Terrible Analogies

So, instead of doing some much needed housework, prepping the guest room to make way for baby, or doing any number of constructive tasks around the house this weekend, I shirked my responsibilities and opted to back up anew my music collection to five external hard drives.  I’ve made so many changes to my master library as of late that simply copying over the changes to my various backup hard drives was not an option.  Turns out that pushing 196+ GB over a USB 2.0 line takes six hours.  Due to my lack of SATA / FireWire cables I couldn’t daisy chain the lot of them together and make just one big rapid push.

After a few failures, stops and starts, and a Blackberry falling from the heavens and hitting a unique series of keys that killed one backup job (Heh…I swear it wasn’t me!) I finally got all of my backups completed.  In the end, I felt stretched and spent, just like Peter Griffin after he watched The Ring:

I’m now in the process of making duplicates of my MAME games for a co-worker.  I’ve completed copying five of the 14 DVDs.  It’s a hard core collection of games to be sure, and the duplications will continue throughout tomorrow.

Whilst in the midst of this Herculean, marathon backup undertaking, I’m reminded of what Tyler Durden once said.  ”The things you own end up owning you.”  I feel as if my data is pimping me out, slapping me across the face with the back of its hand while screaming, “Where’s my money?!”

Ahh, but there I go again, anthropomorphizing my computer.  Next thing you know I’ll be dressing up as a vintage Macintosh, attending furry conventions, and looking for the nearest yiff pile to dive into (God, why do I know such things?).

For the past few days I’ve been glued to my arcade machine, unable and unwilling to tear myself away for any great length of time.  I’ve found myself addicted to a game I had somehow managed to miss during my arcade-hopping years in the late 80′s to early 90′s.  Lost in a shuffle of neon lights, Vegas-style low-shag high-traffic carpeting, change machines, and questionable chain smoking characters lurking behind glass counters, eyeing the kids with malicious intent was this game that I had only, in these recent days, come to discover and absolutely embrace.

This game goes by the name Nitroball, and it currently owns my soul.

Nitroball can best be described as a cross between Smash TV and NFL Football, set inside a gigantic pinball machine.  I know how funky that sounds (heck, the logistics and costs of constructing such a massive pinball machine located at the edge of space in and of itself boggles the mind), and that’s part of the appeal of this game.  In Nitroball, you play the part of a “soldier” in a futuristic game show, and your goal is simple; kill the baddies and grab the prizes.  Thin on plot, but interesting gameplay and unusual visuals keeps you pumping in quarter after quarter.

Not much thought went into the design of the tease screen...

Apparently this game takes place inside a huge pinball machine floating at the edge of space

You play Gary, an ex-Navy "sregeant" (whatever that is). At over 6' and weighing in at a gangly 177lbs, I don't think our hero stands much of a chance against the upcoming onslaught.

Look at the kind of crap Gary has to contend with: spelling competitions, crazed overall-wearing ducks, villains in purple leisure suits, and autonomous robots showering the field with high explosives.

Mini-boss time!

Laying waste to "Ghost Town"

Ghosts, and zombies, and truckers...oh my!

It's nice to see that, in the distant future, dual cassette tape decks are considered "big prizes"

You can keep your XBoxes, your PS3s, and your newfangled Atari 5200s.  I’m keeping it real, rocking the original games that made going to the arcades so much fun back in the day…