trapped in animal crossing. (a first glimpse at the situation.) My brain was the excuse this time. And I also wanted to do something about the 90 minutes spent on subways every day. I needed something to keep me on my toes, be not too large, somehow discrete. And then i got the dog. Soon after that I moved into a little forest with animals. I have not emerged from there yet. It will take some time. Maybe a year or so? Listen, I have some great friends now who want me to gift them some pink furniture and would like me to send them shirts. My dog needs to be walked more than once a day, but we are already winning some good frisbee competitions, so i can't complain. I bought that new nintendo ds lite for that purposely grown up game, called brain age. and it was a really good purchase, i think. it took a few minutes to figure out that my brain had completely forgotten how to add and subtract the simplest of numbers. 1-1= yeah, i suddenly saw myself as a bit of a zero. a computer generated head kept reminding me to come back for more of primitive head beating. my "brain age" went from 56 to 45 to somewhere abound 30... then back to 40 something. and all because i did not pay attention when they were teaching us the value of 7x8 or 6x7... we used to have calculators to do the bean counting for us. now a toy is making fun of me because i used it's grandpa. nintendogs feels rather perfect for someone like me. i do not want to have a dog, no matter how close to the park i live. i sometimes go on shoots and am then gone for weeks. i sometimes work for 14 hours, and then there are the 45 minutes on the subway. having an animal in my apartment would be just completely inhumane. a golden retriever in my pocket is a different story. goldie, my golden retriever is a pretty smart "forever-puppy." she knows how to sit, roll over, fetch a frisbee, be it blue or green. i do have to feed her regularly and i need to click on that pixelated fecal matter she leaves behind, but she recognizes my voice, and is happy even when i come to visit her for a few minutes a day. the real knockout of a game happens to be that bizarre animal crossing wild world. i do not even want to know how many hours i have now spent talking to cats and ducks and a semi intelligent squirrel. a fox just sold me a fake painting a few hours ago and i am mad at him. what is wrong with me? was i bitten too many times by those buzzing pixels called bees? or was one of the fish i pulled out of the virtual river too poisonous after all? amy and i have been visiting each other's villages several times now (nintendo offers a free wi-fi game option. free means no monthly subscription fee or anything like that. not kidding.). she brought some pears from her world, i gave home some peaches from mine. (each world has its unique natural vegetation.) i planted her pears, so i can sell what will grow on the trees for a better profit at the store run by a racoon. i have a mortgage on my little virtual house. i need to pay it off rather soon. (My brain-age just went down to 9.) this is all completely insane. how can a little video game that fits nicely in a pocket, and the actual game, not much bigger than a postal stamp, create such a rich experience that managed to shorten my subway rides to almost nothing? after a few hours in animal crossing (my city is called happysan) my reaction was to buy nintendo (NTDOY) stock. i have not played video games properly for maybe... 9 years or so? and here i am again, in a happy interactive place... and really enjoying it. A lot. Wow. i now can't wait for the release of nintendo wii. i will have to buy a tv set to play it. insanity. amazing. great. i am impressed. unexpectedly. big time. excuse me. i need to write some letters to my animal friends.