Over the last several months I've been playing a lot of role-playing games on my Nintendo DS. For those who don't play video games, a role-playing game usually involves going on an adventure with a party of other people. Often, the game allows you to name those people in your party, or partially name them. You're given a prefix--"Chrono," for example--which you can then personalize by typing a name. Your party would then be filled with people with names like ChronoTeresa, ChronoSybil or ChronoJoe.

From what I've learned talking to other players, it's common to name members of your party after friends and family. The same names wind up being used over and over, with different characters in different video games. It's what I do when I play.

Earlier this year, I was playing an older role-playing game called Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis and I had named a flying hawk man character after my friend Joe. Hawk man Joe was very powerful in battle situations, and as I was playing, I found myself pausing for a moment to think fondly and gratefully about my time spent gaming with hawk man Joe. Then I began to think about all the other "Joe" characters I'd adventured with in video games. All different, yet tied together by their namesake, my real friend, Joe.

It seemed really cool to me that there were these different Joes running around in a digital multiverse. I enjoyed all these layers of memories of times I'd spent with the game version Joes, which were in turn layered on to my feelings of friendship for the real Joe. I felt suffused with positive emotions and camaraderie until I considered a potential downside.

I've known a few people who have fought with friends in dreams and then held a grudge against those same friends in real life. I always thought that behavior was downright crazy. Was I doing something similarly dangerous with the gaming Joes and real Joe?

I found my answer in The Daily Mail, which all reasonable people uphold as a benchmark of normalcy. As reported in this riveting story, researchers have identified something called Game Transfer Phenomena (GTP), which occurs when gamers transfer their "screen experiences into the real world."

The researchers mentioned in the article are mainly concerned with the type of behavior that results from GTP, which in some cases appears to be violent. I was more interested in gamers' attempts to access menus in real-life situations, or other bizarre effects:

Almost all the participants had experienced some type of involuntary thoughts in relation to video games. They thought in the same way as when they were gaming, with half of participants often looking to use something from a video game to resolve a real-life issue. In some cases these thoughts were accompanied by reflexes - such as reaching to click a button on the controller when it wasn't in their hands - while on other occasions gamers visualized their thoughts in the form of game menus.

I have wished for power-ups in my daily life but I don't think I've ever searched for a button to click while walking around town. Now that I think about it, though, I'd be happy to see game menu options such as "Mine Gold," "Flatter," "Throw Fruit" or "Mount Dragon" appear in my daily life.

In September of 2009 I blogged here about a letter I wrote to the President and my Senators about prescription drug costs. That post, called My Big Fat $7,575.00 Annual Prescription Bill, received a good amount of traffic, so I thought I would do a follow up.

When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in March of 2010, it provided some relief for my immediate problem, which was the cost of my prescriptions. This post will look at how the act addressed my problem from a practical perspective, rather than a political perspective. There are many articles that address the politics of the Affordable Care Act, if you want to read about that. I'm focusing on practical issues because, as a patient who depends on drugs every day, that was what I needed to deal with regardless of whether I agreed with the politics behind the act.

As background, my situation as a patient in March 2010 was this: I was self-employed, had two pre-existing conditions that required daily medication, and I could not buy private health insurance at any price. I was paying full price for prescriptions inside the U.S. at an annual cost of $7,575.00 (for more detail on this, see my previous blog post). In addition to my prescriptions, I was paying whatever rate I could get for office visits to see my physicians (I usually received a 10% discount as an uninsured patient).

The Affordable Care Act established the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP), a for-pay program that provides insurance to people like myself who have been refused individual private health insurance. The PCIP program is administered either at the state or federal level; it varies by state. California missed the established deadline for implementation of its PCIP program and several months passed before it was up and running. When California finally announced that applications to the program were available, I downloaded the paperwork and filed my application on the first day they were being accepted. Within a month, I had PCIP insurance.

