Wednesday, April 2, 2014

I Need More Time to Read

I have been really neglecting things here lately, and besides reading that Ken Levine is "winding down" Irrational and moving ahead with a smaller team, I've hardly kept up with gaming news. I only knew because I follow him on Twitter. Whatever time I have I usually spend improving my blogs, drawing knives, tweeting, or writing about The Blacklist - the incredible James Spader series, not the Splinter Cell entry I'm playing right now, though I really like the game so far. Of course. It's Splinter Cell.

I still get my beloved magazines Game Informer and EGM. Yeah, sadly, it's down to two, but that's all I have time to read. Even then I have hardly looked at them in the past year. I spend way too much time on everything else and have none left over. When I play games (a few times a week) I will write down thoughts about them. I've been doing so since I started L.A. Noire last summer. I vowed to do something with this site, but my original plan years ago had changed and then I didn't know what I wanted. So I kept that diary, but then I hardly did anything with it. The Blacklist and other favorite shows, like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Almost Human, always took precedence. Well, not today. I finished a long Blacklist post yesterday and I have no current worries about anything with a deadline. Got a bunch of things done this week that have been hanging over my head, like insurance.

So now I have a moment to at least get one idea across here. It's about gaming magazines. I am going to be really sad when physical magazines go away completely. It's really the only way I find time for gaming (or entertainment) news. I just don't read them online. I'll read the random article now and then, but I never sit for an hour or two at my PC and read an entire magazine. Just doesn't work for me. If I'm on my computer, I'm working, writing blog posts, making GIFs, etc. If I'm reading articles, it's for research. The only time I relax is while reading a book or a magazine (even while watching TV I'm usually doing something else, unless it's a favorite show) and I can't do that staring at a computer screen. I love feeling the pages in my hand, smelling the paper.

I started writing this because I recently finally forced myself to spend some time away from the iPad and spend it with the magazines I always forgo for more pressing things. When I opened it I got an instant contented feeling that this was always how it was and how it should be. The smell brought back memories (admittedly always near the surface) of hilarious sessions of Bumper Hogs (smacking the crap out of Halo's Warthogs to see how high they could fly into the air) with my brother and a flash of nostalgia that reminded me of when I was younger and gaming magazines were my most prized possession...after my plastic Voltron with the missing yellow lion.

Speaking of magazines as a prized possession, they can be yours, too. I don't have room anymore and I can't throw them away. I'll keep a few of my favorites, like a beautiful issue of Game Informer with Dead Space on the cover. But you can buy most of my other back issues of Official Xbox Magazine, Official Playstation Magazine, Next Gen, Play, Game Informer, Nintendo Power, Computer Gaming World, GamePro and more at eBay. I have hundreds. Just don't tell me if you're going to make papier-mache out of them or throw them into a bonfire. I couldn't handle that.

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