John Zeitler

Today did not start out well at all… those of you who follow the Twitter feed knew that I had run into some trouble last night. Something I ate, naturally, which was not at all happy about the matter and wanted out the emergency exit, so to speak. Given that I had been sick last week as well, I figured it was the best time to take a trip to a medical professional… who said I was just dehydrated, that the cold was nothing serious nor was it related to the nausea, and that I should be fine with an IV. I asked if I could just drink even more gatorade than I already was in lieu of getting stuck with needles, and that seemed to be an acceptable answer.

They also sent me away with a prescription for an anti-nausea drug. It wasn’t one I had heard of before, but apparently medical insurance does more than just irritate me: the ten pills prescribed would have cost me $25. EACH. So I didn’t get it filled because, well, I don’t have $250 to throw away on ten pills that were prescribed “as a precaution”.

Anyway, after a nap, some light dinner, and lots and lots of gatorade (it’s a good thing I got many flavors that I like, otherwise it would get really nasty after a while), I felt good enough to play around with Street Fighter IV for a while. 2-D games are a blessing for the ill gamer; the absence of a first-person perspective cuts down the chance for motion sickness. However, the sheer frustration of SF4 induces another medical condition: high blood pressure. Why didn’t I give up when Sagat managed to get three Perfect rounds off against me in a row? Well, a) I hate Sagat, b) it was the farthest I’ve ever gotten on Medium, so I felt committed to it, c) I really hate Sagat, d) there was an achievement in it for me if I finished Arcade Mode on Medium or higher, and e) I mentioned that I hate Sagat, right? So yeah. I wound up subjecting myself to more frustration than was really necessary– and then some, because after I beat Seth (the cheapest bastard EVER) I figured it would be another easy ten points to go online and get my first win there. Yeah, that wound up being another half an hour as I got my ass handed to me by nearly everyone… but in the end, by golly, I did get that coveted W.

Now that I have the irritation out of the way, I can play the game to have fun again, by dropping the difficulty down to Easy and just cutting loose. It can be easy to forget that games are supposed to be fun, but in all honesty if we lose sight of that, then it’s time to consider taking a break from gaming. In my case, it’s not the first time I found myself at an impasse with gaming– I got back into fighters (twice) because I was overdosed on RPGs, so I’ve learned the value of switching things up every once in a while… Speaking of that, I really should get back to Eat Lead later this week.

Anyway, for now, good night, all… hopefully tomorrow I’ll post good news without any new complications cropping up.