Confessions in Nerddom

Back in the day I used to be a gaming geek.  Consoles, computers, first person shooters, strategy, it did not matter.  When the new hot game came out, I bought it and would stay up hours and hours (days) at a time playing it til I beat it.  (To my poker friends, wow does this sound familiar?)

Since I've been at Maryland I haven't been playing video games as much.  I'm afraid to buy a new game because I'm afraid I won't be able to stop playing it and then I won't get my work done.  On the other hand, it's good to have some kind of distraction.  For Christmas I got a new game and was able to pull myself away from it.  I must have developed some discipline somewhere.

Anyways, one of the games I used to play for hours on end is Civilization.  I am a sucker for any Sid Meier game, just like I'm a sucker for the GTA games and all of the Sim games.  Tonight it's like 3:30am, I'm online after being out playing at a poker game and then at the bar...  Blevins and I are chatting about his tourney win tonight when all of a sudden he says "Hey this might sound gay, but...

do you want to play Civ sometime?"

Are you kidding me?!?  I LOVE THAT GAME!  Hellz yeah.

If this is my toughest decision...

A few days ago I was the rather unworthy recipient of a gift for successfully finishing another year in school: a large Amazon.com gift certificate, that as the giver said: "is enough to buy a Xbox 360/PS3 with all the trimmings...or a hell of a lot of books."

I'm definitely not gonna use it to buy a lot of books.

I am however really torn between Xbox and PS.  I have actually always been a Nintendo person, but I do currently have a PS2 as well.  Gaming-wise, I'm leaning towards the Xbox...but it hasn't escaped my attention that the PS3 has a Blu-Ray player.....  decisions, decisions.

Back in the old days when I was working and getting my MA I would use summer and winter breaks from school to veg on the couch every day after work and play video games all night.  I used to play a lot.  These days I haven't been able to get good at many games because I'm too busy...even when I am on breaks from school it seems like I have a bunch of other stuff going on.  But I would like to at least try GTA: IV...love the GTA games.

Board Games yay!

Played monopoly and trivial pursuit last night and won both (well actually Nelly and I chopped Monopoly) - yay!  Billy and I were getting some easy questions in TP, but we screwed up a few things that should have been easy too.  Hooray for board games!

Very Bizarre Article from Slate

Should Democrats take cues from GTA?????

Arrrrr matey

Just got Sid Meier's Pirates for my birthday (thanks, Jeff) and it is awesome.  I don't think I have ever found a Sid Meier's game that I didn't like, but this one is really great - it's an extremely open ended game so you can play about 100 different ways.  The graphics and music are really great too.  Pirates is a 2005 rerelease of an older version and it kicks butt.  Now if only they would rerelease Colonization - my all time favorite Sid Meier's game...

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

I got this game for Christmas and I've been playing it
pretty much whenever I have free time since.  What an awesome game.  Yes,
it is violent (what did you expect from a GTA game), but the amount of
detail the people over at Rockstar
have programmed into this game is
really amazing. There is so much to do in the game, I could probably play
it for a year and not be bored.  Definitely worth the ~$50 price tag.
There are so many vehicles you can jack, including several different
motorcycles, bmx bikes, semi-tractor trailers, low riders complete with
modifications, vw buses....and that is just the beginning.

One of the best things about this game is
the radio stations.  The
radio stations in previous GTA games were good, but the eclectic mix of
the radio stations in this game just speaks to me. I even went out and got
the game OST
with some money I had left over from Christmas.
There is something really odd, and strangely funny about running from the
police while
listening to "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man." At any rate, this
game gets two thumbs up from me.  

Last
5 songs played on my iPod:
California Love -
2Pac,
Dr. Dre, and Roger Troutman

Hard to Explain - The
Strokes
Rings Around the World - Super
Furry Animals
Hey Ya! - OutKast

Ain't No Sunshine - Bill
Withers