Fan =/= Collaborator =/= Publicist =/= Martyr

I grew up in a Christian home. I not only went to church regularly and attended CCD (think Sunday School meets summer camp), but even volunteered as an altar server for many years. Of course, I'd be lying if those facts didn't come with the respective qualifiers: Whether I wanted to or not, which made up some of the worst social experiences of my childhood, and primarily because it looked like fun. Suffice it to say, I don't consider myself Catholic anymore. I still believe in God, but there were a few elements to the system (the Fan Club, as Marilyn Manson calls it) I could never quite get past, and not the typical "A-Ha! I'm on to you." ones like, "Why doesn't the Bible mention dinosaurs?" or, "Where did Cain find a wife?" Instead, they were more basic and fundamental.

The first is unconditional love. I mean, I get it, I guess, but I just find myself really uncomfortable with the idea. I would just rather earn it like anything else worth having. There's a little more to it than that, but we'll leave it there as the second item is the important one.

The second is martyrdom. There's nothing wrong with standing up for something you believe in, but expecting something in return to the point of demonizing people who don't reciprocate just doesn't sit well with me. Whatever happened to kindness being its own reward?

While this doubt had lingered in my mind for many years, it was a chain e-mail I got for Easter that, though meant to inspire and compel, really only served to highlight what I'd come to perceive as a self-deluded absurdity. You probably know the one, about the theology professor who offers donuts to his students and for each one he gives, whether they accept it or not, his star student has to do x number of push-ups, "So (name) can/not have a donut."

A better example is the opening scene of the Frank Oz film Housesitter, wherein architect Newton Davis (played by Steve Martin) presents an entire house as an engagement gift to his sweetheart, only for her to say, "No." This may or may not have been based on the tragic life story of Edward Leedskalnin, a Latvian sculptor who built Coral Castle to impress his betrothed after she left him at the altar.

It's all about expectations, and how your expectations of others should never play a role in your intentions.

When did "OMG, HOW I LOVE WHAT MY FANS DO FOR MEEEEE!" go from being a simple nicety to a litmus test for determining greed and authenticity? It's probably a little sad that the event that actually got me thinking about all this and digging up memories of my past and my religious views was Nintendo shutting down a fan-made, feature-length film based on the Legend of Zelda franchise (then again, I learned more about faith from Legend and Time Bandits than most any time spent in church, so it's not completely grabbing at straws). Called The Hero of Time, the film was produced entirely by volunteers over a period of four years. It was shown at a few film festivals and eventually uploaded to Dailymotion. Nintendo filed a cease & desist notice in 2009, but allowed the film to remain online until the end of the year.

As you might imagine, fans were outraged at Nintendo, with many forums and message boards bustling with outcries along the lines of, "How dare you! They're just fans who love the games so much. Who the Hell are you guys to crush their artistic spirit? George Lucas would never--" and so on and so forth. In all, the people the least bitter about the whole affair (at least, publicly) were the filmmakers themselves:

We understand Nintendo’s right to protect its characters and trademarks and understand how in order to keep their property unspoiled by fan’s interpretation of the franchise, Nintendo needs to protect itself — even from fan-works with good intentions.

In the time since, the group has developed two new projects, both of them original IPs. It begs the question of whether or not these new projects would be receiving as much attention as they are were it not for the icebreaker that was Hero of Time. It's a classic dilemma that artists face, how do they get noticed without risking alienating people with an unfamiliar property? On that note, if the team behind Hero of Time had approached Nintendo for permission in the first place, and Nintendo declined, what would they have done? Would they have simply gone ahead and only shown the film as a kind of demo reel to entice potential investors in their original projects? Follow up to that, would they have even considered carrying on with their original projects? I'd like to think they would, but somehow I can't fully subscribe to that notion.

The relationship between artists and their fans is a very complex one, existing in a kind of Schroedinger's Cat/Double Slit state of limbo where no one wants to peg down the barriers and limits of the relationship as doing so would undo it altogether. It's like that couple that has been together for years, but never talks about marriage, only to break up the moment the topic comes up and they realize they have different ideas about matrimony, even though they'd been living the dream fine and dandy up until then. It's as if the fans hate to be told that they're just fans in the eyes of their idols, albeit they'd be hard-pressed to lay down their credentials to the contrary. Even the "free advertising" or "good publicity" arguments don't hold up. On a satirical note, if you'd never heard of the Legend of Zelda and Hero of Time was not only your introduction, but the driving force that led you to give the games a try, then tell me, what's Mars like?

