I feel a lil’ old. The kind of old that you feel when you see chitlins running around that were born during years you actually recollect. Chitlins, such as they are, that weren’t even properly formed a decade ago. So I got to thinkin’: Rather than writing up the tired and overdone retrospective of the current year or a “hey here’s what might not be fail and AIDS in the coming year” list in honor of the new year, why not take a look back to the last time there was a nine at the end of year? Way back in 1999, a whoooole decade ago. Here’s what I remember:

- Half-Life. Actually scratch that- I remember the world BEFORE Half-Life. Before breaking open crates for ammo was just plain logical, before playing a game with a voiceless hero was an artistic “choice”, and well before ten minute opening sequences set in-game, on a rail, were tired clichés (yay Far Cry 2!). But in January of 1999 I opened up my new PC Gamer (South Park “The Game” on the cover; whoops) to find their highest-rated game ever, and that fall when I finally played it, I was completely sucked in by it. Without the blood on, of course.

- Team Fortress 2 is announced and man, was it awesome looking. Team-based WWII combat (and with Saving Private Ryan fresh out on VHS, a WWII game was all sorts of awesome), intense action, lips that would synch to player voices… I ‘member seeing it in PC Gamer and thinking it would be every bit as awesome as Half-Life. And when it was actually released THIS year, some people thought it was indeed (despite tossing out the WWII thing because let’s face it- that horse was flogged to gibs a good five years ago).

- Tribes (yeah, I was a gamer; deal with it). Listen here kids- before your fancy, state-of-the-art Crytek an’ Source an’ Bungie games, there was Tribes: Team-based gameplay, matches with up to 64 players (not to mention mods that took it over 100), multiple types of vehicles including APCs and scouts, sniping as a strategy, mortars, and of course, maps with endless terrain. In 1999. With DIAL-UP. You wouldn’t have the Battlefield series (especially 2142), you wouldn’t have Planetside, and given that Halo was an RTS game when Tribes 1 was finishing up development (and didn’t officially release until almost a year after Tribes 2), you probably wouldn’t have that either. Am I biased? This game ate up half my childhood, so probably. But I still believe it to be one of the most influential sci-fi shooters and multiplayer games ever made.

- Columbine. Just got home from school, passed by the TV and there were all the folks piling out a school window into the hands of SWAT teams. Then I went outside and shot some hoops. Nobody was getting shot, I didn’t live in Colorado, and it was a nice day out. I mean I had a fucking paved driveway, come on.

- Limp Bizkit. Heavy guitars that we uncultured lil’ fellas had never heard the likes of before? Dirty lyrics that we had to hide from our parents? A vocalist that was all rebellious sounding and a face-paintin’ guitarist? You bet. We were doing it all for the nookie. Sadly, the only reason we were was because we were too young to understand just what that meant and why it’s one of the worst choruses to ever reach mainstream popularity.

- Korn. Follow The Leader. This was the forbidden music. All In The Family? You didn’t listen to this anywhere within ear-shot of your parents. Personally, I found the whole thing so foreign it was a little intimidating (what’s a twelve year old who grew up listening to Bryan Adams supposed to make of Davis’s spastic beatboxing?), but fascinating enough that, for awhile, I’d listen to “Freak on a Leash” before getting out of bed in the morning for school. And this was long before “burning a CD” meant anything other than lighting it on fire, so we got out our best dual-deck cassette players and copied it to tape from that-one-kid-whose-parents-didn’t-care-what-he-listened-to. Thanks Levi.

- Bawitdaba. Da bang da bang diggie diggie said the boogie an’ up-jumped-the-booty.

- Napster. Holy shit, music on your computer?! 96 kbps mp3 files that take only half an hour to download? The future was already fuckin’ there, man.

- Tech TV. Ok, this wasn’t 1999 specific, but still. Leo. The Screen Savers. Call For Help. Gamespot TV (or “X-Play” as it is today). I look at G4 and still shudder with sadness at how they destroyed one of the best channels on television.

- The Sixth Sense, and the shithead at recess who spoiled the ending for me. Thanks Matt.

