Monday, April 11, 2016

FATHERHOOD 2.0

Release Notes:

  • new rash-preventive hairstyle
  • reinstated diaper changing function
  • lifestyle and career upgrades
  • multiple room improvements
  • other minor updates and bug fixes 

Developer Comments:
You know that feeling when you're playing an RPG and it's the final boss and he's the hardest-to-beat fucker in the whole game and you've restarted from a save point over and over again trying different strategies but none of them seem to work and you've said you'll turn the console off if you fail again for about five times and you've used up all your items and your entire party is dead except for your main character whose health bar is flashing red and you hit attack and the enemy finally dies?!?

Well, multiply that by 89 billion times and that's how I feel right about now because the one true warrior child prophesied to conquer all of cutedom has been unleashed. After what felt like eons of waiting, the masses shall bask in the radiant wonder of his presence. Due to various elements destiny pushed beyond our control, what was supposed to be yesterday became tomorrow and what was supposed to be tomorrow became today.

And so now I celebrate the essence of my masculinity for the champion sperm spewn from my scrotums has evolved into a human creature with scrotums of its own, ready to stomp his footprint onto badassery's ass. Today, I pull Excalibur from the stone. Today, I place the Matrix of Leadership into my chest. Today, I reach Super Saiyan Blue. Today, the knob goes up to 11.

For today is the day my son is born. Universe and all thy parallels, meet Iajin Alfredous Jye. 

Friday, April 08, 2016

I AM JUST INVENTING NAMES

Some time during the late 1990s/early 2000s, I started developing an idea for a novel. It was a vampires versus werewolves story from the point of view the human caught in between the "fang wars". The title I had in mind was Bloodlust and it was supposed to begin in the Dark Ages with two vampire families in a Romeo and Juliet type of conflict that gave birth to the vampire leader of the modern times, Dæniel Drake (yes, I wanted it spelled like that). I did a lot of research and even made character sketches. I think I was able to get as far as two pages of the prologue until I learned about a film starring Kate Beckinsale entitled Underworld. Oh well.


Anyway, the reason I opened with that is because I have a slight dread of it sort of happening again, this time with my very-soon-to-be-born son's name. There's this little quaver in a corner of my heart telling me that the moment my wife and I announce his name to the webwide world, there's going to be some murmuring behind our backs accusing us of name plagiarism. To be completely honest, no, we most definitely did not do that. Neither of us are that dumb, that we saw some other kid's name and thought our child should have a similar one. And this isn't about just being different or unique. I want my children to develop their own identities.

I actually had decided on my son's name way back in high school. I came upon it while thinking of a name for a character based on myself but I thought I'd reserve it for my firstborn son (it's a name that anyone will almost automatically associate with me, so it's not what's causing my worries). By then I was satisfied with just that single name, never telling it to anyone for fear of it being stolen. Fast forward to 2009 when Jeean and I found out we were going to be parents. Despite the insistence of my friends that the baby would be a girl, I was sure it was going to be a boy and so a boy's name we created.

It was settled that he was going to have three names, like his father, and the first would be the one I've been keeping to myself for years, plus another letter. The second was a portmanteau of two family members' names, plus a suffix for impact. And the last one was my version of Junior. Name number one sounded Japanese, name two Greek, and name three Korean. It was great name and my wife and I were both happy with it (we actually came up with one more in case she was carrying twins, which then paved the way for a bunch of others because you never know, right?). Of course, when we found out the baby was a girl, we made an entirely new one from scratch and got Iaine Sivela Feona.

But now that there is a 100.13% certainty that we will be blessed with a baby boy, we can finally use the name when we fill up forms documenting his existence. Not ready to reveal it just yet so I'll conclude with some anagrams:

jai enjoys ireful ad 
jeean is fairly judo
iaine's de joyful jar

TL;DR (which means "too long; didn't read" for all you non-Redditors) No matter what anybody else says, my son's full name was invented seven years ago.