I have a top secret project in the works that may see the light of day this week or the next but I didn't want too much dust to settle on this place before then. Unfortunately I don't have much to say other than exposing myself as a giant nerd. Not that I was kidding anyone with the site design around here.

I recently stumbled upon The Backloggery. The site tracks your video game collection and which games have been completed. Its goal is to make you feel guilty about spending money on something that was never even removed from its shrink wrap. It's probably meant to be used for games you have some intention of actually finishing but just for fun I entered everything I had laying around.

I've come to the conclusion that I own way too many games considering the list doesn't even cover my Atari 2600, NES and any floppy disk based PC games. What's even worse is that at least half of those games aren't even very good. Like movies, for the most part, games in a bargain bin are there as a warning, yet somehow a few managed to infiltrate my collection. Thankfully it seems that trend peaked a few years ago. I guess that's one good thing about having less free time.

cravipat escaped the blue labyrinth long enough to write this.

0 adventurers found their way to the golden castle.

Words uncovered in the catacombs : video games

The video game era brought with it fame and fortune for those that sought it. Ordinary people with humble beginnings found themselves a household name. But for every star that continues to shine, such as the Mushroom Kingdom's Mario, there are countless others that fade just as quickly as they appeared. Peter Pepper is one such star.

Growing up Peter was fascinated by food. He'd spend hours creating realistic looking three course meals out of clay. It wasn't until a schoolyard friend said of his creations that they looked good enough to eat that an idea sparked in his head. With an overturned cardboard box on the street corner and some clay, paste and crayon shavings, Peter began selling his non-toxic foodstuffs to kids hungry for more than the usual mud pie and worm spaghetti. Soon the line stretched around the block and Peter was struggling to keep up with demand. Seeing the look of happiness on his customers face filled him with satisfaction. It was then that Peter made it his goal to feed the world.

Knowing what you want to do and actually doing it isn't always an easy task as Peter found out. He spent a few years at college taking a variety of courses. Anything that he thought would help him to reach for his dream. The few people he told about his goal laughed and made fun of him. So it was that Peter decided the best course of action would be to just start trying. With the last of his money, he bought an old run down warehouse to be the center of his food empire.

After months of experimentation and quite a few failed projects, Peter made a breakthrough. Giant hamburgers. They weren't your ordinary "you'll need two hands to eat it" burger though. Each was as tall as a man and almost twelve feet in diameter. A single burger could feed everyone in a normal sized town. Unable to pay for employees, Peter setup a complex system of scaffolding and platforms to allow him to efficiently complete the growing number of orders.

But then one night something very strange happened. An unpredicted electrical storm loomed over the town and struck the warehouse. Peter's failed experiments left to rot in the corner came to life like a bad science fiction movie. Oversized hot dogs, eggs and pickles were soon shuffling around inexplicably hungry for human flesh. Peter tried to defend himself from the mindless food horde while trying to complete the next day's orders. Even throwing spices in their faces and crushing them beneath the giant meat patties wasn't enough. Peter managed to escape, but the rampaging food zombies broke a gas line. The resulting explosion destroyed the warehouse and Peter's dreams.

The odd tragedy made national news and soon Peter found himself awash in offers, from head chef at national renown restaurants, to cookbook deals and even a made for TV movie. One deal was even so strange that Peter thought it was the perfect fit for this bizarre occurrence. So it was that Burgertime found its way into arcades across the nation.

With his new found fame and fortune, Peter was on top of the world. Money from the video game deal and the insurance on the warehouse was more than enough for him to start over. This time he'd start off a bit slower in order to build up more capital before unleashing the forces needed to feed the world. His first venture was to start up his own chain of restaurants, Peter Pepper's Burger Factory. The interiors were designed as imitations of the platform and scaffolding construction he had built in the warehouse. Each table had its own dumb waiter that would lower the food down to the customers and the servers were dressed as the food-come-to-life that had threatened his that one stormy night. The menu consisted of miniature versions of his giant hamburgers. Even at this reduced size they were still large enough to fill a whole plate.

Peter got so consumed in his burger vision that he forgot about the dream that started him on this path. The public growing bored with burgers hunted for the next cool place to eat. Within two years of opening its doors the Burger Factories closed down. Peter, along with his dwindling fortune, disappeared from the public's eye. He spent the next few years traveling from place to place, gathering up local recipes.

The last known sighting of Mr. Pepper was on the hit Japanese show Iron Chef. Peter was slated to become one of the iron chefs, Iron Chef Burger, but never appeared in more than his debut episode where he suffered a terrible loss. When asked to comment Peter had this to say: "I hate that Chairman Kaga. What kind of secret ingredient is asparagus anyway? How am I supposed to make burgers with that? He's just mad that I switched out one of his peppers with one made out of wax. How was I supposed to know he was going to take a big bite out of it? He's not even a real chairman." With that Peter Pepper, his burgers, and dreams of feeding the world disappeared.

cravipat escaped the blue labyrinth long enough to write this.

