Take a tour with Oggy. Funspot. I should point out that the high score of venture appears to be 350K. My initial feeling is probably what most Winky addicts think, which is, that's a bullshit score on a rigged system. No way does someone score 350K when it is nearly impossible to score 90K. But that's what I used to say about building circuit boards. No way is this going to work. But little by little I got faster until I made no mistakes. That same approach can work to this game. Until then, that 350K is totally suspect. we'll see.
here's an in action video of me playing venture. this would be better with a dual camera and edited with some nice soundtracks in the background. but for now we have low tech.
Star Castle is a hard game to beat. I'm almost at 20K and the world record is 30K. so there are some points to be shaved. just pick it apart. it doesn't help that half the screen goes blank periodically but that is the nature of old games.
the totals for December 3rd are as follows:
Star Castle: 16,170
Venture: 64,320
Venture: 93,710
There were some tense moments with the hall monsters.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Max
I did not know his last name and I didn't even get a picture. He was living at the departamentos de Chata in La Paz On Madero near Juarez. I did not recognize the apartments as the place one goes to die but more than once I felt myself melting into the mattress and wondered if I had the strength to get back up. It was a daily struggle even with a fan and air conditioning.
Max was British. He liked cats. He had driven from Santa Rosa in an old Festiva kind of car that was falling apart. He also liked to bicycle to the beer store. My buddy Mike and I estimated he was between 75 and 80. Maybe 83. But he was frail and would say things like, "These scabs just keep getting worse. What do you think that might be." As he picked the large scabs off his skinny legs.
My first thought was ill health combined with zero hygiene. Oh, Max. He was falling apart and Mike did everything for him and Max would forget to pay him. I didn't want to get involved because I am a selfish coward. So while I was steadily pondering my way into oblivion Max would drink several big beers and then start drinking wine and then more beer and then the most evil tasting gasoline/liquor called canya. Horrible stuff. Cane alcohol. the cheapest drunk you can buy. If you can drink that without coughing then you have already burned all the nerves in your tongue and throat. MAx could drink it without coughing.
HE liked shakespeare and we wanted him to get an ipod so he could download the plays and listen to them.
Mike would bicycle to the store to get him a roasted chicken. THat's all Max ate was raosted chicken.
We were not sure if he had escaped from an old age home or what but we both agreed he was out of his element. His brain would work most of the time. He talked about a woman in Mazatlan that he wanted to see. A nurse. We weren't sure if it was a fantasy or a delusion from WWII. HE was in the infantry I think. Talked about liberating France.
Max
You died in a puddle of blood
you died
felled by the Mexican canya god Ixthalapa
you fought in France
in Britain
read poetry
loved women
your family loved you but did not know where you were
we loved you but did not know your family
you were old and old people should die where they want
and we were also getting drunk under the fan
in the hammock
at the bars
you are us in the future
and we want to go to mexico
to die
in peace
with a maid walking in and finding our bodies
say a hail mary for us
say a prayer
then steal our radio
that is the law of the desert
it is not fair but it is done.
God bless you, Max
Max was British. He liked cats. He had driven from Santa Rosa in an old Festiva kind of car that was falling apart. He also liked to bicycle to the beer store. My buddy Mike and I estimated he was between 75 and 80. Maybe 83. But he was frail and would say things like, "These scabs just keep getting worse. What do you think that might be." As he picked the large scabs off his skinny legs.
My first thought was ill health combined with zero hygiene. Oh, Max. He was falling apart and Mike did everything for him and Max would forget to pay him. I didn't want to get involved because I am a selfish coward. So while I was steadily pondering my way into oblivion Max would drink several big beers and then start drinking wine and then more beer and then the most evil tasting gasoline/liquor called canya. Horrible stuff. Cane alcohol. the cheapest drunk you can buy. If you can drink that without coughing then you have already burned all the nerves in your tongue and throat. MAx could drink it without coughing.
HE liked shakespeare and we wanted him to get an ipod so he could download the plays and listen to them.
Mike would bicycle to the store to get him a roasted chicken. THat's all Max ate was raosted chicken.
We were not sure if he had escaped from an old age home or what but we both agreed he was out of his element. His brain would work most of the time. He talked about a woman in Mazatlan that he wanted to see. A nurse. We weren't sure if it was a fantasy or a delusion from WWII. HE was in the infantry I think. Talked about liberating France.
