EXCELSIOR, YOU FATHEAD!

GAME EXPERIENCE MAY CHANGE DURING ONLINE PLAY.

charva: You have the strangest luck of any person I know. Not good luck. Not bad. Just strange luck.

Mama sez these are my magic pants.

There are those who know me as Rob, and those who know me as Spatch. There are also those who knew me as Gladys Horowitz, but the people at the nursing home said I couldn't do that anymore because it wasn't fair to the other residents.

But that said...

If you call me Spatch, you're you.
If you call me Slappy, you remember my days as child actor in the Lil' Gang series, playing second banana to Humphrey and Lucie.
If you call me Hustlin' Lou, you're either my third-base coach or a very unoriginal sportswriter.
If you call me Chief, you're the spunky cub reporter/photographer who gets on my nerves by calling me Chief.
If you call me Ambassador, you're a countess and no doubt fondly remember our rum-soaked nights on the veranda where we danced the humdringo and drank toasts, arms entwined, to each other's jewelry.
If you call me El Jefe, you were in my band of revolucionarios as we hid in the hills and plotted to do away with ese alcalde desdeñado.
If you call me Max Harris, you've just breezed into my office like a fever dream you don't wanna wake up from, gams scissoring across the linoleum with intent, eyes red with restrained tears and resigned desperation. Lemme guess, dollface -- the bum's cheating on you and you want my help?
If you call me Bailey, you're my normal next-door suburban neighbor whom I see about once a week when you find yourself in a jam and need some homespun advice on how to work things out. For reasons neither of us can seem to explain, I am always wearing a different silly hat.
If you call me Carlsbad, you're gonna need my electronics expertise to shut down the power in the camp for two minutes and two minutes only to create a diversion while Jinx and New Hampshire sneak through the crawlspace to Herr Kommandant's private quarters and make copies of the master key.
If you call me Miss Jackson, then you're nasty.

I currently live in Somerville, Massachusetts, right in Davis Square. The Utne Reader once included Davis Square in a list of "the hippest places to live in the US." It was over ten years ago, but we've yet to return the favor and declare the Utne Reader one of the hippest things to read in Davis.

(It'll be just a moment here while I say "Utne" a few times because I'm feeling easily amused today.)

I write a lot, I curse a lot; sometimes I even write things that make money. Some of them you can even read aloud in mixed company. Well, you could read the other stuff aloud in mixed company, too, but you might get yelled at.

I also once found work as a professional Googler, but that's water under the burnt bridge. I was also a freelance Jeep wrangler. At least one of those statements is true. Nowadays I create radio productions both live and recorded for the Post-Meridian Radio Players, and that's as true as true can be.

I have a large and varied collection of junk including six computers in varying states of operation, a full sized wooden door (with jingly bell) mounted on a wooden frame with casters, a Pachinko machine from the 1950s you can play if you come over, and the complete set of all the KTMA episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 known to still exist on VHS. (No, you really don't want copies; they're eighth-generation already at least. Sometimes you can make out something that looks like Joel on the screen and he'll say something like "Tha bloofks llibb Gebba Grrrbh.") That used to sound a lot more impressive before BitTorrent came around but trust me, this was a huge deal back in the 90s.

I also had the greatest cat in the world. His name was Abbie the Cat and he weighed twenty pounds and he wrote stuff on the Internet when I was not looking. Abbie lived for sixteen years, slept for probably ten of those, and not a day goes by when I don't think about him and miss him terribly.

Instilled in me is a quixotic desire to ride as many roller coasters as I possibly can before a doctor tells me not to. I don't like people who immediately hate something they've loved for a long time simply because other people have found out about it. I once had a dream where the Hindenburg was a gigantic ear of corn, and when it burst into flames at Lakehurst all the corn popped and the people were happy and alive instead of scared and dead, because they fell out of the dirigible only to land in big, fluffy heaps of tasty popcorn.

I currently live in Somerville with my wife sovay and two black polydactyl kittens. I just realized I'm no longer the only one in this apartment who has ever used the word "quixotic" in a non-Scrabble context. In one meal I will drink more beverages, alcoholic and non, than you. Caffeine makes me sleepy. I'm an Aquarius and I vote. Machine wash, permanent press only, tumble dry.

Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard, grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em.
-the Webb Wilder Credo