While out and about running errands yesterday...
2.0: "Daddy, when I get married, can I get fake boobies?"
Me: *spit-take*
Cheryl: BAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Thus Saith Version 2.0 - Young Love Edition
While having an IM discussion with She Who Allows Me To Play The Game Which Shall Not Be Named.
me: So things are OK down there today?
Wife: so far
2.0 informed me today that she has new boyfriend again
Biff* this time, Sluggo* broke up with her apparently
me: Ahh
Young love.
Wife: and she told me that she asked Biff if her outfit was hot and he said yes
me: Stolen kisses and little notes that say DO U LOVVE ME [ ] Y3S [ ] NO
(CHECK WUN)
Wife: so I tried to to explain to her that she shouldn't use words like that and it wasn't very good to talk that way
yeah, so our 5 year old is apprently hot and on her third boyfriend
me: *sigh*
Here we go.
Wife: I do not look forward to the tween and teen years
me: Yeah. Sounds like it's gonna be a load of fun.
Wife: yay
*names have been changed to "protect" the "innocent"
me: So things are OK down there today?
Wife: so far
2.0 informed me today that she has new boyfriend again
Biff* this time, Sluggo* broke up with her apparently
me: Ahh
Young love.
Wife: and she told me that she asked Biff if her outfit was hot and he said yes
me: Stolen kisses and little notes that say DO U LOVVE ME [ ] Y3S [ ] NO
(CHECK WUN)
Wife: so I tried to to explain to her that she shouldn't use words like that and it wasn't very good to talk that way
yeah, so our 5 year old is apprently hot and on her third boyfriend
me: *sigh*
Here we go.
Wife: I do not look forward to the tween and teen years
me: Yeah. Sounds like it's gonna be a load of fun.
Wife: yay
*names have been changed to "protect" the "innocent"
Sunday, April 26, 2009
The Writings of 2.0
My daughter wrote these "poems" today, and I had to share them with you. She was quite proud of them. :)
Frogs on Lily Pads
ones upon a time
there was a littil
FrOG WHO lived on a lily pad
and she lived on a rivr
and she loved her
lily pad
and she ate flys
Butterflies in the Sky
ones apon a time
there was a butterflie
who got nectar from
flowers
and she ate nectar
for food
Bees Make Honey
bees make honey
from flowers to get
nectar
to make honey
Ladybugs on Trees
ladybugs
get on trees
to drik
watr
and eat litter bugs
Word has it, she's making more. She's excited that I can "write them to my friends" - incoming!
Frogs on Lily Pads
ones upon a time
there was a littil
FrOG WHO lived on a lily pad
and she lived on a rivr
and she loved her
lily pad
and she ate flys
Butterflies in the Sky
ones apon a time
there was a butterflie
who got nectar from
flowers
and she ate nectar
for food
Bees Make Honey
bees make honey
from flowers to get
nectar
to make honey
Ladybugs on Trees
ladybugs
get on trees
to drik
watr
and eat litter bugs
Word has it, she's making more. She's excited that I can "write them to my friends" - incoming!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Put Me In Coach
It's been awhile since I've completely checked in. I find that twitter lets me blow off certain degrees of steam without getting all wordy and has impacted my Blogging. 140 characters to relay a thoughtlet or a micro-post does wonders. I find it almost challenging in a haiku-ish sort of way to fit some sense of coherence into those limits. If you aren't twittering, you should give it a try sometime.
Since we've last spoken, my daughter has started softball, I've handled minor and major crises in the online gaming community I help manage with some degree of success, and we've gone to Canada not once, but twice. Have I mentioned that I hate road construction? Detroit (and the state of Michigan in general) seem to take perverse pleasure in making me drive 30 minutes out of my way to get back to Ohio >.<
Things at the office have been rather hairy lately. In March, Megacorporation One decided they were going to remove three of my friends from my old team that were contractors. At the beginning of this month, we lost two members on my current team, two very close friends from an old team, my cousin (who passed along my resume and indirectly helped to get me hired here), and we almost lost my manager due to layoffs. All in all, there were roughly 300 layoffs in the IT segment of the company. To put it lightly, this economy really, really sucks.
