Crunch Time

With the Nativity less than a week away, John Lennon's obnoxious, self-righteous "So this is Christmas" takes on a profundity that it doesn't deserve.

Indeed, I feel as though I've squandered yet another Advent. My Advent devotions have been rendered fairly ineffective ever since I moved up here. I didn't quite realize how much my faith life was dependent on living a five minute walk away from a daily Mass...

Not that the last few week's have been completely uneventful, though.

There have been plenty of exams and papers to keep me busy in between jaunts to the mall looking for presents (although I was far more successful filling my own stocking than anyone else's).

We've calloused our hands on Christmas cards (you should be getting yours soon), and gorged ourselves on Christmas cookies (Isabel went into a baking frenzy last Sunday).

I've also gorged myself on Netflix--why I didn't subscribe to this last year when I was living alone is beyond me. I've watched more DVDs in the last month than I think I've watched in the whole year prior.

And after 19 years, Isabel finally managed to beat Super Mario Bros., albeit with a little assistance from emulation save state features. We figured out how to hook my old laptop up to our new TV and have been reliving 1987 for the last week or so--let me add that Tengen's Tetris by far outstripped the NES version for playability, fun, and charm.

So, like I said, it has been an eventful Advent...just not a very meaningful one.

Comments

[Isabel]

I would like to point out that I beat Super Mario Bros. twice. Once with fireball capability and once without. Thank you.

[Akh Ari]

Yay, Isabel! Now you have to beat it without saving, I think. The scarcity of 1-ups and other powerups is part of the challenge of the game. That and Mario's lack of agility (and ability to change direction in midair) compared to Mario 3 and SNES Mario World make it (imho) much less forgiving to beginners. I would like to beat it sometime but haven't acquired the game or put aside the time necessary.

Yeah, where did Advent go? Maybe I'll do a better job in Lent.

[Akh Ari]

Oh, you know the secret of how to get (without cheating) an arbitrarily large number of lives in Mario 1, right? Your lone opportunity - if I correctly remember the video game gnosis from my childhood - is in World 3-1.

[Peter Terp]

A.A.

Indeed, there are two koopas that plod down some blocks at the end of 3-1 that enable the maneuver. I've found my aging artist's hands no longer have quite the delicate touch or reflexes to perform the required jump necessary to cause the life-inducing recursive loop...and I didn't think I had the patience to watch Isabel practice the move for the first time. Much easier is the infinite 1-Up tactic on 1-2 of Mario 3.

[Lindsay]

And in the late and not-Super Mario themed comment category, I add this: I feel your pain. My Advent managed to be worse this year than last. First-year teaching ate my life, but doing my first year over as a second year seems to be a more vicious feast.