Postcard 2010: (7th Gen) Console Gaming

A couple of years ago, I went to the New York Comic Con and witnessed, at the Marvel booth, the unveiling of a mission-based Iron Man video game and a sandbox Incredible Hulk game, both for the X-Box 360. The high-definition three-dimensional environments astounded me and the game play looked fantastic. I gazed in awe at these two video game wonders before promptly forcing myself to turn away and never look back. The temptation to play seventh generation console (Nintendo Wii, Playstation 3, X-Box 360) games combined with my meager earnings could only bring about suffering.

The last console games I remember playing were Xenosaga and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic on Playstation 2 and X-Box respectively, archaic, outdated systems. I'd played Wii at bars and large get-togethers with friends, but it wasn't until finding that Amy owned a Playstation 3 that I actually got into the new wave of console gaming. We played Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4, Brutal Legend, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game, and X-Men (a port of the original arcade game). It was quite the console renaissance, and perfectly timed, considering the fact that many believe the next (eighth) generation of consoles to be overdue. I even found myself the proud owner of an X-Box 360 game and controller by the end of the year (but sadly, no X-Box 360).

I may be behind the times, but at least I'm still trying.

Postcard 2010: Dungeons & Dragons

While I was away from Fort Worth for the summer, a group of school friends that I had played a lot of video games with had been getting together weekly to play Dungeons and Dragons, the table-top turn-based role-playing game that every RPG can be traced back to. When I came back in the fall, I considered playing a practical joke on them by writing a letter to Westboro Baptist Church begging that they protest D&D night. I'd get a good laugh out of it, and I'd also be doing the world a lot of good by distracting Westboro from committing horrors in the name of God.

My plan fell apart when my friends invited me to play and I found that I really enjoyed D&D. Rarely have I ever found myself embarrassed of the things I enjoy, but I felt like a fool telling my beautiful girlfriend I spent Sunday nights as an elven psion whose name is derived from Fox Mulder's pen name on X-Files. I remembered talk in the late 80s and early 90s of some kids who had killed themselves because of D&D and the stigma that had been attached to everybody and their dungeonmaster.

I guess I was kind of ashamed because that was all I had known of Dungeons and Dragons. Once I identified my problem I was able to expel the stigma and have myself a fantastic time. I firmly believe that the world belongs to geeks who really own it. Anyone who has a problem can take it up with the orb I use to focus my mind powers into dangerous force beams. This is no idle threat. My orb is +3.

Postcard 2010: DC Comics

Sure, I'd watched my share of Batman: The Animated Series after school and I'd read a couple of free-standing Batman stories, but these were small exceptions to a twenty-year old "Make mine Marvel" perspective. If the topic of Kitty Pryde or Cyclops were to be brought up I'd be in hog heaven, but mention Superman in a positive light and you'd feel my disdain. Even Miller's Batman, possibly the only DC character I was familiar with, was always mad at Superman. For most of my life, I stood staunchly against anything published by DC comics.

In Amy I found a fellow comic book love. Whereas my boxes were full of Uncanny X-Men issues, hers overflowed with Batman books. She had a cat named Bruce, an homage to Bruce Wayne (Batman) and Bruce Campbell (the cult film actor). Batman is a large part of Amy's life and if I was to win her over the Dark Knight would have to be part of mine as well, so I dove in head first.

That fall I met a kindred spirit named Chad, a pretty cool dude that Amy jokingly refers to as my boyfriend, who guided me into a love affair with Green Lantern. I was reading two of DC's heaviest hitters and as a result I accidentally met and learned to love the rest of the DC universe (except for Lobo - he's mockery of the entire DC universe) through the various crisis crossovers.

The twenty years had come to an end. Make mine Marvel, but make it DC too.

Postcard 2010: Dating

During Spring Break 2010, I found myself in Roswell, New Mexico, in a hotel with three friends, Stephan, Adam and Tom. Stephan was at the time and remains in a happy relationship, but he was the only one. In fact, the rest of us were all reeling from recent break-ups. If we were honest with ourselves we were searching desperately for something new but we were each hamstringed by some sort of emotional unreadiness. This trip was all about being honest with ourselves.