Max
You died in a puddle of blood
you died
felled by the Mexican canya god Ixthalapa
you fought in France
in Britain
read poetry
loved women
your family loved you but did not know where you were
we loved you but did not know your family
you were old and old people should die where they want
and we were also getting drunk under the fan
in the hammock
at the bars
you are us in the future
and we want to go to mexico
to die
in peace
with a maid walking in and finding our bodies
say a hail mary for us
say a prayer
then steal our radio
that is the law of the desert
it is not fair but it is done.
God bless you, Max
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tree of Life
I awoke this morning and stared at the tree outside the window. The vision I had was how every event in our lives ends in one little twig. But where are we at any given moment? At the end of which twig? Well, that's how I feel anyway. I see the trunk as early youth and consciousness and then it splits where interests become different and each interest leads to another branch and then the people we meet are at the end of the twigs and each twig keeps growing unless we prune it and we can always direct our attention to that twig but the other twigs keep growing.
So it's my mission to identify every twig. To map out the whole tree. I think this is what the glass bead game is about. The book itself is about the person who learns about life, but the game itself is about the multiple directions life takes. Is it possible to map the whole tree? It would be more useful to map A tree in such a way that it replicates the tree-ness of everyone's life. Mapping the tree is a reminder that life leads to many branches.
So it's my mission to identify every twig. To map out the whole tree. I think this is what the glass bead game is about. The book itself is about the person who learns about life, but the game itself is about the multiple directions life takes. Is it possible to map the whole tree? It would be more useful to map A tree in such a way that it replicates the tree-ness of everyone's life. Mapping the tree is a reminder that life leads to many branches.
Your Erroneous Zones
Raise your hand if you read this book in 1977. Anyone? Well, I found it in the library next to Dick Clark's treatise of adolescent life. Frankly, I'm blown away. With the info packed into these two books I feel empowered. Dick Clark tells me to plan ahead. But Wayne Dyer tells me to live in the moment. And, you better sit down, we can control our emotions. I know, it blew me away too. Why didn't anyone tell me this like twenty years ago when it would have done me some good. Basically, Dyer writes that I can feel any way I want to feel. So today I'm going to feel good. No more regretting the past and dreading the future. My landlady asked, "Where's the rent?" And I just sailed past her with my arms swinging. I was whistling a tune by Frank Sinatra.
"Hey, you!" she wheezed, "You owe a weeks worth of rent. You think we're running an orphanage?"
She mumbled something about changing the locks but I was out the door...and feeling light on my feet.
Then it was down to the local convenient store to eat some food.
"You gonna pay for that?"
I laughed and said of course not.
I haughtily added, "Do you think I'm made of money? I'm hungry. Now stop bothering me while I masticate."
The baffled clerk called the police but I was long gone by the time the mounted police rode up.
I feel good.
Never mind that I am wearing pin stripe pants and a Xanadu shirt that would make anyone feel good.
I control how I feel. I'm in control. So the new plan is to live my life in the present. No more journeys to the Erroneous Zones, AKA Land of the Self Defeating. No! I'm going to actualize myself. Get myself a watch fob and top hat and strut down Main Street Laconia wagging my junk.
Don't stop in those erroneous zones.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
I admit, posting on a blog is a little too self aware. What starts as an easy way to keep several people abreast of the trivial details of one's life soon becomes an exercise in metaphysics. Like, "I wonder how that will sound on my blog." Or, "I better not do that because someone on my blog will read it." Or, "Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. I was thinking about how I will describe this on my blog."
It's the act of living through the blog and not apart from the blog. It's like, "That didn't happen because it's not on my blog." There is more than one incident that I consider in limbo because it has not yet been posted here and can "only" benefit me. I mean, what's the point?
Now, it would be fair to say old Oggy Bleacher has a bit too much time on his hands already and the perils of the online world don't affect people as much as they affect him. He might even be accused of inventing them to further his mental decline and to have ammunition to indict the imperfect world with. Point taken. But raise your hand if you haven't thought for a moment, "My parents never had this kind of virtual networking and they managed to survive."
So, to put it as timidly as possible, we are the first lizards who are growing wings. We are that fish who flops on the beach and realizes it can breathe. We are the ape who bangs another ape with a bone and then gets laid. Something had to change and in the case of our generation it is the way we communicate. Yes, it is true that we can go to the moon but can't cross the street to meet our neighbors. Why? Because we have other ways to know them. Communication is still power and the old lady across the street (what's her name?) knows almost nothing that google can't tell me. It's nostalgic to be neighborly. I don't know the neighbors down the hall at the halfway house. But when one of them lost the key to a lock they had no choice but knock on my door and ask me for some bolt cutters. Is there a way to google that? I tried it when I lost my toothbrush. Still looking...
