Pokemon's Puzzle.

          What is Pokemon's Puzzle?         
        
          "hmmm....It's kinda like Tetris but you match colors instead of shapes"
          "Oh so like Dr. Mario! Yeah I know that game!"
          "No, no it's....Dr. Mario pales in comparison. It's hard to explain"
          "No I get it, you match the colors and the blocks disappear, have you played Dr. Mario?"
          "YES I'VE PLAYED DR. MARIO. POKEMON PUZZLE LEAGUE IS LIGHT YEARS BEYOND DR. FRICKEN MARIO AND IF WE PLAYED IT I WOULD DOMINATE YOU UNDERSTAND!?"         

          As someone who was born in 1981 I should not be as familiar with the characters of Pokemon as I am. I have an excuse...sort of. My knowledge of Squirtle, Bruno, and Mew 2 come from a single video game that used the Pokemon theme to push a rather complicated puzzle strategy game. It would be like if Tetris was called "The Disney Princess Puzzle Game" and the only difference was that Ariel and Jasmine were feeding the blocks onto the screen. In my opinion, it was a marketing blunder by Nintendo because the Pokemon theme turned off anybody who would have really latched onto it. It was released as one of the last wave of N64 titles right before puzzle games hit it big online. It's so obscure, I doubt anyone who reads this has ever heard of it. There are currently uncountable puzzle/strategy games floating around the net with new ones made all the time but none will ever come close to the speed, layers, and intensity of Pokemon Puzzle League.
          Before I go further I want to take a moment to try and explain what made it different than the others to put it into some sort of context. Imagine a grid of colored boxes in a chaotic order. The only thing you can do as the user is select two boxes and swap them left to right. If when doing this three or more boxes of the same color align, they disappear and whatever was above them falls into the newly vacant space. Instead of the pieces coming faster and faster from above as in Tetris, the mash of colored boxes scrolls increasingly fast up from the bottom until it reaches the top and you die. A fairly simple premise very comparable to Tetris at first glance. What makes it different is unlike Tetris there is no limit to how many moves ahead you can think or how fast you can make that happen. Tetris gives you one piece in a box that indicates what you will be getting next. Pokemon Puzzle league is designed so if you make a line and that causes blocks to fall into place making another line then you get rewarded by sending a large obstruction onto your competition's puzzle next to you. There's no end to how large a "combo" you can make by setting up a chain reaction of destruction. As you get better at the game you find yourself thinking more and more moves ahead of what your fingers are doing. Two player battles can get pretty fierce. The rounds hardly ever last more than two minutes.

