Ernest Cline’s near-pulp pop culture novel Ready Player One, published in 2011 (three months before Skyrim, in fact), primarily consists of a state of mind I like to think of as “masturbatory nostalgia.” And I write that sentence having enjoyed the novel very much. The reason for this? There’s a period in the novel during which his protagonist, “Parzival” (a pseudonym), spends most of his name escaping into a reality from the distant past, but which — due to the power of technology — has been almost perfectly preserved in a virtual realm. The book demonstrates this hyperfocus in manyContinue readingMasturbatory Nostalgia

Before I begin my story tonight (it’s three AM here in rural Kentucky), I’d like to make clear that times are tough for everyone, all over the world. There are unprecedented historical changes taking place in almost every country, every state or province, every town. Not only that, but everyone you know, no matter how well off, no matter how destitute, is struggling with all sorts of painful problems unique only to themselves, that nobody can really understand but the victim him or herself. I don’t mean to minimize any of these problems by drawing attention to my own. NorContinue readingWhy I’m Here

When you’re a Wanderer like me, the older you get, the more difficult it becomes to relate to your peers, because you slowly move more and more outside their sphere of understanding. The normal gameplay loop for the Human Sim involves realizing somewhere in adolescence that life is not all about you and what you want and more about living just for the sake of it. Most people realize this because it practically punches them in the face shortly after they mature, and they calm down and get busy putting in the work to find a mate, start a family,Continue readingThe End of Humanity

I dreamed once again that the world was about to end . . . but once again not in the usual way. Some fool in the distant past had wished before an all-powerful singularity that the entire universe be transformed into an ever-expanding conglomeration of infinite varieties of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. The entity who had done so loved Cinnamon Toast Crunch above all things, and desired a realm in which he or she had no concerns other than consuming a never-ending supply of the perfect children’s treat. Apprarently they had judged our universe and found it wanting, so everything withinContinue readingThe Universe, Replaced

When Fallout 2 first came out, I was in heaven, because it gave me the chance to role-play, in a video game, a character I had always wanted to be. “A fast, violent bombshell who goes crazy with sex and drugs as soon as she leaves home.” I wanted to be a stereotypical “comic book babe,” getting whatever she wanted with her looks, and, if that didn’t work, the effective application of violence, preferably from the barrel of a gun. I think I slept with every character you could sleep with in Fallout 2, enough to get the “Sexpert” perk.Continue readingFallout 2 Restoration Project

The original Fallout is one of the greatest PC games of all time. But when it came out in 1997, at first I utterly neglected it. I first came upon it in the aisles of my local Wal-Mart, the only place to purchase PC games at the time in my rural Kentucky town. I was browsing, looking for something new to buy with the money I got from my dish-washing job, when Bill brought the box with the now-familiar power armor on the cover and said, “Hey, caco, how about this one? It seems cool.” I sniffed in dismissal ofContinue readingFallout Fixt

While I was living with Bro in 200X or so, I started to have extreme anxieties about Crime. Specifically, I was afraid that somebody would bust in on me while everybody else was at work and do unspeakable things to myself or my property. One day, Delbert called me and said his Mom was kicking him out of her house, and he needed a place to stay, but he couldn’t afford it on his own. I jumped at the chance. I told him I would move back in with him in [REDACTED]. I left the details of the move toContinue reading709