Because of the nature of this job, I haven't had much time to do anything worth mentioning. The highlight of my weekend was probably going to Safeway and seeing that Hood has reintroduced Chocolate Eclairs and Toasted Almond ice cream treats to complement the Strawberry Shortcake bar, which never went away. I bought the Chocolate Eclairs and they were awful. Beyond the normal over idealization we associate with childhood snacks when eaten as adults, these actually WERE pretty cheap-- the chocolate pieces on the outside were pale and flavorless and the inner chocolate treat lacked the subtle kick and balance of earlier versions. Finally, the aftertaste hinted of metallic artifical sweetners and the overall effect was less than desired. For consumers expecting the treat of yore, you'll be disappointed to know the Chocolate Eclair you knew and loved is just a memory. 2/10.
One thing I'm excited about is opening day of baseball. After alienating my family for rooting for the Rockies instead of the Red Sox, I think it's a pretty safe bet we won't be seeing that matchup in the fall classic this year. If my awful, awful bracket picks for the NCAA tourney are any indication, picking the exact opposite of my forecasts would be a good idea. Nonetheless, GO ROCKIES!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Woo-hoo! Xanadu and I are nearing the end of the lawn mower run. Here, she's clearly helping me edit some of the more complicated material. Only 3 more long, arduous days left and then sweet liberty! Just remember, if you guys want a lower mower I'm the dude to ask. On the downside, we're near the end of the season for skiing and snowboarding in Colorado-- big boo! I wish I got out more, but I've been mucho busy with all sorts of stuff. Hopefully next year will be my breakout year, who knows? If all goes as planned however, this should be an epic summer for mtn. biking! A new bike is a high priority, but I need to get rid of mine first-- so if you know anyone who's about 6 foot and wants a great, full suspension ride at a good price let me know!
I wouldn't say a writing project is a means to enlightenment, but the singular focus of any time intensive project has an interesting way of enhancing otherwise mundane aspects of life. Taking a shower, sitting down to eat, walking to get the mail--all these distractions are wonderfully sublime. It's akin to spending any length of time in the outdoors to the point where a cool glass of water has all the flavor and majesty of the world's finest libations. If I get to the point where I find a plastic bag blowing in the wind to be ephemerally transcendent, give me 500 ccs of mindless entertainment such as Kickboxer 4.
But I digress. And how! Here's an example of how my normally efficient writing routine gets disrupted:
In one of my write-ups, a web site described the mower color as "jet black". I had to think about this one for a minute, since why would the word "jet" be synonymous with the color "black"? I don't think I've ever see a black jet (well, that's not true, I've seen black players for the NY Jets but not the kind of jet that flies through the air--and even if I had, not enough of them to constitute being a standard for color). I mean my car is black, but I would be reluctant to describe something as "Honda Accord Black". But jet black is used fairly regularly, especially when talking about hair. Can we do this with any color? Ihop Urinal White. Infected goo coming out of my cat's eye yellow. Bloody nose dripped on a tissue red. Ultimate frisbee grass stain green. Megaman blue. Captain Crunch amber. And so on.
Wait, a few more. Transvestite eye shadow purple. Pumpkin innards orange. Interior chamber of Jean Claude Van Damme's nostrils in "Bloodsport" burgundy.
It looks like the weirdo Brits are responsible for the word "jet" and use it to refer to an especially dark but equally lustrous piece of coal. I suppose coal black doesn't sound as mysterious and enigmatic, especially if you've ever seen any of the dust covered Dickens-esque urchins who labored as chimney sweeps in the 1800s. Pitch black actually works, since pitch (or tar as normal people call it) is quite black. Pitch dark also works.
Anyhow, after all that trouble I noticed I had the wrong picture for my mower--it was actually red. Crunchberry red.
I always get a kick out of seeing people who put "Collector's" license plates on beat-to-crap piece of junk cars. I doubt anyone is interested in collecting your 1982 Toyota Tercel (except maybe my Dad), but somehow it's a little jab at the pretentiousness of our society. The statement is kind of like a Nelson style "HA-HA" at that absurd momentum that makes equally junky stuff like this worth millions of dollars.
