My college roommates and I aren’t close anymore, though I’d certainly still consider them friends – we just all have families and jobs and live scattered all over the world. It’s been over 20 years since we lived together, after all. But this picture briefly reminded me of my old college roommate, the one I was in a band with, so I’ll share this story.
I was working with my roommate at a tech company in Houston. We were both survivors of the Houston Independent Music Scene of the 90s and there was a lot of musical talent at that company; I was on my way out of that for a variety of reasons. But he gave me a copy of Jeff Buckley’s “Grace” and said, I think you’d really like this. I nodded politely, took the CD, and said I’d listen to it.
I did, kinda. I listened to the first track and was like ehhhh not really my thing because ‘my thing’ was Metal of all shapes and sizes. I wasn’t a musical omnivore, I was a musical snob. (I was in my 20s, arrogant and ignorant are pretty much part of the job description.) So I shelved it and said it was nice.
Fast forward about 10 years later. I was … I want to say I was engaged but not yet married? Certainly I wasn’t living in Texas anymore, I was living with my future wife, but we didn’t have any kids yet. And for some reason – probably the OC – I went back and listened to that CD. And was promptly blown away by how good it was. There are some amazing tracks there.
So I wrote my roommate and said, listen, I’m sorry that this is like 8 years too late but I’ve only really now appreciated how nice of a gift that was, thank you. And he wrote back and said, no worries man, I’m glad you liked it, you always take your time in discovering things. And that’s okay.
About two years ago, folks told me that I would really love Guild Wars 2; it resolved a lot of my gameplay problems with That Other MMO and had a lot to offer. And it had great fashion systems in it too – dyes AND transmog, laid out in a far more sensible way.
So as I was taking the picture of my Guardian above, I briefly thought of “Grace” and how it took me a while to get to it, too.
So to those folks who recommended I try GW2 YEARS ago – thanks. You were right, I do like it, it’s a nice game. I might not ever approach a game like That Other MMO, but I do enjoy this one and it’s done a lot of things right.
And to all you folks out there who are currently enjoying the heck out of Wildstar?
Hold your horses, cupcakes. I’ll be there when I can.