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February 28, 2006
Gotta Launch'em All!
A few days ago I purchased Meteos because I felt it was high time I expanded my gaming horizons beyond Mario Kart. At first I didn't really like it, it seemed clumsy and poorly designed but then I got into it and discovered that it unlocked the magic little place in my brain often referred to as 'the zone' where all conscious thought shuts off and instinct takes over. It's the same sort of mindset that exists when playing Shotguns in Halo or when you're swamped by zombies in Resident Evil 4.
Since I bought it however, I've been a little ansy and on edge. It's something I'll refer to as the 'Snood Effect' where everything you see in the outside world turns into patterns within a game that need to be sorted out and made right. I see rows of house lights with one slightly higher than the others and I have the uncontrollable urge to push the wayward pinhole of light down to create a metamo jet that will send them all soaring into the sky. The words on my Bible page seem to cascade down in my peripheral and I frantically turn to sort them before they reach the top margin and unexpectedly end my devotional session.
No matter what mode of the game you play each unburned Meteo square you launch is collected, catalogued and added to what amounts to little more than a bank account. You can then spend your little colored squares to purchase more planets, items, sounds and rare metals. Why I want these things, I have no idea but, like Ash Catchem, I have the greedy untamed desire to - and I'm paraphrasing here - 'acquire them all'. Even on the ending title screen after you finish the 'Star Trip' mode of the game you are given a chance to play on a massive screen so instead of reveling in my victory I frantically sort so that I can increase my net Meteos worth.
If you own a DS, I strongly suggest you purchase it, so that we can meet and revel in the addiction together like a pair of heroin junkies jonesin' for our next fix.
On a side note, RSCR:Respond had it's one year anniversary yesterday and I thought it was very apt that I was too lazy to write a post on the actual day of its birth to commemorate it. Why not go through the archives and have a look around? I wouldn't describe my writing throughout these twelve months to be prolific but, my biggest fear in starting this whole thing would be that I wouldn't keep up with it, but I have...so take that three-hundred-and-sixty-five-day-old-pessimistic-internal-monologue. Thanks for everyone who reads this...just knowing that other eyeballs and brains peruse my thoughts makes me feel pretty fantastic, even if there is just three or four of you. Colon-parenthesis.
Posted by Jon at 03:02 PM | Comments (3)
February 14, 2006
Erasers, Paste and Greeting Card Holidays
You know that saying, 'I'm rubber and you're glue whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.'? It is an insult that seems witty and biting in elementary school but, loses its punch as time goes on; the sort of shallow statement you would respond to an enemy with at recess with the basic understanding that any reasonable person would rather be analogous to erasers and gym flooring than paste or evaporated soda on a linoleum floor. After a little self reflection I've noticed that I change and evolve with each experience I have, unable to control the way it will ultimately alter me. No matter what assertion would be more preferable socially, it's plain to see that I am more like 'glue' and now the goal is to decide if the thought of things sticking to me still carries with it the intended, traditional negative connotation.
Like an unwilling pack-rat of experience I hold onto what I have seen, heard, smelled and touched, storing it away deep underground in the confines of my long-term memory; afraid that if I dispose of my treasured past it will prohibit me from the sort of reminiscential time travel that keeps me amused in dentist waiting rooms and during uninteresting sermons in church. I replay these memories and experiences at random, often reliving them from a different angle: changing the dialogue and body language to cast me, the lead of the film, in a better light and smile contently at my directorial skills as I silently yell 'cut' to signify a successful take.
The more I reflect on these things the more I identify with the mindset of the eight year olds who hurl the insult in question. My collected experience has made me wiser but, also, heavy and burdened; unable to make a fresh impression and leaving a viscous trail of self-doubt in my wake. I used to casually bounce about, unafraid of the consequences of my actions and excited for what the future would hold. Now I tend to over-think everything, ruminating over each possible decision as I try to discern which would be 'best'.
Lately, however, my selfish reveries have taken a back seat as I prepare for Valentine's Day and become aware of how fantastically lucky I am to have found someone who isn't afraid to get her hands a little sticky as she sorts through my layers of contradictory experience. I remain cast in my role of 'paste' but, instead of taking the stage alone she has been reading the lines of the eraser, patiently waiting as I passionately deliver my raw soliloquies only to repeat them back to me in a softer, more sober tone that makes worlds more sense.
Thank you Erin, you are absolutely fantastic.
