Excerpt From The Draft Of The Jimquisition Book That I Probably Won't Finish (Patreon)

Oh, hello, it is me again, Jim Sterling. This isn't part of the book draft, by the way, this is just an introduction.

Firstly, thank you for all the kind words and support in response to the last blog post (I guess we can go with just calling them that for now). I'd like to do more, but I know better than to make promises when it's been almost a month and I literally forget every day that I started redoing Squirty Play videos!

In any case, I felt it very worthwhile to write that stuff down and make sure everybody knows the deal with the content, as well as vent some stuff. I have more stuff to talk about in future - in fact, tonight could be somewhat lifechanging on a very personal level, and I probably won't shut about it in the coming week depending on what happens.

I mentioned last time that I had spent years barely writing a Jimquisition book. It's something I'd like to see finished, but who even knows? It's not a straightforward book, in fact it's the exact kind of mess someone with my attention span and memory issues would write. Chapters are short, and sort of random. Running throughout are autobiographical chapters full of lies, excerpts from different book drafts that are presented as accidentally left in, random bespoke essays about the game industry, and written versions of selected Jimquisition episodes.

It's a fractured read, as much as actually exists of it. Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to at least show off a bit. It's not well written by the standards of someone writing (or reading) a book, I don't think, but as a draft it may entertain. This is from one of the autobiographical chapters, covering my very first steps into games media and meeting Destructoid. 

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As a hero of the common people and champion of the underdog, I wasn’t interested in those big corporate gigs that I was definitely going to get. What I truly wanted was a small outlet with ambition, something I could elevate with my overwhelming knowledge and vast literary skills. This could have described most blogs at the time, since my abilities would have raised the game of any publication with sense enough to hire me.

While very patiently waiting for the games media world to offer me a job so I could stop being categorized as “unemployable” at the benefits office, I received a mysterious letter that had been ensliddened betwixt mine letterbox’s little brushy bits and now sat within a black envelope upon my unremarkable hallway mat. The envelope was sealed with a seal, one of the better ways of sealing things because it’s called a seal. A robotic head was pressed into the red wax. It’s always red, isn’t it? Or at least it usually is. When I say “wax seal” to you, you likely think of a red one, with like a skull or a bird or something on it. That’s just how we think of seals now. The ones you get on letters. Not the other ones.

The letter inside had been professionally stained with coffee to make it appear old fashioned. I could tell from the style that this was the work of Barnham & Owl, official letter distressers of the magistrate himself, and one of the most expensive to ply their craft in the realm. You truly got what you paid for, not just a letter but a collectible item, distressed to perfection by the finest craftspeople of Olde London Towne. They’d even torn a corner off to make it look proper old fashioned, even though no freshly delivered letters should really look old fashioned because we’re supposing they were written in a contemporary period, where the paper would be brand new.

When pirates first drew their treasure maps, they weren’t already burned and yellow and covered in shit. But people fucking spill coffee all over them anyway. I paid such thoughts no mind.

“James,” the letter read, presumptuously. “You have been invited to a cordial game of cards. Come to the Strikerburger at Hemingway Street on Wednesday night and we shall talk of many things.”

The letter was signed “Mr. Destructoid” and had a picture of a dagger drawn on it to show that it was serious business.

This was not my first mysterious invite to a clandestine game of cards in the back of a chain restaurant, but something about this one seemed almost sinister. Many questions swam through my mind like swimmers who were swimming (in water). Why would an anonymous masked figure invite me to a card game? Was this not so much an invitation as prelude to a threat? And what could I have done to facilitate such ominous forms of communication? Most importantly, I needed to know which state Hemingway Street was located because there sure as shit weren’t any Strikerburgers in England.

With little information to go on, I decided to make things easier and just move to America. I figured that my inevitable fame and fortune would lead to many more strange letters from American citizens, so I might as well save the senders some shipping costs and move here. Not knowing much about the United States, I decided the best place to migrate would be wherever the action was, the heart and soul of American media. I promptly booked my ticket to Jackson, Mississippi, and never looked back because this guy kept standing too close behind me at the airport and I didn’t want to make eye contact.

Once I arrived in Mississippi, I hailed a cab and promptly asked to be taken to the Strikerburger on Hemingway Street. I needed to act fast, primarily because media moves at the speed of light and I had to strike while the iron was hot. Also because I received the letter five months beforehand and was pretty sure the original invitation had expired.

One thing that surprised me about the United States was how objectionable people can be. You hear all the time about southern hospitality, but almost every cab driver I spoke to argued and shouted with me. By the time I reached Miami, Florida, I was completely sick of cab drivers, the vast majority of which refused to take me directly to my destination. And then they kept asking for more money on top of their fares, which just reeked of a shakedown. I noticed serving staff at restaurants were in on the same racket, too.

Anyway, after hundreds upon hundreds of vehicular arguments and five incidents with knives, I arrived in Miami, Florida.