Christmas Happened Last Year

Shortly after my wife and I started dating, I learned that she, too, had a hyper-nostalgic video gaming love: Donkey Kong 64 on her green Nintendo 64. She never beat it, but she got all the way to the end with those doors where you have to have collected a bunch of crap in the game (bananas, crowns, fairies, coins, whatever) but she didn't have an item she needed and she didn't have the internet back then (poor child) so she just never got it and that was the end of it. 

Moving forward in time, she didn't have the N64 anymore but she would still mention it from time to time. And from "time to time" I mean like once a month she would say something like, "Man, I used to just put on my [um...early 2000's cd...something like Blink 182] CD and just play Dr. Mario on endless for hours." Or, "I can't believe I never beat Donkey Kong for the 64. I loved that game. My whole family played!".

So guess what I decided to get her for Christmas this year. That's right! I got her a jungle green Nintendo 64 off eBay! I of course also got all of the requisite accessories: DK64 game, extra controller, rumble pak, memory expansion pak. Plus a copy of Dr. Mario 64 (because she loved that too) and The New Tetris (because Dr. Mario is horrible and Tetris is way better). I considered picking up Super Smash Bros, but I was already over budget and SSB is like $60 for some reason. It didn't even cost that much when it was new!

Anyway, start polishing up that #1 Awesome Husband award, because I was on the fast track to getting it. I didn't receive my gift epiphany until pretty late this year (about a week before Christmas) because I was in crunch time at work and was working like 60+ a week, day and night, so I was anxiously checking my phone several times a day waiting for packages to be delivered. And they were slowly trickling in. 

Three days before Christmas, it was all here.Green Nintendo with matching controller and expansion pak? Check. Games? Check. Rumbles? Check.

But then it occurred to me. What happened to Aubrey's old Nintendo? I was pretty sure it broke or her little brother sold it or something, but I didn't know for sure.... I decided to ask Aubrey's Mom to make sure it wasn't still just laying around her house or something. She said she hadn't seen it in years and was pretty sure it was gone. Then I decided to just ask Aubrey. 

We were cooking dinner and I said, "Hey, whatever happened to your old Nintendo? It would be pretty awesome to play Donkey Kong at Christmas."  

She replied, "OH MY GOSH that would be awesome! We'll have to dig it out when we're down there!".

"Are you sure it's there? I thought your brother sold it."

"Did he?? He better not have! It wasn't his to sell!"

"Well if it's still at your parents and no one's using it, why wouldn't we have it?"

"That's a good question, we should probably take it. We're the only ones that would use it."

"Are you sure your brother didn't sell it? I really thought he did."

"He sold all of his PlayStation games at some point, but I don't really know why."

None of this made me feel any better, so we decided she would check for it the next time she went to her parents' house.

Suspenseful story short, it totally was still there in a drawer under the tv in her parents' living room. It was all there, just as it had been! Just a little dustier. 

Crap.

On Christmas Eve Eve (get it?), I decided it was only fair that I tell Aubrey what happened. I spent like $150 on a bunch of stuff that she already had. She picked me up from work (at 9pm) and with utter defeat in my voice I told her there was something I needed to tell her. Apparently she thought I was going to say I was fired or that I had to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day because she was still ECSTATIC about the gift!! She's a totally sentimental sucker so she wasn't disappointed at all! 

Now we have two Nintendo 64's and all the fixin's and we've been playing through DK64 together. Still an awesome freaking game. Also, we sometimes break out into a chorus of the Monkey Rap when we're cooking or driving or whatever. It doesn't hold up.

What are you most nostalgic game playing memories? Do you have a game that you just get an itch to play on a certain day? 

  

Streaming again!

Get this, I've streamed SC2 twice in two days! BOOYAH!!!

It's been a very busy few months, and my company is in crunch time for CES still (I worked ~70 hours last week), so I haven't had much time for uninterrupted gaming. But I should be getting back into it in the next few weeks. Maybe I'll even make it into Gold league in Starcraft. How exciting would that be? I played several games as Terran because I like their music so much. But I sucked at it and started BM'ing people when they started to do offensive GG's. Rude! Sticking with dat Protoss!

To make things official, HBA: Live is no longer a regular feature on the stream. I'll probably be sticking to esport games. like Starcraft, Hearthstone, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. Spoiler alert, I'm not actually very good at any of them, and I've not been inclined to drop a few hundred bucks on the new set of cards in Hearthstone. Either way, I'll probably just be streaming whatever I'm feeling like at the time, and try not to drop games because I have to go change a diaper or rescue my wife for copious amounts of infant vomit. At least not too many.

On a sidenote, Heroes of the Storm just isn't that fun yet. I want to spend money every time I open it up, but I have no desire to play it. I know that's totally random, but it just doesn't do it for me. I played yesterday on stream and I just didn't have any fun. DOTA is still my go to MOBA game. Sorry Blizz.