My afternoon, Zork-style

[sabotabby]

You are standing on Augusta Avenue in Kensington Market. It's a sunny Thursday afternoon, and the Market is bustling. Don't these people have jobs?

There are exits to the north, south, east, and west.

>S

You push your way south along Augusta.

>E

You are now on Baldwin St.

>S

You are now on Kensington. A store advertises multicoloured keffiyehs under a sign that says: "Rock the Casbah."

>OH HELL NO

Sorry about that. Fucking hipsters.

>E

You turn onto St. Andrew. You are standing in front of Moonbean.

>ENTER MOONBEAN

There are approximately 200 varieties of fair trade, shade-grown, organic coffee. Is there any one in particular you'd like?

>ALL OF THEM

I'm sorry, I do not understand that command.

>OKAY, ETHIOPIAN

Yum! You are now caffeinated.

>EXIT MOONBEAN

You turn onto St. Andrew. You are standing in front of Moonbean.

>N

You turn onto Baldwin.

>W

You turn onto Augusta.

>BUY EMPANADAS

The spicy salsa verde ones?

>HELLS YES

Good call.

>N

You are standing on Augusta in front of that yuppie craft store; the vanguard of gentrification in the neighbourhood.

>GO IN

Are you sure?

>Y

Holy fuck, they have a Soviet military kitsch stand!

>MY FETISHES HAVE BEEN CO-OPTED

Tell me about it.

>BUY AVIATOR GOGGLES

You cannot has.

>EXIT

You are standing on Augusta Ave.

>N

You walk north and stop at the corner of Brunswick and Bloor. The patio of Future Bakery is almost full. Seriously, where do these people work that they can get a Thursday afternoon off?

>ENTER FUTURES

Your entrance startles a Marxist study group sitting by the front door.

>JOIN STUDY GROUP

Sorry, you are not a grad student.

>BUY MORE COFFEE

Fortunately, the option of mindless consumption is still open to you.

>SIT ON THE PATIO AND DRINK COFFEE UNTIL CLASS STARTS

Fuck yes!

Comments

[cacahuate.livejournal.com]

lol!

[sabotabby]

:)

[frippy.livejournal.com]

You win the internets this time.

BUT NEXT TIME... NEXT TIME... VICTORY SHALL BE MINE.

[sabotabby]

The awesome thing about being a commie bastard is that the internets, once won, can be redistributed amongst the masses.

I took econ 101 and all i got was this lousy comeback

[frippy.livejournal.com]

BUT DUDE UNDER COMMUNISM THERE IS NO INCENTIVE TO WIN THE INTERNETS

I counter with Modern Western History

[sabotabby]

YOU WILL WIN INTERNETS OR GO TO GULAG.

Re: I counter with Modern Western History

[terry-terrible.livejournal.com]

In soviet russia the internets surf you!

I strike back with Memes of the Ancient Webs

[frippy.livejournal.com]

IN SOVIET RUSSIA INTERNET WINS YOU

[apperception.livejournal.com]

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3

[sabotabby]

:D

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Hey, what, no pathways that go in all directions with an endless loop?

;)

[sabotabby]

No Grue either.

[seaya.livejournal.com]

Oh those things (the infinite loops) were present in more than just adventure or zork. There was one in every text adventure.

And xyzzy, anyhow.

[one-serious-cat.livejournal.com]

I'm still a little bit traumatized by the "grues eat well tonight" ending from the version I sometimes played in the mid-90s.

[sabotabby]

...it exists?

[one-serious-cat.livejournal.com]

This is it.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

My world keeps on getting smaller.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_ex_cowboy/]

shitty day. thanks for making it a little better.

this will truly test the geekiness of your friends list.

[sabotabby]

My friends list is really damned geeky, so I suspect it'll go over okay.

I'm sorry you had a shitty day.

[ironed_orchid]

I'd say it sounds awesome - except that you do not possess googles as a result. BOO.

[sabotabby]

Ah, but now I know where the $35 goggles of awesome can be found when I next get paid.

[ironed_orchid]

Oh, well in that case, it's in the running for the best day eva!

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

I don't have anything against these goggles but it did make me remember this bit of -

[sabotabby]

Just because I like the trend doesn't mean we can't mock the trend.

[secretsoflife.livejournal.com]

ZE GOGGLES, ZEY DO NOTHINK!

[ebourland.livejournal.com]

Hee. Nice.

[sabotabby]

Thanks!

[spuzbal.livejournal.com]

My dad made my character walk off a cliff when I was playing that game around 1989 or something. I guess he thought it would be funny? Haha.

