Dumb luck isn't just luck. Wait, I think that came out wrong.

Yeah, it's been I while. I find myself once again reflecting on one of my previous posts. Or is it reflecting a reflection of an even further previous post. My argument essentially was that being in the right place at the right time is everything. However this is really only half of the truth. Being in the right place at the wrong time can be equally as valuable. We've all been there whether voluntary or not. It's like a tap on the shoulder from a friend that knows you as well as you know yourself trying to stop you from being drunk and belligerent or trying to tell you that regret is in store for your short term decisions. Sometimes it takes a complete asshole stranger or two to finally convince you that opportunity is actually an accident waiting to happen. Back to the goldmine...it is fatal. I fell in and all the gold turned into beer. But I can learn from my mistakes...eventually. It's in my hands. King Midas has nothing on me.

stoop: v. 4. a. to lower or debase oneself b. to descend from a superior position; condescend

Friday morning note from my officemate. Little does he know where I spent Thursday night.

The legend of Prince Valient a.k.a. crappy action gameplay

This is another one that I never played as a child and for two reasons. For one, I probably would have glanced at the cartridge packaging and said, "man that looks lame" and secondly it was only released in Europe. Now thanks to the wonders of online emulation of the NES I can enjoy the experience, one that would have been a rarity at the time of the games release.
The Legend of Prince Valiant was released in 1992 in the midst of the animated television series of the same name, which aired on The Family Channel (does The Family Channel still exist?.) I'm sure that the timing of the release was well intended to sell many a copy of this action adventure for all ages. The animated series and the game are based on the comic strip which has been in existence since 1937. The design and developer (Ocean) has done several other games that I was familiar with as a child.
Let me be straight with you. You throw stuff at bad guys. I don't even know who the bad guys are or what you are throwing at them. Before starting game play you can read the story. It tells of the marsh which just happens to be the first stage you must pass. I killed the evil serpent and made it to a bat, then I gave up. Basically you kill bad guys that either try to grab you, or impale you with arrows and spears. In killing these evil woodland cutthroats you are rewarded with energy increases, small portions of time (gee thanks) and tokens. Don't ask, I don't know what the tokens are either. There are traps in the ground that are instant death. You may as well jump in the first one you see, for the marsh is just too perilous for some sissy prince. The king needs to send a damn army in there.
Things I quickly discovered about this game: You can't throw things when you are kneeling. You can't throw things when you are jumping. Go ahead try to throw one of those things at that archer in the background who constantly pelts you with arrows. You're fucked. I challenge you to make it past the bat, and hopefully to the next level where you get to shoot the woodland cutthroats with a crossbow.
I congratulate Prince Valiant for making it over 70 years in the papers even if I can't make it past 5 minutes of the game. How else can I describe it? I am looking in my thesaurus for the best antonyms of epic, glorious, adventurous, or anything else one might use to describe mid-evil fairy tale type shit. It's about as epic as say...doing your laundry.
**Important** Prince Valiant can't swim.

The little man's rules of dating girls.

1) Don't go out on a date with a girl you have never met before.
2) Don't kiss a girl you have never met before.
3) You are not allowed to kiss a girl until you have been on 17 dates.
4) It's okay to marry a girl after you have been on 18 dates.
5) In order for any of the rules to count, first you have to go through me. I'm not saying that it needs to be okay with me. I mean that you have to beat me one on one in a wrestling match.

late night at ALVIN'S

Walking around the university neighborhood in the late hours I stumbled upon an establishment I had never seen before. It was an old, dingy white building that at one point had been a house. Now it had been converted to a local bar and grill, but not just any run of the mill bar and grill. The siding was covered by many rows of christmas lights, many of them flashing in a wide array of colors. There was a covered deck on the right side of the building when facing it from the street. This was the entrance. On the rails, support beams and roof of this deck where rows of colored light bulbs that illuminated the entire side of the lot through the fog and darkness of the winter night. "How long has this place been here?" I wondered. "How could I have missed it?" On the side of the building facing the street was a giant flashing neon of a clown. This was not just any smiling or waving clown, holding balloons to hand out to the kids at birthday parties. To the phychobilly music reverberating over the outside speakers on the deck, this giant neon clown was doing a perfectly in time, rhythmic pelvic thrust. Above the clown were multicolored neon letters flashing one at a time. A-L-V-I-N-S. I couldn't help but laugh. Maybe it had been pulled to earth's surface by some caravan from hell. Just a theory. I was hesitant in approaching the entrance but I knew there was no way I could pass a place like this up. I walked up on the deck where there were two women having a conversation, but it was completely drown out by the music. You could hear the speakers rattle. They were beat up from years of extensive use and exposure to the weather. I opened the door. I was immediately hit by the cloud of cigarette smoke that filled the room. I did a quick pan of the place not knowing what to expect. To my right, just inside the door there was an Ultracade machine with three teenage boys gathered around it, all smoking cigarettes. There were booths all the way around the walls of the place. In the middle was huge U shaped bar with stools all around it. It seemed as if there were as many seats at the bar as there were at the tables, however they were all occupied. There was a waiter standing on the other side of the bar but there were no other employees in sight. The place was packed with customers, all smoking cigarettes and almost all eating whole rotisserie chickens. Almost every spot in the place that wasn't occupied had not been bussed and was covered with left over rotisserie chicken, scattered newspapers, and cigarette ash. All these people were strangers to me. After a minute or so of walking around I finally found a semi-clean table in the back corner with a menu waiting for me. I turned it over. In bold letters it read "Whole Rotisserie Chicken" and below that "Split Pea Soup." That was it. The waiter came to my table. "Decide what you want yet?"
"This is really all you guys serve?"
"Yep."
"Can I get a cup of coffee?"
He stared at me blankly for a moment. "Sure, but that is the only beverage we have."
As he walked away I asked, "how do you guys get so much business with only three items on your menu?"
He glanced back at me over his shoulder,"because you can smoke."

quick thought

Today's Lesson: Question direct statements, for reality is only perception. That and people are liars. Just sayin'.