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Allan Keyes is Getting Old

2 Sep

September 2, 2013

keyes

So I learned a valuable life lesson on Thursday:  It’s beyond humiliating to die on the first level of Burger Time while a 7-year old watches.

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I suppose that odd epiphany merits a drop of explanation. Unfortunately you can’t get the whole story….yet.  So for now, let’s just say that on Thursday, Mr. B and I had cause to be in a certain New Jersey town for a certain appointment, which we will definitely both be writing about in the near future when we are able. And during our stay in that certain town, we passed the coolest vintage arcade, where I beclowned myself in front of a slackjawed kid.

This was the coolest old-school arcade, they had all the BEST games from when I was a kid:

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So of course, I basically dragged Mr. B in. Not that he needed much convincing, I could barely tear him away from the Turbo machine when it was time to go.

I was a fat, four-eyed nerdy kid with a big mop of unkempt hair (I’ve changed plenty over the years – I’m going bald) but when I walked into the arcade, it was my dojo and I was the black belt star pupil. I’d go for an hour on Centipede, or beat you in Street Fighter 2 faster than you could say Hadoken  Shoryuken! How good was I at these things – any and all of these things? Let’s put it this way: I beat Street Fighter 2 on one quarter using Zangief – and I didn’t once use his spinning piledriver. Now you probably had a life, so the last paragraph was gibberish for you, I’ll translate: I WAS THAT. DAMN. GOOD.

So I swagger in, still on a high from that certain appointment, and I see all my old favorites, and I’m so excited……until I start to play.

And die. And die. And die.

The fail started quick, when I lasted all of 20 seconds on Donkey Kong Jr.  I mean c’mon, I do complicated data mining operations every day at work, and I couldn’t get any traction on this:

 vid3

And it wasn’t just rust either.  In successive order, I was quickly dispatched on the following: Spy Hunter, Double Dragon, Alien Syndrome, Mario Brothers, and  Zaxxon, before bottoming out on Burger Time in front of the kid.

It’s kind of deflating to be defeated by primitive pattern-based 1981 programming.  I rallied at the end with a good run on Mrs. Pac-Man (kind of a gimmie really, but I needed some something to salve my ego)

I suppose I enjoyed playing all those cool old games from my youth again, but stinking up the joint (and paying for the privilege) kind of takes the bloom off the rose. So what did I do? I went home and proceeded to get absolutely skunked at Call of Duty on my X-box. Some days you just can’t catch a break!

In the meantime, there’s a Donkey Kong kill screen coming up if you’re interested:

 

 

 

 

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The Hillbilly Saves the Economy (Hillbilly Repost)

30 Aug

August 30, 2013

The Imponderable is on a short vacation. In it’s place, one of my favorite blogs which has not been rerun. And it is nearly exactly two years old.

 

August 18, 2011

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, The Hillbilly.


With all the talk about the economy and all the trouble on Wall Street I thought I’d give you some advice on how to increase your personal wealth. If everybody would follow some simple rules then we’d have this economy running like a tractor in no time.

1- No need to buy that expensive store-bought pig slop. Good hearty pig slop can be made out of left over parts, gullets, necks, feet, and gizzards and can go straight from your dinner plate to the trough.

2- Why buy a new set of clothes when you start a new job or third grade? A good pair of overalls can last you for years with a little patching in the seat, and it is easy to “accessorize,” like they say in the movie magazines. Change your rope belt for a length of wire and you’ve got a new wardrobe.

3- Who needs high-priced fur coats? Musk rat makes a fine weather keeper-outer, and if you shoot it yourself you can get a meal out of it too. Don’t forget to keep the scent glands, that’s good musk.

4- Making your own mattress isn’t just easy, it can be fun too. Get Granny to form a sewing circle, and the young ones can stuff it with hay from the barn. Just make sure you make it big enough to sleep all your cousins.

5- Schooling? Anyone still in school over age 12 is just putting on airs, I say. The sooner they get to working the sooner the children can pitch in and buy barbed wire.

6- I don’t know what the debt ceiling is or why it so long to raise it, but you and your friends can raise a barn or patch your own ceiling in a day and you only need a couple of jugs of moonshine and some hog ears for lunch.

7- Taxes only get paid if they can find you to pay them.

8- Old cans and jugs never get thrown away. Cans are good for target practice and shooting at them instead of your neighbors keeps you out of trouble. Jugs are good to keep homemade molasses in. And moonshine. A good can should last forever, and who buys canned goods anyway? Waste of money. Like some big green ogre can grow better peas than I have growing behind the outhouse.

9- Never pay a repair man to fix your radio. If you can’t get Ozark Pete on it that set isn’t worth fixing anyway.

10- Going in to town is always a waste of money, especially on a Saturday night. Town-girls are nothing but trouble and always looking for money. If you have to get a woman, look no further than your cousins. You know who they’ve been with and the money you spend on them stays in the family.

You all come back now!

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