Mindstream

According to my little counter-thingy, I’ve done about 500 posts. Which is good because I’ve been plotting grand new things.

One of the interesting things I’ve learned lately is that I can’t actually do all the things I’ve been wanting to do by myself. This is unfortunate since I have rather big plans. However, just because I can’t do it myself doesn’t mean it won’t get done. It means I simply have to delegate.

So, I’ve been looking around and plotting and have recruited a few talented individuals to help me get everything up and running. I of course need more talented individuals to finish things, but this is a start.

The biggest thing that will probably happen is peeling off the blog. I’ll keep my personal blog here as always and continue to update about the random things going on, or even the occasional rant o a topic, but I’ll be starting a bigger blogger network that will cover a range of awesome.

We’ll be talking about games, politics, current events, science, that sort of fun things, this blog will be the forefront of my new media empire.

The second thing I’m trying to get started is a range of webcomics. I love webcomics, and have always wanted to get involved in one, since I utterly fail at art and bad art has become cliche in webcomics, I’m stepping back and letting others perform arts for me. I’ve found an artist or two and am always looking for more, anyone who wants to get in on a new and dedicatated artists network should just let me know.

Third, and somewhat in line with the first will be a line of podcasts and skits. I’m going to shortly be opening up our very own youtube channel. We’ll have podcasts, vlogs, and tons of awesome things to once again get the word out.

So, that’s Atomic Ninja Media.

Hopefully you’ll be hearing more from us soon.

So at the card shop we had an interesting discussion. Feel free to join in as you wish.

My friend Brian believes in a wealth cap. He would like to cap private wealth at around $450,000,000, meaning that once you have amassed that much wealth, you would be relieved of the rest through taxation or other means. You have any number of options available to you to get rid of your wealth before you hit that cap and are even encouraged to do so.

The basic idea behind this is that no person can gain that much wealth by him or herself. No matter what you do, you are always somehow exploiting others to gain that much wealth. Now in this sense exploit is a very loaded word. I exploit my car so it can take me to work. I make sure it runs, sure, and it serves me in it’s capacity, but much beyond that I don’t pay too much attention to it… and nor should I. It’s a car. It’s mine.

Now I’m not opposed to a wealth cap. I would quibble over the precise cap and whatnot, but I’m really not opposed to the idea. I’ve had an audiorant before about this, but since Ecyler only knows where those are going to wind up, I’ll go over it again briefly…

Money is a fixed system. We can’t (despite current economic policies) keep pumping more into it to fix out problems. The more monies floating around the system the less each money is worth. If I have 10 monies and there are only 100 monies around then I have a tenth of the total available wealth. If someone decides that there should be 1000 monies instead, my wealth is devalued. Get it? Good. That’s a fundamental point here. Remember that when you are at the voting booth as well… Just sayin’.

Now here is why the hoarding of wealth is a problem. Say again that there are only 100 monies to go around, say again that there are only 20 of us. In theory that leaves about 5 monies per person. Say if I worked a day, my boss gave me one money for my effort. In my working he gained three monies. He only has to spend one money on his business and living expenses, leaving him with one money to save. Following me so far? My boss is giving one money out to others to maintain his lifestyle and business. He is giving another money to me for me to do the same, and his business earns him one more money that he can do as he sees fit with. We’re going to assume he chucks it in a big pile to save it.

After a week, assuming I spend all the monies I will be breaking even, at my bosses spending rate, he will have a pile so 7 monies to sit on. He currently owns 7% of this worlds wealth. After a month he will have about 30% of the worlds wealth. The problem is since he has so many monies, there isn’t enough monies to go around. Those 5 monies I started with I still have, but now there are a few people with no monies, they can’t afford to actually buy or do anything and can no longer contribute to the economy. This means that my boss makes less monies. Since there is less to go around, the prices of everything fluctuate to reflect this. Since there are only 70 monies in circulation right now, everything will cost proportionally more. Since my boss now requires 1.3 monies to run his business, and the business is only producing 2.5 monies a day (since less people are buying) he has to pay me less to maintain his profit margin of 1 money a day. I now have to make due with .8 monies.

