Articles

by Jeff Strand December 20, 2002

The Seriously Whacked Point of View "Passing the Buck, Part Two" by Jeff Strand

It's the holiday season, that special time of year when dedicated adventure game humor columnists try to foist their work off on somebody else so they have more time to do Christmas shopping and see The Two Towers. (Lord of the Rings Trivia Question: How many times has my wife stated, dreamily, that Orlando Bloom is a hottie? Answer: 23 and counting.)

Anyway, this column is a continuation of my last one, where I asked innocent people on the Gameboomers bulletin board to write mini-columns for me to post here and ridicule. Of course, by this point in the message thread everybody had pretty much completely lost sight of that task, but losing sight of the topic at hand is what this column is all about!

So, after the exciting postings from last time, we moved on to a query from "Agent Provocateur" who wanted to know "If I write your column for you, will I get the Jeff Strand Adventure groupies as well?" The answer is no, but you can have the Randy Sluganski stalkers.

Then "Liccle Dragon" posted "Who's Jeff Strand? What's Just Adventure? What column? Where am I? What planet am I on? What's the meaning of life?" The answers, in order, are: me, this site, this one, here, this one, and I dunno. (Then "Jenny" followed that up by posting that the meaning of life is "42," which kind of seemed like a weird thing to say, but you know how these Gameboomers are.)

"Syd" successfully mimicked the confusion that is Seriously Whacked by posting several failed attempts to start a column, including a "Games to the left! Games to the right! Stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!" cheer. It's probably worth noting that in his three years on the Gameboomers forum, Syd has posted 8073 times. I don't think I've even had 8073 thoughts in the past three years.

SPECIAL QUIZ - TEST YOUR "GEEK" RATING:

A couple of paragraphs ago, I pretended that I didn't know that the "42" reference came from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books. Was your reaction...?

a) "You're right, that DID seem like a weird thing to post." (Geek Rating: 0, but you need to read more books.)

b) "He must not have read the Hitchhiker's Guide series." (Geek Rating: 0.)

c) "That was from Hitchhiker's Guide! What a friggin' idiot!" (Geek Rating: 3.)

d) "I'm going to send him an e-mail to let him know what a moron he is." (Geek Rating: 7.)

e) If you sent the e-mail before even reading the rest of the column, your Geek Rating is 9. Congratulations!

Back to the column...

I'd explained that posts over 100 words would be edited for length. That said, "Singer" (aka "Jack") went the extra mile and so I'm posting his contribution in its entirety, except for the part where he told me to feel free to pitch it all.

Game Immersion... that elusive quality that every gamer craves and every developer seeks. Why is it so difficult, when the answer is right under our noses??

In fact, it's IN our noses!!! What our games need most is a new technology tentatively called "Smell-o-Vision." In addition to your 3D-sound speakers, you'd have a Surround Smell Odorizer. You'd start a game, click on the coffee cup and SMELL the fresh roast! Ahhh... You'd admire those flowers and inhale the fragrant scent of daffodils! Mmmm.... You'd take a break to check out the newest Seriously Whacked column and... get a deep whiff of Jeff's SOCKS! Good LORD, man! OK, so this is a technology best limited to games!!

The technology exists already. All we need is an investor to gamble that the "mature" adventure demographic can handle the aroma of flatulence, pocketed fish, and sour milk. It's a small price to pay for the sake of Game Immersion. Please sign the following petition to implement this feature as soon as possible to deepen YOUR gaming experience!

----------- blah blah ---------- gimme stink! -------- blah blah --------- appeal to my schnozz ------- blah blah blah -------- dirty diapers ------ blah ------- enriched experience --------

Thank you. Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.

Over 200 words of my column filled just like that! Pretty sweet, huh?

Then "Lasanidine" posted something that was either genuine praise or scathing sarcasm, including comments like "That you know so much about the more important aspects of life is a continuous wonder to me." I wasn't sure if I should be reading it in a warm, kindhearted voice or a Tom Servo voice. I went with the Tom Servo voice, just because Tom Servo is cool.

Next was "Fongo," who shared the heartwarming comment: "Mr. Strand, I love your column, and will read anything you write as long as it's free." Of course, much of this column is devoted to shameless promotion of my NON-free works of fiction, which you can learn all about with a quick visit to my Seriously Whacked website at http://www.jeffstrand.com, but I understand Fongo's sentiment.

Then Fongo said "I just wanted to mention that if you've got any really old and dusty adventures games on your shelf that you'd like to get rid of for almost nothing, I'd be happy to take them off your hands." I dunno, Fongo seems like kind of a cheapskate.

Then OTHER people tried to get my games! The message thread got had gotten COMPLETELY out of control! My well-intentioned attempt to fill column space had transformed into shameless begging! And more people talked about the smell of my socks, in reference to Syd's post above. How do they even KNOW what my socks smell like? Are these Gameboomers lunatics sneaking into my house at night and shoving their faces into my clothes hamper?

I started to get scared.

Heart pounding, I read the next message, which was the last message posted before my deadline. It was from "Becky," offering four suggestions for future columns:

1. A column comparing adventure games to epic poetry, starting with Beowulf and ending with How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

2. A column comparing your favorite adventure game with your favorite plum pudding recipe.

3. A column comparing Syberia to It's a Wonderful Life.

4. A column comparing Tony Tough to Tiny Tim.

I will, of course, take all of these ideas into consideration for 2003, especially the plum pudding one.

I posted my own message, thanking everybody for their participation. But they just couldn't stop! The messages continued on their dark path, much of which focused on people having a crush on some character named Bubba in Return to Zork. There was mayhem galore. "Mac Attack" posted that he hoped I'd include him in the next column, though I've sadly run out of space. "Jaap" posted a comical look at trying to communicate with annoying text parsers. "Gatorlaw" posted a rebuttal to my prior claim that "Gatorlaw" was not her real name.

And then, on the 47th post, it came to an end. The Gameboomers had heard my cry for space-filling nonsense, and they had responded. All was right on the Internet.

Thank you to everybody who contributed to my laziness.

And a very special Happy Holidays to everybody still reading this! See you in 2003!

Jeff Strand feels that he doesn't deserve to talk about his books in this particular biographical statement, and asks that you spend the money you would normally use to purchase his books on eggnog.