Deleted

Over the past few days I wrote a long and preachy-sounding post.

I came across this today, so you can have it instead.

Probably more appropriate anyway.

1-Up

When I was six, my family moved from Germany to Georgia. This was something like move #5 in my young military-spawn life, but I was still not happy about it. My mood didn’t improve when I started school mid-year.

One of the challenges I faced was spelling. Having begun my education in Germany, any word with fewer than seven syllables and a consonant to vowel ratio below eleven was incomprehensible to me. My mind just couldn’t get around the business of sounding out words or learning rules for arranging letter order. Plus, southern humidity made my lederhosen itchy. That can be distracting when trying to write s-i-n-k (Waschbecken just rolls off the tongue).

My first grade teacher incentivized students by allowing those with perfect spelling scores to play on her handheld Pac-Man game during recess. That little toy was the first video game I’d seen and I was entranced. The grayscale screen and 8-bit chiptunes wouldn’t hold the attention of a two year old today, but in 1980 that small plastic case was like the promised land to a poor kid.

I decided that I would be helping Mr Man navigate those mazes, nom nom nomming all the way, on the regular. Of course, it didn’t work out like that. It’s hard to concentrate on spelling when you’re picturing the joy of crushing the high score on Pac-Man. Also, it’s hard to do well on tests that you don’t study for, even when you bring yourself to admit that (having lived on a military base) your German abilities were more of a neat trick than an impediment to native language excellence. It was clear that I would have to put in some effort.

After applying myself a little at spelling I soon learned the diminishing duration of power pellets on higher game levels, mocked the falsely ignorant ghost AI, and may have learned a few words too. Interestingly, the same principle seemed to apply in other subjects: there are rewards for learning. As a result, two of my longest standing interests – learning and video games – came together.

At least until I discovered that there was an arcade with Centipede not far from my house…

Hi There

I might be back; hard to tell.

You don’t care about this (really, you should be reading to your children or drawing a landscape in oil crayon or fine tuning your zombie invasion survival plans), but here’s what happened.

I used to blog from work until the Swiss internet police decided that there were better uses of employee time than commenting on or writing blog posts. Like watching our stock go down every day and listening to the public, government officials, and regulators tell us we suck required undivided attention. Whatever. I stopped blogging and focused a little more on other stuff. I used the time saved by not blogging for the past five months to buy a new pair of shoelaces and go to the bank. So that was nice. Also, I found a new job. Now I’m very busy and all that, but as Shrek said, “Better out than in”, so I plan to throw up some thoughts here from time to time.* I guarantee that they’ll be no more useful than anything previously written.

Without further ado, here is the comprehensive list of what I miss about my old firm:
- Hot milk

I am a creature of habit. I eat oatmeal for breakfast every day, unless Madame Delicious makes me something on a weekend morning. The best thing about my old firm was that the coffee machines could produce hot milk at just the right temperature for my oatmeal. It made a good breakfast into a treat. Warm, runny oatmeal in a cup every morning was the only thing to look forward to. And now it’s gone.
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* I dare you to include two thinly veiled references to disgusting discharge in a single sentence. Now do you believe that you should be doing something other than reading this?**

**Also, are you happy that gratuitously footnoted posts are back?