The EVE of gaming.

I am a gamer. There I have said it. Now whenever any girl comes looking at my website they will know to stay away from me because I don't like long walks on the beach, I don't like analyzing my feelings, I do not like intellectual conversations (read: listening to them talk about their cat). I do not like hiking, yoga or the sun. I like games! If somewhere out there exists a girl who likes doing things other than pondering the effects that a handbag will have on their evening, hey, give me a ring! Otherwise, off with you, dance away your evenings with drinks bought with a wink and a smile.

But this isn't really about girls, this is about me. I love games. I love role-playing, cos-play, interacting with geeks and nerds, LAN parties and discussions about the statistical ramifications on damage per second when going with a 31/20/0 arms build. I want to grind my enemies to paste, stamp that rook into place for checkmate, flip over that last victory point and defeat three people at the same time with a carefully planned hurricane (I almost got you Jeff, and your little kids too!). So people tell me I am turtled up in my house playing games, they are right. I just have so many things at home that entertain me. I have the choice of going out and spending $80 minimum on a night of food, drink and friends to come home empty handed or I spend nothing to stay at home and play games and end up physically empty handed. Both environments I am interacting with my friends so it is hardly a comparison to say I am not social.

Well now that we have that out of the way, I realized that I was dangerously close to only have two games that I was addicted to. Therefore I downloaded the free trial of EVE Online. What an interesting game. The best way I can describe it is a 3D version of Tradewars 2000. The learning curve for the game is STEEP. But after that you are rewarded with a game that is more open-ended than any other game I have played. Be a pirate, trader, merchant, corporation, law enforcer, bounty hunter, miner, manufacturer, designer, teacher. As far as I can tell you could make children's toys and sell them on the black market. Another thing about this game is when traveling there is a lot of time spent doing nothing. That's kind of cool because now I get to read and play at the same time, or program, or search YouTube for that video of the girl getting hit with a phone book, or read Chuck Norris jokes!

So that is my latest poison.

-Aaron

The grass is always greener...

Well, I am officially moving out of my current residence and moving into a studio. It happens to be behind a house that Mike D and Jackie have just decided to move into. What are the chances of that?!? I foresee a very relaxing place to live and I am very excited about doing a sort of "purge" of all of the "stuff" I have gathered over the years. I have a lot of "stuff" that I have not touched for over a year and that sort of puts it in the "get rid of it" catagory in my mind. A move of this sort is just the kind of thing to motivate me to do it.

The studio in question is off of Seabright avenue and quite close to the Seabright Brewery. Yes, speculation abroad about how much I like that idea! I will detail it thus:

I do believe I will at one point, at the height of my game if you will, stroll nightly into the place with a posh white scarf, a bowler and a sport coat, flashing a gold "Seabright Player" card at the waitress who winks me in to my private table and four pints of beer are delivered without a word. Of course this precedes the rapidly deteriorating downfall of my reign where I am frequently rolled out the door followed by my angrily tossed bowler bounding off of my collapsed form. I am sure it will all work out in the end with my friends enacting an 'intervention' after finding me homeless under a bridge wearing rags tentatively held together with the bonds of stubborn vomit and my posh white scarf as a loincloth, cleaning me up and doing that cold water / hot water trick from "The Princess Bride".

I jest, I jest!

In addition, it puts me close to the Rio Theater, the clientele of which often unabashedly schlep bongs with them to keep them company during such films and "The Vagina Monologues", "I'm Too Artsy To Be Played In Most Theaters" and "Seriously, I'm Surprised You Paid Money To Watch Me". Sad to see from its glory days when I watched the first release of "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones", but it still has its charm. Across the street of course is one of my favorite restaurants The Crepe Place and a wonderful Grocery store called Shopper's Corner. Really it is a hub of goodness and all in walking distance! In actuality they are a tad far to walk to so I am looking into obtaining a bicycle of some sort, hopefully for free, to venture to these tantalizing destinations. If you have one to give away, let me know!

Also, the studio is on a concrete foundation and I will be able to DDR in the morning like I have wanted to do since I started playing it but was unable to due to the tremendous noise and vibration of the house it causes. This makes me very happy.

Also there is a lemon tree and an apple tree. What could go wrong?