Your Papers, Please

Well, I got my Canadian working visa. It's valid until the 14th of March 2006, which gives me roughly one more year to explore this part of the world. One more summer of sunshine and travel, one more winter of snowboarding and bearskin underwear. Although it wasn't ever really in doubt (unless they found evidence of my stint as a camel assassin in Lebanon) it's a good feeling to have the actual paperwork complete and stapled into my passport. It means I can go ahead with my upcoming Girls Gone Wild trip to Utah at the end of this month, and more importantly, buy a new computer.

The whole new computer thing is something I've successfully avoided for a number of years now, and it's really begun to chafe. I've existed on digital crumbs with my laptop, but it's just not the same without a tiny god of my very own. There are serious and work-related uses for such a sophisticated and puissant device, but I'm not going to pretend those are at the forefront of my mind right now. I'm proudly and unapologetically thinking about gaming, being a gamer, and games.

I'll admit console gaming is really good fun, but it's designed for a lounge environment with friends over, making nachos and blocking up your toilet. It lacks the intimate, immersive qualities of PC gaming, where the lights are turned out, the phone is unplugged, headphones donned, and entire days are magically annihilated. Hopefully I'll remember to jack out before that hot, painful feeling in my lower abdomen gets to the stage where my bladder explodes, but I'll leave a bucket nearby just in case.