At the heart of collecting is possessing something other's can't have, which somehow adds value to the object and the owner. Ever see some of the crap that passes for modern "art"? It's almost as if the art world uses their ability to spend thousands of millions of dollars on pictures as some kind of elite currency regardless of the actual quality of the work. My point however, is not a negative one--it's that you don't have to buy into the hype. And added to that, there are countless amazing artists out there who will truly move you, you just have to find them. I'd much rather have a poster of the box art of Castlevania than the creepy, butch Mona Lisa hanging on my wall.
Back to the old junky cars. I hear it really steams some people's beans when they see collector's plates on say, a 1983 Yugo. Call it kitcsh or whatever, but who's to say the mechanically inept Yugo isn't a piece of art? Perhaps it is like the coelaecanth, a fossil from another time improbably surviving into the modern age. Or perhaps it was a direct taunt to the Iron Curtain. As long as we live in a society where weird lines and scribbles pass as art* I'm perfectly fine letting the rusting hulks of cheap imported cars proudly don the collector's plate. Heck, my own Accord will be eligible in a couple of years.
*Wiggly lines drawn by animals are acceptible as cool art.
Lawn mower reviews, about 2 AM on Friday night a good 15 hours in for the day. Viva la Mountain Dew! I understand if I were more artsy, I'd fuel myself with coffee and cigarettes but I'm sure the 'Dew and bag after bag of flavor blasted goldfish probably is comparable, just not as cool for people over 13. Funny thing, I wasn't doing that weird bug out thing with my eyes on purpose.
By the way, that's not a John Deere mower in the back ground, it's the zero turn Lawn Boy Precision Z3400 HLX, duh.
Anyhow, the next time you see a writer portrayed in a movie keep in mind Jack from the "The Shining" is much more accurate than the normal deep, mysterious and soulful incarnations that most writers who write those movies want to be. Oh wait, wasn't Paul from "Track of the Moon Beast" a writer? Now things are makin' sense!
While I know that viruses and bacteria aren't aware of the change of seasons (as far as I know) I have to say--and I'm not boasting--I'm pretty darn happy I wasn't sick at all this winter. Nary a sniffle. In a year where the flu was rampaging from sea to shining sea, I stayed as fit as a fiddle, whatever that means. My secret is a secret even to me because I have no idea how I didn't get sick, but if my winter routine is any measure:
*Get exercise and have fun.
*Don't assume you'll get sick (I don't know how this works).
*Play plenty of video games.
*Eat the occassional Hostess Sno*Ball.
*Own a cat who uses your open mouth/nose as her personal heating vent on cold winter nights (something about sucking in cat dander all night must boost your immune system).
*Get out in the snow!
*Avoid children with cascades of snot dripping from their noses.
Now I KNOW I can still get a cold/flu in the spring, but my winter statistics are already in the books. Granted, I tend not to get colds often for whatever reason, I think I'm stubborn. In any case happy spring!
But I digress. And how! Here's an example of how my normally efficient writing routine gets disrupted:
In one of my write-ups, a web site described the mower color as "jet black". I had to think about this one for a minute, since why would the word "jet" be synonymous with the color "black"? I don't think I've ever see a black jet (well, that's not true, I've seen black players for the NY Jets but not the kind of jet that flies through the air--and even if I had, not enough of them to constitute being a standard for color). I mean my car is black, but I would be reluctant to describe something as "Honda Accord Black". But jet black is used fairly regularly, especially when talking about hair. Can we do this with any color? Ihop Urinal White. Infected goo coming out of my cat's eye yellow. Bloody nose dripped on a tissue red. Ultimate frisbee grass stain green. Megaman blue. Captain Crunch amber. And so on.
Wait, a few more. Transvestite eye shadow purple. Pumpkin innards orange. Interior chamber of Jean Claude Van Damme's nostrils in "Bloodsport" burgundy.
