by Ira Nayman
Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad you enjoy the blog.
Killer moves are called killer moves for a reason (they’re moves that kill), but that doesn’t mean that they are useful against every opponent. Sometimes, it pays to reach back into your repertoire and use a slightly older set of moves. In this case, try: chest bash, chest bash, chest bash, low leg sweep, high leg kick, chest bash, chest bash, boxed ears head crusher. I think you will find the results quite satisfying.
The GamR Mom
Hi, GamR Mommy,
I love you.
My name is Derrick. I am six years old. I play Drawer Duck and the Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. I like to make pictures. I played the whole game, and I played the whole game and I played the whole game and I played the whole game and I played the whole game and I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, but I want a new game. This game is getting poopie. Is there another Drawer Duck game I can play?
shivas81closet
Dear Derrick,
Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad you enjoy the blog.
Drawer Duck is a series of educational games tailored to specific age groups. The game you play, for example, is targeted at six year and half a month-olds to six year, seven months, one week, four day and seven hour-olds. I mean, they are really tailored to very specific age groups. So, all you have to do is wait until you’re old enough, and you’ll be able to play the next game in the series, which I believe is called Drawer Duck’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
The GamR Mom
Hey, Mrs. GamR Mom Dude,
How’s it going? Your blog is the first thing I read when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I read before I go to sleep at night. It’s good shit.
For the last six months, I’ve been playing Microsoft Office Simulator 2026. In one sense, it’s a brilliant simulation: it has just the right mix of boring paperwork, boring meetings and boring socializing with boring people you wouldn’t socialize with if you weren’t stuck in such a boring place together for 10 hours a day. On the other hand, the game has a major weakness: just the right mix of boring paperwork, boring meetings and boring socializing with boring people you wouldn’t socialize with if you weren’t stuck in such a boring place together for 10 hours a day. You understand what I’m saying? I already work in this environment, why would I want to play a simulation of it?
Is there anything I can do to, you know, liven the game up a little?
Tyrone Slothrop
Dear Tyrone,
Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad you enjoy the blog.
You do know that the target audience for the Microsoft Office Simulator series is made up of race car drivers, astronauts, Lindsay Lohan bodyguards and other people who have very dangerous professions, do you not? Keeping this in mind, the best way to enhance your enjoyment of the game would probably be to change your career.
The GamR Mom
ATTENTION: The GamR Mom
My five year-old son Grandin has been convinced by his friends at school that he should play a game called Drawer Duck and the Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. Now, the only things I know about computer games I learned from Fox News, so, of course, I told him that I would never allow it. But, he simply refuses to take no for an answer. Would you say that Drawer Duck and the Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby was too violent for my baby?
Harold Smith
Dear Harold,
Thank you for your kind words. I’m glad you – oh, wait, you didn’t – okay, never mind.
You (and, I suppose, Fox News) are absolutely right. Drawer Duck and the Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby is one of those violent computer games that everybody has heard about but nobody has actually played. Good catch – you certainly wouldn’t want your child to play that!
If your son must have a computer game, I would suggest Bloody Death Match to the Death IV. The game is so soothing, that I would recommend you allow him to play it just before he goes to sleep.
The GamR Mom
* * *
Noomi Rapier-Dewall looked at the words on the screen, all 904 of them. She was 96 words short. Asskicker12, the editor of the GamR Boyz Web site for which she blogged, would let her get away with being 10 maybe 20 words short on her daily posts, but this was too much. It’s not that he intimidated her: Noomi had tried many times to get him to change his online name, which implied that there were 11 people who were better at kicking ass than he was. No matter how hard she tried, though, he wouldn’t budge, saying that the name Asskicker12 had ‘sentimental value’ for him. It’s that she loved her job. Go figure.
With a sigh, Noomi opened DevilsHotmail (‘For people who find regular Hotmail too mild!’) and looked for another question. Before she got very far into it, though, the computer said, “I hate to interrupt, Noomi, but it is 15 minutes to noon, and if you want to make lunch for the boys, you should probably get started.”
“Okay,” Noomi agreed. She could finish after lunch. “Could you read for a minute for me before I go?”
“Must I?” the computer asked.
“I’d really appreciate it,” Noomi insisted.
“Very well,” the computer, trying to contain its exasperation, stated. “Where shall I begin?”
“Where you always begin,” Noomi told it: “where you left off last time.”
The computer artificially cleared its non-existent throat and recited: “Mondo Moda Ladies Fashion & Children’s Wear Inc. 2522 Finch Avenue West. North York. M9M 2G3. Mondo Slacks. 136 Tycos Drive. North York. M6B 1W8. Mondrow, William H., Chartered Accountant. 273 Sheppard Avenue West. North York. M2N 1N4. There. That was 60 seconds. Are you happy, now, woman?”
“Thanks,” Noomi smiled.
Oh, did I mention that she had bought the voice chip enhancement that made Noomi’s computer sound like Alan Rickman?
Noomi made her way down from her study to the kitchen. She buttered some bread, slapped some cheese between slices and popped them in the toaster oven. (When they were first married, Dev had wanted to buy her a smart kitchen with the latest artificial intelligence enhancements. She told him that if an electric can opener ever gave her grief about the way she cut tomatoes, she would burn the kitchen to the ground. That effectively ended the discussion.)
