The Parables of the Video Games

I will begin by saying that my short acquaintance period for my return to USU has been almost pandemonaic... chaotic, to say the least. My efforts to establish myself here have been casually desperate (if I can even use such a term), with my state of confusion even leading to my clothing situation. No, no, I'm not in utter shambles, mind you, but I still as yet have to sort out my clothing into a workable order of access (which, by the way, adds a new spin on doing laundry).

I shall now begin my explanation of my title. Originally (e.g., before my mission), I had a headphone system for my computer that looked like I could fit into a call center - single headphone speaker, microphone on a pivot, you get the picture - that I enjoyed tremendously. Among the reasons why, I could unplug one or the other at will, depending on my mood. Now that the picture has been painted fully, zoom forward three years to (roughly) last week. I was looking to install Google Video/Audio Chat on my Aggiemail account, and when I went to check the microphone (because I knew that there was no video to be had yet) I could not get the computer to recognize microphone input. Now, to keep in mind, I knew that the headphone speaker still worked because I had been using it for some time after I had set up my computer again. So, I checked the Windows Help questionnaire. As a final review of that questionnaire, I would highly encourage the user to look to find alternate solutions to his/her problem without referencing said help function. Needless to say, the questionnaire told me to re-install my driver that was giving me grief about no mic sound. This led me to look online for the driver for my speakers/microphone. For those who do not know this, both the microphone and the speakers are on the same driver, and I spent the next three days looking for a replacement driver for my (now silent) computer. When I finally did obtain my real driver, it absolutely did not want to install itself correctly on my computer, despite my constant prodding to get it to work out.

Now, to the first reason why I titled this what I did. I eventually gave up on the whole "reinstall the driver" thing, and decided to look into the system restore function, because I remembered my past with fondness and a burbling computer, whereas all I heard then was the CPU fan running in the background. As I began the system restore function, I could not help but think of the Song of Time (G, C, Eb, G, C, Eb, G, B, A, G, Eb, F, G, C, lowBb, D, C if you want to hear it: [q:quarter, h:half, etc;] q h q q h q 8 8 q h 8 8 q) as I set the computer to restore itself to what it was the week before. If you are unfamiliar with this example, Link (Majora's Mask) plays this tune to return to the first day during game-play. When the computer was restarted, I was joyfully blasted by my speakers as I logged into my computer. Now, I'll apologize in advance: I won't tell you what I mean by this next statement, but that event meant more to me than just having my speakers working again, though I still don't have my microphone working yet. It probably is broken now that I think about it...

Now, for my next story, this being one that is significantly less long-winded. I have successfully named my bicycle, and after I tell you my encounters, I will tell you its name. When I returned to USU from the weekend I had spent in my family's ward, my father had finished his maintenance upon my bicycle that I had been using three years ago. Now, I don't know about you, but there's a lot to be said about a bicycle that has been waiting two, three years in a dusty shed with who knows how much could happen to it. My father had to tighten the bearings on at least one wheel's axle, re-lubricated the chain with what I believe to be WD-40 (or a very dusty and rusted mixture of bicycle chain and motor oil - I hope it was more along the lines of WD-40...), and bent one of the teeth back on the pedal's gear system from a 90 degree angle outwards. It still needed a decent lubricant and a fill-up of air in the back tire, which Aggie Blue Bikes was willing to provide after I tried as hard as I could to remove much of the previous lubricant.

I found out the hard way (again) that a bicycle runs much smoother and faster if it has a full tire. Once all that was fulfilled, I began riding it around campus, which is somewhat difficult considering all the crowds that line the sidewalks from building to building. Such a day happened where I rode my bike all around campus, and I found a different route that had less pedestrians on it. My final class (in Old Main) that day finished early because many of my colleagues taking the day's exam were slow in finishing, whereas I was one of the faster ones. After visiting the Bookstore for more Scantrons, I decided to take the road that led from Old Main to Old Farm, which happens to be a very steep descent on bike or in a car. I found myself humming the Final Fantasy 7 airship theme, especially as I began to be riding faster than my maximum speed on the downhill slope. Total time on bicycle: roughly five minutes, maybe less. From that point, I found the name fitting: my airship. As it turns out, I enjoyed flying around with my airship in FF7, and I figure that I'll be getting a similar relationship with this bicycle.

Now that I'm done telling my stories, perhaps I can do something productive. Like eat dinner, or something.