Stuff, and Gaming

I'm meant to be writing another blog post. Actually, I was meant to write it a couple of days ago, but I didn't have anything to write about. And I still don't.

Last week I wrote about my disillusionment with the IETF process. That disillusionment has declined into ennui. I can't be bothered even reading the conversations, let alone taking part. Some folks are on a crusade to "fix" the web, some want to protect the children from the NSA, some are pushing their own hidden agendas, and a couple keep talking about "Snowdonia." What can you do when up against zealots and the paranoid?

I haven't really been a gamer for many years. I loved my Sega Master System II – I almost clocked Alex Kidd in Miracle World, and I used to routinely finish Sonic II – and then my Mega Drive 2 – I was the king of Mortal Kombat, MK3, and NBA Jam (Tournament Edition). In my late teens, when I managed to borrow the cash to buy my first computer, I used to own at Quake (fighting the Omicron bot when human competitors weren't available), and lose myself for hours in the original Liberty City of Grand Theft Auto; and then there were Team Fortress, Half-Life, TF2 ... And by that stage I made it back to university, where my friends and I used to play Blackhawk Down/Joint Operations and Operation Flashpoint, sometimes for days on end, and Dawn of War.

I used to love games.

Then I grew up, and got a job, and suddenly I didn't have time to play games, and (somewhat paradoxically) no longer had the budget for them.

I clung to WoW for a little while; but I wasn't that interested in what the game was becoming (grinding, endless raids, grinding, endgame fights, and grinding), and it was taking too much time from my family.

I still play Joint Ops today. I like to think I've gotten pretty good at it – nowadays I have to finish the cooperative missions by myself. And I still play GTA: SA – I have my finished save game, but I've never gotten around to getting 100% on it. I played Torchwood Torchlight (thanks Voxel) for a bit. It was really pretty, and kind of fun; but one day I exited the game and never bothered opening it up again. Nothing really drew me in. I've been watching a lot of YouTube lately, mostly gaming stuff like Nerd³ and Gamespot, and I think that's almost as good as playing games. I'm hooked on the Top Five Skyrim Mods of the Week, even though I've never been that into RPGs (I played Oblivion one time, very, very wrongly), and I really enjoy all the GTA V in-game footage I've seen, even though I'll probably never have the hardware to play it. I've even watched a few chapters of Dishonored and Call of Duty: Ghosts walkthroughs, which is almost as good as (or possibly even better than) playing them myself.

I used to be a gamer. I don't know if I could be again.



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Matthew Kerwin

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games, meta, web
I used to be a gamer, once upon a time. I don't know if I could be again.

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