I'm back in New York for the first time in a couple months. Back in my old bed, back in my old desk chair, back in my neighborhood of many years.

It's strange being here. I find myself looking at my old things like an anthropologist, wondering: Who this person was who lived here? What were his values? How did he live? Did he enjoy his life at all?

Clearly this person wasn't terribly organized (note: laundry discovered in closet that has been sitting there for several months). He seemed to enjoy pornography and dry roasted peanuts and string cheese. The kitchen drawers are stuffed with old soy sauce packets and chopsticks; he must have had at least seven thousand dollars worth of Chinese food delivered over the years.

And clearly this person played a lot of games. Bad games, mostly.

I am astonished, and more than a little embarrassed, by the mass quantities of terrible games I'm still harboring.

True Crime: Streets of LA (Xbox). The Matrix: Path of Neo (Xbox). Driver: Parallel Lines (Xbox). MVP Baseball '05 (Xbox), a series that has been defunct for several years now. Something called Spartan: Total Warrior (Xbox). Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance (Xbox). True Crime: Streets of NY (Xbox). That's just a swatch of the larger fabric, too.

Added together, the total value of these games is probably -$6.04.

You cannot give these games away. Literally. And I feel strange putting them in the garbage. Somebody, somewhere worked on these games. (I've been to dev offices; I've seen how hard these people work. They bust ass.) Somebody put in long hours. Somebody--at least one member of the dev team--put a little bit of heart and maybe even a bit of soul into these virtual worlds. Whenever I stare at my shelves of bad games, I inevitably think, Well, maybe some day I'll get around to finishing Black, or 007 Everything Or Nothing, or Destroy All Humans. Maybe I'll take a good, hard look at those games, and I'll finally find something to love about them, something to appreciate.

And thus: Here they sit, lost in a kind of collector's limbo.

I've made it my mission to cull the stacks this week. To thin the herd. Anything that's even marginal has got to go. I'm traveling light from now on. It's Jones 2.0. No! It's Jones 2.1!

I'll keep you posted on Project What To Keep What To Toss 2009 this week.

Send me strength, oh mighty gods of gaming.

Meanwhile, here's a question (and be honest here): What's the most embarrassing bit of gaming effluvia you are harboring in your collection?

Let's hear it.

I'm heading for the airport shortly, boarding an Air Canada flight, then beginning the long journey back to Crispy Central in New York City.

I actually fly into Newark.

#$@*&!.

For those of you who don't know, Crispy Gamer is rare in that it's one of the few gaming-centric publications unique enough, or crazy enough, to set up shop in New York City.

The orange-painted office--that shade of orange has been known to drive lesser men insane--is located in a no-man's-land part of town that probably resembles Grand Theft Auto's Liberty City more than it does the rest of New York. Downstairs from our building, there are many suspicious clothing shops (which are no doubt fronts for other activities) and places to buy chicken (which are also no doubt fronts for other activities). It seems like everything is being torn down and/or built up around us; huge pieces of yellow-colored construction equipment rumble along the street. (Or at least they did a few months ago, last time I was there.)

At night, it's not uncommon to see ladies with love for sale patroling our block.

During the day, it's not uncommon for the building's heat not to function. (Note to self: Pack old-man cardigans.)

The office is a dirty, beautiful place. There are notes tacked above the toilets which describe the proper way to flush. There is an elevator that eeriely opens and closes of its own volition. There is a tiny IKEA couch that I'm pretty sure more than one person in the office (was it you?) has spent the night on. There is the smell of old food in the afternoons. There is the smell of old food farts in the evenings.

Ah, Crispy.

Anyway, here are the 10 things I'm most looking forward to in NYC.

1. Hugging Elise.

2. Have a pint at Keens across the street.

3. Organizing the game room and being tempted once again to borrow the office copy of Ninja Blade. (NO!)

4. Trying to decipher the half-erased messages on the office white board. (Wait... Is that the words "Get rid of Jones" I see? NO!)

5. Waiting patiently for the elevator with the Fed-Ex guy.

6. Having Teti declare that my salad from Pax "smells like ass."

7. Listening to Elise giggle uncontrollably each time she receives an IM from Dave Thomas and/or Gus Mastrapa and/or Tom Chick.

8. Trying to keep names of the new interns (plural) straight. (Note to self: Buy name-tags.)

9. Standing in front of the open fridge and wondering why we have a million Diet Dr. Peppers.

10. Wondering how on earth someone got a NERF dart stuck way up in there.

Leave the porch light on for me.

Daddy's coming home.