$ cat post/the-red-ring-glitch.md

The Red Ring Glitch


I’m playing Super Mario Bros. on my Nintendo Entertainment System. The screen is green with brown grass and blue sky. Mario jumps really high, but sometimes he just floats up and stops moving. I try to jump again, and this time the screen turns red with a big white circle. It looks like someone painted it. Then everything goes black for a second. When it comes back, Mario is still floating in mid-air! The screen glitch doesn’t go away no matter what I do. I push all the buttons on my controller—A, B, start, select—but nothing works to make it better. It’s like the game got confused and can’t figure out what to do next. I try again and again, hoping it will fix itself, but every time Mario just hangs in mid-air with that red ring around him. The screen keeps turning on and off like a light bulb. I wish I could shake the cartridge or plug it back in, but I know that won’t help either. It’s driving me crazy!