One of those games was Marble Madness, which debuted in 1984 as an arcade video game.

The concept of the game was to get the marble ball to the goal line within the allotted amount of time, while avoiding falling off path, different “monsters”, and other nefarious pitfalls. It sounds really fun. It’s really not.

It was, until recently, one of the most frustrating games I think every created. Not only is it INCREDIBLY easy to fall off the borderless checkerboard path you narrowly navigate, but your marble is made out of fickle candy glass, as one second you’re trying to cheat the game by super rolling off what you think is a high ledge onto a seemingly slightly lower one, and then you realize physics didn’t really make it into games 25 years ago, and that 3D isometric view is really not 3D at all.

As a child, this game inspired many tantrums, controller throwing/bashing-against-the-floor fits, and general disarray. So I decided, as an adult armed with some emulators and roms, that maybe, just MAYBE, I could go back and conquer the beast.

Well, I found out as an adult, this game inspired many tantrums, keyboard throwing/bashing-against-the-desk fits, and some anger induced drinking. Even with the save-state feature of most emulators, which allow you to save and pause the game at any given waking moment, this was still a hard game of epic proportion. But after a few nights of grinding my teeth and dreaming of smashed marbles, I finally beat it. The monkey was off my back. Or so I thought.

Enter the Monkey Ball.

Super Monkey Ball debuted in North America on the Nintendo Gamecube in 2001. The premise is that you are a little monkey that rolls around in a clear plastic ball, while avoiding falling off narrow ledges with no walls, maneuvering obstacle courses, and on top of it, collecting little yellow bananas while trying to reach the goal posts. Gee. This seems familiar.

This game is EPICLY HARD. We had a group of four hardcore gamers armed with 30 packs of beer sit down and try to beat this game, which lead to broken controllers, hurt feelings, and binge drinking. If you think you are a calm and cool person, you have never played Monkey Ball. It makes Marble Madness pale in comparison to it’s frustrating nature. If traveling through the insane, 3D obstacle courses of spinning, gyrating, and flipping land masses doesn’t cause you a brain aneurysm, being required to collect those freaking bananas will. And your treat for beating a level? A baby-like coo of the Monkey. If this is supposed to be a kids game, Japanese children should be feared for their motor skills are clearly superior to ours and they have mastered rolling their balls.

With the advent of the Wii, there are now new Monkey Ball games. I cannot say how it is, but I can only imagine the flailing of arms and that plastic nunchaku spinning around Michaelangelo-Ninja-Turtle style towards the nearest living creature in a vent of frustration.

The legacy lives on!

Some people like to use chili powder, but I prefer some straight, high octane racing fuel.  It’s a little hard to procure, but you can get a pretty good five-fingered discount at the race track.  It’s only for people that “really want to feel it.”  If that’s too much trouble, I find getting a bottle of Jenkem has pleasant results (google Jenkem.)

-Jordan

Second e-mail received:

Jordan – Jenkem is amazing. I have several baggies that I have been storing in my closet that we can dip into if you would be down. I have you tried drinking ex-lax before storing? I’m not sure what it does but the high’s are amazing. I did it for about 2 weeks straigh but stopped becuse I was losing too much weight.

Jeremy,

My mother always taught me to never dip into someone else Jenkem.  Although I have no doubt the quality of your stock is good, I am allergic to peanuts and that’s just big of a chance to take.  I can’t do ex-lax anymore ever since the prolapse, but it doesn’t stop me from running some racking tube down my jockies for a good hot coffee enema.  Cleans the colon AND gives me about 4 cups coffee worth of caffeine that I don’t have to drink.

-Jordan

I haven’t heard back.  Guess he wasn’t that hardcore.

I’ve started e-mailing out to small breweries with questions, posting ads on Craigslist for brewing equipment and advice, in in less than 24 hours of sending out the APB, the amount of responses I recieved back was staggering.  The amount of people willing to help out, sell old equipment, and offer their advice has been incredible.  The sense of community in the beer brewing community is huge!

I have since made a large equipment list for what I need to get to start brewing.  The list gets expensive very quickly, but I’ve got a few options on some old brew setups and I’ve got a book on making your own equipment (for us thrifty guys!)  I’ve decided against getting any sort of “kit”, as everyone and their brother has told me they are garbage and it’s better to start off the RIGHT way.  I recently purchased three 15.5 gallon steel kegs for a good price, so I’m sitting on 46.5 gallons worth of beer storage.  That’s pretty cool.  Haha!

I’m just waiting to get paid on some work from last week and it’s off to Kirk’s Brew store to pick up a majority of the supplies I need.  So far Kirk has been very helpful when I’ve called, and was patient with my “not-always-carefully-phrased” questions.

The important thing is to actually DO IT.  None of this work, none of this preparation means anything to me until I brew that first batch.  And I expect it to taste quite bad.  But I’ll drink it with pride.

More updates to come as I get the equipment, and we’ll go on a photo journey together on my first brew!  So relax, don’t worry, and have a home brew!

• I will put my toilet paper coffee filter in the cup before bed.
• I will regret not saving any cold pizza for morning.
• I will, with the best intent in the world, clean my fridge tomorrow/Saturday/weekend’ish.

And away we go!