The Roxx Forums

So I was thinking about the Roxx Forums (just now) and why the topics of conversation are so bland and the posts are so inane. I’m very sorry to admit that the forums are basically just an aggrandized Facebook where Andy and Chris make important updates and people discuss upcoming tournaments. That’s not to say such topics are unimportant–because they are important–but I’m used to forums with a little more… discussion.

I believe the last discussion on the forums had something to do with a dispute over a Pokemon tournament. It was an argument between two or three people over the inclusion or exclusion of certain Pokemon from the tournament, which was riddled with different methods of raising Pokemon to get the best stats.

That’s just sad, people.

Like I said, I was thinking about it, and I’m wondering if several factors contribute to the lack of community on the forums. First of all, there’s a strange sense of anonymity (as there always is on the Internet), but it’s strange because all of these people go to Roxx. So you should know them by name, but most people don’t.

Secondly, the age range literally spans two decades. This creates a vast difference in forum maturity, which I am certain is essential for a prosperous forum.

Basically, very few users are on the forums for discussion. It’s just another place on the Internet to troll.

I moderate another Star Wars forum and even though all of the members hardly knew each other, we have created a very tight community and spawned a lot of interesting topics. It has been active for four months now, whereas the Roxx Forums have been around for well over a year. While we Star Wars fans have the benefit of one, big common interest, the Roxx Forums suffer from a wide range of taste and what I can only assume is a lack of forum experience.

Anyway, I’m not sure what the point of this is. I guess I’m just baffled at the level of activity on the Star Wars forum (which is only four months old, like I said) compared to the activity on the Roxx Forums. I suppose another factor that hinders the Roxx Forums is that the users actually socialize in real life.

Real life is just for losers, we all know that. We have blogs, remember?

Oh, ranting.

I deleted my previous entry about HFCS because in the end, it has little to do with ROXX Coffee House and Games.

The point I wanted to make is that the corn industry will tell the public anything in order to alleviate anyone’s legitimate worries about HFCS. A point that could have been inferred but not the focus of my post was that sugar is good for you, which is not true. Sugar still gives you diabetes.

Ode to Gaming

O dear God in heaven, I am a poser.

Quick note: I am a Star Wars fanatic, especially when it comes to the expanded universe involving clones and Mandalorians. Long story. But suffice to say, I have bought an action figure in the past year, I read comic books, I religiously follow the progress of a Star Wars game with a release date loosely based late next year, and I was a moment’s decision away from buying a child’s Clone Wars bedspread.

So last night when Andy asked me something about a droid enemy in the Republic Commando game, I had to admit–and this is so hard for me to say–that I had never finished the game. Everyone was floored. I told them I was no good at first-person shooters, and I watched my brother beat it, and that was enough for me.

So that got me thinking: how in the world do I know so much about video games? Where does my enthusiasm for them come from? I haven’t beaten a game since Zelda: Twilight Princess in 2007. I love playing games, but I rarely make them a priority. I could take the easy route and say that I’m in school and that keeps me busy, but I can’t just abandon one of my hobbies because I have some menial class like pathogenic microbiology.

Back when life was riddled with difficulties such as reading page requirements in young adult books and doing 20 pre-algebra problems, I played a lot of video games. Middle school bred such habits with less than an hour’s worth of homework. The school year was like summer back then, and I made friends with my Sega Dreamcast and a game called Skies of Arcadia. It’s one of those role-playing games set in a fantastical universe where airships roam the sky and pirates steal things–oh, and there are giant living weapons that live in mountains and stuff. You do that for about, eh, 46 hours and then you find out the characters’ lame endings.

I love that game.

I went on to play first-person shooters such as Halo and Halo 2. But I played on easy mode, looking forward more for the story than how many aliens I slotted. I am a writer, you know–got a blog and everything.

Since then, I’ve merely dabbled in video games. I have a Nintendo DS and I play things like Pokemon, where there are no life and death situations if I stop playing. The worse that happens is that my Geodude stays at level 23 until I pick up the game again. You would think with such a great, trendy little portable like the DS, I would play more. Hardly. Carrying that device around is just a hazard to me, so I refrain in order to keep from having it get broken.

At any rate, while I associate myself with gamers and I know a lot about video games, I’m like that person who has seen one episode of a TV show and call myself a fan. It’s not that I don’t want to play video games, either, but between trying to keep up with my writing, not ignoring my family, friends, and boyfriend, as well as trying not to fail classes, video games have really taken a back seat.

But I’ll still pretend like I know a bunch about them and tell you things you never needed to know.

