I'm not a gamer, I just play a lot

I'm absolutely terrible at most video games, unless all you have to do is pretend to play fake instruments or answer multiple choice questions. I get really excited about new video games when I get them, but the excitement usually wears off after I play a couple of times and realize I'm not getting any better so then I quit.

[INSERT STORY-OF-MY-LIFE EXAMPLE HERE]

I've only ever made it to the end of one video game. I was in middle school, on summer break, and we'd just gotten a Super Nintendo. I liked playing Super Mario Brothers, but only the level where you find Yoshi, which wasn't even really a level because you couldn't die in that world, all you could do was make friends with a weirdo dinosaur I MEAN WHY WOULDN'T THAT BE MY FAVORITE WORLD YOU GUYS COME ON.

So I'd play Super Mario Brothers for a while, until I died in the ghost world fifty times and got frustrated enough to throw the controller at the TV. Then my parents bought Zelda. AND I WAS OBSESSED.

I loved everything about Zelda. The music. The teeny, tiny people with their teeny, tiny legs and teeny, tiny weapons. Yeah, those soldiers were trying to kill me BUT LOOK HOW ADORABLE. I mean, until like four of them were coming after me at once and then it was all, "shitshitshit run away to the next screen are they gone, oh god, no, now some weirdo squid thing is shooting fireballs at me wtf wtf oh god, Link, RUN FUCKING FASTER," because apparently I had a filthy mouth even as a 12-year-old.

My dad was playing the game, too, which means most evenings would find him sitting in front of the TV on the floor LIKE A CHILD while my sister and I sat on the couch behind him. I'm not sure why my sister was sitting there, but I was studying. See, Dad was way farther in the game than I was, so I'd watch him play so I'd know what to do once I finally got to that point.

Dad was at work the first time I came across the first boss. I tried to beat it on my own, but after I got killed by the stomping bull things a couple of times, I called him. We were NOT supposed to call my dad at work. It was usually fine to call Mom (unless you were calling to tell her that you found a dog wandering around the neighborhood so you put him in the garage and named him Fluffy, OK BYE) but Dad did not have time for that shit. So when I called him about Zelda, I thought for sure he'd sigh heavily and hang up on me.

But no! He told me how to beat it! And it worked! Even though I had to try it several more times and every time I'd get super nervous, all sweaty palms and racing heart, just like I used to whenever we had timed multiplication tests in school but like WHAT WAS UP WITH THOSE? Those were way worse than any of the monsters inside of Zelda.



(This video is crazeballs to me, because WHY AREN'T YOU USING THE ARROWS, GUY?)

Anyway, so I kept playing and every time I had a question, I'd call Dad and he'd walk me through it, no matter how busy he was at work except for those times when I'd ask a question and he'd be all, "...I'm in a meeting, can you call back in half an hour?" and I'd be all, "NO I'M ABOUT TO DIE FOR REAL DAD!" True story.

[INSERT TOUCHING REALIZATION ABOUT DAD TEACHING ME ABOUT LIFE AND NOT JUST VIDEO GAMES HERE]

But, OK, just because I beat Zelda eventually does NOT mean I wasn't a total wuss monster while doing it. If I got too stressed out in any of the castles, I'd go back to the village, where it was nice and quiet and the music was really soothing.



Also, no one there would try to kill you unless you chopped down a bush and a soldier came out. Or worse, A BEE.

[INSERT BEES ARE SCARY AND EVIL STORY HERE] 

(Unnecessary. Everyone already knows bees are scary and evil.)

Skittles is more fun than Rock Band YEAH I SAID IT

So this weekend was full of social activities, which I don't normally condone on account of I need alone time or my brain explodes. But I must have been feeling particular social or something because my brain didn't explode at all the entire weekend.

We went to a gathering at Joe's friend Jessica's on Friday, and little, baby Maddie was there, who is like, totally awesome, especially for a baby. I guess technically she's not really a baby anymore, she's like an old baby or a toddler or something, but whatever. She's learning to say lots and lots more and almost everything she says is FREAKING ADORABLE. When we first got to Jessica's house, Joe and his friends went in various directions to do adult things and I followed Maddie into the other room so we could play with toys and color, which is more on my level anyway. And now I bring you, Conversations With a Baby:

Me [pointing at a lion in her book]: What's this?
Maddie: Lion. Lion hops!
Me: Um, yes, the lion hops. Like a bunny.
Maddie: Diaper.
Me: ...diaper?
Maddie: Diaper on my butt.
Me: OMG, aren't you potty training? You're not wearing a diaper! JESSICA!

and later, while "reading" an ABC book:

Me: What's this?
Maddie: A!
Me: What's this?
Maddie: B!
Me [pointing at a bird]: What about this?
Maddie: Tweet tweet!

And then my heart just BOOM melted all over the floor and I had to apologize to Jessica for making a mess on the carpet but really it's her fault for having such a cute baby.

