I sort my m&ms.
My mom tells me that I sorted them as a little kid, so I guess I always have. The chocolate in m&ms isn’t particularly good if you ask me (there are a dozen candies I’d prefer before getting a bag of m&ms out of the vending machine) but, hey, if I happen to find myself with a bag or three from a co-worker’s halloween bowl, I’ll open them and get to sorting and probably enjoy that more than the taste of the candy.
Which brings me to video games. For the most part, video games press the same dopamine production buttons as sorting m&ms does for me. As such, I’m a big fan. Now, the downside of this is that I tend to react to video games much differently than television or movies. If I watch a television show, I can tell you what works, what doesn’t, who is a good actor, who is a bad one, who is right for the part, who is wrong for the part, and, mostly, why it’s crap. Movies are even worse (going on a movie/dinner date with Maribou usually has her talking for 15 minutes about what she liked and me talking for 30 minutes about what I hated). When it comes to games, though, I can sit down with even a mediocre video game and laugh, cry, shout, gasp, and sigh with pleasure as the closing credits roll (well, not cry).
Which brings me to this blog. It’s mostly going to be about sorting m&ms. Sometimes about video games, sometimes about video game genres, sometimes about video game theory. Other times, it’ll be about comic books, or pro wrestling, or movies, or tabletop games, or paperback books involving magic on some level, or box sets of television shows… it’s a blog about goofing off. Recreation. Things to do instead of real things. Dopamine.
(Full disclosure: We might eventually be an Amazon affiliate. If I’m going to talk about Dead Space 2, or Chuck Season One, or Surrogates, we might have a link to them. That means that if you buy the product in question (or any product, really, after clicking that link), we’ll get a tiny, tiny piece of that transaction at no cost to you! Now, I do not think that that knowledge will color any review of any product I provide… indeed, the dopamine production from my particular tastes are far more likely for me to say that The Force Unleashed was pretty awesome than my hopes that you’ll buy a copy used and the League Maintenance Fund get 12 cents from that. But full disclosure is full disclosure is full disclosure.)
In any case, I’ll be talking about some serious slackin’ in the days and weeks to come. I hope to write a couple of bigger essays a week with a sprinkling of little posts between. It is my intention that every discussion be a discussion about matters of taste rather than matters of morality. So if I happen to say that something isn’t good that you happen to like or if I happen to say that something is good that you happen to dislike, please don’t take it *TOO* personally. Or, hell, explain to me that I’m wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. It’s not like I can tell you that you need a better hobby.
Come on in. Grab a bean bag and a controller. Make yourself comfortable.
I’m Jaybird, by the way.
Welcome!
Yippee!! Another one!
I hate video games. But I love goofing off. Which is what I’ll be doing when I read your blog at work.
See I love video games but have to enjoy them viscerally through others since I never seem to have time play them. So Jaybird should be very useful to me.
Maybe he should podcast instead of blog.
Video Games, tabletop games, magic and comic books?? Yes please!!
Couldn’t be more excited about this topic. Sometimes I’m actually tempted to list ‘hobbysit’ as my occupation on forms at the doctor’s office. Maybe I can also use this blog as a support group for my Call of Duty addiction.
Hey Jaybird,
I’m Bookninja on XBLA & PSN – you’ll be getting friend requests though I don’t do the online thing that much.
I do the online thing not at all. But, hey, I’ll friend ya.
It’s always nice to see avatars waving when I log on.
Welcome, Jaybird! For the record, I’ve teared up a little at the end of a video game. That’s just the kind of geek I am.
Which one?
This is important.
The ninth Final Fantasy. Not my favorite of the bunch, oddly enough.
I was going to guess VII.
VII, while one of my three favs of the series, had one of the weakest endings.
I pick one MMO every few years to play obsessively. I did World of Warcraft for a while, but it required too much attention once our daughter came along. Too many late nights with just zero ability to cut out and do anything else.
So we switched to EVE Online. I’m still enjoying the hell out of it. If anyone is interested, they can mail me to get my EVE identity and we can hang out in-game.
Welcome!!!
Side note: two days ago I pulled off a feat I hadn’t in entire decade since the game’s release: I tripled up on Leaders in Civilization III.
Two scientific leaders and a military one. I didn’t even know it was possible to get two scientific leaders at once.
My Civ III cd scratched up and wouldn’t let me start, so I had to go to Civ IV.
These days, I use virtual clone drive and copy the cds to iso images to archive the cd for non-scratching purposes.
I learned my lesson.
For now.
Congrats on your leaders.
No opinions on Civ V? Mine runs painfully slow but the hex grid and one-unit-per-tile limit are significantly new and different challenges. And it feels not at all unlike Settlers of Catan.
I found out about this site so late ): ): ):
Well I’ll contribute this. Apologies if you are already aware of this copypasta.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Whenever I get a package of plain M&Ms, I make it my duty to continue the strength and robustness of the candy as a species. To this end, I hold M&M duels.
Taking two candies between my thumb and forefinger, I apply pressure, squeezing them together until one of them cracks and splinters. That is the “loser,” and I eat the inferior one immediately. The winner gets to go another round.
I have found that, in general, the brown and red M&Ms are tougher, and the newer blue ones are genetically inferior. I have hypothesized that the blue M&Ms as a race cannot survive long in the intense theatre of competition that is the modern candy and snack-food world.
Occasionally I will get a mutation, a candy that is misshapen, or pointier, or flatter than the rest. Almost invariably this proves to be a weakness, but on very rare occasions it gives the candy extra strength. In this way, the species continues to adapt to its environment.
When I reach the end of the pack, I am left with one M&M, the strongest of the herd. Since it would make no sense to eat this one as well, I pack it neatly in an envelope and send it to M&M Mars, A Division of Mars, Inc., Hackettstown, NJ 17840-1503 U.S.A., along with a 3×5 card reading, “Please use this M&M for breeding purposes.”
This week they wrote back to thank me, and sent me a coupon for a free 1/2 pound bag of plain M&Ms. I consider this “grant money.” I have set aside the weekend for a grand tournament. From a field of hundreds, we will discover the True Champion.
There can be only one.
Oh, it was a month and a half.
Despite being aware of all internet traditions, I had not seen that copypasta before.