A Heroine In Gaming

When Nintendo first came out I remember sitting around with some guys in 5th grade and talking Zelda and Super Mario.

Having played "Pong" on my dad's Atari and "Frogger" on his old school computer, it was exciting to see the advanced graphics and plot lines of these new games.

I played Burger Time where you had to try and build a burger while deranged eggs and sausages tried to stop you. It was intense.

When these games came out we didn't yet have the internet so you had to read a gaming magazine to keep up with all the cool secret moves and hints for the harder levels.

On weekends I would rent games from the local video store and make my sister play with me. I pretty much sucked at every game so I would take out my frustrations by punching my sister and telling her she "made me die." She would then go and tell our mom and I would get in trouble.

Sucking at play didn't stop me from exploring more games (or standing inches from the screen during Duck Hunt so I would get a high score).

When I was in sixth grade I met a girl named Katie who had moved down to the South from Michigan.

Katie got me involved in figure skating and we would often have a Friday night sleepover before her parents would take us to the rink on Saturday.

Friday's at Katie's meant pizza, video games and staying up late to watch Standup Spotlight on VH1.

Katie had two older brothers who were really good hockey players. One was named Steve and his favorite thing to do was find a way to bully me and Katie.

This took several forms; headlocks, pinching and shooting at me and Katie with a pellet gun while we were swimming in the family pool. He referred to the latter as "whaling."

There was some good to Steve however and this turned out to be his skills at gaming.

There was one game in particular that we loved to play and that was "Metroid." The game takes place in the creepy underground of some faraway planet and the character you play is an armored bounty hunter.

When Katie and I got caught on a hard level we would get Steve and truce between the sexes would be called.

Some weeks later while Katie and I were on the school bus she would tell me that her brother had beat Metroid and that the bounty hunter was a woman.

My mind was blown and ever since I've held a special place in my heart for that character, Samus Aran.

Samus in her armor.

Artist's rendering of Samus Aran with her arm cannon.

The character would later return for future incarnations of Metroid and sadly become more sexualized as time went on.

She would make an appearance in a comic called "Captain N, The Game Master" where she was reduced to a jealous, immature mess.

Yes, the young woman who had single-handedly defeated nefarious forces throughout the galaxy was nothing more than a love-sick nag.

Now do you see why we need more women in game development?

In ninth grade I would discover the Secret of Mana.

This game allowed you to fly on a dragon and have a 360 degree view of the world under you.You could buy spells and armor and play the three main characters with two other people.

Cover art for the Secret of Mana

I played on that game a total of 72 hours with my boyfriend at the time, eating sunflower seeds until my tongue went numb.

Sadly, I would never finish the game as dick face and I broke up after I learned he was cheating on me.

I don't like zombies or stealing cars or blowing up enemy combatants in a first person view so I don't play games anymore.

Every now and again though, I think back fondly on those Friday nights where me, Katie and Steve would try to reach and destroy Mother Brain with the help of a brave woman in mysterious armor.

Steve Harvey Makes Me Tired

Are you a fan of heteronoramtive, retrograde advice? Well, why not check out Steven Harvey's "What Men Really Think"? It's due to air on September the 8th in the U.S. but commentary by a comedian who attended the event has already created a stir.

Recently, Harvey hosted the event where 2000 men were invited to air out their backward ideas on women with Harvey's illicit approval.

As a bonus, 100 women were put on stage so the men in the audience could rate, catcall and boo them whenever they tried to defend themselves from double standards.

Harvey has been married three times and freely admits that he has cheated so naturally, he's the perfect candidate to dole out relationship advice to women.

His talking points are reminiscent of mid nineties to early aughts comedy routines performed by sad, angry men who got laughs and applause from other sad, angry men by being stereotypical about women and men in relationships.

These jokes are so tired. So very, very tired. They're so tired I grow somnolent just writing about them.

For an example, the jokes were something like this:

"Fellas, women be all like shoes, emotions and credit cards! Am I right?"

"Women, your man just wants to watch porn and drink beer, deal with it! Am I right fellas?"

So. Tired.

Men like Harvey want women to accept street harassment as "a compliment." They want women to believe that they will never have a genuine friendship with their partner because they nag too much, don't put out enough and are getting too independent for their own good.

He's one of those types who will claim that men are "more visual" when it comes to being turned on sexually. I suppose he thinks women's preferred state during sex is blindfolded.

He also thinks that women will only have sex when there is a deep emotional connection and even then, we don't like it that often as men.

This sort of thinking is sadly common. This is why we get so many panicky articles written about "hookup culture" and Tindr.

