Memories of extreme nerdiness...

Ages ago I wrote a post in this space after discovering the ascendent trend of nerdcore. Well it seems like the topic's on its way to a wider audience as a documentary about the genre nears completion. That trailer is definitely amusing - mental note to check out the movie when it's done.

But today on youtube I found my latest discovery, and for some reason it's killing me. I admit it, I was a total nerd in the old days. (Cue my office mates saying "What the hell does he mean by in the old days?") Anyways, like any good nerd of my generation the hobby was text-based adventure games.

My folks were college professors so I discovered the mainframe game Rogue first, but like many others my real touchstone was the Zork series of games. Many a late night after my parents had stopped me from banging on my drums I would sit for hours on the "IBM Compatible" machine in the basement trying to figure out the complicated puzzles and challenges, drawing maps, etc.

(PS - at the time I also didn't think there was anything remotely odd or silly about writing songs about the Lord of The Rings. But I digress.)

Well, basically I stopped playing video games completely some time soon after the first generation NES system, but seeing this video brought back memories. A rap about text adventure games -- now here's something you won't catch on Hot 97:



I think many years had blotted the concept of "grue" out of my mind. Heh. Does anyone else remember this memorable opening?

You are in an open field west of a big white house with a boarded
front door.

There is a small mailbox here.

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