Last night was awesome.

As cool as the entire spectacle was (and I highly recommend seeing the show if it comes to your town), the highlights of the evening for me weren’t actually part of the program:

• A girl dressed as a Reaper from The World Ends With You – I wanted to track her down and give her a hug
• While it wasn’t played by the orchestra, the theme from Katamari Damacy played over the PA during the intermission and I danced in my seat

They also debuted a song from the next Need for Speed game, Need for Speed: Undercover. The song and trailer were pretty cool, but I’m pretty sure the working title of the game is actually Need for Speed: Bro Hugs. For a game about racing cars, there were an awful lot of buff manly hugs going on, not to mention the Ethnically Diverse Hot Chick Looking Sad theme running throughout.

Most of all, I was very glad to note that the evening didn’t make me as sad as I thought it might. Video games make me sad, you see, but that’s an enormous post for another time – today is not for sad; it is for good times.

I did feel strangely disconnected from the most popular pieces played, though. As much as I love video games and sport a rather impressive collection of game music CDs and MP3s, I tend to not play a lot of the big ticket games that were featured last night, like Final Fantasy (*fist shake*) and Metal Gear Solid. The audience went nuts during the segments for Warcraft and Starcraft and Halocraft, but while I thoroughly enjoyed the whole evening, I wasn’t all swoony with glee like the rest. Of course, if they had played things that *I* have a strong connection to, I would have been hollering with the best of them. I wish they had played music from Beyond Good and Evil as they have in the past, but overall it was a damn fine evening and I’m very glad we went.

I was both amused and conflicted to note that EA had a job booth set up. I was torn about the whole thing – half of me was filled with scorn (where were you when I desperately needed you and would have given my left arm to join your ranks?), but half of me wanted to throw myself at their mercy and beg them to take me on. I wanted to ask if my dream job exists, but decided against it – neither answer would make me feel good. If I was told no, there is no such thing as a Video Game Manual Writer, my dreams would be completely crushed – but if they said yes, we hire Video Game Manual Writers, then what? Would I throw everything away to try to join their forces again? Or do I put my dream on the back burner and continue to do my current job that I really do enjoy, all filthy warehouses in Richmond aside? Am I better off not knowing if my dream has any chance of becoming reality, or should I plant my feet on solid but boring ground?

Too many deep thoughts for an evening of fun.