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I'm a Healer: Beginner's Tips for Team Fortress 2 Medics

Twice now I've dreamt about Team Fortress 2, and I haven't even played it that much.  It just gets in your head.  It's a bottomless toy chest of colorful visuals and exciting moments.  All the classes are fun, but I always return to the Medic, because he suits my play style.  I'm an accurate but slow shot, and I prefer to be in the middle ranks, neither on the vanguard nor defending the base.  And I like healing other people.  I know what it's like to be low on health.  It feels bad.  Even if you come across a health pack, it might not bring you up to 100%, and it's kind of impersonal.  And it's been on the ground.

Here are a few tips I've picked up along the way:

• The Medic uses a proton pack-looking device to shoot a stream of healing plasma or something into the other players on his team.  It looks, um, a little intimate?  You should probably aim above the belt.  And although you have to stick close to your target, always stay behind them!  Don't block their view.  You can't defend yourself while healing, so let them do the shooting.  However, if someone throws grenades or shoots rockets at you, jump away or you're dead.
• Your teammates will call out when they're wounded, and if you see them nearby, run out to help them.  If they're too far away, though, they're going to die anyway.  I know how that sounds.  But you're not a miracle worker, damn it.  And they respawn.  They'll forgive you.  I make tough calls like that every day in Team Fortress 2.
• Scouts are too fast to keep up with and if they need healing, they come to you.  Engineers and Snipers stay in one place, so once they're healed, move on.  Spies are pretending to be on the other team -- shh!  The Soldier, Demo Man, and to some extent the Pyro need attention.  They get hit all the time.  And every single Heavy Weapons Guy wants a Medic behind him constantly, because he's so damn slow, but a good Heavy Weapons Guy can push through the one choke point where both sides have reached a stalemate.  So keep him alive through that push.
• And of course, the best way to do that is to use your Über Heal!  After you've healed enough damage, activating Über Heal gives you and your target ten seconds of invulnerability.  That's enough time for the H.W. Guy to take out a ton of enemies and turrets.  It's the most exciting ten seconds in a Medic's life.  Some Medics say it's not as fulfilling as the ten seconds of getting married, or the ten seconds during which their children were born.  They're lying.
• Everyone on the other team wants to kill you.  Snipers will take you out first, and Spies will backstab you.  Scouts are usually busy with something else, but they'll take a few shots on the way.  You're armed with a gun that fires syringes and a bone saw.  For real.  It's hard to kill anyone with them, but it can be done, and it's brilliant.  I once hacked up another Medic with the saw.  "Aaagh!" he cried out.  "What happened to Do no harm?"  "Sorry, doc," I replied.  "I was late for class that day."
• Finally, watch out for spies.  It's a special achievement for a spy to get an opposing team's Medic to heal them.  Keep in mind your teammates' names, although the Spy can also imitate them.  It's annoying, but your safest bet is to shoot everyone first, because it makes Spies drop their disguise.  Friendly fire doesn't damage your allies.  It's almost a sign of respect.  But don't get paranoid.  If every Medic starts mistrusting their friends, then the Spies win.

It's not the most glamorous profession, but a good Medic can really make a difference out there in the crazy, competitive world of Team Fortress 2.  Once the beta is over and everyone's playing it (assuming they're not playing Halo 3, of course), you'll see a lot of Spies, Snipers, and Scouts, but as long as there's one Heavy Weapons Guy out there, he deserves a Medic of his very own.  Let the healing begin.

Technorati Tags: Team Fortress 2, Medics, Über Heal, "over heal"

Ain't Got No Soul

Series premieres reek of desperation and exposition, so you have to cut them a little slack.  Even so, Reaper is nothing special.  The premise is cute for about ten minutes before you realize you're watching the formula for every single subsequent episode.  Sam chats with the Devil, researches an enemy, pals around with his Jack-Black-acting ass of a sidekick, accidentally alienates his shiny toothed romantic interest, almost has his "secret identity" revealed, figures out how to use his wacky item to destroy the enemy, and drops the soul off at a "hell portal" -- like the DMV, get it?  Television Without Pity gave the premiere a B, which just does not make sense, unless they rate shows in reverse alphabetical order and the scale goes all the way up to Z.  They had the temerity to compare it to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I have never, never seen an comparison more temerarious than that.  Although any review that leads with a Devil May Cry reference deserves kudos.  Kudos potentially mitigate temerity.