It looks like the weirdo Brits are responsible for the word "jet" and use it to refer to an especially dark but equally lustrous piece of coal. I suppose coal black doesn't sound as mysterious and enigmatic, especially if you've ever seen any of the dust covered Dickens-esque urchins who labored as chimney sweeps in the 1800s. Pitch black actually works, since pitch (or tar as normal people call it) is quite black. Pitch dark also works.
Anyhow, after all that trouble I noticed I had the wrong picture for my mower--it was actually red. Crunchberry red.
Monday, March 24, 2008
I always get a kick out of seeing people who put "Collector's" license plates on beat-to-crap piece of junk cars. I doubt anyone is interested in collecting your 1982 Toyota Tercel (except maybe my Dad), but somehow it's a little jab at the pretentiousness of our society. The statement is kind of like a Nelson style "HA-HA" at that absurd momentum that makes equally junky stuff like this worth millions of dollars. At the heart of collecting is possessing something other's can't have, which somehow adds value to the object and the owner. Ever see some of the crap that passes for modern "art"? It's almost as if the art world uses their ability to spend thousands of millions of dollars on pictures as some kind of elite currency regardless of the actual quality of the work. My point however, is not a negative one--it's that you don't have to buy into the hype. And added to that, there are countless amazing artists out there who will truly move you, you just have to find them. I'd much rather have a poster of the box art of Castlevania than the creepy, butch Mona Lisa hanging on my wall.
Back to the old junky cars. I hear it really steams some people's beans when they see collector's plates on say, a 1983 Yugo. Call it kitcsh or whatever, but who's to say the mechanically inept Yugo isn't a piece of art? Perhaps it is like the coelaecanth, a fossil from another time improbably surviving into the modern age. Or perhaps it was a direct taunt to the Iron Curtain. As long as we live in a society where weird lines and scribbles pass as art* I'm perfectly fine letting the rusting hulks of cheap imported cars proudly don the collector's plate. Heck, my own Accord will be eligible in a couple of years.
*Wiggly lines drawn by animals are acceptible as cool art.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Lawn mower reviews, about 2 AM on Friday night a good 15 hours in for the day. Viva la Mountain Dew! I understand if I were more artsy, I'd fuel myself with coffee and cigarettes but I'm sure the 'Dew and bag after bag of flavor blasted goldfish probably is comparable, just not as cool for people over 13. Funny thing, I wasn't doing that weird bug out thing with my eyes on purpose.
By the way, that's not a John Deere mower in the back ground, it's the zero turn Lawn Boy Precision Z3400 HLX, duh.
Anyhow, the next time you see a writer portrayed in a movie keep in mind Jack from the "The Shining" is much more accurate than the normal deep, mysterious and soulful incarnations that most writers who write those movies want to be. Oh wait, wasn't Paul from "Track of the Moon Beast" a writer? Now things are makin' sense!
Thursday, March 20, 2008
While I know that viruses and bacteria aren't aware of the change of seasons (as far as I know) I have to say--and I'm not boasting--I'm pretty darn happy I wasn't sick at all this winter. Nary a sniffle. In a year where the flu was rampaging from sea to shining sea, I stayed as fit as a fiddle, whatever that means. My secret is a secret even to me because I have no idea how I didn't get sick, but if my winter routine is any measure:
*Get exercise and have fun.
*Don't assume you'll get sick (I don't know how this works).
*Play plenty of video games.
*Eat the occassional Hostess Sno*Ball.
*Own a cat who uses your open mouth/nose as her personal heating vent on cold winter nights (something about sucking in cat dander all night must boost your immune system).
*Get out in the snow!
*Avoid children with cascades of snot dripping from their noses.
Now I KNOW I can still get a cold/flu in the spring, but my winter statistics are already in the books. Granted, I tend not to get colds often for whatever reason, I think I'm stubborn. In any case happy spring!
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Ah, the auspicious March 19th--let's run down the good and the bad--
First the good:
* March 19th is the birthday of both Big Dave Etzold and Karina Manoim, good folks who are making their respective ways in the Big Apple. A toast to them and three cheers-or is it six cheers?