I mean... I feel blessed that I still have a job, but I still have a degree of survivor's guilt. It's weird "living" through something like this big of a corporate shakeup. It's also hard watching friends and family that have been here between ten and twenty years get the boot (albeit with severance and oodles of job finding assistance and resume services.) It's been pretty eye-opening for me as far as preparing for the future.
In other news, 2.0 woke up with a wicked sore throat and an unusual cough this morning. By the time I left for work though, she was up and about playing Wii Sports Bowling like a pro. We're keeping an eye on her and if she gets worse we'll take her to the doctor tomorrow. I suspect allergies given that we were out on the baseball diamond over the weekend and she's prone to sniffles after outdoor activities. Emma seems to be having a hard time deciding whether she's a jock or a princess. She fields, bats, and catches like a pro, yet she runs to and from first base (when she's covering it) like she's dancing ballet - on the tips of her toes. It's almost comical to watch and I caught other parents besides us chuckling about it.
The wife has been working on a new quilt made out of remnants from my old denim jeans. It's pretty sweet. It kept her and her mother busy for a couple of weeks and now it's almost done. Its heavy though. Looking forward to using that during the fall and winter.
Not much else to say for now. Must get back to work and make sure things are moving along smoothly.
Since we've last spoken, my daughter has started softball, I've handled minor and major crises in the online gaming community I help manage with some degree of success, and we've gone to Canada not once, but twice. Have I mentioned that I hate road construction? Detroit (and the state of Michigan in general) seem to take perverse pleasure in making me drive 30 minutes out of my way to get back to Ohio >.<
Things at the office have been rather hairy lately. In March, Megacorporation One decided they were going to remove three of my friends from my old team that were contractors. At the beginning of this month, we lost two members on my current team, two very close friends from an old team, my cousin (who passed along my resume and indirectly helped to get me hired here), and we almost lost my manager due to layoffs. All in all, there were roughly 300 layoffs in the IT segment of the company. To put it lightly, this economy really, really sucks.
I mean... I feel blessed that I still have a job, but I still have a degree of survivor's guilt. It's weird "living" through something like this big of a corporate shakeup. It's also hard watching friends and family that have been here between ten and twenty years get the boot (albeit with severance and oodles of job finding assistance and resume services.) It's been pretty eye-opening for me as far as preparing for the future.
In other news, 2.0 woke up with a wicked sore throat and an unusual cough this morning. By the time I left for work though, she was up and about playing Wii Sports Bowling like a pro. We're keeping an eye on her and if she gets worse we'll take her to the doctor tomorrow. I suspect allergies given that we were out on the baseball diamond over the weekend and she's prone to sniffles after outdoor activities. Emma seems to be having a hard time deciding whether she's a jock or a princess. She fields, bats, and catches like a pro, yet she runs to and from first base (when she's covering it) like she's dancing ballet - on the tips of her toes. It's almost comical to watch and I caught other parents besides us chuckling about it.
The wife has been working on a new quilt made out of remnants from my old denim jeans. It's pretty sweet. It kept her and her mother busy for a couple of weeks and now it's almost done. Its heavy though. Looking forward to using that during the fall and winter.
Not much else to say for now. Must get back to work and make sure things are moving along smoothly.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Random Thoughts - Epic Blue Wang Edition
What's this? A blog entry? Who is this guy writing blog entries anyway?
Yes, yes, I know I have been neglecting the blog as of late. For that I am sorry and offer up half-hearted apologies for which the Internets seem to demand yet never really read.
Let's see, what has happened lately that I should let you know about?
In boring health news... since around Thanksgiving, I have been battling a wicked upper respiratory infection. I thought I had it taken care of about three times but thus far it has returned each time. Apparently over the counter meds did not snuff it out and over my Christmas Break in Canada (TM) I coughed, wheezed, and generally infected half of the in-law side of the family. Good times, good times.
After the Mass In-Law Infection of 08-09 in early January I went to see my family physician and he gave me a dose of antibiotics (Z-Pac) which I dutifully consumed and felt better. Two weeks ago, the infection returned, tossed me about the ring like a Mixed Martial Arts champion, and I crawled my way back (literally) to see the family Doc for more treatment.