- 13th Warrior. Did anybody who made this film like it? Nope. Did anyone see it when it came out? Not really. Did I love every single Viking-laughing, gory arm-falling-off-the-bed moment of it while my mom winced beside me in the theater? Yes. Yes I did.

- Star Wars! Oh the merchandise, the hype, the throngs of crazy people waiting in line on the news. Mountain Dew and Pepsi cans with Star Wars stuff on them, tie-in contests from nearly every consumable-item-producin’-company you could think of, new toys, an impossible PC game! It was all terribly exciting. Especially since I was entirely too young to understand just how awful Episode I was when it finally came out (though I was astute enough to think Jar-Jar should die a painful, fiery death).

- New Years Eve. So there I sat, in the living room half-paying attention to the TV and playing Pro Boarders. Yeah, back when this was graphically acceptable. Everyone was all “OMG the world is gonna end” and it was allegedly suspenseful (unless you were hidin’ in a bus buried under ten feet of earth, like so many in Montana), but I personally agreed with the whole “we didn’t start counting at ZERO you morons!” philosophy. And then the clock turned, there was much hullabaloo on the television, and I went to bed.

Year turns are, in themselves, kinda boring like that. But thinking about all these memories, most of which I can remember like last week, it’s more than a bit amazing how much life has changed in just 10 years, both personally and from a global perspective. 10 years ago I was in sixth grade, awkward and quiet. I’m now a college junior in a mass media major, where I want as many people as possible to see what I do. Football at recess was the source of all our drama, now it’s Myspace. The internet was a fad; it’s now as necessary to life as water and food. Most of us couldn’t imagine owning a cell-phone (and in all honesty, most people in Troy still can’t), much less uploading videos we record on one to a website that’ll share them with potentially millions of people.

So on this New Year’s Eve, I look back at life in general an’ think about how it moves through time. It’s been quite a trip so far, and with any luck, each and every one of us will have more bizarre memories to share after 2009.

Unless the weevils revolt.
Goddamn weevils.

Comments(2)

The pulse-pounding conclusion.

Please read Part I and Part II first.

Comments(0)

Make sure and read Part I first.

Comments(0)

In honor of the holidays, I could post some sort of long, detailed rant about why Christmas is a load of nonsense- how it was Christianity trying to compete with the Pagan holiday season, how it has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus, and all the other fun stuff that religious folk try to ignore. Or I could do something that hasn’t already been done better (here), and write a three-part script about the holiday spirit as seen through the eyes of a young chitlin named Jake. I personally liked the latter idea more.

I’m postin’ this using Scrippets, so it reads down like the actual script. It might be foreign-looking for some, but I think the lot of you will get it.

Anyways, I give you Santa God. Part I.

Comments(4)

“Hairy beast!”
“You killed my cattle!”
“All Bigfoots are terrorists!”
“Lesser-evolved apelike thing!”

These are just a few of the things I hear people shoutin’ at Obama, and I’d like to take a moment to sit down and tell you all something very important:

Barack Obama isn’t Bigfoot.

It’s typical right-wing propaganda: Just one big ol’ pack of lies being sold to the masses- albeit the illiterate, borderline retarded and probably-sufferin’-from-ADD masses, but the masses nonetheless. And since I’ve never been one to stand by idly while people get all mixed up over simple things like this, I thought I’d take a moment to demonstrate just how, exactly, Mr. Obama is not Bigfoot.

First, there’s geography. Bigfoot typically roams the mountainous region of the Pacific Northwest, eatin’ berries and cattle, but also sometimes lurkin’ in random dells in Oklahoma (sorta like the Unibomber). He’s fond of snowy weather, deep forests, and the dark of night. Barack Obama, however, spent most of his childhood roaming the tropical-forests of Hawaii, eatin’ people food and genearlly hanging out with non-bigfoots. He’s fond of nice people an’ warm places, and tends to favor daylight.