Once my insurance card arrived, I used the information packet that came with it to add up how much I might expect to spend in the coming year on prescription drugs and health care services. Refreshingly, it was a simple matter to tally my drug costs under the PCIP program. There was a $100.00 deductible for brand name drugs, which I would breeze through in the first month with just one prescription. After meeting the deductible, brand drugs had a co-pay of $5.00. All generic drugs also had a co-pay of $5.00.

I was glad the PCIP program offered flat fee co-pays instead of percentage-of-price co-pays for drugs. It is much easier to budget with a flat fee co-pay. It means I don't have to keep track of the retail price of all my drugs, which may increase in price more than once over the course of a year. It also means I don't have to call pharmacies to track down the lowest price available for multiple drugs. Although PCIP does have a $100.00 deductible for brand drugs, I was pleased to see they did not create a higher co-pay for brand drugs.

To find the true cost of my prescriptions, I also had to add the cost of the insurance premiums that bought me that discount. The California PCIP program's insurance rates are based on age and locale. I found my age and location in the rate table and discovered my premium was $371.00 a month. Then I guessed at the services I would need in a year: two specialist visits, a physical, a pap smear, a mammogram and a flu shot. Plus I added in an extra doctor's visit and drug co-pay in case I came down with an infection. Most visits had flat fee co-pays and several fell under the category of preventative care, so there would be no co-pay.

When I added up the year's costs for prescriptions, co-pays on office visits, and premiums, the total was roughly $20.00 less than my previous year's drug costs. Comparing my previous year prescription costs to current year prescription costs plus premiums, my costs were a few hundred dollars lower under the PCIP program.

The bad news was that, overall, my health care costs were going to remain extremely high. The good news was that I was getting a lot more for my money. I now had insurance coverage and could take care of basic medical visits, get recommended preventative care and fill my prescriptions for the cost of what I paid during the previous year for drugs alone.

I worry a lot less now because I have insurance coverage. With insurance, I feel free to attempt to change or lessen my use of a specific medication under a doctor's care. Before, when I had no insurance, I was fearful of trying to switch to a less expensive or different drug in case a bad reaction put me into the emergency room, with costs I would have to bear myself. Less worry and less stress equals more health.

On August 1, the California PCIP implemented a premium rate reduction. My premiums went down from $371 a month to $306 a month. I am very happy the program has been made more affordable, because affordability is a continuing problem with health care, as is the overall fragility of the health care system. But as long as I am still eligible and have the money for premiums, I expect to continue with PCIP.

Over the weekend, the Cute-Little-Red-Headed-Girlfriend and I went to a car show on the east side of L.A. This particular show was highlighting hot rods, but there were other types of cars on display as well. In particular, we saw a number of classic cars from the 30s. While we walked around the cordoned off streets where the cars were on display, a car-themed soundtrack played over loudspeakers.

I'm not an automobile enthusiast, but I feel connected to car culture from having been brought up in Los Angeles. I've toyed with the idea of buying a vintage car before, but never taken it past the fantasy stage. Practicality tends to win out with me when it comes to transportation. Nonetheless, I admire the way car customizers rebuild and remake vehicles according to their personal vision.

The Cute Little Red-Headed Girlfriend said to me as we walked around, "There's so much love that goes into these cars." I know it sounds kind of hippy-dippy to say so, but I did feel like I could feel the affection the owners had for their cars and for their community of fellow car lovers. Like many other enthusiast communities, the car customizers appeared to have adopted several causes and were trying to raise money for them while they enjoyed themselves at the show.

Earlier this year, I moved from the west side of Los Angeles to the east side. My intention was to move someplace where I wouldn't have to drive as much. I was tired of dealing with the gridlock on the west side, and rising gas prices also factored into my thinking. Using Walk Score, I was able to evaluate neighborhoods to determine which ones would enable me to walk more and drive less.

Since moving, I have cut down on driving a great deal, and it's improved my quality of life tremendously. This change in my daily habits was on my mind as I viewed the cars on exhibit. And it's not just me that has made a change. Slowly, Los Angeles is developing a public transportation backbone. It's inadequate, yes. But it's far enough along that one can begin to imagine the city as something other than car-dependent.

