A Long Sought After Hidden Trick

Here I was at No Brand Con 2010 on Saturday Sunday at 2:00 A.M. in the video game room when DDR for retards (a group of us that had no skill at it decided to have a mini-tournament), got tiring and I was looking for something else to fuel my insomnia.

I went again to Samurai Spirits (The first release of Samurai Shodown), and got my ass handed to me by the computer over and over again on the second easiest difficulty. Then I noticed it. Sitting beside the TV and Sega Genisis console I was playing was an inactive TV and a SEGA MASTER SYSTEM. My heart skipped. Could it be? After 18 years, could I have a chance to once again hit the asteroid belt, Saturn, and perhaps...Pluto with my orbital defense satellite?!

I checked the cartridge roster at the room's main desk. There were half a dozen games for the master system or more...and one...ONE...YES! It was the first game I ever owned as a child, Global Defense! And from that spurred almost a week of work and the reason for this post.

In this game you control a defense satellite, and in the 1 player version, you have to choose whether you're going to move the satellite or your aiming cursor because you can't move both at the same time. Shooting is an independent button. This adds more challenge to the game than the arcade version, S.D.I. which had a trackball and a joystick for independent control.

So, I was getting my ass handed to me again by Sega. My sis was there, and we played the game together when we were kids. That was the key phrase: "we played the game together when we were kids". I distinctly remember in my child's mind that there was a mode of gameplay where one player would control the motion of the satellite, and the other would control the aiming cursor while the satellite itself was on auto rapid-fire. We couldn't find the manual or any links to a .pdf of the instruction manual on the nearby internet as to how we could activate this 2-player mode.

With time we decided to hit the hotel room and crash, giving up every attempt to activate the 2 player mode for Global Defense. Then when the weekend was over we went back home. The prowling of the Internet began. After 12 intermittent hours of internet research... I finally happened upon this.

So, I will share with the world so that more than one place on the internet has it: To enter the 2-player mode in Global Defense for the Sega Master System, Player 2 must hold the right directional button down and start the game with button 2 at the same time. For the sake of search engines I will repeat:

To activate 2 player mode in Global Defense for the Sega Master System, Player 2 must hold down the right directional button while starting the game with button 2.

Earthly Dreams and Heavenly Dreams

One of the books (most specifically graphic novels) that I am working on expresses how as we grow mature, we trade our 'heavenly' dreams for 'earthly' ones. When you are a child, in your child-mind someone would ask you what you wanted to do when you grew up, and you may or may not have spat them out a list. Chances are, the younger you were, the more likely you were to speak the truth.

Unless you had a significant attachment, role-model, relative, or hero that worked in a profession as a child, your aspirations for that goal were earthly. A heavenly dream is one that isn't culturally or realistically achievable. Examples of 'heavenly' dreams are world peace, taking over the world, wielding magic, flying without any aid (mechanical or physical), etc. etc. World peace can still qualify as an 'earthly' dream if it is not your true and personal wish, but its likelihood makes it 'heavenly'.

Once again unless you had a significant and personal attachment to these goals, these are examples of earthly dreams: Owning a house, having a career, starting a family, being wealthy. As we grow in maturity, we reach down for our earthly dreams. They are at our feat and within our grasp. Because of whatever culture you belong to, maturity itself is usually a process where you let go of your heavenly dreams entirely, or convince yourself through a transformation of these goals into earthly ones, that you are still doing what you've always wanted.

I say that even if you are forced to give up your heavenly dreams in order to live a good life, you should never forget them entirely. Use paper and write them down, they will give you strength, no matter how foolish you think they are. I am speaking as someone who is spiritual, but not religious. Perhaps faith gives you a similar strength. In the end, they are just internal deceptions, false motivation. Even so, they are powerful. Be truly honest to yourself, and if you acknowledge these lies of Ideology that you follow, and still enjoy following them, then regret will not be yours and I believe you are not wrong.

The I Ching

Pronounced "Yi Jing", the I Ching is a text that was rendered from centuries of practice in philosophy, astrology and cosmology in ancient Chinese culture by word of mouth and eventually put to paper. I have been pouring over its concept and translated versions of its writing because it is spiritual, and yet it is not religious.

I am agnostic (weak agnostic to be specific), and most of my explorations into the philosophical have been through conversation. I have done little actual philosophical research aside from poking into Plato's thoughts, and I thought that I should begin with the I Ching.

As I read, there are many divination methods that come from the I Ching. You can use the stars, some coins, or even a turtle's back to pull a universal interpretation that is without contemporary restraint. I haven't even begun to dig deeply into the I Ching yet, but I believe it is going to be a splendid journey, and I will keep you all posted.

What to say

I haven't had a serious post on this blog yet, so what do I bring out of the darkness and into the light? The first thing I thought of was while I was driving home this morning. I was listening to the radio, and found that a varying amount of songs no longer had their selective censorship.

I like most kinds of music, the only things I don't like on the radio are some of the new rap songs, because they don't even have a punch line anymore, it's just singing about how the artists are at a higher financial class ranking than their peers and listeners.

Aside from that, I would wake up for the past two years to music videos, which for the most part, were uncensored. I began to pick up from song to song where sections of the song on the radio were censored that didn't need to be.

My example of this selective censorship is Jay Z & Alicia Keys 'Empire State of Mind'.

I continually noticed two sections of the song being blurred out on the radio that made no sense to me. One line was 'Catch me in the kitchen like a simmons whipping (pastry) '. 'Pastry' wasn't censored if you listened to the album, or the music video, but it was on the radio.

Also, another line, '(MDMA) got you feeling like a champion, The city never sleeps better slip you a (Ambien).' I had heard versions on the radio where either one of the two drugs referred to were blurred out, but never both in the same song. I can understand where MDMA might have been blurred out, but not 'Ambien' in the case where they didn't blur out MDMA.

My views on censorship really aren't views at all. I don't care about censorship and being 'protected' from what I view. What I had pieced together from this experience at first was that they might have been adding censorship to the radio version to make it seem more hip. Immediately after coming to that conclusion I drew another, more correct one.

The music industries are taking artists that have censored material, and adding additional censorship to their popular songs that don't have it as a possible marketing ploy. You hear the song on the radio with blurred out spots and want to buy the unabridged copy for yourself. Congratulations radio inspired purchasers of the above mentioned song / album, you paid a few extra bucks to hear the words 'pastry' and a few sleeping pills put back into your song. Try to keep them out of your drinks, eh?

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Soak the red dot in vinegar