Running up and down the streets with your friends; you’re all dressed in silly or spooky outfits. You’re waving your Glo-sticks and torches around. You’re screaming and laughing and only caring about being with your friends. How much fun you’re having. How much candy you’re getting. Which will be the next house you visit. Why that one house never gives anything out. Always eager to get to the one that gives the best.

These are the things I miss. It’s lonely getting old. One day you realise you can count your friends on one hand…if any. When you’re young, sometimes it has to be both hands…and sometimes a foot or two. I miss my youth. I didn’t have many friends, bit I certainly had more than I do now. But then even one is more than zero. I’ve never been to a Halloween party, and only a few times went trick-or-treating with friends. It was usually with my parents and sister, but it didn’t last long. We grew up. We got too old. We moved to a house on a main street.

I miss my youth. I miss my friends. I miss the fun.

Happy Halloween

~Farren

We’re leaving on vacation tomorrow morning and she knows this. Yet she has errands to run and is too busy to ask her son what he did with the power cord. We’re ready to throw up our hands and give up on her completely, but she’s currently my only customer and she is willing to refer me to her friends. she already talks about me to them, but won’t refer me until I have business cards to give her. I have no idea why, either.

She’s probably pissed because we’re charging her what she most likely thinks is “too much money” and we’re trying to rip her off. It’s not our fault that she has spilled three drinks on her brand new laptop. After the first two weeks of ownership, she spilled an iced tea (probably one from Long Island) and a glass of wine, then this week, she spilled a chocolate martini. All of this is on the keyboard. I had to replace it after the first two spills, because it was fried. Now I have to replace it again and I’m sure she’s none too happy about it.

What she fails to realize, or is in denial about, is the fact that if she were to have a professional do this, she would be spending a lot more than what I’m charging her. $20 to come by and connect her printer to her wireless at home is pocket change to what people normally get charged. We don’t even charge her for mileage!

Okay, I think I’m done for now.

I suppose this is understandable if you have never worked a cash register before and aren’t used to exchanging money.  Still Jenn and I were surprised that the girl would be feeling like this.  As we talked about it, we listened to the voice on the radio telling us how he quizzed his daughter about giving the correct change to people.  They sat at the kitchen table, he put out bills, and coins, then gave her an amount to count out for him.  He even recorded it so he could play it back on the air.  (Incidentally, I find it a little odd and creepy how much he records things his daughter says to him, but that’s beside the point.)

The recording was painful to listen to.  One of the amounts he gave her was $8.79.  In my head, I was thinking it should be one $5 bill, 3 $1 bills, 3 quarters and 1 nickel.  She gave him one $5 bill, 3 $1 bills, 3 quarters, and 4 pennies.  I don’t know about Jenn, but I was speechless.  Her father asked what other denominations she could give him.  We changed the station.

This was at least five minutes of playback and discussion.  The whole time Jenn and I were talking about how easy kids have it these days.  The registers at Demoulas Market Basket actually display the exact change that the cashiers need to give back.  I’m not talking about just the amount in dollars and cents; I mean they literally show the exact number of which bills and which coins the cashiers need to take from their drawers.  If the cashier needs to give back $8.79, the LCD display that is directly in front of the customer (but facing the cashier) will show the cashier 1 $5 bill, 3 $1 bills, 3 quarters and 4 pennies.

Playing with money as children is probably as old as money itself.  Toy stores and learning stores still sell toy cash registers and play money, but are parents actually buying them nowadays?  Are they instead just buying the little banks and ATM machines for their children to teach them how to save their money and how to take it out whenever they need it?  Are parents and teachers not showing children how to count change anymore?  I’m sure that when I was in kindergarten, and I know when I was in grades up to third, we played with money.  We learned how to count coins and bills, and how to make change.  We didn’t have computers to do it for us.  There were no digital or graphic displays to tell us how to give money to people.

What has happened to our society?  What kind of a generation are we raising that they can’t even count out money properly?  If you tell me a dollar amount, I can tell you which bills and coins to go with it.  When I’m at the register, and I see what the total is, I can calculate the change before the cashier even punches in how much I’ve given them.  Apparently, cashiers can’t be trusted to think for themselves.  Or does management know they aren’t smart enough anymore and need computers to think for their employees?

I for one welcome our new computer overlords.  But people should still be able to think for themselves.

~Farren

Now I’m not talking about writing things in a completely different language, like French, or German, or Spanish.  I’m talking about writing something being spoken by someone whose native tongue is not English (or American) and is speaking these words in our language with their heavy accent.  But it goes beyond that, because in each language, there are dialects for different regions of the country and even classes of people.  New York City, which is made up of the Five Boroughs: The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Manhattan, and its neighbor Yonkers, all have a very distinctive dialect.  Incidentally, the State of New Jersey has a very close-sounding speech as well, which I imagine is due to the close proximity of New York City.  When you hear someone from the U.S. speaking, you can immediately tell if they are a native from this area.

Now to write the way these people speak is a challenge; especially for someone who has never lived there, and whose only exposure to said manner of speaking is through movies and television.  It does pose some interesting challenges, especially if you are writing a specific location, or a character that speaks from that location.  In my case, it’s quoting a character that speaks from that location.

Now for the big reveal.  In proper English, that quote above should read, “Hark!  I hear the cannons roar.  Is that the King approaching?”  A quick Google search will reveal to any who are curious that it’s from the movie Radio Days.  It’s a really cute movie by Woody Allen that I highly suggest you watch.  In fact, the quotes page of the site has that very line right at the top…in Sally’s New York accent, no less.  Now if only I had actually looked it up in the first place.

~Farren

P.S. An alternate title for this could be, “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?”

There are plenty of these “old” games that are still waiting to be discovered by young people, or old people who have never played them before.  So really, the games are never “old”.   Even if you’ve beaten them a hundred times and racked up high scores that will never be matched, when you come back after a long absence (say 5-10 years), it can seem new again.  It doesn’t matter that it’s the original maps that you know like the back of your hand.   If there are new players on the field, or you’re going through an empty server, the old will still seem new, because you’re looking at it with a fresh perspective.   You will most likely notice things you didn’t notice before, or if it is something you recognize, it might look slightly different from what you remember.

I say you should do yourself a favour and pick up that game you haven’t played in a long time.   The one that has become just a series of references and quotes to your friends online and off.  The game that you have fond (and possibly not-so-fond) memories of.  Dust off your character and take another stroll through that world you spent so much time in during your youth.  You could be surprised by what you might find.

~Farren