Next there’s his upbringing. Bigfoots are usually reared to one father and half a dozen mothers, and are taught from birth how to avoid detection an’ make people- via telepathy- use digital zoom and no tripod when they’re on camera. They’re also, as a species, vehemently opposed to the consumption of alcohol, as it tends to send them into blind rages resulting in massacres only slightly more destructive than nuclear war (Bigfoots are a peaceful people and wish to avoid this). Obama, on the other hand, was reared by his birth mother and a monogamist father-figure. Barack Obama has also always encouraged crisp, clear video footage of himself, leaving little doubt that he actually exists.

And Finally, Mr. Obama’s stated beliefs. Bigfoots spends five times a day praying to the Badger, an omnipotent being that exists mostly in the fourth dimension (but who we occasionally see as a furry, angry little creature wandering the forest and decimating all opposition). If you wanna ask a Bigfoot how they feel about the whole God thing, you’ll hafta draw a diagram ’cause they don’t really understand English so well. And if you draw a diagram of a Badger, you’ll prolly get eaten. Bigfoots don’t like blasphemy. Barack Obama, however, won’t eat you if you show him a picture of a badger, or even one of a big scary man in the clouds. That’s right: Barack Obama has stated many a time that he prays to an invisible man living in the sky just like 77% of all Americans. Sillier than praying to a Badger? Maybe. But he’s definitely not Bigfoot.

But now I have to ask a question that demands an answer: What if- and I say this knowing full well that he’s not- but what if, Obama was indeed Bigfoot? I honestly don’t see the problem. Oooh maybe he doesn’t speak English, ooh maybe he’ll eat you if you go drawing badgers, oooh maybe the news media will have to stop using tripods. But so what? Just because he’s Bigfoot means he’s a less viable option for President?

That’s just elitist, ’cause the only people that I hear whining about it are zombie worshippers. And I’m sorry, but you’re no better Mr. “ooh I laugh at Bruce Campbell movies but still expect people to take my religion seriously” person. Zombie defense missions, hypocrisy against the Great Zombie’s Rules, and even disagreement on how to believe in zombies. Oh sure, Bigfoot has had his share of massacres and terrorist strikes in the name of the Badger, but that just means he’s on equal footing with you. No better, no worse.

And that’s what I’m really getting at here. Even if Mr. Obama were Bigfoot- and he most certainly is not- saying he is like it’s a character flaw is just silly. Just ’cause Bigfoot is typically found in the woods, prayin’ to a badger, doesn’t mean he doesn’t have spaceships and flying cities and digital watches just like everyone else.

And saying otherwise is plain ignorant.

Comments(1)

Cafeteria. Any given shift.

Whee, another day on the job. It’s nice to know there are still places that doll out two dollars above the minimum wage for physical labor Stephen Hawking could do, as opposed to Troy, where raises above $6.15/h for actual labor are about as likely as women on the internet.

And speakin’ of, the ones here aren’t too bad. In fact, I dare say most of them are cute. I mean judging by their conversations as a lot of them pass by they shouldn’t have graduated third grade, but hey. You can’t be picky.

Some of them could stand to eat more though. Maybe I’m just not into the whole skeletal-fucking thing. I dunno. Something about boning a holocaust survivor has never appealed to me.

Like this chick here. Obviously emo- you know, all you have to do is read the shirts anymore. It’s either some incredibly, incredibly (no seriously, fucking awful) shitty band or some vague and pretentious poetry in that one font that nobody uses because you can’t goddamned read it. Anyways, I mean this chick might be nice when she’s not cutting herself or crying along to the latest Paramore dump, but maybe if she went through the main serving line instead of just the salad line with a bowl, she wouldn’t look like one of Hitler’s “just-missed”. I mean, if she spent half the time she did putting on that eyeliner, dyeing and combing her hair so nicely, and buying those designer women’s…

…Pants. Wait.

Oh God.

That’s not a girl at all.

No.
NO.

Comments(0)

I said I was actually going to post. Hah.

The “about” page has been updated with more relevant details, so now it reads like a mini-biography of this place. Self-indulgence- and how.

More posts are comin’.

Comments(2)