[Editor's note: Count Grishnack talks about making new friends through videogames for January's Monthly Musing topic. -- CTZ]

[Authors note: I was inspired by neveranything's awesome blog about overcoming bullies through gaming. Go read it. Also, apologies for beating the buzzer, I hate when people do it and I'm sorry. -- Count Grishnack]

Growing up in a small town (my '04 high school class had 50 graduates) has its benefits. You know everyone, most of your friends live a stone's throw away and it's much harder for cliques to form. My close circle of friends and I hung out and played games all the time. Smash Bros and Bomberman 64 were awesome, even if they were years old. We ate lunch together, goofed off in class together and generally had a great high school experience.

But as it usually happens, we all went our separate ways once college came around. To say college was a difficult transition for me would be an understatement. Not wanting to leave all those great friends behind, I roomed with a friend of mine from high school freshman year of college. That was a big mistake.

Not wanting to make this intro any longer than it already is, let's just say he was a party animal and not the person I thought I knew. By the end of my first semester, I had no new friends, my roommate sucked and my only comfort came from gaming.

One game blew the doors open socially for me: Halo 2.

[Editor's note: Count Grishnack talks about Final Fantasy VIII for his Monthly Musing piece. -- CTZ]

Many of the entries in this month's Monthly Musings have been colorful and entertaining tales of youth - of unwrapping their first NES and being throughly enthralled with an awesome old-school game or scrimping and saving allowance money to buy that new game that kicked off their love affair with gaming.

Not that these haven't been great reads (the Earthbound one, by Dexter345 especially) or in theme, but my story is a bit different. It doesn't start with my first (or even second) console or a story of eight-year-old me playing these new fangled Nintendos. It's the story of the first game that made me realize that I'm a gamer. 

[Newcomer Count Grishnack starts off his C-blogging career on a high note! Read on for his take on the Wiimote motion controls in Destructoid's continuing Monthly Musings theme. -- CTZ]

Nintendo’s Wii is a testing ground for innovative control in gaming today. From various states of waggling, shaking and grips, the consoles titles have been quite varied in their unique control schemes.

But hitting that sweet spot – the perfect balance between traditional and motion controls, has been an uphill battle. How much waggle is too much? Does the title just feel like a port with a few swings and shakes tacked on? Is any of this fun? Successful Wii games have found this harmony, while terrible ones have failed miserably.