I love Xenosaga III. I’m about thirty hours into the game and completely addicted. The plot is amazing, the characters are amazing, and they keep throwing new twists at you. For me, the coolest part of all is that I get to hear my dear friend Richard Epcar, the voice of Ziggy.

After non-stop Xenosaga this weekend, my friend Ron suggested that I go outside and do some physical activity (don’t ask me why, I don’t get it either). He’s a runner, and while I was sitting on my ass all weekend, he was running a seven mile race in San Francisco. (He’s sweating and exhausted, I’m eating oreos and playing RPGs in the air conditioning, you tell me who’s winning at life here). I decided I would drive to San Francisco and meet him at the finish line.

When I got there, of course all the roads were blocked off for the race, so I had to find parking like a mile away. I left the car and started walking towards the running people, which looked like specs in the distance. When I finally got up there, I saw a cheerleader on the side of the road yelling “come on guys, only 100 meters to go!” Now, I’m no expert on the metric system, but 100 of anything sounds pretty damn long to me. So I give a sigh and start heading back to the car, when suddenly I think to myself, “Mike, this is your chance to prove to yourself and the rest of the world that RPG-obsessed nerds can be athletes too.” I turned around and jumped into the race.

My finishing time was about three minutes. Not bad for a seven mile race I must say (I left out the minor details). I celebrated my new found athleticism with more oreos and another three hours of Xenosaga.