You can judge the show's quality or lack thereof for yourself.  Instead, let's discuss the bit of religious hair-splitting that, if the show continues, will show up again and again.  Sam's told that before he was born, his parents sold his soul to the devil.  His friend says that's impossible, because we all have free will, so you can't sell someone else's soul.  Screw that.  If you're going to deal with Devil, you can't tie his hands.  Although it's debatable whether the Bible says punishment for a father's sins will be visited upon his children, certainly the effects of those sins can be felt.  A parent can gamble away a kid's inheritance, or even their life, so why not a soul?  Who do you think is ultimately responsible for your own soul?  God, of course.  He made it, you're just holding it for a while.  But the great thing is, He doesn't come by to check that you still have it, so you can score some serious cash money down.  And God created the Devil, too, so it's almost like you're returning it to His valet service.

The Devil's job is to trick you into giving up more than you wanted, so that someday you regret the deal, and try to renege.  Anyone who's ever sold their soul knows that the Devil's cheating you.  He jokes around with you about it, like with the whole signing in blood thing, or meeting you at a crossroads at midnight.  You think, oh no, this is spooky, what am I getting into?  But really, who's cheating whom?  Eventually you'll try to weasel out of it, and if you're quick witted or really good at something, you'll win.  The Devil has a very low soul retention rate, much worse than the Greek or Roman gods, or the Judeo-Christian God.  Try to double-cross Him and He will fuck you eight ways from Sunday.  Stick with the devil you know, that is, the Devil, and you're guaranteed personalized service, a wide range of payment options, and a chance to eat your cake and have it, too.  What are you waiting for?  Sell it today!

Some restrictions apply.  Not valid in Delaware, Minnesota or Vermont.

Technorati Tags: Reaper, the Devil, souls, sales, Satan, savings

Have You Heard of This Halo 3 Game?

Senator Ted Stevens (R-Internet) just sent me an email asking when I was going to get around to the mandatory Halo 3 post.  All Internet typists need to put up a Halo 3 post by the end of the week or face a hefty fine and possible senatorial teabagging.  Sorry, y'all.  I'm still getting caught up on my BioShock posts.  I think I need to write eight of those before I can even pretend to be a "games journalist," also known as a "playa writa."  Technically, I was out of the country when BioShock dropped, so I get an extension, but Halo 3 is too mainstream to be ignored.  I like to keep my finger on society's pulse for so long that it gets uncomfortable and society starts wondering, "Is this guy even a doctor?  Most doctors don't move their lips when they count."

This Halo 3 thing is tricky because I don't have the game and I won't until it comes out on PC at least a year from now.  Also, I don't like Halo.  I don't hate it, either -- I just don't think it has that something extra that makes a great game.  It's a lot of fun playing multiplayer matches with friends, but almost everything is fun with three or more.  Chess can be fun, but have you ever tried to play while a third person picks up all the pieces and moves them around randomly?  Instant excitement.  And Halo matches, fun as they are, tend to reward the same limited skill set, as opposed to, say, Team Fortress 2, with nine genuinely different ways to play, and a chance to switch each time you die.  In Halo, the most important choice is whether you're going to use the pistol, and in Halo 2, it's whether or not you should pick up an energy sword.  The answers are, respectively, yes, and yes, you cheap bastard.  Have fun stabbing people with a giant Quake 2 logo.

As for the single player campaign, well, everyone knows that's not the main draw.  Personally, the Halo universe doesn't do it for me.  It's futuristic, frantic, and colorful, but also annoyingly familiar.  I blame Master Chief, the protagonist.  I don't like him, and I hate his friends.  He's just a soldier, or super-soldier, which is even dumber.  He just follows orders, shooting up each level, and moving on to the next one.  His sidekicks have no personality beyond the sort of hoo-rah team antics that you see in any war movie, as perfectly satirized in Starship Troopers.  (I don't care for Cortana any more than for Denise Richards in that movie.)  In any FPS, the game forces you to complete somewhat arbitrary objectives, but the Half-Life series, BioShock, and to some extent Far Cry disguised the linear narrative by putting you in the bodies of self-motivated characters who were really just fighting for their lives.  Master Chief is fighting to save Earth.  Screw Earth.  It's a pretend future Earth.  Almost none of my friends live in pretend future Earth, and I bet I could convince them to move before shit went down.  I would offer them, uh, credits and homemade cyber-pie.