0 adventurers found their way to the golden castle.

Words uncovered in the catacombs : video games

Without a doubt Mario has jumped his way to being the top hero of the video game world, but the climb wasn't easy, even for one with fiery flowers and magical capes at his disposal. After some extensive research, I've gathered the truth behind Mario's rise to fame, which is presented here for the first time. Interviews with friends and family will portray the struggles that our hero has faced.

What better place to begin than the beginning. Born on a cold and stormy night, it seemed fate knew what was in store for this new baby. Doctor Malamar remembers the delivery well.

"I've delivered lots of babies, but none stand out more than Mario. I've seen my share of babies born with a full head of hair, but he came out with a full-grown mustache. None of the other doctors or nurses has seen anything like it. I knew right then this kid was going to have a hard time through life, which was only reinforced when his parents named him. I presented the baby to the parents and asked if they had a name yet. Their response was 'Mario', so I felt I needed to clarify myself. 'I know he'll have your last name. I was asking about his first name,' I told them. 'Mario is his first name,' came their reply. I really took pity on that poor baby then. What kind of sick twisted sense of humor leads to someone naming their child Mario Mario?"

What king of monster indeed. Mario M. Mario, yes, even his middle name was Mario, grew up to be the prime target of schoolyard bullies. Even though they made his childhood a living nightmare, it was here that he learned the skills that eventually brought him fame and fortune. Whether it was dodging rocks aimed for his skull or jumping from tree to tree, Mario pushed himself to the limit to escape his tormentors. When escape wasn't an option, he often used bribery, giving the bullies the change he had found in exchange for his freedom.

After years of punishment Mario could finally take no more. He decided to drop out of school and hope the real world would treat him better. Without an education, Mario was forced to take whatever he could find and eventually ended up working on a construction crew. His foreman, George, remembers his fantastic abilities and the incident that lead to his dismissal.

"I wish all my workers could be like Mario. That guy knew how to walk the steel. He was all jumpin' and climbing and dodging. It was amazing. But then the incident happened. I came in early to find the whole site practically demolished and there was Mario with some floozy in a torn dress. It seems Mario brought his new girlfriend to the job site for some late night skyscraper action if you know what I mean. From what I understand some giant ape escaped from the zoo and happened upon the lovers. Instead of alerting the authorities Mario decided to take matters into his own hands. Sure he got the job done, but months of work were destroyed. Not to mention the giant smelly ape corpse I had to deal with. I had no choice but to give Mario the boot."

Jobless, Mario soon found himself spiraling into the depths of depression. He blamed the ape for his problems and grew paranoid that there were other apes out there waiting to further ruin his miserable life. With the last of his money Mario outfitted himself for a jungle expedition to hunt down as many apes as possible. Armed with giant cages and wind-up traps, he found it wasn't going to be as easy as he thought. Mario didn't account for the strong sense of community in the ape kingdom. For each ape he captured there was always a younger ape that was willing to risk his life for a daring rescue.

Out of food, out of traps and out of patience Mario returned to the city. With nowhere to turn Mario sought help from his only brother, Luigi. Having started his own successful plumbing company, Mario was hoping with his previous construction skills he could give his brother a hand. Luigi looks back to those days with regret.

"At first I was happy to help my brother out of a jam. I know things haven't been easy for him, so I figured I'd give him a try and in the beginning it was great. The mistake was changing the company name to Mario Bros. Plumbing. I was hoping to cash in on people that love to support family run businesses, but people started thinking my brother ran the company and that it was named after him. It bad enough my name is Luigi Mario, but now people are beginning to think Mario is the head of my own company."

"But I tried to put it all aside since we managed to get a big contract from the city. They needed a crew to go into the sewers and handle any issues with the pipes. I figured it would be simple stuff, a clog here, a leak there. Instead I find out the city has a massive animal control problem in the sewers. There was all kinds of crazy stuff down there. Turtles, crabs, and giant insects were all over the place. Not to mention the combustible gasses that would occasionally flare up. It was crazy but we kept at it."

Then one day more than animals came out of the pipes. Mario started to hear voices. Voices that were crying out for a savior. The brothers argued for some time about whether or not to investigate. Luigi was all too familiar with things that lurked in pipes, especially in the sewer, but Mario stubbornly held out until the only thing the other brother could do was follow along.

The brothers emerged from the pipe to find themselves in a strange new world. A world that would not only test all the skills Mario had learned so far, but also bring him fame and fortune. Fighting his way through horde of creature the likes of which he had never seen before, Mario headed for the castle he could see on the horizon. Though bottomless pits, underground caverns, giant mushrooms and even lava pools stood in his way, Mario came face to face with the castle's dread master. A terrible foe with the hard shell of a turtle with a dragon's ability to shoot fire, but it was no match for Mario's prowess. Deep within the castle Mario found the source of the voices he had been hearing. Toad, the mushroom retainer, remembers the rescue well.

