Analog Hole

The sound you hear is me congratulating myself – I finally finished off the Nightfall campaign today. I'll have a writeup...sometime, I hope (I've probably just jinxed any Progress Update into the next year with that half-hearted promise, of course.), and there's still the whole Domain of Anguish to explore to say nothing of the few missions I skipped and all my other characters. But, you know, it feels good. I was having a bear of a time with Shiro the other day but by playing ultraconservatively - you know, actually pulling and stuff – I got to him with no DP and thanks to some deft henchie flagging work to avoid the AoE death bomb when he gets low on health I whittled him down. Abaddon was a punk compared to that – One Nine Five Five means you got served, Mr. End Boss man. That's right, on my first run through I finished the last mission just five seconds under the mark for the full bonus and I ain't proud so Imma take it and run.

It's a good as time as any to take a bit of a break. There's a new test weekend with the promise of new skills to explore coming up and all – although, given that I just realized how far away the new ladder replacement is I'm not exactly sure if I'll be playing or driving across country to join the picket line at this point (I'm late to the party, I know, but that just means my anger's fresh. Let the next gen of revolution begin! Gamers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your highscores! I propose a communist LAN party where fun will be distributed according to need.). So, the angry music's being cranked up here at the Office of Yearning (Where our motto is: “It's all about not getting paid and not getting laid”) and I'm totally E/Mo at the moment. But I've also got my first math test in....longer than I'll care to admit coming up next Monday. I want to blow this one out of the water so I have plenty of studying and preparing to do. Because I'm a little bit worried.

It's not so much the subject matter I'm worried about – the professor went through a few example from last year's test and, well, I was not impressed. It's also a multiple choice (Which, you know, I don't think outside of ludicrous standardized testing – teaching to the test is just a pet peeve of mine, sorry - I've ever had a math test that was like that.) and I tend to test extremely well because, you know, I'm a gamer and I can game anything given the time and motivation. My motivation here is self-imposed – I refuse to let a math class at a crummy little community college get the better of me - which is the best kind for me. But I'm worried about the format. Am I allowed to have a calculator? Scratch paper? How many pencils should I bring? In other words, all the little details that are going to fill me with anxiety and dread because I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm frightened someone's going to find out.

I would have liked to ask the professor these sort of things but he ducked out of class before I could get a chance to approach him afterwards. I was a little surprised at how quickly he got out of there considering we finished early. And, you know, he's tending to show up late too. This is, I think, something that marks me out as someone who's returning to school as opposed to a first time collegian. On my first trip through the halls of higher learning, I'd have been thrilled about such things but, now, I'm pissed because, you know, I'm paying good money for that class and I don't want to skimp on the learning. I've seen what things are like outside of school and I understand that it's important. You know, back when I was in college for realsies instead of taking this nightclass my professors would always say how they liked the adult education students for pretty much that same reason – they were really there to learn. Unlike, say, young punks like me who were there to party and waste someone else's money (There's some kids in the class, too. I guess I look young enough to be a student still as they invited me to a study session over the weekend. The siren call of the Wisconsin cheese mama notwithstanding, I passed because, you know, they're damn young. And their stupidity is getting on my nerves. They were surprised that I begged off because of work, family, and other sundry adult things. Kinda flattering and depressing at the same time.).

Me, I'm always late so punctuality is really important to me. I can't stand not being on time and I'm always rushing to be someplace or another. I was a bit frustrated on the way to class today when my normal route to the freeway was closed off. Not so much after I saw the accident that was clogging off traffic. I'm no stranger to accidents (Not many of my own, thankfully, although I have had a doozy or two. No, it's my one sister who's cursed in this regard. She can't go a month without something running into her car.) I'd gotten wind of it before setting off but I figured it would be that bad and would probably have been cleared away because when I hear that there's been a car overturned I'm not expecting an SUV flipped on its side sprawled across three lanes leaving a path of debris like a comet's trail roped off by police who've cordoned off the street while they're taking crime scene photos. Not on a residential street I drive down every day.

It makes me think of the accident my mother and one of my brother had once upon a time. Not on that road and not in that kind of car but someone ran a red light and spun them around until they were hanging from the ceiling by their seatbelts on their way home from the movies same way they'd driven a countless dozen times before. They were fine – the car not so much – but another few miles per hour or a sharper turn of the wheel and, well, I just hope whatever happened to that car left everyone involved in one piece. The scary thing for me was that I'd begged out of going to the movies with them that day. And if I had gone I'd have been sitting in the passenger seat – right next to the that the apparently colorblind lady's car managed to crumple like a wad of paper (My brother liked the back seat. I liked to sit up front and play with the radio. Go figure.). It's the kind of thing that makes me think about possibilities and alternate universes and butterflies flapping their wings and all.

In other words, about the paths we tumble down in life. Since I'm at something of a crossroads myself, it seems appropriate. A reminded, if you will, that I can go one way or I can go another – but there's going to be lasting consequences. Especially when I get blindsided.

[1] – No clue. Wrote this in class while I was busy not paying attention to remedial shit.