Three questions for writers, even writers of video games:  In your story, is an entire race, planet or universe in danger?  Is your story set in the future or another alternate world?  Finally, is your hero very very special -- superhero, super-soldier, or Chosen One special?  If the answer is yes to all three, start over.  Two out of three is acceptable, but still requires a lot of work to keep the cheese level manageable.  You'll need to be extra clever, extra funny, or extra nude.  The Halo series has a cool way with names (a robot named 343 Guilty Spark, a ship named In Amber Clad) but never follows through on the allusions.  Thanks to a ten million dollar marketing campaign, Halo 3 gets plenty of attention from the non-gaming press, but they may be wondering if this game is worth the hype.  Probably not, because no game could live up to that buildup.  If you want to enjoy Halo 3, I'd suggest not reading another word about it.  I'm not even going to write another word

Technorati Tags: Halo 3, Master Chief, Starship Troopers, Team Fortress 2

Henderson the Rain King

When visiting England, be sure to pack a book, not for the flight, but for the restaurants.  All those jokes about comically absent waiters come to vividly aloof life in London.  Maybe it's because they aren't begging for tips, or because most restaurants don't need to free up tables.  Either way, once your food arrives, they don't care if you ever leave.  They'll never, ever bring you the check unless you specifically ask, and then you can wait easily 20 minutes before it arrives.  You should pay right then, because otherwise it'll be another 20 minutes before they pick it up again.  And this pales in comparison to pub etiquette, where you shouldn't expect anyone to bring food in the first place, and you can only purchase a drink by looking forlorn and thirsty.  But you get used to it.  Now that I'm back in the States, when a waiter refills my glass, I think, "Why the free water?  Did I go to school with you?"

I carried around books as little health boosts in the restaurant waiting game, as well as the vessels into which I poured a tall helping of London juice each night.  That metaphor got away from me.  As far as I can tell, London juice would just be Red Bull, like everywhere.  Maybe vodka?  My usual euphemism for vodka is Midnight Sprite.  Go and use that.  The point was, whichever book I was reading, I had the day's events in mind, which seemed to make them differently shaped containers holding a single essence rather than individual sources of new thoughts.  That picture is not one of them, by the way.  But look at that thing.  What the hell?

One London book was Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King.  A friend of mine has read this at least five times in different stages of life.  That's some recommendation.  I've never read anything five times.  I've read a handful of books three times.  On the other hand, I'd read those books again in a heartbeat if I didn't already feel the constant pressure to catch up on all the books I haven't read yet.  Anyway, the story involves a fat, rich, selfish American who goes to Africa because his heart keeps crying, I want!  His heart won't get more specific that that.  Does he find what he's looking for?  Not to get all LeVar Burton on you, but read the book yourself, lazy pie.  I'm busy fixing the engines.

I enjoyed Henderson, although the ending was somehow unsatisfying, and I think it's an interesting choice for a favorite book.  It doesn't try too hard to be important literature.  Bellow slips all his little observations about life and death into throwaway sentences spoken by unreliable or comic characters, and the narrator is so much of an idiot that at first he's downright unlikeable.  Later, though, I started to feel the sequence of pity, amusement, and empathy that I feel with Dostoevsky characters, especially the overwrought, intellectually paralyzed ones.  Ivan Karamazov, the Underground Man, Kirilov, and so on.  Nabokov wrote a lot of these guys, too, the thinky douchebag.  That's the literary term.  (Post-structuralism.)

One favorite bit:  Henderson and his guide, Romilayu, have been captured by a possibly hostile tribe and left in a guest hut for the night.  They don't have any idea what will happen to them in the morning.  Henderson discovers a dead body in the hut.  Is it some kind of warning, or a frame-up?  He decides to drag out the corpse and leave it in a ditch somewhere.  Romilayu thinks they should just go to sleep and not make trouble, but Henderson's offended by the morgue-like accommodations.