As more and more people communicate on the internet it becomes harder to act like women don't like casual sex or having sex in general.

Historically, society has been able to brand women as fast, loose, slutty or fallen for the same behavior that is normalized and lauded in men.

Now we have numerous apps and websites that allow women to talk about what they want and go out and get it.

The fact that Harvey can still peddle his nonsense is mind boggling.

And tired. So very, very tired.

But don't just take my word for it, here are some actual questions from a survey offered to male participants in the "What Men Really Want" event:

Men often say women are ‘crazy’. What do they REALLY mean?

a. Women get too emotional about stuff that doesn’t matter

b. It’s our way of putting you down when you try to control us

c. It just means we don’t understand you.

Why are so many men uncomfortable spending time with their woman’s friends?

a. There’s always at least one friend we can’t stand

b. You gang up on us

c. Women act crazier in groups

d. We don’t care about what you all talk about

A lot of successful, independent women say they struggle to find good men. For this group, what is MOST OFTEN the reason?

a. They are too intimidating.

b. They are too strong-willed.

c. They don’t prioritize relationships

d. They have unrealistic standards

For women who are hopelessly single, the MOST COMMON reason is…

a. Their attitude/personality

b. Their age

c. Their level of attractiveness

d. They act desperate/thirsty

I recently posted a comment on the feminist website Jezebel suggesting a way to streamline the questionnaire:

He could have summed up the whole survey into one question:

How much do you hate women?

A. A little

B. A lot

C.Bitch Better Have My Money/Unsure

Chasing Fame Through Faith

Televangelists have been doing it for years but technology has progressed. Nowadays, if you love Jesus and yourself a lot, Christian vlogging is the new lucrative venture.

I didn't know this until I heard about a man named Sam Rader.

Sam and his wife Nia became internet famous for singing a song from Frozen whilst referring to themselves as "attractive."

Later, Sam snuck into the bathroom and scooped some of his wife's old pee out of the toilet (because apparently, she doesn't flush) and surprised her with the news she was pregnant.

A few days later they made a video to say that Nia had miscarried.

This was tragic but the Rader's weren't going to let that or scientific facts stop them from making a small sermon about how fetuses are people too.

This left some viewers conflicted. They wanted to feel compassion for couple's loss but they didn't want to sit through a shmaltzy pro life PSA.

To me, it looks to me like the whole thing was staged to emotionally manipulate the viewers.

The next we hear from Sam he's confessing that he had a paid Ashley Madison account. He claims he didn't actually have an affair but was just having a slight flirtation with his lust monkeys. Naturally, God has forgiven him. (Once again, God could not be reached for comment and you're just going to have to take Sam's word for it.)

Sam also says his wife has pardoned him and "stands behind him."

Stands. BEHIND. Him.

The final chapter in the Sam saga has him getting kicked out of a vlogger conference for threatening people, claiming he didn't threaten anyone and then saying he only threatened one person.

Sam and Nia made (and later deleted) a video about how the gays shouldn't get married because of traditional family values.

Sam musn't be too traditional though because he paid hard cash to set up an account for an extramarital affair.

I guess if my wife's purpose was just to raise the kids and let me do all the thinking for both of us I might get bored too but I'd like to think I would try to work things out first.

I wonder if God ever gets secondary embarrassment from his followers.

It seems like a banner year for Bible thumping hypocrites. 

Alex is One

Alex had his first birthday last week and for the most part, the singing and tiny open flame on a cake just seemed to confuse him.

He did like hanging out with his big sister though, that's always a lot of fun.

Nick the Brave

I love my partner with all my heart but he has one weakness that I just can't understand.

He will observe things that the NPR does and take mental notes. He will then wait until the two of us are alone and she is nowhere near so he can launch into a super lecture.

It will usually begin with the words, "there's gonna be some changes around here."

He will then outline all the things my daughter has done that irritate him and rail on about how he is going to stop buying so and so or just do her chores himself.

He makes fair points and I agree with most of what he's saying but I have been worn down from constantly absorbing the criticisms meant for someone else.

I have asked him over and over again to speak directly to her but he says, "she's too old for me to parent."

"So treat her like a flatmate who isn't doing their fair share," I say.

"No because then she will look at me with her big eyes and start crying," he said.

Another time he said it was because she scared him.

I don't understand this at all. If she turns sideways you might mistake her for a line. She doesn't shout or slam doors or have dark brooding periods.

She does sometimes get careless with her chores and need to be reminded to do them, but I've never known a kid who didn't.

A few days ago he decided to list his latest complaints against her but he made the mistake of doing so while we were in the house and she was in her room.

