An Unrestrained Ramble On the Nature of Time

            So when I started this blog I made a solemn, concrete promise to not hold myself to any promises about updating. By all accounts, I have succeeded in upholding this noble goal. In other words, my rate of updating has generally toed the line in between “somewhat inconsistent” and “taking place in a dimension completely unrestrained from human understanding of time”. Though it is kind of impressive that I was able to apparently bend the time stream to my will purely for the purposes of updating out of schedule, it isn’t necessarily a good thing. Because although the Genericide update calendar may be a twisted, gnarled husk of temporal confusion, my internal guilt clock runs on a tight, consistent schedule.

            So as the metaphorical beasts of guilt and regret gnaw at the corners of my mind, though they meet stalwart defense from the twin armies of busyness and laziness (with minor support from a single apathy regiment) occasionally some slip through. It is at this point that my withering conscious springs into action, if “springs into action” is taken as a phrase which here means “thinks to remind myself later that I should perhaps, at some point, if I don’t mind and am not too busy, consider initiating a string of events with the possible culmination of an activity not unlike writing for some unspecified duration, I guess”. Should these many qualifiers be fulfilled, assuming the planets are in proper alignment, I will officially begin to care about trying to write at some point.

            Assuming this is successful, the next steps can begin. First, I’ll check my busy schedule to see if I can fit in a span of time where I toy with the idea of writing for a while. I’m usually fully booked on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays with an intense regimen of Tomfoolery, covered Monday and Tuesday with Shenanigans, and have Fridays and Sunday entirely engrossed in Professionally Existing. On Blumpsday I usually have a bit of an opening between Unrestrained Silliness and Completely Restrained Silliness, though Flarglesday is almost completely occupied with Questioning My Sanity. After utilizing the brief window before I go to bed on Flarglesday with Checking and Updating Calendar, I realize that my calendar is just a piece of cardboard with “VIDEO GAEMZ” scrawled all over it in a mix of crayon, charcoal, and the blood of my enemies. I make a mental note to add a little more time to the Questioning My Sanity block, pause, realize I don’t have any enemies, and allocate a bit more.

            With this activity complete, I meekly stick a post it note reading “Writing, maybe…?” onto the piece of cardboard. However, I am unsure how to actually perform the act. After all, the possibly imaginary calendar I just described didn’t have any free time left on it, and I had to strike Chicanery from my schedule entirely! So I charter a private jet to my personal island home, pull the 3^rd book from the left of the second shelf in the sitting room and descend through the hidden passage into my Secret Valley of Eternal Cherry Blossoms to ponder the conundrum. After opening, freeing, expanding and focusing my mind all simultaneously for an indeterminate amount of time, I arrive at a completely plausible and reasonable conclusion. If I can’t accomplish my writing within the normal boundaries of time, clearly the only solution is to find space to write outside of the normal boundaries of time.

            What happens next is a trade secret only known to me and a select team of Chronoticians and Awesomologists, but the gist of the matter is that we create a device. A device that can prize open the giant clam of time (usually metaphorically) and slip between the cracks. I cannot say anymore except that it involves large amounts of science, at least 3 million dollars in stolen goods, some rare unstable and possibly only partially existent chemicals, and several hundred enslaved grizzly bears worth of intense labor. Suffice to say, I succeed and slip between the cracks of linear time into the…area beyond.

            What follows is an incredibly intricate tale of fantastic adventure, taking place in the space of what is simultaneously thousands of years, a fraction of a second and neither of those things. In this zone, all events are simply referred to as taking place in a ‘span’. But a span is the exact length of time it takes for anything to happen, no matter how big or small, including multiple events that were each themselves a span. I wander for a span through the twisting yet contradictorily straightforward ebbs and flows of the land beyond time until I finally reach my destination.

            When I approach the hallowed ground where the Keepers reside, I am greeted by the Gatekeeper, who bows, having met me for the first time many times before (a bit confusing in retrospect). I return his gesture, and then immediately shift into a combat stance. In order for me to seek an audience with the Keepers, I must first prove my worth in single combat. The sequence of amazing, transcendent combat techniques is so beautiful it would make a hardened puppy kidnapper cry (which I assure is no mean feat, as those tough ruffians have to live off very meager amounts given that dogs don’t pay ransoms). However, words fail to adequately describe a fight scene that takes place in a partially existent land outside of times domain, so we’ll have to skip that totally awesome fight scene for now.

            After besting the Gatekeeper using my Iron-Fisted Breakdancing Crane Stuck Upon A Blender technique, I am finally permitted to seek audience with the Keepers. Fortunately for me, the Keepers of time are fairly laid-back, especially with repeat (again, confusing) customers. Even more fortunately they speak pleasantly understandable English in terms linear enough for me to understand. So after explaining my dilemma both parties have agreed that it is of the utmost importance that my list of ‘The Top 14 Video Game Rocks Shaped A Bit Like Butts If You Look Hard Enough’ is finished, and they agree to permit me to recklessly abuse the time stream in order to nurture said articles creation.

            I wake up the next morning with a completely finished article that I only vaguely remember writing, as well as several other ones I never intended for. You see, with the non-linearity of time influences me such that my head becomes a miraculous nebula of inspiration and pure creative force that leverages my view over all creation to create a collection of artistic masterpieces that instills the pure meaning of existence itself into their very essence. However, given that these aren’t usually about video games I tend to just shrug and throw them in the nearest bin when I find them.

            The other issue is that collapsing non-linear time into a body experiencing the linear variety is an experience that does not leave my memory unscathed. So apart from a brief taste of the sound of turquoise and some vague memories the only recollection of the previous events I’m left with is a dull pain in my head that seems suspiciously familiar to the feeling of having just stayed up late writing and then passed out without getting adequate sleep. So I just grumble out of bed, shamble over to my computer and format and post the article on the blog.

            I have to repeat this process for every article I write.

            So it shouldn’t be surprising that my update rate is as wildly inconsistent as it is. Really you should all be thanking me for getting what updates I do completed. As well as not collapsing and rearranging the entire spacetime continuum into a newly wrought universe where I am lord of all creation, which is apparently I thing I could do. But hark, faithful reader, I come now bearing new developments in terms of my update schedule!

            It’s about to get much, much worse!

            Well I can’t say that for certain. In fact, depending on certain factors it may actually improve. But the fact of the matter is that I have no returned to the foreign country known as college, and will henceforth be occupied with a variety of day-to-day activities and responsibilities that will probably slow my ability to update. I also couldn’t bring my Playstation 2 or Nintendo 64 to college with me, so those hoping for a write-up of any games for those systems will have to sadly wait as they’re put on hold (sorry Majora’s Mask fans). I have no idea how much the update schedule (as if I had one) will be affected by this, but I’ll try to keep updating at a semi sort of kinda’ reasonable pace.

            So not exactly good news, but it could have been a lot worse. After all, I only changed the outcomes of a few major events in world history.