It's strange to feel nostalgic for something--a car, a lifestyle, a time in history--and at the same time recognize that thing's faults. It's odd to feel love for something you know will never come back. I have great attachment to certain stretches of highway in Los Angeles. Trajectories of speed and scenery that can only be experienced by car. Time and traffic have rewritten those roads, and slowness has erased their magic. I'm choosing to look forward to whatever comes to take their place.

I was perusing the t-shirt offerings over at The Mountain awhile back when I ran across an image that made me pause. It was an image of a werewolf in a typical pose, at the moment of turning. The creature's head was that of a wolf, while the body remained a man's body--though a hairy one. The creature's shirt was in tatters, a sign that the animal self was ascendent.

I wanted a shirt with that image on it, but I wanted the creature to be female. And I realized I'd never seen a female werewolf posed like that, so I did the obvious thing: an image search. The results didn't provide me with exactly what I wanted. The images I found tended to look too much like a woman or too much like a wolf. I was looking for the hybrid state.

While I was clicking around the web, I ran across an article on female werewolves on the website Jezebel. The article mentions an issue I'd considered myself: why weren't there any female Lycans in the Underworld movies? Apparently the female star of the Underworld series, Kate Beckinsale, had answered this question during an interview with MTV.

"Because that could be really horrifying," Beckinsale explained. "Hairy, thuggish women." Well, yes, that's exactly the point. That's why I want to see them.

The Jezebel article also turned me on to Elizabeth M. Clark's college thesis, Hairy, Thuggish Women: Female Werewolves, Gender, and the Hoped-for Monster, a large part of which I read online. Clark analyses monster films with female werewolves, which she calls examples of "the masculine-female-grotesque."

The thesis contains many photos from the films discussed, along with Clark's analysis of those physical aspects of the female werewolf shown on screen. For the most part, the films avoid showing "hairy, thuggish women" either through their shot choices or by showing only creatures that have been fully transformed into wolves. The exceptions Clark notes are worth reading about, though.

Werewolves came to mind again recently while I was reading Wayne Koestenbaum's new book, Humiliation. The book has received mixed reviews but I bought it on the stength of an endorsement from John Waters, which goes a long way in my book. I just started reading it but based on how frequently Liza Minnelli's name has come up in the first chapter I'm prepared to say I like the book.

Koestenbaum writes, "Humiliation--as experience--resembles a fold.[...] The self-abased soul undergoes an inner contortion.[...] Through the action of folding, the outer and inner realms change places.[...] This fold (the self become a seam) is the structure of revulsion."

This description of humiliation as a fold, a contortion, a pulling of the inside outside, made me think of the werewolf's transformation. What Koestenbaum calls "the self become a seam" is that hybrid state where human turns into wolf. This scene of humiliation is also the scene of horror and revulsion we know from so many movies.

In some recent werewolf stories, lycanthropy is equated with disgrace or humilation. In the Harry Potter series for instance, Professor Lupin, a werewolf, feels shame regarding his condition. And in the Underworld series, the Vampires keep the Lycans enslaved for centuries.

How interesting that women, the sex so intimately connected with the state of humiliation, should be held back from being seen as lycanthropes. It would be, I suppose, "really horrifying," to use Beckinsale's words, to see this most debased creature.

Do you know that scene in Westerns where the bridge has given out, but somehow the wagon train must get across the river before nightfall? There's Indians trailing, or bad weather coming, or a doctor on the other side that's needed.

Then someone rides forward on a trusty horse that picks its way across the treacherous river bottom, water rising up to its chest. Others follow and everyone manages to get across the river in time.

I relived that scene in my car at an intersection during the recent Los Angeles rains. My steed made it across.

I have been through two floods. Both times, I was not in Los Angles but in the Hill Country area of Texas, near the banks of the Guadalupe River. The rains were relentless and heavy.

