I've said it before, the best thing about living in Los Angeles is that you can see things you totally cannot see anywhere else. Like recently, when friends from NJ had come to visit we saw a 70s-style pimped out dude with a 70s-style fro driving a beat-up Trans Am and blasting funk music REALLY loud in the parking lot of my local Ralphs grocery store. About an hour later, we were driving through Silverlake and we saw a girl riding a motorcycle pasted with stickers for brand-name dildos and buttplugs. And not too long after that, I saw a guy walking across the street, dancing in circles, doing little two-steps, sashaying back and forth as a line of traffic waited for him to cross so they could make a right turn. He was wearing a weird hat, and was obviously more interested in putting on a show than in crossing the street before the light turned red on him. It's the little moments like these that make me love LA, and made me buy a cell phone with a camera, so I could always capture those moment.
Anyway, I did some food shopping at the aforementioned Culver City Ralphs this evening. It's not unusual on a Saturday morning, or even a Thursday night to see people doing their grocery shopping in their pajamas, or hair curlers and what have you. Good for them, I usually say. Tonight, I say, great for them, because tonight, I saw "The Dude."
A long haired, middle-age guy in a wife beater, bermuda shorts, a ratty green bathrobe and flip flops was shopping at 8 pm. I did a double take just at that, and then I saw what he was carrying: a bottle of Kahlua! And he was walking right over to the milk case to select the other vital component of the white russian. I shit you not.
I know The Dude is based on an actual guy, and I'm going to believe that it was this actual guy in my supermarket, rather than just some hipster dude setting up for a Lebowski theme party.
Unfortunately, I didn't have my cell phone with me to take a picture. And I felt a little weird taking a picture in the supermarket. But this one really required visual proof and I'm gonna be kicking myself for not snapping that picture. I decided, though, that I have to go back next Saturday to see if he comes back. Since Saturday is Shabbat, chances are he won't be bowling that night.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Dude, I think I'm Wii-Sick
I think I'm about to coin a phrase here, so stand by my peeps, while I lay some new English on ya. Remember, you saw it here first.
So, I've had my Wii now for about two months, and I love it. It's one of the few electronic gizmos that I haven't yet experienced a decrease in interest for, and the first video game since the heyday of Atari that my feeble, fumbly fingers have been able to manage well enough to not get frustrated with after 10 minutes of atempting to play.
After my Wii arrived, I played around with the Sports pack and got hooked on the baseball and bowling games. As these are two of the few sports I can actually play in the physical world, I found the action to be familiar and natural, and I started to gain back my form and strength.
The morning after, I noticed that my back was kinda sore. Like when I had sprained it trying to learn to surf. Like I had been lifting 100 pound weights for hours. Except I knew I hadn't been to the gym lately and I couldn't imagine how I could have strained those particular muscles that I'd been training into a nice, soft, veal-y existence with hours upon hours of carefully planned television watching. And then it hit me that this video game had actually made me use those muscles again. This was revolutionary. If this game could get me to sweat and get exercise, what else could it get me to do.
Of course. It could get me to pick up a crossbow.
The next game I picked up was Link's crossbow training, which taught me that I would make an excellent sniper. For this game, the Wiimote and nunchuck sits in a crossbow housing designed with unique and esquisitely simple engineering, and I spent the better part of a week shooting at kargaroks, chilfos and ooca-carried targets to their complete and total annihilation.
Armed with the power high of my Wii success, I decided to tackle a more popular game... but theonly thing available for rent at Blockbuster was a game called Manhunter 2, where you help a wrongly-imprisoned mental hospital inmate escape by shanking guards with hypodermic needles and kicking the crap out of fellow cellmates. Sounds like some good, dirty fun.
The 360-degree viewpoint game requires you to move through areas of alternating dim and brightly flashing light, making it hard to see where you need to go, and giving off an overall claustrophobic feeling to boot.
After about 30 minutes of maneuvering around really quickly, stabbing enemies and searching frantically for the exit from the cell block, I noticed I was getting a bit dizzy and sweaty. Since I was sitting down for this game, I knew I wasn't straining my muscles this time. Something else was going on.
I played for about 10 more minutes, until the slight dizziness gave way to lightheadedness and a rumbling in my stomach. I actually had to put the game away and go lie down for a minute, pondering what I could have done to make me feel so suddenly awful, like I had been reading in the car or rolling on some rough seas. Wait. Was that it? Seriously? Was I getting seasick from the Wii.
