Recently -a few months ago- a dear friend of mine visited my apartment; as he so often does, for an overnight playthrough of one game or another, this time Bioshock, I believe. As usual spending an inordinate amount of time online, his equivalent of a smoke break. Upon leaving he forgot to close the Firefox window and incidentally exposed me to the glory that is destructoid dot com.

I spent days reading through archived posts and community blogs.

I've always been that person that would defend the medium as something more than mindless entertainment (often to people who otherwise spend their weeknights with the passive, mindless, stultifying commonplace that is most primetime television):
"Games can provide an amazing cognitive workout."
"Games have told some of the best stories i've ever seen, heard, even read"
"Games can be supreme aesthetic achievements"
"Videogames are an art-form"
More often than not sounding like an affected child trying to reconcile aspects of his hobby and reality. And, honestly, these claims are in no way universal.

Then whilst distraught and reconsidering my love of this medium i found this website. I was amazed to find that there were people that echoed my sentiments regarding video games (those of rev. anthony in particular) and moreover a community of such people. Over time i found myself visiting this site more and more often, eventually forgetting to check my e-mail because my limited free-time was spent here and ultimately bringing my iPod, in lieu of my customary lunchtime book, for episodes of retroforce and podtoid. I was made confident, once again, in defending, enjoying and truly loving the act of gaming.

In the vastness of the interweb I do believe I've found my home.