Everything I Ever Needed to Know in Life I Learned from KARNOV!!

So I was sitting around the dinner table with Keith and (I think) Robbie Wright the other night regailing one another with tales about what we had been doing at work. Keith has been planning some travel and entering information into the most cracked out computer information synthesizer ever, aka Dreamweaver. Robbie has been somewhat involved in peddling kids' clothes at Baby Gap , but mostly he stocks the shelves and hides his secret Rock n Roll identity from the world. Of course the conversation naturally shifts to me. As my friends wait with Bated breath to hear what earth shattering task consumes most of my time at work, I announce finally that "I've been playing Karnov a lot". Yep...Karnov!!

For those of you who don't know what Karnov is, you can click on the link in the title of this blog. It will take you about 15 minutes to read through the synopsis of this epochal NES title, but it will help you understand where on earth this blog goes. For those of you who want the brief rundown of what Karnov is about, it's essentially like this: Some fat Russian dude runs around these torn down cities and towns, shooting fireballs at mystical creatures as he fights his way to the final quest. Think about how sweet that sounds...it's pretty sweet.

The whole point of the game is to...WAIT, I'm not going to tell you that right this second. See, as I was playing Karnov, I realized some ingenuity behind the story line. While one may think that the plot is vague and irrelevant, it actually serves to form the background for one of the greatest video game analogies ever. Are you ready for this? Karnov is an analogous to actual real Life! Let me explain, because that's really what this blog is about.

Throughout the game, Karnov, our protagonist, is assaulted on all sides by a wide variety of enemies. The enemies range anywhere from ornery pillaging pirates to immense T-Rex's. The enemies come in all shapes and sizes, and they always strike at the most inopportune moments. The ferocity of the enemies also varies. Whereas if I shoot a bat with one fireball he blows up, it takes me 5 fireballs to kill a gargoyle. And the Gargoyle shoots little balls at me too! So as you can see, the enemies are all different. Here we see the FIRST of many parallels to real life. In life, whether you are a fat circuis strong man or not, you face problems of all varieties. Maybe you have to deal with an ornery co-worker, or have to let someone cut you off in traffic (a pesky annoyance not altogether different from trying to shoot a bat with a fireball). Or maybe you have more difficult tasks to handle-a demotion in work, a boy/girlfriend breaking your heart, or getting into a car wreck because that douchebag didn't signal into your lane and slammed into you. But through the arduous or the mundane, you triumph...you shoot your fireballs of determination and will and you conquer that task, er villain eventually.

But sometimes in life, your problems aren't so easy that they can be easily defeated by (let's call them) fireballs of determination! Sometimes life hits you with the jumping mer-man of all problems! You've probably guessed that I'm hinting at the mini-bosses at the end of each level. As Karnov slugs his way through Babylonia, Water World, uhh Air World, and others, he eventually comes to a boss which he has to defeat (inset left). Look at that boss! He's a jumping mer-man who throws green balls at you out of his satchel of evil. Dang! But no matter how big the boss, it's always in Karnov's best interest to use one of his special items to help him defeat the boss.

As Karnov travles through each level, with its mini boss perpetually awaiting him at the end, he picks up special items along the way. He can get boots that help him jump, a mask that does nothing, a bomb that blows up 5-fireball-gargoyles in one hit, a neat looking shield, etc. Again, we see a parallel to real life. As we deal with the trials of life, we gain skills that help us cope. We grow in our faith, we learn how to develop mental and emotional fortitude, we learn how to defend ourselves against being taken advantage of, etc. These are only experiences that can come from adversity. As Karnov often has to take the path laden with more enemies to get that Shield icon, in the end it's worth it...because the shield is arguably the best special item.

And when should you use your shield? When the mer-man is throwing big green balls at you! The items that you earn to ultimately help you beat that tough mini-boss are invaluable. So are the experiences and times of personal growth that come through life's toughest adversities. As you've probably guessed by now, the jumping mer-man tosser and other bosses like him (the TRex, a 2 headed dragon, medusa, and a lion!) really represent the big trials in our life. They seem like trials that no one can weather, and in all reality they may actually kill you (I died about a hundred times trying to beat the 2-headed dragon). Keeping your head high, and keeping your chin set like a flint against the torrent of such trials prepares you to take on that one big trial that makes you a better person (and lets you get to the level where you get to use your Wing icon...what a sweet level!)!*