He smiled like an athetics trainer when he said "We're going to treat this a bit more... aggressively." I came away with a scrip for Prednisone (for the lung inflammation) and Levaquin (to kill the wee beasties) I can honestly say twelve or thirteen days later that I feel ++better. I have another week to go on the Antibiotics though. Yayz0rz.
A fever of 103 really sucks. I highly recommend that you don't go through this. News flash: breaking a fever is nasty disgusting. Glad I could share. Thanks for stopping by.
Other than that, it's been business as usual. Learning the new ropes at work. Crazy kid. Exasperated wife. High maintenance dog. Sushi on Thursdays. Video games at night during the week with the clan. Church on teh weekends.Life is good.
Haven't seen Watchmen yet *gasp*. Yes, I know. I am going to try and meet up with some of my gaming buddies and check it out. Our team from the office also has time scheduled to go see it in the next week or so. Everything that I've heard thus far has been it is a successful translation of the graphic novel to the big screen and that in IMAX Doctor Manhattan's blue wang is EPIC.That and there are about 26 more times of wang than there are shall we say, lady bits.
Not that I focus on wangs. I just like saying the word Wang.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG
If it's good enough for a brand of computer, it's good enough for me.
If you've been keeping up with my other blog, you'll see that I've been dropping some weight lately. This excites me because, you know, I've been a fatty fatty two-by-four all my life and it's nice to be less fat. As a result, I like to share good news like this. Grant me this I beg. Cry your pardon.
Still working on The Dark Tower Book VII. Seems like the books get slower as I go. Not Wheel of Time Logarithmic Progression slow, but slow nonetheless. I had hoped that I could cruise through the last book but I had to put it down a couple of weeks before going back to it. The series has been great, but it seems to me that Stephen King spent more time pulling story out of his arse than actually writing it. Most of the paragraphs are interspersed with odd ramblings and bits of story that do a lot to build atmosphere but do little to maintain a sense of coherent thought. (Kind of like my blog ha ha.)
Anywho... I'll probably finish it while in Canada this weekend. And then? Bleh. Who knows. I've been looking for an excuse to pick up the hardcover edition of Watchmen so I can Archive It And Keep It Safe. I need to re-read it going into the film anyway so I can properly critique it in the inevitable blog post to follow. All I can say is I just wish they'd release the darn thing on Blu-Ray so I can just add it to my collection. Never mind that this is week 2 in theaters, I just know the Blu-Ray is going to be exponentially better than the theatrical release because of all the associated goodies.
Also, as a blurb for my Twitter stream - I've been hitting the Twitter bottle pretty hard lately. If you want to really keep up on what I'm thinking and such, I highly recommend you sign up for Twitter and start Following me. I've been blogging less and tweeting more. 140 characters allows me to distill my sense of sarcasm, snark, and geekishness down into meaty morsels of goodness at all points throughout the day. Hope you like updates regarding Sushi and mindless Watchmen banter with @CaffeinatedLiby
^_^
Yes, yes, I know I have been neglecting the blog as of late. For that I am sorry and offer up half-hearted apologies for which the Internets seem to demand yet never really read.
Let's see, what has happened lately that I should let you know about?
In boring health news... since around Thanksgiving, I have been battling a wicked upper respiratory infection. I thought I had it taken care of about three times but thus far it has returned each time. Apparently over the counter meds did not snuff it out and over my Christmas Break in Canada (TM) I coughed, wheezed, and generally infected half of the in-law side of the family. Good times, good times.
After the Mass In-Law Infection of 08-09 in early January I went to see my family physician and he gave me a dose of antibiotics (Z-Pac) which I dutifully consumed and felt better. Two weeks ago, the infection returned, tossed me about the ring like a Mixed Martial Arts champion, and I crawled my way back (literally) to see the family Doc for more treatment.
He smiled like an athetics trainer when he said "We're going to treat this a bit more... aggressively." I came away with a scrip for Prednisone (for the lung inflammation) and Levaquin (to kill the wee beasties) I can honestly say twelve or thirteen days later that I feel ++better. I have another week to go on the Antibiotics though. Yayz0rz.
A fever of 103 really sucks. I highly recommend that you don't go through this. News flash: breaking a fever is nasty disgusting. Glad I could share. Thanks for stopping by.
Other than that, it's been business as usual. Learning the new ropes at work. Crazy kid. Exasperated wife. High maintenance dog. Sushi on Thursdays. Video games at night during the week with the clan. Church on teh weekends.Life is good.
