Pop Quiz, Hotshot...

Back in my day, a week would rarely go by without hearing about kids falling off their roof because they were trying to “fly like Superman” or being admitted to hospital with missing eyes after making ninja weapons out of rusty corrugated iron, gaffa tape and a chainsaw blade. We would risk life and limb just for that one moment that our friends would say, “Fuck, Mister Evil Breakfast; I swear you actually turned into Spider-Man just then. Also, would you like some help to straighten out your spine?” I would spit out a mouthful of blood and respond, “I fucking am Spider-Man,” before passing out.

I haven’t heard anything even remotely like that for years; the worst hijinx that kids are getting up to these days is posting “YOUR FAT!!!11 LOLZ” on some fat kid’s Facebook page, throwing an online Pokemon ball at a ‘friend’ they’ve never met and then “pwning” some “newbs” on World of Warcraft in a universe that doesn’t exist.

In an attempt to bring back senseless violence and carefree danger to the masses, I am going to pick up where I left off since stabbing my neighbour with a sword (an old fence paling) at age 12 in a dramatic recreation of what would happen if He-Man and My Little Pony ever met. As an adult, I possess the means, the money and the alcohol to surpass the backyard ninjas and pirates (and He-Man if his power sword was indeed a splintery old piece of wood) of my youth - I can become any fucking hero I want to be.

I bring to you, dear readers, and drivers of Canberra: SPEED: The Reality Event. Speed was a 1994 movie starring Keanu Reeves (winner of the Mister Evil Breakfast Award For Being The Most Awesome Human Being Ever [MEBAFBTMAHBE]) and Sandra Bullock (Mister Evil Breakfast Award For Being Fairly Hot Even Though She’s A Bit Old And Has Had To Resort To Doing “Based On A True Story” Movies [MEBAFBFHETSABOAHHTRTDBOATSM]).

The basic premise of the film is that there’s a bus that can’t drop below 55 mph or it will explode and kill the guy from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

To play Speed, I was required to don a pair of awesome sunglasses, work out for a bit (not too long though, I got tired and bored pretty quickly) and hop into my car; a 2005 Ford Focus (for the uninitiated, it’s basically the same as a rally car - it has a similar engineering TAFE course) and hit the streets.

55 miles per hour is 88.51 kilometres per hour, by the way. That’s pretty quick to maintain, and on the day that I decided to play Speed: The Reality Game, I still had some shit to do; I wasn’t going to let a bomb get in the way of me hitting up McDonalds, going for a beer and picking up some ill-thought out Ebay purchase from the Post Office.

Stupidly, I hit the magic 55mph coming out of my driveway, so I really put myself under some pressure from the get-go – could I somehow get through the Maccas drive-thru, order a large Big Mac meal, 6 nuggets and a hot apple pie whilst maintaining close to 90kmh? Turns out I couldn’t, but I was honestly let down by the fucktards at the McDonalds window, who not only technically blew me up, but also lost the lives of the passengers in the car in front of me, one behind, and at least one person in the restaurant. To top things off, they didn’t even give me my fries. In all fairness, I was yelling “I’ve got a bomb! I’ve got a bomb!” into the speaker box, which probably scared the Maccas workers a little and may have caused some unnecessary panic.

Driving whilst eating a Big Mac (and texting a few mates) at 90kmh turned out to be harder than I thought, and I “exploded” another few times on my way to the pub. I almost had a newfound respect for Sandra Bullock until I remembered that she made Miss Congeniality 2 and quickly changed my mind; in fact, I wish she had exploded in my car with me, or at the very least held my little tub of McDonalds sauce so I could dunk my McNuggets.

After a quick pint (it was three), I was ready to hit the road again, in a much better frame of mind to navigate the streets at close to 100 clicks. My game plan from here on in was to maintain speed at all time, lest I lose the last third of my McDonalds Coke to a fiery death. Leaving the pub immediately presented me with an issue as I came across a red light, so I did the right thing by the world and put my head down and sped through it. It was nice to hear other motorists cheering me on with honking horns and raising their middle finger in the universal sign for “You’re number one!” as I careered through the busy intersection. I maintained speed for another 10 minutes or so until I became bored with driving straight down the highway (keep in mind I didn’t have Sandra Bullock in her prime to keep me company) so I headed back into the suburbs to spice things up a bit.

Short story even shorter, I ended up “dousing” the “bomb” in someone’s backyard swimming pool (via three fences and after running over a dog) about four minutes later. I was hoping to inspire a new wave of children to copy some violent movies and fill the hospital emergency ward with injuries involving match-bombs and home-made nunchuks. But as the media caught wind of the events of the day, they thwarted my plans and ensured that the only injuries the youth of today will receive will be getting their chubby fingers caught in the middle of video game discs.