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articles reviews writing

I Was A (Really Bad) Teenage Game Reviewer

Back in the school year of 1999/2000, about 16 years ago, I started writing video game reviews in a school notebook when I should have been studying electronics. I would’ve been about 15 at the time. And instead of being fascinated by the electronics room’s dissected Atari 2600 heavy six-switch (though admittedly I was), I was dawdling writing my thoughts about games that had spent their fair share of time in my home consoles. And the first, which I remember with some clarity, is why this comes to my mind now: I reviewed Pokemon Yellow for my Game Boy, a game now being re-released nearly twenty years after its initial launch in Japan. I don’t still have the ripped-out page for that review, which is for the best… I feel like reading it back now would bring back my desire to burn things.

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big questions book writing

Lost in the Lot

Last night, I had a dream that I couldn’t find my car in the world’s most complex, fourth-dimensional parking lot and garage. Every time I exited the door of the mall, at the very center of the lot, I would open up at another location that looked familiar, but was obviously a different place. And through the dream I ran around the lot, searching for my parking space number, but I just couldn’t reach my car. Everyone else seemed to get home just fine, but the vehicles in the lot wouldn’t diminish; it reached closing time, and I woke up just as I was about to be locked out of the building, leaving me in that labyrinth of parking hell.

I know people’s dreams are mostly just random neurons building a scenario in one’s head without true rhyme or reason, but the overarching sensation created by the scenario – in this case, the combination of being lost and confused – is real, and when it’s strong enough it’s not something to simply be ignored. And that’s about how I feel even now… a bit lost, sort of confused.