Vintage video games and romantic comedies

For the last couple of weeks or so, the two of these have become my primary choice of interest and have occupied my free time. I have always been a sucker for a romantic comedy, and it's definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. When defining my type of humor, cheesy, corny, and awkward all rank right at the top of my list. And these types of movies certainly have all of these elements in play. Together, my roommates and I have adopted a new tradition of movie night, and I honestly can't remember the last time the movie on movie night has not been a romantic comedy, or RC's as we like to call them. If you believe watching these types of movies is un-manly, you couldn't be any farther than accurate, and you neglect to see the comedic potential that can be derived from them. Honestly what's funnier than the brother-sister switch in The Family Stone or the panties-on-the head-move pulled off in Serendipity. You can't top that. Conventional thinking suggests that males shouldn't watch these kind of movies, but if watching RC's is wrong then I don't want to be right. There's definitely are things that warrant surrendering your man-card, like playing Guitar Hero (and I'll get back to that later), but a harmless romantic movie shouldn't be considered on this list. Not one that includes sappy but adorable story plots, or the uncomfortable yet funny situations that exist between two people who are falling for each other, or the exaggerated moments that make you hard pressed to believe that Kate Beckinsale's mitten throwing precision is really that exceptional. There's nothing wrong with this guilty pleasure and simply put: Real men watch RC's.

Switching gears, I do have to admit that I'm gradually transitioning to the period of my life where I would rather read a book than play video games. It took me until Senior year in college to finally reach this point, but I'm there. I'm generally disinterested in most of today's video games, but as of recently I have taken an interest in some of the vintage ones. When taking a look at some of the greatest video games, or VG's as my buddy Fuxa likes to call them, without question the Bond for N64 is the gold standard. There has never, nor will there every be, a greater video game. Getting all 4 of my roommates together and playing on multi-player mode brings back old memories. Most notably ones of steering my bike with one hand, and holding my 64 controller with the other hand, riding over to a friend's house to play the neighborhood kids. I'm also often ridiculed for being a Sega instead of a Super Nintendo guy back in the day, which I'm not sure if you know this is but back in the day is a Wednesday by the way (Copyright Dane Cook), but I had to get a Sega so I could trade games with kids on the block. Other great games of my era included in VG immortality are Super Mario 3, Zombies at my Neighbors, and Road Rash 3. I think what made these games great were that they were so simplistic, I don't think the advanced game-play of today is really enhancing the product. Nobody wants to have to read a strategy guide or an instructional book for a half hour just to figures out how to play it. That creates work, and people play video games as a release for work, but maybe that's just the way I view it. The one game who's popularity I can't comprehend is Guitar Hero. Why? And that thing that bothers me the most about it is that people actually think there skill would translate into them being a good musician. All Guitar Hero fans really need to watch the latest episode of South Park, because that holds my exact opinion of it. That's it for now catch you next time.