エレキソルト

September 11th, 2022 § 0 comments § permalink

Reminder to look into this idea-realizing product next year.

Regular Show

August 29th, 2022 § 0 comments § permalink

Son and I began a rewatch of the series, now that he’s more familiar with the retro music cues, maybe to combat Teen Titans Go! fatigue, and I can’t help but notice the similar theme of outrageous escalation, further heightened because of its comparatively “regular” origins. In fact, I’m reminded of my own forays into fantasizing about escaping from uneventful times, my only scans of which I’ve collected here (and implore owners of any existing hard copies to contribute):

“The Amazing Zit”
“Morning Run”
“The Videogame Conspiracy” Part II

Ultima IV

August 20th, 2022 § 0 comments § permalink

I’m not sure what exactly kept me from playing the follow-up to one of my favorite early gaming experiences and the lead-in to an even more memorable time-sink: strict adherence to the Britannian Virtues prohibiting the Avatar from pillaging towns for loot; my feud with Henry, who had the jump on its release, pre-Apple ][c, souring any appeal, but would also become the sole fellow member of my many Loser’s Clubs with whom I’d eventually reconcile and keep in touch, for whatever the origin of our disagreement, no one else was involved so it subsided with our stubbornness; oh, and college presenting itself as anything but a time to settle down and make maps of the Stygian Underworld on graph paper.

It was a free download on the GOG service (whose annoying interface I’m betting can be circumvented) but wasn’t long before I not only realized they allowed mobs to traverse chests, ruining the prospect of recreating those safe lanes between points of interest I had in the last game, but that retracing the familiar series path of equinumerosity, however meticulously constructed, loses its nostalgic luster around the second of the eight cities, companions, shrines, dungeons, etc. Maybe a patch will make it more interesting? Grinding on headlesses in Despise certainly won’t be the same in this horrible day and age.

Familiar Go-To

August 13th, 2022 § 0 comments § permalink

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) added that the information [obtained by the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago] may have had something to do with aliens.

Olivia Newton-John

August 8th, 2022 § 0 comments § permalink

Jeff Lynne’s music sounds all the same, doesn’t it? Not that I’m complaining.

Sandman

August 7th, 2022 § 0 comments § permalink

Took an early nap while the boy reveled with the Minions, maybe in the hope that my subconscious would pervert them to my liking, but all I got were short BLM-looking guys who could travel, in trios, along the surface of a golden vase and survive being bombed but were otherwise cold and impersonal.

So the long-awaited adaptation arrives with a DC logo but none of the familiar characters in the original run, Mister Miracle, Etrigan, Wesley Dodds Sandman; Constantine they keep, and make her an impeccably dressed scoundrel as only the girl of my dreams could play? It worked on Doom Patrol and Titans (at least until Batman actually showed up), but that was when both were on the Universe.

Jealous Boyfriend

July 30th, 2022 § 0 comments § permalink

First, some domestic scene-setting: Tony had plastic surgery to resemble キムタク and I was serving oranges that grew increasingly unlike ones I’d pick at the grocer, the last so much larger and hideous it had to be a saggy grapefruit. A cabbage in the fridge had a purple streak in the center that also indicated its past-best state. Then I was part of an outdoor procession returning home from a protest gathering and a young woman walking beside me looked dejected, so I took hold of her hand, which seemed to pick up her spirits. This platonic gesture caught the eye of my boyfriend, former co-worker Fred (to whom I apologize, my field isn’t what it used to be), whom I pointed out and neither of them was pleased. When we reached the tall carved double doors of the place I shared with him, I bid farewell to her and she turned my way with a Ruth Wilson smile under her hood, which all but sealed my fate with my current relationship. We retreated to our indoor pool with a third man, who joined us in a game where I threw a football at a target at the other end, but my partner remained distant. The living room hid the water under a retracting floor like the one at the host’s in The Party, and as well as we were doing, I knew it was time to divvy it all up.