"I'm going to bring her out so you can say this to her face," I said.

He looked panicked and seized the blanket we leave on the couch for chilly nights.

"Where does this go?" he asked as I disappeared down the hallway.

"Nick has something he would like to say to you," I told the NPR.

By that point Nick and gone into our room and was still fussing over the blanket and asking in a fevered pitch, "where does it gooooo?"

The NPR had followed behind me with her head down, waiting for a firm talking to but Nick's awkward behavior made her look up in hope.

He broke out in a sheepish grin when he saw us standing in the doorway.

His eyes darted around the room looking for a quick exit but we were blocking it.

He crab scuttled along the wall and squeezed past me without making eye contact.

I had to give him the "use your words" pep talk a little later on.

A few nights on he got all worked up about something in the kitchen and started audibly grumbling from his office desk.

In this instance the NPR could hear him but he was still able to hide safely behind his computer monitor.

I have decided that we will have future discussions in a family meeting at the dinner table. I'm hoping with some practice Nick will work up to making eye contact and addressing his grievances directly to the responsible party.

In the meantime, I hear this song in my head:

"When danger reared its ugly head, he bravely turned his tail and fled,

Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about and gallantly he chickened out,"

The Girl Guide

The other day a young girl and her mum came into the shop to talk to me about a fundraiser for the Girl Guide Jamboree. (The Girl Guides are what the Girl Scouts are called here.)

Before long I was chatting away with the two of them and telling them about my time in the scouts.

When I was a young girl my mother decided to enroll me in the local Brownie Troop.

It turned out this young girl was also a Brownie but I would never have guessed as she was wearing a stylish, baby blue polar fleece with a small, tasteful Girl Guide emblem on it.

"In my day," I began, "we had to wear awful poo brown dresses with an orange neck tab, knee high socks and a brown beanie." (The uniform might as well have had the words "please bully me" sewn onto the back)

"I've read about that in our book," the girl said.

I imagine it was under a chapter titled, "Embarrassing uniforms from a darker time."

I recalled how our meetings seemed to focus on housekeeping and baking. Meanwhile, the Boy Scouts next door were doing much cooler stuff like crafting bow and arrows and determining azimuths.

The girl's mom said that the program had changed and it sounds like things have become a bit more progressive.

"We built a catapult once," the girl told me.

"I sewed a button onto a bit of cloth," I said.

At least one of us did something cool in their childhood.

To be honest, the thing I remember most about my time in the Brownies was how mean, nasty and cliquish the other girls were.

The worst of all of them was the troop leader's daughter, Jamie.

When I spoke she would smirk and mock me. The other girls could be nasty too but she was the queen.

I asked the young girl if they still did camping trips. They do.

"I bet it's nice to camp in New Zealand where there aren't any dangerous animals about," I said.

On one of our camping trips we slept on the covered porch of a scout building and in the middle of the night something started crashing around in the woods and the troop leader got on the radio to call the park ranger.

I was terrified.

I just knew it was a big hungry bear and there we were, all laid out in our sleeping bags like a sandwich platter.

Being totally immersed in Christianity at the time, my first thought was to appeal to the higher power.

Dear Lord, please don't let me eaten by the bear. If someone has to go could it please be Jamie? She's so mean. Please God, let the bear eat Jamie so we can become closer to you as we mourn her loss. Amen. 

There were times when I did enjoy the troop meetings and I fondly remember when we all graduated from Brownies and did a "bridge crossing" ceremony where we became Girl Scouts.

Jamie's mom, who had always been kind-if a little oblivious to her daughter's meanness, cried and said she was proud of all of us.

"You'll come and visit when it's time to sell the cookies right?" I asked the girl.

She promised she would.

Baby on the Move

Yesterday Alex pulled himself up and took three wobbly steps to his dad.

I was called and the NPR was coaxed out of her dark chamber to watch him walk.

He began in one corner of the room with a hand against the wall for support and then awkwardly shuffled forth towards us.

We cheered and clapped and got he so excited he decided he would keep repeating the performance and soaking up the praise.

After a while he wasn't even taking steps but rather standing near his sister and me and launching himself head first towards us.

I've now got to up my baby awareness game.

The Limits of the Law

I used to have great faith in the American legal system.

This faith allowed me to support the death penalty for years with the firm belief that everyone on death row had had a fair trial, was guilty, and deserved to be there.

The final eye opener came when the former warden of San Quentin spoke of her opposition to the death penalty and outlined her reasons based on decades of first- hand experience with the corrections system.

It turns out that innocent people end up in jail all the time.