[sabotabby]

I sucked at Zork.

[human-loser.livejournal.com]

Aw! Now I'm all Torontostalgic!

[sabotabby]

Come visit!

[human-loser.livejournal.com]

I am! May Long Weekend!

[sabotabby]

W00T!

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

//DIES

Ohhh Zork! How much I love love love Zork. Oh, InfoCom.

MY FETISHES HAVE BEEN CO-OPTED
Tell me about it.

YES. //oh hai grunge chic

Fortunately, the option of mindless consumption is still open to you.

Oh Jesus, isn't it always.

Were the people in the Marxist study group wearing aviator goggles?

Also, lovely photos.

[sabotabby]

I would have forced myself upon the people in the Marxist study group if they were wearing aviator goggles, grad student or not. No, they were just normal-looking university kids.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Everyone of a certain disposition eventually writes an Infocom-style piece. I like the trend.

[sabotabby]

It's true. Also, we all eventually make bar graphs or pie charts detailing some minor observation.

The sad thing is that sometimes my internal narrative goes like this, or turns into an 80s video game.

[eyelidlessness.livejournal.com]

For some reason I felt like I was reading Life: brought to you buy the posters of poignant_graphs

[sabotabby]

zorklife.

[rrrao.livejournal.com]

That was awesome - it was like I was back in 1988 and dialing up 416 BBSes with a 2400 baud modem... ;)

[sabotabby]

You had internets in 1988? Lucky!

[rrrao.livejournal.com]

Nooo... correction - I had a dial-up modem that could call up other dial-up modems, so just the local BBSes for me. You needed to subscribe to a provider to access the 'real' internets, and I don't think we had a CompuServe or AOL account (which was something like c.$15 for c.15hrs/mth?) until '92 or '93ish.

(By which time I had discovered girls, who were much more interesting to talk to on the phone all evening, which cut deeply into my computer-geeking time.) ;)

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

Young whippersnappers. I was playing Adventure back in the early 70's. Pre-grue, even.

[sabotabby]

You had a computer in the early 70s? Lucky!

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

I was playing on the university's mainframe, using a teletype with a 110 baud dialup line.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

Wow, Zork.
That brings back very vague memories of watching my brother play computer games on the television in our living room.
Of course not being able to read a the time I forced him to tell me what was going on the screen.
He then commenced to Zork me by "Typewriting" on me, it was the one and only time he ever did that because I screamed like a banshee.

Awsome day! Are those colourful Keffiyah's!!!!!?!!?? o_O

[sabotabby]

I like the purple one far more than I should. Not that I'd buy one. Fucking hipsters.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I told a friend of mine of the multi-coloured keffiyah's and he told me that they sold pink ones at a T-Shirt shop in Tel-Aviv.

I o_O at him.

He told me not to worry, it's quite obvious mine is authentic (bought it in Hebron, it's practically what's lest of the Palestinian economy there), because it doesn't have a label.

My GD won't someone make this nonsense stop!

[glamaph0ne.livejournal.com]

AHAHA I love how this entry is written like those old (and wicked fun) videogames. xD

[sabotabby]

Thanks!

[robotar.livejournal.com]

that display of keffiyehs is teh ew

[sabotabby]

Oh yes.

It's only a matter of time before tie-dyed keffiyehs come out. It might have happened already.

[funnel101.livejournal.com]

Zork!!!

I still haven't beaten any of the text-only games. Maybe it's because I haven't tried playing stoned? But yes, I love Zork, and the utter and complete zaniness. :)

[sabotabby]

I could never win any of them either. Hell, I can't even get out of the gymnasium in Punk Points.

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

won't someone think of the tigers?!

[sabotabby]

Poor thing—he's biting through his own tongue!

[lokilokust.livejournal.com]

it actually is rather sad.
a lot of the white tigers born in captivity are so inbred that they're born with massive deformities, immune problems, and various other issues.

[king-felix.livejournal.com]

Best post evar.

[sabotabby]

Thanks!

obligatory

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

You may be eaten by a grue!

Re: obligatory

[sabotabby]

Maybe that's why I feel so tired today.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

:o)
I WANT MY 386 BACK!

[sabotabby]

I had an XT. Don't you wish we'd kept those things?

Porn userpic?

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Surely, you didn't use your computer for THAT!
Also, this reminds me that quite a number of your friends are on the top of my matchlist on okcupid.com :). Go figure.

Re: Porn userpic?

[sabotabby]

My father had cow porn on it; does that count?

My friends are on okcupid.com?

Re: Porn userpic?

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

I even learnt of the existence of the site through one of the people you linked to. You're terribly useful.