Mutant Strain Commentary, observations and other miscellanea from Matt Staggs.

The Great Leveler is a capricious god of fate who is responsible for negating excessive good fortune in the lives of hapless mortals. It is best not to speak too much of your own good fortune, lest you attract his attention. It should be noted that there is no corresponding god who negates excessive bad fortune. You’re on your own, there.

Average Joe: “I earned a bonus this month! A thousand dollars! Finally, I can buy that new computer I need!” Average Joe’s car: *CLANG* *CRACK* *BOOM* Average Joe’s mechanic: “Looks you’ve had a break in your manifold intake valve. I estimate the repair to cost about a thousand dollars.” Average Joe: “FFFFFFUUUUUUUUU……..” The Great Leveler: “LOL.”

Synonymous: The Divine Cockblock.

MTV and their music label partners created grunge, and framed their exploitation of what - as of just a few short years ago - would have been considered “heavy metal” as a reaction to the popular music that they themselves had flogged senselessly. I think that they saw a market that their current fare wasn’t able to attract - stylishly disaffected teenagers and college students - and spun this entire story about Nirvana changing everything as a way to effect a format change without seeming disingenuous. They packaged and sold pop pablum, and when they didn’t work anymore they repacked and sold it as rejection of the same.

It’s not like I’m deriding Nirvana or Cobain’s music, only the idea that they represented a populist uprising against soulless pop music. Their ascension into mainstream popularity was the result of careful corporate marketing and the deliberate commercialization of teen angst.

For most people their exposure to Nirvana came courtesy of MTV. Think about it.

As you know, I was a big fan of BC1, and play a lot of FPS games generally. For the last several months have been playing the heck out of Modern Warfare 2, but recently came into a little money and was able to grab BC2. Although both games are different, I can’t help but to compare them.

Overall, BC2  is a great game. The single player is just as fun. Even if there’s not as much banter between Haggard and Sweetwater, the four average losers stuck in a situation beyond their control vibe is still there. The NPC AI has improved. Haggard, Sweetwater and Sarge do more than just stand around like meat shields now. They actually take out some of the enemies, so that’s good….even if I do hide behind them on occasion.

The multiplayer, however, is where it’s at. The maps are huge, sprawling affairs covering many different types of terrain: urban combat, jungle, desert, arctic, mountains, you name it. They’re mixed, too, so you’ll have a small city surrounded by jungle and hills and a body of water to boot. In this sense, the maps support all kinds of gameplay: sniping, CQB, machine gun assaults, etc. Running and gunning around the map takes on an urgent quality as you sprint from cover to cover. Further, thanks to an upgrade to the DICE software, everything can be destroyed, so the building you’re hiding in can be leveled by tank fire or rocket attack, or the stand of trees you’re sniping behind can actually fall on you. Also, unlike MW2, the maps support up to 24 players at once, so the enemy is everywhere. Progression in the game can be made through one of four different tracks: Recon (sniper), Assault, Engineer or Medic. When you’re playing in one of these slots, your overall experience goes up allowing you to earn general stuff available to all players (secondary weapons, minor equipment) but also the experience unlocks things in whatever slot you’re playing in, so you unlock specific gear as well. Each slot offers a really cool assortment of weapons and gadgets: explosives, mines, rockets, medkits, ammo boxes, you name it, and all of them work well together in specific ways. I’ve had a blast playing an engineer. Right now, I get a submachine gun, a tool that allows me to repair friendly tanks and helicopters, and a rocket launcher of anti-take mine to take out enemy vehicles.

Game play is significantly deadlier than MW2: a well-placed rifle shot will put you down quick. Fortunately, if you form a squad (up to three other players), you can respawn wherever they are. Although there are significant advantages to being in a squad (communications, support), you can also play “lone wolf” style. I prefer to do this, since I hate nearly everyone I meet on XBOXLIVE. The only serious problems that I’ve run into playing BC2 online is the game’s graphics. They’re gorgeous, but occasionally it seems like they’re almost too much for the XBOX. Once in a blue moon it’ll stutter or lag. Not much, but enough that I have to mention it.

