A few months ago when I got the e-mail from Oscar of original-gamer.com saying that I was part of the crew going to E3, I got excited.  Soon, the feeling had died down.  The constant stream of emails from various and sundry game and peripheral companies served as constant reminders that I was going to E3, but they failed to get me excited again.  As I opened my credentials in the mail, I got hyped up again, but once again, the excitement slowly ebbed away.

The stream of “Please come to our booth!” emails continued, and before I knew it, this past Sunday was the planning get-together and pre-E3 podcast.  I was happy, but not quite “OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD I’M GOING TO E3!” excited.

Yesterday, I received an email asking me to go to a booth to check out a certain music game.  I’m not sure if I can say the name or not, so I will say that it does involve rock but won’t make me a hero.

“OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD I’M GOING TO GET TO PLAY THIS GAME AT E3!”

I drove home yesterday with a big-ass smile on my face as I banged the drum beat to “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves on the Reliant’s steering wheel.  I was excited again, and I still am.  By this time next week, I will be in the midst of forty-thousand plus fellow members of the industry checking out all the Cool New Stuff and helping to report on it to all the happy-shiny people out in Internetland.

It feels a little odd to think of myself as “part of the industry” though.  In my mind, I am just the “voice guy” for original-gamer.com, and a writer and editor for them as well.

Then again, maybe it isn’t that big of a stretch.

Despite the fact that I will admittedly be (big finger quotes here) “working,” next week’s trip to E3 is my summer vacation.  I had recently been grousing about how I haven’t taken a ‘real vacation’ to somewhere far and/or different in a few years.  Well, if going to California to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of developers, peripheral makers, Really Important People and fellow website multi-hat wearers doesn’t fit that bill, I don’t know what does!

Ready or not, here I come!!