With lunch preparations well in hand, Noomi was left with approximately 13 and a half minutes to fill before noon. She thought about her sons, Oliver and Lawrence. Oliver, a tall, lean 7 year-old with a thoughtful gaze, liked to have a bedtime story before he went to sleep, only the story had to be a collaborative effort between him and his parents. They had been working on the latest story for over three months:
The Monster Under the Wheelchair Ramp
There was once a boy named – [“Mooooom,” Oliver interrupted, “that’s not how you start a story!”] Okay, okay. Sorry. Once upon a time there was a boy named Jonathan Leonard Quigley Wilson McWhirther-Rossiter. His friends just called him Bob. If your name was Jonathan Leonard Quigley Wilson McWhirther-Rossiter, you would probably prefer to be called Bob, too.
Bob was a noticer. He noticed things that other people were too busy or too distracted or too silly to notice. For instance, he noticed that Auntie Mame was no longer wearing her wedding ring; he didn’t understand why his mother, Grace Matilda Regina Bostrom McWhirther-Rossiter (aka: Lydia), made such a big fuss about it when he told her, but he noticed. He noticed that all of the cartoons he watched on Saturday morning were the same as toys in the stores; this was a problem for his dad, Reginald Dwight Francis Arruga McWhirther-Rossiter (whom people called Jeb), who had to explain to his son why he couldn’t buy all the toys that his son saw on TV. “I get it, mom,” Oliver assured his mother.
Bob was a noticer. So, of course, he noticed the big green, scaly arm that shot out of the darkness under the wheelchair ramp at his school, Piltdown Elementary, and grabbed the squirrel.
At first, he told Principal Joe. But, Principal Joe had to deal with mandatory studen
t testing and funding cuts and somebody who kept spraying the anarchist logo on the doors to the girls’ gym and stuff, so he never noticed the big green, scaly arm. Then, Bob told Lydia and Jeb, but they didn’t notice the big green, scaly arm. Worse, they talked about whether they should be worried about Bob. Dad thought he just had a healthy imagination; Mom worried that there was something darker at work. They hadn’t noticed that Bob was a noticer.
Then, Mister and Misses Fischer-Pryce’s cat Niblets went missing. Bob knew that the monster under the wheelchair ramp was probably responsible for the cat’s disappearance, but couldn’t convince any adult to even look into it. So, he did what any self-respecting seven year-old would do under these circumstances: one day after school, he went to the wheelchair ramp to confront the monster.
“I know you’re in there,” Bob said. There was no response.
“I know you took Niblets,” Bob said. Still, there was no response.
“If you don’t talk to me, I’m going to tell an adult,” Bob said. Yes, he told a fib; he had already told the adults, and they didn’t believe him. Fibbing is wrong, and you should never do it under any circumstances, even if they involve monsters. “Mom, can we please keep the life lessons to a minimum!” Oliver moaned. “They’re getting in the way of the story!” But, Bob was frustrated by the silence, and he said anything that he could think of to get the monster to talk to him.
And, it worked. “Don’t do that,” a deep voice rumbled out of the darkness under the wheelchair ramp.
“Did you grab a cat?” Bob asked.
“I was hungry!” the monster told him.
Bob thought about this. It made sense: monsters under wheelchair ramps got hungry just like everybody else. Still, Bob couldn’t let him just grab people’s cats when he got hungry; people would miss their cats and be sad. So, Bob thought and thought and thought until he came up with a smart idea.
“If I feed you, will you stop grabbing people’s animals?” Bob asked.
The monster thought for a few seconds. Even its thoughts rumbled, Bob noticed. Then, it answered: “It depends. What have you got?”
So, Bob started feeding the monster under the wheelchair ramp at his school. It liked: chicken, tuna and Kraft Dinner. It didn’t like: lobster, crabs or extra creamy Kraft Dinner. Bob figured that the monster had probably come from the ocean – what with its scales and all – and may, eating seafood, have felt like a cannibal. He could come up with no theory about extra creamy Kraft Dinner.
Mom and Dad rarely noticed Bob’s trips out of the house after dinner, but, when they did notice and asked him what he was doing, he told them that he was going to the library. And, Mom and Dad were proud of how smart he was. After a couple of weeks, Mom noticed that their grocery bills were a little higher – adults always notice anything related to money. (Maybe that’s why they don’t notice other, more important things.) She just assumed it was because Bob was a growing boy, so he was eating more.
When he brought the food to the monster under the wheelchair ramp, the two of them started to talk. And, Bob learned many things. He learned that the monster was named Grumpy Periquinckle. He learned that Grumpy Periquinckle’s all time favourite food was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with dill pickles and ketchup. Eww. He learned that Grumpy Periquinckle was a bridge troll, but all of the bridges were taken, so he had to work wherever he could. Trolling doesn’t require many skills, but it does require some, and trolls can get rusty if they don’t keep their skills up. He learned that Grumpy Periquinckle was on a waiting list for a bridge, but, because trolls lived very long lives and there were now so many of them, he didn’t think he would get a bridge for a very long time. He learned that there was an annual convention of wheelchair ramp monsters in a city called Las Vegas, where they compared experiences, shared best practices and developed lobbying strategies for getting better locations. “You’ll understand that last bit when you’re older,” Noomi assured Oliver.
