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The Object of the Game or “why the f&#k are we really doing this?”

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  Hi there, dear casual reader! Take my hand and follow me into the Wayback machine to take a quick trip back to a place we used to call a “video arcade”. If you’ve ever played videogames, chances are you are familiar with an old coin-op that became very popular in the early 80’s. So popular, in fact, that it spawned a pop culture craze named after it.  The game in question was Pac-Man , and one of the many reasons it became so popular was its devious simplicity: you used a joystick to control a yellow round creature gobbling up dots inside a maze. There were four different colored ghosts obsessed with stopping you, (Blinky, Inky, Pinky and Clyde, in case you were curious about their names). At the four corners of the maze there were “power pellets”. When you "ate" one of these, the ghosts got scared and turned blue for a few seconds when you could chomp them up, leaving behind a pair of blinking eyes that would glide back to the chamber at the center of the maze to regenerat...
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Kill your Darlings? Gravitas vs Escapism

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 It seems like, again, I’ve neglected my writing for longer than expected. It’s been a year since I’ve had my eye on a very specific theme, but I’ll flex my muscles with this idea first (as it’s fresher in my mind). So hopefully I’ll be sharing that other one too very soon. In the meantime, I hate sounding like an old man, but here I’ll make an exception because it’s essential to make today’s movie-related point, kids. Years ago, depending on what kind of movie you went to see, you basically knew some things that were sure to happen when choosing a typical action/adventure movie: the evil guys would do their evil deeds, things would get dire and in the end the heroes would somehow survive and save the day. Pure escapism fun. There are many literary theories around that idea that go back to the earliest fairy tales, comparing these with comfort food. You go back to familiar territory to feel happier and emotionally reinvigorated. I remember going in to see Indiana Jones and th...
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2020: The Year that Wasn’t

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 ´Twas the night before 2020, and all through New York City, my family and I spent our vacation. We ice skated at Rockefeller Center, visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral and climbed up the Empire State Building where we enjoyed the beautiful New York night skyline while, in a bit of dramatic foreshadowing, had to avoid an Asian boy suffering from a terrible, dry cough, not covering his mouth but just hacking around. We specially took note of this since. during the previous months, we started hearing in the news the first rumblings about a rare virus that made its appearance in faraway China (yes, we were politically incorrect and race profiling, but we couldn’t help it, I’m sorry and ask for forgiveness in advance to all my Asian acquaintances). China started not to seem so far away then. Afterwards, we were picked-up near Madison Square Garden to spend New Year’s Eve at my cousin’s house. Originally, we had a dinner reservation at a restaurant near Rockefeller Center, but I had no...
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Collateral Role Model Damage...

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This one’s going to be a longer than usual, very personal and intimate entry to my blog, so please be kind and bear with me. “ When I grow up, I want to be like so-and-so ”. How many times did we say that as kids? As I’ve grown older, I’ve got to thinking more and more about who my formative years’ heroes and role models were and, more importantly, why. What was appealing to me? What did I admire about them? What influence did they have on the person I am today? These will include fictional characters or people who made a monumental impact on how I saw myself at the time, and probably had a role in shaping who I am today. I was never much into sports, so there are no athletes here. This doesn't mean I didn't have any interest in sports figures.  Nadia Comaneci , Miguel Marin , the Harlem Globetrotters , Terry Bradshaw and Pele come to mind, however none were remotely impactful enough to make the list. My apologies to all the sports’ buffs, I guess I was more of a ...
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