I hear the American Library Association is holding another National Gaming Day tomorrow. There’ll be a national Super Smash Brother Brawl Tournament? In my day, brawls meant something. We brawled over ideas like women’s suffrage (a brawl I lost, but I digress). Tournaments ended in someone getting eaten by a lion. I hear no one even dies in this “game” you call “Smash Brothers”.

I also hear they will be playing a game called “Rock Band”. In my day, bands were rubber and rocks were used to throw at people who didn’t share our opinions. That game was very fun, and I can’t imagine this new fangled video version of a game could give you quite the same experience as a good old-fashioned stoning.

In my day, we didn’t have video games in our libraries. We didn’t even have video games. The only games we played were boring. That’s why we call them board games. Our most exciting game was “kick the can”, yet the 8bitlibrary.com bloggers didn’t even host a single game of kick the can at their Retro Gaming Day.  You librarians nowadays have no sense of history and no moral compass.

Speaking of librarians nowadays, I WHOLEHEARTEDLY SUPPORT FORMER AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT MICHAEL GORMAN’S STATEMENT THAT GAMES DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH LIBRARIES. I agree with him when he says it is ludicrous to think “that all these young people would turn up to play video games and think, ‘Oh by the way, I must borrow that book by Dostoyevsky’.” In my day, libraries were full of books and children only spoke when spoken to.

You know what else libraries didn’t have? James Patterson books. If there is anything to me signaling the end of the world, it is “his” books, oh, and and sparkly vampires. In my day, vampires didn’t sparkle and didn’t eat garlic.

I also hear libraries have computers now. I find it ludicrous to think that people are going to pick up a Dostoevsky book after clicking around on one of those satanic machines. In my day, we read Dostoevsky by candle-light in the library (because electric lighting wasn’t around yet). I’m tired of electric lighting in libraries, come to think of it, because it ruins my experience of reading Dostoevsky.

You know what else libraries didn’t have in my day? Heating and air conditioning. I find no need for it. In my day we burned witches at the stake for heat in the winter. My late wife Bertha could attest to this.

One of the worst things of all that I find coming out of today’s libraries is their dependence on the internet.  They are helping people navigate the “information” that flows through this terrible series of tubes? I’ve seen what happens to you when you use too much internet, and I hope I’m not around when the sky rains chocolate. In my day, the only information we could trust was in books written by Dostoevsky, and this fact will never change.

Let me conclude by saying: Michael Gorman, I salute you and your courage to stand up against these whipper-snapping librarians of today. They are ruining what we love so much: stuffy quiet library spaces that no longer serve a purpose to our community!!

- Cranky Kong

(this is posted by JP on behalf of Cranky Kong, who is NOT in Super Smash Brother Brawl)