I've been a little bummed out lately and I'm still not 100% sure what it's from. Maybe it's because I work on a college campus and it's currently Summer Break -- meaning that I'm, on a daily basis, reminded that professors and students are enjoying free time and summer vacations while I'm working my 8-5 job, looking forward to the upcoming four day July 4th weekend more than anything. I've gotten pretty productive when it comes to utilizing my free time, but I still find myself getting home from work, staying charged for a few hours, then ultimately falling asleep and wishing I had more free time. This means I
really romanticize my weekends -- but I probably don't use them as efficiently as I could.
If I stop and replace weekends in that last sentence with summers, I think it's a fair analysis of the numerous summer vacations I had as a student or while unemployed. That makes me think my problem is a little more structural than circumstantial. Now, I think I took advantage of my youthful summers pretty well -- whether they were spent with friends, video games, music, or running -- but now that I understand what it's like to have a job where you don't get 2-3+ months of relatively uninterrupted free time, I think I'd try to squeeze even more from those summers of old. Still, I don't like to cry over spilled milk and there's no time like the present, so I've been trying to push myself to find little ways of increasing the density of my current, limited time.
Even with that sense of initiative, summer brings back so many sense memories of glorious days spent lazing around, surfing the web, playing games, and just moving at my own pace. Being back in Wise, especially on campus, brings me back to when I lived here for Summer School one semester. It was pretty cool -- I was taking one class each session (Spanish 201/202) while working at G2K Games part time. I had just landed the job a few months before so it was my first summer spent away from home while getting paid! I had freedom and money. I played a lot of the original Nier, sang karaoke with my dormmates, and got into Digimon collecting hardcore.
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| Digital Monster X White |
Hello, my name is Collin and I was addicted to Yahoo! Auctions Japan. Well, maybe not addicted but I got really into browsing through auctions and getting my hands on some Japan-exclusive Digivices and virtual pets that I had always wanted (and it happened again when we were living in Japan years later). I had grown up collecting the American Digimon electronics as they were coming out, but I was always aware of the much cooler and more functional Digimon toys being released in Japan. I managed to import one or two as Christmas/birthday gifts when I was a kid, but I never had a real opportunity to get any -- until that summer in Wise. I used an intermediary called Celga to import a few and I spent a lot of my summer playing around with them. I walked around with the pedometer devices and brought my virtual pets with me to work and class. They were like add-ons to activities in my every day life. Wanting to make progress on my D-3, for example, encouraged me to go running and walking more. Occasionally checking in on my Digimon and cleaning up its poop was a great way to destress and refocus during breaks at G2K or from our 2+ hour long Spanish class. In my pre-smartphone world of 2010, these side quests of sorts added new contexts to my daily activities and, looking back, I think I appreciate and remember more of that summer because of them.
Bandai, the company that makes the Digimon toys, announced their newest iteration of the Digimon pet recently:
the Digital Monster X Version 2. A new Digimon device comes out in Japan maybe once or twice a year, so I've gotten into the habit of picking them up as they come out. Considering the fact I don't buy much nowadays aside from manga, I don't feel too bad about pre-ordering them. Sometimes, when demand is really high, Bandai will split their release into waves, staggering the release by a month or two. After reading news saying this would be happening to the DMX2, I got the urge to bring my original Digital Monster X with me to work. The Digimon virtual pets are relatively low-maintenance so it's easy to keep one powerful and evolving without much time put into it -- perfect for an office environment where short mental breaks are much appreciated.
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| My Instagram story from 2019.3.29 |
I've had a good bit of fun with the Digital Monster X since it came out back in March. Both versions are essentially the same with the biggest difference being which Digimon are available on each device. My favorites tend to be split across the two of them, so I always find a few to aim for regardless of which version I'm playing. Of course, I wouldn't really have any idea about specific evolution requirements or battle percentages or anything like that without the awesome guides and information collected by people on the net.
I've been a longtime member of With the Will (my current account dates back to 2007) and that website along
with the forum community have been
invaluable resources for
fans of the Digimon electronics. I doubt I'd appreciate the virtual pet experience as much without the multitude of information available nowadays, especially considering most of the enthusiast info is in Japanese. I never had the Pendulum X back in the day so the DMX is my first real experience with X-Antibody Digimon in v-pet form, but Diana and I watched through
Digital Monster: X-Evolution, a fully CGI movie from 2005 that focuses on the X-Antibody storyline, so I've got at least a bit of an introduction from that. X-Antibody Digimon are a cool concept and it's awesome to see that they're still supporting the subset. Maybe we'll get a third version next year? I'd be excited for it! Compared to the days of wondering if Digimon, as a franchise, even had a future...we're living in some pretty good times.
I really love the designs of both DMX options -- the white/blue gives me total University of Kentucky vibes while the black/red really pops and is probably my favorite looking one in person. Considering their eye-catching design, it's cool bringing them to work occasionally and seeing if people notice them or have something to say. I was sometimes super nervous about being seen with them when I was younger -- mainly because Digimon was a relic of the early Pokemon days for most people. Nowadays, Digimon, Tamagotchi, and the whole monster raising genre has both nostalgia and freshness going for it. I came with one of my friends to a Friday Night Magic event at Cavalier Comics and one of the guys there started up a conversation because he saw my Digimon. It was a great time and it turned out we like a lot of the same stuff. Those are the types of interactions that I wished so badly to have when I was a kid so I'm very thankful to be able to experience them years later.
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| Celga's FB account used to leave really nice comments on my profile, too. |
Right now I've got a Tokomon X and I'm hoping it makes it from V-mon X all the way to Dukemon X. If anything, it'll just take time and patience. I really do think keeping up with a Digimon increases my sense of responsibility. There are many times where I'll pass out (from drinking or the like) and wake up only to realize that I didn't feed my Digimon or put it to bed -- sometimes meaning that I just missed out on the evolution path I really wanted to get. Even though it's just a virtual pet, the sense of disappointment I felt after realizing my mistake -- especially considering my carelessness -- was very
real. Thinking about the big picture of my life, I'd much rather make these kinds of careless mistakes while raising a Digimon -- but I think the lessons learned can carry over to my real life, too. In its own little way, I think my monster raising in Digimon is training me to be a better person, too. I should get my hands on the DMX2 in November or December, but hopefully I can make some memories and accomplishments on some of my older devices before then.
There's actually a US release of the 20th Anniversary Version of the original pet coming out in August, and it's only selling for $20 -- making me hope that maybe Digimon will see a small resurgence of popularity in the West. If that can happen, I'd love to start playing Digimon with more people locally. That's the one part of my childhood Digimon fantasies that hasn't come true -- yet.
EDIT: I knew Celga had commented on some pictures so I dug through my Facebook history.
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| I was legitimately flattered at the age of 21. Still FB friends even now! |
