How I Got My Gamertag

I feel like this is a good place to start my gaming blog. A long, long time ago, in a neighborhood not too far away some teenagers were making home videos of their favorite movie scenes, including but not limited to Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Pirates of the Caribbean. Boys and girls, both in makeup and whatever jackets and costumes they could gather around the house, two of them standing on a picnic bench, overlooking the neighborhood pond, the call goes out, "Action!".

I've always loved movie making; in fact, if you pulled up some of my family's home videos you can catch an hour-long special of my 7-year-old self giving a tour of the house and interviewing my brother as we explain what everything in the house is for. Anyways, fast forward to middle school, where these videos were made and you would find me and my friends reenacting some of our favorite scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean. This particular scene I had been called to play James Norrington, right after Will Turner and Captain Jack, lure the Commodore and his men out to the open ocean, only to steal their faster boat. After realizing that they have been tricked and that the ship has been sabotaged does one of the ship's lieutenants say, "That's got to be the best pirate I've seen." To which Norrington replies, "So it would seem..."

Ever since filming this scene with my teenage friends, I always thought it would be cool to be a British naval officer in the 1800's. Part of me thinks it has something to do with the kinship I feel towards my great-grandfather who served in the British Royal Navy during WWII, but also because pirates and that era is so cool.

At some point in the future my parents were going through a pretty difficult split in their marriage and that affected us kids a lot. Being the oldest, I was having the most difficult time with it all. My aunt and uncle offered to help fly me to their home in Georgia for a 2 week vacation to get away from everything for a bit. We went to the Coca-Cola Museum, went swimming a lot, and stayed up late with my cousins talking the night away. One of my fondest memories from that trip was my uncle, who was a computer programmer, telling me about Doom 3 on the original Xbox and how it was going to be this amazing and innovative game. Their family had recently bought an Xbox and my uncle encouraged me to try it out and just have fun while I was there.

As the trip went on, we continued to visit and talk about how awesome video games were among other things like music and movies. One night we went to Blockbuster to rent or return some movies to watch while I was there and that was back when they used to have the playable demos on consoles in the store (Pokemon Snap was where it was at). We noticed that the store was holding a local Halo tournament and my uncle and I asked about it and the cashier told us that the contest would be taking place two nights from now. So with my uncle's continued encouragement and endless practice with him and my cousins, we went to the tournament and I remember sitting down and seeing some of these high school kids and even adults and feeling really intimidated. It was like when they had a local Pokemon tournament at the mall and I was so nervous among all of those kids.

I got into the match, I don't remember how many people I was playing with, but I remember getting some kills and then really stinking it up. I felt so bad that I had been eliminated in the first round and all that time my uncle spent with me was for nothing. I will never forget how he just smiled at me and didn't try to fix my guilt, he just simply said something to the effect of, "Man, that was an intense match! You did really well! Let's stay and just have fun watching the other competitors and cheer them on." As a kid who was struggling with self-identity and feeling like I was worth something worthwhile, my uncle couldn't have lifted my spirits more perfectly.

I remember the first time I played local multiplayer when I got home; in Halo, you could just be player one, player two, and so on, but it really helped to differentiate yourself if you customized your player color and name. As I sat there thinking about what to put, I remembered the time I had played Commodore James Norrington from Pirates of the Caribbean in our home video remakes, I started typing N-O-R, I hope this all fits,-T-O-N, it fits! Ever since then, I prided myself at LAN Halo parties, at friends' houses or at band camp, that I had a sweet name and everyone seemed to love it.

Fast forward to today, I still rock the name Norrington in one form or another. I'm still trying to get it uniform across all platforms, but that's besides the point. For me my gamertag, PSN ID, whatever you want to call it, is more than a name or a simple movie reference, there is family, love, and heart behind it. My uncle has since passed away, but in a way I still feel like he's there with me when I play, encouraging me to get back up and just have fun.

I hope this post provides some insight into my gaming philosophies and gives you a better understanding of who I am IRL ("in real life" for you non-gamers). I will continue to game as long as I'm able and to make those virtual worlds a better place to live.

-Norr