On Finances

We finally decided to go to someone about help with our finances.

We have pretty good financial standing, so it's nothing like bad debt or anything negative. We are just getting ready for that stage in life where we want kids and are thinking about the future.

How does this relate to games?

One of the ways we are planning on shifting our money is to pay ourselves every month with what's left of our paychecks. Instead of having a pile of cash after the 1st of the month bills, we're only going to have a small amount to curb rash, spontaneous spending.

Now I don't buy a lot of games off the cuff anymore. I was for a while when I was trying to build back my Atari/NES/SNES collection. Now I'm on top of my collection and waiting for new stuff to come out. If you've seen my list of games to buy this fall, this new home finance plan is going to hamper the shopping list by quite a bit.

That's not necessarily a bad thing I guess. But winter is when I play a ton of games since I don't ride motorcycles in the cold or play tennis. But this is also probably the most impressive fall line-up of triple-A titles to hit consoles in a long time. Halo, Mario, Metroid, Grand Theft Auto, Katamari Damacy, Ace Combat...all great titles worth every penny.

Christmas is coming early this year. It just sucks growing up and having to buy your own presents.

Child's Play on Facebook

I absolutely love Child's Play and everything it stands for. Lots of gamers already know about the charity created by gamers for kids in sick hospitals. So I decided to create a new avenue for it on Facebook.

Last year gamers raised over a million dollars in video games, toys and cash. In 2003, when it started, it raised just over $250,000. I can't imagine what 2007 will be like.

This year I'm also thinking of posting an email within RCPS schools and printing up flyers to put up in the hallways for students. This charity really spoke to me as a gamer, so I'm hoping to make some kids in this area feel as good as I do.

The first year I donated I purchased a Nintendo GameCube bundle for the Children's National Hospital in D.C. That felt really good. Then the next year I realized that there were so many inexpensive items that hospitals asked for on the Amazon wishlist. That year I bought a case of Play-Doh and 11 sets of markers. That's at least 12 kids at once that I made their stay in a hospital better.

So I hope anyone that reads this now knows about Child's Play and might be compelled to do something for it. And now I've made it even easier for anyone with a Facebook account to spread the word.