Me Being Rex Murphy...Take One...
Have you ever wondered about joysticks?
Seriously, just sit back and think about a joystick. Make it circa 1987. It'll probably be black with a square base and then a kind of rubber plastic pouch that it sits in. Then the actual stick juts up from the base with possible hand grooves built in for finger positioning and a big red button on the top.
The joystick.
Possibly the most phallic plaything ever apart from 'The Beaver', the pink vibrator that I saw at a friend's sex-toy party this summer. The big beaver teeth stimulate the clit. Yeah, okay. I'm still stuck on the fact that it's a pink beaver, so it looks like it's been freshly skinned. Shouldn't a beaver have fur?
Right, enough with the beaver. Back to the joystick.
Why, exactly, is it called a joystick? What's so joyous? (I get the stick part) If we get to christen phallic-shaped gizmos as products of elation and happiness, shouldn't I get to rename the gear shift on my Volvo? Really, manual transmission sounds so boring: why not a 'ram rod' or a 'sweet-shaft'. That would get more people buying standard instead of automatic, I can tell you!
Plus, what's with the button on top? I get that it's to make Mario and Luigi jump when you press it, because as Player 1 you've got them by the balls, but I think the button's just adding to the whole carmine-tipped, am-I-a-circumcised-game-controller-joystick-or-not debate. You know what might stop kids from overloading their brain cells on video games? Let some pearly liquid leak out onto their thumbs when they press the joystick button a few too many times in rapid succession. Oh yeah, Mom and Dad would be just *giddy* to get Little Timmy that for Christmas! There'd be another Tickle-Me-Elmo phenomenon happening at Toys R Us.
Do you want to know why girls never really played that much Atari or Sega Genesis? It was because of the joystick and the fact that we weren't "familiar" with the territory. Not like our guy friends. Ponder that one for a few seconds and try not to smirk. See? I win.
Really, joysticks are just sex. Videogame technology is a child's first introduction to foreplay. Think about the way someone screams at the television when playing a video game. They blame the controller, don't they?? "No, no, no. NO!! GO TO THE LEFT! THE LEFT! YOU'RE NOT LISTENING TO ME. FASTER! MAKE HIM GO FASTER!" And all the time they're just ramming that little joystick and its malleable pouch to the left, the right, the left, the right, back and forth, up and down. It would probably scare men shitless to see a woman playing Nintendo with a joystick. They'd clutch at their parts just to make sure they were still there!
I wasn't allowed to play with joysticks that much as a kid. I used to break Nintendo controls and Jeopardy buzzers. I used too much force. What can I say, I've got a wicked right arm. At the time, it used to make me sulk when my brother and his friends forbade me use of the joystick and I was left with the stupid little Nintendo hand-held thing with buttons A and B and the little arrow keys. Now, I think I might be thankful. If I had broken multiple joysticks in my past, I might have felt REALLY self-conscious when in "nocturnal situations" with men as I got older.
As it is, I can press on that clutch and change gears like a Bond Girl, without batting an eyelash. Well, maybe batting an eyelash when it's important! After all, we all deserve a little "joy" in our lives.
For the National, I'm Rex Murphy.
- Janers
Seriously, just sit back and think about a joystick. Make it circa 1987. It'll probably be black with a square base and then a kind of rubber plastic pouch that it sits in. Then the actual stick juts up from the base with possible hand grooves built in for finger positioning and a big red button on the top.
The joystick.
Possibly the most phallic plaything ever apart from 'The Beaver', the pink vibrator that I saw at a friend's sex-toy party this summer. The big beaver teeth stimulate the clit. Yeah, okay. I'm still stuck on the fact that it's a pink beaver, so it looks like it's been freshly skinned. Shouldn't a beaver have fur?
Right, enough with the beaver. Back to the joystick.
Why, exactly, is it called a joystick? What's so joyous? (I get the stick part) If we get to christen phallic-shaped gizmos as products of elation and happiness, shouldn't I get to rename the gear shift on my Volvo? Really, manual transmission sounds so boring: why not a 'ram rod' or a 'sweet-shaft'. That would get more people buying standard instead of automatic, I can tell you!
Plus, what's with the button on top? I get that it's to make Mario and Luigi jump when you press it, because as Player 1 you've got them by the balls, but I think the button's just adding to the whole carmine-tipped, am-I-a-circumcised-game-controller-joystick-or-not debate. You know what might stop kids from overloading their brain cells on video games? Let some pearly liquid leak out onto their thumbs when they press the joystick button a few too many times in rapid succession. Oh yeah, Mom and Dad would be just *giddy* to get Little Timmy that for Christmas! There'd be another Tickle-Me-Elmo phenomenon happening at Toys R Us.
Do you want to know why girls never really played that much Atari or Sega Genesis? It was because of the joystick and the fact that we weren't "familiar" with the territory. Not like our guy friends. Ponder that one for a few seconds and try not to smirk. See? I win.
Really, joysticks are just sex. Videogame technology is a child's first introduction to foreplay. Think about the way someone screams at the television when playing a video game. They blame the controller, don't they?? "No, no, no. NO!! GO TO THE LEFT! THE LEFT! YOU'RE NOT LISTENING TO ME. FASTER! MAKE HIM GO FASTER!" And all the time they're just ramming that little joystick and its malleable pouch to the left, the right, the left, the right, back and forth, up and down. It would probably scare men shitless to see a woman playing Nintendo with a joystick. They'd clutch at their parts just to make sure they were still there!
I wasn't allowed to play with joysticks that much as a kid. I used to break Nintendo controls and Jeopardy buzzers. I used too much force. What can I say, I've got a wicked right arm. At the time, it used to make me sulk when my brother and his friends forbade me use of the joystick and I was left with the stupid little Nintendo hand-held thing with buttons A and B and the little arrow keys. Now, I think I might be thankful. If I had broken multiple joysticks in my past, I might have felt REALLY self-conscious when in "nocturnal situations" with men as I got older.
As it is, I can press on that clutch and change gears like a Bond Girl, without batting an eyelash. Well, maybe batting an eyelash when it's important! After all, we all deserve a little "joy" in our lives.
For the National, I'm Rex Murphy.
- Janers