I want to be a videogame vixen

Mr 3CB likes videogames, so I know a lot more about tea-bagging and respawn spots than I should. The seeds were laid long ago, and as a kid, I played family games and Super Mario. I mostly liked Sega and 42-in-1. It was a cartridge that had Ramio, Joust, Gyro, Galaxion, and Mappy. My favourite one was Mappy, coz it sounded so cool when you died. I also loved Tetris, though I could never get past Level III, so I gave it up for Brick Game.

I did  bit of Donkey Kong and Zelda, but by then, the kids had become serious gamers, so I was content to sit and watch the screen while they played. I was more interested in the story, so I’d cheer them to finish a level so I could see the videos. They dared me to play Final Fantasy once, but they took away the joysticks, because instead of using strategic moves to score points, I picked spells that caused pretty colours and fireworks, used up energy bars, but did zero damage. I didn’t think to try Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, or Tekken, though I’m pretty sure the most amazing move was down-up-kick..

Knowing my love for good stories, Mr 3CB got me a video of the Metal Gear Solid storyline. There are four separate games, totalling to over ten hours of viewing. I haven’t had such fun in ages. I don’t know if I’d actually play the games – I’m pretty squeamish over guns. But those video girls are hot. Tell me you wouldn’t channel Laughing Octopus.

My favourite is MGS 3. The plotline is deep and powerful, and the sheroes are pretty strong characters. You have Eva, the super sexy triple agent who can be strong and frail at will. She pretends to be a secretary nerd so she can spy on the KGB, while posing as a defecting American who really works for China. Then there’s The Boss, the most badass woman in … in anywhere really. She gives up everything for her country – her love, her child, her skills, and eventually, her life. She’s a mighty soldier, nicknamed the Mother of US Special Forces, and she’s in charge of the Cobra Squad – not to be mistaken with Alfie’s gang.

The CIA fakes a plot that has her defecting to Russia, then gets her own apprentice to kill her as part of a deal with Russia. She dies a traitor, simply following orders, and her name is ruined in history, just as the CIA planned. The story made me cry. It was as beautiful as it was sad, and I’m surprised it took a videogame to help me get the Cold War. Who’d’a thunk?

I’m sure there was a point to this post, but I forgot what it was. Oh well. It will come to me. I’m still trying to figure out the twists in the tale, like why Naomi looked so nervous and mousy all the time, how a geek chick could be so hot, what her true motives were, and where Ocelot learned to gesture like a rugby referee. In the meantime, the hot, the wild, the crazy, Ms Raging Raven. Pure awesomness – and this one is a bad guy! I so want to be in a videogame!

♫ The beat goes on da-da-dum-da-dum-da-da ♫

I’ve noticed an interesting shift in my personality lately. I’ve become a lot more … aggressive. As opposed to passive aggressive. I don’t know if it’s a good thing, but Mr 3CB approves, and I trust his opinion. He says it’s cool I’m finally standing up for myself, and it’s great that I’m letting out the pressure. I’d hate to blow up one day and stab him in his sleep. When people vent and flip, it’s the people close to them that suffer, and no one is closer than Mr 3CB.

A few weeks ago, I read this article about Eminem. It got me really curious, and I went rifling through my hard drive to see if I had any. I found about a gig’s worth, so yay! I didn’t actually listen to it until today. I’m still surprised at how much I’m enjoying it. A week ago, I would have been traumatised, but lately it takes odd things to disturb me.

A few minutes after I started Eminem, I clicked on this tweet and found some sickly sweet song by Bruno Mars. Just the fact that I called it sickly worried me. It’s a cute puppy dog song about how all girls are beautiful and have awesome hair and we should value ourselves blah blah fish cake yadda yadda yadda. All I could think was Bieber-Twitter-Song-Britney-Spears-Sucky-Cotton-Candy-Blergh. In that order. And while I like cotton candy, nothing in there is a compliment. I literally wanted to retch, and that’s really, really sad.

Meanwhile, I’m listening to angry Marshall lyrics and bopping my head. I wince a lot less when he’s tasteless to women, though I’m skipping  a few songs and deleting others. The ones about effing Kim, killing his mum, and shooting random people are way too angsty for me, and some of the songs are a bit to Snoop-y.

Aside from [mostly] liking Eminem, I’ve noticed I’m censoring my curse words a lot less. I should probably work on that, because I can’t write eff then tell my princess not to use it. I suppose this could be the latest stage in my delayed teenage. I’ve done cool skin, crazy hair, and puppy love, so bad music was bound to follow.

