deleterious effects of a childhood misspent in the playing of text adventure games

[truepenny]

Bur first, a PSA: elisem is having one heck of a sale.

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I work--through the end of this week anyway--in an Industrial-Ugly concrete block of a building, clearly designed by someone who played Colossal Cave one too many times. (Yes, this is almost certainly an anachronism. I claim poetic license, because, yes, you ARE in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike, and it might as well be a cave, since outside windows are one of the privileges of rank, and I have it not. Just add fluorescent lights for that special Post-Industrial Hell mood lighting effect.) My office is on the seventh floor; the vending machines are on the fifth floor. Since the elevators are (a.) exponentially over-worked and therefore (b.) slow and (c.) sometimes unreliable, I take the stairs when I need a snack food, as for example the animal crackers I'm eating right now. The concrete Industrial-Ugly motif continues in the stairwells, all echoing concrete and metal, including pipes and grates and the occasional sad flyer for a department event. (Bear with me; my point is rapidly approaching.) Normally, I don't even notice these things; I've worked in this building, on and off, since 1996. Background noise. Today, however, as I came down the stairs, I noticed that the grate on the fifth floor landing was askew. When I came back into the stairwell after getting my animal crackers, I noticed that one of the screws was all the way across the landing, against the riser of the first stair.

I have an active and wayward imagination.

I think I know where grues live.

I think one of them got out.

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Keep the light on.

Zork!

[mithriltabby]

Plugh!

[saltypepper.livejournal.com]

You should be safe from grues as long as there's enough light. If the lights go out in the stairwell, I'd forgo the animal crackers.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

A flashlight in your desk, or your purse, or both (even better!), with extra batteries would be a good plan, just in case more of the grues get out and the building loses power. Don't waste time with a small one, get this size (http://www.amazon.com/Instrument-Maglite-D-Cell-Flashlight-S4D016/dp/B00002N6SI/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1197310469&sr=8-1). You can use it as a wepaon, if worst comes to worst.

[pnkrokhockeymom.livejournal.com]

That's excellent.

I went to law school at the University of Michigan. The first day I ever took my son to the school with me, to pick up grades or a schedule or something, he walked in, took one look at the basement hall, the walls and the floors and the coloring, and said, "Mom! You go to school in Daggerfall!!!!" He was about six. But after that, when it was late at night and I was down in the lounge by myself, I would always listen for wayward rat noises.

[heresluck]

Explains a lot, doesn't it.

[smills47.livejournal.com]

Ah, the warren of cubicles, the fluorescent lights, the absence of windows. *Has bad flashback*

But Colossal Cave sounds like what I remember as ADVENTUR. If so, has anyone ever figured out what the copy of Spelunking Today was good for? *Has pleasant flashback*

[mirrorthaw.livejournal.com]

Colossal Cave Adventure was known by a number of names, including just "Adventure" or "ADVENT" (which is how I first encountered it...on an Osbourne 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_1)).
Zork, where Grues come from, is also related to Colossal Cave.

For more on Colossal Cave, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Cave
http://www.rickadams.org/adventure/
http://brain.lis.uiuc.edu:2323/opencms/export/sites/default/dhq/vol/001/2/000009.html

[smills47.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for these links. By gum, I may even try downloading one of the versions!

[mevincula.livejournal.com]

thanks, I enjoy having to wiki something where the answer doesn't frighten me or gross me out (i.e., I really didn't need to know about 2 girls and a cup). I had no idea what a grue was, and now some things I've read make more sense. I never played any kind of text or video games (interfered with my reading) so I'm always missing major cultural references that everyone else knows. Embarassing really...

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Colossal Cave/Adventure was the first computer game I ever played. That and Hunt the Wumpus and other things that most people my age actually haven't heard of. :p I played Zork much later.

I hope you have a torch. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=4nigRT2KmCE)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I did, in fact, laugh out loud. Thank you!

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Excellent :D

[almightychrissy.livejournal.com]

I once got lost in the grad library and genuinely feared I'd die in there. I also once got lost in Angell or Mason, I forget which, and saw a drawing of a snail. Cue House of Leaves freakout.