Friday, November 5, 2010

Take a sad song and make it better


A few months ago after I had written about Lady Gaga a couple of times, a very young friend of mine commented something like: “That’s great. You’re keeping up.” (Insinuating “at YOUR age”)

That didn’t sound right, but I didn’t have a defense at the time. Now I realize it was simply the latest manifestation of a lifelong curiosity. I had heard of her and an opportunity came up to learn more about her and her music and I took it. I liked what I learned and the rest is history. I have never in my life felt like I had to keep up. As a matter of fact I have more often thought people had to keep up with me. After all I am probably the oldest Lil Monster in the world.

So, now curiosity has gotten the better of me again. Last winter I had thought, given the amount of time I spend alone in this house it might be fun to have one of the video game systems. They turned out to cost much more than I felt comfortable spending so I let it drop. Then a couple of weeks ago I was looking at my rewards points for a credit card and discovered I was about to see 6,000 points expire. I raced through the offerings until I came to something very close to the number of points I had. In a flash without thinking I had ordered an Xbox 360. It’s even new enough to be able to use the new Kinect image gaming hardware.
It was then I realized I haven’t been successful on a video game since beating the game Jaws on the original Nintendo in the early 80s. Since then as I’ve watched my kids play and tried it a time or two it has been one 15-minute exercise in frustration after another. Once I had the unit, I went looking for a game. All I want is a simple car racing game. When I asked the cute girl with the nose jewel which one would be a simple racing game she looked at me like I was way out of my league (I was) and said there are no simple Xbox games. I bought Grand Theft Auto IV mostly because I recognized the name and I thought at least I could create some mayhem. I should have saved my money.

That was yesterday. Today I woke up remembering what I wanted to get last year when I was looking: one of the Rock Band games, particularly the Beatles. So today I went looking. A Walmart, a Fred Meyer, a Target. No one had it. But, the guy at Target said try Game Stop over there.

So off I went. Another one of those almost goth girls... neat clean, not overly made up, but the nose stud, the dark makeup and the oh so cute eyes and tight striped top. I hated to bring up the Beatles with her. It took two or three tries but a guy in the store finally came up with the whole Beatles Rock Band package: guitar, drums, microphone (I won’t be using that) and of course the game. 

 Now also instead of rap and a game I can’t seem to play, I get good music and a game I am pretty sure I can play. (A couple of years ago I played it for a few minutes with my son and his friend and at the easiest level I could almost keep up.) Plus, this purchase held a couple of bonuses: first it was less than half the price I would have paid for the same thing last year, and, second I bought it from a local store rather than one of those big boxes that ruin local entrepreneurs. And on top of that there was the beautiful smile from the almost goth girl which I chose to interpret as "you're cool" rather than "I have to smile at this old guy trying to be young."

But the best part was yet to come. I had quite a hike across the parking lot to my car given that I had parked in front of Target (Jeep, but that’s another story from today). In the lot I was accosted by a woman who is probably close to my age. She had one of those happy, loud, kind of blousy voices and saw me and my Beatles box and said wow, that is so cool, Where did you find it. I told her and that it was half the original price. That is so great she said, Then she asked, looking me over, is that for you or is it a gift. Rather embarrassed I said in a low voice, it’s for me. She laughed. OH man, you rock. You go have good time. Rock on! I promised to do that, now somehow more confident with my purchase.

What I should have done was invite her to come along. Wondering now if there is a Leon Russell Rock Band game or OOOO, Ra Ra a a a-a-a Lady Gaga.

ADDENDUM: OK, that was officially fun. Took a while to get things to work but once I got the guitar going, well, lost in it for an hour. I even had to sing one song. Best not do that again. But this will be fun.

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Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

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“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

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The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

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My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

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A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

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You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

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It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

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“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

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How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

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Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

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