Cawffee Tawlk

Let’s have a conversation about coffee.

My coffee addiction started in junior high school, like many addictions do. Starbucks makes these little frappuccino bottles that are sweet and appealing to a teenager that likes Mountain Dew. After that, I forced hot coffee with cream down during family gatherings. Eventually I started liking the taste of it.

I can’t quite pinpoint the first time I had a latte. Maybe it was my good-for-nothing, party-every-day French class in high school. At any rate, I somehow started drinking Starbucks espresso drinks. They were okay. Once my mom pointed out that their coffee tastes burnt and bitter, I couldn’t quite get over it.

I started learning about how the freshness of the coffee bean can affect the flavor of coffee. I became a coffee snob much in the way wine aficionados won’t drink wine that isn’t of a certain standard. Caribou Coffee, which seems to exist only in certain parts of the United States, better matches the standards of taste that I’ve come to enjoy. They employ fair trade, getting their beans straight from farmers without a middleman. This results in fresher coffee, as well as better business for poor farmers in South America and other places. I am, of course, elated by the latter much more than the fresh coffee!

At any rate, ROXX also participates in fair trade coffee. Their supplier is a man named Chuck, who I have only met a couple of times. Chuck is a Jedi Master when it comes to coffee. I learned that the way the beans are stored, and the settings at which they are grinded by the machine must be monitored and modified based on the age of the beans. Moreover, the steamed milk plays a part in the way the oils of the coffee are released, thus affecting taste. Milk has to be steamed in a certain way to avoid that nasty bitter taste.

I practiced steaming milk for part of an afternoon to make sure I did it right–the foam on top must be made of very fine bubbles. You must create a perfect vortex of swirling, while also avoiding causing the steamer to make a high-pitched “demon scream,” which causes the bubbles to become too large. This demon scream is rampant in most of the Starbucks I go to, where they must train their baristas not to care.

Now, if it weren’t for the war waged on my intestines by coffee beans, I would drink much more of it.

In short, ROXX has great coffee. The owners take great care to obtain the freshest beans and learn how to prepare drinks in the tastiest ways. Also, for $3.50, you get a patented candiccino, which has about five flavor shots in it. Can’t beat that!

BlogCatalog

In the beginning…

I own a business.

Scratch that, I own a business vicariously through three other ambitious and hard-working people who somehow prevail over tremendous odds and slug through dozens of more responsibilities than I can merely pray to overcome myself one day.

In short, I don’t own a business so much as I know the owners of ROXX Coffee House and Games really, really well.

It started in early May of 2008. Fresh out of my first year in college, I ventured out into the businesses around my house looking for work. I had heard tales of a business that had taken over the long-forgotten Domino’s Pizza that once inhabited the corner of Cornell and Deerfield. No business ever lasted long there. My hopes were not dampened–somewhere along the way I discovered that the place was called Roxx, and that they would be a coffee shop. I went there and before the realization that the store was no more than unfinished concrete floors and some two-by-fours, I saw the posters in the window. A Halo 2 poster with Master Chief brandishing a rifle. Warhammer. Video games.

Assembling the coffee bar!

A woman opened the door, wearing paint-stained jeans and her face partially covered with a white cloth to block out the dust as if she had just embarked on a journey across the Sahara. She smiled at me because I was standing with wide eyes and jaw dropped.

I met Jinny Eigel and her husband Andrew Eigel, and Chris Spencer that night. They were the perpetrators of such a wondrous place. I told them that if there was anything I loved more than coffee, it was video games, and they had just managed to put two of my favorite things together in one dusty building. I offered to help.

The rest is history.

Well, sort of. It was only a year ago when we were putting the beginning final touches on the store. I watched the interior transform from a dubious collection of tools, sweat, and determination into a place outfitted with an espresso machine, refrigerator, chairs, and tables. When the walls were painted, it really looked like ROXX was going to open.

As someone who has had a lot of unfinished projects on my hands, watching ROXX get off the ground was an inspiration. I can’t finish cleaning my room, much less take an old Domino’s Pizza and turn it into a gaming and coffee hub. Andy, Jinny, and Chris have showed me that an idea conceived on a front porch can become a reality.

Even in the struggling economy, the owners of ROXX are keeping their heads about them and the community that they have built has helped them pull through financially. There is still a lot of work to be done in order to carve out a presence among the big coffee moguls, as well as harness the interests of gamers in the Cincinnati area.

But, damn it, the owners of ROXX have cut wood and put up drywall and replaced toilets and carried heavy things. It will be done.

Ryan and I cut drywall squares for the ceiling!