Sega Genesis

Going for the trifecta in posting three days in a row. Never done that before. The 63 posts that I completed yesterday have taken me more than two years to author. And at least eight of them are chapters from an e-book I wrote (for all you dedicated Apple people, there’s a Kindle app), where I bound myself to publishing a new chapter every two weeks, like Sir Charles Dickens serialized his novels back in the 19th century.

So this will be lucky #64. Sixty-four is sort of significant. You can write it as 2⁶ (two to the sixth power). It also reminds me of Nintendo’s 64-bit gaming console, N64.

Nevertheless, I was a Sega Genesis guy (16-bit).

So when I was little—maybe 8 or so—I’d play Sega’s X-Men like every day. Errrrry day. I completed level after level after level. Then I got stuck on the second-to-last stage for what seemed like a couple of months.

I just couldn’t figure out how to beat it. You see, at the end of this level, a message appeared. It said ‘RESET THE COMPUTER.’ Yet there was nowhere on the screen to reset the computer. A timer counted down, and frantically I searched for a solution. Time after time, the clock would dial down to zero and I would lose. I’d lose a life and have to start the second-to-last level all over again.

Eventually, I’d run out of lives and have to restart the entire game. Slowly, I’d make my way back.

After a while, when I approached this fateful, seemingly dead end, my eyes would glance down at the Sega Genesis itself.

There was a little, grey reset button there. It was installed by the manufacturers to reset the console, in case a game ran into glitches—kind of like restarting your computer. As I watched the clock winding down, time after time, an idea slowly crept into my mind: What if that was the solution?

I was extremely hesitant resorting to such a drastic measure. If it truly was not the solution, I would lose everything. No matter how many lives I had at the end of the second-to-last level, I would surely have to start from scratch. The risk for failure seemed too great.

One day, I got fed up with inevitably losing. I reached the end of that level and the clock began counting down. I felt like Arnold Schwarzenegger (Dutch) when Predator initiated his self-destruct sequence and the digital wristband counted down in those weird alien numbers. In a fit of pure, pre-pubescent adrenaline, I threw caution to the wind and pushed that grey button.

The screen went blank. I thought for sure it didn’t work.

Then a little green cursor appeared in the upper-left corner of the TV screen. And messages scrolled across the display. The Sega Genesis had indeed not been reset. At last, I had “RESET THE COMPUTER,” as the X-Men game had been telling me to do.

This experience has stuck with me all these years. It symbolizes an evolution in thinking, a paradigm shift. In some ways it represents a fundamental change in the way I perceived Sega Genesis, the X-Men game and how I solve difficult life problems to this day.

Verse

RRRRRRRRecursionnnnnnn

Recursion, as a concept, is hard to define because to adequately articulate its intelligible identity, you have to break the golden rule of dictionaries: never use the word in its own definition.

Mathematically, physically, logically this is the very nature of a recursive process, function, organic sequence.

Anyway, this urge to define the indefinable resulted in this post. Let’s begin at the source of all linguistic definition…

recursive |riˈkərsiv|

adjective

Relating to or involving a program or routine of which a part requires the application of the whole, so that its explicit interpretation requires in general many successive executions.

It’s especially used in computer programming to define an infinite set of objects in one finite statement. Stated more concisely, a recursive definition is defined in terms of itself. If you break down a complex problem into smaller parts, you can solve the simpler parts and then combine their results.

“…a recursive definition is defined in terms of itself.”

You know the function, as a whole, itself. So any instances of it in smaller parts of the same problem cancel out and you’re left with the remainder that shows itself plain as day. In other words, you can isolate the inconsistencies. The variable randomness or designed change.

Occurrences of this phenomenon in nature include the nautilus shell you may find lying in the sand on a beach. The shell builds upon itself in an outward spiraling growth that never closes the circle and only ends when the cells are no longer capable of regenerating.

I’m pretty sure it’s how you psychologically incept someone too. Although, existentially, it’s just a way to rise above the self and see the world from a vantage point separated from the self. Like a less dramatic out-of-body experience.

Let’s put the concept to action…

Imagine only being able to go back or forth your entire life. And then suddenly, you’re aware of these two directions. And in becoming aware of this limited duality, you imagine that maybe there’s another direction—a third path. So you apply the same skill you learned going forward or back, yet you shift your thinking into the possibility of this newly perceived, newly imagined reality.

Now tread sideways.

Top 10 Lists

Top 10 Movies Narrated by Main Characters


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“Election” is narrated by all four of its main characters throughout the story. Maybe the director took a page from William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury.”

The Grinch shares the same voice as the narrator in this animated, Dr. Seuss holiday classic. This leads me to believe that maybe the Grinch himself is narrating his own rhyming epic. And then I wonder if we can even believe him. Maybe the greatest trick the Grinch ever pulled was convincing the world how he saved Christmas.