Haven't seen Watchmen yet *gasp*. Yes, I know. I am going to try and meet up with some of my gaming buddies and check it out. Our team from the office also has time scheduled to go see it in the next week or so. Everything that I've heard thus far has been it is a successful translation of the graphic novel to the big screen and that in IMAX Doctor Manhattan's blue wang is EPIC.That and there are about 26 more times of wang than there are shall we say, lady bits.
Not that I focus on wangs. I just like saying the word Wang.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG
If it's good enough for a brand of computer, it's good enough for me.
If you've been keeping up with my other blog, you'll see that I've been dropping some weight lately. This excites me because, you know, I've been a fatty fatty two-by-four all my life and it's nice to be less fat. As a result, I like to share good news like this. Grant me this I beg. Cry your pardon.
Still working on The Dark Tower Book VII. Seems like the books get slower as I go. Not Wheel of Time Logarithmic Progression slow, but slow nonetheless. I had hoped that I could cruise through the last book but I had to put it down a couple of weeks before going back to it. The series has been great, but it seems to me that Stephen King spent more time pulling story out of his arse than actually writing it. Most of the paragraphs are interspersed with odd ramblings and bits of story that do a lot to build atmosphere but do little to maintain a sense of coherent thought. (Kind of like my blog ha ha.)
Anywho... I'll probably finish it while in Canada this weekend. And then? Bleh. Who knows. I've been looking for an excuse to pick up the hardcover edition of Watchmen so I can Archive It And Keep It Safe. I need to re-read it going into the film anyway so I can properly critique it in the inevitable blog post to follow. All I can say is I just wish they'd release the darn thing on Blu-Ray so I can just add it to my collection. Never mind that this is week 2 in theaters, I just know the Blu-Ray is going to be exponentially better than the theatrical release because of all the associated goodies.
Also, as a blurb for my Twitter stream - I've been hitting the Twitter bottle pretty hard lately. If you want to really keep up on what I'm thinking and such, I highly recommend you sign up for Twitter and start Following me. I've been blogging less and tweeting more. 140 characters allows me to distill my sense of sarcasm, snark, and geekishness down into meaty morsels of goodness at all points throughout the day. Hope you like updates regarding Sushi and mindless Watchmen banter with @CaffeinatedLiby
^_^
Friday, February 27, 2009
Blog Banter: Forced Perspective
Blog Banter allows video game bloggers to come together on a monthly basis around a central question posed by Hawty McBloggy. It gives us a chance to examine one issue from several different angles and have a little fun at the same time. Past issues of blog banter can be found here. Thanks to bs angel for allowing me to join in the shenanigans. :)
This months edition of Blog Banter focuses on the topic gaming with your significant other.
Since we're given a high degree of latitude, I'm going to broaden this topic a bit to include not only my wife, but my five year old daughter as well.
My wife and I don't game together much, mostly because she doesn't get the same enjoyment out of it that I do. I don't want to say that my wife has a hard time with gaming, me gaming, or gaming in general as much as she wants to make sure she gets to see me when she needs me. She also wants to make sure that I'm there as a father to our five year old daughter.
I'm obsessive about gaming. To be frank, I do it a lot. I have a hard time putting down the controller and being a husband and father. I've gotten myself into trouble more than a few times.
Many nights a week, I'm downstairs in my office playing Halo 3 with my clansmen. When I'm not online playing games I'm spending time thinking about it, running forums, scheduling matches, or writing blog posts about it. Yeah. I'm committed. For better or for worse.
In my normal blog posts, I jokingly refer to Halo 3 as "The Game Which Shall Not Be Named." I also occasionally refer to my wife as "She Who Allows Me to Play the Game Which Shall Not Be Named." My friends and I (and even my wife) get a little chuckle out of that. It adds a little flavor to the old blog. I joke with my friends that I don't play World of Warcraft because I've already widowed my wife to Halo. If I ever started playing WoW, we'd all be screwed. (No offense WoW lovers - not trying to perpetuate any stereotypes, I just know me.)