"I sure was glad to be out of that sack. I smelled like old potatoes for a week. Anyway, I remember Mario getting all upset because while I told him the princess was in another castle I said I wasn't sure which one. In reality I knew which castle it was but I wanted to make sure he helped the other retainers first. I mean what's the big idea stuffing us in a sack."

Six other retainers later Mario stormed Bowser's castle where he believed the princess was being held prisoner. Everyone knows the final outcome, but after years of silence Bowser tells his side of the tale.

"Your wedding day is supposedly the happiest day of your life. At least it is if you don't have an arranged marriage. I didn't want to marry some pink squishy thing anyway, but my parents kept going on and on about the joining of the Koopa Kingdom and the Mushroom Kingdom and blah, blah, blah. Then those stupid little retainers started causing a ruckus. I guess they had a little too much to drink before they showed up, so we stuffed them into sacks and shipped them out of there so the wedding could get started. The next thing I knew there is this guy with a funny mustache challenging me to a fight. Let me tell you I can still remember the stench of that guy. It was like he just crawled out of the sewer or something. Anyway, I would have won if he hadn't flipped the switch to the drawbridge and run off like a coward. He can have the princess for all I care, but no one drops Bower into a pool of lava. We've had our little feud ever since."

Now the self-proclaimed protector of Mushroom Kingdom, Mario found the fame and respect he couldn't get in the real world, but now you know the difficult road that lead to it, which some might consider the rest of the story.

cravipat escaped the blue labyrinth long enough to write this.

0 adventurers found their way to the golden castle.

Words uncovered in the catacombs : video games

Last night I had a dream where Arnold Schwarzenegger told me to get my fanny to Mars. Or maybe I just fell asleep while watching Total Recall on TBS. In either case how can I ignore a direct order from the governor of a state I don't live in?

Unfortunately a trip to Mars is a bit out of my price range, but I know of another trip that's just as dangerous but a bit cheaper. It's free. So come join me on my adventure down memory lane and the Oregon Trail.

Our journey begins back in 1848. Having grown tired of being an Illinois farmer, I packed my bags and gathered a formidable crew to help me on my path to a new life. But first we needed to buy some supplies. I gathered up my life savings of $400 and headed to Matt's General Store.

I think Matt is a cheat. Oh, he had lots of helpful "suggestions" but I find it hard to trust someone that's already managed to run all his competition out of town. Why do I need two pairs of clothes anyway? It's not like I'll be doing laundry along the way.

With lighter pockets, my super friends helped me load the wagon so we could be on our way. Before we left I talked to one of the locals who insisted I buy more clothes that I could trade to the Indians. I think I saw a Matt's General Store nametag under his vest. I hate this place. So long "Independence."

We survived blizzards and spent three days chasing an ox that thought he'd rather travel alone but we finally arrived at the Kansas River crossing. It was time to make a decision. Do we take our chance at fording the 6-foot deep river (oxen are taller than six feet, right?) or caulk our wagon and ride it down the river as the first ATV. Spiderman suggested we wait in the line for the ferry, but that guy wanted to charge $5. That would have bought half an outfit back at Matt's. I was sure if we waited it out the river would eventually dry up and we could cross safely.

After three days of camping the river showed no signs of evaporating, not to mention the fact that Superman was eating through our supplies faster than a speeding bullet. So with much grumbling I paid the $5 to the ferry master and spent the next five days waiting for our turn.

We made it to our next destination without incident, only to be greeted with another river crossing. Luckily this one was only two and a half feet deep, so I got to keep my five bucks this time. It's too bad we had to wait a day for our supplies to dry out because Batman and Wolverine insisted on having a splash fight half way through the ford.

I was happy to leave the rivers behind but it wasn't long before tragedy struck. I'm pretty sure Matt sabotaged our wagon because we didn't buy any of his overpriced spare parts. How hard could it be to repair a wheel anyway I thought? Cavemen managed to make wheels. Turns out it's pretty hard. Four super heroes couldn't even fix a wooden wheel. I knew I should have brought the Professor instead of Wolverine. Somehow we continued on with our broken wheel.

A few days latter we passed a grave of an unfortunate traveler. He must have really like pizza and misspelling things.

Superman fell asleep on guard duty and a thief made off with our oxen. How he fit them into those tiny boxes I'll never know.

Even after all that we arrived at Fort Kearney, nestled between the Dolph River and the Jimbo Mountains. A visit to their gift shop made me reconsider my views on Matt's prices. After briefly considering setting up shop and selling off our remaining supplies at a nice profit, we decided to continue on.

