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If it's Monday, it must be AI time. 8pm EST.
Also, Robot Chicken is the funniest thing I've seen in ages. I heart Seth Green.
Update: Bo - who I hated up until about twenty minutes ago - totally rocked my American Idol world tonight.
Anyone who pulls off "Whipping Post" on American Idol is ok on my list.
We just saw a local commercial for natural gas heat. The phone number to call, should you want to inquire about their product:
1-877-I'VE GOT GAS
My kids haven't laughed this hard since that time the old lady farted in the paper goods aisle in Target.
Ok, ok. I laughed, too.
...still laughing..
I love you. I really do. I like you much more than I like your nemesis, Clint Eastwood. In the long run, you're the one who will retire with a clean concscience, because you never co-starred in a movie with a monkey. Or with Sondra Locke. Yea, I know Eastwood made some great films in his time, but he was in Drowning Dead Pool [damn me for not proofreading] (in addition to the monkey movies) and that really negates a lot of his Good, Bad and Ugly mojo. You, on the other hand, have nothing to be sorry for. You never tried to pull a BJ and the Bear moment on your fans, Marty. You have integrity, unlike a guy who would make a movie out of one of the most treacly, overwrought, sentimental pieces of crap books ever written. Yea, I'm looking at you, Madison County.
And Eastwood never had a song written about him quite like this one. Sure, there was that Gorillaz song called Clint Eastwood, but was that really about him?
This one' called Martin Scorsese
He makes the best fucking films
If I ever meet him I'm gonna grab his fuckin' neck
and just shake him
And say thank you thank you
for makin' such excellent fuckin' movies
Clint may have his silly golden statues, but you've got that, Marty. King Missile loves you. I love you.
You make the best fucking films.
Update: Once again, I offer you the King Missile epic, Martin Scorcese. Download here.
Family looking for cannon to fire Thompson's remains skyward
Anyone wishing to provide the cannon is asked to write a 100-word essay and mail it to the Aspen Daily News, which will pass the entries on to Thompson's family. "Were talking 100 words, not 101. And snail mail only. No e-mails or phone calls," said Daily News associate editor Troy Hooper.
I hope they like poems. And hypothetical cannons.
My cannon is legendary in some circles
It is as coveted
as an original Boba Fett
(with the flaw)
still in the package
My cannon has been made smooth over the ages
With constant alcohol rubbings
Made of one part Jim Beam
and two parts Jagermeister
We once filled the entire thing
With several thousand dollars worth
of the finest Columbian Red
lit the fucker
and took turns submerging ourselves in it
wading through burning weed
inhaling deeply
and then Frank lit the cannon
shot me clear across the yard
I stopped, dropped and rolled
and then smoked my Levis
---
100 words.
Well, I do.
I'm looking for a new game to buy (because I just have so much free time on my hands to play games..). I'm interested in a sim/tycoon type game. I love Roller Coaster Tycoon, to give you an idea of what I'm looking for. And I'm much better at managing things than people, so I don't want to play any of the Sims games (been there, done that, tortured my Sims to death for the hell of it). So I'm looking at games like Mall Tycoon. maybe Zoo Tycoon (maybe managing animals is easier than managing people? Is there a "animals go on wild rampage and take over the world" option?)..I like to know that if I buy a game and get bored with it, there's always the option for mayhem. Like locking your Sim in a makeshift closet until he pees all over the floor and then dies from starvation in a pool of his own urine, or making the roller coaster users puke all over each other. But most of all, I just want entertaining game play and the ability to have some control over people/places/things to make up for my sad lack of control in my own life.
Any suggestions?
So the snow from the past few storms has mostly melted. The streets are finally clear of ice patches. My car has been scrubbed clean of sand and salt and acid snow residue. And it was kind of nice out yesterday. Sunny, not too freezing - I could almost taste the hint of spring the air. In fact, if I listened long and hard enough, I could hear Bob Shephard's voice in the breeze - now batting...... my heart fills with joy and anticipation and then....
THANK YOU MARIO! BUT OUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE!*
With a winter storm warning in effect and expectations of 8 to 13 inches of snow on most of Long Island, drivers are already dreading winter's next onslaught.But there's even more bad news, said Adrienne Leptich, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Upton.
For one thing, the timing of the storm -- expected to start between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday and continuing until early Tuesday -- looks likely to make a mess of at least two commutes.
For another, winds are expected to be between 20 and 30 mph, with gusts up to 40 mph. "We're looking at near-blizzard conditions," Leptich said.
What god do I have to appease and who/what do I need to sacrifice in order to make winter go away? Do you hear me, weather god? I am tired of bending over for your eight or more inches every week! And now I'm starting to get that itchy, skin crawling feeling that usually ends up with me either crawling into bed for days at a time or going on a violent rampage. And if I'm going on a violent rampage, it's going to start with anyone who says "oh, but it's 70 degrees and sunny where I am, hahaha!" or maybe with the first person who says "man up, nancy, it snows in my neck of the woods 8 months out of the year, 42 inches at a time!" Well, I'm not in your neck of the woods, am I, bucko? Oh, but I will be. I will be. With my deadly shovel-o-death. How do you like them apples, snow freak?
I just love Mondays which follow a Sunday evening of insomnia and weather-rage.
[and this remind me that I was going to finish off my Poseidon Adventure treatise today. What better way to spend a blizzardy day than submerged, so to speak, in tales of a sinking cruise ship? Well, lots better. I have some more fellatio stuff coming up. I know that always catches your eye. More than, say, Ernest Borgnine or Shelley Winters in distress]
[side note: I just made the Best. Baked Zit. Ever.]
I may live blog the Oscars. Maybe. I don't know that I could really make fun of people who practically parody themselves, anyhow.
For now, it's play time, and the topic is:
Alternative Oscar Categories You'd Like To See
Interpret at will.
[And, the Academy Awards drinking game. And another one.]
Update: One little letter. Just one letter. ZITI.
Joke's over, people. JUST PLAY THE FREAKING GAME.
::smack::
And I don't think I'll live blog because my eyes are already glazing over and the real program hasn't started yet (Ann Althouse and Skillzy are live blogging, anyhow - so is FAD, with his usual sarcastic aplomb. And Roger Simon.). But feel free to use this as an open Oscar thread in which you can (ahem) answer my survey question or just make fun of the winners/loser/presenters or yell out BOOBIES! whenever applicable. Yea, that will be fun.
!!!!
