Well, I'm finally going to make the dive head first into the c-blogs. I suppose I don’t feel very comfortable with blogging, it’s definitely not my medium of choice, and it surprises me each and every time I hit “publish” that I’ve actually written something that could be read by anyone in the world. The thought is petrifying! Anyway, I’ve attempted to get my foot in the c-blogging door before (and failed miserably) so I’m gonna give this another shot, we’ll call this “My First Post v.2.0”.

My name is Adam Welker, I’m a twenty one year old college student going into my fourth (but probably not last) year at The Ohio State University. I’m working toward a double major in Art and Italian, two studies that will set me up for a nice cardboard box someday. I’m really interested in making digital art in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. I mostly enjoy creating imaginary worlds and characters to populate them. One day I hope to work as an artist for a company such as Disney, Pixar, or Industrial Light and Magic. I would also love to work in video game design as an art director or concept artist.



As far as the “lazy gamer” stereotype goes, I would probably be the exact opposite. In high school I discovered running, and I was on the track and cross country teams. When I came to university, on the recommendation of my running coach, I joined the rowing team and I never looked back. I am now a varsity member and Vice President of the OSU Crew Club. Crew is a lot of hard work, but I don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t rowing. Although, since we do so much traveling to races, I do get to spend a lot of time on the bus with my DS. :)

My first console was a hand-me-down Atari 2600 from my parents. I spent many an evening in our cement basement, squatting in front of the old TV and guiding frogs across the street to the pond. Because we lived out in the middle of nowhere, I was very far removed from the video game world. I often saw strange consoles and games at Toys R Us, but was never allowed to explore further because “they’re too expensive.” When I turned 10 I get another hand-me-down console, this time an NES from my parent’s friends, and I happily played that little gray box for years.


No, seriously, I did...

As you can probably tell, I’m a retro gamer through and through, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like modern games too! I currently own an Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, DC, SNES, NES, DS, PSP, and GBC. They all get sufficient playtime, even the GBC! I often find myself paralyzed by the sheer number of games I own, and the paradox of “choice”. Sometimes, it seems it would be nice to go back to the days of the single console, though I’m not complaining!

My favorite games are RPGs, but I just don’t have the time to devout to them anymore. I also enjoy a good shmup or puzzler every now and then. If you’d ask me what my favorite game is, I’d probably say the Phantasy Star series, but I love so many different games that it’s hard to pinpoint a series or a single game. I recently went on an XBLA binge-buy so I’m currently working my way through some amazing games like Pac Man CE, Ikaruga, Bionic Commando, Geometry Wars 1 & 2, and Braid. I also DIDN'T get a NOT R4, and I have been NOT playing Pokemon Versione Perla to brush up on my italiano. Italian and Pokemon-two great tastes that taste great together! Oh, and I'm building an arcade cabinet... but more on that later.



So yeah, that's me in a nutshell (help! get me out of this nutshell!). I hope I can become more involved in this community, and make some SW33T gamer friends in the process!