The main character in “Fight Club” is actually named “the narrator.” So this one seemed like a no-brainer. I am Jack’s propensity to state the obvious.

John Hughes, the writer/director of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” took a fairly unique approach to progressing the plot of his 1986 masterpiece. Inserted between the lines and the scene descriptions, Hughes broke the fourth wall with full passages where Ferris addressed the audience. He was like the host of his own holiday.

Hughes was supposed to write a teleplay for some TV show, one night. Instead, he stayed up writing a script that would forever “Save Ferris” in the hearts and minds of the eternal American zeitgeist. The original screenplay for “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is largely what made it to the silver screen. Although, if you do read it, there’s a little more about the Charlie Sheen character, the druggie whom Bueller’s sister Jeanie encounters in the police station toward the end.

One of Ferris’ soliloquies mentions this kid, Garth Volbeck. He was a “serious outsider.” Ferris used to sleep over Garth’s house as a child. Baby Bueller could hear little Garth crying himself to sleep. Eventually, Garth succumbs to the fate of his delinquent older brother and was banned from the Bueller Household. But Ferris, the people person and ever the optimist, knew Garth Volbeck was still a good kid.

Ferris mentions Volbeck fairly early in the story, but we don’t see him until much later, giving Jean some much needed worldly advice, on the waiting room couch inside Shermer Police Headquarters. Of course, this paradigm shift in Jeanie is what ultimately saves Ferris, from evil Ed Rooney and losing the trust of his loving parents. I’m not sure why they didn’t leave Volbeck’s backstory in the final cut… “Drugs?”

“The Royal Tenenbaums” is narrated by Alec Baldwin. He doesn’t actually appear as a character in the story. So this one’s sort of an exception to this particular Top 10 list. Although Alec Baldwin is, himself, a character. He’s also a comedian who likes to get coffee. And I’m sure if I told the man himself that he won a spot on this list, despite never appearing on screen nor having any impact on the plot of the Wes Anderson joint, “The Royal Tenenbaums,” he’d look me in the eye and say, “Are you surprised?”

“The Shawshank Redemption” is narrated by Red, played by Morgan Freeman. Great narrating voice. Red does a lot of documentaries these days.

As far back as I can remember, “GoodFellas,” is narrated by main character Henry Hill, played by Mr. Ray Liotta.

“Zombieland” interweaves through the lattice of main character Columbus’s infallible list of tips for surviving The Land of Zombies. In the end, the squirrelly protagonist played by the equally awkward child-prodigy Jesse Eisenberg learns the most important lesson of all: some rules are made to be broken. Aside from being the main character of the 2009 cult hit “Zombieland,” Columbus is also our hero, albeit a beta male. Of course, alpha sidekick Woody Harrelson fills the testosterone gap by assuming the tough-talkin’ Tallahassee role, a zombie assassin outfitted with a unique, supernatural talent for taking out the undead.

“The Princess Bride” is a framed story about a grandfather reconnecting with his grandson. I only have two words for this comedic gem: Peter Falk.

Finally, the eponymous lead role’s narration in “Juno” takes up a fraction of the feature film’s runtime, but the movie’s just that good. And there’s enough first-person narration to warrant its spot as No. 10 on this list. Even when Ellen Page isn’t talking directly to the audience, the dialogue with which talented screenwriter Diablo Cody graces each script page is about as good as it gets in terms of an authentic account psychoanalyzing the mind of a teenage girl dealing with issues way beyond her maturity level.

Verse

Long ago…

Long ago, I chose a single path for myself. Point A would lead to Point B. From there, Point C would logically follow. The strategy resembled man’s rudimentary understanding of time, which many posited to take a linear course. That we all followed a single, unbroken thread. This, of course, never panned out and for a while I could not figure why. If I could not change how the chaos of reality (i.e. the world outside of my control) functioned, then I would evolve my thinking.

I adopted a multi-point plan. I would pursue many paths at once, always leaving my options open. When in the moment—in the present, yet mindful of the future and knowledgeable of the past—I would select which point made the most sense then. Stepping upon those impromptu stones, a new array of possibilities would present themselves. At the next chance to make a choice, I selected the firmest situated stone, at this point further into the future.

Sometimes I’d make missteps, but those provided the silver lining of a learning opportunity. The next time I’d see a similar stone before me, I’d know not to lean so heavily upon it.

This is the nature of the Universe, or our perceivable reality. We’re not granted one set path that lies before us, ready to walk. There are infinite routes, which we alter at each fork. They are based in the information available and our intuition of best possible outcomes, from the actions we take at these pivotal junctures.

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Monthly Archives: May 2014