Well hey there, how’s it going? Have we not met before?  I assume not.  Well it’s nice, excuse me, awesome to meet you.  My name is Glasenator, sometimes Glaser or Daniel…but you can just keep it simple and call me Glasenator.  In case you’re wondering, I was the special guest on the most recent episode of Wonderpod and by some fluke of nature the other guys on the show thought it would be a good idea to bring me onto the Wonderpod Team.  So here I am now, writing for this newborn baby of a site.  Which is ironic because I have no idea what I’m going to write about after I finish this introduction piece.  But that’s another bridge to cross when I get there, so let’s just try to take it one step at a time.  What’s that, you have a question?

“O.K. so I know your name now…but seriously who the **** are you?”

Woah, calm down there.  I guess I should do sort of a short synopsis of who the heck I am first.  Well I’m a college freshman (oh snap) from New Orleans, Louisiana.  I’m majoring in Visual Art with a concentration in Computer Animation.  When I’m done college I hope to get a job either animating in the gaming or movie industries and hopefully get out of this flood zone of a state.

“Hold on, you’re a college freshman and you’re hanging out with people probably twice your age online?”

Yup.   Got a problem?  Sadly, most gamers my age, and especially those in college aren’t necessarily versatile gamers…if you can even call them gamers.  It’s nice to get online and talk to people that enjoy a variety of games, rather than have to sit down with some of the guys in my dorm that own a console with two games (Madden and COD).  Plus I also enjoy talking about news coming out of the gaming industry, not a lot of people I meet in person care about it, much less are knowledgeable of it.

“Alright, I’m glad we don’t have a Gramer on our hands.  So what games DO you like?”

I think a better question here would be what games do I NOT like.  I really do play anything…from puzzle games like Professor Layton to adventure games like Assassins Creed.  I enjoy a good game of Pac man as much as I do Halo.  The only exception would have to be sports games.  It’s not that I don’t like sports (Who Dat! Blah Blah) but I feel that there is a point where a game has to have so many limitations to be realistic that the fun of the game is gone.  I’d much rather play a game of Mario Strikers than FIFA. (On a side note, if you haven’t played Mario Strikers, the game can rival the multiplayer amazingness of Smash Bros if you get a good group of people together.)

“What are your top three favorite games?”
Easy.  I don’t even have to think about it.

#3 – Pokemon Gold (GBC)

#2 – Portal

#1 – Banjo Tooie (N64)

Don’t ask me why.  I could take another 12 pages (for each one) to explain this.  I’ll save it for another post…ask again later.

“What do you like to do?  You know…besides write introduction posts on the internet.”

Here’s a quick list:

-Music (Piano and Tenor Sax)

-Favorite bands: Queen, Cake, Vampire Weekend, Daft Punk

-Sleeping extremely late…like 6PM late

-Legos (don’t hate)

-Favorite TV show: The Office

-Consoles (in order): GBC, N64, GBA, Gamecube, DS, Wii, 360 (sorry Sony)

-Favorite movies:  The Dark Knight, Inception, School of Rock, Zombieland

-Favorite comic: The Dark Knight Returns

-pøwning n00bs (JK JK JK)

-GAMING

-ART

Those last two are in bold because they’re mostly what I do with my free and not free time.  Art is a huge part of my life, not just because I’m a Visual Arts major.  Growing up in New Orleans I’ve been surrounded by such an artistic community and culture that it was inevitable for it to have an impact on me.  I was lucky enough to get into a good art school in the city while I was still in high school to help me “better” my “skills”.  I’ve been drawing my whole life just as much as I have been playing video games.  So video games and the culture around them have become one of the major themes in the work that I create.  Gaming and video games in art and the art world fascinates me as much as art in video games.  The argument that video games are or aren’t art, I believe, is one of the most interesting artistic discussions of our generation.  It’s an argument that I think about a lot and am considering seriously writing about it as a topic here… But that’s the intellectual side of me coming out.

I hope this introduction post was somewhat interesting and I look forward to entertaining and stimulating YOU, reader.  Please excuse me while I tell my brother to never sing on RockBand again.  His voice is reminiscent of a banshee’s.