Part 56: On Computers, Infrastructure, and Tourism

"I'm only asking because I once played a video game in which they dragged a five-year-old to a bar, so you never know."






I suppose it takes a truly classy fellow to refer to "annoyingly precocious" as "energetic."




"But why don't we go to your place? We can relax there."
"My home is located in Treno. It's a bit far from here..."
"Treno? Sounds like a cool place!"






"have you ever even played this card game"

•••






Now imagine that weird black star box flickering in and out of existence ALL OVER THE SCREEN.

Good. You have an idea of how poorly my graphics card was at that particular moment.


oh boy this is either gonna be a really bad horror movie, or a really bad fetish porn flick


yup, definitely the porn




this is what happens when you make someone with a belt over his eyes do the nightwatch




the surprise twist of this film is that the clowns don't have anal sex with some unsuspecting lass, but with each other






"Me? I've been to every place where there are beautiful women!"
"......"






"I'm a skilled card player. Please let me know if you need assistance."






"But Kilika wants to act cool, so they misunderstand each other and end up fighting. Now do you understand?"




and now, presenting CLOWNS ON A DARK NIGHT 2: SABLE SHORTIES




And then my computer shat itself and wouldn't start up for an hour.

It's kind of sad that this isn't alarming to me at all. It has been a common occurrence for the past few months now. But just in case, that's why I've backed up all the images to this LP and all my manuscripts. I'd back up more, but 1) I don't have an external HD (this laptop is so strange and rattled and shaken anyway, I doubt OSX's proprietary Time Machine backup system would work anyway) 2) my disc burner hasn't worked in three years, and 3) that's all that my external memory of choice will hold: a couple of .txt files and about 800mb of images.

I want to say my computer is a real fighter, but... well, it's the Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third of MacBook Pros. I'm probably lucky it hasn't been struck by lightning.

For some reason, the card game makes my hardware run unbelievably hot. I can fight Grand Dragons for hours on intermittent battery/AC power during on-again-off-again rolling power outages because those assbitches at Maui Electric don't even know what the fuck they're doing and would rather kill the power on half the island (starting out in the boonies where I live) so the hotels and tourist part of the island can still have electricity, but can't play more than ten minutes of cards at once.

I mean yeah I guess tourists are important to our pathetic economy--not sure quite how because tourism has been getting progressively healthier, and the job market in Hawaii just gets progressively worse--but tourists also brought coqui frogs, which keep me up at night, and gall wasps, which destroyed an entire species of native plant, so you'll have to be understanding when I say that I have become rather disillusioned with their purported benefits.




"Um, thank you very much for your help on the airship."
"You should thank my master. He's the one who agreed to take you to Alexandria for free."




"Wasn't there an accident during the show? Were you okay?"
"Oh, um... Well, yeah, I was okay."






If you stay in Treno, you get to see another ATE involving more of those slum communist brats, and you get the chance to play The Comrade, Mario, in the card tournament for a small chance to win the Namingway Card from him (if he even fucking uses it), but that's just silly because the generic opponent is just so much easier, and you can get a Namingway Card for free very soon.




"People are still lying
the owls are still here
etc"




"Hey, I'm talkin' to you! Don't you know who I am!?"


But I do






"Oh, I know! You were being a bully, weren't you?
My grandpa always told me that bullies are actually cowards."










You can check your treasure hunter rank here. It's based on the number of "!" objects you've interacted with, as well as the number of Chocograph Treasures you've found, and key items in your possession.

It is also completely pointless.


"It means he's getting his blue ass fired"






So, Catoblepas.


The trick to this asshole is to MAKE SURE that you have Jelly (the anti-petrification passive ability) equipped. Otherwise you will die a miserable death.


The other trick is to use Thievery.






... Faaaaaaaantastic. We've got a lot of stealing to do.

NEXT TIME