Gamer Spotlight:

Trixie360 Interviews Sticky Couch

Published April 24, 2008

He's a Dad, a gamer, and a sapphire-melter in Nashua, New Hampshire. He's also got a Superman tattoo and is getting married on May 1, 2008! Mazel Tov to Sticky Couch!

Trixie360: What's the story behind your Gamertag?

Sticky Couch: I was pondering what to name myself the day I got my Xbox LIVE® subscription, as all the awesome Greek hero names I wanted were already taken. As I was thinking, I sat down on my couch and on a wet, sticky spot. The emotions I felt—fear, confusion, doubt—well, those are the feelings I aim to inspire in my opponents in online competition, so I went with Sticky Couch! A note of disclosure, my daughter was younger and had left a bottle of formula on its side on the couch.

Sticky Couch and his formula-spilling daughter.

Trixie360: So what do you do when you're not gaming or sitting in spilled baby formula?

Sticky Couch: I'm the final inspector as well as a clean room and optical technician at a synthetic sapphire factory. We melt chunks of sapphire into a liquid at temperatures over 3000 Fahrenheit, and remold and then fabricate it into different shapes to use in a variety of applications, mostly semiconductor and aerospace technologies. A bunch of us in the plant, along with our sister plant next door, get together for big party sessions on Xbox LIVE weekly.

Trixie360: What's the worst or weirdest job you've ever had?

Sticky Couch: Unloading trucks during the third shift for a big company. The guys I worked with were amazing people, but the company and its working conditions were atrocious. I ended up leaving after a wall of boxes fell on me, throwing my back out for over a month and making it so I couldn't lift my daughter into her crib.

Trixie360: How long have you been on Xbox LIVE?

Sticky Couch: I got LIVE a few months after Halo® 2 came out. I've been on it nonstop ever since.

Trixie360: Do you have an archenemy on Xbox LIVE?

Sticky Couch: My four-year-old daughter! She shows me up in Beautiful Katamari™ every time we play together! Other than that, my buddy Government Lies keeps trying to get to my Gamerscore, but fails constantly! It's a good natured competition.

Sticky Couch's daughter shows him up in Beautiful Katamari.

Trixie360: What's your Xbox set-up like?

Sticky Couch: I have a 52-inch Sony rear-projection HDTV running at 1080i. We custom built a neon, lime green cabinet around it and put some purple and green swirled curtains around it to give it a movie-theater effect.

Trixie360: Funky! What's the best feature of Xbox LIVE?

Sticky Couch: The Friends List! I love being able to chat with a buddy who is playing The Elder Scrolls® IV: Oblivion™ while I'm playing Call of Duty® 4: Modern Warfare™, or just simply and easily sending a party invite at the press of a single button. I can't imagine playing without my friends list now.

Trixie360: What do you think is the best game of all time?

Sticky Couch: Deus Ex: Invisible War, hands down! Do anything, however you want to, racing through a long, amazing story to save the world with a lot of social relevance to the topics in the real news today. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind®, Oblivion's predecessor, is a close second.

Trixie360: What's the funniest thing you've ever heard on Xbox LIVE?

Sticky Couch: I was playing the Allies in a Team Deathmatch in Call of Duty 2, and someone kept yelling in a horrible British accent for us to fall in line and flank left, keep an eye on the Kraut buggers, etc., etc., in the middle of the match. It was hilarious. We lost.

Trixie360: What is your greatest Xbox LIVE moment?

Sticky Couch: Getting Gears of War® the day it came out and playing co-op over LIVE with a buddy from work. Trying to take down the first Berserker with my buddy as he was in his living room miles away, it really felt like we had entered the next generation of consoles.

Trixie360: Who is your inner rock star?

Sticky Couch: Mike Patton. He lives his own life, and is a musical genius to boot. Also, he loves videogames.

Trixie360: If they made a movie about your life, who should play you?

Sticky Couch: A younger, more attractive Santa Claus. Hefty, bearded, and good natured.

Trixie360: I can haz presents? What superpower would you like to have?

Sticky Couch: Agility and web-slinging like Spider-Man. It would be amazing to sling around the Grand Canyon on a nice day.

Want a tough achievement? Try 5 Professional Silent Assassins in Hitman: Blood Money.

Trixie360: If you could trade places with anyone for one day, who would it be?

Sticky Couch: Hunter Thompson, at least before he died. He was a unique man with a knack in ending up in interesting situations.

Trixie360: What celebrity would be the worst roommate?

Sticky Couch: Pee Wee Herman. There were his legal (and moral) troubles, plus the fact that he hasn't had a job in a while would make it hard for him to pay his half of the bills!

Trixie360: Hot celeb you'd like to be stranded on a desert island with?

Sticky Couch: Gwen Stefani.

Trixie360: If you could be any videogame character, who would it be?

Sticky Couch: Jolee Bindo from Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic™. Taking life as it comes with a smile, doing what you think is right.

Trixie360: What's the worst food you've ever eaten?

Sticky Couch: Man, I hate eggs, especially hard-boiled ones. Just the smell makes me gag. I like 'em in cake, though.

Trixie360: What's the last book you read?

Sticky Couch: I just finished Reaper's Gale by Steven Erikson. His Malazan Books of the Fallen series is the best fantasy to come out in a long time.

Trixie360: If you could go on tour with any band, which would it be?

Sticky Couch: Peeping Tom! Their shows just look so fun!

Trixie360: What do you predict will be the "next big thing" in gaming?

Sticky Couch: Customizing your character's weapons and gear online, like you can in CoD4 and Rainbow Six. Make the battle your own.

Trixie360: What do you think is the best thing about Xbox 360®?

Sticky Couch: The social aspect. All of my buddies have one so we can play when we can't get together physically. Playing Viva Piñata™, Cars, and Beautiful Katamari with my daughter and Full Auto™ with my fiancée brings us closer together, and it has given me connections to people who work in plants next to mine that I never would have gotten to have otherwise.

Trixie360: What is the Xbox 360 achievement that was hardest to get?

Sticky Couch: It was a pain to get 5 Professional Silent Assassins in Hitman™: Blood Money. I actually ended up getting silent assassins on all of the levels before I was finished though.

Trixie360: What would you like to be doing in ten years?

Sticky Couch: Well, I'm getting married to a wonderful, beautiful, incredibly patient jewel of a woman on May 1, in less than a month, and all I would like to be doing in 10 years is owning a cabin on a river, sitting next to her in a matching rocking chair and lazily watching the days meander by as I blogged for a gaming site. I wouldn't be against grilling up some hot dogs for my kid at the end of a day, either.

Interview by TriXie