Gray Beard Nerd
Bio
A nerd who is into cars, video games, movies, book and more. I love to write and hope to share what I have written with others. Please enjoy!!
Stories (64/0)
- Top Story - November 2021
Metroid Samus Returns ReviewTop Story - November 2021
Context is everything, it can make a victory seem more like a defeat and a loss can be softened in time. 2017 was a stellar year for gaming. Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey and Hollow Knight released along with several other incredible titles. Zelda and Mario both got seminal titles that pushed their franchises in all new directions and the little Indie studio Team Cherry produced what is to some the best 2d adventure Metroidvania of all time. But in the midst of all these incredible releases Metroid Samus Returns came out for the aging 3DS platform. I personally did not pick up the game till 2018, and playing it I had a lot of fun, but I was also a little disappointed. Not because of Hollow Knight per se, but because of another smaller release.
By Gray Beard Nerd2 years ago in Gamers
Metroid 5 Review
It is not an understatement to say that despite being overshadowed by Mario and Link, Samus and her adventures have had an enormous impact on the gaming space. Particularly in the indie developed renaissance we are currently experiencing. It has never been a better time to be a Metroidvania fan. But in a market saturated with excellent examples of the genre, can the progenitor of the style still compete? Can a game with fifteen years of expectation live up to the hype? I have to admit that as October approached I was pretty nervous, maybe even dreading that Metroid 5 would not live up to the impossibly high expectations I had put upon it.
By Gray Beard Nerd2 years ago in Gamers
A Lament for Meat and Cheese
When I was a teenager, I cut my teeth in a small town in south Mississippi named Purvis and I do mean small. We did not have a Walmart and had only a handful of restaurants of which three were fish houses that were common in the south during my youth in the late 90’s. My parents owned a patch of land that the whole family lived on and during the summer it needed constant attention. I spent hours for days on end on the tractor cutting grass or on the mower doing the same for the many individual yards. I would get up early and work till lunch before having to find something to eat for myself. Both my parents worked some 30 miles away in a nearby, “larger” town and so often I was by myself for lunch. I would get into my truck and if I did not want to drive 60 miles to the big town there and back or into Purvis which was a 30 miles round trip (yes I lived in the middle of nowhere), I really only had one choice of place to eat.
By Gray Beard Nerd2 years ago in Feast
Broke Down In New Orleans
It was 2003 and everyone was hotly anticipating the sequel to the amazing film the Matrix. Me and my friends were no exception to this so when I heard that the film was playing at the Imax theater in New Orleans my friends and I made plans and bought tickets.
By Gray Beard Nerd2 years ago in Wheel
The Lake House Trip
Dean got out of his uber carrying his bag up to the lake house. It had been a very difficult year, what with the pandemic and all, and he was looking forward to getting away from his small apartment for a few days to stay at the company lake house. The lake house itself was a small reward offered to the salesperson of the month to go and visit for a week and enjoy the wonderful isolation in the mountains. He had worked hard through the year, mostly from boredom that came from working from home and getting out only when one absolutely had to. That said he was looking forward to spending his isolation in a much more open and robust place and the mountain air already was calming his senses. He went and typed in the code he had been given to enter the house and let himself in.
By Gray Beard Nerd2 years ago in Horror
Why I Teach
It is 6:30 on a Monday morning as a role over to snooze my second alarm. I’ve never been a morning person; I like to stay up late and sleep later. But as hard as it is I roll out of bed to start my day. I get the kids up to start their school day as well while my wife fixes us some sandwiches for our lunch’s packing in some special treats and notes telling us how much she loves us. She stands at the door holding the baby as the rest of us load up into the car to head to school. Yep, I am a teacher, a science teacher to be specific, but the school I teach for is special.
By Gray Beard Nerd3 years ago in Education
My Only Real Car Wreck
I was 17 years old and a junior in high school. I was a typical reclusive teenager for the early 2000's and I mostly kept to myself, save for a small circle of friends that I hung out with due to similar interests. I did not get into trouble very often except for speeding which I did a lot of.
By Gray Beard Nerd3 years ago in Wheel
Jack and Sharky
There he lays in his bed surrounded by an army of plush warriors to protect him from bad dreams and the things that go bump in the night. They range from all sorts of backgrounds, Pokémon, animals from zoo’s even the space shuttle from our trip to the air museum a few years ago. But Jack’s most stalwart defender, his greatest comfort and closest companion among all his cotton filled protectors is Sharky.
By Gray Beard Nerd3 years ago in Families
Searching for Tristen
Tabitha woke early to her father gently shaking her and calling her name. It was still dark, but he always roused her and her brothers early before the sun rose to work. As he lit the candle by her bedside she rolled to her side and sat up in the darkness. As her vision cleared, she stood and walked to the corner of her room. There sat a broken mirror and a basin of water and a clean towel. Every morning her father rose early to draw water for the family from the well just outside the farmhouse. She washed her face with the still cool water smelling the familiar fragrance of minerals before drying her face with the towel. Soon she was on the porch soaking in the humid morning air watching the sun come up between the towers on the horizon. Her father had also made breakfast, nothing special, just some old bread and butter to start the day. She nibbled on the bread as she scanned the settlement. About twenty families lived and worked the land here raising animals and growing wheat for everyone to share. She could see some of the other families lighting candles and getting ready to start their day of work.
By Gray Beard Nerd3 years ago in Fiction
Tooth Fairy Hotline
So as a parent sometimes you must think fast on your feet. It was September of 2013 and my daughter had pulled her very first tooth. Not lost, pulled and there is a difference. It sort of stands as a rite of passage for getting more mature and growing up to pull one’s own tooth. My wife and I sang her praises as she was indeed “a big girl now.” After all she did not even cry which again is a monumental feat for a seven-year-old. We were in my Uncles Dental office when she pulled it out, which was the perfect place really. After applying a little gauze, she was proudly going to every patient and employee presenting her tiny perfect little white baby canine to the world. It was a big moment for her, and everyone she showed asked her the same question, “How much is the tooth fairy going to bring you!”
By Gray Beard Nerd3 years ago in Families
Wild Arms Review
The first RPG released on the PlayStation and it set the bar high for all the games that would follow it. Released in North America in 1996 I would not get around to playing this game until 2012. And I can tell you right up front that I regret it. From the very first moment that I hear the music I knew; I just knew this was going to be great. For those of you not in the know, this game is made up from several elements that on paper should not work. It is a Japanese style RPG, that strives to emulate a Spaghetti Western and if that was not weird enough for you it attempts to accomplish this by using standard Anime story elements. But like chocolate and Peanut Butter, this game comes together to be greater than the sum of its parts.
By Gray Beard Nerd3 years ago in Gamers
The Special Banana with a factory bench seat.
When I was 14 or so my parents drove out west to pick up a car my uncle had bought for my cousin who was about 6 months older than me. They had bought it through some family in Texas and my Dad was going to bring the car home to Mississippi for my uncle. My Dad was pulling a trailer behind his diesel ford to haul the car home on since when my uncle test drove it, he said it ran at very high rpm’s and was overheating. He bought it anyway despite these apparent flaws because the car honestly was kind of special. It was a 1956 Mustang Gt A-Code with a factory bench front seat (say that five times fast.) Springtime yellow was the color and the car looked and felt special to drive. I say that because while it was technically my cousin’s car, I have a surprising number of memories attached to it.
By Gray Beard Nerd3 years ago in Wheel