So I have this list of things started that I want to talk about. It’s only got about 20 things on it. That’s a shame. It’s just the crap I could think of to jot down when I decided I was going to start a blog. I wish I’d more formally started this list months, years, ago. It would be scary. I’ve always thought, man, if I *did* have a newspaper column, or a blog, I’d definitely write about *that*. Usually followed by, “man, people are gonna think you’re disturbed.”
Anyways, the first ~20 posts will be from this list, for the most part. They just happen to be the last, most recent, things I’ve thought about and decided it was worth typing about. Exception alert! I guess if I think of something else to write about in between the next 20 posts, I’m allowed to insert that. Or post them in whatever order I want. Wait, you don’t know what’s on the list, or what order they’re in. So, for all you know, the next 20 posts you read, should you choose to come back that many times, are the 20 things from my pre-blog list of things to talk about? I like commas.
So here goes. I play some online games. Ok, I’m lying to you already. I play one. I’ve been known to dabble in some World of Warcraft. The definition of the word “dabble” can be left up for debate as the amount of time spent on said game is sometimes a disagreeable topic with Mrs. HokieJayBee. She just doesn’t understand the heroin-like attributes of a video game. I mean….I followed my brother into this game a couple years ago, in part to bond with him through an online game portal, and also in part to break myself off of online poker. Warcraft is $15 per month and much cheaper than a bad streak at poker. I kind of feel like Post Number One is taking on the look of a confessional to my addictive behavior…..
But I digress…..or not. Isn’t admitting addiction like step 1? Hi, my name’s HokieJayBee and I play Warcraft. The reason *that fucking game*, as it’s known around my house sometimes, even came up here today was because it’s involved in a story for one of the reasons I’m here writing in the first place. An inner-working, a view into the Fear-and-Loathing-in-Las-Vegas, you know the ether scene, that is my brain sometimes. Something that I find rather near humorous, that I finally have a real life situation to relate it to.
In that game, say during a furious boss fight, or hectic player-vs-player situation, you’ll be grouped in a party with your fellow players who are trying to accomplish the same goal. [[fellow Warcraft players have just fallen out of their seat laughing at the Layman’s terminology explanation of that, what I mean is, “when you’re raiding or in a BG, and you’re using chat not vent”]] But the emphasis of the sentence should be on the furious or hectic part, because people are typing frenetically and frantically sometimes. Spelling and grammar are not paramount at times like this, so those police usually won’t appear, just get your message across. But one thing that I see funny that happens all the time, where the typing police might pay a visit, is spacebarfail. Like, someone is typing notes or instructions to you so frantically; it looks like, “roguefromfarm sapped”, or “incmagetower”. Which means, “there’s an enemy player who is a rogue coming from the base at the farm, crap he incapacitated me for 10 seconds”, or “I am guarding our base at the mage tower, there are enemy combatants heading here, I will need help to defend our base”. Anyways, you get the point. Spacebarfail. At least on my server and with the people I run with, spacebarfail is a you’re-going-to-get-made-fun-of type of offense. Like, is typing “rogue from farm” so much longer than “roguefromfarm”? Considering the possible delayed understanding of your fellow combatants, and the possibility that you might have to type more, or again, to explain what you meant? Did you really save time?
And for the longest time, spacebarfail was just something I encountered in the game world. [[insert that movie preview guy voice]] ……UNTIL NOW.
I have found spacebarfail in the real world, and I’ve found it in spoken form. There’s a Chinese restaurant near my office where I commonly get a beef with broccoli lunch special with wonton soup and an egg roll. Commonly = once every 2 weeks ish. But enough that I’m in there enough to know them and their establishment. Soooooo, I’m sitting in there the other day, waiting on my order to be ready, and I hear something that I’ve heard in there thousands of times, only now I heard it differently and laughed. The kid they have answering the phone has verbal spacebarfail. Of course, at the risk of being borderline uncouth, I know his accent doesn’t help and English is probably his (minimum) second language, but for my brain’s purposes he’s got verbal spacebarfail. So disclaimer this right out, I’m not anti-Asian American. Just pointing out something that’s funny to me because of rushed speech, ethnicity has nothing to do with it.
What he’s saying, in purest English form, were he to be speaking in perfect English: “You have reached Hong Kong House, how may I help you?”
What he’s trying to say, in his translational English, word for word: “Hong Kong House, may I help you?”
What he’s really saying, literally that you can hear in the dining room: “Honkonhowhehyou?”
Verbal spacebarfail people. And now, not only do I owe you 5 minutes of your life for the time you spent just now reading this......but now you're going to hear verbal spacebarfail out in the real world and laugh at someone. I just hope it's not too much an inopportune time for laughter.
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