Here Comes a New Challenger!

My name is Victor, I am 25 years old, and I game for a passion in between working (actively looking for a new job), managing VGHC, trying to come up with blogs or interesting posts for VGHC/Players of America (possibly another soon), and whatever else gets thrown my way. Sometimes, I really don't know what my days are going to be like. I don't want to waste time with this big silly intro...then again, that would defeat the title of this first blog entry, eh? I feel like I've said this all before on some other blog I made like a crazy person...

To explain my passion for gaming, I have to think back to memories that are not very clear to me as this was a very long time ago. Mega Man 4 was released in January in 1992, and I got this game for my birthday, I believe the year it came out. I want to assume I got my first NES in 1991 for Christmas. I could be making this up...who knows. I definitely did receive MM4 as a birthday gift at that time, or at least I'm going to assume it was that time. Perhaps if I'm feeling brave, I'll see if my mother has the VHS tape with that, and I'll put the clip up somewhere to show you guys just how excited I was to have it. Latest update - this actually happened, with a review to go with it.

So I've been gaming since I was pretty young, roughly around since I was five years old. I technically had an Atari 2600 before an NES. I understand now, it was given to someone in the family less fortunate after I got the NES, but the nostalgia in me made me wish I still had one. I did get one back, after finding an ad on Craigslist a few years back.

Skipping forward by a lot, my most recent screen name has been KidMachinate, recently changed to VGHC_SidKid to represent what I like, part of what my favorite band is about, rep my brand, and still leave in the "kid" portion of it. That was until I came up with a way to keep the name I've become attached to with clever use of 1337 speak. I'll explain some of my Xbox 360 Gamertag and latest name.

GT Explanation (MidniteBlaze69): Usually (not so much lately) around midnight, chances are I would still be playing games, and the fire still burns. Of course in doing this, even being a DDR player, I overlooked the song MidniteBlaze. So I get that a lot. Plus the g/f I was with at the time, made a screen name along the same lines of what I did to match. One of several reasons I have considered a official GT change.

KidMachinate: Machinate is essentially to plan or scheme, Make no mistake though, I don't have evil plans for any group I am involved in (I save that for behind closed doors). I'm always thinking of new ideas. I may not have the best ways to actually execute them, but I have them. Constantly. The Kid part came in...well from many places. People don't take me seriously. Which I suppose is okay, because sometimes I don't take me seriously either. Most people can look at me face value, and regardless of what steps I take to better myself or be responsible, I'm just that guy who plays video games, to forever be viewed as a kid because of  that. At my current old workplace, the good one anyway, I was called "Kid" constantly, because if for no other reason, because I was the youngest one there. I don't think they really took me seriously though. Only from time to time when I would notice something they didn't. "Junior" became the new thing, but you get the idea.

KidMachinate, the name on my Twitter that has brought me a spike in VGHC and some form of success is my clever name that puts me out there as well...a kid who likes games, but in reality is poking fun at friends, family, anyone on the outside that takes me for a joke. I have a pretty good idea of who does and doesn't out of the friends and family I do know, IRL, and it matters not. How much I've learned about that since this post was originally made - I'm not even gonna get started on that.

That entire rant was copied and pasted now twice, and modified now slightly for the sake of this re-launch of sorts. I originally answered this in a rock group on Facebook, founded by a close friend named Amber. In this group, I talked about where my name on Twitter came from. I don't even remember how it really came up. I think it was through Tom. So you guys might be wondering...what is VGHC?

VGHC is the acronym for Video Gaming Hard Corps. I created a site for this back on April 1st, 2011, and created a Facebook Group for this sometime before then. The idea originally was simply to be a connector of sorts and unite gamers. I still do that. Our focus, however, is to raise brand awareness and enter the local tourney scene with fighting games to start and hopefully shooters in the future. I won't go too much into all this because you can find about about this by going to the website, Twitter, or well...a lot of places. I since then broke the site, and established a team of sorts, to both push things further, and get the VGHC 2.0 site up and running. I now am also starting to realize why everyone and their mother uses WordPress, but we've come too far to worry about that. Far for us anyway, because as a organization of sorts, we have quite a way to go.

The idea of VGHC is to connect, and unite gamers, with an idea built from the group up. In it's most recent endeavors, the focus is on pushing eSports into the mainstream, or at least getting people to view as a more legitimate means to devote ones time to. The amount of time and effort put into become good at (insert game name here) isn't much different from a regular sports player.

I'm a gamer, and it's become a lifestyle. I'm not ashamed of it, regardless of how much people may look down on it, not take me seriously, ect. To be honest with myself, I spent a good portion of my life doubting myself and quite frankly not doing things I felt I could be doing with myself. Part of this was my fault, part of it was home, and part of it was self-destructive situations I put myself in, whether it be through relationships or stressing myself out trying to "make everyone happy". While I still try and do the latter, the keyword, is TRY. Don't work so hard for that anymore and truth be told, I have a lack of patience for most things. Looking at all this all now...god damn I was happy but pretty depressed on the inside. How pathetic is this?!? I swear, looking at all this now is one big joke...I'm getting side-tracked. I do that. A lot.

Perhaps I will get more into these things in another entry (no, I won't, maybe in my crazy blog). Who knows. Right now, you just get a simple and lengthy taste that I am most definitely a gamer, but also a person like anyone else that lives life accordingly, and games don't get in the way of my responsibilities...most of the time anyway. :)

You may notice the title of my blog. I made it that, because there are plenty of times, especially way back when where I did game on my own and there was no "Player 2" most of the time, but I welcomed it when there was. As of lately, when I've referred to "Player 2" it refers to a subject matter of partnership that I've become desensitized to (never really did). Open to it, sure. I've put it behind me though and it's not a priority. It's all about finding a way to make money to I can adequately "screw the rules", upgrade/replace things in my gamer cave, and spend money from time to time like a dumbshit on digital items in D3 because everything cost way to much in that damn game.Moving on...

"Player One" (spelled out this time on purpose) is a song, my favorite off the first album from the band full of "Pure win and awesome", Machinae Supremacy. Since accidentally stumbling upon them via a Dance Dance Revolution spin-off game (In The Groove), I first heard "Hybrid" and "Bouff" for the first time. I was in love since.

To finish this out, I will leave a link video to the song I mentioned. If you decide to listen, you will hear something from my favorite band, and if you pay attention to the lyrics, you will see exactly why this track is my favorite off their first retail album "Deus Ex Machinae". If you like what you hear, you can download the full album, and a bunch of theirs songs completely free. This will conclude my first blog entry, which could be confused for a really long rant, which is okay. This is my blog, and much like before, I do what I want! The video is not an official MaSu vid, but a fan-made AMV, and it's of Death Note, so it's like one of very few animes I like. I doubt I can even name the rest. This is not taken from the MaSu AMV section though as it was re-uploaded for some contest or something. Maybe that's even old. Who know...was too lazy to look into it. Anyway, awesome song, awesome fan-vid, check it out. This is post one. There will be more. Many more.

- Victor Max Vellon