           The first place I ever signed a lease on was a basement apartment built under an Acupuncture clinic. Over the course of six months I lived there about ten different people rotated in and out of residence with never more than five at a time. It was two bedrooms with a laundry room (the third bedroom), an out of commission sauna (the fourth bedroom), and a couch in the living room (the fifth person slept here, it wasn't really a bedroom). It was dubbed "The Cave" and as with anybody's first pad outside their parents place, every night was filled with debauchery. Pokemon Puzzle League was introduced to The Cave by my friend Jeff when he moved in. We played a lot of Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. but little by little Pokemon took over until it was the only thing we did, not just video games wise. With his previous experience Jeff dominated the competition for a while. One by one we each became better players and when we did, the games started to get really intense. I mean, REALLY intense. There would be a room full of silent people, eyes wide to the screen. All you could hear was the machine gun button clicking from the two competitors and the occasional soundbite of a Pokemon when a large payload of destructive blocks was being delivered to an opponent. When two experts are playing then you are both one shred away from losing for 90% of the round, so when someone dies it's always shocking and causes the room to erupt especially if the round lasts five or more minutes. I was sitting in a wooden chair once when playing a particularly serious round and when I lost I must have jolted by body from the shock because the chair collapsed into a pile of splintered kindling. At the end of every month the four or five people who were living there at the time would play an all day tournament for who would get which rooms. Those rounds were the most serious of all since there was more at stake. At night I would try and sleep starring at the ceiling which unfortunately was a white grid of boxes. Every one of my roommates confessed that they too saw the ceiling change into a myriad of colors and as they dosed off would be switching them around to make patterns.
          Eventually everyone went their separate ways. My new apartment had a ritzy bar at the end of the street which wasn't my scene. One of the young bartenders eventually recognized I lived nearby and started hooking me up with free drinks whenever I came in so it became my scene. One night a well dressed man sitting at the bar next to me struck up a casual conversation. I forget how it started but I quickly learned that he was a game designer at Nintendo. This made sense since the Nintendo compound was right next to the Microsoft one nearby. I mentioned Pokemon Puzzle League and his eyes lit up. He excitedly informed me that he was one of the lead designers of that game and although it never took off commercially, it was a favorite among Nintendo employees. I knew no matter how dramatically I explained my passion for it, he would never understand the true extent but I tried anyways. He was beyond thrilled to hear me talk about the strategies I developed with my friends. I told him that my only complaint was that there were no more difficulty levels to unlock after beating it on "super hard". He replied,
          "There's super hard. Super hard unlocks when you beat very hard"
          "No, we beat very hard AND super hard then there's nothing left to unlock", I said.
          "That's impossible, we designed Mew 2 to be unbeatable in super hard mode, we didn't even make a video to play at the end, what plays at the end?" He asked.
          "The same video that plays at the end of very hard. I was disappointed with that as well" I confessed. He was shocked and I think it was the first time in our conversation that he realized just how serious I was about our obsession with it.
          Years later I visited Jeff who still had his N64 and all his games and we played a few rounds. He killed me quickly every time, I had lost it completely. I was only thinking about three moves ahead maximum at any given time. I decided to write about my account of this game when I realized recently that I'm afraid of it. A few days ago I was browsing prices for used N64s on Amazon considering getting two or three of my favorite games of yesteryear. I looked up Mario Kart and Goldeneye but not Pokemon. I fear it like a recovering crack addict fears a room full of people smoking it. When I think about the game, along with the fun parts I'm haunted by those sleepless nights moving imaginary blocks around in frustration. I remember the bitterness I would feel walking in the cold for a beer run after losing an epic match. The game is just too intense, and that is Pokemon's puzzle. A conundrum where something is so aggravatingly enjoyable you can't indulge in it.    

Butt Breathing.

Prologue:
 
          I racked my brain for a more clever title for this post until I realized it might be best to just call it like it is. A fair warning of sorts. I recently asked an old friend of mine to suggest a topic for the next thing to write about and he replied with a series of two word phrases he knew that I knew what they would be referencing. One of them was "Butt Breathing". Although this subject is pretty much what it sounds like, the hilarity that surrounded it is too much for me to ignore just to protect my readers of the disgusting details. In fact, it's the vile content that makes the story worth reading at all. To put it bluntly, continuing further is a choice you make as a reader and you have officially been warned. It's also worth mentioning that the first post I ever made that I decided a prologue was necessary is titled: "Butt Breathing". I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm proud of that.

