I’ve just played through the old Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy text adventure game with Frotz on my iPhone. With a puff of nostalgia, I was reminded of being maybe 10 years old, sitting in the basement with our Apple //c, fishing through the cardboard box of 5.25″ floppy disks and pulling out a host of classics. Karateka, the cheerfully awful Castle Smurfenstein, Dino Eggs, and finally, the Hitchhiker’s Guide game.

Now THIS was something cool: the game opens with the computer giving you the introdiction to a story. Then, you just tell the computer what to do in more-or-less plain English, and it’d go ahead and do it ( or, sometimes, refuse hilariously) in the story world, telling you what changed. It was so simple — just text on the screen, a virtual ‘intelligence’ and a virtual world to explore.

Being a kid, I pictured myself an ellite hacker-type, typing into the night, peeling away the layers of puzzles to see the core artificial intelligence living in it’s artificial world. The glow of just text on the screen made it easy to pretend — I already was a bookworm, so I was used to imagining my stories anyhow. This took it to another level. It was my story!

Soon, of course, the interactions get silly. I’d try random things ( KICK THE DOG, EAT MUSHROOM ) just to see what the game would say. Often, you’d just get the standard “I couldn’t do that! Fido is your best friend!” or “I don’t know how to eat that.”, but once in a while you’d get a great response: “you chew up the mushroom; it tastes like gooey dirt. Slowly, the colors drain from the walls and the dog begins to quote Glengarry Glen Ross. Funny; he never liked Mamet before.”

After spending hours in front of these games, getting horribly stuck in all of them ( Adults need hints for these games; I was 7 or 8 ), what else could I do? I started writing my own. My friend Brian and I started crafting a brilliant piece of interactive fiction called “The Good Day”. Brilliant, I tell you! It had three whole rooms! It was written in Applesoft BASIC! You could fart and belch, you could kick stuff, you could use two-word commands! It was very nearly a work of art, ready for publishing… Except that it took about ten minutes to get through all the fart jokes and then ended abruptly, and had no real plot, and…

But it was ours.

So nowadays, that GOTO-laden mess of code seems quaint to me as I write software that processes millions of transactions, but I miss the unbridled enthusiasm for hilarity we had. So in my next program, I think an Easter egg needs to be hidden: from time to time, in the midst of the millions of operations in the code, my fancy processing code will have gas, and leave an “oops, I farted” in the logfile.

Because no, I still haven’t grown out of fart jokes. And admit it, neither have you.

…so where was I? Oh yes, fatherhood ( I’m not gangsta enough to call it Father Hood like Mr. Dogg). Did I mention that those books don’t say a damn thing about being a dad? And when they do, it’s to tell you that you have a laundry list of things you really should already have been doing but clearly haven’t, so by the way, you’re not a good parent. “But I’m not even a parent yet!” you may protest, but the books’ clear, black-on-white text just stares back at you.

Pacify Me, on the other hand, gives you a good old-fashioned buddy heads-up. Here’s a beer: muscle relaxant. It’s going to feel a bit like your molecules have been shifted through space; you’ll get through it. Now, Have some peanuts. Ready?

Ready….maybe just one more pint?

Throughout the book, Chris touches on the twists and turns that make it tricky to take on that Dad title, like how everyone has advice for you which you must find a nice way to blatantly ignore; how your social life will change (though not totally evaporate, unless you want it to); how to handle the fact that your wife has become at least one, but possibly two or three different people; what to do when your baby screams at you ( hungry? diaper? just crabby? accidentally saw “Daisy of Love”? ); how many things people will try to sell you in order to make you a better parent (answer: how many will you buy?); how much easier it is to *actually* play with your kids than it is to *imagine* playing with them beforehand; how your kids are the best captive audience you’ll ever have…

I really, really wish I’d had this book when I became a dad. I would have laughed a lot more, and laughing at yourself trying to raise kids is probably the healthiest, most effective solution of all.

So, whether you’re a new dad or an old one, you’ll find a good laugh and lots of comfort in Pacify Me. Pick it up at the publisher’s site or at Amazon. They even have a Kindle version.

Becky got this anonymous-looking Manila envelope in the mail a while back. It put me in a bit of a quandary: opening someone else’s mail is a federal offense, y’know, but what if it were blackmail photos? My secret life as an undercover agent for S.H.I.E.L.D. could be over before of really got started, and I just wouldn’t stand for that.

So I popped it open* to find a single sheet of paper: a ransom note! It said, “Becky, here’s that copy of my book you said you wanted to read. Enjoy!” And then, underneath it, a top-secret new device for subtle influence of people! A….what was it called? A B-O-O-K. I was hoping for a Melt-O-Mind 3000, but this’ll do, I suppose.

And then I realized I wasn’t the only man in her life. She had other male friends. Heartbreaking. And this man had children, too. And he wrote about being a Dad, and how it scared the hell out of him at first. Kinda like me! Wait a second, I needed to read this book — no guys out there had the balls to write about something so gentle and scary as being a new Dad –feeling worried about fatherhood was for girls, right?

…uh, right?

Well, the truth is, we guys have just as much, if not more, anxiety about what it’ll be like to have a kid of our own, and the “what to expect” books give us a footnote: Don’t worry if your husband is quietly freaking the f*** out; this is normal and will pass soon. We hope. Now, on to lactation!…

So I did what any dad who never had such a book would do: I snitched it and started reading it on my commute.