I was a kid back then and, having grown up in Los Angeles, I didn't have much experience with severe weather. My one reference point for flooding was the story of Noah's Ark. After several days of constant downpour, I began to understand how rain could be interpreted as a punishment.

At nighttime, I slept in the top of a bunkbed in a room with a low ceiling. The pounding of the rain sounded both loud and smothering, like thousands of dictionaries being dropped in rapid succession. The noise kept me up at night, staring at the ceiling, worrying about the rising river and imagining water moccasins swimming towards me, mouths open. As the night wore on, the same thought would go through my head again and again, "When will it end?"

While driving in the rain the other day, I saw my first dog-assisted dumpster diver.

In my neighborhood, the alleys are populated with a steady stream of people competing to go through trash dumpsters. I used to think it was kind of cool, like a built-in recycling community. I'd use something, trash it, then someone else would come along and use it.

Sometimes I'd feel bad about the possibility that these dumpster divers might be homeless. But I also knew they could be freegans, or excessively frugal, or simply pursue dumpster diving as a pastime.

Over time, I've come to see dumpster diving as yet another privacy issue. I feel like I can't take a crap these days without ten people combing through it looking for scrap metal. And in Los Angeles, it's clear to me that dumpster diving has become a saturated field. If you are an Angelino that has avoided homelessness thus far, pray you continue, because all the best dumpster spots are taken.

Given this competitive scavenging environment, using a dog to assist in dumpster diving makes perfect sense. The dog I saw the other day was on a leash, except the collar it was attached to was wrapped around the dog's middle like a belt. Dark green trash bags were tucked into the belt in an overlapping manner, forming a skirt that trailed behind the dog prettily. When the dog's owner needed a trash bag to collect stuff in, he would peel one off the dog's skirt.

I watched them for a moment working in the rain together, man and dog huddled under a single umbrella. I hope they found what they were looking for.

Via Matt Taibbi's blog, I discovered the website of artist Geoffrey Raymond. A dedicated portrait painter, Raymond creates drip paint portraits of Wall Street's wealthiest and most nefarious characters, then invites the public to write comments, or annotations, on them.

His portrait of Bernie Madoff, shown here (view hi-res version here), contains annotations such as: "'Behind every great fortune there is a crime.' --Honore Balzac," "It's a proprietary strategy. I can't go into great detail," and "Prick, you screwed your family, your friends, good people, sleep well!"

Raymond has solicited annotations from the public by standing on the street, attending events and through his blog. In an interview about his work, Raymond states why he chose to make his paintings using an interactive process: "One of the reasons I paint the way I do is the idea that I provide an opportunity for people to have a say in sometimes catastrophic events over which they have no control -- even if it's only a sentence or two on a painting."

Raymond further notes that the annotations give each painting a documentary quality, with insights into a particular period of time on Wall Street. He also likes the way the strokes of the pen look. I agree. With their contributions from the public, I think these paintings would be a good choice for display in an open setting. Next to the guillotine, perhaps?

I recently finished a non-fiction book on a heavy topic and decided I wanted to read something that could serve as a literary palate cleanser. I turned to my stack of unread graphic novels and bound comics collections and picked up Shrimpy and Paul and Friends, by Marc Bell. It seemed like just the thing.

When I first saw Shrimpy and Paul and Friends sitting on a shelf at Giant Robot, I was immediately attracted by the artwork's playful busyness. I was also drawn to a story described on the back cover as "the Catastrophic Tale of the LOSS of Paul's TWO NIPPLES."

My curiousity stemmed from the unease I've long felt regarding the rumored uselessness of men's nipples. While my friend Joe has disabused me of this widespread belief, I still feel a certain sadness inside when I think of men's nipples. They conjure up the same feeling I might get seeing brown petals falling off a fading rose in the late afternoon sunlight.

