This is a blog topic that I've had in mind for a number of years and I've just never gotten around to putting pen to paper...er...fingertip to keyboard?
Video games are prolific. They're on your phone, your iPod, your t.v....literally, there is a channel on Directv that has games you can play with your remote! We've moved beyond the hand held poker games, traversed far beyond the ancient joysticks from the time of Atari and landed smack dab in the middle of online reality/fantasy/first person shooters, racers and boxers!
Playing Super Mario Bros or Duck Hunt on the original Nintendo was the highlight of my day! I had so much fun jumping up off the footstool (that's what we sat on while we played because the cord for the controllers wouldn't reach the couch) and leaning left or right when I was trying to get Mario to run or go down a tube. I could play for hours! Then the Sega Genesis came out. I was the master of Sonic the Hedgehog. Still am. It surprises my kids, but I've still got my old school abilities (on old school games).
It wasn't long after I beat Sonic that I started to lose interest in video games. Maybe it was my age and the social expectations of preteen girls in the early 90s. I don't know. I do know that going to the local arcade wasn't nearly as much fun as a teenager as it was when I was a little kid. Even less amusing as I got older. It surely wasn't something that I respected as an actual hobby held by adults.
Then I married my husband. I soon realized that his video game consumption was much more than I anticipated. Much more than I thought was normal, and SO MUCH more than I wanted to deal with. After all, video games are for kids, right? They're boring (to me), they have no bearing on real life (like a good book might) and they're....well, they're disgustingly time consuming (to me)!
We've been married for 11 years now and sometimes I still want to pick up the X-BOX and throw it through a window. But I don't, because I have more self control than that. Seriously though, I might be willing to give you my address and ask you to come steal it while we're out of the house one day. I kid, I kid.
Truthfully, I've come to appreciate the X-BOX, the cost of the expensive games and the yearly membership fee to make sure that his clan doesn't miss him during some super important Zombie match. Honestly. No sarcasm, no artificial mumbo jumbo.
My husband goes to work, earns an honest dollar and spends almost every free minute of his time at home with his family. He rarely goes out, and when he does it's because someone ordered a pay per view fight or there's an after hours poker game. He never leaves us at home to frequent the local titty bars. He doesn't go looking for trouble with degenerate men. No, he stays home and kills people instead.
It sounds ridiculous in my head, so I'm sure it'll be great written out, but I enjoy watching him dominate the other players in some weird sociological hunter gatherer kind of way. Whatever game he is playing, whether it's a round of match play on Tiger, a complete blow out on Madden (as it often is), or a tournament of terrorist killing, I LOVE watching him shame the competition under the table!
In some weird way, watching him crush the other players instills a sense acknowledgment of his profound ability. I imagine the feeling is similar to our ancient relatives who sought after a mate who was big and strong, a skilled hunter and provider.
He's a total geek. But when it comes to Call of Duty, he's like Christopher Columbus, conquering and killing all that stand in his way to take home the German and Al Qaeda flags of defeat. Only without all the slavery and disease, cause Christopher Columbus wasn't nearly as cool as he's made out to be...but that's a post for another day.
