Everyone's mind works hard to make sense of the world around us — but some minds work harder than others. The result for me was that, around the same time I was getting into Nintendo, I was hearing voices.
Or ambient noise, anyway. We lived in an old house that settled every night, with creaking floors and hissing radiators. My imagination took all these noises and tried to interpret them into something I could understand. Never mind that it was nonsense. I'd learned that it made sense to stomp on turtles and throw boomerangs at fireball-spitting mermaids, so it only seemed logical that similarly nonsensical rules could be imposed on the real world.
So I'm rather relieved to know I'm not alone when I see other people also compelled to apply method to madness, such as in this aural interpretation:
Those of you in New England looking to prove your mettle should know about two upcoming events:
If you can't wait for the March 9th release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, then head to Worcester Polytechnic Institute on Saturday, March 1st, for a Nintendo-sponsored Brawl tournament. This event is hitting only four sites in the entire country — Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York City being the others — with gamers competing for home theater systems, crystal-coated Wiis (whatever those are), and a thousand dollars in Best Buy gift certificates. (Hat tip to nightskyre)
For those who eschew such modern offerings in favor of classic hits, head up to Laconia, New Hampshire (as I do every summer) to Funspot, a "non-profit corporation… established to promote and preserve the history of coin-operated arcade games" — through hands-on experience, of course! With nearly 200 machines from the Golden Age, Funspot offers an annual tournament to challenge the current high-score holders; it was there that Billy Mitchell achieved the first-ever perfect Pac-Man score. Funspot's tenth annual such competition will be held May 29th to June 1st — so break out the quarters, get your Dig Dug on, and kick some classic butt!
