Bored Games: 7 Wonders

I told you we’d be back. As long as people are misguided enough to invite me over to play board games I’m gonna keep recording the conversations.

Just like Nixon.

SHUT UP, That’s why!

So here we are discussing technology, genetics, artificial intelligence and its potential to wipe out humanity.

We talk about sexual fetishism and the pros and cons of pleading insanity as a murder defense.

More than anything we discuss religion and the nature of God all while playing what is possibly the greatest board game of all time!

André the Giant NOT included.

Click here to download, or use the player above to stream.

Make the Missed Connection

For 2014 I didn’t want to engage in anything even resembling romance until after Valentine’s Day.

There’s no logical reason as to why, it was just one of the random, inflexible decisions I make. It’s like how I’m always hatin’ on “Whovians”, how I never trust people with blonde hair or my instant disdain towards anyone who uses “club” as a verb.

Despite my resolution I ended up meeting with a lovely young lady almost two weeks ago and we spent the evening watching a movie and getting to know one another.

With the idea of avoiding romance still in my head, I said my goodnights and left for home pretty early but not before sharing a chaste, yet strangely intense kiss.

I was in a bit of a post-date daze on my way home but this sort of pessimistic pall fell over me. I started thinking the whole evening was a mistake. After last year, I really don’t need the added complications that dating would bring to my life.

I thought to myself, “This girl is sweet and all but there’s nothing there, bruce.”

I guess I should mention I’ve been spearheading a campaign to replace “dude” with “bruce” in everyday conversation and I even use it when talking to myself.

I started to feel a bit blue so I put on my headphones and maxed out the volume on one of the many Kevin Smith podcasts on my iPhone. That’s when I felt someone poke me in the ribs.

I was standing on a pretty crowded subway platform and my initial urge to pivot like a prizefighter and throw a jab to the nose, fizzled away when I turned to face her.

Her lips moved and she smiled but I had no idea what she said, the master of SMod was jabbering too loudly in my ears. I lowered the volume and gave her my most charming “huh?”

She told me she liked my bag.

I’ve never understood when people use the word “plain” as if it’s a bad thing. I have a very nondescript personal style. I never wear anything with a corporate logo on it and if I wanna buy a piece of licensed merchandise I’ll only do it if it doesn’t have the name of the IP on it. It’s the reason I didn’t buy this awesome limited edition House Martell T-Shirt I saw on the HBO store. I loved the sigil but hated that it said “Game of Thrones”. I feel like those who appreciate it would be the ones who don’t need to be told what it is.

This is why the bag in question is one of my favourite possessions.

It’s just a plain black messenger bag except that it has the N7 logo on it and, the Bioware online store assures me, it’s made of ballistic nylon.

I watch a lot of Mythbusters and I’ve chosen to believe that means it’s bulletproof.

When she told me she liked my bag what I heard was “I know what N7 means. I’m cool! Let’s be friends.”

The next 20 minutes were the most pleasant I’ve shared with a complete stranger.

Eventually she had to get off the train but not before turning to me on her way out and saying “It was nice meeting you… find me on Craigslist!”

And with that she was gone.

The second I got above ground I went online and posted a Missed Connection on Craigslist. It was the first time I’ve ever done anything like that.

I don’t know exactly what my intention was. More than anything I feel excited about the prospect of making a new friend. It doesn’t hurt that she’s also super cute!

She responded to my missed connection and it got me more excited than I’m comfortable admitting.

Hopefully she’ll continue responding.

Admit the Hard Truth

They say that when an ostrich is in danger it buries its head in the sand. It leaves its entire body exposed to harm, but it takes comfort in the fact that it can’t see whatever problems it needs to face.

Intellectually I understand how illogical and impractical this defense mechanism is, but I can’t say that I haven’t done exactly that during difficult times. For almost a full week now I’ve been ignoring my problems rather than actually facing them.

Why are you hiding your face? Was it burned by acid or something?

Oh no. It’s just that it’s terribly comfortable. I think everyone will be doing it in the future.

 

One of the things I write about most is how anti-social I’ve always been. I’ve said multiple times that I frequently feel a greater emotional connection with fictional characters than I do with real people. I’ve been depressed for months but I was managing my depression. Over the last week I’ve had a severe relapse and have started to become more and more disconnected from reality as a result.

To protect myself from the stimuli that would trigger an emotional breakdown I’m finding that I take more and more comfort in isolating myself from others. Literally locking myself in my apartment and not leaving for days at a time or,  just flat out, not responding to phone calls and emails.

I haven’t had any proper sleep in months and since I’ve got a whole extra 8 hours every day that I now need to fill, I’ve found that I’m immersing myself in movies, TV shows, video games and comic books…  much more so than usual, I mean.

In the last month and a half I’ve watched the following series in their entirety: Red vs Blue (10 Seasons), Seinfeld (9 Seasons), It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (8 Seasons), The Office (8 Seasons), The Twilight Zone (5 Seasons),  Batman: The Animated Series (4 Seasons), Parks and Recreation (4 Seasons), The Life and Times of Tim (3 Seasons), The Inbetweeners (3 Seasons), Game of Thrones (2 Seasons), The Newsroom,  underGRADS and Clerks: The Animated Series (1 Season each)

Conventional wisdom would tell you that there aren’t enough hours in 6 weeks to watch that much television but what’s crazier is that THAT’S not all I’ve been doing. In order to keep myself distracted and to keep crippling anxiety at bay, I have to multitask.

While these DVDs are playing on my laptop I’m either simultaneously playing Xbox on my TV or reading comic books, and I don’t mean 20 page single issues. Some of them are 350 page hardcover anthologies.

In September of 2011, DC cancelled all of their ongoing comic book series and rebooted the whole continuity. That means that there are 52 different titles that are published on a monthly basis and all of them started the stories off fresh with whole new “Issue #1’s”. The project is referred to as DC’s The New 52.

I’ve been going through and catching up on it.

All of it.

That’s almost 2 years worth of FIFTY TWO DIFFERENT COMIC BOOK SERIES.

A guy at work found a copy of Swamp Thing on my desk. He didn’t say anything but he just gave me a look that said “Swap Thing? SWAMP THING?!?!?!? Dude! What is wrong with you”

In my defense, I will read ANYTHING written by Scott Snyder

What I’m saying is that there are plenty of real problems in life, obligations and commitments, that I’ve been neglecting because I’m more interested in my fake virtual life in the Mass Effect Trilogy on Xbox. I played through all 3 games in 115 hours and was so pissed off that a decision I had made halfway through the first game resulted in the unavoidable death of one of my favorite characters in the final chapter, so I’m playing through the whole series AGAIN so I can “Marty Mcfly” the situation and change history, so to speak, to ensure that he would survive.

The reason I’m writing all this is because it’s time to stop. I have to pull my head out of the sand. I have to realize that just because I’m distracting myself from my problems it doesn’t mean I’m protected against them. The ostrich’s whole body is exposed to predators.

He’s gonna end up getting eaten and won’t even be able to see it coming.