All right. Straight up - I have no idea where this journal entry is going to go, but I'm going to lay it down like a Jurassic 5 multilayered hip-hop slash funk track.

Not.

Actually, I'm going to go the plagiarism route and steal the topic of a conversation I participated in last night as a jumping off point -- use it as the underlying rhythm for the rest of this sad song.

Setup intro:

Last night I hung out with a couple of guys from our "men's group" -- this one, called Twitch 'n Bitch, is a spinoff of our Kitch 'n Bitch movie night. Instead of sitting around on a couch watching bad TV or cinema, we TnB'ers spend every other Tuesday night interacting, talking, and playing games. (I skipped the "RISK evening" two weeks ago -- that's one game I just can't take.) Obviously, the game night is far more social than the sit-on-our-lazy-asses one...

Interlude:

If anyone ever suggests you play a (card) game called Fluxx don't do it. Grab the deck, make like a magician, throw all the cards in the air and then disappear as the plastic-coated paper rectangles flutter about, obscuring your would-be-torturer's vision. Seriously. The game - at least the one we played - would have been a lot more fun if it had involved someone pulling my front teeth with a pair of rusty (what else?) pliers. There's no use in me explaining the rules because they keep changing; there is no real strategy; no goals of particular interest; no point; no point whatsoever.

Play 52-card pick-up instead. You can even put the Jokers in for added excitement if you want.

Interlude 2:

Mao is better. If one has to play a card game, Mao is much more entertaining. There ARE rules, ones that make sense, but - often - the person suggesting play of the game is the ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS THE RULES. (No worries. The rules are actually codified, standardized, whatever.) Our first round was humorous as three of the four (Rick, Kyle, and I) had little clue as to what was going on. Penalty card for touching one's hand during a Point of Order. Saying P. of O. during a P. of O. Not saying "Have a Nice Day!" after playing the appropriate card. Etc.

Turns out I had played before long ago, so I caught on fairly quickly. Rick, too, seemed to get a quick grasp on the game, so the two of us had a tough time of stifling laughter after Kyle continued to miss the significance of those certain special cards.

Hint: If you've played UNO before, you'll have an advantage over anyone who has never played...

Backbeat:

After exhausting the card games and our energy for them, conversation turned to the ever-popular pop-culture references, cult films, and the Simpson. Somehow, though - perhaps because we were still disucussing the possibility of further competiton -- the subject of videogames came up. (Aaron actually has one of those Atari 2600 replica joysticks that has 10 original Atari games built into its base. Just plug into TV, turn on, and play. An incredibly nifty thing for about $18!)

Kyle's got an incredible wit, and I'd say he's damn near a genius (just not at cards), and I'll admit to being a little jealous when he brought up his observations regarding some of the first videogames to appear in arcades. He's right, because some of the premises for those old games were outright absurd, if not altogether surreal. Dig Dug was the example Kyle found himself laughing at the most because, "Who in the hell thought it would be such a fantastic concept to have a little guy, wearing a space suit carrying a bicycle pump, who goes around dropping rocks on those floating goggles and/or dragons or, as another means of eradicating these villains, by over-inflation. One sick mind..."

All I could really do was nod my head furiously in agreement, laugh, and try my best to come up with other appropriate examples of the "arcade of the absurd." Donkey Kong was my obvious first choice, and I spent most of the conversation trying to wrest Satan's Hollow from my flagging memory.

(I remember watching other kids pumping quarters into that one solitary machine at one of the local Pine Mountain convenience stores. Which brings to me to one of the funnier recollections I have about that video game. One of my best friends was the son of a Baptist minister, and when I once asked him if he wanted to play a match of Satan's Hollow against me, he informed me matter-of-factly that his father wouldn't let him "interact" with anything having to do with the devil. Turns out it didn't have much of an effect -- the kid went all bad apple when he hit high school.)

We continued the list, rattling off a few more oddities like Joust, Tempest (cool game, though), Burger Time (Aaron pointed out that "you actually walk the little chef dude over the hamburger ingredients."), and Super Mario Brothers. I'm sure there are legion other Dalian videogames from the eighties, but that was about all we could muster before packing up the cards.

Outro:

Yeah, yeah. I missed yesterday's offering to the Journalscape gods. (After so hyping my resolution to commit no less than 15 minutes a day to journaling.) I'm thinking today's cigars and rum should do fine to appease old Jobu.