State of the Guy Who Recently Had a Birthday Address

Yeah, I'm old. So old! I am an old man.

Before I get too deep into that, though, let me just bring this up out of the blue and apropos of nothing. Super Street Fighter IV is set to hit stores one week from today, and fight-game internet nerds such as myself are super hyped about it. The game adds ten characters to the roster of its predecessor, including eight returning characters; one of these characters, Cody, is a former vigilante hero whose unchecked lust for violence eventually lands him in prison. He escapes and immediately decides to fight some more, of course, because -- well, the name of the game is Street Fighter, so it's kind of futile to explain motivations too far beyond that.

But if this escaped-prisoner character, Cody, were to make his way back into society and try to make a new life for himself -- changing his name and altering his appearance, but always keeping his signature attacks on hand in case of emergency -- where do you think he would turn up? Who do we know with a suspicious look, a really fake-sounding name, and deceptively high kicks?



Yeah, I'm on to you, "Ace". Not very discreet, there. Convict.

Anyway! With that tangential and completely defamatory aside out of the way, let me break my extended silence -- has it only been a week? Well, it felt longer -- and make a rare personal post. (Rare for good reason, I assure you; back when I wrote about myself regularly I had maybe ten visitors a week, so I think it's safe to suggest that reading material about me is not in extraordinarily high demand.) This past Sunday I hit the big two-six, which isn't technically considered all that old but sure feels like it, and I was fortunate enough to commemorate my increasing age with fine family and a crazy awesome cake my sister made for me.



You know you're jealous! I don't know what my shamanistic power animal actually is, but if we were allowed to just pick 'em for ourselves I'm pretty sure that "luchador surrounded by fire" would easily be on my shortlist.



So I faced the oncoming year with reasonably good cheer, considering the unemployment and whatnot. (Winnipeg, you know I love you, but it's awfully hard to stick around when you don't produce any actual jobs. I didn't come back with my Master's degree to just sit and share drinks with it.) And thus -- as my birthday present to myself, a fine morale-boosting start to the year ahead -- I hit up the $10 stereos clearance sale at Nerman's Books and Collectables on Osborne and bought myself a fine, state-of-the-art, Dolby-compatible cassette deck.



And it works! It is as wide as my widescreen monitor, and according to its model number it is as old as I am (!!), but more importantly it is the final piece to my elaborate digitization puzzle. I'd already rigged up an elaborate series of wires to convert vinyl into digital formats, I have a scanner (not a big one, but it does alright) for print materials, and every computer made in the past decade or so is able to rip CDs so there's really no sense of wonder involved there. I guess if I arbitrarily decide that I need something off of an 8-track I'll be really cheesed off, but otherwise I think I'm pretty well equipped to preserve historically significant or charmingly ludicrous local material.

That kind of jumps the gun on my next point, but hey, while I'm at it. Here we are, it's April already, and I've barely given the half-sarcastic Manitoba Homecoming 2010 much of a workout at all; I'd originally intended it as an excuse to occasionally explore the cultural history of our great province, and now that I'm old and have too much free time on my hands I reckon I should give it the attention it deserves. So watch for that, true believers; hopefully I can get back to form reasonably quickly and deliver some bizarre, old-timey shenanigans. Here's hoping!