Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

Grammar Girl Powers, Activate!

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As you may know if you’ve been hanging out here for a while, my husband is an avid gamer. And while I’ve dabbled in gaming myself, I much prefer to be the audience or, as I call it, his “gaming groupie.” A lot of the games have really good stories which completely suck me in, except for the times when I MUST SPEAK IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS TO DENOUNCE THE EXPLOITATION, ICKY SEXUALIZATION, AND BASIC PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN VIDEO GAMES.  It’s a fine line.

Right now he is playing a game called “Tales of Vesperia”, and I am so excited to watch it because, in addition to its fun story, there is a actually a realistically dressed and proportioned female character whose weapon is the power of her mind. Not a power as in being able to kill someone using only her thoughts. No-her weapon is her intellect.  As in, she hurls mathematical equations at all the monsters, and they die a painful, agonizing death.

Now, leaving aside the fact that this so clearly and accurately depicts exactly how I felt in every single math class I ever took, and I am struck by the occasional traumatic flashback as I’m watching, how cool would this kind of super power be?!

In the throes of some road rage? Well then-let me tase you with some Irregular Verb Forms.

Trying to rob a bank? Then expect some serious Stem Changing Verbs coming your way.

And people-don’t even make me go all Pluperfect Subjunctive on your ass.

But alas, we have not as yet reached this enlightened kind of society. So until then we can only dream of life, liberty, and Perfect Grammar for all.

 

And This Is Why I Will Never Be A TRUE Gamer

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The other day my husband and I went out to dinner, and eventually the talk turned to all the video games that are coming out this fall, and the particular games that he was excited to play.

One of those games is called “Fallout: New Vegas”, a game about survivors trying to scratch out an existence in a post-apocalyptic world. (Cheery, I know.)

I’d watched him play Fallout 3, and really enjoyed the story (I like to refer to myself as his “gaming groupie”), and so I asked him about the plot of the upcoming game. Specifically, I asked if any of the characters from the previous game would be appearing in the new game.

And he said, in the tone that someone might use to announce that we need to add toilet paper to the grocery list, because we’ve just run out:

“Well, there is one character that has been in all of the games so far. But in Fallout 3 he turned into a tree. And since that game took place in Washington D.C., and this one takes place in Las Vegas, it would be really hard for him to get to the other coast.”

A TRUE gamer’s response: Nothing, because they wouldn’t even be having this conversation, because they would both already know everything there is to know about the upcoming game.

An up-and-coming gamer’s response: “Oh, OK. So it’s just like what happened to [some other character] in [some other game].

My response: “Did you hear what you just said?!”

So apparently, he’s a gamer, and I am not, and never the twain shall meet.

Thanks To Gamers And Gaming, I Will Never Lack For Blog Material

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It Was Somebody’s Job To Think This Stuff Up

(Originally published March 8, 2006)

Recently my husband has been excited to find some new friends with which he can play video games. While I am an excellent wife and companion in many ways, I do not share his enjoyment of gaming. So it has been good for him to connect with others who do.

Last weekend one of The Gamers arrived at our house and announced: “I just went to Blockbuster and found The Best Game Ever! You’re a samurai, and you wake up one day, and all of your body parts have been stolen. You have to go out and fight the bad guys who took them so you can like, get your arms back and stuff!”

Fortunately the main character was also fitted with substitute body parts, but of course these parts also double as deadly weapons. For example, when he meets up with an enemy his fake arms and hands fly off to reveal swords, his knees open up to reveal machine guns, etc.

Every time the samurai defeats a “Fiend”, he recovers one of his stolen body parts. I witnessed one of these pivotal moments, and while the hero writhed in agony on the screen we all pondered what vital limb or organ he might have just regained. His heart? His lungs? His eyes?

Oh no. After valiantly defeating the Fiend in battle, and undergoing the agonizing, torturous process of re-incorporating one of the inner organs necessary for his continued existence the hero looked up to see that he was now once again in possession of…his esophagus. With a corresponding reminder in small print that said, “Please note: The esophagus will not work without the rest of the digestive tract.”

What?!

So all week I have been facilitating cryptic correspondence between my husband and the other gamers. I pass along messages like, “Tell her I got my hippocampus back last night and can now remember how many bad guys I have killed,” or, “Tell him that I also got my left leg back so I can run now. Luckily the leg cannon is in the right leg.”

To quote one of the gamers: “Good times.”

Of Soccer Cleats And Panda Heads

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So the other night I was just hanging out and daydreaming in my office when I heard my husband yell out, “DAMN PANDA HEADS!!”

And so of course I ran out into the living room to see what was going on, because…um, What?!

When I got out there I saw my husband standing on the balance board for the Wii Fit, doing one of the training programs that involves you standing  in the middle of a soccer field, attempting to head butt all the soccer balls that various people are throwing at your face.

Now, I am the first to admit that I know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER about athletics. So much so, in fact, that during my high school graduation ceremony (I went to a private school so my graduating class was somewhere between 60 and 70 people), the headmaster would call out things like, “And now, everybody who has ever participated in the drama department, please stand.” I guess he was trying to emphasize how well-rounded and prepared for college we were, along with showing  just how much our education was  worth all of the tuition money that our parents had forked over  for so many years.