Now this is just a quick and dirty example, but I’m sure you can all see where I’m going here. When the wealth is concentrated that’s less wealth to go around. When the wealth stops going around, the economy begins to seize. You can think of money as blood in a living organism, when it stops flowing the organism dies. You can also think of it as oil in a car, when the oil stops flowing, the car seizes up. The spice money must flow.

The biggest misconception about the idea about a wealth cap is that the money will be given to those who don’t work. Brian suggested (and I believe) that this isn’t true at all. The money could very be used however the person sees fit. In the above example, once he’s reached his 5 wealth cap, he no longer needs that extra money. My boss can choose to pay me more (yay), upgrade and expand his business (hiring more people), donate the extra wealth to charity (noble), or simply give it away randomly. It’s his money still he can do whatever he wants with it as long as he’s not keeping it.

Now I know, this won’t stop the concentration of wealth, the richest people in the world will now have some richer friends to hang out with. Wealth will still be concentrated. I’m fine with that to a point. After all, if you manage to make that much money, you must be doing something right, but honestly, seriously, tell me how you would make enough money to hit a wealth cap, and not have enough to be able to disburse as you see fit. If you are worth $612,978,525.36 will it kill you to give away $162,978,525.36. Will it bankrupt you to invest that money in a business. If it fails, so what? You still have your maximum wealth that we’re not going to take away from you. If it succeeds, congratulations, you started another successful business, give yourself another point, and try it again.

Yes, this is socialism. No this will not destroy america. Is there anyone here who would care to start a dialog on this? You know where to find me and my forums.

(www.gunnerrpg.com)

Slowly I’m getting more organized. I’ve found myself with so many minor side projects lately that I am quite behind on everything. So I’ve come up with a nice and simple solution. Scheduling.

Yes, the time honored tradition of taking blocks of your time and dedicating them has been determined to be the most effective measure. It’s a bit trite I know, but hopefully it’ll keep me a bit more on task.

The ironic thing is I have too much free time. I have too much time dedicated to nothing in perticular. I have blocks of time where i have to do things, work a few days a week, run a few games for my local store, that sort of thing, but for the most part I have huge swaths of time I’m not using constructively.

So… I’m going to change that. My life will be rather scheduled out now. Through years of practice and paying attention to how long it takes before I stop paying attention I come to the conclusion that I do things in about 2 hour blocks. This jives with what I know about REM patterns, and other such things. Between 90 minutes and 2 hours, I really start to lose focus and drive. This is fortunately about how long it takes me to do most chunks of things I enjoy doing, so it’s a happy coincidence. I’m going to break my free time down into 2 hourish blocks.

The other thing I found out about blocking is after doing *anything* for about 6 hours my brain goes numb. So I’ll limit myself ot about 6 hours of scheduled activity a day. Yes, this means I’ll be working less than a ‘full time job’ this is true, but this also doesn’t take into account travel time, lunch, and other household chores I get to do which will effectively take a 2 hour block each day anyway.

I will try a bit of an experiment. I’m going to try to pack my days full and short myself on my usual sleep. If I can operate with say… 6 hours of sleep it could be worthwhile. Unfortunately this part of the experiment may have to wait until I have a more coherent work/volunteer schedule.

So, my life will be blocked out as follows:

Health: This is time I’m going to use to preparing healthy food as opposed to grabbing something quick and easy. This is also time I’m going to be using to work on my wii fit and shake weight stuff. Right now I have about a 35 minute yoga/strength routine that is burning a bit under 200 calories. In time I want to nudge this up a bit more. Maybe 5 minutes a week until I’m at about an hour. I want to try to get that done at least 3 days a week if I can manage it.

Write: This is another important one. I’m going to actually schedule writing time. Not oh I think i’ll get some writing tonight time, actual concrete this is the time I will write things time. I should be able to get about 2k words done in that time, I know it’s a doable pace becuase I’ve done it before. I simply need to schedule time to do it. Cooling down after working out seems to me to be a really good time to get it done.

The hardest part will be working on a topic. The plan is to rotate weekly what I’m writing about. Maybe monthly depending on how it works. The other options is to have each day be dedicated to something different. I might experiment with both and see what works better. One will allow me to gather momentum and get lots of writing done. The other will keep me from getting overly bored, but it will risk me running out of ideas and getting disinterested in that days topic. I consider that a good exercise myself though.

