linkismyhero

The last entry was a rant and I've been chomping at the bit to post another entry to make up for it.

I promised you my recollections of the awesomeness video games have imparted to* my life (* I am not sure which preposition to use with "impart"). I will get to tha memoriez but first let me get some "bidness" out of the way: my SuicideGirls GreaseMonkey Extensions. That sounds like some really bad fake hair (here's an example of really good fake hair) when it reality they are plugins, created by ME, that do some sneaky behind the scenes work on whatever webpage I want to fuck with, to make it work more to my liking. Here, my compatriots, are your instructions:

1. Start using Firefox like everyone else in the world (I say that with love because I am currently transitioning to it myself after many relatively happy months -- years perhaps -- of Avant Browser. It was a bitch to find all the plugins to make Firefox work like Avant Browser does, let me tell you.)
2. Install the GreaseMonkey extension and restart Firefox.
3. Right-click on any of the following links to my scripts and choose "Install User Script".
4. If you experience difficulties with my plugins, do not, I repeat, DO NOT contact any member of SG staff, ever. I'm the one who has to field all your stupid tech support questions (they won't be stupid but in my frustration I'll want to say they are). So leave Olivia alone and, as "Blaque" said so many years ago, "bring it all to me".

• Sticker Gallery Fix - Ever notice how you can't actually see any of the sticker images in the gallery? It's a problem that nobody's bothered to fix, so I went ahead and made a fix for it. All the images will appear in their normal size once more.


• Hidden Edit - This little script removes all "edited on" lines that are automatically tacked on to edited posts, because I hate them and don't feel the need to know when a post has been edited.


• Boards Image Resize - This will resize any picture on the boards that is too wide for the table and would otherwise get cut off. NOTE that the images made to fit the table will look funky with some slight jagged edges. If you don't like that, don't use it. But if you want to be able to see the whole image and don't mind the slight funkiness, you may like it. BUG WARNING it doesn't always work for infuriating reasons. SG is such an image-intensive site that the script may miss a few images here and there. I'll continue to try to fix this but I'm pretty frustrated with that particular problem at this point.


• Journals and Groups Image Resize - Same as above but does its magic in journals and groups instead. Once again, funkiness warning and bug warnings apply here.


• Sean Skull & Crossbones Background - Just for fun, I made a script that adds a skull and crossbones to the background of Sean's ominous black posts. I darkened the image quite a bit so it shouldn't be terribly hard to read. Here is an example of it in action.

Once again, do NOT go crying to staff if one of my scripts fucks up the site for you. That is my problem to handle, not theirs. If any of my scripts makes Firefox crash when it loads the page (and I don't see why any of them would, I've tested them thoroughly), you can start Firefox in safe mode by running it from the command line (Windows users do Start > Run) and adding "-safe-mode" (without quotes) after the Firefox.exe part. Then go to Tools > Manage User Scripts and uninstall the script that's fucking you up. And then for the love of God TELL ME so I can fix the damn thing.

On a slightly related note, for the computer-programming-savvy of you out there, re: the disappearing apostrophes in our pics folder captions.

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With that bit of "bidness" and chatter out of the way, here, as promised, are some of my fondest memories of the joy video games have brought me. I originally wrote this for my LiveJournal, but I've made some modifications for here. I loved writing this and remembering all this stuff and hopefully you'll like it too. And if you have video game memories, or memories of something that forms a core part of your childhood, I'd LOVE to hear them. Indulge me please.

Video games have been a HUGE part of my life since I was little. I wouldn't really be the same without them... they bring me a lot of joy and are responsible for some of the happier memories from my childhood. I even remember the first time I EVER played a video game in my life... it was at the birthday party of a girl from my elementary school named Shilpy (it's an Indian name). She had an NES with Super Mario Bros. and other titles, and I remember how wowed I was by SMB (I distinctly remember my first moments playing it not understanding that I had to jump to get over the pipes [which I thought were flower pots because, hey, piranha plants are plants, plus you have to admit they look a lot like flower pots]).

Nintendo was one of the things that tied me together with my best friend growing up. I have a lot of memories of playing Nintendo with her, and growing up and discovering new games together. I remember that time we warped to level 5 in SMB and got to Bowser's castle. In all of Bowser's castles there are these rotating lines of fireballs you have to jump over and not get hit by or you die. But in the level 5 castle there's a HUGE fireball thing, at least twice as long as the normal ones... and my friend and I SCREAMED when we saw it. We were very young then.

