world 5-2

brett pulled out his old nintendo system yesterday. i think that was a big mistake on his part. i mean, we rarely have enough time as it is for more than a passing kiss and a "see you later." but NOW...there are world's to conquer! brett, brett, brett...you really should have seen this coming. you see, i was never allowed to have any sort of video games when i was young. the closest i ever got to having my own video game was when on saturday mornings my dad would bring me to the fun-factory in the old run down ghost-town mall. all it had was a fun factory, a small movie theatre, and many many darkened store windows with shadows of naked manicans looming in the back. my dad and i would go there and play a few rounds of double dragon and then i would be off to play the games that spit out pink tickets. i always had grandious ideas for those tickets. i kept them in my sock drawer and counted and recounted them every week like somehow maybe i would have won more tickets...in my sleep. i was saving them to get a coloured walkman. of course BUYING a walkman would have been the cheaper way to go...but probably not as much fun. i finally ended up throwing those tickets away when i left home for college. i never even cashed in one of those well fought for tickets...not even for the sparkly bouncy ball or that plastic spider ring. those things are so great. i mean, people REALLY think that you have a big black spider on your finger.

anyway, nintendo. bad. i've already spent too many hours of my saturday listening to the ding, ding, ding, ding of those cutey-pie mario brothers collecting coins. now, just b/c i myself did not have nintendo when i was little does not mean that i did not spend many weekend mornings playing at my friends' houses. my friends had all the games, including that weird pad thing that made you look like a bafoon while you were madly jumping up and down trying to get some poorly drawn olympic athlete to perform the triple jump. BUT, don't think for an instant that just b/c i did not have a normal american childhood that i don't know some tricks of the trade. i mean, i know where the mushrooms handing out free lives are. and i also know which bricks have a secret stash of extra bling-bling. however, since i only got to play on random saturdays scattered throughout the year...i never got past world 4-1. well my super mario loving friends...i have finally hit the big time. I've made it to 5-2. --SN