Rhyme of the Contemporary Ne'er-Do-Good

Friends and colleagues, gentiles and heathens, strangers, Romans, and my mom...

Please, if you would, pull a chair nearer to my fire. I have a tale to tell, and though the "Rhyme" element of my advertising may be false, the cautions contained herein are not, and I assure you--you will benefit a thousand fold from the tales of the places of the narrative from the story I am about to tell!

As you definitely must have noticed, I have been gone from the blog-OH!-sphere for untold amounts of time encompassing about two weeks. Two things have happened since then. First, I moved to a house in Philadelphia! Second, Mass Effect!

Mass Effect? you ask, which is exactly what I wanted you to do. What is Mass Effect?

I will tell you!

It is a video game and you go around and save the universe and there are aliens and a stupid stupid gun car called a Mako GOD I hate that stupid car and driving all over the place to flag mineral deposits and salvage the useless cargo from wrecked probes!

Forgive me. You see the state I am in, reduced to a husk of a man by the ravages of addiction, which is what I am really here to talk about.

There was a time, years ago, when I walked in an entirely different world. I shall not name it--it is too large, too terrifying for a name--though perhaps you will discern its nature from my survivor's tale. In this world I was widely respected. People everywhere knew who I was, or could figure very quickly that I was a man to admire. My coffers flowed over with booty. Then, one day, an otherworldly light shone in and in that brilliant light... I saw all my achievements, all my possessions, for what they really were: a meaningless nothing. I knew my life could never be the same.

I announced to all the members of my clan that I was leaving, and they looked upon me as a man dispossessed of his sense. "But where you are going," my dearest friend said, "everyone is a noob!" "Verily, and never again will you froshock froshock ftw!" said my young protege. I felt the need to explain to them what I was doing. "Remember on your dr00d alt, when you finally got travel form and said to yourself, 'fnly i can gets lots of herbs for my pots,' then you just ran, and ran and ran and ran into that brave new world of tomorrow, far away from the creeps and spawns? Well, this is like that, except my travel form will take me away from this place, into a whole new world!"

"dr00d ninrvate lol" they said. "lol" I replied, sadly.

But this transition did not sever my addiction completely. No, it was more like a flummoxed British person who says: "I say good day, sir!" when they are beside themself, but nobody really believes they are offended or leaving because how cute is that British person. And then that person says "oh well, I suppose it was silly of me to explode like that." And so I fed the need for stimulus with lesser addictions, even though the behemoth was shrugged off.

And then I stopped. I took my controller and I put it down, and I was through. You have never seen a more stalwart, more radiantly put-together me in all your days! Travel, education, wonders! The world was mine, and I took it and kneaded it and made delicious European bread, not that soggy mushed up American nonsense!

Had you known me then... you could have loved me. The Mass Effect sucked me in. It is the tool the devil devised specifically for me, knowing I am weak and prideful. And now I am desperately scouring stupid boring planets in a stupid stupid stupid car for Turian Insignias, running around so carelessly a mere Geth Commando might fell my mighty party. I have had more Coors Lite in three days than I consumed in all my days preceding the EFFECT, and were I not equally addicted to yoga, I would assuredly have a formidable beer belly.

The moral, dear friend, is that you must remember, you could end up like me--consuming a breakfast of kiwis and Coors, unable to stand upon your own 2 feet, and probably smelly. I think I'm smelly, I really can't tell. I mean there must be an odor. Maybe it doesn't stink exactly, as much as smell odd.

Adieu, adieu, adieu!