On Eve, Part Two

Over Christmas I finally confronted a minor personal demon of mine and read Jim Rossignol's The Five Year Spree. It, along with my original blog about why it was a personal demon, are required reading for this blog, which I should warn you is little more than a jumbled collection of my thoughts about and reactions to the RPS piece.

It's bloody great, of course, but I didn't ever doubt that it would be a good piece of writing. What was greatest was how much Jim's account resonated and intertwined with my own memories of the game: on a very simple level, this was because our paths crossed a couple of times, but it was also because what he wrote about and the way in which he talked about the Eve experience felt a lot like the sort of account I would (try to) write if the time for doing so wasn't long past.

On Games for Non-Gamers

As many of us realise every Christmas, parents can be very tough to buy presents for, especially the inconsiderate ones with few hobbies and no burning passion for those scented candles/boring chocolates/dodgy shaving sets that we've resorted to in previous years. It was at this familiar impass that my girlfriend and I found ourselves when trying to think up a Christmas present for her Dad.

Remembering a few conversations about computer upgrades and how at one point the family PC used to be used primarily for Quake sessions, as well as the occasions when we've walked in to find her Dad engrossed in a game of Spider Solitaire, I tentatively suggested "why not a game?" and was surprised not be laughed out of the room.

On Blogging

I know I'm with the majority of people on this one, but I've never been able to keep even the few, feeble new year's resolutions I've made in the past, so what I say below is strictly Not One of Those. That said, the start of a fresh year does seem like the time to try and affect positive changes, so here goes.