"You damned fool," I said to Romilayu, who stood off half-concealed.  "Pick up this guy's feet, and help me carry.  If we see anybody you can just drop them and beat it.  I'll run for it alone."

He obeyed me, and, as if dressed in a second man and groaning, my head filled with flashes and thick noises, I went into the lane.  And a voice within me rose and said, "Do you love death so much?  Then here, have some."

"I do not love it," I said.  "Who told you that?  That's a mistake."

In a movie version, the voice within Henderson would get at least second billing and someone would have to get Morgan Freeman to go buck wild in the voiceover booth.  Thanks to his ever-present, irrational heart, Henderson's narration has a mood of barely controlled delirium, giving a sense of constant motion to a book where, honestly, not that much happens.  You can't get away from his thoughts any more than he can.  I think that's part of the point, that no matter how far you think you've traveled, you're still you, inflicting your horrible self on the locals.  I'm sure I irritated everyone I came across in ways I never even noticed.  In England, is it rude to sit around reading in a restaurant?  My brain and stomach were satisfied, but after a couple hours, the heart cries out, "Here sits a man in search of a soul.  I want!  I want the check, and maybe a mint.  Really, the mouth wants that, but I'm cool with it, too."

Technorati Tags: London, travel, Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King, the heart, waiters, Africa, mint, frogs and lions

I Am For Real

I really went to England.  I swear it's true.  Some slight exaggerations appear in the column(s) of Banditos!  Banditos!  Banditos! -- I am not currently a member of the Armed Forces, dying of a rare disease, being investigated for murder -- but always in service of a greater truth.  The truth of the soul.  If I believed it when I wrote it, it can't be a lie, and anyway, I didn't write it, the banditos did, and they don't exist, so they can't lie.  That's the central conceit of the show! 

But not anymore.  The banditos came home with a case of the New Sincerity, a little late, realizing that you can't lie, steal and lookout your way out of reality.  Reality is ubiquitous, and you can't get the smell of it out of your clothes.  The other day I was reading the best work of fiction ever written.  There I was, breathing and walking with someone else's mind.

Someone asked me, "Hey, what are you doing?"

"I'm reading a book . . . aw, shit!"

See?  Now, that story's not true, but it's illustrative.  You can tell I took the above picture from my distinctive thumb.  But what about this one?

Those are the Cliffs of Moher, in Ireland, where I also sincerely went.  Looks like a desktop, and currently it is my desktop, but I took it.  I drove to them on an indescribably narrow, switchbacked cliffside road, as insane locals and buses swerved towards me at 120 kph, through an unreal landscape called the Burren, which looks like the remains of a Claymation apocalypse.  Picture below, also mine.  But millions of people have also been there and taken pictures, so unless I have some very identifiable flaws in my photography skills, anyone could have taken that shot.  And I bet everyone who drives there tells a similar story.

But, however.  It was scary!  I'm sure it was all perfectly safe, but it felt perilous enough to bring out the almost-death feeling.  Standing on the edge of the cliff, or inches from a speeding, possibly American driver, I never once thought, this may as well be someone else.  The sun was setting by the time I arrived at the Cliffs of Moher, there weren't many tourists left, and a gray, wet wind soaked and weighted my clothes.  Underdressed, shivering, I wiped off the viewfinder and tried to get it all in.  And of course you can't.  But I believe the failure springs from my amateurish technique, or maybe the camera was low on megapixels.  It's not an inherent flaw in the cliffs themselves.  Don't feel bad, cliffs!

The cliffs did their job well.  I almost died!  (Not really.)  What can the world do but try to kill you and fail for a while?  Works for me.  I'm not saying to live each day as if it were your last.  That's idiotic.  You'd never shower.  But if you have a moment, and you're feeling unhappy, ungrateful, or unloved, why not give almost dying a try?  Remember, just pretend, don't almost die for real.  I said almost.  It's just a way to confirm that it's really you there, even if you're not in the picture.  By the way, that pointing guy is Sir James Thornhill, who painted himself there, not me.  But do you see that palette there behind him?  What if he'd tried to clock me with it!  I almost died.

