Yeah ok, so the title is cheap and retarded but it is 8am here in the cold north, and I am still working through my first cup o' joe.  Say "Hi" Joe...   

So any who, who the hell am I, and why the hell did I take the time to write up this silly little blog?  Well I am a gamer at heart like everyone else on this site along with being a father of two budding gamers, ages 9 and 1.  My taste in gaming ranges from pushing metal across a table, tossing dice to controllers and the destruction of all digital dragons. I guess I should explain a bit about my gaming past and what has lead me to be so content with my gaming life as it is now.  

My gaming life started out much like a lot of people's with the a simple piece of paper, some funny shaped dice and a Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition Players Guide.  A friend of mine introduced me to the wilds of role playing when I was 13 years old.   Now I had been role playing long before I ever got a "group" to play with, looking back at the times I spent in my room with my little G.I. Joe guys, the scenarios I would dream up in my head, then played out in my minds eye as I danced the little figures around, making them respond to encounters I set up.    So naturally when it came time to sit down with others, and play  D&D it was easy for me to slip into a character and play out the story line.   I have watched my oldest son sit and play with his toys and chuckle as he quietly plays out his own stories and encounters with his Legos or Star Wars figures and I smile trying hard to follow the movements of the figures and work out his story.  

Now role playing was good, when it was good, but life can always get in the way, and when high school was over so was role playing.  People moved on, grow up, or just lose intrest.   While D&D opened my eyes to role playing, the Nintendo System opened my eyes to video gaming.   Now if you have no idea what cartage blowing, flip top, 8bit console I am talking about then stop reading, open a new tab and google it.  Go ahead...  I will wait...  

You back?  Good, so now you know what I am talking about.  Mario can claim another video game cherry, cause he was my first.  Sigh...<3  I remember the first time I heard that crazy 8bit soundtrack, I can remember involuntarily bouncing my arms as I make Mario jump around the screen, as if the act of me moving would make the little sprite move faster or jump higher.  I still remember the day my sister and I convinced my mom to try the game.  It was beyond funny to watch her try to work her hand - eye coordination to just do something as simple as make Mario move forward across the screen.  Sadly she gave up after fifteen minutes of frustration, me and my sister got a nice laugh either way.  

Looking back video gaming was so simple and easy back then.  Games were viewed by cover art and back of the box descriptions about the story lines.  Everything was broken down into Nintendo games, or PC games, or Sega games.  First Person Shooters were "on rail" laugh fests and RPG's were epic games of story and characters.  Sure some of them sucked harder then a Detroit prostitute in the back seat of a car, but it was still a video game and that at times was enough to make it just cool.  

Yeah I know I sound like the old man on the porch. "IN MY DAY!  we didn't have fancy save files and extra lives, when you died in a video game, the cartage would melt down! 50 miles!! in the snow!! up hill both ways!!!"   But this argument is for another blog, back to my thoughts on this one.  Gaming for me started much like many other gamers, D&D paved the way in my mind for becoming a character and Nintendo took me beyond dice and paper.  

It is funny that as much as those two things are alike, dice and video games,  how easily they pulled my attention into two distinctly different gaming directions.  Dice pulled me into the world of Miniature gaming and video games into MMO's.  

To think that they guy that dragged me to my first role playing game was the same guy to push a funny looking plastic, painted model into my hands and taught me how to play miniature gaming.    

Space Marines and Orks, Thousands of little tiny blue plastic figures, each carrying a black and chrome SMG and looking tough as hell!  “Wait...I have to paint all of them?!”   Yep he failed to mention that part after I bought an almost complete space marine army.  

So I painted, and glued and painted some more...  I never really got into the game of Warhammer 40K, I liked it well enough but tactically I always fell short of the mark.  I played for a year or two off and on, but just never got the hang of it.  Sadly I loved the universe and storylines, just not the game.  

But Warhammer 40K was a gate way drug to a new type of gaming, new friends and new experiences.  One of these new friends would show me a game, called Warmachine by Privateer Press.   

Warmachine was game that was smaller in scale and setting, a fantasy steam-punk game where powerful magic users would command giant metal steam driven war machines (see what i did there!) into battle.  

I instantly fell in love with the game, the setting and the characters.  I loved the game so much I started helping out the local organizer with setting up events, tournaments and leagues.  this lead to becoming an official volunteer for the company and sadly my biggest mistake.    The pressure of being an organizer was great, drama ran deep with my gaming group and after two years of hard work and labor I watched as it all fell apart because people could not get over themselves and just play the game.  

So I drifted away, back to the saftey of video games, online and not, where a world I had long ignored had grown by leaps and bounds....

Tomorrow I will post up my journey into video gaming, along with my quiet return to Warmachine...

Happy Gaming!