True; I have enjoyed playing Paper Mario, Golden Sun, Pokemon and at least watching a friend play Super Mario RPG back in the day to some extent for the more relaxed gameplay style. Unfortunately, I still suck at the combat and feel like I'm mostly just guessing, unless it's Pokemon, but I do enjoy just visiting people and towns in these games.
I'm freelance, so any days I don't get a call I have off, unfortunately. I'm hoping this blank text message from work's cellphone I got yesterday doesn't mean anything... hmm...Thanks for the birthday wish though!
I suck at geography as well, actually 
but I could show you where most of the U.S. states are located on a U.S. map and where all the continents reside at least. Howver, if you said to find a specific Middle Eastern country, or one with a not-obvious shape (obvious shape example: Italy's "boot") I might be kind of screwed. lol
I'm glad you liked Good Natured especially, I was really hoping people would hear that one. It's also cool to know someone else had those tubes! lol We didn't have them in music class, but we sure had fun with them at home. Lil Jon has made so much money just saying "yeah!" and "ok" but I like a lot of songs he's on anyway. lol
I very rarely played the game either, and watched the cartoon more than anything (also a game show I'm now unsure was titled exactly what I thought it was...)
Thanks for the birthday wish and song!
That's pretty much all I remember too, I just remember the actual look of the game show I watched being different. Maybe the version I watched was also called Where in TIME is Carmen Sandiego, like the cartoon, and that's why I'm not finding it?
I forgot about that, I wonder if my brother still has his.
Great blog! I have almost no interest in JRPGs in general, but by focusing on the dream aspect and tying it in to your personal experiences and the question of why we game, I was hooked from the start.
I also liked the comparison to a complex math problem, as I think that might be why I always sucked at turn-based games so much: I was used to action games, and factoring a much lower amount of equations; my reflexes were more important than my brainpower in many games I played, and I was always far better at English than Math or Science.
I miss getting a Nintendo Power every once in a while, and seeing the fan mail and artwork. Good times.
I always just played with regular controllers and never had any issues, but I guess it would be nice to take home the arcade experience; I laughed at your knife and trial and error bit, sounded a bit like a cartoon character fixing something the cheapest way possible. lol But hey, it worked!
I agree, movies and a couple local Cici's are the only places (well, I guess bowling alleys, and there's a gaming portion of a mall I think is still functional closer to downtown) to really play arcade games any more, I loved playing Time Crisis with its often out of order "hide pedal" and all as a kid. lol
I also had a cap gun or two that looked like a revolver, those things were addictive to shoot; believe it or not it was orange casings my ammo came in. I think they might just have made the GunCon look that way cause that's how they looked in the arcade, at least from my memory; there was always a blue and orange (red, maybe?) to discern P1 and P2.
Wasn't huge on "Bolt Cutter," but Dessa sounds awesome. Surprising how effective simple clapping can be behind those vocals. The blond that comes in towards the end isn't bad, either. Thanks for sharing!
The Redbox "scam" I ran into today was just that one of their kiosks wasn't working. Luckily, there was one right up the street. lol
It's funny you mention playing with your girlfriend, cause the voice actress for Lara said her boyfriend played and sucked at the game on an interview she did on Conan. lol I guess we do take for granted that other people might not be as familiar with gaming tropes like lock-on targeting and QTEs.
Don't know much about Wayforward, but after that DuckTales trailer, wouldn't mind a Mega Man from them.
