The fun side of birthdays

I recently put so much energy into thinking about old age that I forgot to write about the serious fun I had over the last week. Here's a quick run-down, mostly for my own sake so I don't forget due to the imminent meltdown of my brain:

1. Dinner with Mom. She took me to our fave restaurant in town, one of Arlington's few chef-run joints called Olenjack's. Highly recommended. And an iTunes gift certificate definitely satisfied my sudden need for new music and lots of it.

2. Drinks at Arlington's new Dave & Buster's, with my driving amigo Alex, better known as Mexellent; Sarah, my Plan II bud better known as "OMG must jump my bf right now," and an old Oakridge friend Mai, who always tells me how much of a lush she is and yet barely drinks in front of me. None of these 3 knew each other before coming out, but the conversations were fun nonetheless.

3. A night of drunkenness in Austin with two of the classiest gentlemen I know, Adam and Mikey. For the first time ever, cut off by a bartender. (Well, it was their rule, you're done after two Mexican Martinis.) Moved on to another restaurant and continued drinking. And those gents even picked up the tab - what sweethearts.

4. A night of old-school goodness, as the core of the Japanese Association circa 2 years ago reunited in Austin to crash the club's meeting and then head out for dinner and drinks. It was a long, festive night with some people I've had the pleasure of hanging out with on all sides of the world. It gave me a lot of faith in the continued success of the group, and the 'family' feeling that's sure to survive even after the departure of us senior citizens.

5. The first time in a long time I actually had fun on 6th Street. I swore the place off last time I was in town, but when you pull your old bar-hopping buddies back into the mix, the magic comes back. I can't imagine I'll have that opportunity many more times in my life.

Despite all that, I managed to have a productive 48 hours in Austin, zero hangovers, and a refreshing revival for my social life, which had slacked a bit as Internet Work got more "serious."

6. I closed out my birthday season by joining The Japanese Group in Dallas on Saturday night. I didn't know what to expect from people gathering at a Japanese bar late at night - especially when invited by a dude married with a kid - but it turned out to be the best thing to hit my social life since returning home. I made a slew of Japanese friends, got to know a couple people at a couple nice restaurants, and basically found my way into a brand new social circle with a regular time and place.

I wasn't sure I'd be able to follow up on last year's birthday. And while nothing will ever top that, I had a surprisingly sweet set of celebrations.

Thanks to you, friends, old and new!

On growing up

I've waited a while to mention it, since some Internet Detective-type users might've followed me as I exited the game site Shacknews. And in case any of them are reading now, I won't say anything about it here, but I've explained what's up to most of the people I talk to regularly.

My time there taught me a lot - namely, that being a professional blogger, specifically a "video game journalist," is just digital blue-collar work. It's not journalism, it's an extension of the cottage industry for video game PR. There's nothing professional, much less glorious, about "informing" the masses of Internet users who strive to be uninformed.

In short, it's not a dream job for the ambitious and it's really turned me off of the 'net in general, and I spend less time online than I did before. I'm more productive, just because my shiny new iGoogle homepage gets me my info much faster so I'm not surfing aimlessly.

So what to do with this newfound time and distaste for YouTube commenters?

Enter grad school.

I was finally convinced to give it a shot after years of hesitation on my part due to a fear that I'd get boxed into some mundane, super-specific kind of study and wind up living out my days being the world's leading expert on Japanese Economic Inflation From 1951 to 1953.

Thankfully, International Relations saves me from that pain, and lets me flex my cerebral muscles based on the skills I picked up in school - foreign languages, writing, people skills, and generally being a flexible kind of guy.

While part of me still mildly fears joining the rat race - as opposed to doing something dramatic and risky, like funding my own video game or TV show or suddenly becoming a musician - I've been convinced that taking the IR route through grad school will let me do real, ambition-satisfying work that I don't dread when I wake up in the morning.

And that dread is a serious issue - I've seen it take a serious toll on my mom over the years, and it instilled in me a deep distrust of work and of bosses.

It's indicative of a larger trend, the whole twenty-something issue with getting over graduating from college and resorting to The Rat Race.

But I think the biggest transition I might face is going from more self-centered to less so. I don't mean in a sense of charity or niceness to others, though I do hope to work on all that. No, I mean that our primary motivations shift from self to others. I suspect that many are forced to confront it at some point - "Oh, you got her knocked up? Time to quit the band and get a job. And a marriage license." Others, on the other hand, might consciously choose the time to make the shift, and perhaps they're better off for it.

My friend Lisa put it this way:

I have lately been thinking that the most important thing for me, rather than trying to be a famous concert pianist (which isn't really my dream anymore anyways), is to have my own loving family and to raise a child. then i would think about my own life. Is that bad?

I definitely don't want to be a famous video game writer anymore. And I'm still ambitious as hell - I'm applying to tough grad schools, and I like Type A women - but I had a taste of a simpler life in Japan, where I was a more generous and easy-to-please person, and it wasn't all bad. There's a lot of that life that may come back to me in several years, and I'm not afraid of that.

Blake reviews games in two lines

It's been a heavy season for video games, so here's the latest batch I've been playing, each with as complex and fulfilling a statement I can get out of two lines of text.

Mirror's Edge
Idiot savant game design. Savant for the revolution in gaming's most basic mechanism (platforms), idiot for combat control so bad it questions mental capacities.

Metal Gear Solid 4
[this line doesn't count: I'm behind the times, but I waited to get back to the US to play the English version.]
Amazing. Poignant, emotional, humorous, difficult, relentlessly hardcore, and an amazing conclusion to the consistently best series in all of gaming.

Quantum of Solace
A true successor to Goldeneye: an ambitious Bond game that forgets current standards for control or narrative in shooting games. A mediocre game, but appreciably so.

LittleBigPlanet
Based on 5 minutes with the beta: more charming than a Pixar movie. Online content creation may be very cool with time, but enjoy the game on the disc with a friend now.

Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
Exactly what a sequel for Geometry Wars should be. More options, more connectivity, and more colorfulness without changing the core game. Grab it.

Left 4 Dead
A 4-player co-op zombie apocalypse. Play it once, then get hooked on Versus re-playing against your friends, who are the zombies.

Rock Band 2
Remember the first time you tried Guitar Hero, and it was every bit as cool as you thought it would be? It's that feeling all over again.

Street Fighter IV
The gorgeous, deep, hardcore revival that Street Fighter II has always deserved. Fighting games are back, baby.

Happy Birthday, Zelda

It's the tenth anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, largely regarded by true gamers as the Greatest Game of All Time.

I'm among that crowd. It's a triumph of creativity, storytelling, passion and can't-put-it-down gameplay. In terms of the grin it plasters on your face, it's the videogame equivalent of Wall-E.

If you haven't played it and you want to, give me a shout because I'll buy it for you. I'm not joking. I will set you up.

In the meantime, enjoy this little bit of my childhood, chopped and screwed by a clever YouTube user. Sheer hilarity.

Happy birthday, Zelda.


[There is a link to this YouTube video, for those reading by RSS]