childhoodreminiscings
Childhood Reminiscings
CRWR 213 Assignment 3 - Jason Xun
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Chimps McGee
You know they say in about ten or fifteen years time, one of the first world problems that our children or grandchildren will have will be picking out their usernames when signing up for social media or games. Luckily for me I had my username picked out and stamped in right at the ripe old age of twelve. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you name it I’ve got it locked in. To be honest with you, it’s probably not the best idea to have a twelve year old decide what online moniker you’re going to be rocking for the rest of your life. But hey, over time it slowly grew on me (or I’ve been too lazy to change it after all these years). Chimps McGee. Damn, what a name (is what twelve year old me definitely thought when I locked it in).
A lot of people always get asked how they came up with their online usernames, especially if it happens to be one that comes from out of the blue or from out of left field. Well for me, when I was a kid one of the hottest commodities at the time was a little thing called Super Smash Brothers Melee for the Nintendo GameCube. A fighting game filled with an all-star roster of Nintendo’s finest. You had icons such as Mario, Luigi, Samus, Link, and my all-time favourite banana loving ape, Donkey Kong. Bear in mind, I wasn’t the best at video games, and the only time I could play was when I went over to a friend’s house that had the console and the game. Because of this, I really wasn’t that great whenever I grabbed a controller and started pressing buttons. However that didn’t matter with the Kong, as you could just run around and charge up a giant swing and wait for any unlucky passerby to catch a fistful of supreme ape power. I loved that guy, and would snap him up at any opportunity I could.
When Super Smash Brothers Brawl came out for the Nintendo Wii I was ecstatic to see my ape friend back at it again in the starting lineup. Bish. Bash. Bosh! Again, every chance I could I’d snap him up and take the king of the jungle for a spin. Whenever another Nintendo game came out I’d always look for my furry friend. Mario Kart? Donkey Kong. Mario Party? Donkey Kong. Mario Tennis? Donkey Kong. With every additional game that I played with him I fell in love with him more and more.
“Hey who do you wanna pl-“
“Donkey Kong.”
“You sure?
“Yeah gimme the Kong.”
“But he’s one of the wor-“
“Kong time monkey time.”
Given my Kong filled obsession, by the time I was old enough to start picking usernames and social media handles there was no question as to what I was gonna pi-.
Oh. Donkey Kong’s taken?
Oh… well… man…
What about Chimps McGee? It’s free? Okay well then that’s good enough for me too.
And so, whenever somebody asks me about how the name Chimps McGee was born, I tell them its origin story that involves a monkey brained twelve year old child and his fond memories of an even bigger monkey brained king.
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The Kong dabbing it up in Mario Kart 8.
Credit: https://www.shortlist.com/news/donkey-kong-definitely-dabs-in-new-mario-kart-8
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The Mixin’s
When I was a kid growing up, my family didn’t have a lot of money. Whenever we could, we would try to save a few cents here and there. Food was no exception, and there were a lot of times where I would have to make do with what we had in the fridge or cupboards at the time. See it as you may, but for a bored and curious child such as myself, this led to a lot of interesting (and sometimes abhorrent) food combinations, depending on what items were up for selection. Some food combinations were an instant hit, such as can of tuna with ketchup mixed into it. If it was an extra fancy day I’d toss some corn into the concoction as well. Spaghetti with ketchup and hot sauce mixed in was also a top contender. You’d be surprised how well the sweetness, tang, and heat come together to create a pleasant taste when tossed thoroughly with cheap spaghetti noodles.
Some concoctions are still undecided whether or not they were a yay or nay. Even to this day as an adult I still have trouble deciding whether or not they were a tasteful delight or a yucky mess in my mouth. Milk and Sprite was one of those mixtures. Listen. I like milk and I like Sprite, and to be honest in a child’s mind if you mix two things that you like together that should create a super-duper bomb-diggity food sensation… right? The two tastes funnily enough cancelled each other out a lot, and what I ended up having to finish (we didn’t waste any food in my household) was a whole lot of “I’m not sure how I feel about this”. There was a faint essence of milk with (if you got the proportions right) a hint of lemon in a drink that felt a little heavier than water that hit you with some carbonation bubbles here and there (you honestly had to chug a whole lot at once to get a hit of bubbly satisfaction).
