After the game is before the game.

(Nach dem Spiel ist vor dem Spiel)

Always loved the above saying by Josef "Sepp" Herberger (quoted at the beginning of Run Lola, Run).

Looking it up I came across this one which is also pretty great:

The next game/opponent is always the toughest one.

(Das nächste Spiel/Der nächste Gegner ist immer das/der schwerste)

Two arcade games stood out in my mind from summers at the Lake Mokoma beach shop.  Two games whose identities I could for years never figure out.  One turned out to be Black Tiger, discovered years ago and mentioned earlier.

Recently, while looking for a better version of Black Tiger, I stumbled across Vizzed, a website chock-a-block with old abandonware games.  And among their archives I found not only a less sketchy copy of Black Tiger, but also the missing game of memory:

Dragon Buster

If facing down a wizard while flying swords toss you around like a rag doll seems familiar, then you might have played Dragon Buster.

Boss dragon not as intimidating as you recall from youth?

Bizarre hopping cuts of meat hurling themselves at you?

Last boss dragon doing backflips as it dances over your incinerating corpse?

Just might be Dragon Buster.

Play it now in all its 1980s glory.

Skirmishes in a Cold War

Relics of the conflict:

That would be your REFRIGERATOR, whose surfaces have customarily served as the battlefield for a chilly siege of PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE one-upmanship.

This was a drawing you did of your cat JASPERS when you were younger, along with a poem about him. Your mother bought this ostentatious $15,000 frame for it, and had it welded to the door.

[ SHREVV ]

Using the colorful MAGNET LETTERS, you recently left a succinct message, which may or may not have been directed toward anyone in particular. But you couldn't find the letter W, so you just stuck two V's together.


Your mother then purchased a fresh pack of W's and left them there for your convenience.

Appreciative of the thoughtful gesture, you left her a sincere THANK YOU NOTE, which you had legally notarized, and then marked with a drop of blood.

But part of [the note] was touching the floor, so your mother was kind enough to lift the lower portion of the document with a VELVET PILLOW.

Here Be Monsters

Pesterlog excerpt:
TG: dude monsters arent real
TG: thats stupid kids stuff for stupid babies
EB: maybe. yeah you're right.
TG: what are you an idiot
TG: of course there are monsters in your house
TG: youre in some weird evil monster dimension come on
TG: skepticism is the crutch of cinematic troglodytes
TG: like hey mom dad theres a dinosaur or a ghost or whatever in my room. "yeah right junior go back to bed"
TG: fuck you mom and dad how many times are we going to watch this trope unfold it wasnt goddamn funny the first time i saw it
TG: just once id like to see dad crap his pants when a kid says theres a vampire in his closet
TG: "OH SHIT EVERYONE IN THE MINIVAN"
TG: be fuckin dad of the year right there 

How you hate this season.

"April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain."

-American sports legend, Charles Barkley

...or not.

A Cantrap for the Door - p.116

    A black iron door eleven feet tall barred his way.  The central panel displayed an iron Tree of Life.  Iron lizards clinging to the trunk hissed and, darting iron tongues, scuttled to new vantages; iron birds hopped from branch to branch, first peering down at Shimrod, then avidly inspecting the iron fruit which none dared taste and occasionally producing small chiming sounds.

    Shimrod spoke a cantrap, to soothe the sandestin who controlled the door: "Door, open to me, and let me pass unscathed.  Heed only my true wishes, without reference to the mischieveous caprices of my dark under-minds."
The door whispered: "Shimrod, the way is clear, though you are over-fastidious in your stipulations."

    Shimrod forbore argument and advanced upon the door, which swing aside and allowed him access to a foyer illuminated by a glass dome of green, golden-yellow and carmine-red panes.

- Lyonesse: The Green Pearl
   Jack Vance

Katherine's bedtime song to her brother

Charles sometimes yells or laughs instead of relaxing and going to sleep at night.  Tonight his sister thoughtfully tried to help him drift off to sleep with this impromptu lullaby:

Sleep when I sleep.  Sleep when I sleep.

I'm not afraid of the dark.

Aaaah...

Sleep when I sleep.  Sleep when I sleep.

Sleep when I sleep.  Sleep when I sleep.

I'm not afraid of the dark.

(ad infinitum)

Though well intentioned, sadly these dulcet strains did not have the desired effect.