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I was in a waiting area for the Meereen Fighting Pits, volunteers all of us, and no one seemed much of a challenge, to my relief. Most looked like college-aged kids, and at least one was there to get the free sandwich, complete with choice of dressing on the side, then leave. I had four lacquered chopsticks at my disposal, but because better weapons might be tossed to us, thought I’d better be prepared to make a run at them.

At a table tennis exhibition a young Asian boy received unfair calls by the ref, then proceeded to make a lucky shot off the edge that had some in disbelief of his skills. So dismissive was I of this prodigy that I booted him off my perch, but he got back up with no reaction otherwise, like a robot. Underneath a black T-shirt that read “I’M ON IT” a compartment opened up, revealing itself as indeed an action figure-shaped mechanism, which emitted a piercing distorted message that only I could hear, informing me that it was from 20 years in the future.

Been a while since I’ve been able to transcribe my dreams, but I blame that on the boy (which like Homer, there’ll probably be more of), tending to him first thing in the morning replaces any recall of them with the immediate need to secure my motor skills and consciousness. So it was a struggle, but I managed to rescue a crucial detail. I was on a football field, geared up as an actual team member of the Chicago Bears, or another northern club such as Green Bay, and as you might expect from my involvement, our performance was less than satisfying. So poor was it, in fact, that the crowds had long begun emptying the stands. I was told they were leaving to pursue more interesting, new sports. And as it were, in the first hall of the gymnasium next to the stadium plenty of our former fans had gathered around a fence inside which eight young men paired off were preparing for their upcoming match. I’d move on before they started, but it involved solid paddles and extremely bouncy balls that traveled the length of the arena, and then some. The next game was already in progress, a volleyball knock-off with a position that seemed to be filled by ex-defensive linemen who literally sat in the middle of the court and surprisingly contributed to moving the beach ball to the other side. There in the back was a line of folks playing table tennis but off the floor, which I told myself was too easy a one. My imagination was reaching.

Last week’s experience with Redbox was the last straw: $1.07 (or $1.08, depending on where the higher taxes round to now) does not factor in the drive time and mileage between locations with faulty machines, 2/3 among the nearest Albertsons. A ratio only to worsen. So 老婆, she of the torrents and myself more at home on the Amazon, we decided finally to take the plunge—see what I’m doing here with the metaphors; it’d impress in high school English—and become a Netflix couple, which is surely some salient stage of household settlement.

I moved the Xbox to the big TV from the small monitor where it’d been running FFXI, and poorly at that, though the fault there’s less in the hardware than lazy programming from SquareEnix. That the app requires paid Gold membership, however, I’m not forgiving. Fuck them, a 48-hour code from 남재 proved streaming through Live (even with DD-WRT priority over a wired connection) is no superior to just hooking up my notebook on WiFi; in fact, Ping Pong Playa jumped after a ten-minute pause into YouTube resolution …speaking of which, that Jimmy Tsai sure looks like 송강호’s son. Oh, and those two White devils? Ted & Emmett from Queer as Folk.

My recent rediscovery of Jack Kirby—spoiled somewhat, by Roy Thomas’ Eternals sequel—didn’t include these. Sound familiar? (I thought I’d pioneered online interpretation, too.) Ah, if only they’d unearth some royal pr0n, because that’s what might’ve made it a hit. None in mine last night; just ping-pong. I had stumbled upon a gymnasium where players assembled after hours. Their balls kept flying into the dark room in the back, and I went to help retrieve them. Most were oddly-shaped, larger than what I remember, and broken, so not worth pocketing for myself. I returned them to their amusement, individually wrapped in plastic.

Remember back, almost ten years ago now, when I had this crazy idea of expanding our afternoon games in the warehouse into a league with other companies, and maybe even into a late-night club? Alas, all that’s left are a faded Zazzle T-shirt and envy from hearing stories of others who made it happen. Bet my loop’s gone, too.

Again, YouTube trumps the product: