Where the Hell have I been?

Did you ever get super psyched to start a new hobby? You go out and buy all of the stuff that goes with it because you are damn sure this is going to be your thing for-e-ver? Then when it’s time to actually get to work on the thing, you dabble for like ten minutes and then go back to rewatching New Girl?

I’m proud to say that this is not the case with CGC….mostly. I have every intention of making this website a thing. I wrote my first few posts and then about a week or so later I had to start packing my stuff because I was moving (again) and then I travelled for a bit and…well let’s break it down.

The Move
For those that don’t know, every year since I turned 35, I’ve moved to new places because of work. While it’s been a great journey so far, and I’ve been able to live in some genuinely fantastic places, I haven’t been able to call a place “home.” This time however, I stayed in the same area, just to a nicer place. I also signed a two-year lease and told my boss that I don’t want to leave the Midwest for a good long while. I’m honestly pretty relieved that I don’t have to pack my shit again this time next year.

If you tuned into my Twitch streams at any point over the past few weeks, you’ll have checked out the new place. That kitchen is 90% of the reason I got this place. I mean, look at it.

Just ignore the giant ladder there. ;)

The photo alone is enough to make me want to head over to my kitchen and cook something.

I’m also pretty proud of how this little corner turned out.

So between unboxing everything, setting up the statues, putting up the art, and all the other little shit you have to deal with when you’re moving, I just didn’t have a lot of time to just sit and write.

And then there was all the travel.

All the Travel
Every year I go to PAX East for a little R&R and this was, without a doubt, one of the best experiences I’ve had at a con. Part of that has to do with Square Enix showing up and having a Battle Challenge event. If you don’t play Final Fantasy XIV, a Battle Challenge is when folks go up against one of the game's bosses and if you win, you get a sweet ass t-shirt. It took about two hours of circling around the event waiting for the line to open up for new players, and then another two hours of standing in said line but I got through it.

And you gotta admit, that is a sweet ass t-shirt.

The rest of PAX was pretty much what you expect if you’ve been to a large gaming con. There were tons of indie game studios trying to promote their debut title, a few major studios like Larian Studios, craft vendors, and those weird collectible box things that cost $60 and contains like a mug, some stickers and a bunch of random shit you’ll never use.

I did notice a lot of the major PAX staples like Devolver Digital, Intel, and Discord didn’t show up. My guess is that because the Game Developer’s Conference was going on earlier in the week, some of these companies just decided to attend one thing. That may be why next year’s PAX was moved to the summer.

I also didn’t attend nearly as many panels as I did in previous years. Normally, you see some deep dive discussions from fans on their favorite games, some YouTubers or Twitch streamers talking about their experiences, and just random silliness. All of that was still there but this year’s offerings were few and far between.

So with fewer companies on the expo hall and fewer panels, what made this PAX so amazing? It was the amazing people I got to hang out with. When I go to cons, I usually go solo. I may run into folks from time to time but for the most part I’m by myself. PAX 2024 was spent mostly with friends I’ve made on Twitch. Even though it was the first time we all met in person, it felt like we’ve been lifelong friends. For a shy guy like myself, having experiences like that is pretty rare so this PAX will have a special place in my heart.

Total side note, Ore Ida potatoes was there promoting some new instant potato cup and you could sit on a giant potato throne. I’m not sure why they did this and if anyone actually enjoyed their instant potatoes but it was weird as hell.

What part of this image screams “You know what this event needs? Microwaved potatoes”

The rest of my travels were all work related but were still pretty great. When I was in LA, I managed to sneak off for a quick trip to Downtown Disney and got myself a lightsaber.

Be-a-utiful

The Cold from Hell

I don’t normally get sick. At worst, I get a cold for a day or two, and then I bounce back. Maybe between the move, travel, the changing seasons, but I got hit with what was the worst cold I’ve had in ages. I had to cancel a couple of streams and spent way more time in bed than I expected. Needless to say, I just didn’t have it in me to sit down and just write stuff. At the time of this post, I’m two weeks into the cold and I finally feel like 99% better. I’m pretty sure the Midwest is actively trying to end me with it’s pollen and ice.

It took about two hours of circling around the event waiting for the line to open up for new players, and then another two hours of standing in said line but I got through it.

So What Now?

With all of the trips behind me, my apartment where I want it to be, feeling better, and having some more down time to just live, I want to get back into writing on a regular basis. As I’ve mentioned before, the goal is to write something at least once a week but I also want to give myself some grace to miss a week from time to time.

What I will say is now that things have settled, you’ll be seeing a lot more CGC stuff. Thanks for sticking around!

Finding a Copy of Fire Emblem: Three Houses Was a Contemplative Trip

Over the course of my career, I’ve moved around a lot. From the ages of 35 to 40, I’ve moved at least once a year. I think it’s done me a lot of good as it’s helped me figure out what kind of cities I enjoy living in, like Irvine, and which ones I would hope I never end up in again, like all of Virginia.

As of this article, I’m currently living just outside of the Twin Cities. This isn’t the first time I’ve lived here though. I did my graduate work up here back in my early 20s and outside of a couple of brief layovers, I haven’t been back since. As far as I was concerned, my time up here ended the moment I got my degree. And I mean that literally as the moment my graduation ceremony was over, I packed up my shit and went back home.

Now here I am, back living in the area as a 40-year-old geek. Within the next two months, I’ll be moving closer to the Twin Cities itself and I’m kind of excited for it. I’ve been back to Minneapolis a couple of times to have dinner and go to a concert, but I really didn’t drive past any of my old stomping grounds.

Fast forward to today. I was watching a friend of mine, QueenChanleen, play Fire Emblem: Three Houses and despite insanely long backlog of games that I want to play through, something in me said “you must buy this today.” Luckily I found a Best Buy that had 2 copies left. So I get cleaned up and make my trek to pick up Three Houses. What I didn’t expect was that to get to my game, I would end up driving through Minneapolis, more specifically, past my school, my old apartment, and a metric ton of buildings that I must have driven by a million times when I was younger.

Suddenly all of those memories started flooding back. I remembered driving up to my first apartment and meeting my roommate, my first time seeing snow, and just these flashes of my time up here. I don’t often get too nostalgic, but I couldn’t help it. Minneapolis has this very old vibe to it, and I got really sentimental seeing how little has changed. There were of course some changes; I’d be disappointed if a city hadn’t done shit in a decade and half. I saw some new buildings that weren’t there before, and I saw some renovated into something completely new, likely the result of the pandemic or economy. It felt like coming home after being away for an eternity.

Anyway, I make it to the Best Buy, pick up my copy of Fire Emblem and grab an early dinner.

Total side tangent: I had heard for years that Portillo’s is this “end all, be all” experience. Maybe it was an off day for them but Jesus Chroist that was a salty mess of a meal. I was legit excited to try that place out and it was really disappointing. Even their famous Chocolate Cake Shake was mid at best. If someone has a recommended meal from there, let me know but the Italian sandwich, fries, and cheese sauce were a hard pass for me.

So after I ate, I started driving back home and again, I was hit with a wave of memories. Driving past the school, I passed the exit I used to take to get back to my old place and a part of me almost took that ramp. It was at this point that the contemplation started to kick in. Grad school was the first time that I had lived away from my Mom and the safety net that comes with it. Again, fast forward to present day and I'm on my own, without the safety net of my immediate family, and (thankfully) doing much better than I was in my twenties. A lot of that has to do with therapy and focusing on self improvement, so I'd like to think younger me would be excited with who I became. I still have a way to go emotionally but at the same time, are we ever really done evolving?

After about an hour of driving and a twenty minute break to eat, I finally get home, game in hand…except I bought the wrong goddamn game.

I know the titles are different but c'mon. Three Houses, Three Hopes. I hop back online, and find a GameStop half an hour away that has one copy left. After taking a very deep breath, I head back out into the Minnesota cold to claim my game.

This time I end up driving past the Mall of America and another forgotten memory comes back. After I got accepted to my grad program, I came up for a campus visit. My cousin who has lived up here for a couple of years at this point, picked me up from the airport and the Mall was where we stopped for lunch. Later that night she would take me snow tubing for the first, and only, time. Snow tubing is plenty fun until you hit a hill wrong and launch your ass 10 feet away from it and land face first into hard snow. The next morning I showed up to campus looking like I got into a bar fight. Thank Cthulhu there are no pictures of that trip.

I eventually make my way to the GameStop and find out that it was next to a comic book store that I used to drive past every once in a while. I had no real memories of going in, but the very basic “Comics" sign on the marquee stuck out.

On the way back home, again, I remembered that before I even moved here, I had worked at GameStop and asked my District Manager if he could ask his Minneapolis counterpart if there was a transfer opportunity. My DM said he checked and there wasn't but when I did eventually get here, I happened to meet the guy he said he reached out to. Turns out that there was no outreach and there were some openings. Thankfully I was living off my student loans and didn't need the job at the time. I was surprised that even after all these years, I still remember the frustration of realizing my old DM lied to me. If there is a silver lining, the experience was a reminder of the type of leader that I never wanted to be. It's one thing to not do something, but another to lie about it. Years later, I would realize that dishonesty is a major trigger for me to disassociate with someone but that's for my therapist and I to work through.

So, after 2 hours of driving, a substandard dinner, and a lot of memories, I finally made it back home, correct game in hand. I didn't expect this trip to be so impactful but I'm glad it turned out the way it did. I’m trying to think if there is a morale to this story and if there is one, it’s to never stop working on yourself. You might be surprised how much progress you make in 15 years.