--
Update: Nice to see Drew Barrymore doing a salute to Ronald Reagan with her hair. The best commentary is over at FAD.
It's still Estrogen Week and I'd like to celebrate it with a repeat of my short story about a female....well, just read it.
First - because a lot of other people are focusing on the political women in the blogging world, I'd like to present of list of women bloggers who cover other topics.
Baz
Jaded Ju
Cheesedip
Peace Dividend
Ratty
Go Fug Yourself
Matrixland
Rossi
Tenth-Muse
Ordinary Morning
Skittish
Heidi McDonald
Short, female driven story below.
The lady says to her:
“So, let’s get this profile of yours started. What exactly are you looking for in a man?
“A cape and a sword.
“Come again?”
“A cape and a sword. And he should look good in tights.”
The lady nods her head politely, but her eyes are saying “this one’s out of her fucking mind.”
“Right. Cape. Sword. Tights.” She puckers her lips tightly. “Seems like you’re looking for a superhero.” She chuckles as she says this.
“Yes. I am.”
“Aren’t we all, sweetie? Except mine would be wearing a silk robe and boxers.”
Anna nods absently.
“Anyhow,” puckered-lip lady continues, “Any specific traits you’re looking for?”
“Some kind of superpower. But not stretching. Been there, done that.”
“Superpower? You mean like breathe underwater or something of the sorts?”
Anna throws back her head and laughs, loud and hearty.
“Has he been by here? You would think after all this time he would just come clean and hit the gay circuit on the internet.”
Lip lady drums her pen on the desk. She puckers again. Anna thinks it could be a nervous habit..
“I’m not sure I’m following you here,” she says. “Are you some kind of reporter for a satire magazine?”
Anna exhales loudly.
“I am,” she says slowly just in case lip lady is not quite the bright light she makes herself out to be. “Looking for a man.”
“Right. Man with cape, sword, tights, and flying ability.”
“Did I say flying? No, I didn’t.”
“So, you’re open to other umm...superpowers?” Her lips get even tighter and they form a small, red-stained “o” and Anna thinks that lip lady looks like a balloon that’s about to pop.
“I’m open to anything that’s not stretching or flying.”
“You’re serious, aren't you.”
“Yes.”
“You know what the odds are, lady?”
“I’m quite aware.”
“Tell you what. Let’s skip over this part for now and get to you.” The lips unpucker and Anna can see red lipstick on the lady’s otherwise gleaming teeth. She says nothing. The lady stifles a yawn and continues.
“Do you have any hobbies?”
“I like scaling walls in my spare time.”
“Mmmhmm. So....you’re an athlete?”
“You could say that.”
“I will.” Lip lady taps, taps, taps the pen. She puckers and unpuckers and Anna thinks of fish.
“If you mean leaping tall buildings athletic, yes.”
“Lady, every woman who comes in here is looking for Superman in one way or another.”
“What? You think Superman is the only one who can leap tall buildings? I’ll have you know that he does not own a patent on that superpower.”
Lip lady is getting frustrated. She’s doing the fish thing with her mouth constantly now and tapping her pen on the desk.
“Can you not be so obtuse, miss? I’ve got a bunch of other women out there who will most likely cut the chase and ask for a SM/NS/DF and be done with it.”
“Well then, they will just be settling. There are million SM/NS/DFs in this city. And I bet hardly a one of them has a sword and a cape.”
“Let me guess, you’re looking for that specific one that does.”
Anna smiles. “Obviously.”
Lip lady thumbs through the papers on her desk, looking harried and impatient the whole time.
“I’ve got a D&D player uptown.”
“No.”
“I’ve got a stage actor on Long Island. He does Shakespeare so there’s sure to be tights and a sword invovled.”
“No.”
Lip lady is puckering fast and furious now and is just about to give up when a yellowed, wrinkled paper falls out from the pile she is holding.
“Hmm..what’s this?”
Anna leans forward and tries to read along with Lip lady.
“If you are looking for a super man with super power, that’s me. Don’t be afraid of a man in a cape, ladies. You never know what’s underneath that cape until you try.”Anna notices a big “C” marked in red ink across the top of the paper.
“C?”
“Crazy.”
Anna smiles.
“We keep the Cs around just for shits and giggles.”
“I’ll try to get in touch with him and give him your fact sheet. You can take it from there.”
Anna stands up and walks out. Not a handshake or thank you. Just walks on out the door, and doesn’t see Lip lady taking out a red marker and scrawling a big “C” across Anna’s paper.
Anna’s phone rings two days later.
“Hello, is this Single Girl looking for Superhero?”
“Indeed.”
“Coffee at 5 today?”
“Sure.”
“Meet me in front of the candy shop by Penn. I’ll be the one wearing...”
“A cape,” Anna finishes.
“Right.”
5pm, right on time, Anna sees him standing in front of the candy shop. His cape is black, lined with purple silk. He sword is hidden under the cape, but she knows it’s there. His hair is slicked back in that obnoxious, macho way. She looks for the scar above his eyebrow, just to make sure. It’s there, bright and ugly. She gets a flash of anger when she sees the scar and remembers how he got away the last time. She will not disappoint her crew again.
Cape guy stands there, waiting, expecting a beautiful single women who will fall madly in love with upon first sight, and he doesn’t even give a thought to explaining to a mere mortal why he lives underground and why he can crush a two ton SUV with his bare hands. He just wants a warm body in bed next to him when he comes home from a hard day trying to save the world.
Anna approaches him, her finger steady on the laser gun in the deep pocket of her fur coat. She can tell by the smarmy look on Captain Crusher’s face that he is still the shallow, egocentric man she once worked for, still the guy who thinks he can get by on just his looks and his bone-crushing abilities.
She gets within two feet of Crusher, slips her hand out of her pocket and aims the laser gun at him.
In an instant it’s over. The invisible laser has struck Crusher in his groin, the one place he doesn’t shield with laser-resistant lead. He always had this fear that the lead would make him impotent. Some super beings have an Achille’s heel. Crusher had an Achille’s dick.
As the rush-hour crowd hovers over Crusher, assuming that the crazy guy with the cape had some sort of stroke, Anna makes her way back down the stairs, into the deep of Penn Station.
Her crew will be pleased, indeed. But not as pleased as she.
All the BTK capture news reminds me.
I went through this true crime phase. Phase might be the wrong word; I only gave up the "hobby" because I read every book true crime book on the shelves at the community college library where I was working.