So, Facebook is something. I admit it is something. I am more like the fish with weird proto-lungs who is still dubious about getting out of the water. I like it in the mud. But I'm curious about the sand. Is it true you don't die? If a squirrel can wear a scuba bell in Spongebob then I can post on Facebook. My protection is my alibi. Oggy Bleacher.
See, where Kerouac went wrong was using his own name. He was wounded by criticism because he took it personally. Well, what he wrote was very personal so it is kind of putting yourself in harm's way. He could not only be criticized about his style (rambling, verbose, plotless) but his content (aimless, hedonistic, self-absorbed) is a journal of his life. Dharma Bums is a book about his life. It almost has a plot but only because he was totally adrift and sought solace in solitude and friendship. So to examine Kerouac is to criticize the writer and the man. The same could be true for Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe. Steinbeck, on the other hand, skirted the edges of fiction. His two memoirs, Sea of Cortez and Travels With Charley, are pure unaffected journalism. Wolfe and Kerouac were journalists who couldn't get out of their own way...so they turned it into an advantage by writing EVERY DETAIL.
Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah, Oggy Bleacher is not only the character in Memorabilia, but he can give me some distance between my self-absorbed, plotless, existence online, and my self-absorbed plotless existence offline. Well, it hasn't worked yet, but neither am I offended when my posts fail to amuse. I blame Oggy. He's immature. Arrested development. Blah blah.
So look for me on facebook. egotrip@gmail.com. be my friend. mass wolf awareness events are planned.
It's the act of living through the blog and not apart from the blog. It's like, "That didn't happen because it's not on my blog." There is more than one incident that I consider in limbo because it has not yet been posted here and can "only" benefit me. I mean, what's the point?
Now, it would be fair to say old Oggy Bleacher has a bit too much time on his hands already and the perils of the online world don't affect people as much as they affect him. He might even be accused of inventing them to further his mental decline and to have ammunition to indict the imperfect world with. Point taken. But raise your hand if you haven't thought for a moment, "My parents never had this kind of virtual networking and they managed to survive."
So, to put it as timidly as possible, we are the first lizards who are growing wings. We are that fish who flops on the beach and realizes it can breathe. We are the ape who bangs another ape with a bone and then gets laid. Something had to change and in the case of our generation it is the way we communicate. Yes, it is true that we can go to the moon but can't cross the street to meet our neighbors. Why? Because we have other ways to know them. Communication is still power and the old lady across the street (what's her name?) knows almost nothing that google can't tell me. It's nostalgic to be neighborly. I don't know the neighbors down the hall at the halfway house. But when one of them lost the key to a lock they had no choice but knock on my door and ask me for some bolt cutters. Is there a way to google that? I tried it when I lost my toothbrush. Still looking...
So, Facebook is something. I admit it is something. I am more like the fish with weird proto-lungs who is still dubious about getting out of the water. I like it in the mud. But I'm curious about the sand. Is it true you don't die? If a squirrel can wear a scuba bell in Spongebob then I can post on Facebook. My protection is my alibi. Oggy Bleacher.
See, where Kerouac went wrong was using his own name. He was wounded by criticism because he took it personally. Well, what he wrote was very personal so it is kind of putting yourself in harm's way. He could not only be criticized about his style (rambling, verbose, plotless) but his content (aimless, hedonistic, self-absorbed) is a journal of his life. Dharma Bums is a book about his life. It almost has a plot but only because he was totally adrift and sought solace in solitude and friendship. So to examine Kerouac is to criticize the writer and the man. The same could be true for Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe. Steinbeck, on the other hand, skirted the edges of fiction. His two memoirs, Sea of Cortez and Travels With Charley, are pure unaffected journalism. Wolfe and Kerouac were journalists who couldn't get out of their own way...so they turned it into an advantage by writing EVERY DETAIL.
Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah, Oggy Bleacher is not only the character in Memorabilia, but he can give me some distance between my self-absorbed, plotless, existence online, and my self-absorbed plotless existence offline. Well, it hasn't worked yet, but neither am I offended when my posts fail to amuse. I blame Oggy. He's immature. Arrested development. Blah blah.
So look for me on facebook. egotrip@gmail.com. be my friend. mass wolf awareness events are planned.
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