윤

One of the many dreams I had early this morning was about handling firearms, which if I’m to believe popular media my lack of experience in will surely put me and my loved ones at a disadvantage come the apocalypse, but something in the back of my mind, maybe it was the one time a friend invited me to the range, told me that I could tell whether the safety was on or not by the position of the lever: vertical it was engaged, horizontal meant it could fire. (Later search reveals that this is not the case at all and was not worth waking to check.)

In another, I was at the office I recently noticed had a new occupant and my notepad, the kind I used often with the perforated pages bound at the top that never came off cleanly, was somehow confiscated by IT, led by Leon but in another of my memory lapses, I referred to him as Andrew. They scanned a copy of it before returning it and I protested, knowing that my personal information might be at risk, despite my tendency to write down passwords by themselves all over the place without any meaningful reference or sense of order. I cornered one of them, a fellow from Hong Kong with garish art on his shirt and threatened him.

The third one I remember was about an MMO game which I had long since retired from playing but watched as another crew failed to take down a giant boss dragon. One of the characters was a crow-like bird who ordinarily wasn’t capable of flight, but used an ability called “Backpack” and escaped the wipe by retreating to a roof. Even then, the enemy was smart enough to return with a large piece of furniture to climb up and reach them. I was highly critical of their attempt, regaling them of our successful strategies with a lower level cap and weaker gear. This afternoon we’d drive out to Lit Café, you’ll remember, and while waiting for our last meal there accepted a blind invite to a Primal Groudon raid, which also didn’t go nearly as well our very first. It helps that we don’t care anymore.

One thing I look back at FFXI and can forgive the requisite time sink for was the joy relief when a placeholder would finally give way to the Notorious Monster (my best memories are camping them on the clock, even when the rare visitor to my cubicle would send my USB-adaptered PS2 controller fumbling; the worst, of course, dealing with in-game competition), and I think I relived some of the feeling with shiny hunting in Let’s Go, Eevee! Only though because they’d spawn on-screen and not the traditional reveal after the encounter, which come on, is a Japanese gameplay relic that resists obsolescence like fax machines and ちかん.

You can’t tell from the clip, but I had only a few more seconds until dawn when these night-time spawns would vanish, so saving sightings like this is a godsend. The open world mechanic does require more travel, and tasks to complete the ‘Dex (so much for PoGo transfers) for the charm is a daunting proposition for all but the most dedicated players; haven’t thon’d like this for a while, have I?

A legitimate phenomenon back in 2016, I doubt we’ll see another one like it again where a thousand people moved like zombies along the dark Long Beach shore upon a Lapras sighting, but new technology debuted that greatly enhanced the AR experience and the line to enter a tournament taking place inside a huge brightly-lit convention center was long, and when I reached the front, I was paired with a young Asian woman with short hair and tight black jeans. We didn’t even have our own Pokémon yet, which was probably for the best, since those on most the other teams were being demolished by headstarters throwing down powerhouses like Mewtwo, who’d appear behind the players and transform into an unrecognizable weapon-laden form two stories tall to do its damage. There was an exploratory area downstairs where we could pick up a starter, but in the spirit of partnership, a sign showed that one of us was to carry the other on his back when returning. In keeping with her FOB origin, she didn’t notice the position of the characters and began mounting me from the front, which I normally wouldn’t correct, but the immediate priority was to get out. Barry, who recently messaged the local LINE group from Hawaii, asked me if we’d like to battle, but I told him we were too low level, and I learned too late from another group of guys sitting at a table that we could’ve grinded on NPC mobs first while I gathered equipment for our laptops from an assortment of adapters.

I still hold to the idea that Lynch packaged his rejected Twin Peaks follow-up with the “it was all just a dream” finish as an FU to the studio.The night terror Ben’s experiencing in Evil (which reminds me a lot of Millennium) has got way too much of the demonic makeup for me: my latest one was just a dark outline of a face pressed against the small window in the door. It seemed pointless keeping it out, because the back of my apartment was always open to a stairwell shared with my neighbors, so I tried a frightening demonstration of martial arts. The door knob turned and the figure entered, still only a shadow.

At least it wasn’t like the kind I’ve been having the past few nights where all I’m doing is looking at screens, watching football on TV—surely a low point of my imagination, even if it was from my perspective as an unprepared player—scrolling through map locations between San Diego and the Mexican border, monitoring the child’s video content that included a Monty Python-narrated skit in which bodies chased one another lewdly inside a couple’s coat, and playing a Pokémon game together. There was a Chansey to catch, but I missed her.

Watching with disbelief as the local Pokémon Go chapter still met up in the height of the pandemic to add pictures to their phones, I thought they were a due a good razzing but beats me why I expected it from the Simpsons of all places. Last laugh out of this dead horse came, what, 17 years ago and then it was an episode from ten seasons before that. Besides, I always felt that timely fad parody was something better suited for late night television or South Park and they handled so much more deftly in their heyday anachronistically (or at least only on Halloween). Just look at this and tell me that isn’t the appropriate reaction.

The show strays too often from the main character’s heroic struggles to delve on his psyche, which will never make him likable (see Hugh Laurie’s Chance), but there is the father-son aspect to it to which I can relate our recent stop on the way to the library to join a Groudon raid. You’ll remember the details, watching all our underleveled Pokémon fall to the giant legendary and eventually winning with the group’s help, catching him with the very last of ten sucky Premier Balls, but did you imagine the disappointment had I failed after you cheered me on?

Has it really been that long since my last post? So many viable topics that came and went, too, like Pokémon Go representing the last vestige of my interest in videogames, an administration change threatening the absurdity barrier, Iron Fist utterly disappointing, realizing that relying on running as an escape is a race I’m destined not to win, and almost logged in the other day to bitch about tampering with Claudia Cardinale’s perfection, but it’s a dream, as usual, that brings me back. Two attempts to preserve my recollection on the recording app were dreams themselves. It was a first-person flying shooter where the goal of each level was to find the exit tunnel, hindered by the psychedelic lights and color filters, not to mention the two-planed controllers like a Wii’s. The last one led to the player opening his eyes to the crooked sight of an ultramodern white door, and it took several tries to orient my perspective to approach and let it slide open. A hospital corridor stretched outside, and a nurse composed of decent CG, though the obvious product of an in-game engine, smiled as she walked by. Turns out the game had been a simulation of recovery from mental illness [see “Loving the Alien”], and the rousing score transitioned a black screen to credits like the end of a Nolan film. Five of us gathered around a coffee table sat stunned by the revelation; one said he was inspired to run for office.