Well, I used to go for piano and flute lessons when I was younger because, as everyone knows, every Asian kid has to learn at least one of those things (or the violin) or face dishonour and ruin for the rest of their lives. Needless to say, my inability to read musical notes and learn how to play a musical instrument proper has left me a shell of a real Asian boy. But at least I know how to math! (.... I don't know how to math).

I also used to play the recorder but this guy just completely blows me out of the water.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_2liW8QJsU

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Considering the fact that I live in Australia and that "the country" is "the Outback" filled with all manner of flora and fauna out to murder anything too weak to survive in its harsh environment I'm going to go ahead and say "the city". Yes, the city indeed - Adelaide, South Australia. "The Serial Killer Capital of the World".

.... Ahh nuts.

Alone.

Well, I. That is. um um um um. I mean there was a man.... A man..... from Nantucket? Uuuuh, no. Let's try again. No wait, I can salvage this! Yes. Yes, I say yes. Answer is "yes", yes.

In the cinema? Marvel's The Avengers. At home? Tangled.

The Doctor lies. Also: Hardcore Nazi sex midgets.

Hardcore Nazi sex midgets.

Hardcore Nazi sex midgets.

Hardcore Nazi sex midgets.

The same reason you park in a driveway and drive in a parkway. Hardcore Nazi sex midgets.

In terms of the triple-A blockbusters, I honestly don’t think there’s anything that’s coming out over the “summer” (it’s winter over here in the southern hemisphere) that I’m really looking forward to. Everything BIG that I’m keeping an eye on is happening next year: Bioshock Infinite, Hitman: Absolution, that sequel to Metro 2033 etc. And then there’s those Kickstarter game projects I backed which may take even longer to come out. Come on Double Fine Adventure/Wasteland 2/The Banner Saga/Shadowrun Returns/Leisure Suit Larry! Amongst many others more that I have backed! I throw my money away at nostalgia-inducing games far too easily, perhaps.

In terms of smaller scale productions I’m looking forward to the graphic adventure game “Resonance” that’s coming out soon from Wadjet Eye games:

http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/resonance.html

Mainly because it stars a bunch of my friends (Hi Kirb and Miranda!) but also the narrator from Bastion. Which will be sinfully sexilicious. Another game I’m looking forward to is "Guns of Icarus Online" which is a Kickstarter project I backed a while back and that is now going through closed beta testing.

http://gunsoficarus.com/

Co-op multiplayer set in a steampunk universe where teams are piloting airships to take down waves of enemies/each other in airship to airship combat? My mouth salivates. HARD SALIVATION.

As for any games I’m sceptical about – Well, I guess Max Payne 3? Being developed by a different team from the first two games is pretty bad but understandable since Remedy sold all the rights to Max Payne to Take Two/Rockstar – but not even bringing in the lead writer Sam Lake as a creative consultant? Even the movie, as horrible as it was, had Sam Lake help out with some of the writing in some capacity. At least they got James McCaffrey back as Max and one of the trailers did feature some of the original Max Payne themesong. And there’s some slow motion, shoot dodging in there so that’s pretty cool. And the mix of dynamic/canned animation for reloading weapons or shooting a specific part of a mooks body is kinda awesome to watch. I’m just kind of afraid that they’re replaced the unique sombre atmosphere peppered with purple prose coupled with copious amounts of kinetic violence of the original Max Payne games with just plain copious amounts of kinetic violence in Max Payne 3. I mean. That’s nice. Plain vanilla violence is great, I guess. Just loses a little something in comparison to the originals is all.

I mean, it’s like how I feel about Bioshock 2 in comparison to the original Bioshock. The original Bioshock was an event: a mesmerising, atmospheric experience of an Ayn Rand-inspired world gone horribly wrong (right?). Bioshock 2 on the otherhand: was a first person shooter set in the same world as Bioshock. It went from being a world filled with interesting sights and sounds to a world filled with targets. Not that the original Bioshock DIDN’T have its fair share of targets but Bioshock 2 seemed to be under the impression making MORE targets and MORE wildly varied means of despatching those targets was the way to make a worthy sequel. Playing around with the mechanics of the game might have worked for the latest COD game or some other game focused on multiplayer (which I may have actually enjoyed), but not really for a game like Bioshock.

Anyway, that’s enough me gumming about why I hate Max Payne 3. I mean, I haven’t even played it yet. For all I know it might actually be awesome and live up to the impossibly high standards I’ve set based upon my nostalgic memories of the previous two games that I haven’t played in several years while in complete denial over some of the more fiddly game mechanics in those older games. Or maybe it’ll just suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck

The opening to Megaman 3. One of the few NES games I ever beat back in the days when I owned said console (augh why did I sell it back then augh and only for $100 with all my games it’s worth a fortune now augh augh stupid augh) and also the ONLY Megaman game I’ve ever beaten. Or played properly, for that matter. It occupies a special place in my gaming heart, yes.

