I, Robit

Hey y’all. Wednesday here and I’m fixin to have a real productive day. After yesterday’s doom fest, brought on by a big cheeseburger, I finally recovered only to end up eating a mammoth one pound steak for dinner. Guess what happened? I was tortured by nightmares and I’m once again feeling semi-doomed. At least this time it’s more manageable. Who cares about doom anyway? It’s like the dumbest video game of all time, right? Okay, I don’t even know. I’m not much of a gamer. That’s such a funny word, right? “Gamer.” I guess chronic masturbator/girlfriend irritator/dorito aficionado was too cumbersome. Har-de-har-har.
My grandfather was actually the first person I ever knew who got a Nintendo. He and my dad both LOVE video games, and I’m pretty sure my brother’s got a pretty bad case of dork fever too…I don’t know how I escaped. Regardless, that’s not the point. My grandfather had the most hilarious view of the world and the shit he would say would be so confusingly funny as a result…so I’d come by and he’d ask me if there was anything I wanted to do, and when I said ‘no’ (because all kids say no when asked if there’s anything they want to do…you must provide options to kids, actually and to most adults too…that’s the BSC life lesson for today) he’d say “well, Brendan, I’ve got this really fun robit in the basement. A robit. This was how he said robot and to my granddad, EVERYTHING that was in any way technical above basic machination was a robit. SO, there was a robit who automatically opened the door for you at the grocery store, and a robit that took your money for the toll at the automatic tollbooth and a robit that sat in the basement and played with the grandkids.
This was in fact, the Nintendo. I know what you’re all thinking, and YES there are stories out there about grandpas and basements and much more sinisterly uh, ‘grown up’ robits, but that’s just sick. I’m not Marylin Manson. I’ve never even worn jackboots for fucks sake! So get your minds out of the gutter and let’s continue, please. Ahem…The Nintendo was the robit in the basement and at first he just had duck hunt, which was, for those of you who don’t remember, a pretty great game that involved a gun and killing ducks and he had golf, which was his game, and presumably his entire reason for buying the robit in the first place. We loved this shit. At the time, there was Atari and the original sega, not the genesis, just the regular sega, but that shit was already old and played out and the Nintendo was SO much cooler than those were. I loved going over there and playing duck hunt, and even golf. So, one time we went over to my granddads house and he told me all about this new game he had for the robit. It involved, he said, a little boy trying to run along a wall and pick flowers and a bunch of girls trying to kiss him. If they kissed him, he’d fall off the wall.
This sounded like a pretty fucking lame game to me, but that’s how he sold it to me and I begrudgingly agreed to give it a try. Well, it was super Mario Brothers…that’s how he described it. A boy (not a middle aged plumber) picking flowers (not collecting coins) trying to avoid being kissed (what the fuck?). I don’t know. But yeah. That was the deal. Apparently he’s pretty into having dementia these days. Sad. He’s a good guy, although, as I look back over this, it seems like the complete unraveling of reality maybe started a while ago.
So now, there’s gamers. I was reading Cracked.com, which I think is a pretty good website, beyond just being funny, the articles can be pretty thought provoking, and I came across this paragraph where the main writer for cracked (david wong or something) talks about how when he was a kid there were only 3 tv channels and one newspaper, and now, he scours more sources than that daily just to get his video game news. What? Video game NEWS? Daily? Good Christ, man. What the fuck is that? I mean, I get the idea of wanting a schedule of releases and maybe a place for reviews, but then what? Interviews with Lara Croft? What’s next for the Halo franchise? I mean, I’m sure it IS actually shit like this. I can’t even think of something that’s patently ridiculous enough that it wouldn’t probably be included in this vast multi media influx of gaming news that’s funneling into this otherwise intelligent, funny and erudite man’s brain. There you go. I guess it’s true. I’m a luddite and the world has turned without me. I’m gonna go play with my jacks (which is an old timey slang for balls).
Right about now, my baby is asleep. We’re supposed to go to the library for baby story time today, in fact, we should be leaving in like, ten minutes, but he seems like he’s gonna sleep right through it. I’m pretty bummed out about this, actually. I was really looking forward to it for some reason. It’s like I’ve got this connection with this kid or something and I like to see him happy. Huh. I’m gonna have to go talk to the librarians, I guess.
Oh, and we’re gonna do a pretty rad Lawrence Arms tenth anniversary show this year. I just started booking it yesterday, and there are details to come, but let’s say it involves fan voting, free shit, a whole kaboodle of awesome surprises, felching, space docking, snoodling, a battle royal to the death featuring all our ex tour managers/road dudes (my money’s on beef or Nader to take the whole thing). It’s gonna be SICK. But that’s all for another time.
Oh, and it’s april fools day, but everything here is true. I don’t observe secular holidays.