January 2009 » Adam Bender

I made it to the inauguration of President Barack Obama earlier this week. I’m a Washington, DC resident, so this wasn’t an expensive decision on my part, though I ended up doing a fair amount of walking.

I think "throngs" would be the right word.

My girlfriend and I got silver-section tickets, but that didn’t mean it was easy getting into the mall. We walked miles to find the silver line, and then another mile or two to find the end of that line. The queue, as they call it in England, stretched and snaked around block after block, eventually looping back to a spot quite close to the entrance of the silver section. But then — in an inauguration miracle — an official told us a new gate had been opened, and we entered a mob near the entrance. To make a long story short, we made it, and though we couldn’t see Obama per se, we had a nice view of the Capitol.

Leaving turned out to be nearly as difficult a proposition as getting in. No one bothered to take down any barricades after the event was over, so things ended up looking a lot like an ant farm. Throngs of people pushed their way into dead ends, climbed over fences where possible, and cried out to soldiers for freedom. Good thing we all had hope. Yes we can!

Leave a Comment

Hey, it’s 2009. That’s pretty cool.

I vacationed to St. Michael’s, MD last week and ate fish. I also took a bunch of photos. You can see parts of these pics displayed prominently at the top of every page of this website. Oh, and yes, I did some writing on what hopefully will turn out to be my next novel. Made a lot of good progress; it’s all really starting to come together.

I picked up a couple new video games: Fallout 3 for Xbox 360 and Boom Blox for the Wii. I was intrigued by Fallout 3 because you get to explore a post-apocalyptic Washington, DC. Also, there were ads for the game were plastered all over Metro Center station here in the capital. After a few hours of play, I found the game itself to be just as cool as the premise, though I admit I was a trifle overwhelmed initially. Fallout presents the player with an astonishing amount of choice. And I’m not talking about choosing to beat up a bad guy rather than sneaking around him. I mean, like, choosing to help, rob blind and/or blow up an entire settlement. Usually when I play an adventure game like this, I like to try and do as much as possible — do all the optional side-quests, read all the dialog, etc. But I think I’ve come to terms that there’s no way in hell I can do that in this game.

Boom Blox isn’t nearly as open-ended an experience, as it’s a puzzle game. But its use of the Wii’s motion controls makes it a blast, no pun intended. The game — which was developed by Steven Spielberg — is kind of like a virtual Jenga, except the goal is generally to knock the blocks down, and you can do more than pull blocks (baseball, anyone?). And there’s like 300 challenges, too.

So yeah, if you’re of the gaming set, check them out. If not, well, I’ll try to write about something else next time.

1 Comment

Month: January 2009

Inauguration in Washington

Fish & Video Games

Search