You've seen now that I've made 3 allusions to real life from the video game Karnov. Another neat allusion relates to how the enemies appear throughout the game. If you've ever played any video game in your life, you know that as you advance to higher levels the enemies get tougher to beat. Video games are very predictable like that. However in Karnov, on any given level you can fight any random assortment of enemies. There's no real rhyme or reason to how many enemies you fight, what type of enemies you fight, or even which miniboss you fight (not including the last boss)! I think I fought mer-man 3 times, medusa 2 times, the 2 headed dragon 2 times, and some old guy with a lion once. And guess what? there are a total of 9 levels! Sometimes you may be lolly-gagging through a level and BAM Medusa shows up right in the middle!! "WHA?! I didn't anticipate that!" you wind up screaming at your computer screen much to the chagrin of your co-workers. But that's just IT ladies and gents. Just as Karnov can never take for granted what's going to be thrown his way, and just as he can't sit on his haunches and predict that the flying yoda thing is always going to come at him in level 2, so too can we who are actually real humans never predict all of the trials and misfortunes which will inevitably plague our lives. We need to be ever vigilant, always seeking to be prepared for whatever life circumstance in which we find ourselves engrossed.

As Karnov himself would say, "Жизнь никогда не предсказуемый ..., используют ваш щит и скачущие ботинки!!" I could not agree more. But when the fight is over, and the game has been beaten, what is a noble warrior's reward? What is it that he finally accomplishes through his quest?

Treasure!

Or so you think. The picture above was taken from the victory scene in an arcade version of Karnov. Do you know what happens when you beat the entire Karnov video game on Nintendo? NOTHING! Literally, nothing happens. You get a black screen with the words "The End. Congratulations!" At the end of Karnov you realize that there was never really any point to the game. You don't save a princess, you don't stop a pestilential darkness from overtaking Russia, you don't even get a handsome reward. You beat the game...that's it. There's no cheezy Nintendo cut scene with Karnov awkwardly tossing gold dabloons on his fat, bald, 8-bit head. There's not even a fanfare postlude. You get nothing. At the end of Karnov you realize that there was never really any point to the game. It's at this point in the allegory that Karnov ceases to be a direct parallel to real life, and actually it becomes a 'choose your own adventure' novel . You can continue to see Karnov to its full allegorical ending...that life has no meaning, is fraught with trials and tribulations, and ultimately is vanity-a chasing after the wind. You sentimental existentialists out there are fervently nodding your heads and are already looking for Karnov on ebay (ps I HATE ebay that's why I'm not giving them the satisfaction of having an actual link in my blog).

OR!!!

If you choose, you break with the allegory that I have thus far proposed and make of life what you will. Maybe you see treasure in the end. Maybe you see that the treasure is actually finding out what on earth the Mask icon is used for. Maybe you see your life as a divine theatrical performance. I don't know what you see as the purpose of your life. And I'm not here to tell you what life is or is not about. All I know is that I was struck by how Karnov, the video game, is like life. How life strikes you is your decision.

*Author's note: I'd like to make a parallel here about how having others around you, who support and encourage you makes facing life's trials easier. But Karnov doesn't provide that outlet. Karnov pulls himself up by his bootstraps and don't no one come to help him out when he's down in the dumps. In the vein of typical Russian machismo, Karnov shoulders the burden of the world on his own shoulders. Sorry kids.

I Didn't Get Dumped This Year

So as you all know ... the Pittsburgh Steelers are stinking Super Bowl Champions!!!! If you read my earlier blog I compared it to getting dumped by your girlfriend. This year I didn't get dumped. I actually went to the game, and it was phenomenal. There's so much to say about it, but I have a few sweet thoughts about the Super Bowl. So I'm going to tackle them a few thoughts at a time.

The game was awesome. It took us an hour and a half to get into the stadium as they had the area blocked off for about a square mile. We had to wait in a line about a mile long. We snaked through all kinds of metal railings and then through a pat down and metal detector. Outside the stadium it was like 150 to one in terms of Steelers fans to Hawks fans. We got in at about 3 and spent the next 7 hours in there. The stadium was electric. Nothing like bullet points so here we go:

1.) Aaron Neville sucked with the national anthem. The rest was sweet.

2.) ABC must have muted the crowd for TV. After watching the MVP part on Tivo Tom Brady was booed a lot louder at the game and Franco and Swann got much louder cheers. ABC did something. Even the half time show was sweeter with more energy and noise. It sucked on TV, but was ok live.

3.) Sloppy first half was fairly interesting since it was close and fans were into it.

4.) The Willie Parker play happened right in front of us and was so freaking cool. The crowd became infinitely more cool after that play since they loosened up.

5.) Freddie Prinze Jr. asked us Super Bowl trivia questions during TV timeouts while you got commercials. I don't care how bad the commercials were ... I lost there. There's no way I will watch his stupid show on ABC.

6.) We had two Seahawks fans behind us. Really annoying before the game, but they had, "That Look" on their face after the game. That Look being the one I've had on my face before during AFC Championship games. I had purposely been reaching in front of him all game to another younger Steeler fan for high fives. I felt pretty badly at the end, so I tried to console him.

