One last story from Christmas, then I’ll move on. I was sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee on my last morning upstate when my brother opened up a new browser window on his family’s ancient PC. An old commercial that I remembered watching as a kid started playing onscreen. It was for a kitschy toy called Squirmles. In the commercial, people wear shocked expressions on their faces as a fuzzy, neon-colored snake thing coils around their fingers and hands. In one especially surprising moment, the snake thing–which has two eyes glued to its front–suddenly leaps into an empty glass, performs…
After the Turtle! debacle, I gave up on gaming altogether for awhile. I went to college—Hamilton College, in Upstate New York—put on 50 pounds of muscle, and played Division III football for three years, until my knees finally gave out on me early in junior year. I remember the five long days that I spent in a tiny, rural hospital my junior year while healing from ligament reconstruction surgery. At night, I’d read Whitley Strieber novels while glancing occasionally at the room’s window, worrying that an almond-eyed “gray” was out there in the woods at that very moment, waiting for…
OK, folks, it’s time to make a run at stage 6-2. Yes, this is the second stage of the AIRPLANE section of Donkey Kong (Game Boy, 1994). It’s strange, I know, but Donkey Kong and Pauline are somehow now on an airplane. Why are they on a plane? Who is flying the plane? (That rascal Donkey Kong Jr. perhaps?) Is there a layover at O’Hare? Will there be any delicious snacks on the flight? So many questions! Naturally, the always-tenacious Mario is hot on their tail. (But not that hot; we’ve still got 43 stages to get through before he…
Stage 5-8 is a fairly tall one, folks–at least two scrollable screens in height–and it’s clogged to the gills with careening barrels. This is another one of those rare moments in the game when Donkey Kong and Pauline, not unlike one of Vancouver’s drug dealer-and-sleazy-girlfriend duos–practically a staple in every apartment building in this city–put in a rare appearance in public. (more…)
Whenever I go home for Christmas I tell myself that this year is going to be special. This is the year that I’m going to be proactive! This is the year that I will call up old high school friends, then see if my 10th grade English teacher wants to meet up for a long overdue breakfast at the diner! After that, I’ll take a drive over to our old house on Powell Road to see what color the new owners have painted it! Then, as soon as I drop my bags, the to-do list goes out the window, and…
The D.I.C.E. Summit, the game industry’s first gathering of the year, is over. I’m packing my things and leaving Las Vegas behind this morning, another convention in the books. This is about my one millionth convention. That’s how it feels sometimes anyway. (more…)
Onward now to stage 4-8. Hard to believe it’s day 40 already. Jesus! Time for me to once again square off against D.K., as I attempt to make it through another one of his Mario-killing devices. (more…)
All travel days are surreal for me, but yesterday’s trek from Vancouver to Las Vegas seemed to be a bit more surreal than usual. I felt sad leaving my apartment behind yesterday morning for some reason. The cats always give me this look like, Hey, where are you going? And why are you taking all that stuff with you? What is happening? And I always give them a look back that says, I love you, I’d try to explain what I am doing, but your brains are very small and would not understand what I was trying to tell you….