* It was this day 10 years ago that I got the Tennessee state highpoint, Clingman's Dome! Which should be a good thing.
The Bad
* After the aforementioned state highpoint began the fabled "stolen van" fiasco, whose harrowing tale I need not recount again. Though I could put in the good category that as a direct result, I had to marry Christina so we could buy a pack of cards. Sure, we only see each other once every 7 years but it seems to be working out better than most marriages.
As far as I know, we're still legal on Indian Reservations.
This year's March 19th started out with an mind blurring bang as I was here at the offices of Natural Habitat Adventures making the final flash builds on our good nature web site (see the beta version here). For the techies out there, its a fairly complicated process. First you need the webpage, then a second webpage to embed the Flash and link it via iframes (for whatever reason, I couldn't get the native Flash to read the CSS style sheet it was looking for). THEN make the external text and css files to make sure the flash generates actual HTML text and not image text, THEN revamp the text files because there's a slight delay in the reading of Flash CSS-- THEN make sure it's aligned properly in the right page and all working (including the rare _parent tag for links as the target).
Sound boring? Not really, but I do have lawnmowers and taxes afoot so this may be my last blog entry for a while.
First the good:
* March 19th is the birthday of both Big Dave Etzold and Karina Manoim, good folks who are making their respective ways in the Big Apple. A toast to them and three cheers-or is it six cheers?
* It was this day 10 years ago that I got the Tennessee state highpoint, Clingman's Dome! Which should be a good thing.
The Bad
* After the aforementioned state highpoint began the fabled "stolen van" fiasco, whose harrowing tale I need not recount again. Though I could put in the good category that as a direct result, I had to marry Christina so we could buy a pack of cards. Sure, we only see each other once every 7 years but it seems to be working out better than most marriages.
As far as I know, we're still legal on Indian Reservations.
This year's March 19th started out with an mind blurring bang as I was here at the offices of Natural Habitat Adventures making the final flash builds on our good nature web site (see the beta version here). For the techies out there, its a fairly complicated process. First you need the webpage, then a second webpage to embed the Flash and link it via iframes (for whatever reason, I couldn't get the native Flash to read the CSS style sheet it was looking for). THEN make the external text and css files to make sure the flash generates actual HTML text and not image text, THEN revamp the text files because there's a slight delay in the reading of Flash CSS-- THEN make sure it's aligned properly in the right page and all working (including the rare _parent tag for links as the target).
Sound boring? Not really, but I do have lawnmowers and taxes afoot so this may be my last blog entry for a while.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Has anyone else been completely goofed up by the premature time shift last week? Friday evening I came home from work and decided I needed a little nap--and woke up about 12 hours later. I've been working late hours on my lawnmower project so my circadian rhythms are all jangled and out of sync, like when you see dudes trying to dance (or clap in time) at the Republican convention. Add to that a bizarre cavalcade of non-sensical dreams and it feels like my day-to-day life is in permanent jet-lag, minus the crushing hunger that comes from TSA personnel confiscating my turkey sandwiches.
Thus, I cite this fangled time shift to the fact I destroyed my W-2 form while burning a pile of old bills and credit card statements. I have about 10 forms, 9 1099s from freelance and one W-2, which I promptly filed with my junk mail and incinerated in my fireplace. The upshot was I didn't have to file my taxes, so I utilized the first "free time" I've had in months to do more work. Well, work and finishing up that blasted Titan Mode run on God of War 2. It's funny how on the hardest difficulty settings, many games are harder at the start and in the middle than towards the end. It's a very, very good game and the fact God of War 3 is coming out on the Playstation 3 may make it my first next gen system.
Anyhow, I awoke foggy today because Boulder is covered in a thick layer of plump snow. It was a very dark morning between the weight of the heavy snowfall and the dense blanket of clouds in the sky. Warm weather powder is wet and sloppy, a poor harbinger of the great aspects of a snow day. Unlike the bright, clean white powder of early winter, late season snow is like a birthday card that arrives two weeks too late--the intention is there but the timing is all off. Yup, a soaked, mushy belated birthday card. That's today.
