Stopping al-Qaida, a quarter at a time

Tue, 02 Mar 2004 20:30:00 +0000

Guided by their infallible logic, the Robotrons conclude: The human race is inefficient, and must therefore be eliminated.

The 1982 arcade game "Robotron" offered a hyperactive, paranoid vision of a future gone awry. With two joysticks and a steady supply of quarters, you could save the world, but only for so long. Today Eugene Jarvis, designer of "Robotron," is still worried about a future gone mad. But it's no longer machines that are the enemies, but terrorists.

Sure to be among the first class of inductees at the Pong-shaped Video Game Hall of Fame when and if it is built, Eugene Jarvis is a legend in gaming circles -- not for making cute or simple games, but for games that are unbelievably, knuckle-bashingly difficult. Jarvis' C.V. reads like a litany of squandered allowances and sleepless nights for anyone who has stepped into an arcade in the last 25 years: "Defender," "Robotron," "Stargate," "Blaster," "NARC" and "Smash T.V."

Playing with dollz

Tue, 07 Oct 2003 19:30:00 +0000

Petite but curvy, Lolita is a knockout in a matching black leather corset and knee-length skirt. Her wide, oval face and saucer-sized eyes are accentuated by rings of light brown hair infused with delicate blond highlights. This mass of curls is held back with frilly, girlish red ribbons that reveal a choker and an attached chain that drops between her small breasts. Under the skeletal remains of a Victorian hoop skirt, fishnet stockings end in mammoth Japanese-style platform boots. Lolita is nothing if not a study in contrasts.

But there is more to Lolita than a hyper-stylized, postmodern fashion sense, as the bloody stump of her right arm and her broken wings attest. Lolita is a fallen teen angel -- the very picture of innocence lost. With her smudged cupid's mouth and wide eyes bleeding tears, Lolita is both haunting and, somehow, impossibly cute. This, perhaps, can be attributed to the fact that even on her mighty platform boots, Lolita is 2.5 inches tall and occupies only two dimensions.

Salon.com > Mitch Borgeson

Stopping al-Qaida, a quarter at a time

Playing with dollz