Unwinnable

Something strange happened when I moved back to the United States after a two-year teaching stint in South Korea: I started listening to sports talk radio. I rarely ever did this. Specifically, though, I wanted to listen to people talk about the worst, most depressing team in the city: the Detroit Lions.

During this period in October of 2012, the Tigers were gearing up for a run to the World Series, there were high hopes for both Michigan and Michigan State football teams and the Lions were, of course, losing. Considering this is a team that’s been awful for pretty much my entire life, I was as surprised as anyone that I actually turned on a radio to seek out people distraught over their latest underwhelming performance. (more…)

Today’s kids probably won’t remember whether they first played Angry Birds on their parents’ smartphones in the grocery line or Halo on their older cousins’ XBox, but I’m just old enough to remember a time before the ubiquity of gaming consoles and just young enough to have never played on a Nintendo 64 without feeling all retro about it. I remember my first videogame. And I remember when my love of gaming first started. Funny thing is, there were a few years between the two. (more…)