Thursday, March 8, 2007

Life You Say?

So I went through some stages in deciding on a blog. Should I keep doing myspace? Nah, I'm never on there anymore. Should I start a gaming news blog? Nope, too many, and there's no way I can get the news before them. Should I blog about myself... a journal of sorts? Sure, why the hell not.

This should be my first post, but I decided to try doing game reviews... that didn't last long.

So... my life, as a gamer. Being a gamer is an important part of my life, I have a blue rubber wristband that I bought from Jinx.com that says "Gamer". I wear T-shirts with gaming themes. I sometimes confuse people by referencing some obscure gaming trivia. My car has gaming related stickers. I have posters of game characters on my wall, and I want Sonic the Hedgehog tattooed on my leg.

But this is no different from a sports fan, or a NASCAR fan, perhaps someone who loves Guinness beer just a little too much. I'm still a normal person. I'm not violent, I've never committed a crime, I'm not anti-social. Well, I try not to be, the truth is I can't stand most of society, and most of my "friends" stopped hanging out with me after the birth of my daughter.

Oh noes!!! One of them thar vidjamagame playing punks has chillun's!!! The end is nigh! Calm down, I'm a caring, responsible parent. When the time comes, I will invite my daughter into the world of gaming. Games like Mario, Sonic, Tetris, Hexic, Worms, the list goes on. The point is, they will be age appropriate. And not only will the ESRB be deciding what games she can play, but I will be deciding what games she can play. It's not the governments job, and the ESRB can only do so much.

(Watch out! Topic changing!)

It's up to the parents... yes... YOU. Games don't create psychotic killing teenagers, a bad environment, coupled with lackluster parenting do.

I've played games for as long as I can remember. I can still recall my excitement when my mother brought home the NES back in the day. I played everything from Super Mario Bros. to Doom. Doom came later obviously. The point is, I played practically every game I could get my hands on, long before ratings, long before polygons and complex texture mapping. My mother probably would've whooped me if she knew some of the games I played. But she also taught me right from wrong, and reality from fantasy. So I wasn't about to grab my grandfathers' shotgun and run around claiming everyone was a demon on Mars. You see, small children, although imaginative, can be strongly grounded in reality.

Look at it this way, would you rather your child be sitting on the couch eating cheese puffs watch TV, while their brain rots away, or would you rather have them playing a video game for an hour or two a day, which keeps the brain active, and even though it's not always exercise (except for the Wii and DDR) they develop manual dexterity.

My mother limited my time playing games, I still played outside, hung out with friends, went swimming, fishing, all that great stuff, and I still had to keep my grades up. The point I'm making is I was raised right, sure I got into trouble, but honestly, if a child doesn't cause trouble, you're doing something horribly wrong as a parent.

As children, we are supposed to be scraping our knees while climbing trees in our brand new jeans. It's natural for us to break the neighbors window with a baseball. That vase your grandmother gave you all those years ago before she died... your kids will probably break it.

And that's okay, it's part of life. It teaches us that there are consequences to every action, even if it's an accident.

Let your kids get in trouble, tell them to get in trouble, don't advise them to go burning down houses, but let them go ruin a brand new set of clothes, tell them to go play football in their brand new shoes. They shouldn't do this all the time, but it's healthy sometimes.

I think I'm spent for the time being... I hope this maybe has been enlightening, even though nobody will see this for quite sometime, it's gotten a bit of a weight off my chest.

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