Ruth's Chris and the Usual Diversions

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T FIND MY BLOGPOST DRAFT?!? I WAS ALMOST DONE WITH THAT POST! IT WAS BRILLIANT! IT HAD BABY PICTURES AND BANANAS AND PAC-MAN AND... and... seriously, it's lost? Dang it. You mean I have to start writing it all over again? Ugg. That really sucks.

Hey, wasn't Ugg that little purple guy from Q*Bert? I LOVED that arcade game. It apparently made a great babysitter, because my mother would drop little nine-year-old Jim off at the university arcade for an hour or two with just a dollar in his pocket, but that dollar would be more than enough to keep me playing and entertained the whole time I was stuck there. I miss arcades.

The post I began yesterday that somehow got erased was about some of my experiences at Ruth's Chris steakhouse. Don't get me wrong: I'm not the kind of guy who eats a lot at places as fancy as Ruth's Chris - I'm much more likely to be found at your local neighborhood Popeye's. Although I tend to get confused every time I go to Popeye's, now that you mention it. There's a reason for my confusion... a good one, I think. It all started a long time ago, back to even before I was kicking the SLU undergraduates' butts in the local arcade.

Babies and My Poor Neglected Blog

Believe it or not, it's tremendously difficult for me to type one-handed. And as one or more of my hands seems to constantly be doing something with a baby, that's left few fingers free to add to this blog. I'm also getting over a particularly nasty cold. Insert appropriate apologies to my rabid fan-base here.

We're currently just two hours away from the twins' six-week-birthday, and I understand that this is the point where I'm supposed to gush about the inner warmth and joys of parenthood, my boundless love for the children, and my joy at the opportunity and privilege to serve them. I've been told that at this point I'm meant to discuss how I've come to think of myself as a father first and everything else second, how my life has changed, and how I can never look at the world the same way.

Well, my life has changed. I'll give you that one, at least. Other than that... nope. Maybe it's the lack of sleep, or maybe it's the workload of helping my amazing wife with these two combined with the myriad responsibilities of the doctoral program. In any event, I'm more numb and tired than anything. There have been moments, of course - some good and several not so much. I imagine that's natural for those unlucky few who get to try feeding, changing, burping, and soothing two at the same time.

An Enormously Complicated Topic: Part One

For some reason, I've been thinking an awful lot lately about science and physics.  This is odd for me, as usually the things I think a lot about are related to music, talking puppets, or my wife's expanding belly.  And further, if it's something serious and not one of those things, it's something like leadership and marketing, as you may have noticed in this blog.  But recently my mind has been going off on weird and headache-inducing tangents into the realms of theoretical physics and infinity paradoxes.  Along the way, I've thought my way through something that seems to imply that the universe and everything around us is not really what we think it is.  More likely than not, my conclusions are a direct result of me not sufficiently understanding that which I'm thinking about.  But indulge me.  Maybe it'll be educational for both of us.

I suppose I should predicate this discussion with an admission that I am a Christian.  Some people would likely say that my religious nature makes it impossible for me to rationally discuss science; however, I humbly submit that I am a Christian because of science, not in spite of science. 

Today is Not my Unbirthday...

... which is odd, given the fact that I have three hundred and sixty three more Unbirthdays than I do Birthdays, which in turn makes me much more used to Unbirthdays than I am to Birthdays.  I love celebrating my Unbirthday, and I try to do it as much as possible.  In fact, that celebration often spills out, as I'm constantly learning of other people who share one Unbirthday or another with me.  Perhaps that's why I like Unbirthdays so much as opposed to Birthdays; it's a lot easier to share your Unbirthday.

(And lest you're thinking that my preference for the Unbirthday is driven by some kind of insecurity in my advancing age... well, think that if you want, I don't care, but nothing could be further from the truth.  I can't even remember how old I am half the time, which means (a) it really doesn't matter to me, (b) I'm really old, or (c) both.  I'll leave it to you to pick the correct multiple choice.)

Birthdays really have little true significance besides an anniversary in an arbitrary human calendar system - it's not like some lever gets switched in our bodies that makes us instantly older, wiser, or more wrinkled.  You are as old as you believe you are, I think.  I know several sixty-year-olds who are younger than most thirty-year-olds I've met (here's looking at you, Doc!).  I was wished a happy twenty-sixth birthday at lunch today, after which the well-wisher hoped that she hadn't pegged me as older than I actually was.  Life remains good.

The Princess is in Another Castle

As I type this, I'm watching a close friend die repeatedly in a video game.  Said close friend is playing the part of a rather portly mustachio-ed and overall-ed plumber who remarkably has the ability to jump to obscene heights and float through the air, spit fireballs after eating flowers, and grow to enormous sizes with the ingestion of mushrooms.  There's a beautiful fairy princess in a pretty pink dress who is inexplicably interested in the hairy, rotund plumber, and that's who the plumber is chasing.  Seriously, I had friends in college who had acid trips like this.  So did the Beatles.  When did this become mainstream video-gaming?

Mario serves the purpose of teaching kids about persistence, I guess... if you die again and again and again, the secret to success is just to keep trying. That's good; I like that. Unfortunately, he also teaches kids to be players, and not in a good sense.  Last time I checked, he had two princesses and a seriously hot chick named Pauline in his little black book, simultaneously.

