I Miss My Husband's Gamer Rants

K is off at the exclusive, industry-only video game conference E3 this week, which is the first time he's ever been away for more than 24 hours since Dexter was born. Though I consider myself to be a pretty independent woman, I'm seriously missing my gamer husband right now. Just having a second pair of hands to love on kiddo, even if it's just holding him for a little while before bedtime, is a huge blessing. (To all you single moms out there, I don't know how you do it!) Communication between us has been sporadic, but I've been sending him daily pics such as this one:

K thinks it's hilarious that our baby sleeps with his butt in the air, just like whenever Castlevania's Simon Belmont  bites the dust.

In return, he sent me this shot from E3 – a booth for the upcoming 2014 reboot of Thief (one of K's all-time favorite stealth games based in a Victorian steampunk world).

As with all reboots, I hope it lives up to the name!

Missing K reminds me of this article that Vicki referenced from The Escapist called The Perfect Non-Gamer Girl. The writer/gamer talks about how his then-girlfriend-now-wife is a talented musician who will probably never be into video games, but they respect each other's hobbies. In fact, because she isn't a gamer, she has a unique, fresh perspective on the commonplace assumptions that gamers and game designers make. Here's an excerpt:

Danielle isn't interested in playing games, so I know our relationship will never carry over to a multiplayer server somewhere, just like she knows that I'll likely never be a talented enough musician to for a jazz duo... We do, however, talk about games a lot. Like any good partners, we want to know what each other are up to. I'll ask how her work and Yoga classes are going, and she shows an interest in what I'm playing. She reads my column with pleasure. Though she's never played BioShock or Call of Duty, we'll discuss the controversies surrounding them over pasta. She's brilliant at it. Most of the time she crafts better arguments and makes better points than half the game journalists I know, because unburdened by the culture, history and prejudices of gaming, she asks different questions than they would and draws different conclusions.

::Sniff sniff:: So romantic! And it totally reminds me of the way K loves to discuss various gaming-related subjects – such as next-gen consoles or crazy stories from being a game developer – and many of them make it to this blog. I really need to download a smartphone app for recording our conversations because he usually brings up the most interesting topics while we're driving around on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Anyway, sorry for the massive spider webbing with today's blog post. I honestly couldn't do this blog without my husband's insights and copy editing powers. Will let you know if he comes back with anything interesting from E3!