I/O

Oh ho. Blogging. Yes... I remember blogging.

Between writing new posts and compiling old posts for the upcoming book collection, last week was spent in preparation for the celebration of this blog's birthday. On top of that, I was continuing to assemble footage for the Mega Man bonus videos I've been periodically releasing since the completion of my run of Mega Man 4. (I'll make a formal announcement about these bonus videos once they're all finished, but in the meantime you can watch for them out on my YouTube channel.)

The point here is that all my free time toward the end of last week was spent in geek output. With the exception of a few rounds of Mario Party 5, there was very little geek input.

In fact, I'm finding that more and more of my free time is dedicated to geek output these days--expressing my geeky self through creative endeavors such as blogging, working on YouTube-related things, and writing video game reviews. That's all fine with me because I love being creative, but until this week I hadn't realized how much I've been missing geek input.

From Saturday up until last night, virtually all of my geek activities were input-oriented rather than output-oriented. My, how the tables have turned.

There are three reasons for this: I wanted a respite from creative output because I had done a lot of blog work at the end of last week; my part-time job suddenly became a full-time 8-to-5 job for this entire week, leaving me somewhat drained at the end of the day; and I started coming down with a gross cold this past weekend that has kept me from doing any audio commentary for the Mega Man videos and has put a serious damper on my enthusiasm for geek output.

For the first time in a long time, I've let go of the intangible deadlines for my videos and reviews.

I read through all of Alex's trade paperback of Moon Knight (the one written by Charlie Huston) in one sitting.

I started reading Robin: A Hero Reborn, which I picked up during The Great Comic Shop Expedition of '09, which, in retrospect, really does count as geek input for last week.

I watched the sci-fi movie Logan's Run for the first time, and I rewatched The Naked Gun, a comedy that I know I had seen before but somehow couldn't quote a single line from it; this is probably some kind of movie sin.

I caught up on the GameCola YouTube videos of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time, which I had been slowly watching over my lunch breaks.

I went back to playing Final Fantasy VIII and have vowed to finish it so that I can start playing any one of the games in my backlog, every one of which I am guaranteed to enjoy more. (Oh, you can bet there'll be a GameCola review on the way after I finish that game.)

I skimmed and read through all of Star Trek: The Starfleet Survival Guide, which is an informative and mildly humorous handbook to addressing a variety of interesting and fictional Star Trek situations. Specifically, I read the book while playing FFVIII, during all those interminable monster summoning sequences. I may also have eaten a bowl of ice cream at the same time, thus proving I can effectively multitask.

Heck, I even sat down and watched a whole episode of Mythbusters tonight, and I never watch TV anymore. Of course, I followed that up with finishing the final preparations for my next Mega Man video's audio commentary, so it all evens out.

Throughout all of this, I did my best to minimize the fact that, for whatever reason, I would not be engaging in any kind of creative output until Alex handed the blog back to me, or until I started feeling better again. When my creative projects get sidetracked, I tend to get crankier than I do when I don't get to play video games or read comics, so I had to keep reminding myself that it was okay to wait another night or two before I produced anything else.

After a day or two of relaxing and enjoying the results of other people's creative output, I began to appreciate being a passenger once more in the Microbus of Geekdom. Or whatever metaphor appropriately expresses what I'm getting at.

Well, the blog is in my court again, and I feel almost like I could possibly be in good enough shape to do some recording tonight. Still, the geek input was refreshing, and I think it'll help my creative mind to find some sort of a balance if I continue to set aside regular time for geek input; it's probably better for my sanity and creativity if I take a break every now and again.

That being said, I'm going to let Alex post tomorrow so I can work on my Mega Man video tonight.

That logic works, doesn't it?