The Geek that Would Be a Prince

So I realized that lately I've been doing a bunch of review/correspondent talk centering on the games that I am playing but I haven't really been letting you know what's going on with me. I'm still going to be doing that, but I decided that every once in a while (notice the 'Part I') I'll jack-out (not off) and we'll talk about happenings in the real world. Now that's not to say that games talk won't enter the discussion (any of you who have ever talked to me on the phone know that it's very rare for game talk to not come up when my lips are moving and sound is escaping), they just won't necessarily be the sole focus (hopefully). So without further ado, here's a week in the life.

Just so we have our bearings straight, today is June 23, 2010. I actually am at work right now. For those of you who don't know this, I am a hydroelectric power plant operator. Which basically means I run a dam. To explain what I do (when I have to do my job) would be to give some fairly technical information; I suppose the goal is to not have to really do my job too often because when I'm really working, that means that something has gone wrong. But to just give you some imagery, if you can imagine what it would be like to be the old man in the lighthouse, then you can kinda imagine what my life at work is like. I usually find myself working on this journal and other extracurricular activities I do, here because the work I have to do on an every day basis is generally not too demanding (unless something goes wrong, it's the first of the month, or it's Monday, Friday, sometimes Thursday, Tuesday, or another operator is on vacation...*note that today is Wednesday ;)*). And besides, you work while you're at work, when you get home, it's time to play right?

Last week I took a break from writing (...well for the most part, lol) because like I said, the week prior, I didn't really do too much in the way of gaming. My father-in-law was in town from Belgium and for any of you who are married and have had your in-laws over, you know that that does quite an overhaul on your daily life. It really did for me because I have a little 2 bedroom house--just room enough for my wife, son, and me, and my son was just coming home for the summer (he primarily lives with his mother) the very same day the father-in-law got off of the plane. So logistically, it was rough trying to cram 4 people, two of which do not sleep in the same bed, into two bedrooms. This was the first time my father-in-law had been to Columbus, so there was a lot he wanted to see (but not much to show him); although mainly this sightseeing consisted of him and my wife stealing my truck keys when I got home from work and going shopping.

During that time is usually when I was able to log in and it wasn't really enough time to really get anything done. The pair would cook dinner when they got back and the four of us would sit around the table, eat, and talk, play the board games they bought from the store, etc. When I thought it was a safe time to creep over to my computer, I would. Let me ask you something...do you know that feeling that you get when a non-gamer watches you play? The feeling that tells you that everything in that person right now is thinking that you are utterly wasting your life away by sitting at your computer and that you could be doing anything else and it would be more constructive? Well that's what I felt every time my wife or father-in-law looked at me from the dining room table. Now granted...that feeling is just that, a feeling. He, nor my wife, probably thought that (or not exactly that anyway), but the feeling is still there which makes it very real for the person who feels it. So I found myself, even after I felt I had spent adequate family time, and was ready for Jay time, cutting my sessions very short.

Hey! I'm 29 now! As of June 10, 2010...man it's crazy how time flies; I can't believe I only have one more year left to be 20-something. That's been a source of stress for me because I always saw myself in a different place by now. Growing up, gaming wasn't my thing, writing wasn't my thing...I was an actor. I've been acting since my first starring role in the musical, "Stone Soup" at five years old. Most of my life that's what I expected myself to become, an actor. In college, my major was film because I wanted to explore film-making from the other side of the camera. I enjoyed it, I even got to work on a major motion picture..."Drumline". However due to the toils of life and the very theoretical rather than practical approach to film-making that the school I attended chose (as well as negativity of the professors). I eventually gave up my childhood dream for my parents' dream...a practical, stable, well-paying, technical job. But although my job has allowed me to single-handedly support my family for the past three years (I thank God for that), this is not where I want to be. So I still don't see myself as successful and I always expected myself to be very successful by 30. That means, this is the year to make things happen. I may not get to where the teenage version of me expected, but I have a new goal, and that goal is for this to be the year where I stop talking and I actually take the first step...to start my life.

Does anyone else feel like the past few paragraphs have been really cryptic? Man I do, so let's talk about some brighter things. Two Thursdays ago was my birthday, and this past Sunday was Father's Day (I hope you moms and children out there didn't forget)! Double good for me. I take holidays/birthdays/celebrations very seriously, even more so now than I did when I was a kid. I think we adults HAVE to. I have a lot of friends who say that a birthday or holiday is just another day but we have enough "blah, blah whatever" days in a year, why would we disregard the times we do have to celebrate and make a day special? Well F that. I'm going to celebrate my birthday and my dad's day off regardless of it you do or not. So normally my birthday is the perfect excuse for me to get the next big upgrade or replacement to my computer. I've gotten new video cards, 22 in. LCDs, a Logitech G15 keyboard, G5 mouse, and a lot of games over the years on my birthday. However this year, I made the supreme sacrifice and didn't have my wife buy me an awesome new upgrade because we have some other much more important things to take care of right now.

...But I didn't say anything about Father's Day.

So you know, I was all ready to give up presents this year and my wife made the mistake of telling me that she was still planned on getting me the nVidia 3D Vision glasses I wanted. And I was like, "Oh, I didn't know that!" So that got me thinking...if she was going to get that then that means I can STILL get me something. What do I not have right now that I not only REALLY want but NEED? A cell phone! Any of you who have tried to call me know that I don't currently have a mobile and I don't answer the phone once I get home from work. But of course I couldn't just have any phone, are you serious? I'm G33KBoy J. I researched phonescoop.com and found the perfect phone that would take care of my basic needs and it just happened to be the Sprint HTC Evo 4G... Lien was a good sport when we went to Best Buy on Saturday and while listening to me talk about why I needed this $300 phones because I could have all my music, video, internet pages, and talk on it. What's more is look at how pretty it is and it's only $69.00/mo for Unlimited EVERYTHING with Sprint!

So yea, that phone is still sitting at Best Buy but I DID get a Zune HD! W00T! You know what? As far as immaculate touchscreen media players go, the Zune was very inexpensive, $179.99 for the 16GB version (compare that to $179.99 for the 8GB iPod Touch). And the thing is beautiful; in every sense of the word.

--Okay, I have to take a detour because as I was writing yesterday, I looked at Best Buy.com to get the most accurate price on the iPod Touch (I try to be as thorough as I can be for you) and saw that I'd paid the same for my Zune as the 8GB Touch. Afterward of course curiosity took me by storm. See, I initially wanted the Touch (it was all I really knew anything about) but didn't get it because the price of the 32GB version was too steep for me and there isn't a 16GB version. I didn't even know there was an 8 GB version let alone that it cost the same as the 16GB Zune HD. So I stopped writing to do research. What I found is that two major sites that review electronics (that I trust) gave the win to the Touch and 1 gave it to the Zune. What it basically came down to, according to them, is whether you wanted a full mini-computer (Touch), or if you wanted a monster media player (Zune), and the versatility of the Touch bested the quality of the Zune.

Well I can't own sub-par media devices. So that means somehow I had to see if I needed to buy the Touch...and to be honest I just REALLY wanted to play with some apps and stuff. For me, the main issue is, can the apps and functions of the Touch outweigh the lack of half the hard drive space? So after some thought and a call to Best Buy, I came up with the scheme to take out another $200 cash, buy the Touch, and do my own reviewing; then whichever player lost would find itself politely returned to the Best Buy adoption agency. So that's what I did, results to follow.



To Be Continued in: A 2 Week Weeks in the Life: Part 1b.