A monument to sedentary pursuits!

I mean, when the thing
happened? I know, right?

What do you mean where have I been? I have a life you know. It's not like I sit around all day thinking about video games and Star Trek and then blogging about them. Ok, I do do that, and we seriously need to talk about the Disco season finale, but as it happens I was back in my home town for a few days. If I know you and you live there and I didn't look you up, just know that it was long story and there really wasn't time to hang out and look, it's not like you ever come out to California to visit me...oh, you would?

That's...that's great. Uh, sure. You can stay at my place...for how long did you say? I see. That long huh? C-cool...Well, I uh...What's that? Sure, I can come get you at the airport. Can't wait...see you soon.

The futon is all yours. Well, not this futon.
This futon is way nicer. I wish I had this futon.

Above: the sky.

So like I was saying, I was there and it had been four years since my last visit. Where? As I've mentioned before, I'm from Rochester, NY. It's nice. I mean, I packed up and moved out west almost ten years ago in part because I'm pretty sure the nearly perpetually overcast skies were giving me a vitamin D deficiency, but really, it's a great place to live. Again, if you can get past the seasonal affective disorder. Everywhere has its drawbacks. I live on an active fault line now.

Oh, and unlike some other geographic regions I could mention, rent is affordable there. I've even heard that some people actually own their homes. Can you believe it?

"Um, no. No we can't believe it."

-everyone in the Bay Area

Pictured: Gerald Ford's Breakout
machine. What? He tripped...

Oh, and just to make sure I felt actual pangs of regret getting on the plane, Rochester is also home to-huh? My family? Oh, right, my family. But also the Video Game Hall of Fame. It's not so much a hall as it is a museum with rooms full of old arcade machines and a collection of historically important video games. Well, historically important for video games that is, they don't have Gerald Ford's Breakout machine or anything, but they do have a giant, playable NES controller (it's not great in practice) and an excellent exhibit about Women in Gaming, so if you somehow find yourself in Rochester, do check it out.

Above: Literal garbage.

Oh, and they also had some of the smashed Atari cartridges that documentary crew dug up in New Mexico which, if you're not a video game fan is probably just a lucite case full of literal garbage, but still, I found it interesting. Weirdly, I don't think the city is actually associated with video games as a thing, but then what does Cleveland have to do with rock? Nothing, that's what. And besides, if anyone can fully appreciate an indoor activity like gaming, it would be a town that averages a hundred inches of snow per year. Yes, these truly are my people.

Anyway, to answer the question I pretended you asked, that's where I've been. I'm home now, exhausted, but once again absorbing vitamin D in a town without a single museum devoted to my favorite sedentary past time.

No, video games, but living in constant fear of the rent
increase that will force me out of the area is a close second.