I can say without exaggeration that during the first half of 2010 much of my consciousness was devoted to readying myself for love. At the end of the winter semester I traveled to New York City and used the metropolis as my laboratory. I grew a culture of confidence and charm there, powering up like Superman aside Earth's yellow sun. Upon returning to Grand Rapids, I released these energies upon an unsuspecting woman named Amy.

Amy is my current girlfriend, and I've ret-conned her into the position of love-of-my-life 1982 to current. After an exciting and passionate summer together and a difficult autumn apart, we rang in the New Year in one another's arms. I don't expect I'll ever need to find a new love. I may be foolish to suggest this after only eight months, but I prefer to see it as bold or courageous, heroic even, but most of all accurate.

Postcard 2010: Blogging

Blogging is not exactly a new concept for me. I used to have a blog about music called Music, Sweet Music, one about food called Corn Like an Angel, a blog about travel called Captain's Blog. I've had many other blogs besides these. It kind of doesn't make any sense to suggest that blogging was a new frontier for me in 2010.

But it kind of does.

It was during 2010 that I really started taking blogging seriously. In previous years I had been the author of narrowly defined blogs with specific purposes. I would be into writing them for a while, but one of two things always happened: I either did not have enough experiences to continue to write (it is hard to write a travel blog when you're stuck in one place without a car), or I simply became bored with that specific topic. 

My friend Elliot always supported what I was doing, but he thought I was spreading myself too thin. Elliot and I had both written for our band's blog Get Stop Ticket. He had also started a blog to showcase his art and music projects and things he was interested in called simply Elliot Mayo. Largely due to Elliot's influence I decided to create one blog to rule them all, and I called it Cavemen Go. That's the blog that you're reading right now.

In order to keep from being redundant, I will direct you to "500th Post / Clip Show", a blog I wrote in November of 2010 to celebrate 500 posts on Cavemen Go. If you're interested in learning more about the history of this blog, all you have to do is click here.

Postcard 2010: PC Gaming

I had been to my share of LAN parties where a network cable was all I needed to connect my computer to a bunch of great friends and play video games for hours. I would spend hours playing video games and then I would go the rest of the year without thinking about starting up Warcraft III: Frozen Throne or Counter-Strike: Source. Meanwhile, good friends like Stephan, Adam and Joe were playing video games all year round. The difference in skill level between me and these other boys was gigantic, and quite often it just made playing certain video games no longer fun.

At the end of 2009, the digital content delivery service known as Steam had its first big post-holidays sale. Interesting games I'd seen friends playing in Stephan's basement were now available for incredibly low prices. I could play the same games that my friends were playing only it would cost me 20 to 40 percent of the price. At the holiday LAN of 2009 I had made up my mind: 2010 would be the year when I went gung ho into PC gaming, and particularly first person shooter. The week prior to 2010 I spent stockpiling fantastic video games for dirt cheap.

While I found myself playing a whole lot of different games, Team Fortress 2, Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, and Left 4 Dead 2 being among my favorites, it was the quirky FPS Borderlands and its brilliantly crafted DLC Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, The Secret Armory of General Knoxx, and Claptrap's New Robot Revolution that made it easy to make good on my promise to get into PC gaming. I could start up the game in Fort Worth, Texas, hook up my head set, and find myself in the company of my good friends Adam (College Station, Texas), Derek (Grand Rapids, Michigan) and Stephan (Corpus Christi, Texas). While gaming, the world that I had known prior to leaving Michigan wasn't all that far away any more.

LANs became different. I could keep up with my friends, both when it comes to computer hardware and game performance. Over Christmas, I played a CS: Source gun game mod with six or seven friends in which I was neck in neck with Joe, who had probably logged more hours of gaming in 2010 then everyone in the room combined. Rather than simply forgetting about PC gaming after the holiday LAN, I found myself trying to deal with difficult gaming quandaries such as which game to play after Borderlands (no good answer yet) and whether to subscribe to DC Universe Online or Star Wars: The Old Republic in 2011 (hopefully both, but at different times).