Conference rusure::nintendo

116.0. "Dave Barry " by SPGOPS::CAMPBELL () Mon Aug 15 1988 12:05

    I thought you nintendo lovers would like this Dave Barry article
    that appeared in Sunday's Globe.
    
                 When Duty Calls
               by Dave Barry (Without permission)
    
    On my 41st birthday, a Sunday in July, I went out to face the spider.
    It had to happen.  There comes a time in a man's life, when a man
    reaches a certain age (41), and he hears a voice - often this happens
    when he's lying on the couch reading about Norway in the Travel
    section - and this voice says:  "Happy Birthday.  Do you think you
    could do something about the spider?"  And a man knows, just as
    surely as he knows the importance of batting left-handed against
    a right-handed pitcher, that he must heed this voice, because it
    belongs to his wife, Beth, who, although she is a liberated and
    independent and tough Woman of the '80's, is deeply respectful of
    the natural division of responsibilities that has guided the human
    race for nearly 4 million years, under which it is always the woman
    who notices when you are running low on toilet paper, and it is
    always the man who faces the spider.
    
    And so, I called softly for my son, Robert. "Robert," I called,
    and within a matter of seconds he did not appear at my side, because
    he was in the family room watching TV commercials for breakfast
    cerals that are the same color and texture as Pex, but have less
    nutritional content.  So I called louderer.
    
    "Robert," I said, "Fetch me the wooden stick that your pirate flag
    used to be attached to, and the Peter Pan creamy-style peanut butter
    jar with the holes punched in the lid, for I am going to face the
    spider."
    
    Upon hearing those words, Robert came instantly, and he looked at
    me with a respect that I have not seen in his eyes for some time
    now, not since we got the NINTENDO.  The Nintendo is an electronic
    video game that is mindless and non-creative and stupid and hateful,
    and Robert is much better at it than I am.  He is 7, and he can
    consistently rescue the princess, whereas I, a 41-year-old college
    graduate, cannot even get past the turtles.  The worse part is the
    way Robert says, "Good try, Dad!" in a perfect imitation of the
    cheerfully condescending voice I used to use on him back when I
    could beat him at everything.  I don't know where kids pick up this
    kind of behavior.
    
    But there was respect in Robert's eyes as I strode out to face the
    spider.  As well there should have been.  Bernice (that's the spider's
    technical Latin name) had erected a humongous web right outside
    our front door, an ideal location because in July the South Florida
    atmosphere consists of one part oxygen and 247 parts mosquito, which
    meant Bernice had plenty to eat.  ALso on hand in the web was her
    husband Bill, who, despite the fact that he was one-sixteenth her
    size, nevertheless played an important ecological role in the
    relationship, namely trying not to look like prey.
    
    "I may be small," Bill would say, all day long, in spider language,
    "but I am certainly not prey! No Sir! I am a spider! Yes! Just a
    regular, NON-prey."
    
    Shut-up," Bernice would say.
    "Yes!" Bill would point out.  They were a fun couple.  Nvertheless,
    I approached them cautiously, hoping any noise I made would be drowned
    out by the roar of the lawn growing.  July is in what we South
    Floridians call the "Rainy Season" because it would depress us too
    much to come right out and call it the "Giant Armpit Season."  When
    we read the stories about drought-stricken Midwestern farmers who
    can't grow crops in their fields, we are forced to laugh with bitter
    irony, because down here we can, without trying, grow crops in our
    LAUNDRY.
    
    And now, I was up to the web.  An now, with my son's eyes glued on
    me, I drew back the pirate-flag stick, and I struck.
    
    "Hey!" said Bernice, in spider. "HEY!!"
    "Don't hit me!" said Bill.  "I'm non-prey."
    
    But it was Bernice I had my eye on.  If I could poke her into the
    Peter Pan jar, all would be well.  But if she turned and lunged
    for me, I would have not choice, as a man defending his family,
    but to drop everything and sprint off down the road, brushing wildly
    at myself and whimpering.
    
    Fortunately, she went into the jar, and I got the lid on real quick,
    and for a white we watched her pace around in there and indicate
    via sweeping arm gestures what she was going to do to us when she
    got out.
    
    "I'm gonna sting all of your eyeballs," she was saying.  "I'm gonna
    lay 175 billion eggs in your EARS.  I'm gonna ........"
    
    This was fun, but eventually we decided it was time to get rid of
    Bernice, following the standard procedure recommended by leading
    ecologists for the disposal of revenge-crazed spiders, namely: Release
    them on a drug dealers lawn.  Like many South Floridians, we have
    a house in our neighborbood that we are pretty sure is occupied
    by drug dealers, as indicated by subtle clues such as cars coming
    and going at all hours, bed sheets over the windows, a big sign
    stating, "DRUGS FOR SALE HERE," etc.  We decided this would make
    a fine new home for Bernice, so we drove casually by, and I real
    quick opened the jar and shook Bernice onto the lawn.  She scuttled
    off angrily straight toward the house, "I'm gonna FILL YOUR NASAL
    PASSAGES WITH WEB," she was saying.  "I'm gonna......"
    
