July 15, 2004
#156 :: Lightcycle
I've never done the math. Have you? Add them all up: all those quarters. Multiply the seconds into hours and months spent stabbing buttons, jerking joysticks. Calculate the synaptic flashes, the wrist muscle cramps, the rolling heat lightning of an adolescent nervous system tortured and misspent hunched over game consoles. Tron took me in Florida. It sucked me into the dank, neonized airconditioning of a St. Petersburg theater. Three times in a couple of weeks. What was a few more quarters, in exchange for total immersion in the type of world I could only chase but never grasp, just beyond my fingertips? A few weeks later, I stumbled off of Space Mountain at Disney World and into the toy store, and snapped up this iconic toy. Its rear wheel revved to humming speed by a thick, cogged nylon zipcord. It moved fast, straight into whatever distant obstacle you pointed it at across my floor's blank plane. The movie imagery is quaint now. Cartoony. Lurid. It's been reincarnated as itself. The vehicle still zooms, even standing still. Who is your user?