Exhibit 1.3.16

Things That Confuse Me about the Paperboy Universe



(This is about the Nintendo video game Paperboy not, like, the real paperboy universe which features fewer tornadoes yet considerably more angry dogs. You can play the game here if you're not familiar).

* The audience for the obstacle course. Note: not the obstacle course itself which, somehow, I can fit into my conception of the world. No, it's the people who rise at 5:30 a.m. to sit in bleachers and cheer the rare paperboy who completes his route that make me question the verisimilitude of this game. Too far, I say.

* The newspaper's coverage of its own paperboy hirings and firings. I mean, I can see something in the Community section, but front page? Day after day? When there's breakdancing in the streets and Death roams the city?

* The house painting. I mean, I get deciding to unsubscribe from the local paper is a big decision, but it's not the War of the Roses, here. A good paperboy can avoid throwing papers to yellow houses just as easily as red ones. It's, like, days two through three of the training.

* Housewives chasing paperboys with rollingpins. What is it about the paperboy that turns everyone into this city into Mrs. Capp? And these are subscribers, too. The unsubscribers don't really seem to give a damn, even as you're breaking their windows. Of course, they might get cut down like a bunch of dirty Lancasters, so they probably just don't leave their houses at all.

* The tombstones in the front yards. It just sends a bad message to the breakdancers.

Exhibit 1.1.17

Your Resolution...




...is to beat that high score in BurgerTime. You have a year. Go.

Exhibit 1.1.13

SANTAS

I previously displayed my parents' decor here, and, if anything, over the holidays their house becomes even more of the place it is. There is not a flat surface that cannot be covered with hand-painted reindeer, holly-covered tea pots, and stocking-shaped jars full of candy canes. I'm not against this at all. I like candy canes and unusually shaped jars as much as the next reveller.

This year, the family has added this clever display:


Look, it's a framed doily with our name on it, a single candle resting in a bowl of potpourri, a wooden Santa, and, just off screen, a Santa holding several American flags. (Ed note: I'm sorry, I just couldn't put that one on the internet. My parents aren't those people they just...I don't know...they like crafts? come from Nebraska? were gifted one Tea Partying Santa that basically says Suck it, other countries, Santa's ours?). And of course there's the very clever little Scrabble display which could just as easily be:



Or maybe:



And the classic:



My mom threw out "ANT ASS," but I think the winner, done with surreptitiously acquired extra Scrabble pieces, is:



Santa is an American which means Santa is down with free speech. Here he's showing his support for 2 Live Crew's album As Nasty As They Wanna Be. Now I know why I got that for Christmas in 1990. And the real album, mind you, not the one with "Funk Shop." Word, Santa. Word.

Exhibit 1.1.10

Top Gun for the NES



So I've been playing a lot of old Nintendo games in a fashion that is almost surely illegal (for someone), and I'd sort have forgotten how painfully difficult and arbitrary many of these games are. None more so than the original Top Gun. No, not even BurgerTime, a game where your life is ended by walking eggs and sausages.

The absurdity begins when the first mission screen appears to inform you that this mission is only training for the next mission. Okay, you think. Training, cool. I remember being trained at that fast food restaurant. I learned how to make fries and nobody died. But this is different. Planes shoot at you. Missiles turn your screen blood red. You run out of ammo. And you start to think, Are all these pilots I'm killing also in training? Does the last of us alive get to go on to Mission 2: Inform All the Trainees' Widows? This is not at all like how they did it at Hardy's.

(Although it is how the military trained Bourne).

But then you make it through and you've only died twice and everything seems fine. The screen flashes "Landing Sequence" and you think, Thank god. After all, they wouldn't make landing the plane harder than dodging a missile traveling faster than the speed of sound. In case you've never played the game, let me fill you in: they made landing the plane harder than dodging a missile traveling faster than the speed of sound. It's terrifying the first time you have to do it and then every time after. Or at least I assume. I've never had to do it twice. No one has. You do it once and then die. For most of us, Top Gun the video game is a Kafkaesque experience of dying during a mission that consists of training for a mission that does not exist.

Should you somehow make it out of the first mission--say, you had one guy left when you crashed your plane into the Persian Gulf 20 feet from your aircraft carrier because you didn't understand the direction Up! Up! Down!--you still won't get another chance to land the plane. No, you won't because you'll die before then, probably because you ran out of fuel after failing to execute the mid-air refueling sequence which is exactly like landing the plane only harder. It's as if video game designers watched Top Gun and thought, Yeah, the dogfights were cool but when those guys refuel--holy shit!

They don't make games like this anymore. You know why? Because to make games like this would mean having the protagonist take a break from shooting terrorists in order to walk into a restaurant, order a meal, and then eat the meal in such a manor that he always ended up stabbing himself to death with his fork.

