(Editor’s Note: Due to network difficulties, this column has been published a day late, we regret the inconvenience)

It feels like it comes early and early every year, doesn’t it? That one day that my most loyal Riders know that they can be sure to find a post from me, the Pierre Noel of gaming culture cogency: FourTen Day. Some traditions, despite how commercial they’ve gotten, and how far from their roots they’ve strayed, are still too ingrained to break

So now that it’s here, what do we do with it? That’s actually a pretty good question. I like to say that the usual rules don’t apply, that the day that just happens to have the same numbers describing it and in the same order as it appears in my ‘handle’ means that I can take it off from the usually unusual thought and analysis that can normally be found here. But that leaves me with a quandary: what to write in today’s column.

This is an age-old problem, as in anyone who old enough to remember that thing called a newspaper can attest to. Regular columnists in such media had to produce hundreds of words on a daily basis, a long rendered archaic task that I personally found astonishing and worthy of admiration (they still do that? Really?), but like what’s happening now they often disappoint their readers with by dragging out some trope like ‘Airports! They Are So Annoying!’ Dear deity of your choice (or not), if I have to look at another column about how much of hassle the writer’s last trip to the airport was, I’m going to scream. Newsflash! Airports are inconvenient! Wow! And those little bags of peanuts? They are hard to open!

Seven Hundred and Fifty-Four words. That was the approximate length of my first ever column, a guest piece that I wrote for Gamespot.com’s online magazine “Gamespotting.” That was back in January of 2003. Google “manual gamer” and you’ll find it there a few spots down. It was a lark then, I had no idea I’d eventually become the internet’s most cogent gaming culture columnist, but the origin story will have to wait, since those who don’t know probably don’t care. The point is, as I have a habit of meandering towards one eventually, that it was about 754 words long, and since then I made that my goal for every subsequent column. I’ve failed often, mostly not out of laziness, but out of a desire not to labor every point (again: cogency). Now if you can reconcile that with my previous statement about meandering towards a point, let me know. But I guess it’s good to have goals, but this being FourTen Day, I can forgive myself this once.

Time’s running out on today, and I think I spent too much of it thinking about the day’s meaning then enjoying the day itself, so I’ll just wrap it up by wishing my Riders an Uncharacteristic FourTen Day, go do the unexpected.

This is my stop.

ARCHIVE
Comments? Questions? E-mail me at seth410@gamertransit.com.
Complaints? So it’s a bit late, but it’s still April 10th!
Back of the Bus is © 2008 by Seth “4:10” Robison, used with exclusive permission by gamertransit.com. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.