Natalie Does Nerdy

So I was going to write about my practicum today and about how I finally decided on a lesson plan to teach to the high school drawing class that I'm semi-student teaching in. (I'm going to teach them about drawing a still life with charcoal - one of my FAVORITE things to do.)

But then I talked to Prince Charming and he was all like, "Noooooooo, write about Monster Hunter!"

And I told him, "But games are your thing. And you do it so much better than I do."

And he was like, "Fiiiiiine. Don't do something DIFFERENT!"

And then well really, what could I do? He made a clearly logical point.

So, without further adieu, let me clue you in to just how nerdy this future art teacher can be.

I like video games. It's true. I enjoy wasting a couple hours advancing my hand eye coordination with the best of them. And that's part of why Prince Charming likes me so much. I can be very nerdy. I can make obscure game references in every day conversation.

Like during summer camp when we had the kids participate in a water balloon fight. We had to put a rope on the ground around the huge bucket where the water balloons were so that the kids would stop "spawn killing" each other.

Yeah, I'm awesome. I know.

Anyway, back to where I was going with this whole I'm a huge nerdy video game lover thing. When I first met Prince Charming and started hanging out with him, it was mostly in context of being surrounded by the lot of his friends in a basement while they all played Monster Hunter on their PSPs.

It was a ritual for them. Slay a giant monster that wants to eat your guts and smash your brains, break for food/bathroom, repeat. A beautiful process that they had narrowed down to a science. It all happened so smoothly. Transitioning from one quest to another, to eventually a real life quest towards the kitchen for noms.

It didn't take long for me to be sucked into Prince's world of Monster Hunting. He bought me my own PSP and copy of the game. Soon I was dodging electric bolts from Khezus and trying not be paralyzed by Vespoids. And I was so proud of myself the first time I killed and Yian Kut Ku without any help from my G ranked boy buddies.

Unfortunately, Prince's PSP decided that it didn't want to read the disc anymore, so he could no longer play Monster Hunter with me while we were away at school. And then, inevitably, my own PSP committed video game suicide. The solution was to mod the PSP and I'm not all fancy shmancy in terms of telling you basically what that entails, but it puts the PSP to an older setting. It puts you back to an older update setting, so you can't play games that require the new update, but Prince could still play Monster Hunter, so that was really all that mattered. Oh. And it also involves something with a Pandora battery or something of some such things with which I am not familiar. But it sounds cool, so...yeah.

We're still waiting for my PSP to received the gift of being modded, but that has yet to happen.

In the mean time, Prince Charming has commandeered Jack's Wii so that we may feast upon the beauty that is Monster Hunter Tri. This has given me this question - do I now buy my own Wii so that I may too play Monster Hunter?

The thing about this is that Monster Hunter Tri allows two players to enter a monster slaying arena and play together on the same console - hence I don't need my own to play with Princey. Also, it doesn't play DVDs or Blu-rays like the PS3 does. The PS3 lives in Prince's room, so therefore no DVD watching for me in my room unless it's on my laptop. And not to mention that it doesn't even come with an Ethernet port. It's about 16 dollars I think to buy the USB Ethernet port for the Wii. Which is stupid.

But my nerdy inner soul is going through Monster Hunter withdrawals, and so this purchase could be potentially exciting. And I do love me some Wii sports. I just don't know if I love it all 120 dollars worth, plus whatever Monster Hunter costs.

And also, I don't want to lose all my progress from my PSP and start completely over in this new version of Monster Hunter. Mostly, I don't like change and I want my familiar monster slaying abilities back.

Thus concludes my rant of video gaming nerdiness. Secretly you know you liked it.

If You Don't Do Anything Else, Click My Links

It's not often where I shamelessly pimp a blog for you. Actually I don't know if I've ever done that - minus giving awards to other bloggers and raving about their awesome pages.

But today, today it is different. You see, I've been meaning to write a post on this for a little while, and with a recent competition and the chance of winning a Wii thrown in the mix, I figure now's a good a time as any to direct your attention to the man in my life, Prince Charming.

You see, Prince-y is almost as artistic as I am. (He's actually a really talented artist. Don't let me fool you.) He also loves his video games. So he heard about this contest for one of his all time favorite games Monster Hunter! 

This game started out for the PlayStation consoles and the PlayStation Portable. Prince and his friends used to sit around in a basement and play for HOURS upon HOURS. Now they're making a new Monster Hunter game, but this time it's for the Wii.

However, we don't have a Wii. 

[Enter Contest stage right.]

People created works of art to channel their inner Monster Hunter and Prince Charming created this gem: 

But you see, now we need your help. He needs you to go here and vote for "Matthew" so we can win a Wii and the new game Monster Hunter Tri. 

He's shamelessly asking people to go and vote and wondered if I could tell you all about it since I'm more popular in blog world than he is. So here I am, also shamelessly asking you to GO HERE and vote for him!!

(He will love you forever and ever and ever but not in a creepy way if you vote for him!)

Also, if you would be so kind as to hop on over to his blog and check him out. Prince-y likes to write game reviews, but there are some very funny stories mixed in occasionally, and also some updates on his virtual art. The poor boy only has four followers, and they all are IRL friends who aren't really interested in video games.

So, if you like video games or know someone else who likes video games then please please please for the love of all hand eye coordination Go. Check. Him. Out! And VOTE!

Pretty, pretty please, with sugar on top?


Update**


Prince didn't win. Actually, the guy who took first was the only professional artist to enter a contest clearly full of amateurs. Oh well - such is fate. We're sad, but dealing, lol.