If you couldn’t tell by the lack of content and episodes on the site lately, it’s been a busy few weeks in the world of your friendly neighborhood systems administrator. Between my actual job and finishing my degree, free time is a precious commodity. However, I find myself in something of a rut. Whenever I actually GET free time, I can’t figure out what I want to do with it. I find myself aimlessly bouncing from YouTube video to YouTube video and scrolling through my social networking feeds. Never really contributing, mind you, just lurking, as though all of my friends are having a picnic and rather than take part in the merriment I’m choosing to watch from behind a tree. I can’t explain it, but as I’ve become increasingly aware of it, I’ve thought of ways to overcome it, and yesterday I took the steps necessary to do so. I forced myself to do something I enjoy. 

Has this ever happened to you, LoB faithful? Have you ever had to force yourself to do something you know you love doing? I feel like I had to take more time coming to grips with the concept of it than actually implementing is as a solution. Why should I have to force myself? Why am I not excited about doing something? Why am I not excited about ANYTHING? For me, it was play a video game. Simple. Stupid. Something literally 80% of my friend group does every single day and something I’ve done for twenty-seven of my thirty years on this earth. The difference being, thanks to this unshakeable funk, I don’t think I’ve actually sat down and played a video game in weeks. I played a little bit of the last Iron Banner on Destiny, maybe about an hour or so, but barely made it over Rank 1 and then just stopped. I never finished Skolas for the Moments of Triumph and couldn’t be arsed. Year 2 patch dropped to a resounding one hand clapping from me. That isn’t to say that they didn’t bring extremely positive and sweeping changes to the game that are worth being excited about (in fact, once I sit down with it, it’s getting a full write-up)! I just can’t bring myself to let out anything more than, “K” in response to it all. Well, no fucking more!

It’s at this point where I found myself in a world of options I’d forgotten I even had. Good options, too! First up: a completely sealed copy of Batman: Arkham Knight that I bought after we recorded episode 30 in fucking JULY and still haven’t opened yet.

Ooo, look at that plastic wrap shimmer.

What the hell is wrong with me? Game receives rave reviews, literally everyone I know who has played it tells me I need to, and what do I do? Keep it in the goddamn plastic wrap. You’d have thought with that in mind that the choice would have been clear and that sucker would have been popped into my PS4 without a second thought. I’d be soaring over Gotham and curing the Batmobile’s controls just like the rest of my friends were back in early July. You’d think that, but you’d be wrong. It went back on the shelf.

Second on the list: Witcher 3! If, “everyone” were the unit of measure for people who told me to play Batman, “everyone and their fucking mother” would be the unit of measure for the amount of people who told me to play Witcher 3. I even pre-ordered it from Best Buy for the snazzy case!

Everything about this is metal, from the case to the art. \m/

Countless, literally COUNTLESS hours of amazing gameplay awaited me and my mind reeled at the idea of continuing a story that I absolutely loved so many years ago in Witcher 2. A game that received damn-near perfect scores and a game I went out of my way to pay for before it dropped. Even more of a no-brainer than Batman, right? I’d have to be a balls-out imbecile not to have played this yesterday. Well, this balls-out imbecile put it right back on the shelf with Batman. What. The. FUCK.

Finally, I arrived at a game that I hadn’t played, but at the same time I had dumped countless hours in: Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. A game that received mediocre reviews upon its initial release due to a lack of varied content and gameplay from its predecessors. “More of the same” was a prevalent theme in the reviews, as well as the general consensus. It should have gone back on the shelf. I should have been Witchering or Batmaning or other made up verbs to describe the act of experiencing anything other than Borderlands, but instead I found myself controlling a Claptrap while I played in the same house with a fresh coat of paint. And I loved every second of it.

It was exactly what I needed. I needed something familiar. Something comfortable. As much as I love having the experience of a new game or a new story, Borderlands was exactly what I needed to pull myself out of my rut. It provided the safety of a similar experience that I knew I would absolutely love while still giving me a great jumping-off point for getting back to my old self again. Don’t get me wrong: I AM going to play Batman and Witcher. As soon as I finish being a FR4G-TP robot.

How about you kids? You ever get a similar feeling? Let me know in the comments section and/or the Facebook page! Until next time, #keephopealive!

-Mike