The Hēathernet 20oz. to Geekdom

5 thoughts I should have blogged

1. My birthday was coming up:

The 28th recognition of, well, me came up real fast this year. They make little posted lists in Target Team Member break rooms of the birthdays for the current month and I remember when I joined the company in December thinking that there was no way I would ever see my name on one of those little lists. Now life has worked out such that when December comes around I'll see myself on the the 1 year anniversary list. According to the aisles filled with ribbons and bows in the seasonal department that's not too far off. My birthday coming up made me think of another thought and that thought was what I wanted to put on my birthday list. Next thought!

2. What I wanted for my birthday:

I didn't want anything for my birthday. I want my friends to get stuff for my birthday. Specifically XBox360s. I'm not very wise with my money. I made the splash last winter to get my own modern gaming system after I had been indoctrinated with a love for the device in the halls of Funnelle. FUNnelle. I never though I could love a Microsoft product again. The XBox 360 is console gaming. The Wii, as beloved as that little funkotron is, has become something else. The XBox 360 is where the passion of loved multiplayer titles like Golden Eye and Perfect Dark, deep RPGs like Baldur's Gate or Knights of the Old Republic, or new dynasties like Halo or Call of Duty (I have a love/hate relationship with these) now live. Add the bonus of streaming Netflix instantly and you have pure luxury. So what am I missing? Friends. People who play video games from when they get home from work until they go to bed at 1AM are not who I remember playing those great titles with... I remember playing with my friends. Now I live alone and my assassin can wander alone the gorgeously rendered streets of Jerusalem for only so long before I realize having a thrilling video game experience is worth little when you can't share it with someone who cares.

3. The actual celebration of my birthday:

Having your birthday on a Friday in an elementary school is a somewhat surreal experience. Two other children had their birthday on October 9th. There name is put up on the morning news, with appropriate singing, and I'm sure cupcakes were had in the classes they take their learning. I found a salutation-less card with a Happy Birthday pencil affixed to the envelope in my mailbox. A nice gesture by the school but also a reminder that my birthday now is recognized by a database successfully spitting forth my name, causing many to take a moment to type kind words on a social networking site and a school to reach into a bin of envelopes and deliver the ration from the supply stores to it's final destination. There are no cupcakes but if you're lucky there's ice cream cake later that comes home from the grocery store.

4. A classic read recently and watched recently review:

This is what blogs are made for, right? I don't do this kind of sharing nearly enough. This recent weekend I finished up reading Dan Brown's Angels and Demons. The Da Vinci Code extravaganza was long enough ago now that I'd since forgotten all that I once had heard about it. It was nice to crack open some popular fiction with a nice clean slate instead of a pre-opinionated one. I'm always a little opinionated still and my opinions managed to dog alongside of me during my reading, anyways. I admire Brown's ambitiousness for setting a vivid chase in a real setting, one that can be drained for profit by popcorn documentaries late at night on the History channel. The overall storytelling still smacks to me of immaturity and ragged writing. Whenever I read I have several moments where I think to myself, "Damn, I could do better than that." Then I think, "Yeah, but you don't." Then I tell myself to shut up and keep reading. Later I apologize and befriend myself once again. Then we go play video games together. Wait, I think I got lost there. Oh yeah, Angels and Demons. Once again this was a Dan Brown page-turner. Even when I found the crumbles of cookie not very appetizing I still needed to scream through the papers to find the path to the end of the mystery. When that last page turned I was satisfied but not sure whether or not I had actually enjoyed myself.

A couple of weekends before that I Netflixed (New verb!) Shotime's Dexter. Fitting that this series was based off of a mystery novel because this was another TV version of a page turner. The first episode sets up a chase that I had to follow. It was hard to get the wheels turning because the character of Dexter, a hidden serial killer functioning as a normal member of the Miami police forensic labs, makes for such a dark television show. I spent this particular weekend home alone and managed to rip of my own marathon of fourteen episodes. By the end of the experience I was cutting bagels with a creepy look in my eyes, humming ominous violin music to no one in particular. It's riveting, complex, and very, very adult.

And before that I was Netflixing TNT's Leverage. Just go and watch. That's all I'll really say. I love television.

5. I really need to blog.

And thus, I did.