          There is a strange time in human development that occurs right before puberty. A time of personal discovery before the brain is consumed with nothing but sexual thoughts. The mind is old enough to experiment but still just ignorant enough to not be ashamed of the results. I once figured out that if I lick the palm of my hand and press it to my ear, I could make a farty squeak noise for instance. The list goes on but one of the funniest skills I discovered in my youth is how to breath through my ass. No, this type of breathing doesn't replenish the brain with oxygen to live another moment like that of the lungs. It's only benefit is to bypass the time it takes for food to ferment, gas to form in the intestines, to eventually exit with a delightful noise.
          The way it's accomplished is one has to "assume the position" and resist all urges to laugh. The technique is simple. First you arrange your body on the floor so your ass is the highest point. Do your absolute best to relax despite the overwhelming urge to laugh at the impending results. Once the anus takes in a gulp of air, pinch it off and blow it out as if you had brewed up a fart. If you can stay focused, the procedure can be repeated instantly over and over. Not Laughing is the hardest hurdle to overcome because the only reason you would be doing this in the first place is to elicit laughter and that's the very thing that stops the show. There, You now have a graduate certificate in Butt Breathing 101.
          As you might imagine, this amazing skill was a hit at 5th grade video game sleepovers. There was one time in particular that trumped them all. Like most kids who grew up in the 90's, every weekend I would get together with two of my best friends; Jared and Travis, who were cousins and play video games until we were ordered to go to sleep. Jared's younger brother Joel was with us as usual making it a foursome of very obnoxious boys. At sometime around 1:00am we heard the sound of Jared and Joel's father walking down the hall which indicated the silent ordinance had arrived. We could easily tell the difference between their mom, Susan's quick shuffle and their dad, Loran's heavy lumbering that spoke words of authority through the floorboards with each step. Loran was good friend's with both mine and Travis' dads but there were a few things that made his fathering different. One of the most notable details in my memory was with only boys in his pride he felt no need to put clothes back on when he had already taken them off for the evening.
          After about twelve thunderous steps, there he stood at the top of the stairs that led to the rec room in nothing but his tighty whities. The scar on his stomach from where he got shot years ago still visible in the low light. As expected, he ordered us to bed with a sharp command. Although our intentions were always to honor him, we all knew that this wouldn't be the only time we'd see the underwear ghost that night. Goofing off was what we lived for, and even when we'd make a pact to stay quiet someone would always start telling a joke, let out a hilarious fart, or even start a wrestling match. This night was going to go down in history as the night we would turn the tables and scare the ghost but for the moment all was silent. Who was going to be the first to violate the decree and with what? Then Travis let out a fart. A few giggles ensued. Nothing out of the ordinary so far. He let out another larger one and another and another growing faster in pace. I couldn't believe it, he must be butt breathing! I thought I was the only one who had mastered this special talent. Then as fast as it began, it stopped and I knew why. Travis was laughing hysterically.
          "He's butt breathing" Said Joel in a raspy whisper.  "I know" Jared confirmed. Wow, I guess everyone knows about butt breathing. I had no idea. It wasn't long before Joel and Travis were in the midst of a fart competition and we heard the familiar sound of an elephant on his hind legs tromping down the hall above us. Joel and Travis quickly straightened out their bodies from "the position" and pretended to be asleep.
          "Shut up and go to sleep! Don't make me come down here again!" barked the man. No one said a word. This time we all agreed that although the butt breathing was the most hilarious thing ever, we should put it to rest and try to sleep. A long time passed and the rec room stayed quiet. I was wide awake though and couldn't let the night pass by without impressing the guys with my own rump trumpet. In the darkness, I bent my sleeping bag up like an inchworm and cleared my mind. Once I reached my state of zen I sucked in an ass gulp of air and blasted it back out. Almost immediately after my explosion, another echoed form across the room. Jared had joined the ranks as well. With our initial outburst of laughter behind us we were all able to concentrate and within no time at all, the four of us were all simultaneously breathing with our butts. The sound in the room was as if it was raining woopee cushions. Deep in our meditation of collective fart consciousness, no one heard captain underwear stomping down the hall. This time he said nothing, he just flipped the switch on the wall, exposing our fart chorus with a flash of light. We kept going. eventually one of us broke down and began laughing which caused us all to stop farting and laugh as well. It must have been quite infectious because even Jared and Joel's dad, on his third trip to shut us up began to cackle. I think the only thing he said before retiring back to his bedrrom was "You guys are disgusting, it smells like a toilet in here."

Epilogue:

          Over the years that followed the choir of ass we assembled that night, I occasionally butt breathed here and there for my friend's entertainment. However, I always knew that my display would never top that night in the rec room. Although I will probably make occasional references to farting or butts on this blog in the future, I promise I won't devote an entire column to the subject ever again. Happy butt breathing!