This sort of "Who's doing the bigger favor for who?" debate can really go on for days, even years (and have, in many circles), and while I'm all for keeping the debate open and giving equal consideration to all points from both parties, I wish we could get past the sticking points of expectations and entitlements as far as the fans go. To those fans who get riled up when some derived work they've invested in is shut down by the original creators, I understand your frustration, but what do you honestly expect? Lastly, to prove I'm not condemning your actions, I'll offer up an alternative in the form of an observation:

George Lucas is a fan of Akira Kurosawa, but Kurosawa never made a science fiction film.

Goodbye, Steve

Top 5 Apple Products I Actually Like (reposted from Venusian Radio)

Steve Jobs passed away earlier this week, and for all the flak I give Apple for items like the iPad, iTunes, and the iPhone, I can't deny Apple's place in my life and in my heart. Believe it or not, there are actually some Apple products that I like, have owned, and genuinely wouldn't mind having. So, Steve, this one's for you.

Honorable Mention. Appleworks

Known today as iWork, Appleworks was Apple's answer to Microsoft Office as well as Microsoft Works, and it gave both of them a run for their money. It had far and away the best word processor I've ever worked with. I'm more familiar with its classic incarnation than its new style, but the omissions are more than made up for by what it offers in their place. Powerpoint may well be the best presentation software from a technical standpoint, but Keynote is a close second and offering a far more reasonable price point, plus it's far more user-friendly and intuitive than OpenOffice.org's Impress.

5. G4 Cube

Amidst the dull towers of Windows-based desktops and the goofy silicon heaps of iMacs, the G4 Cube rose up like a monolith and almost single-handedly re-wrote the rules for desktops. Taking a cue from its big brother, the NeXTcube, the G4 Cube not only made desktop towers more accommodating in terms of size and weight, but also made them fashionable. Usually, a tower is placed on the floor under a desk or immediately beside it like a dog. If towers ever got placed on a desk, it was tucked behind the monitor. The Cube, meanwhile, was not only small and lightweight enough to sit on top of a desk without any real problems, but it was also whisper-quiet so as not to add to the noise of an office space. In terms of design, it is quite literally a work of art; the Museum of Modern Art showcased an unmodified model complete with peripherals. It's really a shame the sales were so poor, and I really wish more desktops were designed as cubes.

4. iPod Nano (5th Gen.)

It really seems like Apple, following OSX, has been violently opposed toward people using their products creatively, at least not without throwing down a thousand dollars for Final Cut Pro. IPods by definition are media consumption devices, not meant for productivity on any level (except maybe for DJ's, but that requires additional hardware from third party manufacturers). However, with the 5th generation of the iPod Nano, Apple threw in not only a camera, but effects filters as well. In addition to the typical ones like monochrome, Apple threw in one that simulates the POV of the Terminator himself. Now that's the geeky kind of cool we expect from the original bad boys of personal computing.

3. Notebooks

Originally, I was going to put something like the original Quadra (the computer Myst was originally developed on) or one of the early PowerMacs, but after some thought, I realized I wasn't giving Apple its due credit in a very important area of personal computing.

Apple has never made a bad laptop.

I'd almost completely forgotten about the countless hours I spent playing Marathon and Marathon 2 on my dad's Powerbook. It was powerful and equally well-built. Even the Macbook Air has some great design elements; I like that it uses flash memory, giving it essentially few or no moving parts, an indispensable feature for any portable device.

2. Mac mini

This characterizes Apple's philosophy and attitude better than any other product in their lineup, for better or for worse. When the Mac mini was first introduced, sales of Dell computers were at an all-time high, thanks in no small part to a combination of the Home Shopping Network and a starting price point of around 400USD for a reasonably-equipped desktop. Apple's lowest priced desktop was at least twice that, and couldn't hold a candle in terms of performance. Put simply, Apple knew they were having trouble justifying their prices, regardless of their craftsmanship and quality of service, and were going to have to make a more budget-friendly computer. However, Apple is rarely one to give in, play nice, and follow the rules, so not only do they make a relatively inexpensive desktop computer, they make it one of the smallest, most compact, and downright cute desktops ever made.

