Well, I just don't feel like writing that piece I've been meaning to write. Nothing new there. Instead, I'm going to bitch about the younger generation. Today on the bus, me and my friend are talking about some old-school games. Kids these days, everythings so complicated, they freak out when confronted with a video game controler with only two buttons. It saddens me when I watch someone younger than I use three continues on the first level of Mario 3 before giving up. I tell them how to fly and pick up shells, but they just can't do it. The koopa either wakes up before they can kick him in the right direction, or they fly up just enough to go into a pit. And timeing their jumps so they land on top of the goomba instead of in front of him? Not for these wee ones. And getting out of the way of fireballs? Don't even go there. Then there's the kicking and hitting items in the direction you want. You have to stand undernieth the blocks to hit them, not on the very edge so you miss. It's terrible. Kids these days, they're spoiled, with their six (or twelve if they own that confangled X-Box) buttons. They don't know the simple pleasure of pushing A and B at the same time for a powerful attack, or switching items with select. Hell, there's no select button anymore. They just use those damned joysticks. And those life bars? Whats with those? Damn it, one bullet will kill you in real life, like in Contra. And you can also dodge bullets, and jump up and fire a steady machine gun in any one of eight directions you want. These kids are trapped in their spoiled little game reality. They need some change! What happens when you beat a game now a days? Do you get a second quest? Get to start over with your massively leveled up characters? Try to do it over again with half life? No! You get nothing. Well, sometimes you get cheat codes or skate videos, but thats it. What's the point? And those sound effects. We didn't need to hear the exact sound a persons head made when it exploded. A simple beep and a score increase was all we wanted. But now it's all flashy graphics and "surround sound". Do we really care about the exact direction that monster is comming from? No. We want it dead. Thats all we care about. And maybe it will drop some stange item that will increase our score. Nothing like a earning a toaster from taking down that super hard to kill end level boss with the heavily guarded weak point. What's that? Do games have to make sense? I'll have to give you a resounding NO! Do we care why mario falls off the screen when a turtle walks into him? No. Do animal rights activists flock to have him arrested for the abuse of turtles and extinction of man-eating piranah plants? Possibly in The Onion. And those stupid "save points." Damn it, you ought to be able to beat your game in a single session, provided it isn't something very very long, like Startropics, Final Fantasy 1 or any Zelda game. Otherwise that's just an excuse for infinite continues. Wheres the challange there? Oops, I died. Good thing I saved, oops, died again. Oh well. Damn it, we need a game that isn't going to bore us, and will entertain even after we beat it once. C'mon, how much satisfaction did you get when you beat Majora's Mask, even though you went through Hell and back to get the stupid masks? Then that's all there was to it. Now compare it to when you've dodged those friggin' wizzards that take off three hearts with the red ring on, which was hard enough to find. You finally work your way to gannon and defeat him with your light arrows and rescue Zelda. The credits role, and then BAM! you get a whole. Other. Quest. It's like two games in one. How many of you have actually beaten that second quest, huh? I can't even find the treasure in the first one, or find the second dungeon period. That's a challenge. And worth beating the game for. And Contra. The ending sucked, but that was one hard game. How long did it take you and your friend (playing together, side by side! Where'd that go? Split screens. Pfffff. Can't see a damned thing on them.) just to get to and beat the level with the football playing robot. Or get past the level with the flames that shot out of the pipes? In Castlevania, you went and learned where all the chicken was, and it saved your ass, but never figured out those roman numerals, right? And you figured out how to dodge the medusa heads so they didn't knock you into the pit. That's why I propose we go back to the classics. None of this silly 3-D stuff, or those wanna-be old-school 16-bit systems. Sure, some companys that will remain nameless... *cough*tendo*cough* ...have started bringing their old classics back for new small systems to be played while you're in the loo, the privy, the crapper. But its just not the same. Boycot these systems, only buy games for your Nintendo Entertainment System, or SEGA Master System if you have that.
posted by Slade at 11:20 PM

It's a sad day for old-school rap. I learned this morning that Run-DMC's DJ Jam Masta Jay was shot in the head yesterday in his recording studio. Due to this recent event I will not be updating my blog today. Ok, I'm lying, but what kind of person just goes up and kills a rapper? I mean, really. Even if his stuff sucks, you don't just kill the guy. And if its over drug money, whats with that? Why can't the friendly Italian Mafia run things? Because they got killed by the new mean mafia. Its a sad era in organized crime, that's for sure.