Posted by Jon at 12:38 AM | Comments (4)
February 07, 2006
Flash Cohen
Since I have been spending less time immersed in technology and more entwined with actual human contact I have come to understand the value of time and as with all things of value I have been fascinated with collecting it. Though time is just a concept - and not an actual resource one could harvest (or could you?) - the whole idea of it is rather fascinating. These thoughts keep my mind occupied and, therefore, quite content.
Science fiction is often credited with being the harbinger of things to come, both in it's grand projections of the future and in dark portents of the human machine's impending demise. In my high school freshman English class our teacher, an older man named Mr. Cohen, was in his last year of employment and took to screening episodes of Flash Gordon instead of bothering with explaining the specifics of nouns, verbs or proper grammar. The majority of the class agreed that this was a far better use of our time and I was fascinated with how passionate he was on the subject of 1930s Science Fiction. It was almost as if he decided that in the final year of his tenure that it was high time to tell his students what made him excited as to spur us all on find that which would bring us joy. I imagined his wrinkled middle finger sticking straight up at 'the man' who was responsible for choosing the English curriculum and then pointing it horizontally in order to press the play button; bathing my face in the flashing grayscale light of campy science fiction.
Because Mr. Cohen wanted to make the film seem educational he would frequently add in bits of trivia such as, "See that little screen there?" he'd ask while pointing to a small glass square embedded in console of the ship's bridge, "That was the first time something like the television had even been seen!"
"Back when I was your age there wasn't such a thing as TV, everything you watched was projected onto a screen!" After this Mr. Cohen would usually clap his hands and mumble something like "genius" or "fantastic", content that we had just learned something. I'm not sure about the other students in the class but I was absolutely smitten with the man, hanging on his every word; excited to spend the morning learning useless little facts that are priceless to share with friends over a few drinks but utterly useless in a job interview.
What gripped my mind more in those 7:00am English classes was that Mr. Cohen seemed to not fit in the year 1995. He either wanted to be back in boyhood watching those Flash Gordon serials or in the future, living them out. He was out of place and so was I, the youngest of three siblings who didn't enjoy school work, pop music or dressing fashionably. I had still not reached puberty nor found a passion for anything besides cartoons and action figures which I secretly indulged in after coming home from soccer practice. If I had it my way I would have left the present as well; choosing to either travel back to when my current hobbies were socially acceptable or into the future where I could grow some goddamn pubic hair.
Like cloning, I think the issue of time travel is a pertinent ethical issue. If we can map the human genome and subsequently recreate it I am rather certain we can decipher the stitching in the fabric of time and tailor it to do our will. But should we? No matter if one travels into the past or future it seems as though it is because of a discontented attitude towards the present - a dimension every human being has been confined to at every moment since the beginning of time. It is where we do our sleeping, our eating, our bathing, our defecating, our loving and our hating. It is also where the feeling of regret comes from, that despised emotion that wants us to escape the stage at which all those other actions are taking place on. But does our regret inspire us to travel backwards to undo our wrongs or into the future where we are hoping to outrun it's effects?
I can't help but wonder if a desire to escape the present beguiles a general distaste for the circumstances that God has put me in and would open the very scary doors of an increased free will. We have all seen how Marty McFly almost unintentionally negated his own existence by meddling with the past but, what if someone with a truly malicious agenda was able to waltz betwixt the dimensions of past, present and future at will? Thankfully it is not an issue I have to lobby before congress for but it has caused me to open my eyes to the circumstances I am in and squeeze the maximum amount of life out of. Though I cannot store up time in Tupperware to use later, at my convenience, I am given the choice of whether or not make the most of it like the Wampanoags would to the carcass of a deer. Perhaps those moments in which I wish to spend thinking of future events or lamenting what I did in the past I should purpose to find their inherent value like fashioning necklaces of bone rather than discarding them after a meal.
It is revelations like these that fill me at once with both paranoia and a renewed sense of vigor. All these new perspectives provide endless rabbit holes for me to explore and not enough time to do it in. I think more than anything I have an obsession of finding that hole that leads me through the looking glass; the one where absolute truth sits patiently, waiting to be discovered. I think Lewis said it best, "In coming to understand anything we are rejecting the facts as they are for us in favour of the facts as they are."
Give me time Lord, I'm getting closer everyday...
"You run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking; racing around just to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but your older, shorter of breath and one day closer to death." -Pink Floyd, "Time"
Posted by Jon at 05:41 PM | Comments (5)