I have a sign on my bathroom wall. It's not a picture of a sailboat with my name next to it, nor is it one of those cutesy depictions of a cherubic boy and girl asking visitors to not pee in the pool. It's a street sign. One of those Neighborhood Watch signs with the giant blue eye admonishing passersby that their every move is being watched.

The exact wording of the sign is as follows: "Neighborhood Crime Watch! We immediately report all suspicions persons and activities to our Sheriff's department."

I have occasionally considered finding whoever originally hung that sign and suing them for false advertising. Because not once in the fifteen years or so since my friend Adam and I parked my Honda Civic behind a bush, grabbed a folding chair and a socket wrench from the trunk, sprinted towards the pole upon which this sign was hung and spent ten minutes removing it, have either of us received a visit from the Bexar County Sheriff. This would seem to indicate that either A) our activities on that night were not deemed "suspicious," or that B) nobody was really watching after all.

I'm a dabbler. I dabble. Sometimes I dabble in cooking styles, sometimes in fashion, sometimes in major life changes. Occasionally something sticks, but more often than not, after I'm done with my dabbling, I return to the old tried and true. Like chicken-fried steak, black t-shirts and jobs that suck.

For the past six years I've been unable to instantly recall my age. It often takes a few seconds. Sometimes I even have to look at my driver's license and do the math. Last year, as the calendar was almost used up, I discovered that my birthday was upon me yet again, and after doing the math, I realized that it was the thirtieth time.

The day was December 24th, 2004. Christmas Eve. In Boston, it was freezing-ass cold, there was snow on the ground, and I was sick. Very sick. My Christmas tree had tried to kill me.

or: Why The End of the World Will Be Funny


Sometimes I think too much. I take heart in knowing that I'm not alone in this. Lots of people think too much (I think).

I remember seeing an episode of Monster Garage that paired up a couple of MIT-style brainiac engineers with a team of blue-collar welders to create some Monster Something or another. I think it was a hovercraft. The brainiac engineers wasted half the week over-thinking the project. They bickered, they argued and they planned. There was a lot of planning. By the time Mr. James came down on them like Maxwell's silver hammer, the project was in such disarray that they had to start over from scratch. Jesse threw their plans out the window and the team started over. Thirty-six hours of flat-out, head down, hands moving, STFU and get "˜er done work later they still didn't have a finished product and they lost. Everyone felt bad. The engineers, still thinking too much, blamed everyone else. They came out looking like buffoons.

This is why I try not to think too much. It tends to over-complicate relatively simple, straightforward situations and make one look like a buffoon. Fun word to write. Bad way to be.

I can think of about half a dozen good games that I've played over the past ten years that I bought as soon as they were released. Going back all the way to the beginning of my illustrious gaming career, that number perhaps doubles.

For those of you who are counting, that's a dozen games in more than twenty years.

I know a man who owns an Xbox and only one game. That game is Halo, and this man is an Obsessive/Compulsive.

Life goes on. That is what we say, because if we are alive to say it, then it is true.

My recent trip to see the folks in Texas inspired me to do some handheld gaming. Four hours on a plane is a tall order, and sometimes, Tetris Worlds is all that will get you through. Except when your plane is diverted to Tulsa, due to inclement weather, and you end up sitting on an Oklahoma runway for three hours without food, water or booze. Then it's time for the big guns.

At the time, the only thing remotely close to a "big gun" I had with me was Zelda: Link's Awakening. So I decided to give it a shot again. I honestly couldn't remember the last time I'd played it, and I assumed that I set it aside because I got busy with other things - not because I hated it. Besides, a six-month break usually makes me hungry for almost anything again (except fish tacos). So I supposed that it was about time to finish the quest once and for all.

Several days later, I remembered why I'd started this whole damn thing to begin with, and also why I called it quits. Therefore, it is not without some ambiguity that I bring you the resurrection of an article series.

I have a list. This list is titled Things I Do Not Like. On this list are a great many things. Foreign films, choking on fish bones, and going without sex, are just a few. These are entries number one hundred and three, eighty seven and two, respectively. At position number three, is driving in Boston.

Boston is one of those cities in which you are not supposed to own a car. There's no law or anything, and no one will come out and tell you this even if you ask. You're just not supposed to have one. If you're foolish enough to disobey this rule, then your contraband vehicle will be keyed, the headlights will get stolen, you will rarely find a place to park and when you do, your car will be buried under an avalanche of snow every time the road is plowed. When this happens you will more than likely decide to simply leave it there, cocooned under a ton or so of frozen water. Because driving it around is worse.

First of all, there are no street signs in Boston. None. I'm not sure that they even make them here. This would make finding one's way around difficult enough, yet not much more difficult than driving in other places, if not for the fact that most of the roads in Boston were planned by cows.

Hello, fair readers. This is Certis, making a small change to Fletcher's article. I'm given to understand that a few people have been blocked by their work filters from seeing the front page due to the saucy nature of his opening. I assure you the language is mainly clinical (yet sexy) so while I take no issue with it, apparently the filters do. That being the case, please click "Read More" to jump right into the article. Enjoy!