Last night, Halloween, I stayed home, ate the candy that didn't get given to trick-or-treaters. I worked on my handstands and played Theivery for Unreal Tournament. Good stuff. Theres nothing like sneaking up behind an unsuspecting guard and knocking him out with your blackjack before stealing all items of value from the home/bank/place he was guarding. This leads to me saying things like "Yoink!" and "I love my job." I'm having some friends over next Friday to Saturday for my birthday. Though I don't think I'm going to get much for it since my family is so poor. It sucks. I'll at least get a CD though. I'm going to try to make some funny tonight for my few few readers.
posted by Slade at 12:21 PM

Yesterday a jock called me gay. I find it quite sad that after... seven years, even with the average jock's limited intellegence, that one still can't find a better way to insult me. One of my friends carries around a picture of this kid (both are guys) in his wallet and shows it to people saying it's his girlfriend. He has a real girlfriend, and the other guy is a good sport about it. So I asked how his boyfriend was doing in jest and the stupid jock walks up and says "How's your boyfriend?" Naturally assuming he was simply not swift enough to pick up on the joke, I explained it to him, but he again asked the question. I quickly quipped: your rapier wit astounds me, but do stop before you hurt yourself. Not really, I think I told him to stick his mouth somewhere. Or maybe it was to have one of the other jocks sodomize him more often. No matter.

Today we had to take some survey about computer technology. I had to put "I don't know" for most of the stuff because I've never had any use for spreadsheets and such. I still consider myself above average on my computer illiteracy, but I would like to take a technology course next year. Bugger, my study hall is over. I might get to more rambling later.
posted by Slade at 12:41 PM

Today, while in study hall, where I still am, I got bored. L&E is blocked for nudity, though I don't know why. Chris didn't update NMD, and 8-Bit Theater isn't updated until tomorrow. So in the crappy netscape we have to use, I typed in the URL www.happyhouse.com. I don't know why, it was just some random words (I almost stuck "goat" at the end, but that would decrease the odds of the site being real greatly.) So it turns out that it was indeed a site, and founded by Nancy Cartwright. As all three of my readers should know, she is the voice of Bart Simpson. I consider The Simpsons one of the greatest social and political satires in recent times, so naturally, I spent a good five minutes looking at it. Seriously, there wasn't much there. Ms. Cartwright has a book out telling about her life up to the point of scoring the role as Bart.

Its getting still closer to my birthday, and my legs tingle in anticipation and lack of circulation due to me sitting on one. Nine days left, then I'll be sixteen! I've begun reading a drivers manual, noting else there. I've also been chillin' wit my vizillin's...not really. I've been hanging out with the non-hick/non-preppy skateboarders lately. All the goofy kids leave early during lunch, and I don't want to start being known as the Guy Who Talks to Himself and eats Babies err... Alone. Since I was already friends with a few of them, I've been incorporated like so many amoebas engulfing prey with psudopods. Sure, I'm already Nerdy Guy, but I still don't want to be creepy. I don't care if the different cliques don't like me, they can go insert metal rods forcefully into their rectums for all I care. But I don't want to creep myself out.

It's a shame I can't think up anything funny at the moment, but I have an idea which I just remembered, so you two may get a semi-humorous update tomorrow, or wednsday, whenever I can get on the internet next. <- Run-on sentence. I am also bouncing around a humor story in my head, but it isn't making me burn things yet, so it will stay there for a while. That's the way I write. I get an idea, then mull over it for a few months, until it annoys me so much I have to write it down. I'll then type up three or so typed pages of crap (I can't write very well most of the time.) Soon I'm either out of ideas, or bored with it, so I save it to my documents sub-folder of my files folder. Three months later, I'll get a twinge to work on it, so I'll read over it, making changes every five words until I'm sick of it again. Whatever I do, it's gotta wait a week or so. In my drawing class, I need to work in my sketchbook (I've been preocupied with my crappy painting), and finish Rainbow Six for english (I'm getting close, and its turning out to be a really good book.)

Oh, contacts. If you want to contact me, I'm going to put links over on the pre-made sidebar on your left. But my e-mail is sladeo@hotmail.com and my AIM screen name is Huzzahz in case you want to yell at me/donate money. If I don't answer your e-mail in at least a week, its because I didn't see yours inbetween the junk-mail I get. Just send it again.
posted by Slade at 9:16 AM