    But she was no longer our problem.  We were already driving ogg,
    Robert and I, going shopping for a present for my 41st birthday.
    We went to Toys "R" us.
    
    

    The following, with permission from CPDW::RENNIE was taken from the
    Dave Barry notesfile.  (HYDRA::DAVE_BARRY)

         <<< HYDRA::DISK$USERPACK02:[NOTES$LIBRARY]DAVE_BARRY.NOTE;1 >>>
                       -<  Dave Barry - Noted humorist  >-
================================================================================
Note 545.0                      NINTENDO NUMBNESS                     No replies
CPDW::RENNIE                                         96 lines  16-JUL-1989 15:13
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


			NINTENDO NUMBNESS

	by Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist

	Copied without permission from The Boston Sunday Globe


OK, I bought my child a Nintendo video-game system.  I realize I should not
admit this.  I realize the Child Psychology Police may arrest me for getting my
child a mindless addictive antisocial electronic device instead of a
constructive old-fashioned educational toy such as an Erector Set.  Well, let me
tell you something:  All my childhood friends had Erector Sets, and although I
am not proud of this, I happen to know for a fact that, in addition to the
recommended educational projects such as the Truck, the Crane and the
Carousel, it was possible to build the Bug Pulper, the Worm Extender and the
Gears of Pain.

And speaking of pain, you have no idea how hard my son made my life before I
caved in and bought Nintendo.   The technique he used was Power Wistfulness. 
Remember the old comic strip Dondi, starring the little syndicated orphan boy
who always looked heartbreakingly sad and orphanous and never got adopted,
possibly because he had eye sockets the size of manhole covers?  Well, my son
looked like that.  He'd start first thing in the morning, standing around with
Dondi-like eyes, emitting armor-piercing wistfulness rays and sighing over the
fact that he was the only child outside of the Third World who didn't have
Nintendo.  Pretty soon I'd be weeping all over my toast, thinking how tragic it
was - my own son, an orphan - until finally I just had to go to the Toys "R"
Approximately a Third of the Gross National Product store, because, after all,
we're talking about a child's happiness here, and you can't put a price tag
on...What?  It costs how much?  What does it do for that kind of money? 
Penetrate Soviet airspace?

No, really, it's worth every penny.  I know you've probably read a lot of
articles by leading Child Psychologists (defined as "people whose children
probably wet the bed through graduate school") telling you why Nintendo is a
bad thing, so let me discuss some of the benefits:

BENEFIT NO. 1 - Nintendo enables the child to develop a sense of self-worth by
mastering a complex, demanding task that makes his father look like a total
goober.

The typical Nintendo game involves controlling a little man who runs around the
screen trying to stay alive while numerous powerful and inexplicably hostile
forces try to kill him; in other words, its exactly like real life.  When I
play, the little man becomes highly suicidal.  If he can't locate a hostile
force to get killed by, he will deliberately swallow the contents of a little
electronic Valium bottle.  So all my games end instantly, whereas my son can
keep the little man alive  through several presidential administrations.  He is
always trying to cheer me up by saying "good try, Dad!" in the same sincerely
patronizing voice that I once used to praise him for not getting peas in his
hair.  What is worse, he gives me Helpful Nintendo Hints that are far too
complex for the adult mind to comprehend.  Here's a verbatim example: "OK,
there's Ganon and miniature Ganon and there's these things like jelly beans and
the miniature Ganon is more powerfuller, because when you touch him the flying
eagles come down and the octopus shoots red rocks and the swamp takes longer."

And the hell of it is, I know he's right.

BENEFIT NO. 2 - Nintendo strengthens the community.  

One evening, I got an emergency telephone call from our next-door neighbor,
Linda, who said, her voice breathless with urgency: "Is Robby there?  Because
we just got Gunsmoke [a Nintendo game], and we can't get past the horse."  Of
course I notified Robby immediately.  "It's the Liebmans," I said.  "They just
got Gunsmoke, and they can't get past the horse."  He was out the door in
seconds, striding across the yard, a Man on a Mission.  Of course he got them
past the horse.  He can get his man all the way to the bazooka.  My man dies
during the opening credits.

BENEFIT NO. 3 - When a child is playing Nintendo, the child can't watch regular
television.

Recently on the local news, one relentlessly personable anchorwoman was telling
us about a murder at a Pizza Hut, and when she was done, a relentlessly
personable anchorman got a frowny look on his face, shook his head sadly, and
said - I am not making this quotation up - "A senseless tragedy, and one that I
am sure  was unforeseen by the victims involved."

I don't want my child exposed to this.

BENEFIT NO. 4 - A child who is playing Nintendo is a child who is probably not
burping as loud as he can.  

I mention this only so I can relate the following true exchange I witnessed
recently between a mother and her 8-year-old son:

	SON:  Burp. Burp.  Burp.  Burp. Burp.  Burp.  Bu...
	MOTHER:  Stop burping!
	SON:  But Mom, it's my hobby.

So, Mr. and Ms. Child Psychologist, don't try to tell me that Nintendo is so
terrible, OK?  Don't tell me it makes children detached and aggressive and
antisocial.  In fact, don't tell me anything.  Not while the octopus is
shooting these rocks.