Crazy Week...

The last week has been really crazy. Not really sure why...it's not like the work load was any heavier than normal, but it all just seemed to happen so quickly...I don't know, I was sure glad when Friday came around for sure.

Anyway, it's the weekend so no need to ramble on about work...on to more exiting things. Not sure if I've mentioned this before but there are two charities that are very near and dear to me, they are Child's Play and The Charlottesville Toy Lift. Both charities are geared towards kids. Child's Play was started by Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade as a way to raise money so children in hospitals can have games to take their minds off of their pain and sickness and try and bring some happiness to kids, if only for a short while. This one is important to me for two reasons...first...I'm a gamer. Too often gamers are looked upon as shut-in's or people who only care about themselves and their games...this goes out to prove that gamers do care about trying to help people the best way we know. The second reason is the main reason the charity was started in the first place. A few years ago the media really started pounding on games (such as GTA, Doom, Unreal, etc.) as super violent and the only things these games were leading to was teaching children that it's OK to kill. In response to the this, the Penny Arcade guys started Child's Play. This allowed the media to see what games are really for, an escape. A machine that allows an escape from the world and have some fun.

There is a point this whole rant. There are these 3 guys and they decided the best way they could help Child's Play was to play Mario all weekend long...hince Mario Marathon was born. This is the second year they've been doing it and as of this posting they have about 11,300 bucks already raised. Their goals is around 12,000 bucks and they still have one whole day to play...I think they'll make the goal. Anyway, you should totally check it out, they're streaming live for the entire time they're playing.

The other charity, that I mentioned previously is Toy Lift. I actually volunteered last year with this group and it was a great time and a great cause for kids. If you get a chance you should check it out and if you're in the Charlottesville area, the Toy lift is going to be taking place this year on Friday December 4th...I know it's a crazy long ways away, but since I know I'll be volunteering again this year, I'm sure I'll be writing way more about this later.

As far as gaming goes, not much new. Been playing as much Brood Wars as I can, trying to get ready for the WCG tournament at the end of July and other than that, been playing a lot of TF2 (of course.) It's really strange, usually I can only play a game for a few months before becoming totally board with it, but for some reason TF2 has managed to stay fresh with all of the updates, so it still stays at the top of list of games to play.

Ok, that's gonna be about it from me. Sorry about the ranting on and on about charities in this one, we'll return to a normally scheduled blogging program next time.

~C