A rediscovery

In the past couple of weeks I have truly rediscovered the video game nerd that I am at heart. For the past few years I couldn’t get into anything for very long - I’d pick up a game, generally pirated, play it for an hour or two and then toss it aside. With the newfound money situation that comes with holding a steady job for more than a year, I’d even started buying games and then doing the same thing or worse - not playing them at all; just buying them “to play in the future.” It’s sick.

However, in the past month I’ve probably played more hours of video games than in the previous 6 and it’s great. I had forgotten how much fun it is to get drawn into a story, or try over and over to reach a goal, or just complete steps to get to the end of something. I think part of it is that in the times I’m not playing video games I’m getting a large amount of satisfaction out of my job, oddly enough. Going to work and accomplishing things really fills that hole in my life; now that I haven’t really done anything of any note in a few months that void is getting filled with video games again, just like when I was a kid. Very odd - I’m interested to see if it continues if the job situation changes. At this point I’m about a hair’s breadth away from quitting and taking a couple of months off - I’m really burned out on sitting around and doing nothing all day, plus there are some changes happening that would make my nothing time even more difficult to take. The sad thing is I really enjoy what I do and I’m rather good at it - there’s just nothing for me to do because I solved all of the major problems months ago. These days it’s just maintaining things and filling a seat and I’m never good at that.

If you were wondering, the Wii is a stellar piece of machinery. Even only playing Wii Sports makes me happy - I haven’t even started in on Zelda yet (blame Final Fantasy 3 & 12 for that). You really do feel involved in the games in ways that just aren’t there as an adult (though Guitar Hero had come close in recent times). The lineup for the next 6 months looks great, too (new Mario, new Smash Brothers, new Metroid and there’s even another fucking Duck Hunt and another fucking Pilot Wings coming out eventually). I hope Nintendo manages to sway some of the graphics fiends away from their TVs and get them involved in some genuine, fun gameplay again.

One other rediscovery I’m looking forward to starts next year. It’s really my New Year’s Resolution, if you can call it such a thing. In 2007 I will try and drink 365 different types of beer. I’ve found that I’ve fallen into a drinking rut - Becks or Grolsch as a daily drinker, the Beast at New College plus an occasional Pale Ale that I see at the store that I’ve not yet tried. Nothing new, nothing different. And it’s not healthy, at least for my general well-being. Not only will I try and drink them all, I’ll write ‘em all down. I’m still trying to figure out the things that I have to write and the things that I should write on each one, plus the exact rules as to what fits into beer and what doesn’t (malt liquor does, Zima doesn’t, but what about fruit beers?) and size limits (do tasting glasses count, or should I go with at least a 6 ounce minimum). But I’ll work all those out. The frightening part is going to be finding 365 different beers. I think the Total Wine in Tampa has around 200 or 250, but that leaves around 100 or so that I’m going to have to go and hunt down in breweries or car trips (like Red Oak in the Carolinas, for one). It’ll be an interesting journey. For now I’m just buying up lots of 6-packs of seasonal beers with a goal of keeping at least one until the new year. Plus I’m really exciting about opening up one of my Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ales from 2001 that I’ve moved from New Mexico to California and back. Those fucking things have gone nearly as many miles as I have in the past 5 years or so. So keep an eye open - I’ll be opening up another blog that I should update a hell of a lot more often with my beer drinking plus whatever happens along the way. Once I have a notebook around more often I might actually get around to writing more substantial things here and there.