There's one book I read that I've been wanting for years to find again, just to clear up one probably faulty memory I have of the case. But I could never remember the serial killer's nickname (they always have to have the catchy name), let alone the name of the book or the author. I just remember that it started out with a young girl hitchiking and being picked up by this guy, who then takes her to his house and puts her in some contraption in the basement, much like a very large coffin. That's it. I don't recall much else except the confinement in a box. Ring a bell to anyone?
Anyhow, take a look at this guy.
I bet you've come across at least twenty guys who look like him. Helpful, unassuming, maybe will take your garbage cans in for you in a windy day. He held a leadership position in his church.
Here, he doesn't look as...off. The facial hair gives him a more trusting, mature look.
You never know what lurks behind the mask people wear outside. Joel Rifkin used to regularly come in the deli where I worked. He was just one of those people you looked at a bit sideways, thinking there was just something off about him, but you chalked it up to him having poor social skills. Ok guy, I thought. Quiet.
Just..weird. Thinking this regular guy lives on your block, goes to your church, shops in your store and all the while he's been killing people. And being a real asshole about it, too.
Anyhow, if that book/case I described above sounds familiar to anyone, let me know.
I've got a bad case of the creeps today.
Update: Hubris ties the whole thing (the guy, the food sounding name, the George Costanza oddity) together.
And yes, I know murder is not funny. But sometimes you just have to lean back and laugh so your mind doesn't combust.
Completely unrelated, I was just reminded that I never finished my 100 comics thing. So I will.
And uh...don't forget to vote.
Talk about your non sequiturs.
Bet you've never seen that title for a blog entry before.
Go over here, pick your TWO favorites, and come back to the comments here and nominate them. Top five poll to follow later today or tomorrow.
I have to say, those were some of the best sexual haikus I ever seen.
Have I seen a lot? Not saying.
I mentioned life altering experiences the other day and some of you seemed interested in that topic. I sat down to write something that had been forming in my mind for a long time. Something intensely personal that happened over a series of years when I was younger and which has colored the way I view the world and human beings now. And then I decided I wasn't ready yet. But I did find something else to write about, which reads as third person fiction but isn't and which are culled from old hand written journal entries from many years ago. I had posted some of them here a long time ago, sporadically, and I thought I'd put them down here all together on a Saturday morning when not that many people are around to read it.
Why? Just something about this time of year, this weather, this particular, specific instance in time with this song playing and the sun hitting the snow just like that and the dust of memories forming patterns in my head and it's just like breathing out. In with the good, out with the bad.
And who knows, it may be one of those things I put here and then take down, kind of like diary entries crumbled and thrown into a ashtray or letters written but never sent.
Pretty much untouched, unedited from the original paper and ink thoughts. They are way too self-aware, heavy handed and filled with cliched imagery. But they're my words and they're not fiction, per se, but a conglomeration of moments, instances and scenarios set to some music only I can hear, and they're not meant to be pretty.
But they are life altering.
He brought her lilacs when she was in the hospital, lilacs from their own garden. If they were someone else, some other couple, it would have been a sweet, romantic gesture. But they were who they were, and the gesture spoke more of selfishness than anything else. She knew that as he was leaving, reluctantly, to come see her their neighbor probably leaned over the fence and asked if he wasn't bringing anything to cheer his wife up. And that's when he scowled and stomped and tore the lilacs from the bushes. He wrapped the stems in some tissues that were in the car. The tissues were probably used.
That was the time when she had some strange disease that made her hands swell up so she couldn't even tie her own shoes. And he still wanted to know where dinner was. She ended up in the emergency room, watching all her joints rise in slow motion. Her mother drove her. He wasn't home.
There was the other time in the hospital when she had a miscarriage - a slow, agonizing miscarriage that took a week to happen - and she had to go for a D&C and he was too busy to take her, couldn't her mother do it? His business involved not work, but things for himself. Her mother drove her to the hospital, never saying a word, never asking why. Her mother stood there next to her the whole time and when she came out of the anesthesia, instead of her husband standing over her, wipin She took her home and she never cried again about the miscarriage because it wasn't that big a deal, he said.
There was the one other time in the hospital, where she gave birth to their first child, alone and scared and having difficulties. But he wasn't there because he wasn't all that into the childbirth stuff, and he would just wait out in the hallway and they could come out and tell him when he was a father. And as she pushed and cried and heard the heart monitor shudder and stop and emit a monotone beep, and as she had oxygen put over her face and vaguely heard nurses and doctors gasping and yelling, he was not in the hospital at all, but down the corner, doing something for himself. And when she was rolled out of the delivery room, finally, with a red faced, screaming child, he was just coming up the stairs, breathless and a little ashamed, and her sisters were there already, holding her hand and smiling for her.
She sat alone at weddings and funerals and birthday parties because he was busy. Too busy for family, too busy for her. She slept alone in bed on the nights he went out to do stuff for himself, and she slept alone on the couch on the nights he locked himself in the bedroom, shouting at horses and screaming into the phone.
She dreamed of a funeral, of the pretense of mourning and of the guilty glee that came when the coffin was shoved into the ground. She fantasized about accidents occurring in the dead of night on the New Jersey Turnpike, car overturned, wheels spinning, broken glass piercing his eyes.
She dreamed of her own death but then shook the thought from her head and replaced it with dreams of flying. Sprouting wings and flying high above everything, the taste of freedom on her tongue. She landed in places that were not so dark, not so bleak and when she woke up it was always with the sinking feeling that her wings had been clipped. There were times, in the silvery light of the early morning, that she clung to the idea that the past few years were all a dream and she would wipe the sleep from her eyes and find herself in her parent's house, unwed, umothered, lifted from her bitterness. But it never happened that way and she woke every morning in the same house, the same life, the same bitter bed she made for herself.
But last night she had a dream. Again, she was given wings. This time the wings did not just sprout off the muscles in her back. They were handed to her. She looked carefully through the fog that was circling around them and saw the person who had handed her those wings. It was herself. And she knew. She knew what she had to do to fly.
---
They are leaving for Disneyworld in the morning. Not him. He didn't want to go. She is going with the kids and her mother and now the washing machine is broken, filled with dirty clothes and murky water. She leaves the machine like that and he promises to have it fixed when they get back.
She wonders what he will do while they are gone. No, she doesn't wonder. She knows. He will not miss them, he will not think of them, he will not be home when the kids call from the hotel room to shriek about the rides and the shows that filled their day. He will be doing his thing, like he always does, even when they are home.