1. Quicktime

Put simply, I owe my college education to Quicktime Pro. After struggling with some really annoying quirks in iMovie and not being able to afford Final Cut, I found out that Quicktime Pro was a surprisingly powerful editor for the price. Most people don't give it much credit for this, mostly because of the popularity of iMovie as well as the fact that nearly all editing functions of Quicktime Pro are handled through key commands, making it more like a kind of visual word processor than a non-linear video editor. It's only fault was not being able to actually capture footage from a camera, but that was only a problem if you were still using tapes and used FireWire for uploads. I had another editor that came free with a capture card, so I had that problem sorted from the start, leaving nothing between me and my short films. Every single one of them (except for one, which marked the last time I ever used iMovie) was edited using Quicktime Pro. The only reason I don't use it anymore is because I've used Windows XP since 2005 with occasional sojourns into the untamed wilderness of Linux, and Quicktime doesn't play too nice with others outside its comfort zone, even just for playback, which is the real icing on the cake. Still, you can be more than certain if I ever go back to Mac, it won't feel like I've returned home unless Pro is waiting there for me.

An Open Letter to Bethesda Software

This is in response to the Mojang litigation, already in progress.
Okay, Bethesda, let's put things in perspective: You bought the Fallout property from Interplay instead of licensing it from them, released what basically amounted to Oblivion with a texture swap and a gimmicky aiming mechanic, sued Interplay for trying to spend the money you paid them, and now you're suing an independent developer over a trademark dispute that you now have no reason to sue over.

What the Hell am I missing here? I'm trying to give you guys the benefit of the doubt, but now I can't wish enough turmoil and misfortune upon you and everything you've built.

Seriously, I hope someone makes another point-and-click adventure using your game environments again; I'd call it Karma.

Writing To Do List (or Possible Death Warrant)

Having completed CPU12F Is Missing in what is record time for me, I found myself looking back at all the other non-weblog writing projects that are currently in back burner status, all conceived long before CPU12F Is Missing (though not before the original musically-inspired daydream that led to it), and was rather surprised by how many there were. Normally, I'm of the mindset that the less time talking about intentions, the better, and that even listing the titles of these stories would effectively extinguish their little flames. However, because I'm rather depressed tonight for reasons I won't bore you with, I felt like just making a little list of them. Call it a mental exercise, a test of motivation, or simply a way for me to let off some "mopey mist" if you'll pardon the dopey metaphor, I'm not even sure which is really the case.

Castlemass not a sequel to Ladyhorse, but set in the same universe of The Broken Continent and an arbitrary fifty years after the events of that story. It is written as a pair of fragmented journal entries from a clergyman and a royal handmaiden exploring, with the aid of an elven guide, an old manor house set curiously in the middle of an archipelago. The structure would have an interactive angle, where one could choose which side of the story to read first, only being able to select the other half upon finishing the original selection (via a link at the bottom of the text page). It would only be after reading both that a third section would become visible, an epilogue sharing the fate of the two characters.

Mission of Thuele This is ultimately a more refined version of Castlemass that abandons the interactive aspect and focuses more on the "his and hers" (not he said/she said) element of the multiple perspectives device. This would be a more visual project than Castlemass in that the text of the story would be presented as handwriting on scraps of distressed parchment, each with a "chibi" of the speaking character set beside their respective journal fragments. I'm currently still hammering out the characters themselves, but the basic plotting is more or less done.

Horizons (possibly canceled) This was originally meant to be written around November of 2010 with the intent of being finished by Thanksgiving.