Shrimpy and Paul are indeed the stars of this collection of comics, along with a long line of characters--Blimpy, Saul, Taco, Miss Polly, Brosse the Goose, Mushroom Heddy, Sue the Tooth, Kevin, and others--who appear spontaneously as the story requires. I was surprised to read a review in Time Magazine that called out "Bell's sure hand at story structure." I bet these stories' structure came less from the author's sure hand than from whatever drugs may have been available to him at the moment.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. There's several well done episodes that capture a druggy feel, like when Paul lies down on the floor on his back and pretends the ceiling is the floor, or when a creature called the Ib-Ub gives birth to tiny versions of itself that obsessively build towers over every inch of Paul and Shrimpy's apartment. In general, the stories wander and weave in aimless reverie.

What gives life to the stories is the dynamic between the two main characters, the kind and helpful Paul, and his friend and apartment-mate, the charismatic and chaos-inducing Shrimpy. Most of the stories go something like this: Shrimpy does something godawful, and Paul tries to set things right again.

For example, in the case of Paul's lost nipples, Shrimpy steals the nipples while Paul is sleeping. The unforeseen result is that Paul's life force begins to slip away through the holes where his nipples were. Paul's friends must then help corral Paul's soul and replug his nipple holes.

As I read through these adventures, I began to recognize in Shrimpy a familiar type: the friend who is not a friend. Although Paul and Shrimpy spend most of their time together, Shrimpy can never be depended on to act in Paul's interest. In one affecting story, Paul gently tries to persuade Shrimpy not to give away his favorite things. Shrimpy ignores him.

Safely confined to the pages of literature, Shrimpy is nonetheless a fascinating figure. Because Shrimpy doesn't appear to act according to self-interest or any other rationale, his actions carry the allure of mystery. He doesn't care about consequences to himself or anyone else.

I have known many Shrimpys in the past. When I was younger, I would consider at length the pros and cons of their amoral actions. Now that I'm older, I can recognize the profile of a born psychopath more easily and take the appropriate action, namely, to run in the other direction as fast as possible.

Black Swan has "Best Picture" written all over it in firehouse-red lipstick letters. If you haven't heard about it already, Black Swan is a female monster movie about a ballerina, played by Natalie Portman. I'm anticipating that this new genre will take off and that AMC will shortly debut a new series based on the ballet horror concept.

Recalling movies like Memento, The Sixth Sense and The Crying Game, Black Swan's narrative shape-changes as the movie proceeds. The viewer will find it necessary to revisit earlier scenes to determine what actually happened, and even then, reality may not appear clear cut.

Natalie Portman excels as Nina, a young, up-and-coming dancer who scores the lead role in a new production of Swan Lake. Against a background of intense female competition, Nina begins to unravel as she prepares for a role that could make her career.

The horror begins in mundane fashion, as the viewer is exposed to the physical brutality of the dancers' training. Bloody toes and routine stomach purging introduce the theme of sadism as a companion to beauty. Nina, in striving for perfection, continues the theme, with bouts of skin scratching, peeling and tearing, repeated late night practice sessions, and hallucinations.

About halfway through the film, the Cute-Little-Red-Headed-Girlfriend, who accompanied me to the theater, leaned over and whispered, "This film is terrorizing me." Later, the Girlfriend said she could feel her blood pressure increase every time Nina examined herself in a mirror, because it always meant something bad was about to happen. Looking in the mirror functioned like that scene in your average slasher film where everyone decides it would be a fine idea to split up.

Natalie Portman is to be commended for all that she has put into this role. I remember when Robert DeNiro altered his physique for the lead role in Raging Bull. The critics talked about him like he was a god walking upon the earth. Today's commentators don't seem to have the same respect for Portman's dedication to her role, but they should. The bodily permutations she has undertaken as an actor--months of ballet training, as well as dramatic weight loss--are vital to making Nina's story convincing.