Disney is crowded with families. Men and women holding hands, carrying babies, smiling as if the sun was shining just for them. They wear matching t-shirts and the men push the strollers and the kids have ice cream running down their chins and no one yells at them.
Everyone is happy in Disneyworld. Her own kids are beaming, bursting with energy from sunrise until way past nighttime, when she carries the little one onto the monorail that runs through their hotel, and he sleeps in her lap unaware that his mommy is plotting something that will forever alter his life.
They are on the Star Wars ride for the third time, bumping and jiggling and holding on for dear life and her mother leans over and whispers in her ear. You seem preoccupied, she tells her. I am, she whispers back. She gives her mother a knowing glance and just the way her eyes shift and her shoulder slump and her mouth quivers, her mother knows. She doesn't say anything else but nods a vague sort of approval.
And then a sunbeam breaks through the cloud hanging over her and makes everything bright and yellow and warm. She has said it without saying it, just acknowledged that it was on her mind and that broke the spell of silence that had been hanging over her for two years, as she plotted and planned her breakout.
For the rest of the trip, she avoids looking at happy, complete families, the ones that come in sets like some Fisher-Price Happy Handsome Family collection; Mom, Dad, smiling kid, smiling baby, never an angry word or a tear shed. She has stopped living in the dream where she is part of that collection. She has now become one of the discarded sets found at garage sales; the mom and kid and baby, smiles and daddy missing.
They come home and he picks them up at the airport. He doesn't ask how the trip was, if they had fun, how the breakfast with Winnie the Pooh went. He doesn't say a word. Her mother sits in the back of the mini-van with the kids and now she is embarrassed that her mother has to see the silence of their lives. She breaks the ice and asks him how his past week has been. He mutters something about it being nice and pleasant, spitting the words out as if their arrival home had destroyed the balance of his world. She doesn't cry, doesn't get upset, because she has that beam of sunshine slicing through her anger. It's coming, she says to herself. It's coming.
There's that phrase the straw that broke the camel's back. It's always a little thing, something as light as a plastic straw that can bring your house made of glass tumbling down, shattering at your feet. For them, it was the washing machine. It was ten days that the machine sat there, full of soiled clothes and gray water that was starting to smell. She asks him about it, wonders out loud why he didn't have it fixed. He shrugs his shoulders and goes in the bedroom and closes the door, and she goes back out the van and brings the suitcases in. She tucks the kids in bed and then proceeds to empty the water out of the washing machine, a bucket at a time, going from laundry room to the bathtub for each bucket, wanting only to lay down in her own bed and sleep.
And when she is done, she curls up on the couch and smiles to herself. Because this is the last night this fake collection of a family will present itself as whole. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would tell him.
She remembers the dream she had about the wings. It's time to fly.
---
[almost three years later]
It is early evening in late summer. It's that moment between dusk and darkness, when the world is bathed in serious shades of blue, and the shadows seem to be debating about whether to come out or not. The stars are poking through the sky and the last remnants of the sunset have disappeared over the horizon, leaving one last streak of magenta trailing behind. She is chasing fireflies on the front lawn, her kids squealing and giggling as they catch one and then throw it back into the air and watch it take flight.
She is running with them, and giggling with them and it finally feels good. She spots a firefly on the far side of the garden and runs after it. It lands on the lilac bush. And she remembers. She remembers how she hates lilacs and the way they smell and how she attaches every bad memory about him to that particular lilac bush.
And then she moves away from the bush, leaving the firefly sitting there, blinking at her, and she runs back towards her children. She has cleared a hurdle. She did not let those memories weigh her down. She goes back to chasing fireflies until the ice cream man comes jingling down the block and they run after him, meeting up with the kids next door, everyone screaming for ice cream.
She sits down on her neighbor's steps and they watch their kids become stained various shades of strawberry and grape and orange, melting ices shaped like cartoon characters bleeding onto their smiling faces. She talks with her neighbor about the little things; school starting soon and summer ending, plans for Labor Day weekend. She feels a sudden surge in heart and almost doesn't recognize the feeling. Then she remembers. It's happiness. Contentment. Finally.
She knows she has passed some imaginary line. She has conquered the demons behind her and slain the dragons and landed her house upon the wicked witch of the west. She's not naive. She knows there are hurdles ahead, but she feels the trail of dead dragons behind her has given her strength and courage to take on whatever faces her.
Maybe she will meet someone who will want to face her challenges with her, someone who will stand by her side and hold her hand when the past tries to snatch her away. And maybe she won't meet someone. That's ok, too.
And just to prove something to herself, later that night she goes outside and cuts some lilacs from the bush. She puts them in a vase and sets them out on the counter. They have lost their spell. They can do no harm.
Excerpts from the never-aired 1973 Scooby Doo episode with guest star Hunter S. Thompson (I should just make a permanent link to Iohawk in every morning post)
Dave has a really, really, really hard Guess the Song Lyric by Rebus thing going on.
Gallery of Unfortunate St. Patrick's Day Cards
Every Calvin and Hobbes strip ever drawn, in chronological order.
One of my favorite blogs is going on hiatus for a while. Enjoy the time off, Ed.
Ohmydearlordjesusonapogostick, somebody get me a fork to stick in my eyes. Or sulphuric acid. And something for my brain, the part where visual memories get seared - maybe a long knitting needle to stick in my ear far enough to puncture my brain.
Ok, it's my own fault. I knew I shouldn't have clicked. I knew it. But someone sent me the link and I don't know what came over me. I mean, Fred Durst. Having sex. Why the FUCK would I click that? I deserve this.
No matter what I do I will never, ever be able to unsee what I saw. For the rest of my entire life, I will have that vision of Fred Durst doing unspeakable things to some bimbo in my head. Oh, I won't always think about it - but at some inopportune time - like at a relative's funeral or in the middle of a job performance review - the memory will seep out of its hidey place in my brain and BAM, Fred's wang and the [shudder] places he stuck it will just flood into my head and I'll go into immediate convulsions as my body tries to stop my mind from making me go insane with the horror.
PLEASE MAKE ME UNSEE THIS!
I'm going to take long, long, steaming hot shower where I will scrub myself with pumice stones and use 18 bars of soap and then I'm going to stick needles in my eyes.
No matter what, don't do it. If anyone sends you that link, DO NOT CLICK.
