Who is the Monster and Who is the Man

I laugh every time I get to the final panel of this comic, and at the end of the day, I guess that's what really matters. Wait, it isn't? SHIT

Block Bank!

Last night in bed, all my musings about the nature of how Nintendo should handle Achievements came together, finally, to make a system that not only will work, but will revolutionize the way people play Nintendo games - and with the right minds behind it, it will be easy. This is an idea freely given to Nintendo, with, at best, a hope that my name could be included in the developer's credits.

For both the DSi and the Wii, we have the Block Bank, downloadable from both systems' stores. Iconized on the menus by the familiar Super Mario Bros. question block, the Block Bank is a museum of your achievements that is browsable by game title. For events that you have not yet completed, a description or hint about them is available, written beside a question block. Once they are activated, the block disappears and an item or small picture representing the event appears.

Block Bank doesn't run in the background of your games. Instead, when you go into the Block Bank, you prompt it to scan your game files and look for benchmark events that it can reward you for. Once they're found, the familiar "per-toink!" of a question block being hit is shown, and the block is opened. If it was me, I would also make it so that each block that is activated credits the user's Club Nintendo account with one coin.

The Block Bank can also include exclamation point blocks which represent milestones in how many question blocks you've opened. When you get 25 or 50, for instance, an exclamation block can pop and reveal, for instance, a classic Game and Watch game that you can play with your Mii. Other exclamation block prizes could be special videos with animations of Nintendo characters, or small puzzle games that could be beamed wirelessly to the DSi. Another reward could be your own Block Bank ATM card, similar to the Xbox's gamer cards. This style of mini-prizes is not dissimilar to the bonus things that were found on the eReader cards of several years ago.

The inclusion of this system would revitalize interest in games that have been considered completed, but in truth could have statistical challenges that are not yet met. This is good for Nintendo and good for the players, as it could increase game sales as well as renew gamers' enjoyment of Nintendo products. Please contact me if there is anything else I can do to help herald the creation of this system.

Stand-Up Comedian

A lot of people tell me that I should become a stand-up comedian. However, I am not that great at public speaking. It's not that I'm nervous, it's just that my palate is built weird or something, and my voice doesn't carry further than two feet away from my head. A microphone would eliminate that problem; however, perhaps because I am so out of shape in the talking department, my throat begins to feel bruised if I talk aloud for more than a few minutes. I am a terrible mishmash of God's spare parts. Anyways, here is some comedy that occurred to me earlier when I misheard something.

You know how some people have Type O blood? George W. Bush is so dumb that his blood type is a typo.

(mimicking a doctor checking a readout) All right, Mr. President, it says here your blood type is... "H"? What?

I Made a Mistake Today

... by going to the local Long John Silvers. The advertisements had convinced me it would be all right - grilled fish! Healthy side dishes! A bed of rice!

What can I say? The first thing I noticed about the place was the thick air of desperation. A large, sullen youth was sweeping the floor in front of the door as I entered. I volleyed off a hearty "How ya doin?!", which was met with grim silence.

As we stood, awaiting our order, we observed a dining room full of grey people who ate with neither speed or joy. There was no conversation to be noticed. A thin film of grime seemed to cover everything and everyone.

After we sat down with our food, I began to wonder if it would be doing a lot of people a favor to burn the place down later that night.

Fourteen dollars worth of food got neither of us full and both of us queasy. We will not ever return to that restaurant.

Crack, Pow, Done

I was originally trying to make the title of this blog entry a play on "How Stella Got Her Groove Back" by replacing "Stella" with "Daniel" and "Groove Back" with "Back Tooth" and then I realized that it was just a big hot tranny mess and gave up on it.

So my top wisdom teeth had to come out. Went in, got numbed up (the worst part of which was the punching-a-hole noise of the big metal hypodermic delivering numbing agents into my gums) and then hung out for a while. The chair offered very little arm support, so my options were to cross my hands on my stomach, or have them dangle sadly on either side of the chair. I ended up doing both, several times, as well as occasionally texting Christina to alleviate the monotony. They wouldn't let her come in with me - which was probably a blessing for her - but being able to contact her over text was enough to keep me tethered away from the world of panic I could feel myself slowly floating towards.

And then it began. Turning my head, reaching in, and applying what I logically knew was too much pressure - this much pressure should not be exerted on me, I worried - I felt my palate buckle and rock like a suspension bridge in high winds, and out came one. A turn, a wiggle, more torsion, and pow, the second. After all the dread and the twenty or so minutes of waiting, the entire ordeal lasted all of five minutes. Packed the holes with gauze and sent me on my merry way. The only thing I did all the while was assure the doctor I felt no pain, and laugh uncomfortably when a tooth was ripped from my skull.

