Artist Entry: Hi. I'm Guy Kozowyk, and I'm addicted to 'Brickbreaker'

Just another day at the office

I've been trying to get all of my bands to participate in this blog and wouldn't you know it, the hypocrite I am, I had never contributed one myself. Until now!!! This entire tirade is inspired by the fact that it's Saturday night and I just beat "Brickbreaker" on my phone (the shitty, but super addicting pong-type game that comes pre-installed on every Blackberry).

The weekends have always been associated with wild nights out, friends and partying. Until you're away on tour eight months out of the year for seven years straight and all your old buds who would've started calling at 5:01 p.m. on Friday afternoon to see what's up for the weekend assume that you aren't going to be around and stop calling. Eventually, you lose touch and you become the outsider to poker night, pay per view get togethers and general debauchery. You just have to hope you'll find a female who is dumb enough to put up with the abusive schedule and deal with the lack of companionship so you ensure yourself something to do when you get home. And if that isn't available, thankfully God created video games for children, teenagers, college kids, the late-twenty something record label owner/band guys....losers of all ages!

I got back from a tour with Converge, The Red Chord, Genghis Tron and Coliseum about a week ago. I've been completely exhausted and slammed by all the regular catch up work. To decompress, I've found myself buried in a handful of video games. When I was out in Los Angeles, I found a new best friend in a kid named Travell who works for EA Sports who hooked me up with a short stack of Xbox 360 games-- "Army of Two," "The Orange Box" and "Battlefields 2." The night I got home, my brother Michael and I played "Army of Two" start to finish on the easy level. It was fun primarily because of the brotherly bonding experience associated with the four hours of non-stop terrorist killing, but the lack of bosses and a disappointing end sequence infuriated me to the point where I don't know if I will ever play it again.

Most games I can't just casually play. I'll go eight months without touching a controller before having a three-day binge with no sleep. Mike started the "Orange Box," which is actually three or four games in one including "Half Life" and "Portal." After finishing "Army of Two," I just couldn't stand to be in front of the television any longer and watching the 3D strategy game, "Portal" was giving me a headache. I made some comment about why anyone would want to play this mind-numbing game with no enemies whatsoever. I'm making my escape back to my workload when he drops the life ruining comment, "Ever play the 2D Portal on the computer? It's pretty wild." He tells me to search Addictinggames.com and sure enough I find it seconds later. I should never have even looked.

ADDICTING GAMES DOT COM! Of course it's going to ruin your life. It's like trying to casually shoot heroin or something. It just doesn't work like that. Next thing you know, I'm glued to the computer for hours cursing out whoever game up with this retarded 30 level game. It was probably two sleepless nights later when I finally beat it and wanted to put a gun in my fucking mouth over yet another frustrating end sequences.

Which finally brings me to tonight and "Brickbreaker." I got a new phone with this little curse installed on it a couple months ago and on many occasions I find myself bored and killing time with this basic pong-style "hit the ball at the bricks and try to break them. Repeat." You pick up weapons along the way like lasers and multiple balls and for the first 13 stages it is smooth sailing. And then it just kicks in to life ruining mode where it's pretty much impossible.

Since I'm having the video game binge week, I picked up "Brickbreaker" this evening and went for it and in some stroke of luck, I actually made it through all 34 stages within two tries. I'm about to spoil it for everyone-- the game just fucking starts over!!! Like Dr. Mario repeating over and over and over and over on level 24 regardless of what speed you have it on or how quick you kill the shitty viruses, it just starts over. No end screen. No congratulations. Wouldn't you know it, your name goes on this giant top score chart -- my best score ever still leaving me in 42,566th place. I didn't even crack the top 20,000!!! Even when I win I'm a loser! Seriously, I'm not the type of guy to go throwing fits or punching walls, but my Blackberry almost went out the window in a fit of nerd rage.

So that's it. My first official blog. I'm going to attempt to hide from video games for a while. And my Xbox Live gamer tag is SQUASH YOU, so now no one has to MySpace me and ask, or you can leave feedback about how I was terrible at the game or I talked shit to your 8-year-old brother on the headset during "Gears of War" tournaments. I swear, if as many people bought something from the BMA Web store as message me on MySpace about what my gamer tag is, I'd be a rich man.

Thanks for your attention.