Exhibit 19.16

A Retroactive Running Journal of an Attempt to Beat Streets of Rage 2 on Saturday

0:01 - Ryan and I haven't even started the game and already my hand hurts from all of the high-fiving. Ryan is a married high school history teacher. I am a guy who still owns a Sega.

0:02 - We choose Hard rather than Hardest. Ryan would like it pointed out that we have beaten it on Hardest and were so excited we took pictures of the television screen. I would like it pointed out that we totally did beat it on Hardest and will prove it if questioned. So, um, feel free to question. I took the framed pictures to work with me today just in case there's any questioning.

0:03 - As always, Ryan chooses Skate while I go with Axel. Axel is the game's most balanced character with his power, stamina, etc. all rated three stars. Skate is the game's most dated character with his power, stamina, etc. all rated Jean-Michel Basquiat.

0:09 - I consider telling Ryan the story of how I bought this Sega from our friend Chris's ex-girlfriend's little brother but realize that's pretty much the entire story.

0:12 - We breeze through the early levels while wondering if some of the hoodlums we're beating up ever really had a chance at a normal life. I mean, if your name was Stonta what choice would you have except to walk back and forth across an alley holding a knife?

0:13 - We barely even need these turkeys that someone is leaving under street signs to refill our health.

0:14 - Just so we're clear in case you haven't played this game, these streets are full of rage. Rage and Butterballs.

0:17 - Skate's best move is roller skating over to an enemy, jumping on the enemy's back, and punching the enemy's head. Skate's worst move is wearing a yellow tanktop after Labor Day.

0:20 - We've lost our first lives after some poor turkey management. It's not looking good. Ryan has a look on his face like I just told him that Alexander Hamilton is my favorite president.

0:30 - I unwisely mention how I once tried to talk Ryan into using a character other than Skate when we were struggling to beat the game on Hardest. This conversation nearly ended our friendship back when we played this game a lot. We've come a long way since 2006.

0:31 - Ryan hasn't smiled in ten minutes.

0:33 - Things are going a little better since we've gotten past the swamp monster and the kick boxers.

0:34 - We get very lucky on the beach level. High five! The only thing that can stop us now is the Sega freezing. There's at least a thirty percent chance that won't happen.

0:45 - We've spent the last fifteen minutes or so discussing how the bad guy--Mr. X--was able to acquire such a diverse collection of henchmen. Do the jet pack guys hang out with the professional wrestlers after work? Where did he get a monster and does the monster get paid in turkeys? How is it that he has both ninjas and fat guys who breath fire?

0:46 - We both agree that instead of kidnapping Jean-Michel Basquiat's older brother--Randy Basquiat--Mr. X would be better served putting his considerable freak management skills to work by starting a circus or an all-night Arby's.

0:47 - So, um, is there an all-night Arby's? Because I could go for some curly fries served to me by a shirtless guy swinging a lead pipe right about now. It'd be like going to an Arby's in the afternoon only there wouldn't be a line.

0:50 - Justin comes over, sees what we're doing, and looks a little worried about us when he realizes how much we're talking to ourselves. We tell him that we once beat the game on Hardest and have proof if he questions us. He declines to question us.

0:52 - Things are going okay or at least better than they were. Still, beating the game seems unlikely as we're out of continues and we still have to make it through the bad guy's lair.

0:53 - We forgot about the robots. We also have to make it through the robots. So just to recap, the bad guy is spending his time kidnapping 18-year-olds rather than using his army of robots and ninjas to some greater purpose like conquering Spain or opening an all-night Arby's.

0:57 - This conversation has happened at least ten times tonight:

Ryan: Get your turkey.
Me: No.
Ryan: Get your turkey.
Me: Not yet.
Ryan: Dude, get it.
Me: I know what I'm doing.
Ryan: You won't make it.
Me: Your mom won't make it.

1:00 - Axel's best move is punching people in the face. Axel's worst move is punching Skate in the face "on accident."

1:01 - So we've surprised ourselves by making it to Mr. X. He rewards us by shooting us with a machine gun. Which makes us wonder why he didn't give poor Stonta a machine gun back in the first level in order to end this thing before it escalated to Fire-Breathing-Fat-Guys level. Instead poor Stonta took some punches to the face, was kicked by a kid wearing roller skates, and was eventually stabbed with his own knife (which I believe is what Stonta means in Russian).

1:05 - We did it! Where's the camera?

1:06 - Justin is now refusing to question or fist bump us.

7:04 - Final conversation:

Ryan: Remember how we beat Streets of Rage earlier?
Me: Do you think Arby's is open yet?
Justin: I don't think you guys ever did beat it on Hardest.
Our Friend Chris's Ex-Girlfriend's Little Brother: Do you want to buy my Dreamcast?
Me: Probably.