It’s everywhere. I hate the name of it (social media? Really? It isn’t so much social as it is “Here’s a pile of my stuff!”), but it’s everywhere. I could talk about how it’s influencing more and more people and companies, or how too many share too much too soon and smash their future credibility in to little shards of nothing. I could do that…but I’ve kinda done that already. And since I’ve been getting a bit more personal with a fair amount of my blog content, I’ll look at it through the Cliff Perspective (aka mockery).

Everyone is probably quite clear on my feelings about Facebook. I never really got on with it very well, and quickly reached the point where I’d rather spend my time lancing my ear drums with sewing needles than log in to that den of pointless updates ever again. It was awful.

And yet, I’m active on Twitter. I’m active on Empire Ave (post on that coming later this week). I’m sharing little pieces of myself all over the damn place. So what’s the difference?

This is actually a question that I’ve struggled with a bit. IS there a difference? Price…price is the difference.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one. Seriously though, why did I react so negatively to Facebook and jump full bore in to other networks much more willingly? Why the different attitude?

Continue reading »

I love games.

I know, I know. I can’t drop a massive bomb on you like that and not give you time to recover.

Actually, I’m a bastard, so yes I can.

Indeed, I love me some games. I’m not really genre choosy…I like shooters, I like strategy games, I’ve even started liking some RPGs in recent years.

But where did this come from? WHY do I enjoy games as I do?

The honest truth is, it’s something I’ve never really spent much time thinking about before. I just choose a game, load it up and get playing. But I figure such a personal investigation might make for an interesting post. And if it doesn’t, I’ve tacked on a second part that is guaranteed to at least produce an entertainingly apoplectic rant.

Yet again, we have a post topic that features my dad, this time in the beginning. He was the original reason that I was pulled in to the gaming realm, specifically strategy games. Back in the day, we had an old school Apple IIc. My dad was a big fan of a game called War in the South Pacific. It was nothing to look at (seriously…Atari 2600 games could look down on this), but it was a fantastic strategy game set in the southern Pacific theatre in WW2. Anyway, I dabbled with it while my dad regularly smashed the AI. And when that grew boring, I guess he decided it was time to smash me…at the age of 10.

I lost…A LOT…but I also gained a love for strategy gaming that remains in place today. I also had to gain an ability for thinking outside the box to make the game in any way interesting for either one of us. Anyway, from their the hobby grew outwards with the addition of games like Techno Cop and Destroyer to the library of my youth. Soon, I wasn’t just a replacement for the AI. I was a gamer.

Now, up until recently, I was often WAY behind the curve. I didn’t actually own a console until the Sega Genesis. I didn’t have a Playstation or an Xbox until years after they came out. I was stuck with horribly mediocre PCs for a long time, computers that would look at anything resembling modern games for that time period and suffer heart palpitations. So I spent a lot of time with older games, especially when it came to PC titles. And I’m pretty sure that’s why I’m not a graphics whore.

Meanwhile, as I dived more deeply in to gaming, my family life was growing more and more unbearable as dad and I entrenched in our bizarre war against one another. At that point, gaming became every bit the escape that books were. For a few hours, I could sit down and concentrate on doing something else. I could get away from the never ending fights and just enjoy myself without leaving home (kind of an important consideration, since money was usually pretty tight).

Continue reading »