Black Swan isn't just about female body horror. There are many instances where the female body and the extreme ideal of feminine beauty seen in ballet are showcased. I was mesmerized by the rippling backs of the ballerinas and mature ballet instructors as their arms imitated the movements of a swan. Also, be on the lookout for Nathalie Portman's breathtakingly muscular ass, or her quivering, flexing thighs in the first masturbation scene.

With its convoluted story line, I expect Black Swan is a movie that will benefit from a second viewing. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing this one again.

It was my friend Joe who turned me on to The Lesbian Mafia podcast some years ago. He sent me an email demanding that I listen to episode 4, "PMS and Worst Psycho Lesbian Stories Revealed," devoted to personal tales of the worst lesbian ex-girlfriends ever.

I loved the podcast and the whole idea behind it, which revolved around the host, Sandi, calling her friends across the country and asking them their opinion on a topic or question. It felt like I was listening in on a lesbian party line. After digesting episode 4, I downloaded earlier Lesbian Mafia episodes to catch up and also subscribed to the feed.

I became familiar with the show's theme song, a spoof of Melissa Etheridge's "I'm the Only One" retitled "I'm a Lesbian." I also grew fond of the juvenile but immensely entertaining prank phone calls Sandi sometimes includes on the show. On one of my favorite prank calls, Sandi called a New York gym and pretended to be a member who was upset at being ogled by a lesbian in the dressing area. The gym's response, redolent with New York attitude, would fit well in a collection of "Best Customer Service Stories."

Sandi's New York Italian background provides a certain flavor to the podcast. Show after show, I am impressed by Sandi's ability to use the phrase "fuck your mother" in almost any sentence and have it sound completely natural. The podcast isn't called The Lesbian Mafia for nothing, after all. When deemed necessary, Sandi does not hesitate to issue threats and make demands.

For example, in the most recent episode (70), "What the Hell is Going On?," Sandi takes on the reluctance of some women to label themselves as lesbians. From there, Sandi goes on to discuss the movie The Kids Are Alright and the difference between lesbians and bisexuals, a conversation she continued with listeners on Twitter.

The Lesbian Mafia has found an audience not only among lesbians but among many non-lesbians as well. The show is funny, insightful, and very uncensored, so if you haven't heard it yet, try giving it a listen.

Based on a few positive words from Dorian over at (postmodernbarney), I decided to pick up several volumes of the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, a Japanese manga title translated into English. The books revolve around a group of students at a Buddhist university who are having difficulty transferring their recently acquired knowledge into steady employment. The likeable Kuru Karatsu, who possesses an inexplicable ability to communicate with the deceased, is the leader of the group. Other members include a skilled embalmer and a shy young man with a sock puppet more or less permanently attached to his arm. The sock puppet claims to be channeling the voice and thoughts of a space alien.

The group half-stumbles into a line of business tracking down and identifying dead bodies and relocating them to their final resting place. Kuru Karatsu is the key member of the group in this effort, as his task is to communicate with the corpses and find out what events lead up to death and where the body wants to be lain. There's not a lot of money to be made from this work because the group's "clients" are usually deceased, though the group does manage to come into some money sporadically. The downbeat nature of their work and their continuing economic dilemma are offset by the group's camaraderie, the charm of the characters themselves, and cleverly-written dialogue.

I was sometimes thrown off-balance by the mixture of horror content with an overall narrative tone that reminded me of children's fare. My mind frequently flashed back to memories of watching the original Scooby-Doo series while reading about the group's attempts to solve a new paranormal mystery. Although Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is labeled for adults, it seems like there's plenty of horror-inspired material for children these days, from Harry Potter to the Series of Unfortunate Events books to the Twilight series. Some of the drawings are gory, but are kids really scared by reanimated corpses these days?

I don't have regular contact with children, so I don't have much perspective on how deeply horror has penetrated kids media. I was surprised to discover while watching an episode of FlashForward this year that children's play after 9/11 included acting out the planes' crashes and their aftermath. Considering how horrific events have come to be interwoven in our daily lives over the last decade, it makes sense that even children would become desensitized to their depiction. Horror is simply the new realism.