So eventually he got to, “And now, all the people who have ever participated in any of our sports programs, please stand up,” and I am telling you the God’s honest truth here-I was THE ONLY PERSON IN MY ENTIRE GRADE who remained seated. A fact of which I am still inordinately proud.

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Why I Don’t Think I’ll Ever Be A Real Gamer

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My husband is currently playing a game called “Civilization 4” on the Xbox. Basically, you play as your choice from a selection of famous rulers (Alexander the Great, Isabella of Spain, Mao Tse Tung, etc.), and then you try to be the first to build up your civilization and take over all of the others.

That in and of itself really isn’t very noteworthy. Neither is the fact that you, as the ruler, are supported by a number of different advisers. Or the fact that the adviser characters are voiced, rather than simply appearing as text conversations on the screen.

However, what is a little bit distracting about this game is the fact that these characters, characters who were voiced by actual actors, actors who auditioned for and were then paid money to perform these roles, SPEAK ENTIRELY IN GIBBERISH.

Here is an actual, phonetic, transcription of some of their helpful advice:

Minister of Trade and Commerce: (as she is advising you on how to allocate all of your resources) “Oh dumb brew. Ah key wayn wee lahm. Hick wahn hoo ee. Fall-uhm, fall-uhm.”

Me: “What the…Are they speaking…?”

My husband: (totally unconcerned as he conquers Spain, France, and Italy.) “They’re speaking gibberish.”

Minister of Culture: (advising you that a neighboring city would like to convert to your culture.) “Oh bah bow lee shaw. Boo ee la. Ba oh boo! Bah dah doo-ew.”

Me (unable to get past the gibberish): “Do you think they hired real people to voice these characters? I mean, how would you brag about being cast in this role? ‘Dude, I just got this part, and nothing I say makes any sense at all!’ ”

My husband: (unable to respond as he is currently vanquishing Queen Elizabeth I, Mao Tse Tung, Abraham Lincoln, and Alexander the Great.)

Minister of Technology: “Vee zah schtah sahn. Ook vahn ahn schtan!” (And did I mention that he punctuates every one of his statements with jazz hands? And that he ends every encounter with a little growl and sexy teeth snap in your direction? I COULD NOT MAKE THIS STUFF UP IF I TRIED!)

Me: (still unable to get past the gibberish) “I mean, you’d think that if they were just going to have the characters speak nonsense, they would’ve just had a computer generate random syllables.”

My husband: (finishing up work on the seventh wonder of the world, preparing to launch the first space shuttle, and not even pretending to listen to me anymore as he achieves total financial, cultural, and domination victories over all other civilizations of this, and any other world.)

And that, my friends, is what separates the true gamers of the world from the mere pretenders like me.

Ambrosia

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Lately my husband has been playing the new video game “Fallout 3”, which takes place in a post-nuclear war world, a war which your character has survived by living underground in a vault. Eventually you escape your vault, come up to the surface, and must undertake various missions assigned to you by different groups of survivors.

As you travel you can acquire various random items that may assist you in carrying out your missions, like food, medicine, and weapons. One such item featured in this game is something called “Nuka-Cola”, which of course warmed the cockles of my soda-loving heart.

“It’s so nice to see that cockroaches are not the only things that survive nuclear war,” I remarked to my husband during a recent gaming session.

“Yes, it’s nice to see that even here, someone is still making soda,” he agreed.

“Because there’s really not much that a Coke can’t fix,” I said, at the exact moment my husband was attacked by a roving gang of fire-breathing ants the size of small houses, who were, ironically, impervious to the powers of soda.

“It’s like French fries,” I said, warming to my subject. “Because you know,” I said, struck with the gravity of the revelation I was about to reveal, “French fries are God’s medicine.”

The Wonderful World Of Gaming

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“I bought 2 new games. They’re both by the same people who did ‘Mass Effect’.”

“The one where you were the chief?”

“No, the one where I was the captain of a ship.”

(Blank look)

“The one with all the sex.”

“Ah, that one.”

“And I don’t know what’s in these games, but the clerk made me show him my ID when I was checking out.”

“Wow-what does it say?”

“Hm, only blood, gore, and violence. But no sex.”

“Oh well, you can’t have everything.”

(The opening title sequence plays out on the TV screen.)

“But apparently it does have titties.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a video game without titties now, would it?”

Why I Love My Husband So Much: Reason 2

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He always sees the good in me.

This weekend we were playing a new video game featuring characters from the X-Men series of comic books. I’m playing as “Storm”, the character who can harness the power of weather.

I’m a bit directionally challenged , so I told him, “It’s a good thing you’re the one in charge of getting us around, because to me it looks like we’ve come back to this same exact room about 27 times.”

“That’s OK, baby,” he replied. “Some of us can read maps, and some of us have lightning.”

This Is Your Brain On Videogames

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Me: I think the robots in this game are a little anachronistic.

(Yes, I was trying to hold to a uniform standard a video game whose only consistency lies in the constant featuring of scantily-clad, anatomically-impossibly-large bosomed females.)

My husband: I don’t think they’re robots, so much as animated suits of armor.

Me: Scarily, that actually makes sense.