Game On

I played video games from an early age. I don't suppose I was ever very good, as I never beat very many games outside of those in the sports genre. I enjoyed the social aspect of it, though. It was hard to make friends if you did not have interests like the Ninja Turtles and video games, and so I got into it, although socializing was a struggle anyway. As you'll recall, I recently have begun again with games after locating my Nintendo 64.

Something that was a shared experience with the cartridge-based systems such as the original Nintendo and the Sega Genesis (both of which I had) was that it could be tricky getting the games going. This was due to the contact points on the cartridge,which could wear out. Of course, I didn't know this then. I just knew that you had to plug it in, sigh when it wouldn't work,turn off the console yank it out, blow on the open end, and jam it back in to see if it would work this time.

You had to blow on it, everyone knew that. The idea was that you were clearing particles and contaminants of some indescribable nature, or just dust. They say now that the blowing was counter-productive, and that the reason it worked was that you were just jamming it in again and again so many times that it eventually made contact out of the sheer volume of attempts. Anyway, it was what you did, and it seemed to work.

I find that with this system it sometimes seems to matter what angle you get the cartridge in at, or rather what area of the slot you steer it to. Some games work better in the front of the slot, and some the back. It's a lot of superstition and ritual. These are the things that you depend on when you don't know and don't understand. You have to trust in tradition, which is always the refuge of those who do things without good reason.