Holy crap. Did I just get Wii-Sick?
My god. I have friends who can't watch movies filmed by hand-held cameras because they get dizzy and nauseous, but they also are afflicted with a full range of motion sickness disorders (hi Ms.E). Sure, I have shitty balance, and my vision is pretty bad, but despite these handicaps, I've never gotten carsick, or airsick, or even so much as remotely queasy from bobbing around in the big wavy ocean. But as cruel fate would have it, my equilibrium and iron-clad constitution was brought down by killer graphics and the ability to view my enemy from all sides with the wave of a wand. Sonovabitch!
Since then, I've been sticking to shooting, puzzle and challenge games and games where I can move a little less quickly if I need to spin around, and so far, so good. Yet another bizarre and annoying anomaly in my physical makeup has been compensated for.
Oh, and I did a quick Google search, and I could not find a single listing for the word Wii-Sick. So it's mine. Take that madam combonym!
So, I've had my Wii now for about two months, and I love it. It's one of the few electronic gizmos that I haven't yet experienced a decrease in interest for, and the first video game since the heyday of Atari that my feeble, fumbly fingers have been able to manage well enough to not get frustrated with after 10 minutes of atempting to play.
After my Wii arrived, I played around with the Sports pack and got hooked on the baseball and bowling games. As these are two of the few sports I can actually play in the physical world, I found the action to be familiar and natural, and I started to gain back my form and strength.
The morning after, I noticed that my back was kinda sore. Like when I had sprained it trying to learn to surf. Like I had been lifting 100 pound weights for hours. Except I knew I hadn't been to the gym lately and I couldn't imagine how I could have strained those particular muscles that I'd been training into a nice, soft, veal-y existence with hours upon hours of carefully planned television watching. And then it hit me that this video game had actually made me use those muscles again. This was revolutionary. If this game could get me to sweat and get exercise, what else could it get me to do.
Of course. It could get me to pick up a crossbow.
The next game I picked up was Link's crossbow training, which taught me that I would make an excellent sniper. For this game, the Wiimote and nunchuck sits in a crossbow housing designed with unique and esquisitely simple engineering, and I spent the better part of a week shooting at kargaroks, chilfos and ooca-carried targets to their complete and total annihilation.
Armed with the power high of my Wii success, I decided to tackle a more popular game... but theonly thing available for rent at Blockbuster was a game called Manhunter 2, where you help a wrongly-imprisoned mental hospital inmate escape by shanking guards with hypodermic needles and kicking the crap out of fellow cellmates. Sounds like some good, dirty fun.
The 360-degree viewpoint game requires you to move through areas of alternating dim and brightly flashing light, making it hard to see where you need to go, and giving off an overall claustrophobic feeling to boot.
After about 30 minutes of maneuvering around really quickly, stabbing enemies and searching frantically for the exit from the cell block, I noticed I was getting a bit dizzy and sweaty. Since I was sitting down for this game, I knew I wasn't straining my muscles this time. Something else was going on.
I played for about 10 more minutes, until the slight dizziness gave way to lightheadedness and a rumbling in my stomach. I actually had to put the game away and go lie down for a minute, pondering what I could have done to make me feel so suddenly awful, like I had been reading in the car or rolling on some rough seas. Wait. Was that it? Seriously? Was I getting seasick from the Wii.
Holy crap. Did I just get Wii-Sick?
My god. I have friends who can't watch movies filmed by hand-held cameras because they get dizzy and nauseous, but they also are afflicted with a full range of motion sickness disorders (hi Ms.E). Sure, I have shitty balance, and my vision is pretty bad, but despite these handicaps, I've never gotten carsick, or airsick, or even so much as remotely queasy from bobbing around in the big wavy ocean. But as cruel fate would have it, my equilibrium and iron-clad constitution was brought down by killer graphics and the ability to view my enemy from all sides with the wave of a wand. Sonovabitch!
Since then, I've been sticking to shooting, puzzle and challenge games and games where I can move a little less quickly if I need to spin around, and so far, so good. Yet another bizarre and annoying anomaly in my physical makeup has been compensated for.
Oh, and I did a quick Google search, and I could not find a single listing for the word Wii-Sick. So it's mine. Take that madam combonym!
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