If you haven’t heard, we’re living in a 3D world. At least, that’s the world that a few tech companies want you to inhabit. But as much as I pine for a dimensional gaming experience of my own, it’s hard to justify the purchase of a 3D-anything without at least a glimmer of hope that a market exists to support the technology.

Instead of dreaming about 3D Peggle or the SSV Normandy hyper-jumping its way into my living room, I settled for counting down the days until my new work laptop arrived. You can imagine my delight when a pair of active polarized glasses were included in the new computer swag that made its way to my desk. Truth be told, I have absolutely no business use for a 3D-enabled laptop. But far be it from me to pass up a research opportunity. In the last month, I’ve run through bits of Champions Online, Portal, Mirror’s Edge and Batman: Arkham Asylum to get an approximate idea of the current state of 3D gaming. The verdict?

If you can tolerate it, nothing to really work yourself up over.

The black and white PARENTAL ADVISORY STICKER (as seen on the left) was a staple of my adolescence. It seemed that a great deal of the music my peers were interested in were Hester Prynne’d by that stark label. Very few (if any) parents gave the thing a second look. Very few (if any) music outlets would deny a sale based on the patron’s age. As a method of regulation, the label was a joke. As a signal of disobedient youth, it became a wild success. Lacking any serious enforcement or consequence, the warning instead became a kind of fashion statement, a signal that your latest purchase would have some profanity or lewd conduct layered somewhere between the chorus and backing vocals.

In contrast, my late teens were ruled by the Motion Picture Association of America’s film-rating system. By the time I was old enough to be interested in a flash of skin or an uncomfortably gross sequence, the MPAA had begun to actively enforce the age restrictions built in to their ratings. Nudity, excessive gore, particularly florid language? All required the accompaniment of an adult, 18 years or older. Without the kind adult companion, I was relegated to gems such as Space Jam or Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie.

While the highly-alluring “R” (Restricted) movie was certainly tempting, I never had the nerve to sneak in to movies which were out of my classification league. The possibility of public shaming -- or, worse, having my parents called in to hear how I juked the law -- became mortifying death sentences for my young ego. My own fear served to keep me in check.

It’s a plain folder, found nestled deep in the recesses of an ancient hard drive, holding days and days of painstaking work. Labeled simply “90s”, with a web of Artists, Release Years and Albums, it represents my most safely worn epoch. Copying it out of its native environs, transplanting it into a music player to be carried through dull Xerox tinted days, seems like a grave sin against the past. But any feelings of transgression melt away when I plug in and hear the distorted steel drums of Tool’s Aenima. I wonder how I could have spent any of the last decade without the sonic comfort I’ve just rediscovered.

As I page through the dozens of stand-alone ditties that formed my conception of music at the turn of the century, I realize that my Napster sourced collection doesn’t accurately reflect the way I listened to music over a decade ago. I ‘m hard pressed to find anything approaching a full album on this greatest hits tribute playlist. Truth is, I never owned anywhere close to the volume of the collection that I so laboriously catalogued – and what I did own was constructed on a series of eclectic hand-me-downs and found materials that caused my CD rack to hold Sailor Moon, The Three Tenors, and Trisha Yearwood with nary a hint of irony.

“Sometimes I don't want to see the puppeteers, sometimes I just want to see the magic therein, and sometimes I just want to pry open the atoms and know why they spin.”

Standing in line, it’s hard to resist the impulse to pull out a phone or iPod and simply noodle the time away. It comes, I guess, from the instinct that’s been driven into us since we first set foot in school: to make the best use of our time. The line is a model of organized inefficiency, fully realized. Our search for productive alternatives to standing becomes a quest for meaning, transforming our web-enabled gadgets into a lifeline to the outside.

It’s a reality that I can’t comprehend. I’m stuck on a dilapidated phone that can’t understand the web. I pine for the escape offered by swanky 3G handsets, bitterly ruing the limitations before me, lamenting the sorry state of the bank account that keeps this wish out of reach.

Standing in a 15-person line at CostCo, shopping cart full of processed snack foods and individually frozen meats, it becomes clear how many of my peers buy into the escape. iPhones, Droids, and all other manner of chatty, touch-beckoning beveled squares dominate the landscape. Fingers swipe and prod and pinch incessantly, impatiently, at invisible items. Those who haven’t cut visual ties with the world are lost in an auditory sea of seclusion, signified by the cords that dangle from their ears and the slight sway that dominates their bodies.

And just ahead of me is a little girl who exists outside all of this.

She seems to be about five or six. I’m terrible with ages, but I can’t imagine she’s out of the first grade. While everyone is off playing with their toys, she’s whirling madly about in place. She twirls and twirls about, stopping every few revolutions to stare vacantly into space. A sweet, goofy smile melts over her face every time. I can imagine that she’s enjoying the sight of the world reeling in front of her. A few moments later, she starts up again, giggling, as she gyres into a whirlwind of energy and youth. She constructs joy from the barren landscape around her. As a counterpoint to everyone who is busy reaching out to a walled garden of information, reaching out to a community that is paradoxically open and exclusive, she reaches inwards and projects herself for all the world to see. And she does so with absolute grace and certainty.

I look back over the crowd, bathed in a 3:2 pallid glow, in awe at how the imagination of a child can trump industries that pull in billions of dollars. I can only guess to what kind of arabesque twists the sea before me could accomplish, if they could only make better use of their little inconveniences.