I always sort of liked Eminem – his style, not his lyrics. He’s very clever with his rhyme schemes, and his word play is unequaled. He’s got some killer tracks too – the instrumentals are all Valhalla. I used to say if he could replace the words with something clean, he’d be brilliant. There’s Christian artist who did that in the 90s. He sounded just like Eminem, except he was on Holy Ghost train. His name was KJ-52.

Marshall sounds pretty smart during interviews sometimes, and on 8 Mile, I saw that he’s capable of being – you know – not Eminem. I think that’s the first time I ever took him seriously. Before that, he was just the idiot who sung Slim Shady. The movie showed me his human side, and songs like Mocking bird affirmed the idea. I think I’d actually enjoy a conversation with him as long as he didn’t go all Em on me. I’ve just found a song called Stimulate where he says:

My

Music can be slightly amusing.

You shouldn’t take lyrics so seriously, it might be confusing.

Trying to separate the truth from entertainment

It’s stupid ain’t it?

I get sick of trying to explain.

Like Sean says, it’s amazing how he rhymes words that shouldn’t rhyme and still makes them sound so good. He’s deep too, if the songs are anything to go by. The proper songs, not the ‘My name is’ songs.

As I listen to Slim, I find that even the lyrics don’t bug me. It could be that it’s background, so I can’t really hear it. Or maybe something came loose in my brain and let the demons out – who knows. Maybe I just need to watch 8 mile again and get it out of mys system, coz that was a really good movie.

StimulateEminem

♫ Battlefield ♫ Jordin Sparks ♫

Every once in a while, a song finds me, grabs me, and shakes me till my teeth rattle. I will play said song back to back to back to … well, you get the idea. I basically put it on my iTunes and play it endlessly until the mood passes. I’ve been known to play a song nonstop for five weeks in a row. Scary. I call it musical OCD, and my daughter has it too. If she plays ♫ Shorty is like a melody ♫ in my head ♫ one more time, I’m going to scream.

Meanwhile, my song for the season is Battlefield by Jordin Sparks. According to iTunes, I’ve played it 113 times since I discovered it a few days ago.

I’ve had this song for a while. I recently downloaded about 20 gigs of music from my brother’s hard drive, then largely ignored it. So on Wednesday night, I was looking through my files to empty space for more torrents when I bumped into some Jordin. I’ve always liked Jordin, and Tattoo has previously featured on my OCD list. She has this wholesome thing going, and she has pretty hair and a Janet Jackson smile. No air was cool, and I’ll even forgive One step at a time for being annoyingly peppy. That song is like a cheerleader on a sugar high, and I can’t stop singing it.

I didn’t immediately realise why I liked Battlefield song so much. I gave it some thought after fifty plays, and decided it must be the strings. I LOVE rock, and I’ve noticed that any non-rock song that I like secretly has some subtle stone influence. Apparently, I have in-built affection for steel guitars.

A few minutes ago, I decided to shut my ears and listen to the song, to really listen to it. I thought maybe I could figure out the draw. I was surprised that after 100 listens, I still noticed new bits of music – and I guess that’s why I like it so much. It’s layered. Each playback has more gold to discover.

The song starts with drums, a nice catchy beat that makes you sit up and pay attention. For some reason, it made me think of neon-coloured Spandex, punk haircuts, and MC Hammer.

Next comes some cute piano [yes, piano can be cute] and vocals. I didn’t notice the piano until my eyes were shut. Weird. At the bridge, some deep strings are introduced, and that distracted me for a bit. They have this awesome sliding effect, and after 16 years of academic music studies, I really should know what that effect is called.

Suddenly there’s a chorus and everything just explodes in a rainbow of sound. It feels a bit like that advert where a kid puts some candy in his mouth, and suddenly his head bursts and hair flies everywhere and it’s all animated melodies and things.

The chorus ebbs into the verse two and everything disappears except Jordan, the drums, and the piano. The cycle is repeated, but it’s no less awesome the second time around. Turns out there are background vocals somewhere, and like the piano, I didn’t notice them until my eyes were closed. Now that’s what I call background vocal. They do a nice humming thing, and I like nice humming things.

I don’t know the lyrics of this song. There are few words that slipped into my consciousness, words like I guess you better go and get your armour. But those only snuck in because I’m a total control freak, so I like armour. Also, when she sings it, it sounds more like gecheraama, and that sets off endless fits of giggles.

My brother came by a while ago, and as I was walking him out, I started humming. It was totally subconscious and I didn’t even know I was doing it until he said, ‘You’ve been singing that song for the last five days.’ Oopsie.

So now that I’m done analysing, I’m going to close my eyes for a bit and listen to the words. I suspect it’s a sad song, but I can’t help smiling when I sing the few words that I know, and I’m not really sure why. Depressing songs seem to touch me way deeper than happy ones, and for some reasons, sad songs often make me smile. Yoohoo? Where are you Freud?