Timing is
everything. Shit's been too serious for too long, and
truly, who knows what part this all may play in "The
Journey"...
Anyone who knows
me, knows I enjoy a videogame every now and
again.
LOL.
I LOVE them. I've
loved videogames since the 70's. I do remember
standing on CHAIRS to play arcade units with my uncle.
He would play Space Invaders, and I would play
Circus. I sucked at Space Invaders...in fact
I still do - that game is actually pretty
difficult. ANYWAY. An addiction for well over 20 years
now.
For
this entry, I actually decided to just set
a camera on me to see just how insane
I looked when I played videogames.
It's quite obvious I'm an addict. LOL. As
well, Jess is gonna KILL me for
putting a video of HER online. Dude, this
is the funniest thing I've ever taped of
her. I secretly taped her in 2000
playing Ms. Pac-man. This sweet, tiny,
docile little girl is just as much of an
addict to the digital crack as I am. God I
love her. And now you get to laugh at her
too. You may wanna save
this
while you can. I may have to take it off
line so I don't have to sleep on the
couch this week. LOLOL.
Anyway, my love
for videogames has actually been somewhat soothing the
past few months. Though virtually impossible as a tool
for "keeping my mind off things", for brief periods of
time, I could smile. Valuable, so
valuable...
So Nintendo
released the GameCube in November and their games on
these tiny mini-dvds. Yet their cases were still
full-sized DVD cases. Well it annoyed the hell out of
me. The cases are bigger than the console itself. Had
to go find some smaller cases for my games. Figured
I'd make my own little covers, and all would be good.
Well I found these PERFECT super-slim cases, but
the little wankers only came in packs of 25. (sigh).
So I bought all 25, and got an idea... Told Marshall
who was with me: "Bet you I can sell these on
Ebay."
Quick aside - Ebay
ROCKS. You could shit in a bag, and sell it.
SERIOUSLY. Hmmm...
So anyway - I took
some time and redesigned the covers for the games I
owned, and threw up an auction on Ebay. Well
apparently everyone was frustrated with how big the
original cases were, 'cause they sold and sold and
sold. Pretty soon, I had about 150 cases sold.
Nuts. It got so crazy, I felt I needed to make a site
quickly so I could advertise these puppies. And
wouldn't ya know: MiniCases.com wasn't taken.
Giddy-up. Click it if you'd like...
The best thing
about this, is it's not a one-time sale. Every single
person who's gotten the cases has been quite
happy...and since they continue to buy games - they
come right back to me. I ship 'em fast as hell,
and my quality control is just insane. Everything
I ship is perfect. The prints are always
flawless, and if I even cut them a hair off, I
redo them. It works, people notice. Unfortunately
Nintendo's delaying all their big games until later
this year and things are a bit slow right now, but it
could be a really nice bit of income in time. Some guy
is interested in buying all of them.
ALL OF THEM. Just as collector's items. Kick
ass...
Well it seems a
nice little pasttime has worked its way into a bit
more. A couple months ago, Planet GameCube.com was
asking for donations. Easily my favorite gaming site.
They're the fastest news source, and have made quite a
name for themselves in the past several years. Well I
emailed the founder and told him I could donate time
to help them edit their E3 video this year. They were
really late with last years and lost a BUNCH of money.
I told them I could have it finished in DAYS, not
months. That alone would make them more than I could
ever donate personally. What it eventually lead to was
me becoming a staff writer for the site. That was the
only way they could get me an E3 pass. So I'll be
travelin' with them to E3 and getting to experience it
this year as a bit of an insider. Should be quite
fun.
Money? No. Even
for being a staff writer? No. Anything? Well, it may
get a mini-hardware review for the mini-cases. I'm not
holding my breath really, but it would certainly be
nice. They get a butt-load of traffic, and the
exposure would rock. As it is, I have an official
Staff Writer review on the site, and will be throwing
my 2 cents in for their mailbag features and other
goodies. Even threw up a news article on the possible
November release of Metroid. It's a nice community to
be part of, every other staffer has given me a warm
welcome. Although I really have no room doing
anything for free...sometimes - you gotta just enjoy
life. My editing skills will be shown to the world on
this video, and that could lead to something. It
really has nothing to do with why I'm doing this.
I offered to help. They needed it, I could give
it, end of story. And honestly, I owe it to
videogames. LOL. Kind of a "sup SUP" to the digital
crack of the world. In their own little way they made
me smile...if only for a moment. It's the least I can
do...
And finally, let
me apologize for the past few entries. A lot of
you treat "The Journey" as your way to escape. And I'm
sure you've thought more than a few times that my idea
of "a hard life" is BULLSHIT. I know how I used
to feel about people who had it better than me,
bitching and moaning...and even talking about suicide.
It made me sick to my stomache. Well, I hope I
didn't turn anyone off to the whole thing because of
what's happened. Please know that it actually HURTS me
to write and show some of the things that I have
lately. I know it sounds CRAZY. I know the
SECOND I punch the period, that the previous
sentence makes ZERO sense. All I can say is, I'm
not being melodramatic here. In fact, there's some
shit that I'll simply never mention 'cause the
thoughts are just "too much". I wrote what I felt was
necessary to those reading from the beginning, and
will do my best to let it be from now on.
The good thing is,
I hit the lowest point. There's something to be said
for that. I hit it. I was allllllllll the way there,
and made it back. The future only gets better from
here.