Many years later I brought over my cartridge of Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle (a fighting game) and told her my plan of recording the music from it from the TV. She provided the tape recorder and tape (I remember the case of the tape was this weird kind I'd never seen before, nor seen since, with an L-shaped cover you had to flip to the side to open). I remember sitting there with her, holding the tape recorder to the TV speaker and having the game sit there in two player mode with neither fighter moving. There were a bunch of times we were trying hard not to giggle because we had to stay so quiet so we didn't mess up the recordings. Just now I looked for the tape but couldn't find it, though I found the one I'm about to mention next.

It's funny now because it's a lot easier to get music off of video games because of the whole emulation thing. Just yesterday I made an mp3 of my favorite song from the very game from which my aforementioned tattoo idea comes, Tetris Attack. There's a rather interesting twist, though... I don't think there exists a working ROM of Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle. Maybe there is now, but a couple years ago the only version of it floating around, that I could find at least, was corrupt. There may be no way to dump the sound files from the game because there isn't a working ROM out there (and I've thought of buying some ROM-dumping hardware just so I can dump my cartridge of Ranma 1/2: Hard Battle and be the one to spread the game around the internet gaming world... I still own the cartridge, and I'm sure it still works).

For a school science project we had to make an audio tape explaining the digestive system. I remember this very very well because it was so much fun to make. With my love of video games I decided to record parts of games as the background music to my tape, and use some of the sound effects in hilarious ways (like the sound of one of The Lost Vikings pushing something as the sound of the intestines pushing food around o_O). The premise of my tape was that it was an advertisement for a special tiny ship that you'd shrink to get into and take a tour of the digestive system (not an original idea by any means... nowadays they have encapsulated cameras you can swallow to sort of REALLY take a tour of the digestive system). One of my jokes was that the tiny ship was made in Japan... and I used some of the ancient-Japanese-sounding intro music from Legend of the Mystical Ninja in the background when I made the joke I was so proud of that tape.

And now, friends, I have FOUND it:



Honestly I'm totally afraid to listen to it. I'm gonna be so embarrassed. But I know I HAVE to. And maybe one of you can tell me how to make it into an mp3. I've tried simply plugging my walkman into the "audio in" port in the back of my computer, but although it did pick up the sound, it freaked out and there were a lot of loud and unpleasant pops and cracks. I think I'd have to buy some device... but if it's just for one stinkin' tape I don't want to buy it and then have this useless device sitting around. Besides, cassettes are crappy quality. What's the point? But if there's an easy way to make it into an mp3 you can tell me and I can play it for you, provided I can overcome my immense shame.

A long long time before I made that tape, when I was staying at my dad's apartment one time, I drew this whole Super Mario Bros. comic book. In my story Bowser had developed a "freezing gun" and used it to freeze Mario or the Princess or something, and one of them had to save the other (it was probably the Princess saving Mario because I love her so much). I swear I had some pages of that still with me, but I looked for them recently and couldn't find them. If I do find them I have to scan them and show you.

I remember being sick one time and we rented Rampage for NES, a game where you could be either a Godzilla- or King Kong-type monster and had to destroy the entire United States by going from city to city and climbing up the buildings and punching holes in them until they crumbled, all while avoiding the U.S. Army that was shooting at you and trying to stop you. There are a million levels obviously (one for every state at least) and I totally beat the WHOLE game when I was sick that one time. And there was no way to save the game so I had just played and played for hours straight. I don't remember if the game uses passwords but I'm pretty sure it doesn't (I have the NES ROM on my computer so I could check). The funny thing about it is that the ending is SO disappointing. It's just a picture of the U.S. with all the states greyed out and "congratulations" in rather small letters in the middle of the screen, with the Godzilla and King Kong characters (called Lizzie and George in the game) standing there looking victorious. No victory sequence, just a single victory screen, after a game that takes many hours to beat, with no way to save.

I'm sure I have plenty more memories I could share. I'll think about it and will probably write some more in the future. Now tell me YOUR memories... I had fun looking back so maybe you will too.

P.S.:



Having been rummaging around in my huge wicker trunk to look for those tapes, I discovered my rainbow-laser-hologram box with a bunch of figurines inside, including these three I'd forgotten about. You KNOW you want these. You totally do. But you can't have them. They're MINE.

P.P.S.:



On my computer this image is named "juicinthekoosh.jpg". This is truly the softest koosh ball to ever flop around on the face of the earth. They don't make 'em like they used to.