There were also some concoctions that on paper sounded absolutely dreadful but once put into your mouth was not the worst thing in the world. For example, soy sauce and yogurt sound like two peas that definitely don’t belong in the same pod, however if you got the ratio right it actually added another depth of salty umami to whatever yogurt flavour you had in the fridge… Is what I would say when I was a kid. But as an adult it uh, you know, just tastes like soy sauce and yogurt.
Although my family is doing much better nowadays, I still get those odd cravings for the things I used to cook up and mix together as a kid. My roommates and friends sometimes judge me when I start making a mess in the kitchen, pouring and mixing together ingredients that don’t belong together in their eyes.
“But c’mon, milk and Sprite won’t kill ya. Have a taste. Give it a try. The soy sauce and yogurt might do ya one though.”
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Mixing and eating and eating and mixing.
Credits:
https://www.storey.com/article/baking-kids-guide-kitchen-skills/
https://www.today.com/health/secrets-worlds-healthiest-children-6-longevity-lessons-japan-t48251
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Charizards
It goes by many names across the globe. Dracaufeu. Glurak. Lizardon. Or as the kids at my school called it, Charizard. The coveted king of the playground, the showman of the circus, the main attraction at the county fair. It didn’t matter what language you spoke or which country you came from, that orange fire breathing lizard commanded respect wherever it went.
To be honest though, I didn’t understand what any of the hype was about until I laid my own two eyes on the majestic beast itself. Well, the majestic beast and the standardized cardboard stock that it was printed on. The monster that was on the card resembled a large orange dragon with turquoise wings that were spread wide at full stretch. Its tail slithered behind it, with a flame at its tip that burned everlasting. Its neck stretched far in front of it, as if trying to escape from its wooden bounds and reach its holder. With its mouth opened wide and large, you could see its four razor sharp fangs, its slippery tongue, and the darkness that you would experience if you ever happened to be swallowed up by such a beast. However, from the gaping darkness sprung light, with a roaring flame that erupted from the depths of the monster’s belly to the edges of the card’s borders. All of this, in front of a flame-coloured background with dark action lines that instigated excitement and action. Oh, and with a bunch of sparkles and holographic stars and gleams sprinkled on top of the whole shebang as well. The card itself rocked a chunky one hundred and twenty hit points, one of the highest of the set, and had an attack that did a whopping one hundred damage at the cost of four energy tokens. Looking back on it now, the card really wasn’t that great in competitive play, but the masterpiece that was its artwork and the big triple digit number stats were more than enough to make up for it in the eyes of anyone under the age of twelve.
Funnily enough, the booster pack that mine came in had the king of the playground himself on the wrapper as well.
Haha. Imagine if I got a Charizard, now how funny would that be.
Unlike the others, I liked to take my time and opened my packs carefully. My family didn’t have a lot of money, so any time I was able to buy and open a pack of cards was a special day for me. I slowly peeled away the metallic wrapper and carefully took the cards from out of their packaging.
Weedle. Pidgey. Energy. Vulpix. Charmander. Ehhh.
But then I saw it. A corner of its fiery red background poked out from behind some other cards.
Oh my. No way. Is that?
The other cards didn’t matter at this point. I quickly flipped through the others and made my way to the prized pig at the barn.
Woah.
Now I understood exactly what all the hype was about.
“Oh wow no way a Charizard!?” exclaimed a random passerby that happened to lock eyes on my newfound treasure. “I’ll give you twenty dollars for it.”
Now a Charizard was one thing. But twenty dollars was twenty dollars. It didn’t matter what language you spoke or what country you came from, twenty dollars to a ten-year-old was the equivalent of winning the lottery. You didn’t have to offer that deal to ten-year-old me twice.
What a simple ten-year-old I was.
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Opening old Pokémon packs nowadays can be worth a lot in nostalgia points as well as real life currency.
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Credit: https://www.carousell.com.my/p/sealed-pokemon-1999-base-set-booster-pack-card-1009217966/
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Credit: https://www.dicebreaker.com/games/pokemon-trading-card-game/news/shiny-charizard-pokemon-card-auction-record
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Credit: https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/514325219927768173/
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