Epic Mickey has lived a tumultuous life. The game’s initial debut trumpeted a chorus of expectations: a beautiful wrap-around cover in GameInformer presented a dark and foreboding landscape not seen in a Disney property since Chernabog graced the silver screen; the hero was assumed to be a long forgotten predecessor to Walt’s eponymous mouse, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, whose birthright was usurped thanks to the machinations of business interests; Mickey himself was thought to be a tyrant king, and we as players would fight to liberate ourselves from his oppressive, ubiquitous visage. It was a twisted romp through the fevered subconscious of Disneyana.

There’s a large billboard conveniently placed about 30 feet from the garage to my apartment. Over the course of a year, it’s been gracious enough to inform me of many, many horrible movies and the occasional tie-in promotion. Aside from a passing glance at the art design, I tend to ignore what’s being advertised. I suppose seeing things day in and day out desensitizes a person after a while.

Recently, though, I’ve been paying extra attention to that little marketing obelisk. Friday morning, I found that the month-old ad for Shrek had given way to a promo for Mafia Wars of all things. “Buy a coffee, get a virtual unlock”, it beckons, as my gaze is challenged by an icy glare emanating from a very self-assured moll. The whole affair is quite Spartan: flat black background, large white text, a large drink cup front and center, with the Zynga logo poking meekly out from the corner. You might almost mistake it for the next installment of the GTA franchise.

The drums sat in a corner of my room, untouched, with a thin veneer of dust and fabric-fluff turning them slightly gray. The drumsticks were a pristine birch, unstained by sweat or grease. Stacked nearby lay my two guitars: one haphazardly disassembled, the other mottled by pox-like rust along its strum bar. These toys, once prized, formed a small altar of neglect.

Rock Band fell out of my regular rotation after I moved into my own quiet, cramped apartment. The thrill of channeling Eric Clapton as I wailed on 5 tiny plastic keys suddenly became routine. I stopped chasing DLC, stopped paying for music I owned twice (sometimes thrice) over, stopped trying to squeeze a bit of extra dexterity from my digits.

It wasn’t until this weekend that I took the game seriously again. Unexpectedly, a few friends dropped by with the explicit goal of rocking the f**k out. They weren’t interested in facemelting shreds, or knuckle-cracking drum fills. Score-mongering held no value to them. It was only the promise of fun that drew them to the game. It was much the same with my old roommates. They didn’t play to gold-star songs or to one-up each other. Three-hour rockathons surreptitiously assembled in the middle of the night were social events, not gaming events.

In the middle of chortling through a 12 note streak (thanks to some creatively rendered lyrics for “Eye of the Tiger”), I realized just what I had been missing these last few months.

As I wake up at 7:00 am every morning, I make a groggy note to subtract one day from my mental tally. There are only 9 days left in the school year and, though I’m reasonably sure I will spend most of the time at work, there’s something wonderfully tempting about the three months that will soon follow.

I am two weeks away from blissful summer, and I couldn’t be happier about it. (Just don’t tell my boss.)

Perhaps it’s the heat that scorches its way through our living room, turning my little apartment into a sweat lodge. Or maybe it’s the vague feeling of renewal that follows as my workload shifts away from talking to people and eases instead into dealing with shuffled papers and redesigned documents. Whatever the reason, a haze of promise looms in the distance.

But aside from a few conventions here and there, my summers tend to be pretty boring affairs. I’ve spent the last five years working straight through the heat, with nary a beach day or pool party to be seen. While players look to the new, I’m usually stuck wading through a backlog of socially stale (but singularly divine) titles. Instead of taking leisurely, refreshing rests, I stay up through the sweltering night and curse the morning buzzer.

Truth be told, summer isn’t especially exciting. Nor does it offer much that can’t be done in most of California’s 300 other days of sun. What it does present is a wonderfully escapist state of mind – the promise of summer.

Sometimes, that’s all I need to get through the week.

There’s an odd coldness clawing at the back of my throat as I lay down for an uncharacteristic 6 PM nap. By the time I stir to life, it’s four in the morning. I’m drenched in fever-sweat and that tenderness I felt hours ago has become an unmistakable, raw rasp. I down three days' worth of Vitamin C in a vain effort to give myself some peace of mind before splashing water on my face. I scribble a quick note to my girlfriend (“Call in for me. Thanks.”) before turning in again. As my mind falls blank, I balance the pros and cons and think only of tomorrow’s inevitable conclusion:

I’m going to have to take a sick day.

I’ve held on to a ghost for the better part of a decade. Confined sometimes to a dank closet, at other times displayed proudly on a mantle, the shell of my battered SNES clinged to waning relevance. For too long it sat silently, dreaming of a finality that was long in coming, reminding me of a crippling inability to act.

It had moved with me several times. Once to a dorm, then back with my parents. Once to an apartment, then to a home in San Diego where it was all but certain that this move would see its end. When I relocated to Los Angeles last year, some sense of pity made me hold onto it, made me bear the weight of one more piece of scrap. And so, it moved with me once more, hauntingly.

It’s hard to say why I held onto it for so long. Age had left it mostly devoid of live and functionality. Its clean lavender-grey plastic had warped into beige. Cracks and scorch-marks dotted its underbelly. But as I studied its dusty frame from across the living room, all sense of sentimentality seemed to drain from me. It was no longer a matter of how or why, but simply when I would throw it away.