Even if you didn't see the Robot Chicken episode where Optimus Prime dies, it's still kind of amusing that National Prostate Cancer Coalition saw fit to eulogize him.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Pop culture fans are mourning the death of Optimus Prime today as the famous Transformer passed away last night from prostate cancer on the new Cartoon Network Show, “Robot Chicken.”“When it comes to prostate cancer, there’s more than meets the eye,” National Prostate Cancer Coalition CEO Richard N. Atkins, M.D. said. “Often times when one has symptoms for prostate cancer it’s already in its late stages, that’s why early detection is so important.”
The scene from Robot Chicken, a new show created by Seth Green, showed Optimus Prime with incontinence (or urination) problems followed by a trip to the doctor and then death.
“Being a Tractor Truck, Optimus should have known the importance of check-ups – oil, anti-freeze, spark plugs – the works,” said Atkins. “It comes as such a surprise – my kids loved that guy.”
Best. News item. Ever.
Peace be with you, OP. You were a giant among robots. And now, perhaps you're death will not be in vain.
Get your special area checked, guys. Do it for Optimus.
[After a viewing of the Transformers movie tonight, I'll pour a 40 of motor oil on the ground for Optimus]
I got your meme right here, baby. And I got it from Sheila.
1. What’s your favorite kind of cookie?
CookiePuss. Or Milk and Cookies.
2. Who is America’s most overrated actor?
Kevin Bacon. My god, that man makes me cringe every time he appears on camera. And Nicholas Cage. I’m one of those strange people who loved Con Air, but Cage’s terrible acting skills almost ruined it for me.
3. Name a guilty pleasure.
I’ll name more than one, ok?
American Idol.
Trading Spouses.
The music stylings of 2Gether.
7-11 hot dogs.
4. “Scrubs” or “Everybody Loves Raymond”?
I’ve never watched either, honestly. I never remember when Scrubs is on, so I just don’t get around to watching it, though I’m told I would like it in that it’s very reminiscent of Dream On, an HBO show whose demise I mourn to this day.
My mother made me sit through a Raymond marathon on Thanksgiving. I thought it ws all the same episode. Ray says something stupid. His wife gets mad at something. His mother intrudes in their lives. His father makes sarcastic comments about the mother. His brother acts like a doofus. In the end, Ray and wife go to bed and bang the living daylights out of each other. Or maybe that’s where I kept dozing off and having bizarre dreams.
5. Name two things you can’t live without.
If I could make a wish
I think I’d pass
Can’t think of anything I need
No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound
Nothing to eat, no books to read
Sometimes, all I need is the air that I breathe
And to love you
Uh...where was I? Oh, yea. My Hello Kitty vibrator and rechargeable batteries.
6. Your first pet’s name + your mother’s maiden name = your porn star name.
Thor Caranno? A porn star with that name would be sporting a twelve inch studded strap-on and a whip.
7. What song are you listening to right now?
The Wizard, Black Sabbath. My iPod’s shuffle mode is cooperating nicely today.
8. Name your celebrity crush.
Ok, here goes. This makes everyone go ewwwww....Bam Margera.
9. Favorite punchline from a joke.
She knew she could get felt for free.
10. Who do you want to pass this meme off to?
You can't have it. I’m going to sell it on eBay.
It's Friday. I hope you're not looking for anything serious or in depth here today. In fact, I think it's going to be all memes, quizzes and "wow, look what I made with some nifty program."
Me, as a Lego, getting ready for Steak & BJ Day.
[Don't miss the Make your own Mr. Man here]
Mr. Steak and BJ, courtesy of JP
Don't forget the fellatio haiku contest (thought it's tough competition at this point).
Does this new banner make me look fat?
It's..uh....... GatesGate?. Yes.
I am a collector and this is my collection. Of collections. Hello? OCD hotline? ok, I am insanely jealous of some of those collections
[More link dump stuff below]
Games I played on the Sega Genesis that I really enjoyed and probably would never make anyone's Top Ten Video Games list, unless that person was a five year old kid:
I always hated the Berenstain Bears on principle. Too preachy. Too trite. I remember reading a couple of the books to Nat once and she said, with a hint of both boredom and disgust, "Do all these books have to end in a lesson?"
Yet, somehow we ended up with Berenstain Bears Camping Adventure. And somehow I ended up in front of the tv at 2am, trying like hell to get through that cave and get all the diamonds. Just like when I ended up in front of the tv at 2am trying to get all those carrots for Buster Bunny.
There were some points in Bears when I just let Sister Bear hang out on the tree limb and get stung by bees and I'd be whispering,"there's your lesson, Sister Bear!" I never did beat that game. And all these years later, I still think about that. A game meant for 5-9 year olds and I didn't beat it? What's wrong with me? Too much time trying to make Sister Bear have an allergic reaction to bee stings, that's what.
I was thinking about downloading a Genesis ROM, but I'm going to go one better than that and dig the old Sega out from storage. It's time to free Sister from the bees and finish off the game.
Ohh, I hope Aladdin is in that box. (Flashback: A, B, B, A, A, B, B, A. Skip level.)
That's pathetic.
(Yes, this was an invitation to list your favorite stupid but loveable Genesis games)
[I think there's some confusion as to the purpose of this post. I didn't "delink" anyone. Tis the other way around. I don't even have a blogroll.]
Raise your cup and let's propose a toast..
A song for the evening: Faith No More - Last Cup of Sorrow
*
I'm having Guinness with a Goldschlager chaser. Name your poison.
*Little dead girl property of Roman Dirge
*Big live woman property of Coop
Both from really, really old posts.
I would like to remind everyone that a big holiday is coming up.
Steak and BJ day is less than a month away.
Last year, I tried to turn S&BJD into a business by recruiting women (or men, as the case may be) to, well..here:
1-800-SEND-BJS!What a great present that would be. Birthday? Promotion? Your team won the World Series? Imagine how much better those already joyous occassions would be if a busty young blonde knocked on your door and dropped to her knees right there. The girls (or guys, whichever your case may be) could also sing you a little song.
Congratulations on your special day
Your brother sent you this BJ!And now, with Steak&Blowjob Day on its way to becoming a national phenomenon, 1-800-SEND-BJS could come to the rescue of significant others who are just too busy or have weak gag reflexes.
You cook the steak, the BJ staff will do the rest. I’m a business genius.