It also turns out that guilty people avoid jail time because of money, powerful connections or shoddy prosecution work.

The statute of limitations is supposed to protect the accused from being tried when eyewitness or physical evidence may have deteriorated.

Instead, it ends up giving rapists and child molesters a free pass if they can just lay low long enough.

It means that someone like Bill Cosby who was powerful and respected and beloved by millions could sexually assault 48 women and be all but assured of getting through life without a single criminal conviction.

Not only would young women have to go through the usual humiliating yet common occurrence of being put on display and asked invasive questions but they would have the added issue of trying to convince a jury that "America's dad" was a calculating sociopath.

Contrary to what some internet trolls would have us believe, the lack of a criminal conviction does not make Bill Cosby innocent, it merely makes him a fortunate predator who got off because time ran out.

I cannot fathom the depth of hatred one must have for womankind to ignore the testimony of four dozen individuals while saying, "we can't know" or "he was never found guilty."

My default position is to believe the victim.

I am able to maintain this position because I don't start out with the assumption that women are lying sluts who want to ruin men and take all their money.

Cosby will more than likely never have a criminal trial. I don't need him to go through this in order to believe his victims.

I support the women who have spoken out.

I grew up watching the Cosby Show and Fat Albert and I ate Jello Pudding Pops. I knew the man's public persona and admired him. However, you won't catch me appealing to the masses to remember the good times and not forget the legacy.

I detest this self-righteous asshole for lying to a generation of kids and telling a group of vulnerable teens to "pull their pants up" while he was busy slipping drugs in drinks and committing despicable acts against young women who trusted him.

I think it's time we start giving the victim's testimony a longer shelf life. 

A Good Job

I have a friend who works for an organization that's supposed to help migrants but due to a change of management, they now end up sending most of these vulnerable individuals back to their country of origin.

My friend has reached the end of her tether and feels like she can no longer work for the group. She feels demoralized by the new managers who actually think they are doing a good job.

A woman wrote a piece for Jezebel about working for an organization that's supposed to help people living in poverty. Her bosses have embraced this idea that the poor need to be more resilient.

They go to expensive conferences where guest speakers make a hefty paycheck by spreading the gospel of resilience. Her coworkers sit in a warm office comfortably snacking on bagels and brainstorming of ways to blame the very people they are trying to help.

Their attitude towards the poor is that they just aren't working hard enough or pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.

This is a philosophy embraced by white, empathetically-challenged male politicians who claim that everyone in life starts out with the same opportunities and if someone doesn't escape poverty, it's their own fault.

When I left grad school with a degree in International Policy Studies I wanted to go out into the world and make a difference.

I'm now wary of organizations that claim to be empowering or helping disadvantaged people. I think many of them are only helping themselves.

Their leaders make appeals to concerned governments and individuals to raise money only to turn around and spend it on their own salary, overhead costs and meetings where they discuss the problem without doing anything about it.

I read another story from a former employee of Lulumon. The image the company puts forward to customers vs. how they treat their own workers is appalling. The managers use all these new age platitudes but in the worst way.

If you are having problems at work it's because you didn't put good vibes out into the universe or some shite, not because you work in a hell hole with a bunch of shallow fuckwits selling overpriced yoga wear.

I worked for Express clothing for a time and they would hire a bunch of girls and then give us about 15-20 hrs a week so we didn't earn any decent money and none of use qualified for benefits.

They made us buy and wear their clothing which meant our meager paychecks were even smaller.

When someone came in we were supposed to flatter them and push them to buy at least three things. I sucked at this so I was put in the stockroom and tasked with putting security tags on the clothes.

Another piece I read on Salon was about how hard Americans work for their corporate jobs and how little they expect in return.

Gone are the days of the social contract between boss and employee.

Now people turn themselves inside out for their company while having no job security and being viewed as a unit of production instead of a human being.

The management doesn't care about you. You become abstract and any unfair treatment or cruel practices become "necessary measures" for the survival of the company.

The worst corporate hierarchy-led stronghold of tyranny and backward thinking that I ever worked for was the United States Coast Guard.

I've got a book's worth of writing to do on them so I'll just say that I survived four years of a waking nightmare and wouldn't wish the same treatment on my worst enemy (if I had one.)

I'm truly surprised at how happy I am working part time at a gift shop.

The job is close to my home and my son's preschool and the people who come in are lovely to talk to.

I really like the woman I work for. She treats me like a human being and lets me do creative displays in the store.

I would very much like to go to law school in a few years when the baby is older. I want to help people find justice without some corporate policy getting in the way.

For now though, it's really nice to be in the comfortable world of home decor and scented candles.