This summer, I should be very near to closing out all the lower 48 state highpoints, with Idaho (shown here), Montana and North Dakota first on the hitlist. When I started my quest (currently at 35 states) I would have never expected gas prices to blast through the roof, thus my delay in driving out to the midwest states. Still, a long round trip blast to Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri is in order. If I can manage it, Nevada and California are possibilities for the late summer/early fall, leaving only Mount Hood in Oregon as the only peak requiring some more vigilant planning.
After that, the "big two" are all that remain: Alaska and Hawaii (and Hawaii is technically a drive up, though how awesome would it be to bike it?!) I wonder how many US annexes there are? I got the SECOND highest mountain in Puerto Rico then there's at least: US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and I'm sure a few others. The Canadian highpoints would be awesome and really tough to hit up next... could be fun!
I'm not sure exactly WHEN or WHERE but I'd sure like to have some company! It's looking less likely I'll be able fly out for Pat W's wedding, which is kind of bummer, but it looks like starting in May I'll have some free time. We'll see, but barring anything crazy the goal may finally be in sight.
Thus, I cite this fangled time shift to the fact I destroyed my W-2 form while burning a pile of old bills and credit card statements. I have about 10 forms, 9 1099s from freelance and one W-2, which I promptly filed with my junk mail and incinerated in my fireplace. The upshot was I didn't have to file my taxes, so I utilized the first "free time" I've had in months to do more work. Well, work and finishing up that blasted Titan Mode run on God of War 2. It's funny how on the hardest difficulty settings, many games are harder at the start and in the middle than towards the end. It's a very, very good game and the fact God of War 3 is coming out on the Playstation 3 may make it my first next gen system. Anyhow, I awoke foggy today because Boulder is covered in a thick layer of plump snow. It was a very dark morning between the weight of the heavy snowfall and the dense blanket of clouds in the sky. Warm weather powder is wet and sloppy, a poor harbinger of the great aspects of a snow day. Unlike the bright, clean white powder of early winter, late season snow is like a birthday card that arrives two weeks too late--the intention is there but the timing is all off. Yup, a soaked, mushy belated birthday card. That's today.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
This summer, I should be very near to closing out all the lower 48 state highpoints, with Idaho (shown here), Montana and North Dakota first on the hitlist. When I started my quest (currently at 35 states) I would have never expected gas prices to blast through the roof, thus my delay in driving out to the midwest states. Still, a long round trip blast to Arkansas, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri is in order. If I can manage it, Nevada and California are possibilities for the late summer/early fall, leaving only Mount Hood in Oregon as the only peak requiring some more vigilant planning. After that, the "big two" are all that remain: Alaska and Hawaii (and Hawaii is technically a drive up, though how awesome would it be to bike it?!) I wonder how many US annexes there are? I got the SECOND highest mountain in Puerto Rico then there's at least: US Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa and I'm sure a few others. The Canadian highpoints would be awesome and really tough to hit up next... could be fun!
I'm not sure exactly WHEN or WHERE but I'd sure like to have some company! It's looking less likely I'll be able fly out for Pat W's wedding, which is kind of bummer, but it looks like starting in May I'll have some free time. We'll see, but barring anything crazy the goal may finally be in sight.
Friday, March 07, 2008
With all the work I've been doing, this has felt like a lost week. The office job, a quick hour or so work out then work on freelance stuff until I fall asleep--not great for the soul. Last night I sat down on my bed with Xanadu before going for a run and fell into a deep sleep, waking up two hours later. Obviously, the run never happened but it goes to show that mentally fatiguing work can knock you out.