And, that’s all of the story Noomi and Oliver had come up with so far. Noomi thought that that was the perfect place to end the story: friendship overcoming the need to eat family pets. Oliver thought that it needed to be continued, that Grumpy Periquinckle should come under pressure from the other wheelchair ramp monsters to start eating cats again, not because he needed to when he was hungry, but because that is what wheelchair ramp monsters did. In this, Oliver was better attuned to life on the elementary school playground than his mother.
Noomi wasn’t sure where the story would go tonight, but she was looking forward to it.
Lawrence, the baby at five years old, had a round, open brown face with big eyes. When he was younger, he got used to falling asleep during storms. At some point, he couldn’t fall asleep without the sounds, so Noomi and Dev had to spend five or 10 minutes waggling cardboard next to his bed every night to help him. After a few months, they found that he could no longer fall asleep when a real storm hit, so they had to wait until it died down so they could make the cardboard noises.
Noomi loved all her men fiercely. Funny how things go. For Noomi, motherhood was a bewildering set of vaguely second best choices. But, in a good way.
As she took the finished sandwiches out of the toaster oven and popped a couple more in, she thought back to the family’s trip to Calgary to see Dev’s parents. Oliver spent the whole trip playing games and texting his friend on his Blackberry. Lawrence listened to his iPod. It was so quiet in the back seat, it got to the point where she wanted them to roughhouse or otherwise annoy each other just so she could be reassured that they were there. Come to think of it, the kids never asked “Are we there, yet?” (all they had to do was look up the destination using a GPS app, which would not only tell them if they were there yet, but how long they had to travel if they weren’t). They didn’t even have to ask for a rest stop; they just Instant Messaged the car with their request, and it pulled in at the next gas station, usually giving the driver a few seconds notice.
The more she thought about it, the closer Noomi came to the conclusion that technology was destroying family outings! (Didn’t Marshall McLuhan say something about that? If he didn’t, his disciples would claim that he did. Anyway, when she had a free moment, Noomi preferred the Random McLuhan Aphorism Generator, which she found made much more sense than any of McLuhan’s actual writings.)
Oliver walked into the kitchen. “Mmm,” he commented, “grilled cheese. You make the best sandwiches.”
“The trick,” Noomi told him, “is in choosing the right cheese.”
“I’m sure there’s a life lesson in there, somewhere,” Oliver gently chided his mother. Noomi smiled.
“Hey, Mom,” Lawrence shouted from the front of the house, “there’s a strange car pulling into the driveway!”
“What’s strange about it?” Noomi loudly asked.
“The doors open up,” Lawrence said. “There are two…oh…Mom!”
Noomi didn’t like the sound of that, so she told Oliver to watch the sandwiches and briskly walked out to the door. She got there just as the bell rang. Opening the door, she found a man and a woman standing on her porch.
“Hello,” Investigator Chumley greeted her, “We’re from the Transdimensional Authority and we’re here…umm…” He trailed off when he took in who she was.
The woman who was with him could have been Noomi’s double, except for the strange mess on top of her head that Noomi guessed was the woman’s hair. Seriously: it was like looking in the mirror. The woman who stood on the porch just outside the door wore the same expression of shock and wonder as the woman standing just inside the door, except, for the wonder, substitute more shock.
Noomi stared at Noomi.
Noomi stared back at Noomi.
“I –” Noomi started.
“Who?” Noomi asked.
“What?” Noomi asked.
“Why…? Noomi asked.
“Great! Two more Ws and we’ll have a journalism class!” TOM sneered. He seemed to stick out his tongue,
despite the fact that he was a sphere held in a hand at a man’s side. TOM was just full of tricks.
Noomi looked at Noomi some more.
Noomi looked at Noomi looking at her some more.
Noomi awkwardly ran a hand through her hair.
Noomi began blinking rapidly.
I got totally confused about who was doing and saying what, so I decided to call them “Noomi 1” and Noomi 2.” Then, I realized that that implied a hierarchical relationship between them that I did not intend to convey; although they were not equally represented in the present story, they had equally valid existences. So, I scrapped that idea. I quickly rejected “the first Noomi” and “the second Noomi” for the same reason. I seriously considered referring to the pair as “the Noomi with the rat’s nest on top of her head” and “the Noomi with sensible hair (the one who clearly used Ma Fleckner’s Hair Straightener),” but, after going with it for a couple of pages, I realized that this method of identifying the two characters was too cumbersome (and, in any case, I have other uses for Noomi’s hair)… I settled on calling the Noomi in the new universe by her last name, Rapier-Dewall. The Noomi who has been at the heart of the story – yes, our Noomi – will…continue to be called Noomi. Note, however, that, unlike usual usage, the use of the first name does not denote informality or greater comfort with that character, nor does the use of the surname denote greater respect for that character; they are just a literary convenience.