It's listed as possibly canceled because of this movie's recent release. Granted, and at the risk of a bad pun, the distance between that film's plot and the plot of Horizons is astronomical, the only common thread between them being that they both deal with twin planets. However, Horizons (which is not set on earth, only an earth-like planet) deals with a somewhat primitive society lacking the sort of technology that would let them get a better idea of how closely their twin mirrors their own world whereas Another Earth is set on modern day earth and deals heavily with the implications of communicating with a global doppleganger. Also, Another Earth has a theme of second chances and the gravitas of difficult life choices, while Horizons is about an orphaned farm girl who hears something go bump in the night.
I haven't seen Another Earth, and I really don't care to (and early reviews I've heard have told me I'm missing nothing), but while I doubt many other people will, much less draw comparisons, even seeing posters for this film just feels like some kind of sign. It's not that I believe in fate, just that sometimes certain patterns and threads can become abundantly obvious and clear to us at opportune times and their message can often be, "Don't go there!" Stanley Kubrick had moments like that in his career, between his aborted biopic of Napoleon, fearing comparisons to the box office bomb Waterloo, and the canceled Aryan Papers, whose release would have coincided with Spielberg's Schindler's List, these are those missed opportunities that, on the whole, don't really result in much loss of sleep.
It's not giving up, it's just giving the floor over to that little voice in your head saying, "Oh, that's a terrible idea..." letting him get to and past, "... and here's why...." and finding that the little guy actually makes some really good points and isn't just a little contrarian out to ruin your day. It may sound defeatist, maybe even masochistic, but sometimes I don't mind being told, "You're wasting your time on this, go do something else." I even wonder just how many people on, say, American Idol, are genuinely relieved that Simon and Co. have told them they are not the next great musical sensation, how many just shrug their shoulders and say, "Ah, well, I guess I'll just have to do something else."

I'm not really sure where this is going, so for the sake of brevity, I'll end it here and see how I feel in the morning after I get some sleep.

Good night, and good luck.

Good Riddance (There, I said it)

The Tweet
The Forum Thread

I'm on record saying I've never liked Extra Credits; I hated the way the show was produced, and I honestly hated that they were being paid for what they cobbled together and presented to us. Two hack writers and an overworked artist, and the best they could do was a five minute video, half of which was padded out with randomly-Googled images. At least when Yahtzee or Moviebob do that, they're at least integrated into their own personal art-styles and are far more relevant to the topic at hand. Also, Yahtzee and Bob are solo acts (and Bob makes two shows). I mean, think about that: Three people work on one show to produce what others do on their own and at best only match it in terms of production value.
My personal feelings about the show aside, here's two items of information that stick out for me:

On James: Using some of the fundraiser money (meant for Allison's Surgery and producing more episodes of Extra Credits) to start up a business. Dick move. That money was for Allison's surgery first, your personal projects... not even on the list.

On Alex: Granted, if I were in charge, I wouldn't pay Extra Credits a damn thing (see above), however, if you're having this much trouble keeping up with paying the people you choose to represent, it shouldn't surprise you that people are jumping ship. Pay people for their work, period. Turning around and asking them for money doesn't help things.

So, yes, I admit it: I'm glad Extra Credits is gone from The Escapist. I wish it were under better circumstances, I wish Allison (the artist for EC) wasn't in the middle of all this for something not her fault, and I wish it were as simple as EC doesn't like Escapist, but it isn't. So, to crib a phrase from John Stossel, "I want to say, 'Gimme a break!' but I don't know who to say it to."

UPDATE: Daniel Floyd, the co-hack of Extra Credits has said of people who donated to Allison's fundraiser and had their portions donated to starting the publishing company,

Yeah, if anyone approaches us saying they don't support the fund idea, I'm totally cool with the idea of returning their money. I don't know the logistics either at this point, having not received everything from Rockethub yet, but I totally agree with you.

The forum thread in question is here with the addendum that the Indie Gamer Fund is not a business, that "we won't take any money from the fund and any profits earned off titles published will go back into the fund to help kick start additional games"
So, they're not going to pocket the profits, they're going to use them to fund future projects... You know what, that's a business. Sure, it's not a "business" for the founders, since they're insisting they won't be profiting from it, but the developers of the games will, and while I want to say that's a good thing for independent game developers, I can't say I'm in great favor of the circumstances by which this operation has come to light. It's been established under false pretenses, that the money sent through the Rockethub event was to 1)Pay for Allison's surgery and 2)Produce more episodes of Extra Credits, effectively keeping Allison employed.

