Atomictumor

Christabel and the Jons

May 11, 2007 at Oak Ridge Pavilion
1401 Oak Ridge Turnpike, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830
Cost : free

As I type this, Pigpen is beside me watching The Backyardigans on the TV in my room.  Man, that show is freakishly watchable.  I mean, its the worst kind of child show, what with the songs, and the cute little characters, but I think there are some sort of subliminal messages in it, or something.  If MastaG gets into the sphere of influence of this insidious show, he’ll inevitably get sucked in.  I barely have enough willpower myself to look away from the TV to type this.

My god, will they keep the volcano from erupting?  And will they sing that damned song again?  Oh, please sing the song!

Oops, I digress.

There are approximately a billion children taking up the other 800 odd square feet of the house, making lots of noise and shooting nerf guns, which makes the Backyardigans a winning prospect.  I was playing Call of Duty in the living room, but the friggin Nazis kept killing me.  I’ve always had interesting anger management issues with video games.  Usually, when I try to do the same thing, and end up failing about 3 times in a row, I get a voice saying ‘Dude, find something else to do’.

I proceed to ignore the voice because, hell, what does it know?

Then I fail 2 more times.  I feel my shoulders tense, and my blood pressure rise about 10 points (or units, or degrees, or whatever it is they measure blood pressure in these days).  I keep doing it, because I’ll be DAMNED if the game is going to beat me.

I’ll fail about two more times, and then I’m good and pissed.  As a kid, I broke 2 Super Nintendo controllers in my mindless, Hulklike wrath, by snapping the bastards in half, usually while bellowing something unintelligible and flailing around like a snake caught in an electric fence.

After my little tantrum, I’d start playing again (I kept spare controllers, for just such a situation).  I have a bit more restraint now than I did when I was 12, but on the 7th time those freakin Nazis killed me when I was just trying to blow up their stupid tank, while nerf bullets whizzed around me, and kids I don’t really know come up and ask what I’m playing, well, maybe its a good thing the Backyardigans is on, and a Pigpen is here to squeeze on.

But damn, I bet I could blow that tank up this time…