Well first of all, if I were a rare spawn then obviously I’d be an armadillo in a penguin outfit holding up a sign that says “Moo”. All my attacks would either involve my sign, or a massive AOE attack where I get on my belly and slide around – knocking the players into the air and juggling them if I manage to hit them several times in succession. Also, because my penguin suit is made with tempered fatty, gelatinous penguin flesh AND I have armoured scales underneath that thanks to my armadillo shell I’d be impervious to almost anything! Except love. Love is my weakness. And there will be a terrifically sad backstory about that in the quest log if the players ever bothered to pay attention to anything except for quest pointers on the map screen. Somebody took some time to write that, you level grinding whores!

And as for my rare drop – my sign, of course! It’s a purely cosmetic item but it'll totes becomes a huge commodity because it’s so stylish and cool and everyone wants one. You’d think it’d be abandoned immediately because it takes up both hand slots and leaves the player unable to attack while wielding it but you’d be wrong. Because it is just that cool and stylish and awesome and that trumps being able to stay alive in the game!

Well if we’re talking about a voice acting archnemesis then there’s really only two words I can say: KIMLIIIIIIINH TRAAAAAAAAN (insert fist shaking heereeeeee)! Or if those two words are unavailable then: KIRAAAAAAA BUUUUUUCKLAND (insert moar fist shaking heeeeeeerrrreeee)! Seriously, when it comes to the roles we do the voice actorings for, if we’re ever in the same production then we are NEVER (or hardly ever) on the same side. If they’re playing good guys, then I’m a bad guy and if THEY’RE bad guys then I end up being (in one of those random, ultra-rare times) a good guy. And if we DO somehow end up being on the same side then we have a very antagonistic relationship. It’s spooky weird. And I just noticed that both their first names start with “K”. Also equally spooky weird.

But apart from having archnemeseseseses on that particular level of voice acting, I also have dark, twisted opponents in the form of…. WORDS. Dirty, dirty words that are an absolute monstrosity to oralise. Yes, there are some words or sequence of words I utterly despise and they are the absolute bane of my mouth talkering existence.

For example, let’s take the words “of the”. These two words are paired up CONSTANTLY in the English language. And yet SOMEHOW! In all the years or centuries or even MILLENIA since the conception of this pairing of words: no one has EVER raised the point that they are almost IMPOSSIBLE to say together. At least, not while trying to maintain the flow of a sentence where the “of the”s drop in like unwanted, fat, hairy houseguests. Or maybe it’s just me. And my secret loathing of unwanted, fat, hairy houseguests. Seriously, any time those two words appear together in a script, I have to mentally prepare myself to sloooooooooooooooooow all the way down and then SAY those WORDS in an EXACT and PRECISE manner – that would otherwise be lost if I tried to fit it into the rhythm of the rest of the sentence. See what just happened? Two “of the”s in a row. That would have given me an aneurysm if I had to read that sentence out loud.

Let’s see if I can explain this in a way that makes sense and doesn’t sound like a crazy person who perhaps thinks too hard on mouth talkerings. First, say the word “of” and hold it on the “fff” sound. You’ll notice that in order to produce that sound the upper row of your teeth have to rest on your bottom lip. Now try to transition to the word “the” without moving your upper row of teeth from your bottom lip. Having some trouble? That’s because the “th” in “the” requires you to stick your tongue out slightly between the upper and lower row of teeth and your bottom lip has to get the heck out of the way, otherwise you’ll be in the prime oral position to be blowing a raspberry instead. Hurr. “oral position”.

Now, of course, I can say “of the” slowly and completely in isolation without a problem – but this is not a magical fairy land of make believe where the word sequence “of the” is a rare occurrence in the English language. Entire SCRIPTS are filled with these phonetic landmines and I CURSE the damned Englishman who first came up with this method of conveying the first noun’s close relationship with the second noun. “The moons of Jupiter”? NO! “Jupiter’s moons”! “I’m the king of the world”? POPPYCOCK! “I’m the world’s king”! “Lord of the Rings”? ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY MAKE THINGS NEEDLESSLY COMPLICATED TO SAY! “The Rings’ Lord” should have done JUST fine! The flagrant use of “of the” just needs to be outlawed, right now! Stop making me mess up potentially good reads with “of the” you sons of whores!

And then. AND THEN! There’s “with the” which is also a terrible pit of pain and suffering. Look at it. JUST LOOK AT IT! Two “th” sounds in a row. Oh you may think that just because they’re the same sounds it would make things EASIER… but you would be WRONG. Utterly wrong. Assume the oral position (hurr) you’d expect after reaching the end of the word “with” – with your tongue sticking out slightly between the upper and lower row of your teeth and your upper and bottom lips out of the way. Now transition to the “th” sound of “the”. Notice that in order to make the “th” from “with” and the one from “the” have separate, distinct sounds your tongue has to do some slight kajiggling to make the magic happen and there has to be a slight pause where no air is flowing out of your mouth and making “thhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” sounds. Oh, something just occurred to me: you probably shouldn’t be doing these little mouth exercises in public because you’d look a little silly doing so. If you ARE in public right now, I apologise for making the people around you think you’re some kind of monkey person.

