Juvenile pleasures
I’ve been playing Animal Crossing  to the detriment of any other task I might accomplish. This includes cleaning, exercising, reading and sometimes eating.
I’ve also been playing a little bit with my brother and sister-in-law.
Both adults carrying on reasonably adult lives.
I discovered, on accident, that the Nintendo interface censors words.
Through a cumbersome process, you can communicate with the other person. It’s a lot easier for me to call my brother or sister-in-law and talk to them while playing. But my cell phone connection can get pretty spotty in my apartment. After several dropped calls, we just resort to typing in our communications, letter by letter, by means of a stylus. Not disimilar to IMs or text messaging, in that you learn really quick that proper English, capitalization and punctuation are unnecessary.
So I’m telling my brother that his wife’s room in the game is “bitchin.”
Or I try.
What comes out is a blank spot in the message followed by room.
Did you just try to use a swear word?
Turns out Nintendo’s censoring isn’t very good. Misspelling words will easily circumvent the blocks on fuck, damn, shit and bitch. Example: mutherfukker or shiit.
My sister-in-law and I took this an extra step one night and produced what would be my biggest laugh all week.
We labored to find words that were “dirty” but that would get through. We ranged from the purely juvenile with words like poop snake and chocolate starfish to the clinical …
Still nothing but those four words.
It was silly. I felt 12, trying to piss on authority (also a word that gets through).
She said piss…
Heh-heh, and she said poop.
While I love entries with swear words, I just have to point out that the same woman who got on ME for text messaging from my cell phone awhile back has found it OK to text message as long as a game is attached to it!!! Mel, you’re even using the shortcuts!
All I have to say is that my text messages aren’t censored.
Ah, yes. But I am not text messaging on a cell phone. I am playing a game.
And if your text messages aren’t censored, perhaps I’ll spend the five cents to have a little fun on your cell phone too.
Bring it on!