Gotta start somewhere/sometime

The title says it all... whether the subject is blogging, gaming, or life in general.  It covers a wiiiiiide swath.

Blogging, because I've been putting way too much thought into how I should start off.  On the one hand there's the "blogging is important, so make a 'splash' with yours" mentality.  On the other hand, there's the "blogging is just another outlet for all sorts of meaningless crap that wouldn't otherwise see the light of day" (my wife concurs as she watches over my shoulder).  So... on with the meaningless crap!

Life in general, because my wife and I waited before having children.  Our first daughter was born in Sept. 2003... I'm 43 now... you do the math.  We've since added another daughter to the mix (May 2006).  That's our limit.  I can't help but feel that we absolutely did the right thing because our marriage and home life are stronger now than they ever were.  I just know that I would've been much more stressed w/parenting had we gone for it in our 20s or early 30s.  We recognized that we were too selfish with our time to add kids.  Sometimes waiting works out just fine.   Also finally got off my lazy @ss and am starting to  lose weight.  Joined up w/MJ's weight loss group (I'm on Pearly's team).  7lbs so far!

Which leads to gaming... now that my girls are able to amuse themselves a little more, and things have calmed down (relatively speaking) since we moved into our new house in August, I've been able to return to my gaming hobby.  Bought a used PS2 last year just to play Guitar Hero (and GH2, and GH: Encore 80's, and GHIII ).  Soft-modded my original XBOX (XMBC is freekin' sweet), and also have the Independence exploit on the PS2 (I've got a chubby ).  Those are great, and the girls dig my Guitar Hero skills (mostly because the SG controller bears a resemblance to Murray's red guitar).  But the gaming platform that's been causing my insomnia for the past couple of months is my PC.  In particular The Orange Box.  I'd played Half-Life back in the day, but pretty much had been away from PC gaming for the past 4 years.  So I had not played HL2, much less HL2:E1.  So I gathered up my partially used Best Buy gift cards and picked it up.  Amazing value, as countless others have already shouted.  I've been able to join some terrific matches on the 2O2P TF2 server.  Even grew a big enough set to try out voice communication (and I didn't make a complete ass of myself!).  But as good as all of the Orange Box is, it's Portal that outshines the other stuff like a supernova.  It's absolutely f'in brilliant.  I don't care that it's "short"... since when should that be a criteria for value??  The advanced maps are insidious.  There is only upside to this game.  I mean, I cannot remember that I've EVER giggled like a schoolgirl at the completion of a game.  I had to go back to my quicksave about 6 times in a row to relive the magic.  So if you haven't played Portal, you're just lame.  Seriously.

I've got plenty more meaningless crap to share with everyone, so stay tuned!

Rick