I'm not sure what all these gorgeous ladies see in him, other than his never-ending patience with constantly rescuing them.  And if they didn't have any interest in the portly plumber, maybe that would stop the endless string of abductions from the likes of Donkey Kong, Bowser, Wart, Lord Blek, Cackletta, Fawful, et. al. (and yes, I had to look up most of the names on one of the many, many wikis out there. Scary.)  For some reason all of these villains think that the best way to annoy Mario is to kidnap one of his many girlfriends.  Me, I'd just do it what I call The Ismael Way: find a big pointy stick and whack him with it.

They say you can tell a lot about a person by how they react to a crisis situation.  You'll either see the best or the worst of people in the scariest possible moments.  If the building's on fire, will you help the little old lady out, or push her aside to get to the door (here's looking at you, George Costanza!)?  If your grandmother wants to take a plane trip to Florida and you're a multi-bazillionaire, do you take her yourself or put it off for a decade or so until Oprah agrees to pay for it (here's looking at you, Kenny Chesney!)?  If your friends are in trouble, do you help them out, or do you abandon them?  How do you deal with problems?

Well, in Mario's case, you deal with your problems by either jumping on their heads, or bashing them with a hammer.  Repeatedly.  Which, I admit, is kind of cool in a way, but it's not exactly the best long-term problem solving method (and eventually your hammer or your shoes will break).  And it doesn't help if all of Mario's friends think he's really great because he jumps on things and hits them with hammers: they're just enablers.  

Lots of kids love Mario, but you know, I'm just not sure he's all that great of a role model.  I think I've already discussed his cruelty to animals and his tendency to antagonize innocent apes (checking... yup, I have, right here: http://blog.nevertown.com/2010/04/trapped-in-convention-center-and-bored.html), and I just mentioned his womanizing ways.  There's also the fact that he cheats at every single sport he's ever played.  Want to play baseball with Mario?  He's going to use controlled illegal substances (like mushrooms) to boost his performance.  Want to play tennis with Mario?  Watch out that he doesn't set the ball on fire first.  Want to race him in a go-kart?  Prepare to have him chuck turtle shells at you while you're driving.  Seriously. Turtle shells.

I seem to be that very rare breed of video gamer who enjoys video gaming, but doesn't really care for the big fat Italian fungus addict. Just don't tell my godsons.  They'd probably disown me.  I wonder how my own boys will feel about them?

Which reminds me:  Debby has also vetoed Mario, Luigi, and Donkey Kong as possible kid names.  Maybe I should try Pac-Man?

Trapped in a convention center and bored out of my mind...

... which made me think of the MAME software I just installed on my laptop (a particularly neat little program that tricks your computer into thinking it's a working 80's arcade cabinet, allowing you to play all kinds of pixelated but fun games), which in turn made me think of Donkey Kong.

Great game, lousy name.

That game was followed by Donkey Kong, Jr., which I had a lot of trouble understanding as a little kid. So in the first game, you were Mario, the heroic carpenter, scaling dangerous buildings and construction sites in an attempt to free your girlfriend from the evil giant monkey, Donkey Kong, right? So after I had pumped allowance after allowance into that machine, constantly fending off the evil monkey and rescuing the girl, spending hours and days and weeks helping the carpenter best the ape... Donkey Kong Jr. came out.

And now, all of a sudden, Mario was the bad guy. And I had to play as Donkey Kong Jr., helping poor old Donkey Kong escape from the evil Mario.  As an eight-year-old who thought too much, I was very, very confused. Wasn't Mario the good guy? Wasn't Donkey Kong the bad guy?

I remember at the local arcade they had the two games, Donkey Kong and Jr., right next to each other, and I felt strangely compelled to play them in a logically story-based order. In other words, I'd put a quarter in Donkey Kong, and Mario would defeat Donkey Kong. Then I'd put a quarter in Donkey Kong Jr., and I'd help the little chimp rescue his father, whom I'd just defeated. Then I'd feel obliged to go back to the original game and catch him again, because that damn monkey kidnapped my girlfriend again! Then I felt bad about it, and would put a quarter in Donkey Kong Jr. and rescue him, because darn if he didn't look awfully sad and pathetic in that tiny cage. It got expensive after a while, because I was really much better at Spy Hunter and Ms. Pac-Man.

Young Jim pondered for far too long about what type of moral lesson he should draw from this. Female safety and the sanctity of construction sites, or animal rights and the evils of tiny cages? Was I not listening to enough Kenny Chesney music? Or was I just destined to be confused forever?

Then Donkey Kong 3 came out, and I had my answer.

See, DK3 cleared up the epic story perfectly. In Donkey Kong 3, Mario the carpenter was no longer anywhere to be found (presumably, he was off in the sewers with his twin brother Luigi, a humiliating demotion for the once proud carpenter, no doubt caused by his primate fixation and the fact that, well, to be honest, he was a pretty poor carpenter, evidenced by the way he never actually built anything).  Instead, some other heroic character was taking his place, armed not with high-jumpy boots or hammers, but instead with a can of bug spray. And the only way he could defeat Donkey Kong this time... and I promise I'm not making this up... was to spray the giant monkey's butt repeatedly, until Donkey Kong ran away.

It was some time around this point in my youth that I realized my life never would make much sense.