Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Ex-sept-tional
As the boys and I are pretty inundated with HBO as a whole, and we go all "school girl" over Entourage, we were stoked to hear the new season starts on Sept. 7th, oddly the same day as the opening "hall of fame" NFL game with the Giants and Redskins. I am not really sure what is going on in the world, but I must have done something right to deserve a football game as a main course, followed by the overindulgence of the season opening of Entourage right after that. If anyone needs me that day, I'll be home, remote in hand, balls deep in joy. It's going to be a good September.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Wii are the Champions
I've taken a bit of a break from the unencumbered blogness of my daily routine for about 2 weeks and I am happy to say I am back from my nap. I was watching a guy play Nintendo Wii the other day at a proficiency level that was comparable to watching Tom Brady throw a touchdown pass. No one should be as good at video games as this guy was. I instantly began thinking about what someone with this much free time's life must have been like. This is his story.
"I've always enjoyed video games. I had an original Nintendo when I was a kid and ended up doing pretty good at Duck Hunt and Mario Bros. so when the original N64 came out I asked Santa to pick one up for me. After I dominated my 8 year old brother at 1080 Snowboarding I realized that I may have what it takes to play professionally. I trained everyday, sacrificed aspects of a "normal" social life, traded bulky home-made meals for prepackaged microwavable meals based on my ability to ingest them at a higher rate of speed, and had to say goodbye to some friends that apparently "didn't understand" my gift. 2001 gave way to the Xbox which took gaming to a whole new level; which meant I had to effectively change my training regiment drastically to adjust to this new competitive level of play. Microwavable meals were tossed aside and fast food was introduced into the daily work out. Taco Bell, or "Tango Bravo" as we in the profession like to call it, really catered to the industry with their individually packaged soft tacos. The wrapper could be used as a projectile weapon against an opponent or simply as decoration for one's domicile. After playing Halo on Xbox for 4 years I thought I had done all that could be accomplished in the world of professional gaming. Though I hadn't been paid for playing and my record showed significantly more losses than wins, I still felt confident that my genius would blossom when the time was right. 2005 gave us Xbox360...and a hard on. Tango Bravo couldn't match the supply to our demand and we were forced to purchase 10,000 shares of Arby's stock and proceed to live off Roast Beef for the next 6 months. The gaming was intense and I made my first significant money that year. Rodney's little brother Randall bet me that I couldn't throw an Arby's wrapper across the room into a golf shoe while playing Madden; 5 bucks. As I was in the process of using a gaming console at the time of the payment, I figure that is as close as I was going to get in regards to making money while playing. And, after the 55k dollars we spent on Arby's stock, my total income was a bit below what I had initially projected.
The glory had faded, my waist band was jaded, and I didn't see the future of professional gaming as a way to meet Mrs. Right. I gave it up.
Until the other day.
Nintendo Wii might just be the goofiest, funniest looking, least macho thing I've ever done. Standing in my roommates bedroom, throwing a digital bowling ball at a television while embracing the intensity and suspense of the game brought it all back to me. It felt as if I had never left. My arm moved fluidly through the air and the soft release of the ball left me gasping for breath until the 10th pin fell and that glorious picture of a turkey ran across the screen for some odd reason. I knew I was home. I never have to leave my house again."
I'm pretty sure that was his biography.
"I've always enjoyed video games. I had an original Nintendo when I was a kid and ended up doing pretty good at Duck Hunt and Mario Bros. so when the original N64 came out I asked Santa to pick one up for me. After I dominated my 8 year old brother at 1080 Snowboarding I realized that I may have what it takes to play professionally. I trained everyday, sacrificed aspects of a "normal" social life, traded bulky home-made meals for prepackaged microwavable meals based on my ability to ingest them at a higher rate of speed, and had to say goodbye to some friends that apparently "didn't understand" my gift. 2001 gave way to the Xbox which took gaming to a whole new level; which meant I had to effectively change my training regiment drastically to adjust to this new competitive level of play. Microwavable meals were tossed aside and fast food was introduced into the daily work out. Taco Bell, or "Tango Bravo" as we in the profession like to call it, really catered to the industry with their individually packaged soft tacos. The wrapper could be used as a projectile weapon against an opponent or simply as decoration for one's domicile. After playing Halo on Xbox for 4 years I thought I had done all that could be accomplished in the world of professional gaming. Though I hadn't been paid for playing and my record showed significantly more losses than wins, I still felt confident that my genius would blossom when the time was right. 2005 gave us Xbox360...and a hard on. Tango Bravo couldn't match the supply to our demand and we were forced to purchase 10,000 shares of Arby's stock and proceed to live off Roast Beef for the next 6 months. The gaming was intense and I made my first significant money that year. Rodney's little brother Randall bet me that I couldn't throw an Arby's wrapper across the room into a golf shoe while playing Madden; 5 bucks. As I was in the process of using a gaming console at the time of the payment, I figure that is as close as I was going to get in regards to making money while playing. And, after the 55k dollars we spent on Arby's stock, my total income was a bit below what I had initially projected.
The glory had faded, my waist band was jaded, and I didn't see the future of professional gaming as a way to meet Mrs. Right. I gave it up.
Until the other day.
Nintendo Wii might just be the goofiest, funniest looking, least macho thing I've ever done. Standing in my roommates bedroom, throwing a digital bowling ball at a television while embracing the intensity and suspense of the game brought it all back to me. It felt as if I had never left. My arm moved fluidly through the air and the soft release of the ball left me gasping for breath until the 10th pin fell and that glorious picture of a turkey ran across the screen for some odd reason. I knew I was home. I never have to leave my house again."
I'm pretty sure that was his biography.
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