ANYWAY, back to “with the”. You have to find that magical sweet spot where you have two separate “th” sounds: close enough so that it doesn’t run together and sound like “wither” (or “withee” depending upon how you pronounce “the”) but not so far apart that people think you’re some kind of weirdo foreign guy who doesn’t know how to speak English well none. It’s MADDENING and it should be struck out of regular written English and ESPECIALLY spoken English.

In fact, while I’m on this topic, I propose that the following words be taken out of the English dictionary for being equally annoying to say: “arbitrarily”, “itinerant”, “recruited” and “water”. Oh “water”. How I curse you for your deceptive surface simplicity that gives way to depths of despair and leaves me drowning in an ocean of oral torment. Like some kind of… liquid-y thing analogy.

But really, my biggest archnemesis (and the archnemesis of anyone else burdened with the spark of creativity) is that little voice inside of me that says “No, I can’t”: “No, I can’t do this.” “No I can’t do that.” “No, I can’t be taken seriously at this.” “No I can’t be liked for what I do.” That tiny, insistent voice deep inside that no amount of positive reinforcement (or negative for that matter) can make go away. This is the voice that zeroes in on that one bad review out of a hundred and goes “See? I was right.” This is the voice that notes the success of professionals in the field and asks “Who are you to think you can do what they do?” This is the voice that knows every little thing that is wrong with everything that you have ever done and states “Somebody else could have done this better than you.” It is not the voice of reason or caution, it is the voice of self-sabotage.

So in order for me to function like a normal human being (most days, of course) I’ve learnt to ignore it or at least get the broad outline before dismissing it as being silly and frankly rather overdramatic twaddle. Such a silly boy, am I. It becomes a small buzz then – a shard of a whisper embedded in the corner of my mind. But some days things just build up and build up and it can be really, really, painfully, terribly hard to keep quiet. And it usually isn’t some big thing either – it’s a bunch of little things all added together. An email where I can’t tell if the author is being oblivious or if they’re seriously just that rude when dealing with someone who wants to help out with voices. A comment on one of my videos about “expecting more” or for me to “try harder” – as if implying that perhaps I wasn’t wholly concentrating on my performance during the recording and was, instead, folding laundry or fending off a pair of poisonous possums at the time. A sentence that I JUST can’t get out right while in the middle of recording – even though I totally got it only a couple of minutes ago while warming up. And then that shard of a whisper becomes a prybar that levers open and releases all the quiet doubts and disappointments that I’ve kept locked up in that part of my mind. And I just can’t stand to do any voice acting any more and it’s all just a big waste of time anyway and it always has been.

When that becomes overwhelming enough, I crawl into bed and trawl fanfiction.net for fluffy fanfics involving lesbians. Because if fantasy lesbian pairings can’t pull me out of my funk then probably nothing else can. And usually it totally works, the stabilising influence of quiet, isolated bedrest and UsaRei normalises me out and I can think about voice acting without (too much) depression. I’m also not the kind to wallow in my suffering for too long because after it certain point it just becomes kinda funny to me. I mean, I’m pretty sure that making fun of yourself isn’t part of the hand guide to dealing with depression (protip: don’t make fun of depressed people. They don’t need that much of a push to go from sedate melancholy to high-octane fuelled rage) – but you gotta find the lighter side to the situation. For example, crying continuously is a great way to confirm your tear ducts are working and to shed any excess saline from your system! Yes. The lighter side to it all.

But when soaking my bedsheets with the filth of my tears (and other, more viscous bodily fluids) and reading about KiBonGo lesbian threesomes aren’t enough to quell that bothersome little voice then it’s time to pull out the big guns to blast away my emotional instability. And by “big guns” I mean “sit in front of my computer and force myself to record anyway”. Because when it comes right down to it: I enjoy voice acting. I honestly, absolutely do. And I’m not about to let a little voice in my head take away the voice that comes out of mouth talkerings. And for everything wrong or how bad this hobby makes me feel sometimes, I really love getting into the moment by moment of voice acting: thinking about how to intone THIS sentence, how to give THAT word a spin, whether I should break up these lines with a laugh or a sigh and how WOULD this character laugh or sigh anyway and…. onwards ever onwards. The business and politics surrounding voice acting aside, it’s the actual work (play?) of voice acting that keeps me in the game. So at the end of the day: fuck my negativity, Imma have my fun and keep peeps entertained.

TL;DR My archnemeses are: Kimlinh Tran, Kira Buckland, “of the”, “with the”, “arbitrarily”, “itinerant”, “recruited”, “water” and my own crippling neurosis.

McDonald's. And there I learned the most important lesson in life: never work in McDonald's.

Appropriately:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNrXMOSkBas
Go ahead. Try not to smile. You just can't do it.

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Saying "I never apologise" is the best way to apologise. Then dress up your son in a Halloween costume and twist his ankle.

I believe that everyone gets what they deserve in the long run. I may not see it and you may not see it - but you know the guy what stepped on your foot with his big fucking steel-toed boots on Williams Street, Adelaide on October 27th 1998 is in prison right now and is being raped always because he is always in the shower because he can never get clean enough and he keeps dropping the soap so the other in-mates rape him always in the shower. Because that's how life works, bitches.

The "This Man On The Cover is Very Awesome And Popular And You Should All Be His Many Girlfriends" magazine

.... hmm?