7.) I got a pseudo-attractive forty year old lady to rub my stomach and my lucky 1995 shirt all game. I was pretty pumped about that.

8.) The end of the game was so surreal. It seemed like the trophy presentation was about 3 minutes. I just kept sitting there crying. I had tears streaming down my face while hugging and high fiving everyone. I just kept looking the fans in the face and saying, "We're the effing champs." I asked, "What song do we sing now? Here We Go doesn't work anymore." I kept asking if it was real and hugging people while just soaking it all. The confetti was for us and the thirty-one other teams were all crappier than we were. It felt great.

9.) Nothing like pouring out of the stadium afterward and high fiving every fan in the street in black and gold. Singing we are the Champions, Here we Go, and Na na na na hey hey hey good bye. It was so sweet. I just kept yelling, skipping, and dancing through the twenty degree night. I paid 30 dollars for a black Super Bowl Champion shirt with yellow lettering that I wore yesterday and today and plan on wearing all week. It was so unreal sweet.

10.) I'm starting to get pissed at Sports talk radio, opinion shows, and 24 hour coverage. People just say stuff to make stories, get people pissed, and tuning in and listening. Colin Cowherd said today that he wouldn't recognize a Super Bowl champion. He would just go by the Patriots winning the last one and trying to three-peat next year. That's JUST RIDICULOUS! If I punch you in the face, and there is video evidence of it, but you think it was the wrong thing to happen, you can't just say it never happened. It did. So eff you Cowherd. I'm never listening to your show again. Why he can't talk about Randle El's sweet throw or Willie actually breaking a big run is beyond me! Instead they drum up controversy, knowing it will piss off Steeler Nation (who were out in strong force) and they'd call in and his show would be better. So I think the fact that the officiating was bad has been BLOWN OUT OF THE WATER by stinking ESPN shows.

11.) Due to this I'm starting to boycott opinion shows. You can find something to gripe about in every game. I've yelled about the Patriots sucking for years and being lame champions. But from now on I'm only going to listen to minimal amounts of ESPN and coverage like that. So those are my thoughts. I'm able to enjoy the Championship because I wasn't tainted from the get-go by hearing how bad the calls were. I look at them and think they're exaggerating a bit for a story. I think we did what we had to do. It's just like a regular season when you win a lot of close one's ... like our 15-1 year last year. We won some ugly close ones ... but a win's a win. Way to suck Seahawks.

All-in-all it was easily the best day of my life up until this point. The Steelers are Super Bowl Champions and I went all the way!!!!

The 7 People you Meet in Heaven...er, Louisville.

Louisville, where are you? Let's look at you better...

Ahhh there are you my harlot friend! The denizon of citizens who haunt thy streets is legion! I just got back from a 48 hour spat in Louisville. While there I fought off a blistering cold front (fortunately I planned ahead and packed only some Birkenstocks and a long sleeve tshirt to brave the weather. It turns out that Louisville has winter too...who'd a thunkit?), came face to face with the bitter mistress of sheer boredom, and confronted the spectre of Kin-tucky ignorance on just about every corner. Being someone who thrives on social contact, going to downtown Louisville without any friends seemed, to me, to be one of the more odious tasks that I would encounter in February. Everywhere you go in downtown Louisville there's something to do, provided you are not a loser and have friends. Because I have no friends in Louisville, I decided that I would try to make some while I was there. Whereas I flew into Louisville friendless and alone, I left Louisville with many new social contacts! Some of you may call these people dullards; some will call them deadbeats; some will call them boorish; and some will call them drunkards. I, however, call these new social contacts...friends. And through the art of the weblog, you are going to get to know a little bit about some of my new friends.

First...meet SEAN!!

Ok technically Sean isn't from Louisville...he's actually from Pittsburgh. And I didn't meet him in Louisville, I met him in Pittsburgh while our plane taxied out onto the runway. Sean works for NFL films, and is generally a cool dude. Sean is great because everyone has a friend like Sean. He's the guy in your social circle who has geek-chic glasses, always totes his I-pod aroud with him bopping his head up and down to the latest College Rock band that you've never heard of. He's the guy in your social circle who says stuff like "that's righteous", "right on man, right on", and "Hey man, it's cool...it's coooooool". Sean was a blast to talk to, and you could read him like an open book. He's got his struggles- he's been married for 5 years and is likely running headlong into a divorce. He's the guy who never really grew up, but managed to take his jois de vivre and turn it into a career...FILMING FOOTBALL GAMES! Sean was on his way to the SuperBowl to help film all the day's festivities. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give Sean a friend rating of 4.

NEXT MEET JACKIE!!!!!

