Nova Daily - 22 October 2025: Absurd
Hi!
The final blogs of BlogChamps have been written. I haven't read either of them start to finish yet, but I will certainly do so on short notice. I'm really looking forward to finding out how my friends have performed.
Absurd
I once had a private conversation with my dearest coach about a teammate that I had personally introduced to the club a few years prior. This guy had been a dependable, friendly teammate ever since he first set foot in our club. Someone that has no evil bone in his body. I said with a straight face that I had my doubts about him.
"Doubts about him?" He looked puzzled. "Why? He's a great guy, isn't he?"
"Yes," I said, "but he steals like a magpie."
This remark was so outrageous and blatantly not true that it was immediately obvious to my coach that I meant it as a joke. To be clear: this teammate is honest to a fault, and we both knew that. Putting him in this absurd context and sharing a laugh about it was a wonderful way to cement my connection with my coach.
I have a bit of a soft spot for absurd humour. And luckily there is a lot of absurd humour in the world. Reality in itself is already absurd enough, but I think that it's fun to do things in a way that they were very clearly not intended:
Some of the most fun I've had all week was with a video of a tool-assisted speed run of Super Mario Bros. 3 in which the runner, rather than trying to beat the game in the shortest possible time, showed off a whole palette of tricks and glitches that the game programming allowed for. Losing in unintended ways that may appear impossible at first, obtaining in-game items even when the level is over, and clipping out of bounds for no other purpose than to show that it's possible.
What makes Monty Python's dead parrot sketch so incredibly great is the enormous verbal eloquence that John Cleese's character needs to tap into, just to make clear to Michael Palin's character that the bird is dead.
These days there are many ways to have fun with Super Mario 64 in a way that the devss definitely didn't intend or foresee. Someone tried to complete the game with 126 000 Goombas chasing after him. People try to beat this platforming game without pressing the jump button even once, without killing enemies, with normal real-life laws of physics, or even without collecting coins. People play hide and seek tag or some other game.
I totally didn't just collage all the crazy SM64 vids that I watched into a paragraph. However, one person just takes the cake. This is a guy that has a ball with Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. He created the most demonic roller coaster ever. And not because it goes so quick that it'd fly off the screen. The exact opposite: the ride goes so slow that it takes forever to complete one lap.
Literally.
Forever.
Chess has its goofball moments as well. I'm thinking to turn this into its own longer blog post, but for here I'll leave it at the underpromotion to eight knights.
