I Heart Katamari

Hey! It's me again. I'm sure you've all been wondering what Mr. Concord has been up to recently. Well, the Christmas season has kept me pretty busy. You know the familiar drill: dressing up in Victorian clothes, making homemade candy canes, poring over the L.L. Bean holiday catalog. But this year I've started a new tradition: playing video games. I'm not much of a gamer, but I was recently introduced to the charms of the Xbox, Wii, and Playstation. Take it from me, you don't have to be a greasy-haired teenager with poor social skills to enjoy the sublime pleasures of Halo 3 and Super Mario Galaxy. These are time-wasters of the highest order.

Of all the games I've tried, by far the most bizarre is a Japanese game called Katamari. The object of the game is to maneuver a sticky ball around and roll over as many objects as possible, causing them to get stuck to the ball. Gradually, as you roll over more and more objects (starting with small things like sushi but eventually moving up to entire houses), the ball increases in size. The winner is, to paraphrase an old AC/DC song, the one with the biggest ball of all. This all may sound rather silly and childish, but what puts the game over the top is the surreal humor that permeates the whole production. It's one of those things that probably makes complete sense to the Japanese but comes off as completely fucked-up to everyone else. In other words, it's total genius. Check out this clip of the intro.

That's all for now, kids. Stay warm and be good, okay? Santa is watching you.