I didn't have many takers. Oh, I had plenty of eager receivers. But not too many people wanted to be hired to do the job. Shame, too, because we could have made a lot of money and instead of bitching and moaning about not being able to pay the rent this month, you could have been sitting around watching your giant plasma HDTV and doing mouth exercises in preparation for the holiday rush and another bundle of cash.
So this year I'm going to try again to cash in on the holiday. This time, I'm coming up with a line of greeting cards:
See that blank space on the card? That's where you come in.
I need to fill that space with sentimental greetings appropriate for one celebrating Steak and BJ Day. I thought that because this is sort of a crude holiday, we could soften it up a bit for the guys who might want to send this card as a reminder to their loved ones/booty calls/hos. Haiku about meat and, well, meat would make the sentiment seem much more appealing than it actually is to some people.
Remember, a haiku is 5-7-5 syllables. All other forms of poetry will be disqualified. There's no prize, but if you print out one of the restulting cards, maybe you'll get lucky. And girls, don't feel left out. There's always the Cunninlingus Fairy.
[See first in this series here]
Yesterday I mentioned something about doing a post on life altering experiences, in addition to doing the important video games thing and I realized that in a way, the two can be done at the same time.
I'm saving the bad life altering experiences for another time. For now, let's talk about how a dragon that looked like a duck, a plumber and a princess changed my life.
My favorite console video game ever is Atari's Adventure. It was simplistic and crude, but it thrilled me nonetheless. The thrill of slaying the dragon/duck, searching for keys, opening doors, finding the chalice - I had never played anything like it before. It had all the makings of one of those fairy tale adventures I loved so much when I was young. Well, minus the prince and the knights, but I had a good imagination. The best thing about the game was finding the Easter egg.
Select game 2 or 3 and enter the maze in the Black Castle. Move screen to the left of the first maze screen. At the bottom center of this room is a closed cubicle. Use the bridge to enter that area and collect the "dot". Carry this item to the screen just above the catacombs, located one screen down and to the right of the Gold Castle. Note: The "dot" is the same color as the ground outside, so care must be taken not to lose it in transit. Drop the "dot" here, and bring two other items onto the same screen. Move through the line on the right side of the screen to view the programmer credits.
There were also little quirks like different ways to get around the bat or make it so the dragon can't eat you. And really, was there anything more terrifying than the noise the game made when that dragon tried to chomp down on you?
I dreamed about Adventure. I played it in my head. And I thought how cool it would be if they would expand the game because I wanted more. More dragons to slay, more treasure to find, more quirks to discover.
Enter Nintendo. I clearly recall sitting in my living room one night with my sister Lisa, watching the Olympics. We saw a commercial for the Nintendo and made up our minds right there that we had to have one. An hour later, we were at the Video Vault (conveniently located in the lobby of Modell's, which was then a giant department store and not a sporting goods store*) buying ourselves a Nintendo.
I don't remember how long we played for. I know our eyes probably glazed over at some point and thumbs were aching and our asses had gone numb, but we were hooked.
I described Super Mario Bros. as Adventure times infinity. It had all the magic of Adventure - the quest, the hero, the villians, the scrolling from screen to screen as you tried to find your way around. 
But it was so much more. It was that expansion I was looking for. More worlds. More hidden features. More suprises. You never knew what would happen next. Would this brick bring a star or a mushroom? What will happen if I crouch down on this pipe? You can go up into the clouds!! Every time you played, there was something else to find, another clever trick or hidden surprise.
And the graphics! No more was I running from a pixelated dragon! Everything was so well defined. The colors were plentiful, the characters had real shapes..this is the stuff I had been dreaming of!
And now we get to the real reason why SMB is one of the most important games of all time: "Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!" thing? That was awesome. That, my friends, is how you learn coping skills. That's how you learn to handle disappointment. Put your kids in front of Super Mario Brothers and let them play their little hearts out until they think they won, and then those lowly mushroom retainers appear with the bad news and your kids will have learned one of life's greatest lessons. Disappointment sucks, but you must go on! I taught my kids how to play SMB at an young age just so I could let them know early on in life what if feels like to have the rug pulled out from under you. It comes in handy later. "I know you completed the entire project on time and you did a great job, but I think I want you to write me a ten page essay, too." THANK YOU MARIO! BUT OUR PRINCESS IS IN ANOTHER CASTLE!
You just can't beat a video game that's not only fun to play, but gives you a harsh dose of the realities of life to boot.
I still have so much love for the 2D side scroll games. In fact, I prefer them over today's 3D games that tend to be more about art than gameplay. I'm more interested in finding secret rooms and hidden weapons than I am looking at my heroine's perfectly formed tits.
And that's probably my next gaming post, so I'll stop there.
*I worked at both places at various times
Let's revisit yesterday's post about cutting.
Michelle Malkin has updated her post and all her anecdotal evidence that cutting is on the rise is buttressed by quotes from people who are using the "today's pop culture is leading us down the path to hell" tactic.
It's the same thing with blaming video games when a kid goes on a shooting rampage - there had to be some problems there to begin with if the kid thinks it's ok to mow people down with a gun. One does not watch an interview in which Christina Ricci talks about cutting and says "gee, that sounds like a great idea, where's the knife?" If it's an idea that appeals to someone, there's a reason. And the reason generally isn't Hollywood or music or wanting to be part of a fad.
Also, I never said that cutting isn't a problem because it's been going on a long time. I was just pointing out that it is not a new phenomenon. The problem with sounding the alarm bells and calling it a new fad amongst teenagers who listen to emo music is there will be a Reefer Madness reaction by overzealous parents, educators and moralists. There will be lists passed around at PTA meetings that say things like "If your child is wearing dark clothing and listening to Taking Back Sunday, she's probably a cutter! Go search her room for razors and call in the special forces!" And of course, that's exactly what most parents will do. Just like in the 70's, when every kid who sat in his bedroom and listened to rock music for hours was most likely a drug addict, in the eyes of those who are supposed to be the experts. And no one ever talked to their kids about it then and no one is talking now. Instead, it's send them off to the psychiatrist (in the 70's it was "rap sessions" with a social worker), medicate them and send them to their rooms.
