D-Rocks Pop Culture Pagoda

For those that know me, this next bit of information is redundant, but for those that don’t… I’m a gamer! Not a “hard core” gamer like so many n00b pwning, head shot firing pimply faced teens like to declare themselves, but I am a gamer. I’ve been playing games since I was 6ish and I’m 33 now, so yeah I’ve played my fair share. I haven’t played everything, mind you, but I have played a bit.

Video games have come a long way since their inception. From a blip bouncing between paddles on the table top console at the pizza parlor to HDR lighting and hi-def graphics blurring across the plasma screens in living rooms, games have found themselves part of our culture’s fabric. With more and more people playing online games through their web browsers and countless people purchasing consoles for them and their children, video games are hard to miss. The industry brings in billions a year and midnight releases of games like GTA or Halo sell millions in the matter of hours. Horrible movies are based upon video games, and Saturday morning cartoons provide 30 minute animated commercials for them along the lines of He-Man, GI Joe and Transformers did back in the 80s. With that all being said, I can’t figure out why video games are still seen by the mainstream as a “kids passtime” or the last bastion of pimply faced basement dwellers that surface for Mountain Dew and the freshly microwaved Hot Pockets that Mom made.

I’m not proposing something as stupid as marching for gamer rights, but I’d appreciate some sort of recognition that isn’t condescending. I’m an adult, I have a job, I’m happily married, and I play games. In fact, my wife and I both play games. We grew up with Atari and Nintendo and have just never given up the time killing fun that video games provide. Give us our dignity dammit! I can’t wait until the Nintendo generation is running things… well, at least someone that grew up with Mario is running things. So many damn gamers are slackers. Er wait, dammit! I can’t even take us seriously because the people that tend to represent the culture are either testosterone fueled frat boys or World of Warcraft gear grinding basement freaks. It is sad. It is sad when someone that is proudly from the video game playing population is equally ashamed of it. Self loathing at its best.

What would make me feel better about my gaming? Well how about for starters news outlets stop using sensational headlines and poor article writing when it is referencing video games. I’m tired of reading “Gamers kill each other” and the story is actually about meth addicts that killed each other and one of them owned an XBox 360. Quit portraying us in such a bad light.

How about all those people that declare games worthless but secretly waste hours at work popping ballons on Pogo.com? Quit acting so high and mighty and embrace that which you are… a gamer.

The stereotypes that give gamers a bad name, don’t think I forgot about you. Put down the controller for an hour, log off for a change and act like a productive member of society. If I see another “gamer” representing the culture on TV like they just crawled out from under a rock I’ll scream. If I hear about someone else getting stabbed waiting in line to get the midnight launch of anything I’ll probably blow a gasket.

Maybe I’m just being selfish, but for once I don’t want my Christmas list to be looked at like a 13 year old’s wet dream. I just want to play games and have people spare me their judgement. That judgement could be so much better used on Alaskan Governors. Thank you very much.

This week’s game releases you should check out:

• Lego Batman (All Platforms)
• Brothers In Arms: Hell’s Highway (XBox 360, PS3, PC)
• Samba De Amigo (Wii)
• Wario Land: Shake It (Wii)
• Kirby: Super Star Ultra (DS)
  

And finally, here’s a video to make you smile or grimmace, depending on how much you like to drum on Rock Band 2

The Sunday tradition of sitting and watching football games that I could care less about has come and almost gone yet again. I am a die hard Chicago Bears fan but I find myself watching games involving Cowboys, Packers, Colts, Jaguars, and Favres because fantasy football is an inescapable vice of mine. Fantasy football (that I will refer to as FF from here on out) is an amazing thing. It takes football fans and makes them know the names of third string receivers on teams three time zones away, but more amazingly it takes people that know nothing about football, could generally care less about football and transforms them into know nothing fans that start spouting off because Ronnie Brown stumbled accidentally into the end zone three times today. It is amazing!

The phenomenon of FF is a multi-million dollar business of statistcal tracking and Monday morning braggadoccio. I remember a simpler time when the conversations used to be about how [insert hometown coach] should have gone for it or [insert overpaid/hyped hometown QB] is a bum and how [insert overweight, out of shape coworker] had a better arm. Now chumps are debating the cover two usage versus the cover four simply because they heard John Madden mumble something about it while drawing pretty pictures on the screen. I love my sports and I pride myself in my knowledge of them, but nothing irks the shit out of me more than a debate with someone who only knows the players on their fantasy teams, or the inane musings of whoever as they repeat Dan Dierdorf… does Dierdorf still do games? I’m not really sure, but the crap that I hear could only come from said dufus.

What’s amazing as well, and it has nothing to do with FF, but when a national “favorite” baseball team such as the Yankees, Red Sox, or Cubs does something well, and everyone that has watched WGN or ESPN for a microsecond immediately becomes a fan and acts as if they were a fan their entire life. This is the time of year for every Cubs fan to come out of the woodwork as they approach their 101st year of not winning a World Series. Wouldn’t that be something? 101 years without a World Series… think about that statistic for just a second. 101 years! There are likely more people that have been born and died Cubs fans that never saw a World Series victory than there are alive right now that have the potential of witnessing something moderately historic.

God have mercy on all of our souls though if the Cubs do pull off the miracle this year. You thought the Red Sox winning was bad, you have no idea what it will be like if the 2008 Chicago Cubs actually do something. There will be so many “life long” Cubs fans running around acting like assholes that there will be no place safe for sane people. We will be chastized for not being Cubs fans and reminded how the Cubs are the “greatest” team ever! One year of winning does not a dynasty make, but one year of winning this year will armaggedon make. Russia will undoubtedly unload the nukes with the help of Iran if the Cubs win. Rivers will run red with the blood of infidels if the Cubs win. The earth will open up and swallow us all… if the Cubs win. So lets hope and pray the Cubbies don’t win.

So anyways, back to topic my FF team sucked ass this week and what’s the deal with Brian Westbrook? C’mon! Well better luck next week. Until then I’ll have to listen to the ramblings of far better sports fans than myself.

Hello everyone. This is D-Rock and welcome to my inaugural post here at Today.com. The times they are a changin’ and I was finding myself a little left behind. Not quite the left behind as the repentant ascend towards heaven and the sinners such as myself are left on Earth to rot, but you get the gist.

It seems that everyone and their grandmothers… including my grandmother… had a blog. Chatting up their most intimate details, commenting about something so absurd attempting to  mask their half wit commentary as  profound thought, or just stealing other people’s blogs trying to make money off of Google. It is one of those cultural phenomenon that, frankly, I didn’t want to try to muster up a fake answer when my grandkids ask me what my blog was about.

So, here’s the dilly, scoop, low down on the hoe down as to what’s going to be taking place around here. Every day I will blog about something relevant to pop culture, and the topic will be based upon the day. Granted there might be the off chance that something so amazingly awesome happens on a day not slotted for that sort of blog that I will deviate, but I’m going to try to keep this regular. A strict regimine of blogging about stuff. I love stuff.

So here’s the schedule:

• Monday - Video Games
• Tuesday - Music
• Wednesday - Comics
• Thursday - TV
• Friday - Movies
• Weekend - up for grabs… free for all… probably politics or celebrities

So sit back and relax because the ride is going to be monumental…ly stupid, but hopefully entertaining. Ah blogging…. where have you been my whole life?

Before I leave you, I want to share this video with you… ah yesteryear… my favorite kind of year