Vidya games

My experience with videogames started in my early childhood when visiting my grandparents who (at the time) lived about five to ten minutes away. My grandparents had often babysat my cousin while my uncle was away on trips or just getting his life figured out. During that time, they (my grandparents) bought him the original NES console and racked up an impressive amount of games, many of which would become classics.

             

This was an awesome introduction for me, a kid growing up in the 90’s when most of the classic gaming platforms were starting to adapt and evolve. With my cousin’s help, I was introduced to a world of pixilated satisfaction… and crippling addiction.

This is what Fox News actually believes

 

The Christmas after I turned five, my parents got me my own Super Nintendo (SNES, Super NES, Super Famicom, whatever.) I would have that very system until I was in middle school. By that time, I’d gone through almost every generation of Game Boy from the original to the DS, and I’d even purchased a PSP despite having an iPod. And a DS. And pretty much everything else the PSP was ever good for (seriously, all it was useful for was mobile internet and even that gargled balls.)

The Xbox was definitely a great system, particularly for someone like me who skipped two generations of consoles (and thankfully so, I have a suspicion I’d be a Nintendo guy had I bought those). Honestly, had I continued up with the other consoles I’d probably be more into the whole gamer scene right now. And it’s unfortunate that I didn’t because the gamer scene is just now starting to become really fun to be a part of, and I only get a small piece of that that’s either plastered all over the internet or explained to me by weird friends.

So what makes videogames so awesome? Well, as an ADD child, they were easily able to overwhelm my senses and keep me rooted in what I was doing—most of the time.

I'm looking at you, PGA Tour

  However, it’s strange when I think about my ADD and gaming because many of my favorite games to play actually required patience and careful timing. I was involved into Real Time Strategy for a long time and the only reason I ever gave it up was because the disc drive on my laptop broke, making it impossible to play Rome: Total War.

TAKE ME INSTEAD! TAKE ME INSTEEEEEAAAAADDDD!

Well, this post won't win me any more followers

I had something typed up to put here today, except I didn't do the pictures (which were about 90% of the jokes) and so I wound up with this instead. Truth is, I haven't felt all that funny this week and most of that I blame on just having started, no one really commenting, and just generally the fact that I'm turning 21 on Saturday and have been busy getting ready for that. Oh, and I picked up John Steinbeck again. Reading his work makes me feel all intellectual and poetic. That reeeeeeeeeeeally doesn't help my inner-clown.

I'm sorry this post is shit, but I'll make it up to you by showing you something I'm pretty sure no one has yet.

Today was University Day or some such and so there was food and crap and all this loud music. Naturally, the food made me sick as hell and I had a headache as I was walking back to my dorm. Rather than deal with the music, I choose instead to cut through the Union and go around. On my way up, I spotted a group blocking the way to the exit so I ducked through the small display gallery they have where they show off the best of the art-student's work. There, I saw this:

I have no idea what this is, and that's how I know I'm sane. Jesus Christ just look at the thing. You've got a Dune-worm muppet trying to catch a floating cheeseburger while some purple, fish-lipped goon is standing guard with his spear. That doesn't even explain why the alien is playing a strange version of the claw game. Do aliens like the claw game? Are aliens planting them around the world so that their hidden fellows can play and practice for the day when they conquer earth? And who left the windsock in the machine? I mean... whatever that thing is.

All I know is that I suspect the artist who painted this regularly crawls up into a little ball and mutters things about floating food and aliens trying to catch purple people eaters in claw games.

Squirrels

You know what I like? Squirrels. I mean, who doesn’t like squirrels? They’re furry, they are (admittedly) kind of cute, and they run around like little, anxious bottle rockets jetting from one location to the next as if chased by a pack of wolves. Squirrels are probably the ADHD kids of the animal kingdom.

Speaking of ADHD, what kid hasn’t imagined creating a squirrel army? OK, what male kid? Exactly. No one. At least no one who was fun. Point is, squirrels are freaking awesome.

Fuck yeah

 

Naturally, being a child who went camping often, I have many stories about squirrels. Hell, some of the stories I have aren’t even mine. I remember watching my grandfather (on my mother’s side) and my dad talk about how squirrels once stole the city picnic down in this small town in Arkansas. Unfortunately, I don’t actually remember all of the details of the story so here’s what I imagine what it was like:

 

The thing is, squirrel stories are actually only really funny if you were there or, in some rare cases, if you understand the situation surrounding it already. It’s a great aside to mention what one squirrel did, like when my friend came back from Baylor University and talked about a squirrel running up to a table and throwing it’s arms wide open as if saying “What mother fucker what?”

Fuck the Park Service

 

Squirrels are weird. More than just natural, untamed animal weird, I mean that everything about them is freaking weird somehow. Those beady little eyes that stare at you angrily as you walk past, daring you to go after its stash, waiting patiently for you to leave before scurrying down and resuming what it had been doing just a few seconds prior. And in the spring, they’re everywhere and you just know one day they’re going to realize that there are so many of them and so few of us.

And sometimes when the sun goes down, just in that dim period when there’s too much light for your eyes to really adjust and yet too little light to really see, when everything is already moving and the air is filled with strange noises already, sometimes I hear a little rustling in the distance behind me. Except when I turn to look, there’s nothing there but the little shadow of a tail disappearing into some particularly tall grass surrounding a tree. And that’s how I know; they’re watching me. Waiting. Biding their time pretending to be these cute little animals. And that’s how I know that one day, they won’t be so cute anymore.

First the Acorns, then the world!!!!