Self injuring is a coping mechanism. No, I am not an expert on this subject, but I've read enough and talked to enough cutters - going back to the 70's - to have a little understanding of what the thinking process behind it is. And here's a theory for you to chew on - maybe cutting is so prevalent among teenagers today because so many of these kids are growing up with no coping skills whatsoever. This all goes hand in hand with the self esteem movement and tendency of modern parents to never want their children to have to feel disappointment or failure. From cooperative games where no child ever loses to the dumbing down of fairy tales, from the banning of Dodge Ball to the PC way in which kids are instructed to handle conflict, they have been raised to think that everything will be handled for them, every fight will be mediated and nothing will ever hurt, this generation of kids has been raised - for the most part - to think that every little problem will be taken care of for them and no one will ever be allowed to hurt them or cause them pain. Now these kids are teenagers and they don't know how to cope with pain, anger and sadness. And maybe that's why cutting is more of a problem now than it was in the past.
It's not the music. It's not Angelina Jolie. It's not the internet. Sure, the internet has made it easier to find fellow cutters. But don't think that years ago these girls weren't getting together in the school bathroom or some local hangout and talking about it.
It's so disingenuous to pass blame for our kids' problems onto Hollywood, the internet, music, movies and video games. I think that's what bothered me most about Malkin's column - it was devoid of any real substance or research and what she did write was sort of a condemnation against Hollywood and emo music. She says that parents and educators are concerned and want to get the word out, but then she quotes parents and educators who want to pass the buck. It's the culture of today. It's the lack of God in schools. It's everything but what it really is.
What about the parents? When does anything that's wrong with kids today become their fault? When do the "blame society" parents stop shoving their kids into the arms of therapists and start talking to them on their own? When do they stop pointing at books and movies and start looking in the mirror?
I know my kids aren't perfect. They've had their problems and they will continue to have problems because growing up is a hard, long road and there will be mistakes and missteps. That's how you learn. You let your child make their own mistakes so they learn how to rectify those mistakes, how to cope with their losses and how to grow from each experience. And you talk to them about it. You have open communication. You make them feel at ease with you. Don't be judgmental. Don't tell them their music choices suck and their clothing choices are stupid. It may seem like trivial things to you, but they are major issues to a kid and when you belittle their clothing and music, you belittle them. Listen when they tell you their heart feels broken and don't trivialize high school relationships. You may think they're silly and unnecessary, but your saying so doesn't make your child's very real pain go away - it just makes them want to internalize it. Don't be dismissive. Don't be passive. Look at them when they talk. Let them know you're listening. Find some common ground with them.
These are ideas that were passed on to me by parents wiser than me. I took them to heart and I pass them on to anyone who will listen. And when things go wrong - as they always will in life - we sit back and think of what we could have done differently instead of looking for someone outside our home to blame.
So my kids listen to emo music. I don't put the idea in their head that this music will make them depressed or lead them on the road to suicide and they most likely won't think that. When I was their age and listening to Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, my parents never once shrieked that my choice of music would lead me to devil worshiping and suicide. They just closed my bedroom door and went and listened to their hip-shaking Elvis, who never did lead my parents to certain doom like it was foretold.
My kids are the product of a "broken" home. I've been divorced for eight years. Both my ex husband and I have remarried. It hasn't been easy on any of us, but we've managed to - together and apart - raise our kids to the ripe ages of 12 and 15 without them yet heading into a life of crime or drugs or therapy because of our divorce. It saddens me when people try to throw a guilt trip at divorced parents and blame them for the ills of society. Whenever a negative teenage fad is announced in the press, the hand wringing starts and the accusations are thrown around - I bet at least half of those kids are from divorced homes! The high divorce rate is to blame for everything! My kids are not without the scars of divorce. But who are you to say that they wouldn't have the scars from living with a bad marriage, either? I suppose this is another topic for another day, but it was addressed in the cutting post and I just wanted to touch on it.
I'm sure this post is clumsy and disjointed, but this topic kept me up most of the night and I wanted to answer some of my critics from yesterday as well as expand on some of the things I wrote about.
I'm going to take some deep breaths now and move right back to talking about video games and tv themes.
Update: More here, and here, where Greg says: Malkin wouldn't know an emo band if they set up their gear in her dining room and cried through a soundcheck during dinner.
And I meant to make a comment about Malkin claiming Taking Back Sunday as one of those dangerous, cutter-supporting emo bands (knowledge she gained through a cursory glance at a cutting message board). TBS is one of my favorite bands. I can't come up with a single song that would set off alarms that maybe they're in some secret underground emo cabal trying to get kids to harm themselves. Maybe, just maybe, the kids on that board who like TBS just, you know, like them. Maybe one has nothing to do with the other. Ya think? Is it possible that sometimes the music one likes has nothing to do with what's going on in their lives? I'm listening to Nick Cave's Murder Ballads right now. Alert the authorities. Or don't.
And Ilyka has more here.
Regular blogging later.
Go enter this:
The Michael Jackson Jury Contest
Or, you can update your Pope Pool.
Update: For those of you who - like myself - find it necessary to keep track of whether Abe is dead or alive (and use Firefox), there's an extension that puts Abe's current status right into your browser.
I can't tell you how comforting it is to open my browser and see the "alive" status there. We love you, Abe!
And apropos of nothing, I currenlty have 1,755 songs on shuffle mode on the iPod and it still insists on playing the Cure's Pornography every fifth song.
Five songs (and two downloads) that are rocking my world right now.
1. The Mars Volta - Widow
Take everything that was good about 70's rock and everything that was cool about 80's power ballads and put them in the hands of a torch singer. You will be singing this song in the shower one day, fake microphone, air guitar and all. Download Note: You don't have to listen to the last two minutes or so. You'll know what I mean.
2. Queens of the Stone Age - Little Sister
The band that could do no wrong. I swear, if they put out an album of Neil Diamond hits as envisioned through polka stylings, I'd still buy it. And it would still rock. Download
3. Muse - Hysteria
I'm too late to jump on Muse's bandwagon, so I get no indie cred for liking the song. Too bad, as I was hoping to gain enough cred points to trade in for the High Fidelity soundtrack.
4. Straylight Run - Existentialism on Prom Night
Pretentious title and indie swagger notwithstanding, this is a good song. Sing me something soft/sad and delicate/or loud and out of key/sing me anything Sigh inducing.
5. Jack Johnson - Sitting, Wishing, Waiting
Acoustic singer/songwriter stuff. Reminds me of one of my high school idols, Steve Forbett. Why am I listening to this? Why am I liking it? Egads, I just washed years of metal cred down the drain.
I better go listen to some Fear Factory before I turn into an adult.
Now, I want you ALL to download the Mars Volta song and tell me what you think, because it's been years since I fell this hard for a song.
