laser KILL PEOPLE DEAD WITH LIGHT tag

Randomly, flying to my brain like a stealth fighter in the night, I thought a weird thought. I pondered an exceptionally odd circumstance. I queried a query so queer...

Laser Tag.

Question: Do they really expect you to follow all of their safety rules?

Now, If you've never laser tagged (which is understandable for anyone over the age of 10) then you need to know a little bit about said "sport."

Laser tag is a very complex masterfully orchestrated ballet of children and middle aged geeks shooting lasers at each other. Mind you, not REAL lasers, that would just be painful. The point of laser tag is to shoot as many people as you can, in a darkly lit, smoke filled maze that is often decorated by glow in the dark paint and steep ramps that take the wind out of the less athletic.

Anyway, there are often certain rules that the laser arena enforces. (enforce seems too active) Often there are such rules as: no running, no climbing, crawling, squatting, hitting, fighting, modifying your laser so it blinds a 7 year old...and the like.

It's a bit odd though don't you think? You are released into a Nam like environment with a "gun" so you can shoot Charlie (5th graders) and there is no running? No crawling? Shoot, we would have never won the war with these rules! (What's that? You are saying Vietnam wasn't technically won?...I don't believe you...)

Safety, I get it. But, Do they REALLY expect A.D.D. cake filled 5th graders (and me) to pay attention to those rules, to abide by them? That is just about the last thing I am thinking of when I am being chased by little Dougy and his army of birthday guests. Hardly on my mind when I am being pummeled by laser beams from 35 year old sniper's who are waiting in the wings. With smoke in my eyes, labored breathing (again, the ramps), the evil ruthless laughter of tiny target height commandos; I get a little panicked okay. I do run, I do block my sensors that recognize when a laser hits them (quite often), I do jump, and yell, and crawl, and kick people in the face when I'm lying on my back because my left foot is suffering from jungle rot...

There aren't any "enforcer's" of the rules anyway... So I'm like Snake baby, I army crawl that shit, I take out children in stealth mode, I bite people if I have to!

I'm just saying, who doesn't right?

Playing fair isn't any fun. Don't they know this?

Oh, and that rule where your tag name can't be violent (i.e. killer, machine gun, Dick Cheney) is RIDICULOUS. Just change a letter around... like smokinghandgum, or cerealkeeler.

Just thoughts... I guess when it comes down to it breaking the rules has never really helped my score though. I'm still dead last when I do play (once every 3 years). I think a 2 year old shot me once.

Just Don't Eat

No money for fast food + lots of green tea + lean cuisine = Mallory losing 8 lbs!

Poor never looked sooo good before...

Too bad my right breast has taken the brunt of the weight loss.

My body is always looking for a way to sabotage my efforts by making me hideously deformed in some form or another.

(I'm NOT a freak! No two breasts are alike! I swear you'd have to stare really hard and for a long time to notice!... Fortunately that's what I do all day...)

The Hipster; Subsequent Degradation of all that is Holy and Meaningful in the World.

I'm loathe to say it, but my descent into the pretension of hipster-dom has recently become apparent to me after attending an indie jam at the Downtown Tacoma Urbanxchange.

Going to said session was not my idea; just clearing the air. I was attending with my friend who knew a guy who was playing and wanted to support him in his music (And he was the only decent act surprisingly). They grew up as neighbors, believe me when I say it's not usually where we spend our evenings. Mine are usually spent updating my facebook status to "updating my facebook status."

Firstly, the place that held the little shin dig (where does this cliche come from?), UrbanXchange, is a clothing retailer that buys and sells vintage/used clothing. Generally, I'm all for the thrift shop bargain hunting, but somehow urbanxchange has zapped all of the love out of being thrifty by gearing itself to hipsters. Of which... I am? I am not? I'm not sure...

Urbanxchange's shelves are full of things for the "most discriminating trendsetter to develop a wardrobe representing the most current and relevant fashion brands and styles-at incomparible prices!" Basically, if you took the awesome finds out of thrift stores and sold them in a trendy boutique, but kept that used smell... Urbanxchange is what you'd get.

I like the hunt my friends, and this completely takes away from the "Drop kicking a homeless man and arm wrestling an old asian woman for the last pair of fuzzy pink ear muffs straight from 1984 feeling" that I get from Value Village. Not to mention it makes meaningless the point of retail recovery outfits like the Salvation Army, Value Village, Goodwill. (Well I guess their point is to make money, but I mean like on a grander scale of giving back to the community and recycling sort of thing...)

Point?

Anyway, being at the show made me realize how much I do NOT want to be a hipster. Amidst a gaggle of 18-20 somethings all wearing their tight skinny jeans, thrift buys, and stunner shades listening to crap bands experiment with their homemade crap sounds, I realized I am sooo NOT cool enough to pretend to not care about being cool. Granted... I'm sure in a few years the hipster's will have found a way to make the current not coolness I live in, into something cool. (HEAD IS EXPLODING)

You see, that's their bag baby. They take something that is considered unique, counter-culture and drain all of the specialness out of it by making it trendy, and culturally acceptable.

While I'm not quite a hipster, I might as well give up right now because I'm probably worse. I can't stop this pretension thing when it so obviously is a machine that will roll right over me, that I am already a part of conscious and unconsciously. I sneered at the falseness of the people around me in the tiny back room while listening to their abysmal music, but could equally have sneered at myself for sneering. ;P

Gold Star

I was thinking in the car, on my way home from my unsatisfying, part-time, completely-contrary-to-my-degree job, how much I missed school; how much I missed doing homework, how much I missed completing a task with one singular purpose... the grade.

I don't get grades anymore, and to be honest, I stopped caring about getting grades when I realized getting by on a "C", though perhaps disingenuous to my intellect, is all I had time for when I wanted to drink and do other brain cell obliterating things.

But, now that I am out in the world, degree in hand, no mid-term, or hurdle to jump in site except the ones I choose... I am desperately afraid of a no grade life style. It should be wrong how socialized I am to thinking that the grade matters, that the test score is truly the epitome of your knowledge, but that freaking gold star and "A" has some elusive power over me: and I will say, over my generation.

Certainty. That may be a part of it. Like math, a subject of which I know little now except what I see in my Sudoku, or in calculating gratuity... 2+2=4... It's so certain. Well its certain in its own little universe. Plugging and chugging to get an answer seems like what I was built for... and now, well there seems to be a whole lot of plugging and chugging (how does this sound sexual?) and very little answers.

Getting an A, in red writing, in blue, black, typed, scrawled, blinking on a screen; it's magic. That little Gold Star, the recognition you got from it as a child.... Well shoot...it may not really mean anything, but it sure was satisfying.

Say It.

New catch phrase of the week:

"I Men's Warehoused that shit... Guaranteed!"

Courtesy Melody Green.