A Fabricated Encounter (from Facebook)

The Facebook status message that started this:
PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THESE INSTRUCTIONS: I would like my Facebook friends to comment on this status, sharing how you met me. But I want you to LIE. That's right, just make it up. After you comment, copy this to your status, so I can do the same. I bet HALF of you won't read the instructions.

to which I replied:
I was sabotaging a cruise ship with the intention of stranding the passengers to die a slow and painful death of starvation as a sacrifice to the ancient god Dagan. I was setting the detonator in the boiler room when you walked in on me, mistaking the room for the sauna. I thought you were going to try and stop me, but while I was explaining my evil plan (as all bombastic villains do) before silencing you, it turned out we actually worshiped the same evil deity and you'd even poisoned the entire food supply and were simply sticking around for a celebratory sauna. So, we fired up the jet skis and left that band of wayward travelers to their doom.

and in return:
The obelisk stood dusty in the dunes as I brush at them... frustrated at my situation. "Oh Lord DAGAN. Why must I unearth this damned monument?!" I yelled to nothing in particular. "Because he wishes it so," a voice from behind me called out startling me causing me to drop my brush. I looked back and spotted you setting down your backpack and breaking out a brush of your own. "The name's Matthew Joseph of the Great Dark Deepness, yourself?" I picked up my brush and returned to the delicate dusting of what looks like Dagan sitting atop a massive throne with men and women weeping at his feet and replied without looking at you, "Desiree of the Deep Weeping." The conversation went from Dagan to darker topics as the sun sank behind the larger dunes of the endless desert. The chittering of the hellflies dying on our buzz zapper makes us laugh as we continue our dark duty in the light of our new friendship.

This is seriously my new favorite thing right now. Thanks, Desi :)

A Question for Game Developers (also asked on Y!Answers)

Developers' Thoughts on Let's Play Videos (S.978)?
So this S.978 bill is causing a lot of fervor among people on the web, mostly in terms of Let's Play videos. For those of you who don't know, a Let's Play (LP) is a largely unedited recording and streaming of a complete playthrough of a videogame. They're not exactly reviews as, well, movie reviews don't show you the whole entire film (they don't need to) while the critic reads their review. Basically, they're free shows instead of free samples.
Yet, I've been having arguments with people insisting that these playthrough videos HELP the industry, as in LPs are more effective (if not equally) as marketing tools than demos or rentals (wherein you'd actually play the game yourself) or reviews (which at most show brief clips). Someone told me they could furnish reports showing how they increase sales, but I'd rather hear from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
My question is, have any developers talked about LPs? Have any of them openly and explicitly praised LPs as a superior means to generating interest and getting word about their games out there than normal advertising methods? Basically, find me a quote from (let's say for the sake of argument) Dennis Dyack or one of the Bioware founders saying anything along the lines of, "if it weren't for those Let's Plays, we'd never see the kinds of sales figures we do now."

For me, I just can't see how watching someone play an entire game without paying anything to developers is a more effective marketing tool than seeing brief clips in a review or renting or downloading a demo of the game itself. How long does your test drive have to be before you decide whether or not you want to buy the car?

ADDED QUALIFIER: Avatar is the highest grossing film of 2010 and also the most pirated. Correlation is not causation, and I'll maintain that as the fallacy of that kind of defense until I hear it from a developer. Also, as a minor announcement: as much as I'd rather not do this, I've disabled Anonymous comments from this weblog. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and stand by it. If you really take issue with this bill, and can prove that LPs are essential to the point that making their production and distribution a felony will cripple the industry, stand and be counted.

Something of an update: Notch's adding of a gameplay video clause to the TOS of Minecraft doesn't count. Why? Because Minecraft relies on user-generated content; it's more of a virtual building tool than a game. Similarly, I wonder where Sony stands on gameplay videos for user-created levels in Little Big Planet?

S.978: What it is, what it isn't (culled from DevART Journal)

This is just going to be a quick summation of random thoughts of mine regarding this bill that's circulating through Congress that may well be put into law in the coming weeks.

It's an amendment to existing copyright laws that includes digital streaming and distribution of copyrighted material.

*) It goes so far as to lay down a time frequency and monetary damage table, which lend the bill its nickname "The Ten Strikes Bill" referring to the frequency of 10 performances in a 180 day period, which not only applies to content "users" uploading the materials for viewing, but also to the viewers themselves. As for the monetary aspect, each of those "strikes" beyond the first ten is compared to legitimate and legal costs of the materials (say, buying the DVD, for example) is tallied and exceeds 2500USD (or 5000USD if compared to licensing fees, such as those a third-party content distributor such as some operation like Crunchyroll or Hulu).

*) The significance of laying down the figures for monetary damages goes all the way back to an old copyright case wherein some moron (I'm not going to bother looking up its specifics; the verdict is never used properly as a defense, anyway) got his sentence for copyright infringement reduced from a criminal charge to a civil charge because in the language of the law at the time, an illegal copy distributed at any price (even free) did not constitute theft because the number of unsold legal copies remained the same.

*) When I first read that defense, my first thought was: Okay, so it's not theft, it's counterfeiting. People who use that case as a defense to insist that piracy is not theft are missing the finer detail that getting a criminal charge reduced to a civil charge is a moral victory at best and a Pyrrhic victory at worst. I said once in another comment that this turn of events is akin to getting an attempted murder charge reduced to assault and battery because the victim was only rendered comatose from the gunshot wounds instead of dead. "I wasn't trying to kill him, I just wanted to beat the crap out of him... with bullets."

*) The reason why this bill is causing a fervor in the videogame community is that the bill supposedly has some vague wording regarding what constitutes copyrighted materials (though it doesn't look that way to me, based on those amendments I read). Here's the problem (according to them): The uploading and "broadcasting" of videogame footage falls under these stipulations, meaning that all gaming videos may well carry criminal penalties. What they're most upset about are Let's Play videos....

*) And here's where I roll my eyes, shake my head, point and laugh, call them all ignorant sluts... you get the idea.

*) The fear is that Fair Use as we know it is going to be rendered null and void by this bill, as the redistribution of ANY copyrighted material will carry criminal penalties regardless of the DMCA's rather lenient stance on copyright in the information age. Any and all videogame reviews and LPs, the paranoia continues, will become things of the past, and nothing will ever be reviewed, ever, unless permission is given by the copyright holder, effectively allowing corporations to control what people can and cannot say about their products. OH, HORROR OF HORRORS (insert backward question mark to stand in for irony mark as that character is not available to me to use here).

*) And to that anxiety and those who champion it, I say: Bullshit! and here's why:

*) I made this comment (approximately, I couldn't fit it all on YouTube due to character limits) on The Archfiend's video about this bill, about the whole "gatekeeping" portion of the fear-stricken goons' defense against s.978: There is a world of difference between something like an Angry VideoGame Nerd episode which uses brief clips from a game as part of an overall review, critique, and retrospective and a Let's Play video that shows Noah Antwiler playing through the entire single-player campaign of SWAT 4. An episode of Escape to the Movies with MovieBob showing clips of a film accompanied by a voiceover giving a brief synopsis and review of the film is far different than someone simply uploading Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon wholesale and unedited to a torrent for anyone to download for free.

*) In the end, the point is that I'm not worried at all about this bill, and don't feel one iota of pity for the people who will probably be affected by this. Reviews and critiques are not going anywhere, and I'm not going to shed a single tear for the potential passing of the Let's Play video as a format. Sure, I've watched a few, and even made a video entitled Let's Play Rampart (which, by the way, was a ten minute clip, presented as part of a longer review and retrospective, analyzing the game's historical significance, hence only being a Let's Play in name only), but do I think they qualify as fair use and are therefore entitled to the same protections reviews get under Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press?

Nope. Not at all.

Just because games are interactive doesn't make them any different from movies, books, television shows, or music. To say (as I've heard from certain idiots on YouTube) that a Let's Play video is not a form of piracy entirely because of the interactive nature of the game is effectively a contradiction and double-standard. Gamers had been saying for years that games did not deserve more strict regulation or censorship than books or movies, with the proponents of said strict censorships insisting that games being interactive set them above mere ratings or disclaimers like those of the MPAA or RIAA.