[When you're done here, there's more here]
News flash: Self-mutilation and cutting among teenagers is not a new fad. It's been going on a long, long time.
There are just as many "root causes" for this as there are ways to mutilate yourself. For most of the teens who do this, it's a kind of release. They have bottled up emotions and the only way to let the pain out is to cut themselves.
It's a terrible thing. It causes life long scars, both physical and emotional. I don't really want to get into a whole post about the hows and whys of cutting, but I just want to address this post I found on the subject:
Emo kids are cutting each other? Thank God!
Apparently I am behind the times. Emo kids are now slicing and dicing each other to prove how "hardcore" (or is that passe, isn't it now "post-hardcore") they are. They're doing it all wrong, you see. If they were truly hardcore they'd take the razor blade to their wrist and slash up and down making a nice straight line from wrist to elbow......Kids, kids, kids. This is what happen when emo kids listen to sans testicles backed by a four power chord punk band. I know any metalhead who reads this will probably laugh their ass off because emo is such a pathetic genre that listening to it to the exclusion of other genres is the first sign of a mental problem.
It would take too long for me to address all the ways in which you are an asshole. Just know that you are.
Michelle Malkin does no better in laying the blame on Christina Ricci and Llamabutchers raises my hackles by suggesting that divorce/broken homes (how I hate that phrase) is a root cause of this self destructive behavior. Secure Liberty also blames it (a specific case that all three blogs write about) on the kid being upset about her parent's divorce.
Do you know anything about the statistics of cutters that you can just whip that little nugget of information out?
If you listen to some people, you'd think that every single child of divorce is doomed for a life of crime, drugs and despair.
Maybe they're not all broken homes. Maybe some of them are fixed homes, you know?
I'm going to delete this post, I know it. But, like a kid who cuts, I just needed to release a little of the anger building up over the "thank god" quip and the rocks thrown at divorced parents.
Update: I needed to quote this line in Malkin's piece:
There is even a new genre of music -- "emo" -- associated with promoting the cutting culture.
I laughed when I read that. It's a naive, uninformed sentence. Where did she get that information and where's her evidence, anecdotal or otherwise? Or is that just something she pulled out her conservative hat?
First, emo is not new. Not by a long shot. It goes back to the late 80's. And I have never heard of emo being associated with promoting the culture of cutting. I've known kids who cut while listening to country music. Does that make it associated with the culture of cutting?
Let's see. My kids are from a "broken" home and they both LOVE emo music. I better get home and hide the razor blades!
I'll probably have more on this later. There's a whole can of worms - no, three cans - inside of this one post waiting to be opened.
Update: Kimberly Swygert has more about emo and cutting.
Update 2: I also think a lot of you are missing the vital point here - while Malkin's pathetic take on emo music is frustrating to some, the real issue here is her (and that other idiot I linked to at Blind Mind's Eye) trivialization of self-injury and cutting.
You may be wondering why someone would intentionally harm themselves. Self-injury can help someone relieve intense feelings such as anger, sadness, loneliness, shame, guilt and emotional pain. Many people who cut themselves, do this in an attempt to try and release all the emotions they are feeling internally. Others may feel so numb, that seeing their own blood when they cut themselves, helps them to feel alive because they usually feel so dead inside. Some people find that dealing with physical pain is easier than dealing with emotional pain.
The more you know...
Here's another link that was left in the comments.
Jesse also sends along this link: The Healing House
Hey, I already wrote a post like this. That makes my work a lot easier.
The two games mentioned below are just two of the most important games ever. I thinke each platform and each genre have their own heroes, legends and forerunners. These two certainly were leaders in the industry.
When it comes to reading a book that has been made into a movie, I always prefer the book, no matter how well made the movie is. The reason is simple - I like to use my imagination. I prefer to conjure up the scenery, the look of the characters. I have a definite vision in my mind of the world that exists within the story I’m reading and no cinematographer will ever match what I envision.
I thinnk this is why I fell in love with text adventure games. From the first time I loaded up Zork on my Vic 20, I was obsessed. It was a story, but with choices. I could direct which way a scene would play out. The hero’s life was in my hands. No, I was the hero!
There is a small mailbox here.
> look in mailbox
That mailbox probably looked different to everyone who played Zork. For some, it was made of wood, for others it was gold, or silver, or just a shabby, rusted box by the side of the road. I read the leaflet that was in the mailbox. I was on my way. I stood in the open field, west of the big white house with the boarded front door.
And thus my adventure began. And it was my adventure, nobody’s else’s. No matter how many people were playing Zork at that exact moment, no one was having the same adventure as me. I had a set vision in my mind of the way things looked in the house and in the cellar and underground. In fact, I dreamed about these places - in a precursor to the days when I would dream about falling Tetris blocks - and thought about them even when I wasn’t playing the game (yes, I did stop to sleep and eat once in a while).
I never wanted the game to end. I wanted an endless array of puzzles to solve. Yet I did want it to end because I had to prove I could do it. Once I finally solved it, it was like a piece of my life was missing. Pathetic, I know. But there were sequels to Zork and many other adventure games to keep me going once I finally got back to the mailbox and found the barrow.
You are in a twisty maze of passageways, all alike.
>
Colossal Cave Adventure was made before even Zork; it was the first known interactive fiction game, created by Will Crowther originally to simulate his cave exploring experiences. I played "Adventure" so often that sometimes I would fall asleep at the computer. So many days and nights meeting dwarfs and saying plugh, catching the bird and falling into a pit because I forgot to turn my lamp on. Again, I got lost in a world that existed solely between my head and my keyboard. There were other text adventures I played endlessly, but Zork and Adventure are the ones that I can still reenact in my head; every detail I gave to those worlds still exist for me (Later on, Level 9 would add graphics to Adventure).
Eventually, graphics were added to the adventures. I thought I wouldn’t like it, but I was amazed by the pictures that appeared on the screen before me (Hey, I hear you young whippersnappers laughing. Those pixilated graphics were amazing for that time!). Pirates convinced me that I could get used to having pictures to go with my games. Once you got into the gameplay, you were only concerned with getting to the end.
Some of my favorite graphic adventures came from Windham Classics. Sure, I felt a little odd sitting there playing games based on children’s books, but the puzzles were hard and the authors of the games kept them interesting enough so that you never felt like you were in a child’s world; there was something very adult about Alice’s adventures in this Wonderland. Same for Below the Root; the story