On the plus side however, I have finally pulled my electric guitar out of hibernation. Part of my inspiration came from this odd fellow, Ronald Jenkees, who seems like a kind of young Harry Carey-muppet hybrid, the sort of character whose eyes are attached to his glasses and not his actual face. Check out the video clip to the right and turn up your speakers to be amazed. He has a bunch of other clips on youtube as well. I have to admit to being inspired not only by his talent but his apparent guileless love of music. So last night, I plugged in the blue beauty and tinkered around with a piece I had worked on a while ago similar to this, even jamming along with this tune for a bit. It was a blast and the stress totally melted from my body, evidenced by the hours that went by in minutes--the ultimate indication of a good time.
I'm hoping the culmination of all this hard work will result in a creative liberation, though it's difficult to say which direction it will go. I anticipate the release of an enormous weight from the difficult trials of Colorado, something I have described to friends as "finally starting life in Boulder". Obviously, money is a factor in this but there's also a larger picture of events and people that are swirled in there. I certainly have regrets in regards to my reactions to hardships and part of me is a bit fearful of a bitter backlash at the time lost struggling to regain my metaphorical footing. As a generally optimistic person however, I think that will be outweighed by all the new opportunities the coming months present.
I'm hoping to reignite a lot of projects "on hold", some for several years now: my highpoints, my music, more writing for fun and not money, a second book, pursuing the open road. It's funny how our brains store so much yet the roads to those thoughts are often abandoned, to me looking like a literal broken road, with cracked strokes of weed-lined injuries. Neglected long enough, those roads will simply cease to exist and the only back to those archives of memory are alternate paths--or triggers that remind us how to get there.
Listening to the aforementioned youtube song made my fingers tingle with the long-lost joy of playing guitar late into the night. I'm amazed at how hard our brains get as we get older-- partially from getting pushed into survival mode, partially from aiming our pursuits at different goals. But we still have those old inspirations somewhere. Here's a slightly fitting example:
Behold the Xonox double-ender game "Spike's Peak" and "Ghost Manor". I had vague recollections of Spike's Peak, heck I even wrote a lousy review for it on Gamefaqs.com though to be honest, I couldn't remember if I played it on my Atari 2600 or my neighbor's Commodore 64. It wasn't until a chain of events earlier this week brought to mind how I knew the game.
For some reason, my co-workers and I got into a spirited discussion about classic Atari games, which led me to look up E.T. and a few others on youtube. One of the games I wanted to check out was Haunted House--and on the links to the right was one for a game called Ghost Manor. It seemed faintly familiar and when I clicked on it, a whole gaming experience I had forgotten came back to me. A little more research brought me to the Xonox double-ender game, packaged with Spike's Peak. I can't for the life of me remember holding or owning the cartridge but I clearly remember playing through both games in my childhood (Mom? Dad? You guys remember this game lying around?) In my defense, I couldn't have been older than 7 or 8 when I played it but it's frankly amazing that my brain had a familiarity with Ghost Manor after all these years. Like hearing an old song, the experience was new and yet oddly comfortable.
The bigger picture of course is that many of my old ambitions are thawing as the next month of hard work opens new doors for Spring. A fitting rebirth of desire and yet, a sorrowful acknowledgement of time lost because as we all know, you don't get any more time in life. You have what you have, no other way around it. As Rollins puts it, "There's no such thing as spare time, you either do something or you don't."
So now is the time for hard work and long nights but much like Spike climbing his namesake Peak (while dodging polar bears and eagles) the summit is near. (As an avid hiker/climber, I know that the true end of the hike is back at the start but in this case, the Spike's Peak metaphor works because the game ends when you reach the top). Maybe not many updates for a while, but the spring should be just awesome.
On the plus side however, I have finally pulled my electric guitar out of hibernation. Part of my inspiration came from this odd fellow, Ronald Jenkees, who seems like a kind of young Harry Carey-muppet hybrid, the sort of character whose eyes are attached to his glasses and not his actual face. Check out the video clip to the right and turn up your speakers to be amazed. He has a bunch of other clips on youtube as well. I have to admit to being inspired not only by his talent but his apparent guileless love of music. So last night, I plugged in the blue beauty and tinkered around with a piece I had worked on a while ago similar to this, even jamming along with this tune for a bit. It was a blast and the stress totally melted from my body, evidenced by the hours that went by in minutes--the ultimate indication of a good time.