Anyway. Then we all ate fajitas and talked about life, the universe, and everything and then Joe and I went home and watched Veronica Mars so, you know, it was the best night ever. Until Saturday night, because we ate loads of Italian food and then went to Wancy's for game night. I love Nancy's house because she has so much fun stuff there. It's sort of like a carnival and if you don't believe me, WELL, she had a hot dog rotator machine AND a popcorn machine plugged in and ready for munching as soon as we got there. At some point, Wayne convinced Joe and Jody to follow him to the basement to see...I don't remember, construction or something, but after a while we heard shouts of jubilation and we were all, "wtf are they doing?" So Nancy told us they were probably playing Skittles and I said, "they're eating Skittles?" and she was like, "you are the dumbest person I know," and I said, "I KNOW THAT, but where are the Skittles?"

Anyway, it turns out that Skittles is an actual game where you spin tops with a string so they careen around a wooden board, knocking over pins although, if you're me, the top goes flying off of the board, almost hitting your friends in their eyeballs, and spins around on the floor instead of the table. I was going to try and draw you a picture but I can't really draw and the picture ended up looking like this:



So instead, just go here and see for yourself the awesomeness of this game. Joe and I are totally registering for it.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

It's no secret that Joe and I are, for lack of a better term, giant nerds. We're so nerdy that our favorite game on Wii is Trivial Pursuit. Not Guitar Hero, not Raving (slightly racist (I will explain more in a bit)) Rabbids, not even flipping ROCK BAND. No. Trivial Pursuit. A game that we could play just as easily without the Wii, I guess, but then we might as well light candles instead of turning on a light and churn our own butter and GO LIVE IN CAVES LIKE ANIMALS.

But it's more fun on Wii because of TECHNOLOGY. TECHNOLOGY means flashy lights and fun noises and AVATARS. My Trivial Pursuit avatar is wearing a frog costume. Why? I don't know. Joe's avatar looks like David Bowie and he named it Jowie. You may bask in the awesomeness of that before I move on...

Moving on. I highly recommend this game, especially for nerds who find they have gathered quite a bit of useless trivia over the course of their lives. And it's multiple choice! That makes it so much better than the actual board game because you don't have to grab the answer out of thin air, OH NO, it's right there on the screen, you just have to choose it. NOT ONLY THAT but aside from Classic Trivial Pursuit, you can also play Movie Trivial Pursuit, which is total vindication for all the bits of useless movie trivia I have stacked in my brain. The other night, Joe was playing the SPEEDYQUICK movie version while I packed my lunch and he yelled, "Who played Josephine March in the 1994 version of Little Women?" and I was all, "Winona Ryder!" because that question was pretty much made for me and then I had to stop myself from explaining why Jo should have married Laurie instead of that stinky bear guy, but I stopped myself because Heather! Anne! can explain it better. Anyway, there are questions made for EVERYONE, you guys. Joe got some question about the Oracle and Batgirl that I didn't really understand and he answered it in less than .0000005 seconds. True story.

That's not to say the game is perfect. It's not. I'm worried about playing it too much because I think eventually we'll just have most of the questions and answers memorized. And that's no fun. Also, there is way too much geography knowledge required. NOT ONLY is there a whole geography category but sometimes it will ask some question like, "where is the blah blah blah music festival held," and then show four dots in France but none of them are labeled so even if I knew the festival was in Paris, I'd have no idea which DOT was Paris because geography? Not so much my strong suit. I get lost in my hometown AND NO I'M NOT EXAGGERATING.

Oh, I almost forgot to explain why Raving Rabbids is slightly racist. This is very important, obviously. In every version of the game, there is a part where you have to save a little frog thing from the Raving Rabbids. You shoot plungers at them when they come at you until you get to the end and save the frog thing. It is as ridiculous as it sounds. Anyway, I'm not sure what version it is, but in one of them, you're walking around, shooting Rabbids with plungers and BOOM there are some sleeping Rabbids WEARING SOMBREROS. There is another bit to the game where you have to do something and avoid waking the SLEEPING MEXICAN RABBID. Yeah. I think I remember that the game is made by French people. Do French people hate Mexicans? Oh wait, French people hate everyone...ZING! Anyway. I understand if this makes you not want to play the game, but other than the racism, it's super fun because you get to milk pigs and knock down buildings with the power of your burps and ride cows down snow-covered hills and as far as I know you can't really do any of that stuff in real life.

So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?

Um, this is embarrassing. My (very) brief hiatus actually starts today. I'm not going to lie to you. I thought yesterday was Friday when I posted this. I am not what they call, oh what's the word, SMART.

Last night was the best night. I finished The Color Purple (which I hadn't read since high school) and the stupid thing made me cry so I had to put it in the freezer. Then I had a quesadilla for dinner (for the second night in a row) and it was effing delicious. Then I read some more. I read SO MUCH, it was magical.

I thought about getting my hair cut last night, before Myrtle Beach, but I decided not to because my hair is going to get all sandy and oceany and beach-crazy ANYWAY so why bother? Instead, I decided to go to the library. We moved sort of far from the library I used to go to, and the new one is in a different branch of libraries, so I had to get a new card. As I was signing up, the librarian lady was all, "did you want to check books out today?" and I was like, "um, duh," and she said I could only get two books! TWO BOOKS?! I'd wanted to get books books to take on vacation and to read at the airport and TWO BOOKS WOULD NOT BE ENOUGH! I took five books to Philadelphia with me, knowing I'd only have time to read at the airport and on the plane, but I took so many because I wasn't sure what I'd want to read.

