Update: New Feature - I Hate My Childhood

**SKETCH-A-DAY UPDATE!** : The project is going really well. I'm averaging more than one sketch per day. I also decided that if I begin a sketch, and fail to finish it for the next day, on the following day I have to finish the unfinished sketch and write two more. This has only happened once so far, and the only thing missing from the unfinished sketch was some conclusive stage direction. Since I've also been writing more than one sketch on some days when I've been feeling extra ambitious, I feel pretty good about myself. The actual sketch-writing is getting easier. I feel like the trick is picking a central joke or relationship and riding it out just long enough that it doesn't feel redundant or unfinished. It's a tenuous and tricky process, but I think the best part of the whole enterprise so far is that I'll have so many sketches back-logged, that when I find a format for them, I'll have the distance necessary to make incredibly successful revisions. So far, so good.

Also, if you'd like to read any of them and give me notes, send me an e-mail. Recently I've written a few about Shakespeare, a few about my other classes, and a really bizarre one about a schizophrenic parrot. Some are written for stage, some are cartoons, some are films, and some are radio plays. I write in whichever style I feel will serve the jokes the best.

On the same train of thought, if you are looking for a sketch or comedic premise for a stage show, short film, or other project, I'd love to be of help. E-mail me (shorester@gmail.com) and we'll work out the details.


So, why do I hate my childhood? I recently found all my old Sega Saturn games and started playing through them. When I found the old game boxes, I was overjoyed. I fondly remembered the titles and cover art, forgetting completely the questionable quality of the games concealed beneath the casing. After ordering a Saturn AV cable on eBay and waiting a few weeks for it to arrive, I happily hooked up the Saturn to the big TV in my living room and fired up the game disc that had been sleeping inside it since its last usage, BUBBLE BOBBLE.

Don't get me wrong, this is a great game, a classic from the NES generation. But after a few minutes of gameplay, I realized that there wasn't much point in porting the game to a system vastly more powerful, especially since the game's graphics are craptastic at best, even with marginal Saturn updates. They tried to make the Saturn version more enticing by packaging it with Bubble Bobble's pseudo-sequel, Rainbow Islands, but if you play more than fifteen seconds of Rainbow Islands, you'll realize that this is more an insult to your intelligence than a selling point. In Bubble Bobble, you play as an adorable dragon who shoots bubbles to kill monsters. In Rainbow Islands, you play as an infant who craps rainbows. I'm all for gay rights, but even if I dragged my Saturn to Boystown I have a feeling the guys there would agree that the transition from Dragon to Human is never a satisfying one.

I'll go into more detail about this later. But something tells me my old Saturn 'classics' are not going to evoke fond memories.