Next: a transitional England post, and then on to other subjects.  The new New Sincerity.  I'll tell you right now, it involves making stuff up.

Technorati Tags: England, Ireland, Cliffs of Moher, Burren, James Thornhill, Painted Hall, Greenwich, photos, lies, photos lie

England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty

If I had to sum up my London trip in one dead person, it would be Horatio Nelson.  (Lazier writers require hundreds of dead folks to sum up London, as in 28 Days Later.)  I didn't plan for Nelson to become so ubiquitous, but in retrospect, it makes sense.  I've just finished Patrick O'Brian's 21-book Aubrey/Maturin series, and much of Jack Aubrey's character is drawn from Nelson, even though Nelson himself also exists within the series' historical timeline.  Nelson changed the face of history; you couldn't leave him out.  The fictional Aubrey fought under Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, before the series opens, but Nelson the character only briefly appears in one book, as I recall.  That's good, because in the first few books, all Jack's daring sea maneuvers and ruses de guerre were actually Nelson.  No one wants to talk to fictional characters based on themselves.  So awkward.  And it can only occur in fiction, so if it happens to you, you know that you're fictional, too.

In London, I saw Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, the extensive and fascinating Nelson's Navy exhibit at the National Maritime Museum, including the clothes he died in, the room where his body lay in state, a collection of Nelson portraits and nautically themed paintings, including Turner's Battle of Trafalgar, seen here, Nelson's memorial statue in St. Paul's Cathedral, and descended into the crypt of St. Paul's to see his tomb.  He's there with Christopher Wren, the Duke of Wellington, John Donne, Florence Nightingale, and other historic memorialized bones.  Maybe it was all the earlier Nelson research, or the overwhelming beauty of St. Paul's, but touching his tomb really stirred something in me.  I don't have much to stir, but it definitely rotated and I think some slopped over.

There's no shortage of poignant moments in Nelson's life.  I also saw one of the letters he wrote just before the Battle of Trafalgar, to his illegitimate daughter Horatia, telling her to give her mother, Lady Emma Hamilton, a kiss for him.  After his death, the British government went against his wishes and refused to support Lady Hamilton, who wound up in debtor's prison with her daughter, fled the country, and died an alcoholic.  But Horatia turned out all right.  She married and had a bunch of children, most of whom were named after Nelson in varying degrees.  That's what you start when you name your daughter Horatia.  I'm willing to give Lord Nelson a pass on that one.  Horatio Sanz, no.  Not until he wins at least three more decisive naval battles.

Technorati Tags: Nelson, Horatio Nelson, Lord Nelson, Trafalgar, St. Paul's Cathedral, Emma Hamilton, Lady Hamilton, Patrick O'Brian, Jack Aubrey

English Breakfast

In England, they just call it "breakfast," or "brekkie."  Sometimes "morning dinner," or "prunch."  (Pre-lunch.)  I used to think English Breakfast was just that one kind of tea, but in London, if all you have for breakfast is tea, they think you're a model.  And then the tabloids print hurtful words.  So I loaded up on jolly old solid foods every morning, such as:

 

