This isn’t going to be a very long entry, I just thought to write of this because I think this everyday while walking. Am I the only one who when they are walking and listening to music they could picture themselves being a part of a movie. I do this all the time. If a sentimental love song comes on, I’ll picture myself, where ever I am, like doing something ridiculously romantic an “winning the girl”. Like a scene out of a movie. Or a semi-hard song will come on, and I’ll picture myself beating up like 50 guys. I’m a dork to say the least.
Month: February 2007
Categories
Game Over?
Hey everyone, its about 2 in the morning and I kind of just feel like writing. So, I have been thinking about video games lately. I have been kind of deprived of them since I have came to college. It’s not that I don’t have them at my disposal their is just no time to “waste” on them. I hate using that word when I am talking about video games, but it’s true when it comes to schoolwork. I really miss playing them. When I was a kid I used to spend so much time playing them. I really have some fond memories there. Playing endless hours of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. I was young and I sucked really bad, but it was still fun as all get out. Geeze, and don’t get me started on “The Golden Age of Gaming” as some (including myself) call it. This refers to the 16-bit era, Super Nintendo, Sega Genisis, and the lesser known Turbo Graphx 16. I still remember when I was a wee Nintendo fanboy back then. Super Nintendo was by far more superior than Sega Genisis. I would have arguments with Sega fanboys. We would sometimes talk about “impossible” circumstances. Such as Mario and Sonic teaming up on the same console, maybe in the same game. Things we couldn’t even in our wildest dreams think of happening. It seems commonplace now, but Sega has produced games on Nintendo consoles. That still strikes me as weird. Maybe, I’m the only one. Sometime, I wish I could go back to being a kid, just for the games. It was so exciting to me back then. Get the latest Nintendo Power in the mail every month and run to my room and read it cover to cover. Before the internet, this WAS the place to get all your gaming news (for Nintendo at least). Systems were not very powerful back then, but for some reason the games that “moved” me the most in terms of story came from the era. My favorite game of all time came from there. Damn it was good. If your wondering what it is, it was Chrono Trigger. It was a late bloomer. It was released towards the death of SNES. :*-( It had pretty much everything you could have asked for; time travel, multiple endings, a moving and cohesive story, likable characters, and impressive graphics (for the time anyway). Even if you despise video games and everything they stand for, I recommend this game. It’s still playable, they re-released it for the PSone about a year or so ago in a compilation called Final Fantasy Chronicles. This post is really stream of conscientiousnesses, I hope your not bored listening to me ramble on about my childhood and video games. Even if you are, that’s fine. It’s making me have this awesome feeling of nestolgia. Friends plus video games was always awesome, too. When I think friends and video games I always think of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Arcade Game. It was a simple game where you were one of the 4 turtles and you went around and beat the crap out of the foot clan. It was still fun, and even better because it was the Ninja Turtles. Let me take this opportunity to plus the new Turtles movie coming out next month. It looks like it is shaping up to be sweet. It’s all CG, but it looks like they did a pretty good job. Anyway, back to how much I miss video games and my childhood. I mean, I can always relive a video game by just hooking it up and playing it, but somewhere along the line it’s not the same. It doesn’t have the same atmosphere. An old crappy TV. RF connections, we didn’t have any fancy RCA connections back then. It was pretty awesome. Also, when I think old video games, I think old Toy’s R Us. It was awesome, they had all these old kiosks. Such as a Game Boy, the big one, and this ginormous apparatus that let you see the game on a big screen. There was no Super Game Boy or Game Boy Player, so it was pretty neat. Also, they had this crazy system where you would find the game you wanted, then you would pull this ticket or something out of a sleeve, then take it to the back to exchange it for a game. It was pretty inefficient, but I guess that’s how they did. I should probably stop soon, because I think I could ramble on forever on this topic.This was pretty fun to write, probably because I got to remember all the good times I had in my childhood. I hope you guys got some enjoyment out of this. I’ll write again soon.
P.S. I am not the only one who was “touched” by video games as a kid. There was recently an art contest/show all about old video games. It was called I am 8-bit. The art was in all forms. It ranged from the cute to the obscure. It has some really killer stuff. Here is a link to the website and here is a link to a blog with tons of sweet pictures from the actual show.
Categories
A Series of Unfortunate Events
Our story starts within the confines of Southlake Mall (now, Westfield Shoppingtown, wtf?). My shoes had recently began to fall apart and I required a new pair. What better place than the mall? The mall has it all. Since my taste in shoes is slightly atypical I decided to venture to Journeys. My goal was just to replace the shoes that were already on my feet; little did I know this was not going to be such an easy task. I already knew what I wanted, but to get some attention from a sales clerk I walked around periodically glancing towards the counter to see if anyone would come and ask me if I needed any help. I did this for about ten minutes with no one coming to my aid. I finally just went up to the counter, which by the way had 5 employees just standing around not doing anything. There was this chick up there, total punk rock anti-establisment type, who I was trying to get to help me. I stared at her, and instead of the obvious, cheery, “How can I help you?”, I just got a blank stare back. It was like she was staring into my soul. After about 5 seconds of awkward staring I just blurt out “can I have a size 9, brown, low-top, Chuck Taylors?” Little miss Sid Vicious just kept starring. Then I guess after realizing I wasn’t going to go away she goes to the back to go find them. I just stand there waiting, and waiting, and waiting. After about 15 minutes she comes out. She doesn’t even acknowledge me. I go to the counter again. She sees me and says, “We don’t have any 9, but we have 7s.” We have 7s. Why the hell would I want a seven. My foot isn’t variable sizes. I can’t take sizes 7-9. So, my brown chucks were a bust, but I still need new shoes, because mine were falling apart. I go up to another girl this time, and ask her for a pair of navy-blue checkered vans in a 10 (they don’t carry half-sizes and a 9 in vans is too small). She seems OK. She quickly returns with a box. At this point I’m kind of exciting, I am at least going to get a pair I kind of liked. She says, we are out of 10s, but we have 11s and proceeds to take the 11 out of the box and size up my foot. Look lady! I am not an 11. She was looking so hard, and kept looking back at me to see if I was going to be like “Oh yeah, 11s fine, fitts like a glove if I just shove a pair of socks in the toe.” Fuck! This is why I loose faith in humanity. It’s people like this. I couldn’t believe 2 separate employees tried to sell me different sized shoes. They were at both ends of the spectrum too. Apparently if you are a 9, you are also a 7, 8, 10, 11. I was not going to stick around and have to keep going through this. I don’t think I will be going back to Journeys anytime soon. I though you guys needed to hear this. Well, it’s late and I’m off to bed. Until next time. Goodnight and Goodluck.