We took a break to do a little hunting to help replenish our food stores. I did my best to help thin out the overpopulated buffalo. Turns out I misheard that Indian about the number of buffalo remaining. Sorry about that. If it makes you feel any better another thief came by and took off with most of the meat.

In other news Spiderman is sick. We were so busy tending to him that we almost didn't notice the thief that took off with 38 of our bullets. It's just as I suspected. The thief left behind a button that reads: Matt's General Store; The Only Store In Town. The game is on.

Chimney Rock was an impressive sight. That night Batman molded his mashed potatoes into a replica of it and continued to insist that it meant something. Superman flung peas at him and I had to send everyone to bed without dinner.

Not to be outdone, Superman acquired a disease of his own. Everyone teased him that the only way he could get sick is if he allowed himself to. He spent the next three days crying in the back of the wagon.

We stopped at Fort Laramie long enough to pick up some cartons of cigarettes, also overpriced, before continuing on.

Spiderman and Wolverine got into an argument over if we were traveling in circles. It seems Wolverine confused our starting location with our current destination of Independence Rock. I saw Batman scribble his name on the rock when he thought no one was looking.

At South Pass a young girl told me a sob story about her sick father. It seems they've been traveling too hard and now he's sick. Serves him right. Now while he's resting I'll get to Oregon and steal his prime piece of land. Turtle wins again, sucker.

Unlike the broken wheel a broken axel is no match for my super compadres. Unfortunately they were so proud of themselves they didn't notice we were on the wrong trail. Thanks for the wasted five days guys.

Superman attempts to befriend a snake. We tried to explain that it probably wasn’t a good idea. The whole thing ended in tears. Again.

I was just thinking you know it's been a while since someone tried to con me out of money when we came to the Green River crossing. At 21 feet deep I figured it was a good idea just to pay up. But I didn't take any pictures out of spite.

It's Batman's turn to have some strange disease. Wasn't typhoid a Daredevil villain?

At the Soda Springs we all took some time to quench our thirst. I had a Black Cherry Vanilla Coke. Wolverine was mad that they didn't have any Blue Pepsi. We tried to explain that soda hadn't been produced in years and even when it had, it was nasty.

I have nothing bad to say about Fort Hall. Our stay was very pleasant and I indicated so on our comment sheet.

Is eating one of your oxen allowed? Because if it's not just pretend I ever asked. But in my defense, that thief struck again stealing most of our food. And I swear that wagon really was abandoned.

At Snake River crossing there wasn’t even a ferry. I had to hire an Indian that insisted on payment of 3 sets of clothes. I would have rather paid the $5. Superman, Batman and Wolverine are lucky we found those spare sets or the rest of the trip would have been very awkward.

Wah, wah. Now the whining starts. I'm cold. I'm hot. When are we getting there? I have dysentery. They're a bunch of super crybabies if you ask me.

We made it to Fort Boise. More like Fort Boxy, right? No one laughed.

Next was the Blue Mountains. More like Not Blue At All Mountains, right? Still no laughs.

After Batman's little incident we all came up with his new theme song. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, na, crutches. He wasn't amused. Where has all the fun gone?

Eventually we came to The Dalles, which turned out to be an exciting water park. They strapped our wagon to a raft and sent us down a rock filled river. They even took our picture at the end, which Wolverine ruined by lifting up his shirt.

Our river ride brought us right to our new home. When we parked our wagon some guy ran up and handed me a scorecard. It's no Mars but I'd like to think we did pretty ok.

cravipat escaped the blue labyrinth long enough to write this.

11 adventurers found their way to the golden castle.

Words uncovered in the catacombs : video games

Let me make this quick, since apparently my brain may slip into a coma any second now.

If you haven't quite figured it out from the layout around here, I enjoy video games. I have for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately I've come to the realization that the growing pile of games I've yet to finish, or even start in some cases, isn't a coincidence. I no longer have the same amount of free time. Games that claim hundreds of hours of game play now take months to finish instead of the weeks my younger self would devote.

What does this self-pitying tale have to do with my dying brain? I'm getting to that. You see I've been focusing on playing games that are more manageable in bite sized chunks, such as the Nintendo DS's Brain Age.

I wouldn't call Brain Age a game in the normal sense, unless your idea of fun is math problems. A floating polygonal doctor head guides you through some fast paced mental exercises and then diagnoses how old your brain is based on your results. The truth is I'm mainly after the 100 levels of sudoku, but I figured it might give the old noggin a workout. So what was the doc's good word? My brain age is 80 years old.

I'm sure you're thinking that's pretty bad but it could be worse. Let me assure you that it can't. 80 years old is the highest age you can get, which does explain why I've been feeling the urge to yell at kids to get off my lawn. Whippersnappers.

cravipat escaped the blue labyrinth long enough to write this.

2 adventurers found their way to the golden castle.

Words uncovered in the catacombs : video games