윤

First try: a Visa rebate card from Staples, which wasn’t accepted because either the twenty dollars face value somehow was reduced a dollar and therefore insufficient funds for the wallet, or, as I’d learn later at a Fresh & Easy, it isn’t good anywhere. Then at a 7-Eleven, whose Indian or Pakistani proprietors had never heard of a PlayStation, much less a Network Card for one. At Blockbuster it rang up with sales tax; I could live with the extra cent for peace of mind, but $1.56 wasn’t worth not handing over the credit card online. Seriously, though, I dug up some old e-mail like this one and noticed I’d fretted over the cost of it back then, too.

From ???@??? Sun Nov 03 00:19:37 1996
To: Brother Gantela
From: jyun@concentric.net,joeyjojo@juno.com (J.)
Subject: Re: I Hate WipeOut XL
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Attachments:

I pounded the controller into the ground, this time being careful not to place my thumb between the two. There ain’t no way I’m gonna finish off that last Phantom course. Those boys at Psygnosis really have to fix that clipping problem–sure, Mario 64’s got it, too, but here you’re penalized for it, i.e., with the agonizingly long time it takes them to return you to the track. You know what else bugs the hell out of me? The way the other cars take the most difficult corners, well, every racing game’s got that, but when I bump them into the walls, they don’t come to complete stops like I do. Okay, maybe I’m just complaining because I suck.

(I wonder what those non-ASCII characters were?) Contrary to my Simon Pegg-like performance on the road this morning—which concerns me less than recurrence of the acetabular dysplasia, or misdiagnosis thereof—I impressed myself with a first-place finish on only my second go with a Feisar in more than a decade. Maybe they’ll have the original tracks available for download on the store; I remember Underworld’s “Tin There” made for some all-out racing moments.

Tagged firsts, House, music, retro, Sony, videogames