BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I’ve never really been all about the video game stuff. I mean, after all, “PONG” was the biggie when I was a kid. In my teens things got really advanced and we had stuff like Asteroids. I actually used to be pretty damn good at Asteroids. I had a tactic of holding the thruster button down and spinning the little triangle shaped ship in a circle while blasting the holy hell out of the space debris that was barreling in on top of me. Kinda like that “death blossom” maneuver in the movie “The Last Starfighter”… Yeah, obscure movie reference, but you know me… Suffice it to say, back then my friends called me the “Han Solo” of Asteroids, because I could play for hours without getting blown up or even encased in carbonite, not that the latter was actually an option…

Even so, that’s pretty much where my “Video Game Wizard” career ended. The Who never wrote a song about me, even though I am now about half deaf and wear bifocals. A buddy of mine who filks wrote a song about me once, but it had more to do with my books than it did my ancient video game prowess…

Yeah, I’m chasing chickens again, aren’t I?  Oh well, you know how I am….

So, on to the real story here… As I’ve mentioned before, the O-spring has one of those hand held, Nintendo DS things. She also has an enormous number of cartridges that go along with it. Among her favorites are the pet hospital/trainer sort of things. She has several, and you can often find her running a grooming salon, doctoring zoo animals, or simply taking a dog for a walk, all via that noisy, pink, folding rectangle with all the buttons.

Now, one of the interesting things about these Nintendo DS dealies is that they have voice recognition. Yeah, you can talk to them. So, whenever the O-spring is training an animal we tend to hear her talking to the DS. Such was the case just the other night…

Her Supreme Evilness and I were taking a moment to veg and have a look at something on the toob. O-spring was parked on the couch and whatever it was we had elected to watch wasn’t to her fancy, therefore she had her nose buried in the DS. Via points, virtual money, or whatever it is that you do, she had obtained a new pet for her menagerie and she was endeavoring to train it to sit, roll over, etc via voice commands. During the commercials I would listen to her barking commands at the electronic pet, repeating them over and over while the stress level in her tone grew. It was obvious that her frustration was mounting.

Eventually, long about the third or fourth round of commercials, the munchkin let loose with one of her hallmark shrieks. You know, the 9 year old who’s lost her patience squeal. I continued rocking in my chair, but turned my head and asked her what was wrong.

“My bunny won’t do what I tell it to do!” she lamented.

“You’re trying to teach a rabbit to sit?” I asked.

She all but wailed, “Yes! But it won’t do it!”

“Well, honey,” I said. “Rabbits aren’t exactly the kind of pets you teach those kinds of tricks to.”

Now, one would think that this is the punch line of the story. I mean, the kid was trying to teach a virtual rabbit to sit and roll over. It’s bad enough when it’s a virtual dog, but come on, a rabbit?

But, as you are sure to have guessed by now, the Peter Cottontail factor isn’t the whole story. It’s part of it, but the real punchline is still coming…

The O-spring barked another string of “sits” at the pink rectangle, then once again let out a frustrated shriek.

“Honey,” I tried to soothe her. “I really think you picked the wrong kind of animal to train. Rabbits don’t respond to voice commands like dogs do.”

Without missing a beat, the kid wailed, “BUT IT DOES WHATEVER MOMMY TELLS IT TO DO!”

I can’t say as that I blame the damn thing. I mean, we are talking about The Evil Redhead here…

The problem is, I am now having some really bizarre nightmares…

The one that recurs constantly involves the Easter Bunny. E K has him strapped to a giant frying pan and she’s beating him with an oversized spatula while he screams, “Cadbury! My safe word is Cadbury!”

Don’t worry. It disturbs me too…

More to come…

Murv

I can remember, as a kid, sitting betwixt a pair of wood cabinets that housed a Marantz Hi-Fi – for all you age challenged folks out there, that’s a stereo.

There weren’t any MP3’s back then. Hell, there weren’t even any MP1’s.

The closest thing we had was an LP, since L obviously comes before M. We did have some MP’s, but they were Military Police and you only managed to get music out of them if they happened to be in the United States Army Chorus. The LP, however, was from whence sound and music emanated. BTW, the picture above is of the actual Marantz  stereo of which I speak. I managed to find it in the corner of a black & white Polaroid taken in our living room Christmas morning 1967, hence the mess and boxes sitting about.

At any rate, these richly stylish hunks of audio furniture… Well, they were richly stylish in their day – that being the early through late 60’s – contained 4 things:

1. Amplifier
2. Speakers
3. Tuner
4. Turntable

That’s it. Nothing more. And, in my youth that turntable got quite the workout. Another bit of nostalgia here for you young’ns – A turntable was a spinny thing with an arm that contained a stylus. Back then we called it a needle. Anyway, it would zip round and round while the needle would elicit sound from grooves that had been pressed into flat disks. Those flat disks were the aforementioned LP’s.

But, back to sitting between those cabinets… Besides listening to Sinatra, Elvis (Presley, not Costello), Trini Lopez, Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, Jan and Dean… Well, I could go on and on, but let me jump ahead to the “besides”… In addition to those many musical wonders, there were also the comedy albums. Most notably, Bill Cosby. As kids, listening to Bill Cosby comedy records was one of those guilty pleasures because while he certainly wasn’t foul mouthed by any stretch of the imagination, he did in fact say “Hell.”

I know. Pretty innocuous, eh? But, when I was growing up, “H E double hockey sticks” was a “bad word.” That’s probably why I cuss so much now. I wasn’t allowed to do so when I was a kid. But, I digress…

One of the classic bits from Bill Cosby back in that day was titled “Driving in San Francisco.” Primarily he went on about the hills and the world’s most crooked street. But, he also poked fun at morons getting behind the wheel as well.

And that, my friends, is a large part of my reason for this particular blog entry. Now that the nostalgia portion is over, I would like to move on to something I deem fairly important.

The above were both taken from the Missouri DOR Driver’s Test Study Booklet. Study these two rules in detail. Learn them. Commit them to memory. Keep them with you at all times, and OBEY them.

Do not make me tell you again…

And do NOT get me started on driving in school zones – including the friggin’ school parking lot people. Those particular infractions will just get you thumped in the head. Just ask the guy who is still trying to get a dent  that is shaped exactly like my hand out of the hood of his car. Maybe he will pay attention from here on out…

If you need further instruction on the rules and regulations for safely and legally operating a motor vehicle, you can download the entire booklet here:

http://dor.mo.gov/mvdl/drivers/dlguide/dlguide.pdf

That is all.

More to come…

Murv