{"id":2818,"date":"2013-05-15T16:37:07","date_gmt":"2013-05-15T16:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2818"},"modified":"2013-05-15T16:51:57","modified_gmt":"2013-05-15T16:51:57","slug":"bubble-bobble-nes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=2818","title":{"rendered":"Bubble Bobble (NES)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"1986<\/a>

1986 – Taito (Arcade, NES, Game Boy, lots of others!)<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have you ever gone back to somewhere you used to go, or even where you used to live, looked at a particular spot and said “there – it all happened there”?<\/p>\n

I’ve been house-sitting my mom’s place (the house I grew up in)\u00a0over the last few days, and as I played Red Dead Redemption<\/em> on her snazzy 55-inch TV in the living room last night, it dawned on me;\u00a0 in this\u00a0very corner of this very house, on this very same carpet, I sat about two feet away from where I was now, for hours and hours, playing video games.\u00a0 Of course, I had a few other rooms I played games in, as well, but the idea remains the same.<\/p>\n

And then my mind goes “well, wait a minute, the Earth rotates and spins around the sun, so, it’s technically not the exact<\/strong> same space at all.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Know<\/a>

Know what I’m sayin’?<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Anyway…<\/p>\n

The 55-inch flat-panel TV now sits where that old busted TV\\table-top used to sit.\u00a0 I’d invite friends over and play games in the living room, or watch recorded episodes of Captain N<\/em> and The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 <\/em>on VHS.<\/p>\n

There was one\u00a0occasion where the video game session didn’t last very long, and actually ended with me in tears.\u00a0 It’s a bit ridiculous, but I was only\u00a0five years old,\u00a0or so.<\/p>\n

I had a friend named Tristan who lived in our neighborhood.\u00a0 We didn’t play outside\u00a0all the time like I did with my\u00a0closer neighbor-friends, because he lived in another part of the neighborhood, and it was far<\/em>.\u00a0 It was only the street running parallel to ours, but it was still far<\/em>, to me.\u00a0 From time to time, we’d ride bikes, search a nearby stream for frogs and tadpoles, that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

I don’t remember Tristan as being much of a video gamer, but I remember us sitting in our living room one time playing Bubble Bobble<\/em>.\u00a0 We hadn’t made it very far into the game, and he and I got into an argument about level numbers.\u00a0 In that game, stage numbers are at the top of the screen, and stages 1-9 are numbered 01, 02, 03, and so-forth.<\/p>\n

Tristan kept calling the numbers ten, twenty, thirty, forty, etc…\u00a0 I’d tell him “you’re wrong, it’s just one-two-three-four!”\u00a0 I was starting to get mad, but I was still letting it slide for the most part.\u00a0 By the 8th stage, however, he got adamant that it was eighty, and I was adamant that it was eight.<\/p>\n

We argued about it, I cried, and he went home, still not understanding why “08” did not mean “80”.<\/p>\n

We were still friends, and I even “ran away” to his house one time.\u00a0 I was in a pouty and argumentative mood one day,\u00a0so I\u00a0walked “all the way over” to Tristan’s house without telling anyone.\u00a0\u00a0He was there\u00a0watching cartoons with his two brothers, who were twins.\u00a0 I hung out\u00a0with\u00a0them\u00a0for a while, but I wasn’t there very long before our old\u00a0Pontiac Grand Prix pulled into the driveway, and I knew I was in trouble.<\/p>\n

Mom wasn’t particularly happy with me, that day.\u00a0 Can’t say I blame her!<\/p>\n

Tristan’s family ended up moving\u00a0to the Northwest Territories not long afterwards.\u00a0 I’m not sure if his dad was in the Army or the RCMP, but when I looked at a map\u00a0and found out where they were moving to, it was the first time I really thought “whoa, Canada is HUGE”.<\/p>\n

I managed to track him down on Facebook when I first created my account in ’07 or so, but he only vaguely remembered who I was, since he left the province at such a young age.<\/p>\n

“DON’T YOU REMEMBER WHEN YOU THOUGHT ’08’ WAS ’80’ AND YOU MADE ME CRY??”<\/p>\n

If he barely remembered who I was, I doubt he’d remember that!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n