Tomorrow, September 18th, is the anniversary of my birth. That's right, it's my birthday. I'll be 31 years old. It's strange; I'm not filled with the bittersweet feeling that has accompanied my birthdays the past few years. This year I'm just..introspective.

 Since my 28th birthday, I've experienced a kind of panic whenever September came around; it was at that time that I realized how much of my youth I'd been wasting. It embarrasses me to write this, but I'd been in college off and on for around a decade, and had nothing to show for it. Well, I guess I shouldn't use past tense, because I still have nothing to show for it. Okay, that's not completely true; my 10 years of higher education did gift me with around $50,000 in debt, and a mountain of interest that continues to add to it.

The point is, I started experiencing what I can only describe as a panic depression, a weird fusion of the frantic desire to do something NOW and a crushing sense of defeatism; desperately trying to cram some life and good experiences won't make up for the fact that I had less time on this Earth than I did a year ago, or ten years ago when I was a fresh-faced high school graduate who had the entire world before him and the indomitable will to accomplish anything.

How the hell did I become so world weary without actually doing anything?

We fast forward to the present day. I'm sitting here, contemplatively absorbing the fact that today is last day of my 30th year; on Wednesday, September 18th at 2:23pm, I will have officially aged another year. And I have nothing to show for it. Just more of the same.

You can relax, I'm not about to slip into some "woe is me, woe is me" pity party. I think I've already mentioned that I'm done with those.

For once, I'm not sinking down into the murky depths of the past. Rather, I'm pondering the future, and what I want to do with myself. You see, I have this aversion to what most people call the Real World.

Best. Show. Ever.

The Real World involves waking up and dragging yourself to a job that you probably don't care about to do menial tasks that, in the grand scheme of things, don't really matter. You spend 8 hours of your day doing this distasteful whatever and then, exhausted, you shuffle zombie style back to your dwelling, where you spend the next few hours "relaxing" before you go to bed to get not enough rest so you can do it again the next day. You dance to this tune day in and day out, your only hope that distant beacon of light called the Weekend. You spend all of your energy striving for that glorious reprieve from the tedium, and once that shiny ray of light is finally in your grasp, it vanishes in the blink of an eye. And you're right back where you started.

You spend 5 days of the week striving for the last two, and in the meantime life passes you by.

And you'll probably follow this pattern for the rest of your adult life until you either retire, hit the lottery, or die.

This is my perception of it anyway. Perhaps I've made it seem bleaker than it is. After all, that doesn't account for people who genuinely, truly love their job or feel passionate about it. Those lucky few are truly blessed. The majority of us are not so fortunate.

For as long as I can remember, I've been deathly afraid of the Real World. I don't want to spend the rest of my life struggling at some job that I hate. I don't want to wake up one morning to discover that I'm 80 years old and I'm nearly out of time, while I wasted all of my youth and energy amassing money for trinkets and toys. I've seen how that movie ends; my own mother works 11 hour days, five days a week, and has nothing to show for it.

I can see myself all too easily falling into the same trap.

This represents the Real World, and your foot represents your hopes, dreams, youth, and energy.

It is far too easy to grow complacent. Complacency is one of the more deadly traps the Real World throws at you. You fall into a set routine and before you know it, tomorrow is your birthday. You blink in wide-eyed astonishment as that fact hits home: you are one year older, and that much closer to the end of the race.

The only escape from the Real Worlds' trap, the one thing that will bridge the gap between mere survival and truly living is finding something that you love, something that you're passionate about, something that really interests you, and doing it. Don't let little niggling fears and doubts and haters get in your way; most people are miserable and will do everything in their power to bring you down to their level. The worst thing you can do is let them.

This shiny ray of brilliant optimism has been brought to you by your Friendly Neighborhood Black Man. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

PAX! :O

I can think of no better way of spending a sunny Monday afternoon than doing what I do best: being a huge gamer geek. And I can think of no better way of being a huge gamer geek then doing so at PAX!

Just in case someone who happens to stumble onto this blog doesn't know what PAX is (I can't imagine such a thing) I'll tell you. The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is a series of gaming festivals held in Seattle, Boston, and Melbourne, Australia. It was designed to give equal attention to Console Games, PC Games, and Tabletop Games. In these glorious conventions, gamers of all shapes (mostly round) and sizes (mostly LARGE) can come together and check out the latest games, play demos, collect loot, attend tabletop tournaments, and have an awesome time.

Until today, I've never had the pleasure of attending PAX; being dirt poor, I could hardly afford a plane ticket out of Alaska and a hotel for the weekend. Now that I'm no longer living in Alaska, and am no longer dirt poor, it was a simple matter of spending the $30 for a day pass and recruiting an awesome friend to give me a lift to and from the Washington Convention Center to experience what cruel circumstance has denied me for far too long.

Upon arriving, I had an epic nerdgasm.

One box of tissue paper and a change of pants later, I was ready to go. All about, people moved to and fro, going from gaming booth to gaming booth. The constant buzz of conversation competed with the ambient melody of computerized Pings and Bleeps. It was beautiful.

