a cheap paperback life

AKA:

locusts, rain and the cosmic thwart

I've lived in Santa Destroy for coming up on 10 months now. I'm preparing to move for the second time. It's been raining for days.

I live pretty close to the bone here: I wasn't working those first four months, the surround be 'spensive* and I don't exactly have the best job ever had by dog, man or boy. One of the biggest structure hits I've taken involves my DVD player. The second I got it uncrated, I discovered that the remote had become one with the infinite. Its functionality is thus down to play/pause, stop, and open/close.**

It's been raining for days. A specific kind of rain unknown, basically, in Portland: hard, loud, spatters and pools. Melancholy and drunk in the afternoon, trying to pack without any boxes to speak of, I throw movies on in the background. The rain and the lack and the muted emotional palette put me in the mind of Evangelion, never afraid to give you a half-minute of raindrops pounding slick city streets or the desolate, isolated drone of locusts.

Alas, my copy defaults to the dubbed version, and I can't change that. I made it all the way until Shinji opened his mouth, but I absolutely can't tolerate the wrong voices this time around. All I want is my friends in the background, half-distracting me from the tedium of cramming my preposterous piles of prized possessions into more mobile configurations. Cold blusters outside, I'm blowing spit bubbles, strangely drained, out of both beer and hope. 10 months. Ready for that new life any day now...

Couple weeks ago, I picked up Super Dodgeball Brawlers for my DS. Like so many of the modern-era Nintendo products I've picked up, it's optimized for multiplayer. Like half the world at the moment, "optimized for multiplayer" actually means "pig-fucking useless in single player". Took maybe two couple-hour sessions to complete,

Not terrible, though: I'm a sucker for the Kunio steez, and the game plays at an excellent pace, both quick and heavy. There's the predictable amount of micromanaging possible, with mostly pointless items and accessories, and I have to admit that I had ridiculous fun making a custom squad.



That's Collision, me, DDT and Silken Thomas there. Good stuff. Thoroughly mediocre experience, but there's very much a time and a place for mediocre experiences. Here in Santa Destroy, in the rain.

It's been raining for days.


*Makes me pensive.
**I've tried two separate low-rent universal remotes. Neither supports my mighty Coby model.