{"id":73,"date":"2011-08-20T18:18:42","date_gmt":"2011-08-20T18:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=73"},"modified":"2011-08-20T20:21:49","modified_gmt":"2011-08-20T20:21:49","slug":"defeat-the-mother-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=73","title":{"rendered":"Defeat the Mother Brain!"},"content":{"rendered":"

My buddy Mitch mentioned that shock of discovering Samus was in fact a woman (not a man, or a robot) was a big deal, back in the day.\u00a0 That was indeed the case, but the comment jarred a memory of when I found out about it.<\/p>\n

Learning to ride a bicycle came pretty easily.\u00a0 My first non-training-wheel-aided ride was red, and it had those (really lame and girly) multi-colored beads that would move up and down the wheel spokes when you rode it.\u00a0 I quickly outgrew it, and my folks knew it.<\/p>\n

My Dad’s co-worker said that he had a son who outgrew his bike as well, and it would fit my needs perfectly.\u00a0 So, we got in the car, went to the bustling suburbia that is New Maryland (New Brunswick), and checked out this guy’s used bike.\u00a0 I can’t recall the bike’s brand name, but I just called it a “BMX”.\u00a0 That’s what was cool to have, after all.\u00a0 It was yellow, and the wheel spokes weren’t spokes at all – there were only five of them, made of plastic, and also yellow.<\/p>\n

This was the bike I wanted.\u00a0 No if’s and’s or but’s about it.\u00a0 On the ride back home, I confirmed this with my Dad, and he set things in motion for us to eventually go back and buy it from the guy.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I thought of nothing but this bike.\u00a0 As I waited for my Mom to get off work, one day, I made this drawing…\u00a0 well, not *this* very one, but I remember the drawing very well, and I have re-created it thanks to the modern marvel known as MS Paint.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The one I drew as a kid was undoubtedly better than this one.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was my future ride, sitting on a baseball mound, with the sun shining ever so brightly on my “BMX”.\u00a0 I was so excited about the bike and proud of my drawing, I showed it to my Mom!\u00a0 She thought it was great!<\/p>\n

(I also once drew a picture of me pooping – she didn’t find that one nearly as charming, for some reason.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, we finally headed over to the guy’s place and picked up the bike.\u00a0 I was psyched!\u00a0 I couldn’t wait to ride it!\u00a0 But, of course, there were formalities that your average kid doesn’t really understand.\u00a0 I don’t get it – I have the bike.\u00a0 It’s right there, in the car.\u00a0 Let’s go home, I’ll ride it, and everything will be great.\u00a0 No need to go in and socialize.\u00a0 Let’s just get out of here!
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

The guy invited us in, offered (kid) drinks and stuff.\u00a0 His teenaged kids were in the living room, playing Nintendo.\u00a0 They were playing Metroid<\/em>, and were in an area I had never been before.\u00a0 “It’s near the end of the game!”, they said.<\/p>\n

Intrigued, I sat and watched them play the last few minutes of the game.\u00a0 Once the battle with Mother Brain was over and the intense escape was completed, we were treated to the credits.\u00a0 All of us sat and watched as the ending text rolled in front of us, then Samus started flashing a bunch of different colours.\u00a0 Was she a robot and about to self-destruct?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Nope.<\/p><\/div>\n

While the other guys ooh’d and aah’d, it didn’t really register on my give-a-crap-o-meter.\u00a0 Sure!\u00a0 Why couldn’t it be a woman?\u00a0 I never really pondered what could be under that suit Samus was wearing.\u00a0 If it was a woman, fine and dandy!<\/p>\n

While the guys were all psyched to find out it was a chick in a unitard (“Oh man, she’s cute!!”), it didn’t really matter to me.\u00a0 I had a BMX bike waiting to be enjoyed.<\/p>\n

I was thinking about what happened to that bike last night as I fell asleep.<\/p>\n

One summer, we brought it to my grandmother’s in Baie Sainte-Anne, NB.\u00a0 Once in a while, I’d dig it out of my great aunt’s shed and ride it around the huge yard they had.<\/p>\n

That was in the early 90’s.<\/p>\n

My great aunt’s mini-home\\trailer is no longer in that shared lot, the shed has long since been demolished (it was, in fact, they house they used to live in before the trailer), and my grandmother’s house was sold in early 2000.\u00a0 It has since been renovated, but barely resembles the house I once considered a second home.<\/p>\n

It struck me that I have no idea what became of my precious BMX…\u00a0 not that that really matters, in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My buddy Mitch mentioned that shock of discovering Samus was in fact a woman (not a man, or a robot) was a big deal, back in the day.\u00a0 That was indeed the case, but the comment jarred a… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metroid","category-nes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2933,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73\/revisions\/2933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=73"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=73"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}