Through my daily perusal of the Internets, I came across a rather interesting Flash game at Mazapan. In Metro Rules of Conduct, the objective is to use the arrow keys to “look” at interesting things on the subway such as mp3 players, scarves, cell phones, and ties…without having anyone make eye contact and see you.
Created as a tongue in cheek response to the anti-social behavior that occurs on the Stockholm Metro, I’m sure that any public transit commuter can empathize with the awkwardness experienced when a busy subway forces you to sit next to a stranger or the almost instinctual action of looking around at interesting things like reading magazines or books over someone’s shoulder or sneaking a peek at someone playing on their hand-held video game.
I think the game is a hilarious commentary on what we all (well maybe it’s just me) do in mass transit wherein it appears making eye contact is truly an act similar to that of death. I had flashbacks of the TTC from my Toronto days…though it may do me well to start playing this in light of my impending vacation back home.
University and Beyond
There’s not much to mention about my video gaming life in University. Now in Halifax, I couldn’t very well bring up all my systems (especially in my little dorm room). I had a PS2 that fulfilled my needs throughout my Bachelor of Commerce and it did the trick. A lot of my first year could easily be divided into the 3 games played after dinner. The Star Wars: Battlefront months, the Super Smash Bros. Melee months, and the DotA months. By 4th year (having moved into an apartment after 1st year), I had managed to slowly bring my TG 16 and (what was now my) Atari 2600 from Toronto. I now had a multi-tap and 3 controllers for the TG 16 and played Bomberman just about any time there were more than 3 people in the apartment. There was a time Keith and I logged about 5 hours of consecutive Bomberman time during the Summer of 3rd year. With the advent of Rock Band, it was not long before Bomberman was replaced as the de facto multiplayer game of the household.
Having realized that my dream (and as far as I’m concerned, the dream of anyone who played video games as a child) of being a video game guy (read: designer) wasn’t going to happen, I figured I needed to prepare for a career in something else. Not sure what to do, I decided to go into my next interest, Commerce, and bank on the fact that everything has a business aspect to it. The theory being that I could find my way into the company I wanted to work for by entering through the business side. Progressing through academics, extra curriculars, and internships, I learned more about what I didn’t want to do, than what I wanted to do. My favourite business-related activities at the time were brainstorming entrepreneurial and business ideas with friends, but without any solid and respectable experience to back it up, I’d have a tough time being a new-grad consultant.
Upon graduation, I headed back to Toronto with the hopes of finding work. As a graduation gift for myself, I purchased an Xbox360 (which I also have no attachment to), After a few possible prospects drying up, a standing offer from an Investment and Insurance firm to work as an adviser (read: salesman), a standing offer to work as an equity day trader, I came across a job posting for a Nova Scotian game company, HB-Studios. Realizing that this was once my dream, I applied to the position of Game Designer. I was incredibly impressed with the company’s portfolio, what was being said about them, their facilities, and was eager to remain in Nova Scotia. After completing the company Game Designer test and going through a phone interview (I was still in Toronto), I was lucky enough to be invited back for an in person interview at the studio. It’s now been 4 months and I love having the opportunity to brainstorm, problem solve, and create. There’s still lots to learn, but I’m up to the task. And my TurboGrafX-16? It’s still close by, hooked up to the TV at my desk.
Of course I’m not talking about. A.J., but his wife Karen Burnett. With The Blue Jay Hunter already confirming that she is a fox, the more attractive Burnett will be sadly missed. While her husband’s contract entitled her to 8 limo trips from Baltimore to Toronto a season, it’ll be interesting to see if the New York signing had more to do with location than the dollar signs.
Though I’m totally speculating, I would say whatever her career may be, it’ll likely be furthered with the glitz and glamor of NYC as opposed to Baltimore. If she’s staying in Baltimore, a move to New York will be a lot easier a commute by going from the 9 hour drive to Toronto to a 3 hour drive to New York.