All kidding aside, my gaming habit has forced me to develop some perspective and balance in my life. If I want to play games, I need to balance that out by spending time with my family as well. I devote a lot of time to SBG Gaming as a staff member and a forum administrator. I am a big driver behind trying to get our name out into the community as well through the Good Game Network via Tied the Leader. Since this is practically a part-time job for me I have to be really cognizant of the time that I spend being Hoji and the time I spend being Chris.
When my daughter asks me to come play with her, it's time to put the controller down and go spend time with her. I'll be honest, I'm not as good at that as I should be. When my wife needs me to be there, it's time to close the laptop and hang out. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. It sounds silly, but it can be a struggle. You'd think it would be common sense for me to pull away and go be Dad and Husband for awhile, but it's really tough.
Some nights my wife needs me to sit on the couch with her and watch Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. (Just like I like her with me when Battlestar Galactica and Chuck are on.) When I'm not sticking Spartans and Elites with plasma grenades, I'm giving footrubs and queueing up tv shows for my wife and I to watch together. We've recently instituted Family Friday Nights together so we can have a bit more balance and time together. We go bowling. We go out for donuts and coffee. We go out for dinner together. The point being that we're doing stuff together as a family. I love my wife and daughter and I want to spend time with them. I also really love my game time and want to be able to spend time with my friends.
When I get home from the office I try to devote time to my daughter first thing. She wants snuggle time or we talk about how Kindergarten went that day. Then we go have dinner together as a family. After dinner we go run errands or we watch TV before the kid goes to bed. Sometimes my daughter and I go downstairs to my office and play Rock Band or Guitar Hero World Tour for a while. She likes singing while I work on my fretwork. She can barely read the lyrics as they scroll across the screen, but she has a blast. She sings and dances around like a little diva as she imitates the singers on screen. Her favorite songs? "Roam" by the B-52's, "Still Alive" from Portal, "We Got the Beat" by the Go-Go's and "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones. (I got her an iPod Nano a few weeks ago and she has Boston, the Ramones, Still Alive, and other eclectically odd assortments of kid-friendly and rock-band-ish tunes on it. I dare you to find another Kindergartener with that kind of musical taste and exposure.)
Her: "Daddy, can I have The Ramones on my iPod?"
Me: "Yes baby. YES YOU CAN. And here... here's some Bob Marley too..."
My wife on the other hand... it's been a bit of an uphill effort with her as far as gaming goes. That's not her fault either. When she and I were first together ten or eleven years ago, I was sinking a LOT of my time into Command and Conquer Red Alert and StarCraft. She'd come over to hang out and I'd be online playing RTS all night. *facepalm* She didn't really have a high opinion of gaming. What can I say? I didn't give her one. I gave her a reason to be upset with gaming. I'm a man which means I'm clueless and boneheaded right out of the gate. (For you men out there that aren't married or in a serious relationship yet - you have yet to realize this fact. As a man you are genetically a bonehead. May you someday look back on this sage wisdom and remember me.) My brain was also addled with video and computer games at the time. It's a wonder our relationship survived those first few months & years.
As time has passed though, the wife has been exposed to gamer culture (and countless video game magazines around the house) and has started gaming herself a bit. Slowly, she's become more accepting of it. It will probably be a long time though before you see her don spartan armor and join me on the fields of Valhalla or Standoff. She has her own DS and plays Puzzle Quest and Space Invaders Extreme quite a bit. She also played a lot of Magnetica and Zuma and other such games. She's pretty low impact and enjoys her puzzlers. (Although with the leveling up, hit points, and mana she's encountering in Puzzle Quest, I've tried to get her into more mainstream RPGs hehehehe. Wish me luck!)
We don't do a lot of gaming together though. I'm too competitive, and more often than not she can beat me in whatever we play together. Wii Sports especially. She can outbowl me any day of the week. Even my daughter can outbowl me. (It's pretty funny, but that's OK... I don't mind.)
I have many friends who game with their spouses and many of the couples I know play the same games together, but in my case, that's just not possible for my wife and I right now. We have separate gaming tastes. I lean more hardcore (Fighters, Racers, FPSs, Simulators), she leans toward the accessible. My daughter games with both of us. (We all have our own Nintendo DS.) We have all the current-gen consoles in our house and they all see use by every member of the family. We are a gaming family, but we don't always do it together as a family. I try to find balance, and most of the time it works. When it doesn't, I try to learn from my mistakes and move on to find a new equilibrium.
