The nice thing about having lazy friends is that you end up getting Christmas gifts months after Christmas came and went. Last night's visit with Blandy brought about just such an occurrence. And what a gift! A framed embroidered (?) screenshot from my most favourite computer game growing up. Fuck iMacs, embroidered screenshots from 1980s computer games is where it's at.
But it got me to thinking. Having pretty much given in to the fact that I'm a geek through and through, I thought back to all the things that played huge influences on me that most others would see as completely inconsequential. In other words, the things that led me to become the adult you see before you, but also got me beat up often as a kid.
Everything I Know
So other than, say, The Game of Life, The Oregon Trail showed me how difficult it is to successfully pro-create and maintain a happy, well functioning family. Well before my mid to late teenage years and the advent of 16-color internet porn, this was the shit.
Lesson #1: Lower the criteria you use to define "success"
It was such a deceptively simple idea: You create a pioneer family and you're faced with the task of bringing them all safe and sound to the end of the Oregon Trail. Or, at least as many of them as you can. Well, I guess it's ok if you lose a couple kids. Maybe even the wife. And oops there go a couple oxen. Foods gone, and you had to sell your wagon for shoes. But as long as you can still crawl across the finish line alone, suffering from malnutrition, hypothermia and dysentery, while still breathing with a bare minimum of a pulse, you win!
Lesson #2: Shit happens. Get used to it.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about that time in your life when you kept your most cherished belongings in an unlocked opening in your desk. (editor's note: do kids still experience that?) So losing my first born before I could even ejaculate taught me more about this cruel world than all the Robotech episodes and Mini Pops records put together.
Lesson #3 Only kill what you can eat. Or is it only eat what you can kill? Whatever.
"Unfortunately, in real life it was all too easy to kill a buffalo with a rifle. In later decades hunters would kill vast numbers of buffalos and take only the tongues. So I wanted kids to feel a sense of shame for killing too much and then wasting the kill. That was one of the reasons for allowing the player to carry back no more than 200 pounds of meat. I wanted the kids to develop a sense of conservation while playing the game - to say "We should not shoot more meat than we can carry". Our field testing showed that this lesson was indeed effective."
- Philip Bouchard, creator of The Oregon Trail
Lesson #4: It happens to the best of us
Perhaps my general pessimism all stems from the amount of times I died on the Trail as a kid. And frankly, calling myself Penis all the time probably caused some psychological damage that I'm only now beginning to come to terms with.
Everything I Know
aka
But it got me to thinking. Having pretty much given in to the fact that I'm a geek through and through, I thought back to all the things that played huge influences on me that most others would see as completely inconsequential. In other words, the things that led me to become the adult you see before you, but also got me beat up often as a kid.
Everything I Know
About Life and Death
I Learned From
The Oregon Trail
So other than, say, The Game of Life, The Oregon Trail showed me how difficult it is to successfully pro-create and maintain a happy, well functioning family. Well before my mid to late teenage years and the advent of 16-color internet porn, this was the shit.Lesson #1: Lower the criteria you use to define "success"
It was such a deceptively simple idea: You create a pioneer family and you're faced with the task of bringing them all safe and sound to the end of the Oregon Trail. Or, at least as many of them as you can. Well, I guess it's ok if you lose a couple kids. Maybe even the wife. And oops there go a couple oxen. Foods gone, and you had to sell your wagon for shoes. But as long as you can still crawl across the finish line alone, suffering from malnutrition, hypothermia and dysentery, while still breathing with a bare minimum of a pulse, you win!
Lesson #2: Shit happens. Get used to it.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about that time in your life when you kept your most cherished belongings in an unlocked opening in your desk. (editor's note: do kids still experience that?) So losing my first born before I could even ejaculate taught me more about this cruel world than all the Robotech episodes and Mini Pops records put together.
Lesson #3 Only kill what you can eat. Or is it only eat what you can kill? Whatever.
"Unfortunately, in real life it was all too easy to kill a buffalo with a rifle. In later decades hunters would kill vast numbers of buffalos and take only the tongues. So I wanted kids to feel a sense of shame for killing too much and then wasting the kill. That was one of the reasons for allowing the player to carry back no more than 200 pounds of meat. I wanted the kids to develop a sense of conservation while playing the game - to say "We should not shoot more meat than we can carry". Our field testing showed that this lesson was indeed effective."
- Philip Bouchard, creator of The Oregon Trail
Lesson #4: It happens to the best of us
Perhaps my general pessimism all stems from the amount of times I died on the Trail as a kid. And frankly, calling myself Penis all the time probably caused some psychological damage that I'm only now beginning to come to terms with.
Next Installment:
Everything I Know
About Heterosexuality
I Learned from
Morrissey
aka
Where's my girlfriend?
posted by pizza diarist | 11:59 AM
2 Comments:
You sure you still don't have too much time on your hands?
However, I also thought it extremely racist that the Indian guides sometimes would rip you off to cross the river. WTF? Haven't we given them enough shit with athletic team name bigotry and not to mention small pox that decimated millions? The creators of Oregon Trail are EVIL.
Hey! I wasn't being lazy! That cross stitch took forever! It's not like you can go down to Wal-Mart and pick up a cross stitch pattern for Oregon Trail you know!
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