Dolphin by night, UGA student by afternoon, and asleep by mid-morning, I blog when I have time (read: quite often). This is my first pseudo-journalistic job after a slew of not-so-satisfying occupations (private music instructor, elitist bookstore employee, squirrel).Originally, I was a Mathematics major on the verge of finishing the degree. One problem: I hate numbers. In later courses, numbers were replaced by paragraphs of proofs. I decided to go back to my first love, and she told me to shut up and get a journalism degree. So that's what I'm trying to do.
- First game experience: Before I spawned, my mom and dad used to play Pac-Man together in arcades. Of course, Anno Rossini (that's Latin for "In the year of the Rosco"), I stole my aunt's Atari 2600 and thoroughly played Pitfall and E.T.
- Games that changed me: Bubble Bobble taught me how to maintain a well-balanced diet; Grim Fandango and Rez taught me the joys of idol worship (I'm praying at you, Tim Schafer and Tetsuya Mizuguchi); Fallout was just plain cool; Half-Life taught me to look four ways before passing through a corridor; Smash Bros. taught me valuable button-mashing and time-wasting skills; Starcraft taught me how to multi-task in a high-intensity environment, thus increasing my reasoning skills and overall work efficiency.
- Potential sources of bias and conflicts of interests: Aforementioned idolatry aside, I briefly did consulting work on the Nintendo Wii. As I don't really have much knowledge in the realm of MMOs, I primarily stick to console and portable gaming. I generally suffer from sequel-itis, and I have a hard time deciding whether or not to judge a sequel on its own merits or as an extension to a franchise (in this regard, I've usually given Nintendo a little more slack than the others). But admittance is the first step, so I've got 11 to go.
- Why I'm blogging about games: To me, blogging is another level on the journalism hierarchy, albeit a very low one -- and, obviously, it has its strengths and weaknesses (in blogging's infant state, the weaknesses tend to shine brighter). I wanted to get my feet wet and slowly learn the ropes -- editorializing, analysis, interviewing and PR communications.
When I was a kid, one of my biggest dreams was to attend E3 (don't laugh ... loudly). I got my chance in May; it was bittersweet, but it's not why I stuck around. I like blogging as a means to get my toes wet, either in the games industry or the field of journalism.