I love my wife and daughter, and I don't want to be that guy whose wife left him because he was spending too much time playing Halo. So far I think I'm doing a pretty decent job of keeping balance. I wish I could get my wife to come play Halo with me sometimes, but hey - she likes what she likes. Games are still a big part of our family and we do get to connect and share time that way in some fashion. We also get to connect and spend time together in a lot of other ways.
That's what is important - connecting. Gaming together allows us to do that to some extent, even if it is just the three of us doodling together in Pictochat.
---
Be sure to check out the other perspectives on this month's Blog Banter at these links.
Gaming with my wife
You could be doubling alone
Next Gen Killed Our Gaming Relationship
Playing With My Toys
From Gaming Geek to Heroes Freak
My Lady and Gaming
Gaming with your significant other
Gaming Together, Maybe?
Girl Gamers = Hawt
Gaming with my significant other
Move Over Hott Boy, I Want to Play
Valentine's Day is for Gamers
Frag the Girlfriend!!
'Til Mongoose Do Us Part
Hojimoto SBG is part of the leadership team at the world's greatest gaming clan - SBG Gaming. He's also SBG's main Ambassador/PR guy to the gaming community. He can be found lasering himself or accidentally sticking his teammates most nights in Halo 3 or Gears of War 2. Hogs rule. Plasma grenades FTW. Delta, MOUNT UP.
This months edition of Blog Banter focuses on the topic gaming with your significant other.
Since we're given a high degree of latitude, I'm going to broaden this topic a bit to include not only my wife, but my five year old daughter as well.
My wife and I don't game together much, mostly because she doesn't get the same enjoyment out of it that I do. I don't want to say that my wife has a hard time with gaming, me gaming, or gaming in general as much as she wants to make sure she gets to see me when she needs me. She also wants to make sure that I'm there as a father to our five year old daughter.
I'm obsessive about gaming. To be frank, I do it a lot. I have a hard time putting down the controller and being a husband and father. I've gotten myself into trouble more than a few times.
Many nights a week, I'm downstairs in my office playing Halo 3 with my clansmen. When I'm not online playing games I'm spending time thinking about it, running forums, scheduling matches, or writing blog posts about it. Yeah. I'm committed. For better or for worse.
In my normal blog posts, I jokingly refer to Halo 3 as "The Game Which Shall Not Be Named." I also occasionally refer to my wife as "She Who Allows Me to Play the Game Which Shall Not Be Named." My friends and I (and even my wife) get a little chuckle out of that. It adds a little flavor to the old blog. I joke with my friends that I don't play World of Warcraft because I've already widowed my wife to Halo. If I ever started playing WoW, we'd all be screwed. (No offense WoW lovers - not trying to perpetuate any stereotypes, I just know me.)
All kidding aside, my gaming habit has forced me to develop some perspective and balance in my life. If I want to play games, I need to balance that out by spending time with my family as well. I devote a lot of time to SBG Gaming as a staff member and a forum administrator. I am a big driver behind trying to get our name out into the community as well through the Good Game Network via Tied the Leader. Since this is practically a part-time job for me I have to be really cognizant of the time that I spend being Hoji and the time I spend being Chris.
When my daughter asks me to come play with her, it's time to put the controller down and go spend time with her. I'll be honest, I'm not as good at that as I should be. When my wife needs me to be there, it's time to close the laptop and hang out. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. It sounds silly, but it can be a struggle. You'd think it would be common sense for me to pull away and go be Dad and Husband for awhile, but it's really tough.
Some nights my wife needs me to sit on the couch with her and watch Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. (Just like I like her with me when Battlestar Galactica and Chuck are on.) When I'm not sticking Spartans and Elites with plasma grenades, I'm giving footrubs and queueing up tv shows for my wife and I to watch together. We've recently instituted Family Friday Nights together so we can have a bit more balance and time together. We go bowling. We go out for donuts and coffee. We go out for dinner together. The point being that we're doing stuff together as a family. I love my wife and daughter and I want to spend time with them. I also really love my game time and want to be able to spend time with my friends.