• Tomahtoes.  Pronounced like it's spelled.  The weirdest and the most consistent feature wherever I went.  Hot tomahtoes, stewed, or grilled, always whole, always cooked.  Sometimes swimming in hot pulp which seeps into your eggs.  I ate them every morning and soon I learned to think that I had inadvertently convinced myself to simulate liking them.  Oh my, they're so good.  Try some.
• Toahst.  The British know how to make toast.  I have nothing but praise for their toast.  With butter, some kind of sunflower oil spread, jam, marmalade, or just a plain slice to soak up eggy tomatoey juice, U.K. toast gets the job done.  Bravo!
• Mushrooms.  Not incorporated into any other part of the meal.  That's a mistake.  But they taste fine.
• Eggs.  Poached, scrambled, hard boiled, etc.  There are never any guarantees with eggs.  Everyone fucks up a little when preparing eggs, but everyone likes their eggs fucked up in some specific way.  There's no specifically British way to fuck up eggs.
• Beans.  Baked beans.  Hell if I know.
• Coffee.  There's some bad coffee oozing around London.  That's our fault.  It's Starbucks.  Just as expensive, just as mediocre.  They also have Costa, which serves even more expensive coffee.  Turns out that's possible.  Huh.
• Tea.  Is it just a cliché to say the tea is very good?  It's very good tea.  I brought some back, just regular tea from a supermarket, the very cheapest brand.  Not only is it superior to the cheapest American brand, it's at least as good as the fancy brands.  And it's from England, so I can put on airs when I brew it.  I estimate that I can put on 38% more airs.
• Sausages.  This will be covered later in the bacon section . . .
• Scones, muffins, and baked goods.  More like baked greats!  The thing about, um . . . let's do bacon now!
• BACON.  Sweet screeching windshield Jesus, the bacon.  I had heard stories, legends really, but I never dreamt -- I need to tell you something about bacon.  What if all the bacon you had ever eaten, what if it were just greasy shadows, cast upon the walls of a cave?  And what if, one day, you waddled out of that cave, and the first thing you saw was a thick, crispy rasher of succulent back bacon?  Would you look away?  Would you dare to nibble, and if you nibbled, would it blind your tongue?
• And don't think I'm referring to "Canadian bacon," either.  I've had Canadian bacon, or at least what we call Canadian bacon.  I don't know what the Canadians eat, but that bacon they pushed on us?  It's a trick.  Check that bacon for Greek soldiers.
• I mean, was that pig?  Can pigs do that?  How can I eat something that can make itself taste that wonderful?  Conundrum!
• At the Tate Modern, I was looking at some Francis Bacon paintings, and although they were disturbing images, I just thought about that morning's breakfast miracle and smiled.  He had no power over me.

Let me tell you a little story.  It's about bacon.  I was driving around Ireland and went into a gas station convenience store for a light breakfast.  The very smallest, cheapest thing was called something like a "breakfast roll" and had four kinds of meat.  There was sausage, blood pudding, something from maybe a sheep, and my beloved bacon -- strips of sizzling, mouth-watering angel meat.  I sat in the parking lot eating it and a golden retriever came over begging for scraps.  I gave him some sausage.  Soon another dog came by and I fed him, too.  With their eyes, they promised me many gifts: riches, wisdom, the location of this ball they found and hid, if I would only give them a bit of bacon.  Well, I gave them sausage, blood pudding, and sheep's ass or whatever, but the bacon was for me alone.  They were cute dogs, but not cute enough.  If Anna Paquin had come by and started making eyes, even she would not have received bacon.  Of course, she's a vegetarian, so if that was the one time she just wanted to try bacon, I wouldn't be selfish about it, so maybe.  It's a somewhat implausible scenario.

Technorati Tags: English breakfast, London, Ireland, bacon, Anna Paquin

The Ambulatory Sewing Kit

 Although I occasionally took the Underground around London, most of my time was spent walking.  One day I walked forty minutes (I timed it) to a fish and chips restaurant I'd heard about, then forty minutes back, and then got distracted and wandered around the neighborhood for a while, trying to clear my head.  The restaurant had had some lager available.  Despite London's easily available lager and the very unhealthy British cuisine (it's still true, with some exceptions), I lost a bit of weight during the trip.  Walking: The Anti-Bacon.

Although I don't really know London, I just kept in mind whether I was north or south of the Thames, and then headed that way until I hit water.  You're never very far from a bridge.  Soon crossing the bridges became my main goal, and I would cross one, head east or west, cross back over a different bridge, and continue on to the next bridge, as if I were a needle and thread making stitches across the Thames.  Each bridge was a different, self-contained little journey.  It felt almost shamefully indulgent to cross a river with no aim in mind, like living in an elevator or what Thomas Pynchon called "yo-yoing" in V.

Among many others, my crossings included:

• London Bridge.  You know what, it seems fine.
• Tower Bridge, the one leading to (and, through the magic of bridges, from) the Tower of London.  Looks like a big Lego set.
• The Millennium Bridge, seen above, a spider's string of metal cables leading from the Tate Modern to St. Paul's Cathedral.  I like it, but it's so deliberately designed you can almost see the graph paper.
• The Greenwich Foot Tunnel, seen here.  A secret bridge, which cleverly slips under the ferries and trash barges of the Thames.  Very creepy, very cool.  You hear the river rumbling around you, as well as the footsteps of other unseen walkers.  Stay on the left or the bikers will slice right through you.

