Berzerk on the Island of Lesbos: Best Vacation Ever
Speaking of names: I've been thinking a lot about band names lately, and I've come to a conclusion: "Organized Crhyme" would be a good name for a hip-hop project. Seriously. Think about it. It works on like seventy levels. Actually, two--two levels. But still, that's pretty good.
I received a spam yesterday with this subject line: "Success is a fish that is pulled from an ocean. Swim with the big fish, wear PRA..." I didn't read the message itself (because I was busily applying to become a citizen of Lesbos, based on reasons which I have since learned were a little...misguided), but I'm pretty sure that the message was saying that if you want to be a big fish wear "PRAWNS". That's right--cover yourself in prawns, and everyone will know that you're a big fish. Maybe even the biggest fish, like a whale or something. It's what people in the fish business refer to as "irony." Anyways, all I'm really trying to say is that "Success is a fish that is pulled from an ocean" is perhaps the only philosophical utterance that I've ever encountered that actually made sense to me. Because, when you think about it, success is a fish that is pulled from an ocean. Yeah. I think I might have that tattooed on my balls. Why not?
I was talking with some of my coworkers about video games (let me tell you: this was an erudite, lofty discussion, and we most certainly did not look and/or sound like Masters of the Dork-o-verse** while having this conversation), and the focus of the discussion turned, as it so often does in these cases, to Atari 2600. I started thinking about some of my earliest memories of when we received an Atari 2600 when we lived in Boston, and this reminded me of what was perhaps the first moment in my life when I experienced true disappointment with the world. It was because of the game Berzerk. Remember that game? I sure fucking do. This was what the cover of the game looked like:
Pretty awesome, right? Hell yeah. When we got this game, I was incredibly psyched to play it--I mean, that dude is wearing an awesome looking uniform, and he's got a cool nonconformist haircut, and he's using a laser pistol to blow up something mysterious that looks like a cross between a Volkswagen Beetle and a zamboni machine, and there's a robot or something standing off in the distance, and the ceiling is all futurey looking. How cool is all of that? Answer: seriously cool. Cooler than Sun Records Elvis in Greenland. Of course, when I loaded up Berzerk to actually play it, I discovered that the game itself looked nothing like the cover. Nope, it looked like this instead:
What the fuck? That looks NOTHING AT ALL like the cover of the game. I mean, it's not even close. It looks like a pencil standing next to an H with some blue blotches thrown in for kicks. What a letdown. It bums me out to this day. Hey Atari: thanks for making me disillusioned when I was only 6 years old. What a bunch of dicks.
** Note: Yes, I am aware that using a phrase like 'Masters of the Dork-o-verse' makes me perhaps the biggest dork that ever dorked, but I DON'T CARE..