When I get home from the office I try to devote time to my daughter first thing. She wants snuggle time or we talk about how Kindergarten went that day. Then we go have dinner together as a family. After dinner we go run errands or we watch TV before the kid goes to bed. Sometimes my daughter and I go downstairs to my office and play Rock Band or Guitar Hero World Tour for a while. She likes singing while I work on my fretwork. She can barely read the lyrics as they scroll across the screen, but she has a blast. She sings and dances around like a little diva as she imitates the singers on screen. Her favorite songs? "Roam" by the B-52's, "Still Alive" from Portal, "We Got the Beat" by the Go-Go's and "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones. (I got her an iPod Nano a few weeks ago and she has Boston, the Ramones, Still Alive, and other eclectically odd assortments of kid-friendly and rock-band-ish tunes on it. I dare you to find another Kindergartener with that kind of musical taste and exposure.)
Her: "Daddy, can I have The Ramones on my iPod?"
Me: "Yes baby. YES YOU CAN. And here... here's some Bob Marley too..."
My wife on the other hand... it's been a bit of an uphill effort with her as far as gaming goes. That's not her fault either. When she and I were first together ten or eleven years ago, I was sinking a LOT of my time into Command and Conquer Red Alert and StarCraft. She'd come over to hang out and I'd be online playing RTS all night. *facepalm* She didn't really have a high opinion of gaming. What can I say? I didn't give her one. I gave her a reason to be upset with gaming. I'm a man which means I'm clueless and boneheaded right out of the gate. (For you men out there that aren't married or in a serious relationship yet - you have yet to realize this fact. As a man you are genetically a bonehead. May you someday look back on this sage wisdom and remember me.) My brain was also addled with video and computer games at the time. It's a wonder our relationship survived those first few months & years.
As time has passed though, the wife has been exposed to gamer culture (and countless video game magazines around the house) and has started gaming herself a bit. Slowly, she's become more accepting of it. It will probably be a long time though before you see her don spartan armor and join me on the fields of Valhalla or Standoff. She has her own DS and plays Puzzle Quest and Space Invaders Extreme quite a bit. She also played a lot of Magnetica and Zuma and other such games. She's pretty low impact and enjoys her puzzlers. (Although with the leveling up, hit points, and mana she's encountering in Puzzle Quest, I've tried to get her into more mainstream RPGs hehehehe. Wish me luck!)
We don't do a lot of gaming together though. I'm too competitive, and more often than not she can beat me in whatever we play together. Wii Sports especially. She can outbowl me any day of the week. Even my daughter can outbowl me. (It's pretty funny, but that's OK... I don't mind.)
I have many friends who game with their spouses and many of the couples I know play the same games together, but in my case, that's just not possible for my wife and I right now. We have separate gaming tastes. I lean more hardcore (Fighters, Racers, FPSs, Simulators), she leans toward the accessible. My daughter games with both of us. (We all have our own Nintendo DS.) We have all the current-gen consoles in our house and they all see use by every member of the family. We are a gaming family, but we don't always do it together as a family. I try to find balance, and most of the time it works. When it doesn't, I try to learn from my mistakes and move on to find a new equilibrium.
I love my wife and daughter, and I don't want to be that guy whose wife left him because he was spending too much time playing Halo. So far I think I'm doing a pretty decent job of keeping balance. I wish I could get my wife to come play Halo with me sometimes, but hey - she likes what she likes. Games are still a big part of our family and we do get to connect and share time that way in some fashion. We also get to connect and spend time together in a lot of other ways.
That's what is important - connecting. Gaming together allows us to do that to some extent, even if it is just the three of us doodling together in Pictochat.
---
Be sure to check out the other perspectives on this month's Blog Banter at these links.
Gaming with my wife
You could be doubling alone
Next Gen Killed Our Gaming Relationship
Playing With My Toys
From Gaming Geek to Heroes Freak
My Lady and Gaming
Gaming with your significant other
Gaming Together, Maybe?
Girl Gamers = Hawt
Gaming with my significant other
Move Over Hott Boy, I Want to Play
Valentine's Day is for Gamers
Frag the Girlfriend!!
