Gifted

Yesterday I broke open the gift-giving for my boss, who received a "Golf Ball Monogrammer" (or somesuch), which equates to Evan Didn't Really Have A Lot of Cash To Spend But Hopes You Like This. (Last year was decidedly cooler, as I got him Metallica's Some Kind of Monster DVD).

Anyway, he tells me he has my gift as well. After the prefunctory "You didn't have to do that" he hands me no less than a $50 EBGames/GameStop gift card! Woohoo!

So of course the first place I go after work is the mall, trying to decide just how my electronic entertainment is going to head in the next few weeks.

Before I continue, a fact I left out of the recent moving story: When transporting my electronics, I opened up my Gamecube to find...frosting inside. Or something that looked like frosting, I'm not sure which is worse. It's gunked and caked up in there, looking decidedly difficult to remove.

Which, of course, made me quickly furious. But misbehaving children can't really be punished at this point, as the statute of limitations has come and gone and the offenders may not be around any longer (i.e. the kids Ericka once babysat).

So now I've got a frosting-filled Gamecube and what game shines lovingly from behind the EB Games counter? Zelda: Twilight Princess of course. Having just premiered on the GC, I lust after it but know that, ultimately, I can't put my hopes on my frosting-cleaning abilities.

So I go for the next best thing: Final Fantasy XII. This game has been hyped and re-hyped (then taken out of its shell, lightly breaded, and hyped again), so I figured it was worth the purchase.

Coming home, I find a few truths about gaming with kids:

A) It's damn near impossible.

B) The violence is almost always too much. My babies don't need to see swords plunging into evil characters, no matter how cool it looks. Annie has taken to quickly hiding her eyes now at the first sign of video game violence, even if said violence is reduced to spark animations after the cutscenes.

C) RPGs take way too long.

Hell, I could barely make it out of the intro before I was getting antsy. Maybe I lost my patience with these games or something? Either way, I had to watch about 15 minutes of backstory to finally "do" something in the game.

Geek Aside: And of course, being a Final Fantasy game they start you with a moderately cool character, who will ultimately be shunned for your "real" character later on. Now this hasn't happened, as I only got about 30 minutes in before I had to quit, but that's my guess based on previous FF experience.

Now, the funny part of this story is not that gaming is difficult around kids, or that I got a nice present from the bossman.

No, the funny part comes when my friend Jordan throws me his present and I greedily rip it open.

I peel back the paper slowly, enjoying the moment.

I see...system specs. Then I see where it says "1 Player." Then I realize it's a PS2 game.

Jordan mentioned earlier how it was going to be awkward opening his gift. I now realized why.

He had bought me Final Fantasy XII!

I thanked him profusely for his generosity (can't ever say I got crappy friends) and plan on taking it back today...

...for Zelda: Twilight Princess...

...if, of course, I rid my Gamecube of the frosting inside it. That's being worked on via my wife as we speak.

Fingers crossed.

And though you're broken and defeated
Your weary widow marches on