Redefinitions

… Alright, I guess the first and most important thing I should do here and now is apologize to any of the people that have been checking this site at all in the two months now that I’ve been not posting. While I’m not going to get my hopes up regarding how many people have actually done so, I know for a solid fact that at least one person has. So for those of you that have been checking, I do sincerely apologize for not offering so much as even a quick note saying that posts weren’t coming anytime soon.

I could point to a number of different reasons why this has happened, but since I’m not really in the habit of making excuses, I’ll refrain from that and simply state the obvious: I haven’t been posting. Trying to say “well this is why” feels too much like making pointless excuses to me, so instead I’ll just vow to change my behavior. And that means posting again on this blog. (Although if you want the reasons, I’d be happy to give them; just ask and I’ll explain myself.)

And one of the things I really want to hit on in this return to blogging is my eternal nemesis: scheduling. As you all may have noticed, I’m really bad at planning these things. I would just write posts and put them up when I’d done, but since I tend to do my writing in spurts, I’d end up posting three articles in the space of five hours and then have nothing here for the next two weeks.

That said, though, I believe I will try to just put stuff up here when I finish it and to hell with a regular schedule. I’ll take advantage of the scheduling tools to space posts out if necessary. I’ll probably have no fewer than two or three days in between posts, and no more than two weeks at the absolute maximum, but other than that I’ll post things when I finish them from now on.

I’d also like to take this chance to redefine what I’m doing here with this blog, or at least re-state it. This blog is titled “A Video Gamer’s Perspective” for a reason, namely that I really feel that video games have been a major part of my life. I think that one of my defining labels is that title of “video gamer”, whatever that means, and thus feel it’s perfectly justified to label this blog as the perspective of such a person.

This holds true regardless of what’s caught my attention in any particular post. Sure, I’ll usually try to relate things to video games in some way. But in the end, there are almost as many of my posts with the “anime” label as the “video games” label, and that’s unlikely to change. I’m writing in the end about what I do for fun, which isn’t limited to video games.

And that leads me back around to what I do with this stuff in the first place. I’m not here to break new philosophical ground or come up with life lessons that have never been heard before. What I’m doing with the anime or the games that catch my eye is see what value they have beyond simple entertainment.

I’m not trying to be new and revolutionary with the lessons themselves, but rather where I find them and what reinforces them. I can’t even claim to be revolutionary in claiming that video games have worth; after all, that idea too has been discussed in scholarly articles and books written by those far smarter than myself. All I’m trying to do is explore individual games and see just how much of a waste of time they are.

This blog is on some level a challenge. It’s a challenge to the moral guardians and the religious fundamentalists of the world that refuse to view video games as anything other than a source of moral degradation. It’s a challenge to every parent that’s ever said, “That thing will rot your brain, you know,” to their kid sitting in front of the TV.

So let’s all see just what I get out of video games, or anime, or anything else I do for fun. Let’s see if video games are a moral sinkhole, or a waste of time. That’s what I’m here to do: to show through anecdotes and through my own example how these games are about the farthest thing from a waste of time that I can imagine.  I’ve got a good thirty or so posts on the topic already, and now that it’s summer, I’m in the mood to make that number grow.

Oh, and five days ago, my blog hit it’s one-year anniversary; my first post was on May 2^nd, 2008. Since I kinda didn’t post then, we’ll just mark the occasion now. Let’s get back into exploring the world of an anime-obsessed video game fanatic. Hope you all enjoy the ride.