One terminus of the Greenwich Tunnel lies in the East End, so I walked around there for a while.  It's a swell neighborhood, but in my childhood, EastEnders was that deadly boring soap opera on PBS dragging on endlessly when all you wanted was some Red Dwarf and Doctor Who.  Pre-Internet, pre-DVR, you just had to wait and try not to absorb too much awfulness.  I'm still traumatized by that credits image, so maybe my winding path across the Thames was an attempt to suture the wound.  Ironically, my wanderings led me to the East End, where Ronnie and Roxie Mitchell are planning crazy, sexy misadventures, Phil's always drunk, and Deano, well, let's not talk about Deano.  Ask Craig.  Oh, you can't, he's in jail.

Wait, what?  I just put up that EastEnders image and everything went black.  Damn it!  I need 30 mins of Red Dwarf, stat!

Technorati Tags: London, Thames, bridges, Greenwich, tunnel, EastEnders, Red Dwarf, Doctor Who, Ronnie Mitchell, Roxie Mitchell, scheming whores

A Triumphant and Ignorant Return

I'm back from the U.K. and this site is alive again.  I had a swell time and can report that England's doing just fine.  If anything, I left it in a better condition than I found it.  That's because I follow the backpacker's motto: "Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but a trail of broken hearts and shattered dreams."  Well, I've always been one to adhere to mottos.  It's with great regret that I say Cheers! to the lovely people of England and (with no less regret) a sincere apology to the extra lovely people who are just now learning I wasn't really Damon Albarn.

It's fortunate that Banditos! doesn't discuss current events, because all this time I've been unaware of the American news stories.  It's been wonderful.  All I know is that some Republican congressman had gay sex with some gay prostitutes in a public restroom.  This was a new one, right?  Gay Republicans sh0uld be like shooting stars -- if you sit out all night, you'll see lots of them, but never the same one twice.

The British news didn't even report on that much.  They devoted several days to the re-opening of Morecambe Bay for cockle picking after tense negotiations with the cockle pickers' union.  It's a serious subject, but I can't picture American news constantly updating viewers on cockles, cocklers, and the ins and outs of cockling, at least not without getting a bit giggly.  By the way, negotiations succeeded, and the cocklers are back to cockling cockles safely.  As a newscaster, my transition here would be, "And now to another story guaranteed to warm your heart, or part of it anyway, some region deep down in your heart, if there were a word for that.  Here's Tina with the story of The Kitten Who Shot Down a Plane."

But first, a London story:

Bankside House, the place I stayed, isn't really a hotel but a dormitory left vacant for the summer.  It's a decent place and a very convenient South Bank location.  I shared a bathroom with another person, but I never saw them because I wasn't there much and kept different hours.  I slept in and stayed out late, and sometimes I would wake to hear them banging around next door, but that's all.  One odd thing is that I could sometimes hear a loud but indistinct noise, like static, coming through the wall.  We didn't have televisions, so I had no idea what it was.

One morning I was up early and using the bathroom when someone tried the door, then knocked on it.  "Just a minute!" I yelled.  But they kept banging on it, shaking the door, no matter how much I shouted.  It pissed me off, and I furiously flung open the door to find a shriveled old man, clutching a toothbrush, wearing only briefs and a giant pair of old-timey headphones, blasting classical music.  I'd been hearing his headphones through the wall all that time.  I scared him half to death, because he thought the bathroom door was just stuck.  He stammered in fear, then stammered an apology, then backed away into his room and closed the door.

I hope I've adequately conveyed how weird, decrepit and naked this old guy was.  You may want to picture Gollum, or Mr. Burns.  I don't know if he was British, but he had the stereotypical British old man teeth.  If he hadn't been holding a toothbrush I wouldn't have believed he owned one.  He looked like each morning he gargled with jam.  As he closed his door, a vulture hopped into the hall and was like, "Darn!  Almost had it."

All this week, more London stories!  See memories become text!

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