I laughed a lot of the way home. They didn't give me nitrous oxide - it was just so absurd, the sensation of having your teeth ripped out. What was there to do but laugh? I even got to see the poor bloody things laying on the tray.

The new tooth configuration feels pretty good, like loosening your belt a notch. I don't envy myself the terrible pain that is assuredly on the horizon, but that's what Demerol is for.

Wii Fit (or, Dog Chasing for Fun and Profit (Prof Fit?!))

Christina finally buckled down and got Wii Fit, which was both good and bad for me. It's good because I love Nintendo and want to lose weight with its help, but it's bad because I weigh too much to use the Balance Board.

Eventually figuring she would just use her own weight as a proxy under my profile on the game, I decided instead that I wanted a more realistic view of my weight. So I had the terrible idea to have her stand on it while wearing a backpack full of books and hand weights on her belly, and holding two jugs of liquid in her hands. We fooled the game into realizing that my body mass index should be at the very top of Obese, and I felt more like it was suited to me. However, it still thinks I only weigh about 270 pounds.

Once we got past that part of the process, I got to do what I really wanted to do - jogging in place! You don't have to stand on the Balance Board. Instead, you just put a Wiimote in your pocket, and its movements sense your pace. I jogged for 15 minutes straight, and since I never actually lift my feet up, there was no impact on my tender tootsies. But don't think that I was cheating - I got all sweatied up, and kept my heartrate up for the duration of that time. It was great! I look forward to playing more often.

Whoops, I almost forgot to mention the dog chasing. James informed me that if you pass your jogging trainer when the cute little Fisher-Price dog passes you, you can chase the dog, instead! By the time I was done, I got to the point that I had tangented off after three different dogs. It was really fun!

Dream Journal - 5 FEB 2009

I had discovered a small abandoned Disney theme park, and/or inherited it. It was tailored to fit me - for instance, there was a miniature bank inside, labeled the Bank of Eric. But at any rate, it was empty, and I was not wealthy.

Passing a fresco of the Magic Kingdom, I ran my finger alone the top of one of its walls to see if I could find my bank card - and indeed, I found something, but it was a folded up work order signed in either mayonnaise or White-Out by Christian Bale. I know I was in financial straits because I flounced it in front of my family, bragging about how he was "hot right now" and thus his signature on any paper would be worth a lot of money. He signed his name with little wings at the side, like the Dan Halen logo. I imagine the white signature manifested in dream land as I had made a large amount of pasta salad the previous day.

Some time passed and apparently I had figured out how to hide the letter inside the main castle keep, which had to be opened by traversing some mini-golf-esque greens that floated on water, culminating with one set that rotated around a central hub. I remember my father was there, and I remember that I worried that he would be disappointed in me if his shoes became wet from this, as it was a frivolity and thus I was a letdown as usual for bringing him to a place that his shoes might get wet. This does not reflect on how my father acts in real life, but does reflect on how much of a failure I see myself as in his and my mother's eyes.

After a way-too-complex system of entering the main keep, I came to find that the keep was a bit of a museum for comedy, with pictures on the walls and spaces for more pictures. I know time had passed and I had been there already, because a portrait of Larry and Balki hung in one spot (it must have been a concession I made to Christina). Around the long table in the center sat comedians in high-backed chairs; David Spade sat at one, talking seriously about events in his life, and I knew that this must be some secret club I was privy to, where comedians spoke as real people. Sort of like a Friar's Club, but instead of seeing comedians tear each other apart for sport, this was just a place for them to be regular people. I think the root of this group's appearance in my dreams is that I began commenting on Acheworld, the Achewood discussion area, and my absence before recently had been noted. It felt good to be among people who recognized me and shared my sense of humor.

There was a glass-top coffee table there whose main feature was a pewter, two-foot long sculpture of a terrified man or child, hands thrust against the glass. I recognized this table from a previous dream, and began to feel comfortable. But unfortunately, that is also when the reality of the dream began to unravel.

I was especially disappointed to wake up, because of several factors. I love Disney parks. I love comedians. I love feeling like I belong somewhere, and I love owning something that other people can use. My sense of loss upon waking was palpable. I felt so angry at the loss of this wonderful place that I began to wonder if I should really change my life, to put away childish things and stop dreaming of things I will never attain.