Oh and by the way, here’s an interesting Facebook profile for members, and even more interesting public profile (complete with friends, service, product, and political fandom). It appears she’s a big fan of Obama, partying, and Mark Finkenstaedt Photography. Refresh the public profile and the friends list changes to reveal even more friends and family of the Burnett clan. Such wonderful information is publicly available on the Internet.
It’s not to say that A.J. was a horrible pitcher, but he never lived up to his potential in Toronto, he seemed like he hated being here, and he was constantly injured. Though I think the Jays would be a better team with A.J., I don’t think he would’ve stayed for a price that made sense. With the Yankees paying him $82.5 million over 5 years, I think there’s a lot of room for downside given his injury prone past. Baseball Think Factory has an interesting quick projection on his stats for next season and I personally think that performance can be achieved at a lower price. They also interestingly note that Burnett has been unable to have a season as good as even an “Average” Mike Mussina season.
I think the Jays have a nice stable of young guns in their system and can put together a competitive team without Burnett, but with injuries having already taken their toll on the Jays’ rotation, the Jays will need to come up with something this off-season…unless they just plan to write this one off (a likely situation).
The Later Earlier Years
It was around this time our family upgraded from our old DOS PC to a system capable of running a Windows OS. Not just any Windows OS…Windows 95. I was ballin’ now. Playing Demo CDs pilfered from my uncle’s library, being introduced to the wonders of the Maxis Sim games, making shortcuts of everything so I could change the icons, I was in heaven. I could now properly play LucasArts and the Dune adventure games on my home computer and not have to exercise extreme amounts of patience in playing bit by bit whenever I was at my uncle’s. I must’ve played (at least the demo) of nearly everything that was out around that time. Fond memories of that first video card upgrade my dad got for it that allowed me to run my newly purchased Spycraft (by Activision).
It was also around this time that Andrew and I used to go over to my place after school and watch It’s Alive! every day and check to see if the entries we sent in for their daily Panasonic 3DO drawing had any success. We never won…but hey…the shows were good. Maybe it was for the better too as looking back on it, I don’t know why we were so enthralled. Maybe it was the cut scenes or Road Rash…but I’m glad we avoided that pitfall.
After saving up enough money, I scoured every week’s Buy and Sell magazine after my dad finished with them. Eventually, I found a guy selling the Nintendo 64, 4 controllers, a memory card, a rumble pack, and 5 games (Mario 64, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, WCW vs. nWo: World Tour, Goldeneye, Mario Kart 64) for $350. Being in love with Fighting Force for the Playstation, it was a tough choice to go to the N64, but one I do not regret at all. Goldeneye soon became my game of choice and I spent a lot of time totally owning my friends. After that, I decided to give World Tour a try, only to have it totally rope me into following wrestling until about Grade 10. By the end of the N64′s life span, I owned every WCW wrestling game (unfortunately including Mayhem…so bad) and WWF: No Mercy. My verdict? Every wrestling game AKI/THQ made for the 64 was pure gold. I can probably trace my religious following of pro wrestling to the beginning and ending of the span of AKI/THQ wrestling games.
After having played the N64 for quite some time past its “death”, I was lucky enough to have my entire family pitch together to get me a PS2. Honestly, it was a great system, and I had a lot of great times with it, but it really didn’t give me the warm fuzzies and amazing memories of my other systems. I was in high school now and it seemed like there were way more important things going on than video games. It’s not that I didn’t play the system very often (believe me I did…being able to play Time Crisis from my bed was amazing), but reflecting upon my time with the system doesn’t evoke the same nostalgia that I get from my other video game memories. The PS2 (and every system after that) just seemed like a machine that played games. As such, I don’t really have any special memories of the system other than I’ve gotten a LOT of play time out of it, still playing to this day. The only real emotion I think I can get out of it is that it followed me through high school, university, and as a recent graduate, always reliable for a good time.
Part 1: The Early Years