Cursory keyword search tells me I may not have mentioned it yet, though dreams like this happen often enough that my recollections of them ought to convey the real emotional or intellectual impact from such self-inflicted scenarios. (I shall never forget one where I met 할머니 years after her passing and was overcome with sorrow that we didn’t have more time together, feeling it even after I woke.) But jealousy is for more passionate, primitive minds—I recall a recent opportunity to experience it when the wife took a younger lover, which left me nonplussed—and my simulation only produced resentment, a reminder of immature wardens.

Fear of Losing

July 26th, 2022 § 0 comments § permalink

I looked through the doorway and saw a young person’s bare arm suspended unnaturally high above the room, undulating slightly and the fingers wiggling to show that someone unseen was behind it. Suddenly I was attacked by a dozen gray fists, but I fought them back, defiant and insistent that they weren’t getting to me, even as the image of my aggressor in the back changed shape and color.

In quite the change of setting to an anime convention, my friend and I (I think it was Frank Hsu, because he was tall, thin and decked out in motorcycling leathers) were admiring the life-sized mechs on display, and when we learned we could actually climb inside one for photos, queued up thinking that we were first in line. Turned out it already stretched around the display and the others were full-on cosplaying as sentai pilots, so the Shoei or Arai helmet and riding gear looked philistine in comparison. Nearing the end of our wait, a woman with a baby approached and we let her cut ahead of us, but she then tried chaining in a fat relative who waddled up and we objected vehemently. I don’t remember taking any pictures because the very next thing, my buddy looked more like that fucker Steve Bannon and was thanking me; such an abrupt edit in my timeline frightened me that Alzheimer’s had struck and this was how my perception would continue, jumping from one moment to another, unaware of what happened between them.

It’s how I reconcile Severance and Navillera. (Although the former will probably be revealed to be mad science like Dr. Brain, the Trojan Horse implant that has to be “macrodata’d” to override memory or willpower conflicts.) Bread-winning aside, what good are we to our loved ones if we don’t know who they are anymore? What good are we to ourselves?

Alien Probe

July 23rd, 2022 § 0 comments § permalink

Another common disability I face in dreams is finding myself bereft of even the most basic of driving skills, a simple turn requiring power-assisted Herculean strength, the car speeding or veering out of control on eerie traffic-free freeways, and spacious lanes closing in on hundreds of dollars in deductible cosmetic damage, as it was last night, where I struggled to pull the Xterra’s yellow mirrors away from the concrete walls of a parking garage incline.

After that momentary predicament, I was on my feet but they were frozen with the rest of my body as I was approached by two back-lit figures from whose outlines I could make out were from Planet X, but they reminded me more of the aliens who beset the boys in one of the Gamera movies, squeaky voices and all.

I lie on my side but unlike Akio above I wasn’t fortunate enough to escape the encounter with only a shaved head (which frankly I’d thank them for, as of late), but a sore rectum—there was a loud banging on the door, which woke me to check the app if the camera caught anything, but it was probably just the boy in his adjoining room—might the psychosomatic pain, too, have had a more immediate source, a test of my receptivity to a different kind of pleasure?

The Sweats

July 19th, 2022 § 0 comments § permalink

Fortunate enough to be in attendance at a grand opening (or re-opening) event of a classic arcade, so when the announcement was made for a Street Fighter competition, I rushed to make it to the machine to beat the crowd. The custom console had four sets of six-button controls and one of them was unoccupied, but I wasn’t up to putting my skills to the test on this live-streamed event. Shortly thereafter—so short that the game was over and I was almost immediately outside, looking at the place from a distance leaning against a railing with my companions, a fair significant other and our cheery but comparatively frumpy friend. A life-sized fighter jet painted Black and Navy was parked in front, but it was a light-weight plastic model, which stretched and bounced on an exaggerated number of wheels exposed when flipped over. My girlfriend was unhappy with disparaging remarks I had made about our third wheel, hand-written on pre-printed forms, including one about his appearance, specifically his choice of clothing in sweats. So much that it dawned on me I had lost her to him, and my mind wandered to the availability of another Filipina (?) of her caliber.