I'm paraphrasing, but once upon a time a wise-ish man said "Only the jobless will have enough time to play all of 2007's great new games!" Well the onslaught has barely begun and I shall emphatically declare said statement untrue. My 360 and I have been working overtime through two runs of the pretty-much-what-I-expected-it-to-be Halo 3 (once on normal difficulty by myself, a second co-op playthrough on legendary with World Famous Ben Coello), a second completion (yes, all of it) of the always-addictive Puzzle Quest, and a too-brief evening with the Portals, yet the games keep coming!

Sprinkled throughout all of this, I have been inching my way through BioShock. The combination of a beautiful environment that demands study of every nook, cranny, and object with haunting sound, creepy lighting tricks, and an abundance of needle usage... let's just say that game is taking me forever. I would like to blame this crawl of time on my desire to explore through and gaze upon every corner of Rapture, but I'll admit to pausing the game for twenty minutes here and there for a much-needed cooling down period. That game makes me tense, like all the time!

I'll get through it soon, though, I have to. November's looming and a whole mess of games (and birthday presents) are coming with it. I'm almost upset that Call of Duty 4 is getting here first. Coello and I spent over 24 hours each just playing the beta, how will we ever put down the retail version? And horror of horrors, what will happen when I get a job?

In case anybody is curious on that front, although Wikipedia thinks I'm a media consultant, in reality I have had some interviews with various interesting (and interested) employers, with more scheduled for the days ahead. Weekend before last, in fact, I found myself surrounded by cameras and lights once again - completely on accident! Fellow New Englanders will recognize the above title of this entry as the slogan for the legendary chain of retail majesty known as the Christmas Tree Shops. I think the best way to describe the CTS would be a regional amalgam of Target, Pier 1, and those specialty decoration stores that show up during various holidays - yet in this case open year-round. Or in a word: Awesome.

For as long as I can remember, New England television has been home to an unchanging formula of Christmas Tree Shops commercials: Cameras follow customers around a store as they candidly shop. The customers share their amazement over how cheap everything is, and after thirty seconds somebody says "Don't You Just Love a Bargain!" Watch this, then imagine my special lady and me in place of the women shown, with picture frames and clothes hangers instead of cast iron birds and porch laundry baskets.

It was a bizarre experience, and I have no idea if we'll even make the final cut. One can only hope? We were plenty fun and enthusiastic throughout, but slightly underdressed. The funniest part of the whole experience was when I tried telling the on-scene producers that I had been on camera several times before. "Some stuff on the internet," I explained. They just laughed like I was joking. Or five years old. Oh well.

I've got to get back to BioShock (so I can finally have time for the rest of the Orange Box), but I'll keep you posted on my job status/budding commercial career. Maybe next time I'll tell you the story about how it might be my fault that Jack Black is starring in Tim Schafer/Double Fine's new game (I apologize for nothing), or share a list of movies that I finally started to like after seeing them on TV for the 300th time (quick preview: the new Star Warses are still trash)!

Go Sox!

Rich