Game Over

In the spirit of the post-holiday season, I figured I’d take a break from busting on J-Fed and set myself sights on a broader subject. And over a nice gourmet lunch I found exactly the target I’d been searching for.

Ready… Aim… Fire…

It all began when one of my nearest and dearest friends professed his love of video games. They were everything to him. Actually, he wasn’t just in love; he was obsessed. I began to wonder what life with a gamer was like. I mean, I had known many throughout my career. They flocked to dot.coms with their little tech mentalities speaking in terms of dot net and cold fusion. And while I’d never lived with a gamer, I could only imagine the pain of a gamer’s wife.

So I asked my friend, “how often do you play?” I expected him to say once a week, or at the most once every couple of days.

After all, men will be boys. What was wrong with a little gaming every now and then? I mean, it wasn’t like he was J-Fed who spent countless hours in the garage watching go-kart crashes on YouTube in marathon stretches.

“Every night. But it’s not like I go anywhere. I’m right here on the couch, gaming. I even went so far as to buy a 47’ inch plasma television so my girlfriend can go in the bedroom and watch it,” he told me.

I wondered how this was possibly acceptable. He was like a junkie who needed a daily fix. He told me about his status as an elite gamer. He gave me a run down of his stats but it was all Greek to me. I didn’t know Postal from Pac-Man. All I knew was my gut feeling that video games were a HUGE waste of time. But on he went about his love of all things game related.

“I have a reputation to protect. I’m like a contender at this game. If I just got up and turned off the game without obliterating everything in sight first, the guys would never let me live it down,” he said, getting worked up.