Welcome Cary, glad you could make it.
Introductory Blog
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 On 03/01/2013 at 07:01 AM by Cary Woodham See More From This User » |
Hi my name is Cary and since this is my first blog on this site, I figure I’d start with a bit of an introduction. First and foremost, it should go without saying that ever since I put a quarter in a Pac-Man arcade machine back in the early 80’s, I’ve enjoyed playing video games ever since. I think the one thing I enjoy more than playing video games is writing about them, so I’ve been reviewing games for various print and web sites for the past 15 or so years.
Of course, reviewing games doesn’t pay the bills, so during the day I work customer service at a place that sells wholesale supplies to mostly hospital gift shops (and prior to that I worked at a church). But long before that, when I was in college, I didn’t know what I was going to major in initially. After my first year of college, I saw an ad in The Dallas Morning News, the local newspaper, calling for free-lance game reviewers for their new technology section. I got the job, and after that I thought, “Well that was easy, I think I’ll major in Journalism!”
I worked at the newspaper from about 1996 to 2001. When my editor moved to another section and the dot com bubble burst, I lost that writing gig. But a year or two later, I started writing at the long-running GamerDad.com web site, and I’ve been there ever since! I’ve dabbled in a few other newspapers and web sites over the years, but those are my two main outlets.
So what brings me here? Well, while I love writing for the GamerDad.com web site, I try to keep a more professional attitude there and present my ‘best self.’ But sometimes I like to relax a little and be a little more silly when I write about video games, so I enjoy writing blogs and comments on other sites for fun.
In the late 90s when the Internet was just getting popular, blog sites were not as common. People mostly posted on message boards. During this time, I mostly posted on a message board called Pac-Chat. We talked about Pac-Man and other classic games, and sometimes new games, too. After a few years, more and more people joined Pac-Chat. And it’s amazing how just one person can ruin a message board. But that’s just what happened. It was about that time that personal blog sites starting springing up, and a good friend of mine on Pac-Chat suggested I join 1up.com, a new site from EGM that just started up a few months prior.
So for many, many years I posted blogs at 1up.com. I really enjoyed that site and met a lot of great people there. So I was very sad when I heard the news that it was going to be shut down. I had been there for nearly nine years. Where would I go? Well I got quite a few suggestions, and after doing a bit of previewing I decided to try two other sites. I’ve been reading news and other articles on IGN ever since they were a collection of smaller linked web sites called N64.com, PSX.com, etc., so I decided to try their blog pages. And a lot of 1up members have joined PixlBit, and I liked the look of that site, too. So I’m going to post blogs on both sites for a while and see which one I like better. Sure I could do both places, but I’m pretty busy so after a while I’ll just narrow it down to one site. And if I don’t like either of them, I guess I can try Giant Bomb. But of course, I’ll always be at GamerDad.com!
Anyway, that’s just a little bit about me and why I’m here. Some other tidbits about me is that while I like nearly all kinds of video games, my favorite ones are old classic arcade games like Pac-Man, and whimsical, silly, and quirky games in general. Old and new. I’ve also been blind in my left eye since birth. In the comments section, maybe you all can give me some tips for learning how to get around this new site. And if you already know me, maybe you can post some things about me that I missed so others can read them. Finally, if you have any other questions about me and who I am, ask away and I’ll answer when I reply to your comment! Next time on my blog, I’ll take a look at all the games on the Bit.Trip Collection on Wii, in honor of the recently released Bit.Trip Runner 2! Later! --Cary
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