'Til Mongoose Do Us Part
Hojimoto SBG is part of the leadership team at the world's greatest gaming clan - SBG Gaming. He's also SBG's main Ambassador/PR guy to the gaming community. He can be found lasering himself or accidentally sticking his teammates most nights in Halo 3 or Gears of War 2. Hogs rule. Plasma grenades FTW. Delta, MOUNT UP.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Vote Diamond in '09
In a year where there are important political decisions to be made, be sure you make your voice heard. I voted Diamond. They have a much edgier shape.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Stop This Train
This week I turned 35 years old.
I celebrated my birthday quietly in my own way. I had lunch with friends, then took the afternoon off to spend with my family. We went out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants. When we came home, I had fresh-baked apple dumplings and bounced my daughter on my knee. In the evening I logged on to play games on X-Box Live. I had many well-wishes from friends via Facebook, forums, e-mails, cards, and phone calls.
It's weird...
...getting older...
...for me...
...I just...
It's hard... for me to cope with the weight of time. The weight of each day. Watching my daughter being born (feels like yesterday) and now she's five years old. Tomorrow she'll be ten. Next week she'll be out of the house and in college or married.
Time just keeps marching on.
Reconnecting with friends on Facebook has been shocking. Seeing changes in faces that in my minds eye are forever young. Forever smiling and happy. Now I see the weight of years on their faces. Experiences good and bad that result in the sum of humanity. I see kindness, pain, joy, and heartache.
So far from where we all were ten years ago, or fifteen. Or twenty. And it doesn't stop. Dammit it doesn't stop.
It just keeps relentlessly sweeping us along in this current. Time. This colossal universal current that just. keeps. moving. on.
Oh God, sometimes I wish it would pause. Just for awhile. Just a little while. Time, just stop and smell the roses for a bit. Please.
I wonder if this is what people mean when they say they "feel their age."
If I've gone through all this crap just to get to 35, how does my father feel at 73? I've no clue. I don't want to have a clue sometimes.
Ugh.
How does it feel to be 35? A little rough, and apparently after re-reading this post thus far, a lot melodramatic.
If this is what it means to be a grownup, I want to go back and be a kid again for awhile. *chuckle*
It may sound like I've had a bad birthday this time around, but I haven't. I really haven't. It was wonderful. I'm just sad and happy in a bittersweet way, trying to tread water in the current for a little while, and smell some flowers for a bit. Hope you'll indulge me that.
Back to normal nerdishness later. Thanks everyone for listening to my neurotic prattling again. Sleep well.
I celebrated my birthday quietly in my own way. I had lunch with friends, then took the afternoon off to spend with my family. We went out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants. When we came home, I had fresh-baked apple dumplings and bounced my daughter on my knee. In the evening I logged on to play games on X-Box Live. I had many well-wishes from friends via Facebook, forums, e-mails, cards, and phone calls.
It's weird...
...getting older...
...for me...
...I just...
It's hard... for me to cope with the weight of time. The weight of each day. Watching my daughter being born (feels like yesterday) and now she's five years old. Tomorrow she'll be ten. Next week she'll be out of the house and in college or married.
Time just keeps marching on.
Reconnecting with friends on Facebook has been shocking. Seeing changes in faces that in my minds eye are forever young. Forever smiling and happy. Now I see the weight of years on their faces. Experiences good and bad that result in the sum of humanity. I see kindness, pain, joy, and heartache.
So far from where we all were ten years ago, or fifteen. Or twenty. And it doesn't stop. Dammit it doesn't stop.
It just keeps relentlessly sweeping us along in this current. Time. This colossal universal current that just. keeps. moving. on.
Oh God, sometimes I wish it would pause. Just for awhile. Just a little while. Time, just stop and smell the roses for a bit. Please.
I wonder if this is what people mean when they say they "feel their age."
If I've gone through all this crap just to get to 35, how does my father feel at 73? I've no clue. I don't want to have a clue sometimes.
Ugh.
How does it feel to be 35? A little rough, and apparently after re-reading this post thus far, a lot melodramatic.
If this is what it means to be a grownup, I want to go back and be a kid again for awhile. *chuckle*
It may sound like I've had a bad birthday this time around, but I haven't. I really haven't. It was wonderful. I'm just sad and happy in a bittersweet way, trying to tread water in the current for a little while, and smell some flowers for a bit. Hope you'll indulge me that.
Back to normal nerdishness later. Thanks everyone for listening to my neurotic prattling again. Sleep well.
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