Jackie...oh you rascal! Jackie was the bartender at the Red Star Tavern on 4th St. in Louisville. She was a really cool chick, espousing the stereotypical "hey sugar!"s and "there you go sweetheart"s that every good bartender with a Southern lilt should espouse. Jackie made my friend list for a number of reasons. 1) I belly'ed up to the bar with a book in my hand (relax it was before 10 O'clock at night...brining a book to read at the bar is totally legit if it's not during prime time) and proceeded to place the book face down in front of me. Jackie cruises over and is like "Hey sugar what can I get for you? Oh hey!" flips book over and says, "OH C.S Lewis...good for you man, Lewis is a great writer". BLAO a bartender who is familiar with CSLewis? Get outta here! I was impressed. 2) Jackie has this HUGE tattoo right on her chest (and of course her shirt was cut low enough so you could see it I mean I didn't look Carly I promise! Let me rephrase)...er, I HEARD Jackie had a huge tattoo on her chest. But it wasn't a slutty rose or butterfly or some other tartfully placed tattoo hovering just adjacent to the center of Jackie's boob. Her tattoo was RIGHT in the middle of her chest, and it was about the size of both of my fists clenched side by side. The tattoo said somehing about 'one love' and had a big rose in the middle and some kind of weird temple and I don't know what all else. But she said it was supposed to be dedicated to her mom and I can respect that. I mean who of us hasn't thought about getting something reminiscent of our mother tattooed on our chest?
Anyway, Jackie, 3/5 on the friend scale. We didn't get to talk a whole lot because, well, she was at work. But she was a heck of a nice girl.

I KNOW YOU'RE GONNA WANNA MEET JIM!!!

Jim is a bouncer at Howl at the Moon on 4th St. in Louisville. I waltzed into HATM, a rowdy piano bar, at the most unrowdy time of the day-8:00pm. As I looked inside to see what was going on, this big burly dude came walking over to me. If you've ever seen "Remember the Titans", Jim kind of looks like that big white guy who sings all those Motown hits and gets hated on by the other white guy who Denzel Washington calls Jerry Lewis. You know what I'm talking about. Anyway Jim is a bruiser. He also looks like his name could be one of the following: Bruiser, Brutus, Ched, Roy, Spike, Tiny, or any other random character who you might see in Nintendo's 'Final Fight' the video game. Now that you've got an aesthetic model of Jim in your mind, you can imagine I was a little disturbed to see him lumbering my way (looking very hungry). He asked if I was coming in, and I asked him why no one was at the bar. He told me that HATM doesn't get rowdy until about 10:00pm (again, primetime).

As he regaled me with the tales of drunken crowds all singing along with the two piano players, clanking their classes together and making general fools of themselves, I couldn't help but think that Howl at the Moon was kind of like Pirates of the Caribbean! It turns out that it's nothing like Pirates of the Caribbean. But I digress. Jim and I chatted for a bit about sweet it was so get drunk and sing along with popular music hits set to piano music and profanity when he noticed that I (once again) had brought my C.S. Lewis book into HATM. "Hey...didn't that guy write that book about the uh...lion, and the wardrobe or something" stammered Jim. Of course he did, Jim!! So Jim and I talked about C.S. Lewis for a bit: Yes I've read the Chronicles of Narnia, yes they are great books, no this isn't one of the books in the series, no Lewis didn't write just children's books, but the bulk of his works deal with philosophical and theological issues that wrack the minds of men, etc. etc.

After a couple of seconds of head nodding and "Yeah, well's" Jim says to me "Yeah well you should definitely come back later. It's going to be really crazy tonight. You can just come on in". It is on this last phrase on which I linger, beause after 8:00pm you can't just come in to HATM, as I found out later. I came back around 10:00 to see the rabble rousing pirates, I mean patrons, sing along with the piano men, but was told by a rather burly bouncer that "HEY YOU HAVE TO PAY COVER TO COME IN HERE!" I was a bit befuddled by said bouncer's rudeness, but as I stood there eyeing him up, Jim comes waddling over and tells the other bouncer "No this guy's cool. Come on in, man!" It was like I was VIP, and all I did was talk to Jim for like 10 minutes. Anyway, that gesture of kindness rocketed Jim to a 5/5 on the friend scale. In case you are wondering how my adventure into HATM sans friends went, shortly after entering the den of iniquity I was paralyzed by terrible stomach pain and had to retire for the evening. I'm attributing the pain to a physical manifestation of either the Holy Spirit's disdain (Baptists are nodding their heads here) or something else...I don't know what.

Anyway I'm going to have to continue this blog later because I just got my T SHIRT AND CD FROM MAYLENE AND THE SONS OF DISASTER AND I NEED TO GO SLAM MY NECK!!!!