The Pleasure of Annoyance

I am perplexed.

I am perplexed as to why I have spent the last 2 hours playing an old NES game - Mega Man 2. The whole time has been spent on the same couple of screens, being killed by the same handful of bastard enemies.

I can’t honestly say that I enjoyed a single moment of it. Yes, there’s the occasional surge of adrenaline as I think that this time….THIS….TIME…I CAN DO IT….ARGH, SHIT IT! Dead again.

The joypad creaks under my frustrated trembling sweaty attempts to break it in half.

Right…I’ll have another go at it. Start again.

Yep…killed that fella. No problem. Memorised his attack pattern. It’s ridiculous that enemies even have attack patterns that need to be memorised this early on in the game.

But never mind. Soldier on. Yep, three little flying blob things. Can’t get caught in their line of fire. Kill them before they get a chance to shoot that green electric shit. DONE. Brilliant. I can feel the adrenaline flowing into my fingers…heightening my responses. I’m a fucking stealth leopard. I’m on fire. Heart is racing. I can do this. I can do it.

Next screen…it’s the tough one. The dude made out of barrels. Have to shoot the top one first. Jump…shoot….my rectum puckers…mouth dries…yep, all good…..shoot again….he breaks apart…w….WHAT? YOU SHITTING COCK!!! I can be damaged by your lifeless disintegrating corpse?

WHAT?

Bloody Japanese bastard programmers from the 80s. Who made this shit? *checks box* CAPCOM. You fucking miserable arseholes. I hope you all died of something horrible. I hope you had pustules and apthous ulcers. I hope they all burst at once and your last few moments were spent agonisingly writhing around and choking on your own fetid discharge.

And the question pops into my head again….WHY am I doing this?

What in the name of all things holy am I doing to myself?

This behaviour goes against the most base survival instincts. I’m like a guinea pig repeatedly licking the terminals of a car battery for no discernible reason. Even though its fur is starting to crackle and its eyes are beginning to melt….it keeps going back for more.

Then comes the “continue” screen and I’m compelled to hit START and plunge balls-deep back into the whole futile, painful endeavour. It’s like Pavlov’s dog salivating at the sound of the bell, even though his last fifty dinners have been plates of nothing but sand, broken test-tubes and cocktail umbrellas.

It makes no sense.

Similar principal seems to apply to television watching habits. Why do I feel compelled to watch The Apprentice? Do I enjoy it? No. Not a moment of it. It’s an ordeal. I only get through it by playing little games in my head – like deciding which candidate I hate the most, and who deserves the most horrific physical punishment…and even better – what that punishment might be.

The best I’ve come up with so far is force-feeding snow globes to the Estate Agent. Imagine it. Him having to chew through the glass, the stagnant water spilling down his bleeding gullet…and him shitting polystyrene snowflakes and tiny plastic reindeer for weeks after. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.


I suppose I’m just a sucker for self-punishment. Maybe we all are. Maybe we all secretly loath ourselves and deep-down think that we deserve it. Even our unconscious mind annoys us. We’ve all experienced getting a song stuck in our heads. Usually the most irritatingly shite song imaginable that we would never listen to out of choice. But it’s not out of choice. Our unconscious mind has coiled around it without our waking consent, like a snake around a snoozing fat man’s leg. And it then it starts to cut off our circulation.

The most recent ditty to turn my brain blue and numb was the theme-tune from early 60s Gerry Anderson puppet show “Fireball XL5”.

A deep-core drilling platform wouldn’t have been able to bore that one out of my skull. Why? No idea. Ask my unconscious. I’m too scared to go anywhere near it.

Maybe it’s the same reason why some people are into S&M. Different strokes for different folks. No whips and clamps for me, though. My little grey square of concentrated pain is jammed in the gob of my NES.

This time I’m going to do it. This time I CAN! I WILL! I…


AAARGH! FUCK!!!!

....That’s SO good.