elfs | Gordon Freeman for a day

Life as a first-person shooter

Today, I turned life into an episode of Half-Life 2: I wielded a full-sized wrecking bar and completely dismantled a 6'x7' shed that had been slowly rotting away in the back yard.

While doing so, I discovered a number of facts about Gordon Freeman. First, he's deaf: after a few swings with the wrecking bar, I decided that ear plugs were a very good addition to the eye protection and sun hat. Even after all that, I still have a powerfully annoying ringing in my ears.

Secondly, he must have the most amazing foreams. Not to swing the thing, that was easy. But to hold it in view, as I am in the photograph, for hours on end. That position hurts.

It took about five hours to completely dismantle the thing. About half the screws had completely rusted. I had to drill out three of them, tear most of the rest of them. I almost had the roof fall in on me once.

And I hadn't even made a decent batch of sangria.

I had a manly breakfast, too: steak & eggs. The ladies had doughnuts. Omaha baked some frozen corn dogs for lunch, but for dinner we had salmon with mint straight from the garden with baked sweet potatoes on the side. Now that's living.

I also planted the horseradish into the garden, made sure all my plants were nicely watered. Two of the corn stalks died, as did one carrot (I suspect squirrels in that case). Then the skies opened up and rained on us.

I bet Gordon Freeman doesn't get magnificently flaky salmon. Or a decent red wine. Come to think of it, the only first-person narrative where there's prominent drinking, that I can recall, is in the Bioshock series. There isn't even alcohol in Grand Theft Auto.