Not having access to a map (those apparently disappear within a few hours of opening on the first day), I spent the first hour and a half exploring, attempting to get my bearings while working on a plan of attack. With six floors across at least two buildings, I had my work cut out for me. I'm fairly certain that I missed out on a bunch of stuff despite my efforts.

For 6 hours, I experienced the glory that is PAX. I stood in lines for everything; whether it be for food, merch booths, game demos, or the disturbingly sticky floors of the restrooms, there will be lines. As someone who hates lines, I was surprised that I didn't mind waiting that much. It was all part of the PAX experience. Plus it afforded me plenty of opportunities to do another thing that I love: people watch. People are fascinating, for obvious reasons. Gamers, even more so. During my time there, I saw:

~ Boba Fett, his arm linked with Princess Leia's (in her slave outfit, of course), who in turn held the hand of an adorable young padawan learner.

~A guy dressed like Deadpool running through the crowds, slinging cheesy one-liners, and actually eating a freaking chimichanga.

~ Countless attractive (and hideous) females dressed as various anime characters, sexy maids, video game characters, and things I honestly have no names for.

~ A table flip. An honest-to-gods table flip. I happened to be passing by the Magic: The Gathering gaming tables when one high spirited neckbeard bellowed in rage and flipped his table, much to laughter of myself and countless others. He was asked to leave; I wanted to offer him a drink in thanks for the entertainment.

~ Vast seas of bean bag lounge areas where folks could take a load off and game on handhelds. But no plopping is allowed.

 Beyond the people watching was the actual game demos. Due to my tendency to wander, as well as the length of some of the lines, I didn't play as many demos as I would have liked. But unless you were fortunate enough to snag a 4 day pass, I doubt anyone got to play all the games they would have liked.

I tried out some of the latest greatest from the big wigs:

~I jumped on Final Fantasy XIV for a couple of 20 minute intervals throughout my visit. It was fun; what can I say about an MMORPG that isn't already known. I will say that it successfully rekindled my itch to play an MMO, as well has my desire to play a good Final Fantasy game (Fuck off, XIII). I *may* give the game a try once I pick up a PS3.

~ I got a glimpse of the much anticipated Beyond: Two Souls. In BTS, you play a girl who has a psychic link with some kind of entity. It can possess enemies, produce telekinetic shields, and a variety of other effects. It's looking like I will be picking this game up in October.

~ Wolfenstein, which is a game about an alternative Earth where the Nazi's won WWII using crazy cyber tech. It takes place in the 1960's and has an awesome atmosphere.

~ Elder Scrolls Online. Wow. I only got to play for about 15 minutes; the Bethesda Security Goons are strict about time. With people in the hundreds waiting in line to try the game out, I guess I can't blame them (grumble). I'm still iffy about an MMO Elder Scrolls, but from what I got to play, it will be a blast once it's complete.

~ Dying Light. A really cool looking zombie survival horror with a heavy focus on freerunning. It was fun. and worth the wait in line. 'Nuff said.

I took my time and went to the XBOX One and PS4 sections. Surprisingly, there was a decent crowd at the XBOX One, despite the recent *ahem* unpopular system design choices and alacritous retraction. I will hand it to them, they have some pretty cool looking exclusives coming out:

~ Killer Instinct, a remake of the classic SNES fighting game, looks freaking sick. Seeing it revamped with the latest graphics brought a nostalgic tear to my eye. I think I'm past my desire to play arcade style fighter games; with the exception of the occasional Soul Caliber match, I've pretty much outgrown them.

~ Battlefield 4 was clogged full of nerds for the entire time I was there, so I didn't get a chance to play. But I did watch a few rounds, and it's looking pretty nice. If you're into FPS, that is.

 I just hope for their sake that those exclusives are good enough to overcome the extra $100  hurdle compared to the PS4.

In addition I got to check out some  awesome Indie Games. A few stick out in my mind:

~ Delver's Drop, a 2D action RPG based around three characters trying to escape an ever-shifting dungeon.

~ Aztez, a game that combines a compelling combination of turn based strategy and real-time beat'em up violence.

~ Assault Android Cactus, a really fun and engaging twinstick arena shooter. I lost track of time and blew close to an hour playing this game.


So what did I take away from my very first PAX? You mean besides playing a bunch of awesome games and being able to fully immerse myself in glorious nerd culture? Of being able to bask in the aura of gamer geekdom?

Shirts.

I became a shirt whore at PAX; I can't count how many lines I stood in or the number of newsletters I signed up for or the number of games I preordered (and promptly cancelled once I was out of sight) on amazon, all for the promise of a shirt. You see, game companies have two sure fire methods of attracting interest and potential future customers at PAX. 1) An astonishing number of attractive females acting as lures for salivating nerds, attracting them into their devious clutches like BBQ attracts black people (It's okay if I say it), and 2) Free shit. Key chains, posters, stickers, and SHIRTS. Shirts galore! You get free clothes, and in exchange they get to use you as walking advertisement for their product. Everyone wins!

So I got shirts. By my count, I have 15 new additions to my wardrobe. All for the price of NOTHING. Damn I love PAX!