Assessing the Apocalypse #4
The Password to the Family Computer
Little could be done to keep my 14 year old self off of some kind of gaming device. What was once a delight limited to the times my parents’ bible study group was now my full-time hobby. Video games permeated into the rest of my media consumption be it literary, cinematic, or musical. I was a good little geek of the early-mid-oughts like so many others. While my parents and I mostly maintained a balanced understanding and general agreement concerning when I played games there were instances of infractions on my part.
One argue the genesis for this review was my mother finding me playing Paper Mario on my N64 at 4am on school night never having gone to bed. World of Warcraft, however, is the title that lies at the heart of today’s two-pronged review.
While never a star student, I’m smart enough to maintain decent grades but my addiction to WoW in freshman year of high school was the first time a game had directly affected my performance in class. Ironic as my parents’ agreement to purchase the game AND front the $15/month subscription thereafter was contingent on me earning a GPA that fit their reasonable standards. Not reasonable in hindsight mind you, I knew they were being reasonable then, I just had a few unnoticed things going on under the hood that made it difficult to do things I didn’t want to do.
My first bad progress report led to the research, design, and development of the password to the family computer. A virtually impenetrable cypher that would give Dan Brown night terrors. I don’t blame them, my parents had a challenge on their hands. They’re smart people, but I, being the weasel that I am, weaponized the education they provided me with to circumvent their attempts to limit my access.
Technological literacy was the name of the game. Beyond being a youth of a certain age at a certain time, my brief stint in catholic school came with a computer class that got me hip to all sorts of hotkeys, workarounds, and most importantly the basic principles of troubleshooting.
After a series of proxy and guest accounts being discovered thanks to frankly sloppy work on my part, THEE password was created.
“without the 1”
This was the hint for my new nemesis.
They got me. I couldn’t get around this shit. No guest accounts, couldn’t do anything in the BIOS (smart enough to consider, but not dumb enough to experiment and bust the entire machine). I’d have to wait for them to get home, the only hope of unauthorized use being that whoever left last forgot to turn the computer off.
What was even weirder was that this password seemed to be a struggle for my parents themselves. Not only was this thing a whopper but my folks would occasionally have to stop, think, continue, backspace, etc to successfully enter it. I was humbled.
A couple of years ago I finally asked what the FUCK that password was and I got my answer; the first letter to each word of the “Ave Maria” (Hail Mary). They couldn’t remember what the hint referred to.
As a teen, I give The Password to the Family Computer 1 out of 5 Hidden Characters. As a parent? 5 out of 5; no notes.
Read the last review here!