Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Nerd Nerd Nerd, Nerd's the word



I haven't opened my mail "gleefully" in a while.

I've been on a reading binge of late. Reading is truly the writer's domain for inspiration. Like weed for reggae and rap artists and coke and heroine for rockstars.

I ordered a few books off Amazon that I'm itching to sink my teeth into. I already finished I'm Dreaming of Gwen Stefani, which surprisingly was a book less about the pop-star and more about boilogy, human choice and the concept of love. It was a quick and tasty read. I'm currently about 30% through Fast Food Nation, a book i've heard lots about but never read.

After a reasonably interesting Saturday night (realizing i'd made a VERY tall girl sensitive about her height, and trying to get a slice of icebox cake at a birthday party I crashed) I ended up heading over to the house of a friend of a friend to chill and play some Nintendo Wii for a bit. I've always been an adamant, die-hard Nintendo fan. When Playstation came out, I told everyone I hated it (though I secretly wished I had been able to play Final Fantasy 7, Street Fighter Alpha and a host of other games) and stuck to my trusty old N64. I've owned every Nintendo console before the Wii and my love... and subsequent die-hard status for Nintendo crashed after the Wii came out.

I'm old school, and what we old school gamers LOVED about the latest iteration in a new system was one thing and one thing only: An improvement in graphics. When I played then Nintendo Entertainment System, an ergonomically horrible controller and two buttons (A & B) were sufficient for the level of games they had. They all had something to do with hopping on your enemies head, or running in a straight line. When the Supernintendo came out, I was amazed it had a whopping SIX buttons for me to use, which made sense because the games were more complex and required more functions. Then came the N64, which had 7 buttons, one of which was a trigger. Life with Nintendo was now in full 3d, and as such there was a D-pad and a joystick. Each evolution made sense as we stepped upwards and onwards. Then game the Gamecube, which made me happy, because in my naivety I thought the N64 would have Gamecube quality graphics, but alas, I was young. The gamecube had a modified and interesting controller system, marvelous graphics and games that competed with Playstation and the then newcomer, Xbox.

then came the Wii.

After I heard that the Wii wasn't even graphically superior to the gamecube (it was basically the same chipset ) and that it was an "interactive" gaming system, my heart fell into my stomach. I was hoping for playing Mario in some ridiculous Open GL, with his hair bouncing as he ran around a dark cityscape, filled with little mushroom men flashing light sabers or something odd. Instead, I was told that I had to hold a wand and gesture towards the screen.

I hated it. This weekend, I realized my beliefs were justified. I played a bowling game and some tennis. The graphics didn't impress me, neither did the interactive waving of the Wiimote. I wanted a flashy controller, graphics that would be good enough to make me ignore beautiful women for days on end and so on....

I digress... I needed to Nintendo-rant a bit.

So i've been reading a lot of books. When I was Wii-hating that evening, a girl who lived at the residence, Chelsea was giving away books. I took a few (including Fast Food Nation) and felt excited to read them. I've never read a set of semi-feminist Adult Fantasy books.
"They are really fucked up." Chelsea said.

Today though, my gem arrived in the mail. It is the quintessential Scifi book: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

I know Huxley's book is chronicled in the annals of our modern history in a really cool way and after I saw him on the cover, he looks sort of like a brooding Clark Kent with bigger glasses and that "mad writer with class" type of hair. I was intrigued.

So I'm amped to finished my current book and dive into that one. Then maybe i'll try and read on of the Adult Fantasy books. Last night I found it a bit ironic that i'm reading a book on fast food, how it is prepared and how it is seriously affecting people's health, and I almost had a bad crash on my bike on the way to get some Ice cream at 1 a.m in the morning. My stomach was hurting and I felt some Breyer's would sooth me. Going at least 35 miles an hour, I heard something go KRAAATKKT and the bike fell 30 degrees to the side. Luckily, I have reasonable experience in dirt biking(which helps with reflexes with road biking) so I was able to stop the bike in a way that didn't cause me major injury. If I had fallen on my side with the bike going that fast, I would probably have a shattered rib or two and maybe a dislocated shoulder.

Somehow, in stopping the bike, the back wheel was bent completely out of shape. After mumbling to myself a bit, I hopped on, and went to get my ice cream anyways. I'm happy this happened, because I was about to sell the bike, and I would have hated for someone to buy my bike and have gotten seriously injured riding it. The bike is now a relic in my living room.

So, the reading continues and I'm diving in, eyes first.

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