So, think about it, the people who were fighting for games to be treated equally with other media are now making the exact same arguments that the people they were rallying against were making in the first place, this time as a defense to lawmakers wanting games treated as any other media. You can't have it both ways. Either games get special treatment or they get treated like any other art/entertainment medium, simple as that.

*) I'll end with a declaration: People who unironically defend Let's Plays (of the complete walkthrough variety, especially) as legitimate forms of fair use are idiotic hypocrites, and deserve to be called as such.

Deleted bit from a DevART journal

One of the key problems with epistolary literature (or really most anything told in the first person) is the simple fact that eventually what you're reading has to be written down. What you're reading is not only an account of an occurrence, but its an account given ex post facto. If you want a good example of the problem that this paradigm creates, read The Pit and the Pendulum by Poe. Tension in horror stories comes from us identifying with the main character, or otherwise relating to or feeling sorry for them, and being ultimately uncertain as to what will happen to them. So, unless the writer does that lame cliche of cutting off the narrator in mid-sentence (as even I've done), or leaving things on a cliffhanger promising a future account that will never be (something I've also done), the story is spoiled because you know they survive, at least intact enough to dictate the preceding memoir.


Epistolary Rough by *533497 on deviantART

Two Things I've Just Learned from the IRS

I got some bad financial news yesterday. Actually, it's not that terrible, but I do have to give about 75% of my tax refund back to the IRS because of some oversights they found in my return from 2 years ago (a return I've asked three times in six months for the transcript of yet haven't received).

(*) When I was fired from T-Mobile and went on unemployment, I cashed out my 401(k), something I'd been told was about the dumbest thing anyone can do. I understood this, but I didn't understand the extent to which this was a bad idea; I knew I would get less than if I'd waited, obviously, and that there would be deductions, but I didn't understand that I would be paying those deductions out of the final amount I'd receive. In short, I thought the deductions incurred when cashing out would effectively not be my problem. It turns out that when I was filling out the appropriate tax form for the 401(k) I was actually supposed to pay in 10% of the amount received, regardless of what the form's instructions said and calculations yielded. In other words, I thought the 10% for taxes was already taken out by the firm and paid for me as part of the transaction. After all, they spoke of the taxes in the same context as the deductions and final figure I'd receive, so I didn't have any reason to believe that more would be asked of me, especially when I filled out the tax forms (on which I even had help). Now that I think about it, here's a question: when I have taxes taken out of my paychecks, is the amount of the tax based on the gross or the adjusted gross after the money for the 401(k) is set aside? I think it's the latter, but I suddenly find myself unsure.

(*) Just prior to cashing out the 401(k) I'd gone through some debt consolidation. I had two cards through Chase bank, who had refused to let me merge the two accounts into one so I'd only have to pay one bill. So, I tried my best, but in my moving out to Missouri from New Mexico and adjusting to my new life with my then-girlfriend, I missed a payment. As a result of missing that one payment by a week, my minimum payment had now nearly doubled. It was more than my rent. Between that increase and the amount my other card's monthly payments came out to, it was practically double. I called Chase again to see if there was anything that could be done, to which they said no. I felt trapped and had no idea what to do, so my girlfriend suggested I call a credit counselor, something I'd been avoiding on a matter of pride. With said pride swallowed, I contacted a law firm, told them the situation, and they set to work talking the bank's amount down to something more reasonable that could be paid in smaller installments. Much of the balance by then were finance charges, so it turned out to be relatively easy to get those taken out. The problem is that the bank takes that difference between what you originally owed and what you agreed upon for a settlement, and reports it to the IRS as taxable income.

And there you have it, two financial matters I got schooled on in a single afternoon. It's a real torrent of emotions, but the only part of this whole issue that really has me mad is that this information comes from a tax form I've been repeatedly requesting for months. The only thing keeping me from sorting this all out sooner is that I have to wait for a document I'd already been waiting on and may well have to wait on further so I have all the information I need to make sure that I actually have to pay back the IRS. Hell, they even encourage me to wait on it as long as possible and give me multiple avenues for inquiring and contesting this adjustment. If they want a challenge, I'll happily give them one, regardless of who's in the right.