It's a disorienting business, walking out my front door.
Have you ever sat down and thought to yourself, Self
I wonder what it would be like to walk down a hallway and hear in no particular order: machine gun fire and profanity; the plinks plunks and occasional perfect fifth of a toy guitar; people shouting about getting owned ' or
perhaps more popularly
pwned ' in Halo; and a certain dreadfully handsome Post columnist shouting 'NICK SMASH!' Make it so
Self.
I have a solution for you. And your Self.
Walk down a hallway in the male wing of a dorm.
Once you get past the mildly offensive odor of soggy broccoli and body odor and you can focus on a sense other than your olfactory, you can realize the sonic assault that you're being subjected to. And yes, I did just end a sentence with a preposition and start a new one with a conjunction. I might be the best copy editor at The Post. But through this miasma of aural abominations, there emerges the truth behind our parents telling us that we spend too much time on that damned idiot box. Okay, so my parents have never called the television or an Xbox/PlayStation/Nintendo an idiot box, but I stand by it.
Examining my own schedule, the abundance of video games in it shocks me to the point that I wonder why my brain and eyeballs haven't liquefied to where I would put random sentences in my column and find them to be normal.
Pudding is only good if it's Star Wars-flavored, with Mel Brooks sprinkles.
In a standard day, my neighbor (let's call him Bob) and I play about two hours of Guitar Hero III and talk trash to each other. For weeks, Bob dominated Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll by Blue +
and I took the moral high road; in the high score list, I put my name as NOTBOB
so it would be there for posterity. I am nothing if not benevolent.
But Guitar Hero is merely the framework upon which other gaming for the day is built. It lubricates the cogs of our mind ' am I implying that classes don't do that? Who knows ' for more highbrow games in the evening, such as No More Heroes and Marvel Ultimate Alliance. No More Heroes is essentially what would happen if a geeky guy got a hold of a real lightsaber and got free reign to kill people? and Ultimate Alliance is you and three friends playing as whichever Marvel heroes you want to be, fighting together to stop Dr. Doom from ending the world by absorbing the powers of Odin (yes, the Norse god). Also, if you have a team member playing as Doctor Strange, he will steal all your kills by turning the enemies into boxes after you've spent at least a minute and half wailing on them (read: Bob, oh my God, I am going to eat your face).
These games, while perhaps juvenile, are also the best source of stress relief for a collegian with no punching bag and an overall aversion to exercise. Yes, Jack Thompson. Stress relief. Do you realize how satisfying it can be to simply pick up a controller and wield a lightsaber against the mob and a gang that is just barely out of the realm of copyright infringement on the Baseball Furies from The Warriors? Or select a certain Dr. Bruce Banner and at varying intervals while you punch fictional people with a fictional character, shout, HULK SMASH! And come to think of it, why does Hulk smash so often? If he did not smash, would he still be the Hulk? Hypothesis: Hulk smash, therefore, he is.
Chew on that 'til next week, True Believers.
P.S: Thank you to Stan Lee for not sending me a cease and desist order for calling you all True Believers.
Nick Philpott is a freshman creative writing major. If you would care to have an existential discussion on the nature of Bruce Banner, send him an e-mail at np714907@ohiou.edu. Heck, you could even e-mail him just to validate or invalidate his belief that his column is good.
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