This past weekend was the Extra Life campaign, where we brought in nearly $2000 in donations between the four of us, and Chris is still taking them for his marathon in two weeks. We couldn’t be happier about our success, but man, I learned that I can’t do this anymore. I don’t have the ability to stay up so late and then sleep all day.

By 1:30 in the morning, I was nodding off at my console, even though I was playing Dragon Age Inquisition and I simply adore Dragon Age. I tried to talk myself into waking up. Maybe I should play something else. Maybe I should run around the house for a few minutes to get the blood flowing. And then I thought about the risk of getting sick from pushing myself, and I’m single parenting for the next two months. I turned to Jen and said, “I’m sorry to wuss out, but I’m done. I’m going to get up early in the morning and finish my last 6 hours.” She responded with, “Oh thank God, I’m with you.” We didn’t even speak as we shut down our game systems and slunk off to bed. I barely remember my head hitting the pillow.

As we got moving the next day and prepared for another six hours of sitting in front of our machines, we realized that we can’t keep doing this. We both love video games, and we both wish we had this ability to play them all day every now and then like the single kids do. But we’re tired, and we have these stupid adult responsibilities, and we can’t even right now.

That said, I had a great time. I showed how to finish Far Cry 4 in 20 minutes, I played Tales from the Borderlands and wanted more, I made plans to get Borderlands: The Handsome Jack Collection to play with Jen, and I started a brand-spanking new game of Dragon Age Inquisition, which got me excited about that RPG all over again. AND I raised over $600 for Children’s Medical Center of Dallas. I can’t ask for much more than that.

But I know when it’s time for me to not do something, and it’s time for me to drop doing Extra Life. Well, at least it’s time for me to not plan to do it all night. I’ll have to do the old people thing and break it up into 12-hour sessions. It’s something to think about, anyway.

For now, I’m ready for a nap. For three days.

I know all of you are so tired of hearing Chris and I talk about Extra Life, but well, what can we say; we kind of don’t care. Extra Life is pretty important to both of us, and we love this time of year when gamers can unite for the common good. We also love setting aside a day to play backlog games!

Chris actually will not be participating on the real Extra Life day, November 7th because he will be shooting a wedding. Instead he will stream on a Friday in the coming weeks. We will announce more as it gets close. Ross will be streaming all day on the 7th on his Twitch Channel. It’s pretty much thanks to Ross and his awesome friends that Team SGR was able to surpass our goal of $1,000, so please support him and his stream. He has really funny commentary while he plays. I wish I had recorded some of it when I played next to him last year.

Jen and I still don’t know what we’re doing aside from tattoos. I think my ideas are too ambitious to play everything I want to, so it will come down to which massive open world game I will focus everything on. Since no one has donated to tell me what to play, I’m debating between the following massive games:

• Dragon Age Inquisition (Hell, I played Origins last year so I might as well make it a tradition!)
• Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn
• Mad Max

I am definitely going to set aside some time in the middle of the night to wake up by finishing LEGO Dimensions.

Right now Jen’s plan is to start a new playthrough of Dragon Age Inquisition as a dwarf, so it is possible that between the two of us, it will be all Dragon Age all the time. It may make for boring streams, but hey, I’ve offered to let people tell me what to play and no one has bitten yet. 😀

Yes, that’s a hint.

I may wear my Cullen tank top that day with one of DA hoodies. I will be that person.