In all, I’d say that I still love MW2 for what it is: a fast-paced, close quarters combat game full of weird gadgets and gimmicks. If you want to play the video game equivalent of a fast match of paint ball, MW2 is awesome. I definitely will continue to play it. However, if you want a game that supports a more open style of play, BC2 is where you’ll want to be.

Leather-clad

glowing in the dark

mutated and leaden

with ammo and blades

this is where I’ll strike first.

I’ve been thinking

about being rich

since the childhood

bad times

and you’re still

staring at me

from up high

I once went to a tiny county fair or carnival on the outskirts of Hattiesburg Mississippi. Nothing seemed that unusual at first: just the typical collection of carnie folk and mechanical amusements just this side of safe - probably. Then I saw a very crowded tent at the far end of the fairgrounds. I pushed my way inside and found a group of men and women standing around what appeared to be an enormous roulette wheel. Instead of a ball, one of the men placed a gerbil on the wheel and spun it round. Apparently there were bets of some sort being made, and wherever the hapless rodent ended up resting determined the winner of some sort of dubious prize. I didn’t stick around.

I saw a tent full of water moccasins at another country carnival in the same area. Nothing else. Just a huge enclosed pit in the floor full of water moccasins, and more of the snakes in glass tanks lining the walls.

During the course of reading Dave Cullen’s excellent dissection of the Columbine shootings, “Columbine,” I chose to visit YouTube in an attempt to locate archival footage of the police response and media coverage of the event. I was surprised by what I found.

The shooters have found a sort of anti-celebrity status online, something that no doubt would have thrilled them to know. YouTubers laud Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, seeing in them a stand-in for every bullied high school misfit, and taking some sort of cathartic release from their rampage. Were these “fans” to actually learn a little bit more about their heroes, they’d know that the bullying-victims-pushed-too-far narrative hardly applies to Harris and Klebold.

By all accounts Harris was a glib and charming sort, and both he and his somewhat saturnine follower Klebold were well liked by their unsuspecting peers. They weren’t particularly bullied or pushed around. Nothing in particular spurred them toward their attack on the school except for their own sense of entitlement and narcissistic self-regard. They considered themselves “gods” and the rest of us “zombies” that could nowhere approach their own supposed level of intellectual achievement and awareness. They saw themselves as possibly spurring a revolution by their actions, and contributing to the concept of natural selection by eliminating “lesser” beings.

The irony is that the attack itself - despite having been planned months in advance - was a failure, at least according to their own goals. The Columbine attack had been initially conceived as a bombing, with Harris and Klebold using their firearms to murder the survivors. They had set a number of bombs around the campus, many of them quite powerful. Most of them never went off. The same goes for a bomb left in a park as a distraction. It fizzled. It was only when the majority of their incendiary devices failed to explode that these supposed ubermensches chose to enter the school, guns blazing.

Most of the stories about the attack - that they targeted “jocks” or minorities or Christians - proved to be unsubstantiated rumors. Even the supposed martyr of Columbine, Cassie Bernall, did not die after proclaiming her faith in God to the gunmen. I mention this not to diminish the tragedy, but only to strengthen my contention that Harris and Klebold held no motivation beyond inflicting suffering on any and all human beings that fell within their sights.

These boys were failures, and hardly worthy of the misplaced adulation some have foolishly directed toward them. Having experienced a great deal of bullying in high school, I can understand why it is so hard to let go of the pain, but why heap praise upon two stupid kids whose only contribution to society was a legacy of shattered, broken lives?

Mythologist Joseph Campbell felt that myths - stories, if you will - played a big role in our inner lives. We draw from them strength, guidance and inspiration. The story of Harris and Klebold is an anti-myth, a shadow-archetype that can only bring more destruction to those who choose to embrace it. Why not look to other narratives?

Look to the world’s many stories of men and women who suffered in some way, yet still grew stronger and more capable as a result of their trials. These people are worthy of emulation, not two crackpot nihilists that couldn’t hack real life. As fond of Harris and Klebold were of the concept of natural selection, they never realized that they themselves - by not adapting - were truly unfit for the world they so despised.