Shock to the System

I am writing this, because I am freaking out right now and not entirely in a good way. I need to get this out of my right now, before my heart does something it shouldn’t. Twice today I’ve gotten a shock and both concern free games.

Earlier today I was hanging out in my room reading my twitter feed, trying to catch up and I’m seeing a lot of chatter on Steam Sales, seems like they get earlier every year, and then I see Justin Keverne mention he feels like gift a game. I keep reading for a few minutes until I get caught up and decide to see what is on sale. Eying the 75% off of Fallout: New Vegas and plugging games into my wishlist which I mainly use to quickly check prices and bookmark games when bam a popup comes up saying I’ve been gifted Civilization V. I screamed out loud “Oh my god! Oh my god!” I put my hands over my mouth and sat there in shock. Justin you are far too kind. I don’t know what I did to deserve such generosity, but thank you.

If that wasn’t enough. I’ve been watching Desert Bus for Hope 5 charity event for the last few days more on than off. They had been doing giveaway lotteries and auctions. I hadn’t donated, because I’m poor and I’m trying not to spend my money because that money I earned three weeks ago for my monthly student loan payments. But charity gets me every year and a donation challenge started for 7 Square Enix games that had just arrived from the company as a donation for the event. They put out a challenge for a donation of $7.77 you get a virtual raffle ticket. You can donate in multiple too. I donated enough for 3. Then I walked away to do some reading, forgetting when the challenge ended. I came back an hour after it ended and I didn’t know what happened. I checked my login home page and I didn’t see anything, so I figured I lost. And given how much money was being donated at the time I figured that was reasonable and I moved on.

I came back hours later after Thanksgiving Dinner and their live DnD game and heard them mention graphs. I figured I could see how the donations were shaping up in my profile somewhere. I open it and see this.

They wanted my address information to know where to send it. There was only one copy of this lot and I won it. The Loading Ready Run crew is shipping me all these games. I don’t know what to do or what to say. I’ve been frozen until I began writing this. And now that I reach this point, I realize what I’m most disappointed about is that I didn’t get to hear them say my user name on air: The Game Critique. Or if they didn’t say it and used my real name. I don’t know and I can’t find video of it.

I’m a lucky son of a bitch and I think I might cry. As shitty as my year has been, in the last two months I’ve been hired to write for two great sites, Nightmare Mode and starting in December PopMatters, gotten a slight reprieve from money troubles, and now the gift from Justin and with the odds against me 7 free games. And the last of this on Thanksgiving of all days.

I don’t know what else to say. I’ve calmed down and I’m going to finish watching Desert Bus then go to bed.