not illegal games

[cosmolinguist]

After Wednesday afternoon I suddenly had nothing to do. Finals and papers all taken care of. I sat around in a daze for a while, unsure of what to do with myself, having felt busy and stressed for long enough that I didn't remember how to feel other things anymore. And I had three days more to spend here, since my parents can't pick me up until Saturday.

karaksindru mentioned the Nintendo emulator he thought I had, but even though I didn't, I thought it was a great idea. And I knew where to get one. I asked setharoo if he'd show me where I could get one--he's the one who introduced me to the joys of Nintendo games on computers in the first place, back in the day--but he did me one better, showing up at my apartment with a CD he'd labelled "not illegal games." He explained that this was the way to go, since I could get an emulator online but the games have gotten hard to find since NOA cracked down on that sort of thing. Acronyms are always trying to take away the good stuff.

All I really wanted was to play Tetris, anyway. I realize that you can play Tetris on every imaginable electronic gizmo these days, but it's not the same. Tetris is the one video game I've ever loved, and there's just something cool about returning it to its original form, without the cheats of, say, evil_grapefruit's PS2 version and with the color schemes and the music I remember from my sweet and foolish youth.

Though I have tried playing Super Mario Bros., too. That is about as complex as I can get these days, I think. This is not merely due to my innate lack of ability at video games, but also due to the fact that I'm additionally hampered by having use a keyboard instead of the controller I'm used to. (So maybe there's justice for NOA anyway.) This is a slight annoyance with Tetris, but makes Mario almost impossible for me at this juncture. So when I run into the little mushroom guys and fall off cliffs and in general make mistakes I didn't even when I was six, it's the interface I'm cursing. Mostly.

Comments

[kalieris.livejournal.com]

I love Tetris. I remember also playing Welltris, and having to log on with some piece of Soviet Union trivia from the user's guide. I curse the day I lost that user's guide, and then could no longer play the game. (Mainly because I wasn't bright enough to go look up what the damned capital of Khazakstan was, and just type that in. I'm slighly more bright now, but no longer have the diskette. Bah.)

Helga

[karaksindru.livejournal.com]

Damn acronyms, constantly trying to ruin our fun!

*muttering* we'll show them, lousy acronyms. think they're better than us, boy I tell ya, in my day ...*trails off, continuing to mutter*

Wonder what all those A's stand for?

[cosmolinguist]

Well, I was thinking about how stupid the RIAA is, and how I can't take my DVDs to England and have them work because of the MPAA...

Actually, it's acronyms that end in A. How coincidental.

Re: Wonder what all those A's stand for?

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

You know what's truly messed up? The last A in all of those acronyms is America.

[cosmolinguist]

You don't say!

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

Yup!

Recording Industry Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
Nintendo Of America

Not very American of them, is it?

[cosmolinguist]

Oh, I don't know, I always thought it was very American to say "That's mine and you can't have it!"

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

But it's even more American to say, "That's mine, but you can have it for the right price."

[cosmolinguist]

Which is why it's also American for people to say "I shouldn't have to pay for anything...ooh! the Internet!"

[gentleman-lech.livejournal.com]

Laws of economics. Consumers will naturally gravitate to the best deal they can find.

[karaksindru.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how I missed it, but last week's ThinkTank comic was relevant to this conversation ... kinda ..

http://www.screenfreeze.net/thinktank/scripts/114_onebobreallywrote.php

[cosmolinguist]

The friend who showed me the emulators has some kind of adapter that lets him plug various kinds of controllers into his computer; I played a couple of games at his house on an N64 controller. That was better, even though I had to use the little joystick instead of the arrow buttons.

And it's not so much that I'm not geek enough for that sort of thing, just the fact that I don't possess any console systems--and thus controllers--at the moment and the fact that I'll soon be banishing Windows from my computer again that convinces me it's not really worth it. Besides, now I have an excuse to be really bad at Mario.

[cosmolinguist]

Cool. :-) Any friend of stealthmunchkin's is a friend of mine.

Well, not literally. He has more LJ friends than I do anyway! You know what I mean. ;-)

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

Ah, but Gavin isn't just an LJ friend, he's an *actual* friend (albeit one who lives about 20 bazillion and five miles away). He's the only member of Stealth Munchkin who ever remembered my birthday (and I *never* remembered his), an incredible bass player (and pretty good on mandolin too), opinionated as hell online (but the quietest person in the world IRL), and all in all Your Sort Of People.

[stealthmunchkin.livejournal.com]

The mentioning of the distance thing was more to let Holly know that you're not someone she'll bump into when she moves in with me for the summer in a couple of weeks...I've been very careful to make sure she knows my social life is non-existent and that while I will do my best to introduce her to the few people I know, there's not going to be a huge pre-existing social circle for her to move in...

[cosmolinguist]

I have no idea when your birthday is. :-)

And I'm even more convinced of your friend's coolness now.

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

Seth and I played Wheel of Fortune lots of times on my NES a few weeks ago. :)

Also, great musical selection! BNL is one of my favorite bands. :)

[cosmolinguist]

It's just what was playing on the radio. :-) But it is a good song.

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

I was a bit curious, especially because I didn't know you liked BNL. At least the radio exposed you to it. :)

I have every single one of their US releases, so I can introduce you to their glory sometime if you want. :)

[cosmolinguist]

Oh, I like them already. I have a copy of Stunt, even.

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

I have a few albums that I think are even better than Stunt.

I guess we'll just have to drive to St. Cloud to eat at Space Aliens and jam to BNL so I can "prove" it. :)

[cosmolinguist]

Well, if you insist...

Yeah, someone I know (I'd say who, but I can't remember now) has Gordon, and it's quite nifty.

[paninogirl.livejournal.com]

I have it! That's one of my favorites. :)

[kratkrat.livejournal.com]

I still say Mario is a chump. What came first? Donkey Kong. The game was CALLED Donkey Kong, not 'Mario'. Mario was a bit player in it. So who goes on to all sorts of new games? Flippin' Mario, that's who.

(Of course, you are certainly too young to remember when Donkey Kong was new and fun and in the arcades.)

[cosmolinguist]

Hey, I remember when Jungle Hunt was a new and exciting arcade game. :-) I remember when one needed a whole console just to play Pong. My knowledge of video games doesn't start with original Nintendo games, it pretty much ends there.