions which set us back rather than move us forward. Such is the case with Evan Emory.

My Akoha History #23 – About Shinya Tsukamoto

“What Are You Watching Right Now?” played July 9, 2011. Do you need to be told what this mission was about? For me this would imply movie, but I’m sure it could have been turned into anything. But since when have I ever bothered to watch anything other than something on the television? Though I must say if I was going to see something other than a monitor, it would be Steam Powered Giraffe on a stage. Those automatons had my heart ever since I heard Honeybee weeks ago.

Back to the mission! On that day, I was fascinated with a short film made by Shinya Tsukamoto, a Japanese director/actor who caught my attention sometime after high school. The majority of topics deal with extremes of emotion, and how they can change people in incredibly nasty ways. Given that a lot of what I would normally say at this point has already been said by my past self I’ll just let him speak…

My Akoha History #22 – About PANDAstar

“Music, please!” was played July 2, 2011, which I believe had me share something new in terms of music, or at the very least what I was listening to at the time. However it goes, you know? As just one of my music playlists on YouTube show, I listen to a wide array of music. I pride myself on having eclectic tastes, though I have to say I find a large attraction to electronic/synth more than anything else. I think it has to do with me growing up playing video games and the like, because I always feel right at home with such sounds. So much so I needed to find an 8-Bit version of Epic Sax Guy after listening to him for several minutes..which does exist. Thankfully great ideas aren’t mine alone. Heck, I’ve posed questions such as Ryu from Street Fighter vs. Jin from Tekken before they were even considering a game for that concept.

Enough derailment! Especially considering I’ve already spoken on my musical tastes enough that it’s becoming redundant. *ahem* My selection for this mission feels a little forced to me, because while I can believe I was indeed listening to it at the time, I think it was more an advertisement to help a musician I had the honor of getting to know. Nothing wrong with that, but just doing my part on being honest with myself on how things went down. The musician goes by the name PANDAstar, and like my talk on music I’ve spoken enough about her to be sickening rather than redundant. Certainly not going to stop me though. Onward to what I said!

My Akoha History #21 – Bicycle Love

Played July 2, 2011, “Bike To Work” had me…bike to work. Something I’ve never really done, safe the few times I’ve done so in one of the first few jobs I held. In my mind, it’s a luxury to be able to do this. Not only to be able to save on gas and get exercise, but to appreciate the thrill of the wind buffeting your face as you speed by the beautiful world around you. It’s quite a rush. Just the thing one needs in order to make the usually unwanted but necessary hours passable. Mind you that’s not really a mindset I have anymore, but it’s the bulk of the work force, so that’s the reason I say it. These days I’m usually too happy or busy to be bothered about how most of my time is in the hands of someone else.

However it goes, this mission was played a month after I had given up my delivery driving gig at Toppers, and took in the work of being an Insider or at the very least spreading the word of Toppers to the masses. In the end I only had one Insider shift, and pretty much worked two months on nothing but spreading advertisements around the area. Being on a bike not only made this task amazingly easy, but allowed me to see the city in ways I never had the chance to before. Unemployment can do that as well, but as it goes. What’s really interesting about all this is I had never actually used my bike up until this point, and…well, I’ll just let my past self explain.

My Akoha History #20 – A Fine D&D Gathering

“Board Gamer” played June 7, 2011 required me to “Play a board game with a friend or group of friends and post a picture of the game board at its most dramatic.” This one was simple enough, because I play Dungeons & Dragons like a boss. With permission of the fellow players, I brought out my cellphone and took a picture, which I then begrudgingly sent to my email, thus garnering some sort of charge as I do every time I send a text. And while most people today would find that very annoying, I have appreciation of the limitations this puts on me, because this prevents me from going nuts and possibly driving others nuts due to my texts being equivalent to full fledged novels. Okay, not really, though that’s what I’ve been told in the past.

But I digress! What’s really impressive about this dramatic moment is that it was completely made up on the spot. It wasn’t really planned out as much as I hoped, and I honestly forget if the reason they went to this locale was simply made up as well. I loathe improvising on the spot with D&D, because when you’re a DM, everything you say sticks like glue, and you will be beaten by a stick from the PCs should something contradict in the long run. Though in this circumstance, everything fell into place perfectly. More a matter of being lucky than anything of skill, because I’m average in all sense of the word, but there’s nothing wrong with noting how something went incredibly right for something I thoroughly enjoy.

My Akoha History #19 – An Old “Friend”

Played April 23, 2011, “Long Time No See” had me seek out someone I haven’t seen in a long while. Given that I don’t seek out people too often, there are far too many people this mission could have applied to. If anything, it deserved to be given to two friends on the other side of Wisconsin, who haven’t been seen and barely spoken to since 2008 (probably later now that I think on it). But it’s more a matter of being able to get it done than anything else, and driving that distance and maintaining the work flow I needed to live despite the fact it was never enough…well, I had to keep myself close to home.

So I got in touch with the only member of my first D&D group which kept in contact with me, and arranged a meeting for lunch. I even went so far as to have lunch be on me, even though such a thing would be dreadfully taxing on whatever I had left. After all, this was played around the same time I made it clear to my former employ I couldn’t be a delivery driver anymore, and this was under the realization bills were going to be thrown at me soon enough. All the same, I believe in the power of a good gathering, and good manners are always appreciated. How it went down…