Anyway. While she was explaining where all the books were, I wanted to yell, "I CAN FIND IT MYSELF," because if there's anything I hate, it's unsolicited help. Although, I never really ask for help, so all help I receive is unsolicited. AND THEN. Some lady who was checking out a bunch of books at the self-check out (sidenote: how awesome is it that libraries are getting self-checkout?) butted into the conversation.

Lady: This is a great library!
Me: OK . . .
Lady: They're all so helpful here. And did you know? You can even get online and pay your fines and request books and look up to see if the book you want is available! You'll just need a password. And if you need to look up a book while you're here, they have computers everywhere that you can use.

I just nodded and smiled, even though I thought about shouting, "I'M FAMILIAR WITH HOW LIBRARIES WORK, LADY, I USED TO WORK AT ONE AND OH MY GOD DO YOU EVEN WORK HERE BLAAAARRRRG." Instead, I just inched away slowly (she was a close-talker) and she transferred her attention to the librarian.

Have you ever tried to pick out ONLY two books? I always end up getting more than I can read in two weeks, but this two-book-minimum was being cruelly enforced, so I had no choice but to cut back on my Book Crazy. I wandered around non-fiction but nothing jumped out at me (That would be weird, right? If books jumped off the shelves?), so I headed over to fiction. While standing at New Fiction, I pulled no fewer than seven books off the shelves and clutched them in my greedy arms until I could decide on just two. I ended up putting all but City of Thieves back, because Heather! Anne! had just given it a glowing review on Goodreads (she mentioned Salinger, which is pretty much all I needed to hear). Then I walked over to Old Fiction (just called Fiction, actually) and picked both Postcards from the Edge (by Princess Leia) and I Am Legend. I decided on I Am Legend because I am super curious about the ending (I guess it's different than the movie) and did you know the book is about vampires, not zombies? I did not know that. I decided to get it, even though Twilight is ruining all the goodwill for vampires that Joss Whedon created. Stupid Twilight. Anyway, I read a bunch of I Am Legend last night and it made me all anxious and then gave me nightmares. If that's not a sign of a good horror novel, I don't know what is.

(hiatus starts . . . NOW)

QUESTION(s)

Sir asked me some questions. You should play, too. It's fun! Like a game. Here is how you play:

1. Leave me a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
2. I'll email you five questions of my choosing.
3. You update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. They will answer these questions. If they don't, you can legally hunt them down and destroy them by the method of your choosing.

1. The last time I went to Cedar Point, a friend of mine renamed 'The Demon Drop' to 'The Semen Drop' and we laughed and laughed. So, which do you prefer: King's Island or Cedar Point? Explain yourself!

Hee. Semen drop. I'd have to go with King's Island, if only because it's closer and I've been there 80 hundred million times, so I somewhat know my way around. I get lost in my hometown, so knowing how to get around a place is like my favorite thing ever. Plus also, King's Island has The Beast and it's been so long since I've been to Cedar Point that I've forgotten how awesome most of the roller coasters are, so THEREFORE I can live without them.

2. What do you love?

SNOW DAYS. PUPPIES. Also: taking a shower and then putting my pajamas back on, spending an entire afternoon doing nothing but reading, watching Thursday night TV with Heidi, sitting at a bar with friends, drinking outside on a warm day, Guitar Hero, buying books, road trips, cheesecake, spooning, pizza, wine, listening to my parents fake-bicker, text messages from my sister, organizing things, blogging, coffee, warm weather (come back, sun!), live music, when TV shows BLOW MY MIND, The Collective, sleeping in, the Internets, penguins, Tamara's stories, making plans, super spicy chili, roller coasters, stealing pens from hotels.

3. Is the Jesus on I-75 struggling to break free from his Ohio grave or sinking into the state and beseeching his Dad to throw him a rope?

CLEARLY he just witnessed a touchdown.

4. Is there a particular part of the greater Dayton metro area that you really dig? (How about what they've done to the Dayton Mall? Talk about putting lipstick on a pig.)

I really like the Oregon District. Joe lives within walking distance, and I never used to go there because A) I never wanted to try and find a parking spot and B) 15 minutes is SO FAR AWAY. Yeah. Anyway, they have good bars, restaurants, and coffee shops, the most disorganized used book store I have ever seen, a movie theater, a weird shop where they sell random crap and are open really weird hours, and a huge music store. I heart it. Plus, it's home of Hauntfest at Halloween and the street is made of bricks.

I also like Cox Arboretum when I'm feeling nature-y. They have hiking trails and a bird blind and a butterfly house and it's really pretty and quiet there. Plus, it has Cox in the name and that's just awesome.

5. What would be your ideal job and where would it be?

You know how on Television Without Pity they just recap TV shows and then make fun of them? I would like to do this all day. At home, in my pajamas. And get paid for it.

That, or I wish they'd hire me at that used book store in the Oregon District. I want to organize the shit out of it. Plus, I bet they'd let me wear a t-shirt, jeans, and my Chuck Taylors every day.