I recently celebrated my 32^nd birthday. I didn’t have much planned but as the day approached I remembered that 32 is a tournament number (a number that can be repeatedly divided by 2 without decimals until it gets to 1). And I also remembered that years ago I had decided my 32^nd birthday should be fight-themed. With that in mind, I got the family together and watched a Ninja Turtles movie.

In my personal time, I also arranged a tournament between myself at different ages. (Let me explain.) I went back over the past 32 years of my life, looking at significant events from each year, related each year to characters in a fighting game (Super Smash Bros.) having those characters represent the years of my life, and then watched the computer fight itself as all of those characters.

I had Young Link represent age 10 (the year I played an elf on ‘The Santa Clause’). Roy from Fire Emblem represented ages 22 and 27 (the years I wrote and published ‘The Kingdom’). Dr. Mario for age 24 (the year I had Healing Night). Jigglypuff for when I was a baby. Zelda for my last year of acting (she turns into a guy). And last year, because I published ‘Singularity’ (a book about a spacial anomaly that sucks everything into it), was represented by Kirby.

The winner of the tournament was age 18 (Adult Link) for the year I became an adult and simultaneously fell in love with ‘Lord of the Rings’.

Because I’m an organizer, and because I love watching fights, this turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Odd as it may be. The next tournament number up is 64. But I might not wait til then to do another tournament like this. My mind is already thinking of how I can apply the concept to different games using different characters. It was also fun just to go over my history and see what moments or elements seemed most prominent. I think I need more bizarre celebrations like this in my life.