The Mark Dykeman Web Niche

My son has developed a love of computer and video games, much like my own.  He’s only six, so I try to limit the type of things that he’s exposed to in games, because you can basically buy any level of violence that you want.  One of his schoolmates got him one of those little TV video games for a birthday present.  It’s the kind of game that you plug into your TV, has its own controller, and has a few levels and scenarios.

The game was based on the latest Batman cartoon series and it involves a bunch of levels where the Batman fights against a series of his best known foes (the Joker, Mr. Freeze, Bane, and Firefly) through a series of battles, quests, and so on.  It’s a bit violent, but at least it’s not bloody.

The Batman gets to use his usual set of gadgets, like grappling hooks, Batarangs, Batboats, etc.  Kind of like James Bond with a mask, a cape, and a thinly veiled masochistic streak.  But I digress, as I go to stir a martini for Bruce Wayne, the Batman’s alter ego.  Drat, Wayne has disappeared, just as the Bat signal illuminates the sky.

So the Batman uses all of these great gadgets and more.  I’m willing to bet that the writer’s contract for every Batman comic book scribe has a clause that says “author must be able to dream up the craziest freakin’ gadgets for the Batman to use, at least one every three issues”.  As Jack Nicholson, playing the Joker, once said, “where does he get those amazing toys?”  Or something similar, as a shadowy figure blots out the lights and I fall to the ground, unconscious.

So, after I regain consciousness, I struggle to actually get to a point of this post.

The gadgets.  Yeah, that’s it.  The gadgets.

So I watch my son play one of the levels of this game, as he maneuvers the Batman around a building, gradually climbing higher and higher with the use of his wonderful toys, particularly the grappling hook.  The grappling hook basically lets the Batman swing along the ceiling not unlike Spider-Man using his web lines to travel along the Manhattan skyline.  I start to pursue that thought a bit further, but then I’m suddenly bound by sticky ropes and left hanging from a light post, stunned.

After the webbing dissolves and the impact wakes me up, my scrambled mind focuses once again.  The toys.  Right, the toys.

The Batman is, at heart, a tortured soul who started his career to punish evildoers like the ones who murdered his parents.  He trained his body and mind to be a weapon, then he augmented his abilities with a series of equipment and materials to make him even more formidable.  He’s not superhuman, but his gadgets make him pretty darned tough.

A shadow suddenly falls over me, but now I’m ready for the guy.  I shine a spotlight in his direction, temporarily blinding him - I always carry one around in my back pocket, just in case.  He covers his eyes and crouches.

Now I hit him, right between the eyeslits.  “Listen, Wayne.  I get the whole vengeance thing.  I get the whole ‘protect the innocent’ theme and the ’strike fear into the hearts of evildoers’ motif.  I really do.  But there’s something that I think you need to consider.”

Silence from the crouched figure.  I take that as a cue to continue talking.

“You use all of these great tools, like the grappling hook, to go almost anywhere.  You travel up a building, across a ceiling, using that damned grappling hook and you never touch the ground.”

“Do you have a point?”  The Batman slowly stands up, lowering his arm.  “I’m late for my  hanging upside-down exercises.”

I press forward.  “What the hell are you going to if that damned grappel breaks while you’re fifty feet in the air?  One of these days it’s going to break.  It’s a statistical certainty.”

Silence for a moment.  Then he responded, with just a hint of amusement in his voice:

“Well, I’d just have to use my Bat-Save-My-Ass-Gadget, now wouldn’t I?”

Then he disappears.  I’m left there, fuming.  The world goes dark again…

I wake up and my son maneuvers the Batman to the end of the level, getting ready for the next part of the game.  He giggles and leans forward, even more intent on the game.

“Son, let me try that level again,” I say.  He looks surprised, but hands me the controller.

So I take that crazy costumed man and swing him through the entire level.  He dodges, swoops, jumps and makes his way to the top.  He’s swinging higher, higher, higher…  and then I release the grappling hook.  He plummets down to the ground.  Bam.  One life gone.

I repeat the cycle four more times.  The Batman goes splat four more times.  Nothing intervenes to save him.  Game over.

I hand the game back to my son and sit back on the couch, smirking to myself.

“Not so smart now are you, you costumed jerk,”  I thought to myself.

I swear that everything about this story is true.  Except for the part before this sentence.

THE END

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Welcome to a regular feature at The Uncanny Broadcasting Brain Blog called Featured on Fridays.  Every Friday I will introduce you to one or more of the blogs and bloggers that fill my newsreader.  These are blogs that I genuinely enjoy and read regularly.  In this installment I’m featuring one unique, creative, and uproariously funny blogger…

Mimzie’s Muzings is a screamingly funny, somewhat adult-oriented blog that’s a favorite of this Uncanny Broadcasting Brain.  Mimzie is a Southerner who now runs her own business in the NY/NJ area and writes about pop culture, life, and whatever the heck else she finds interesting.  Her writing is clever and humorous and frequently I find myself thinking “OMG - I can’t believe she said that!”  Her posts always begin with three humorous and relevant quotes that set the stage for her topic.  Mimzie’s Fridays are her “Ask Mimzie” day, where she gives advice that you might not want to follow, but it’ll make you collapse into a quivering heap of Jello that’s laughing its butt off.  Which is pretty cool.  If you like clever, no holds-barred wit and humor and you’re over the age of eighteen so I don’t get sued for referring you to her, k thanx then you really should check out Mimzie’s blog.  Plus she actually reads mine and makes comments, so you gotta support your peeps, right?

If you’d like to be reviewed in Featured on Fridays, don’t hesitate to drop me an E-Mail (see About Me page) or leave me a comment.