…to be continued…

* actually, Becky had already opened it, but that little fact just sucks storytelling-wise, so we’ll just keep it in our back pockets, shall we? Shhhhh.

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There comes a point in every man’s life where he realizes that his Achilles’ heel is fully exposed. My 7 year old is currently kicking mine with remarkable aplomb.

If he were just being “bad”, it’d be one thing. He’s not destroying things, or abusing the animals, or breaking his siblings’ toys; he’s not taking the car for joyrides or inviting hookers from Craigslist over for a midnight snack ( and let’s be clear, if he DID invite a hooker over it would actually be for a midnight snack — cookies, maybe some Sprite… ). He’s pulling the Diet-Coke-of-Evil stuff: sneaking extra video-game time, conveniently ‘forgetting’ that he wasn’t supposed to go to the bratty girl down the street’s house without asking first, stubbornly refusing to do anything at all if he doesn’t get to do whatever his first choice is…

I’m running low on patience here. I don’t think taking stuff away is working, and talking about it doesn’t seem to stick. I’m thinking gypsies, or maybe a shock collar. And whiskey ( for me, not him).

That is, if I don’t crumble to dust first.

The obsession with the results of American Idol is absolutely fascinating to me. If I were a sociologist I could write a damn thesis on the ways in which a completely meaningless election’s impact on shared emotional response is an indicator of societal mores. Wow, people really care about this.

It’s amusing that in practice, it’s meaningless. Sure, one person gets a trophy and a record deal, but the others are probably already negotiating their deals. The exposure alone is enough to launch careers, and if that’s the point of the show, then it succeeds brilliantly. The record companies essentially get free talent they can sign to deals to make more money. Genius.

And I can’t believe that anyone is in the dark about this: no one hides that the show is a promotion vehicle. They proclaim it. Even the worst auditions get their 5 minutes - not only do we get the most popular singer, we get the most popular train wreck. Also brilliant.

So, folks, take a deep breath. Adam Lambert performed with KISS last night, and gave ol’ Gene Simmons a run for his money. This kid will not fade into the night. How can you be all that shocked that the same country that RE-elected Dubya voted for the other kid?

Anyhow, enough of that. Do what you must, but don’t cry for Adam, Argentina. The truth is he’ll not be leaving you.

I worked with a guy who had that as his IM handle. I totally understand where he was coming from.

I’m punchy today. I think part of it is that I’ve been all serious for what seems like an eternity, and I just can’t handle it any longer. Charging around with a juggernaut brow, as Elbow says, cramming commitments like cats in a sack. Too much! I must make light of the situation! ‘course Becky would say that my juggernaut brow was just my carny genes at work. Ha! She married someone with carny genes! That’ll show her!

I don’t have many good stories to tell; all the best ones are classified. I’d have to kill you and such. But I am going to London in a few weeks — going to give those Brits a taste of the Daver life. Or, more specifically, work a lot. The former sounds way better — wonder if I can make that one of the deliverables for the trip: “tasting notes of The Daver Life”. Or not.

I’m excited to go, though. Sometimes the best way to get stuff done is to just sit down face to face and hash through things. And I’ve never been to Europe, so maybe I can induce a jet-jag hallucination that I’m on vacation and be a hooligan at a Chelsea match or something.

Oh, wait. Season’s done then. No hooliganism for me. Then again, that’s probably for the best: I’m the least hooliganish person ever. I’d probably squeeze out an uninspired “Chelsea, uh, sucks and stuff!” before turning red-cheeked and hiding behind a security guard. Who would throw me out for being a pussy. “right-o, you’re a bit of a wanker, then? Out you go!”

Okay, so no hoolies. Just work, maybe some pubs and museums and stuff. Hopefully it won’t rain every day, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll have some more interesting story to post here.

If not, I’ll just be forced to make one up. And we wouldn’t want that.

I miss the enthusiasm ( and spare time) I once had for absorbing new music. There was a time when I would seek out new music religiously, always checking out the underdog up-and-coming bands. I discovered my still-favorite bands then; now I just keep picking up the next records from the same groups and give a disdainful shrug to most of the new bands I hear.
 
I guess it’s part of getting older.
 
But I remember discovering Morphine via BMG music service, ordering “yes” on a whim as a free CD. When it arrived and I put it in my stereo, and the opening sax blare of “Honey White” spewed from the speakers, something fundamental happened. I proceeded to osmose that record. I put it on mix tapes, I wandered around with “Whisper” going through my head on repeat, I sought out every new Morphine track I could find.
 
Same with nearly everything: I discovered Peking Turtle and absorbed their funk jazz sound. I knew every word of Public Enemy’s Apocalypse ‘91 and Radiohead’s Pablo Honey.
 
Now, I pick up a new record and dismiss it in just two or three listens. I mean, I’ve never lost the joy of absorbing a new record — Elbow’s The Seldom-Seen Kid is currently attached to my brain — but those albums come fewer and further between. Now it’s a new best record every 3-6 months, not 2-3 days.
 
So is it because I’m too set in my ways? Not enough free time to listen?or does new music just suck like my parents thought mine did?

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Watching now, and he actually gave constructive advice that the performers could, you know, *use*?

Sometimes I have to wonder about this show… A singing competition with Flo Rida and Kanye West as featured performers? I mean, much love for 808s and Heartbreak, but on Idol with the vocoder? Really?

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…but I'm trying out Posterous. There's something very powerful about a central dissemination platform for your online stuff. Not entirely sure I like the implications of having all of my content stored on a startup's server, though. Let's see how it goes.

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