I'm hoping the culmination of all this hard work will result in a creative liberation, though it's difficult to say which direction it will go. I anticipate the release of an enormous weight from the difficult trials of Colorado, something I have described to friends as "finally starting life in Boulder". Obviously, money is a factor in this but there's also a larger picture of events and people that are swirled in there. I certainly have regrets in regards to my reactions to hardships and part of me is a bit fearful of a bitter backlash at the time lost struggling to regain my metaphorical footing. As a generally optimistic person however, I think that will be outweighed by all the new opportunities the coming months present.
I'm hoping to reignite a lot of projects "on hold", some for several years now: my highpoints, my music, more writing for fun and not money, a second book, pursuing the open road. It's funny how our brains store so much yet the roads to those thoughts are often abandoned, to me looking like a literal broken road, with cracked strokes of weed-lined injuries. Neglected long enough, those roads will simply cease to exist and the only back to those archives of memory are alternate paths--or triggers that remind us how to get there.
Listening to the aforementioned youtube song made my fingers tingle with the long-lost joy of playing guitar late into the night. I'm amazed at how hard our brains get as we get older-- partially from getting pushed into survival mode, partially from aiming our pursuits at different goals. But we still have those old inspirations somewhere. Here's a slightly fitting example:
Behold the Xonox double-ender game "Spike's Peak" and "Ghost Manor". I had vague recollections of Spike's Peak, heck I even wrote a lousy review for it on Gamefaqs.com though to be honest, I couldn't remember if I played it on my Atari 2600 or my neighbor's Commodore 64. It wasn't until a chain of events earlier this week brought to mind how I knew the game. For some reason, my co-workers and I got into a spirited discussion about classic Atari games, which led me to look up E.T. and a few others on youtube. One of the games I wanted to check out was Haunted House--and on the links to the right was one for a game called Ghost Manor. It seemed faintly familiar and when I clicked on it, a whole gaming experience I had forgotten came back to me. A little more research brought me to the Xonox double-ender game, packaged with Spike's Peak. I can't for the life of me remember holding or owning the cartridge but I clearly remember playing through both games in my childhood (Mom? Dad? You guys remember this game lying around?) In my defense, I couldn't have been older than 7 or 8 when I played it but it's frankly amazing that my brain had a familiarity with Ghost Manor after all these years. Like hearing an old song, the experience was new and yet oddly comfortable.
The bigger picture of course is that many of my old ambitions are thawing as the next month of hard work opens new doors for Spring. A fitting rebirth of desire and yet, a sorrowful acknowledgement of time lost because as we all know, you don't get any more time in life. You have what you have, no other way around it. As Rollins puts it, "There's no such thing as spare time, you either do something or you don't."
So now is the time for hard work and long nights but much like Spike climbing his namesake Peak (while dodging polar bears and eagles) the summit is near. (As an avid hiker/climber, I know that the true end of the hike is back at the start but in this case, the Spike's Peak metaphor works because the game ends when you reach the top). Maybe not many updates for a while, but the spring should be just awesome.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Yup, it sure is Wednesday. March 5th it seems. Tang Gonghong's birthday. Not a whole lot else to report. Lots of lawnmowers afoot. Snowed out today.
Oh, I know something of note--we change clocks ahead this Sunday. That gives me one less hour to complete my taxes, write another lawn mower review or use my 20% off coupon at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Hmmm... I'm sure tomorrow's post will be much, much more exciting (by default it kind of has to be). Until then, why not visit the cheezburger cats for a spell?
Oh, I know something of note--we change clocks ahead this Sunday. That gives me one less hour to complete my taxes, write another lawn mower review or use my 20% off coupon at Bed, Bath and Beyond.
Hmmm... I'm sure tomorrow's post will be much, much more exciting (by default it kind of has to be). Until then, why not visit the cheezburger cats for a spell?