News: This is where I catch up on everything. Webcomics, Social Media, news and other updates. It takes me a bit under an hour to trawl through the news on the wii, and about ten to twenty minutes to burn through my comics. That gives me a bit of time to catch up on my various feeds.

The biggest problem here is this really needs to be done daily. Which isn’t too much of an issue. If it gets backed up it still needs caught up on and gets extremely time consuming. This may be the only schedule where I’m actively *limiting* myself on how much I get done.

Site: My site needs work. The problem is I tend to work on it in spurts. Well no more. By blocking about 2 hours I can break things down into manageable projects and work on those as I need to. I’m also including in this group learning about various programming things and actively studying them.

The other thing this chunk will be good for (which might get it renamed tech) is I’ll use this time for computer optimization. I have tons and tons of files that need sorted, archived and worked on. Using this time as a limiting factor will keep me from wasting a day on less than urgent things.

Games: This is the time that I will actively put forth designing games and scenarios. This may cross over with Site development (for inputting scenarios) and likely cross over heavily with Writing. That’s fine. This is something I want to try to get in regularly. I have two weekly sessions that require my attention, by devoting two hours to each one and maybe another block to working on my own game, I should be able to push myself ahead.

Hobby: This is an interesting one. Turns out that most of my hobbies actually take quite a bit of study time. Magic requires deckbuilding and optimization, finding time to sort through cards and figure out what I actually *need* and want is time consuming. Now I’ll have it. Warhammer figures take forever to paint, well now I have time. What’s more is that I’ll have time to make a lot of my figures start to look *really* good after i get some layers on them and experience.

This time will basically be for studying and getting competitive at the things I enjoy. Pokemon breeding, deckbuilding, poring over sourcebooks will all get done here. This will be both a limiting factor in that I could easily spend a whole day half-doing any of these things, and an enabling factor in that I’ll be spending blocks of time on it specifically allowing me to get things done better.

There might be some more blocks as things come up or change focus, but that’s about it.

Why am I telling everyone this? Well for one I needed something to write about. Secondly and probably more importantly, this is the sort of thing that requires encouragement. So I’m asking anyone who reads this (all two of you) to help me keep on task. I’ll probably be crosslinking this to my various social outlets in order to get more support.

Ideally I’ll have a group of people scheduling things with me. That sort of togetherness generates a lot of energy and that’s what I’m going for. So anyone who wants to help me on this block-scheduling plan, let me know. We can be mutually supportive and helpful.

There is something to be said for selfishness.

I plan on going over this in more detail, but I’ll start off by saying that most people who are widely considered to be selfish are merely short sighted. Those who are truly selfish and self serving are the generous ones.

Let me rewind a bit and explain my somewhat counterintuitive position:

First off you must understand that to be self serving and selfish is not a bad thing in the least. We are programmed culturally, genetically, and in every way that matters to serve ourselves. After all there is a very good reason for this, as I tell people often without me, the world as I know it would not exist and that is absolutely the worst thing that could happen.

Self preservation is a noble endeavor. It’s largely the reason I am still alive today. The other reason being apathy. Nevertheless preserving oneself at the expense of others is not the same thing as being selfish. That is simply greedy.

Airplanes instruct you to make sure your mask is securely fastened before you attend to others. This is so that you can help others who cannot help themselves, after all you are no use to them if you are dead.

Aesthetics believe that true enlightenment is found through denying self. I’m not sure if I disagree, but I do know that those who do not contribute to society are a burden to it. While I applaud their efforts in making themselves lighter and thinner and thus much less of a burden, they still must be carried or they will die. In biology we call this a parasite.

On the other hand a symbiotic species is one that developed to serve itself and aid another at the same time. A symbiotic species (a biologist can feel free to correct me) as I understand it is one that is intertwined with another species for the survival of the other. Without one, a vital component is missing, and both species die. In such a case self preservation not only furthers yourself, but in the end contributes to another’s survival. This to me seems quite a noble goal.

Mutualists are very similar to symbiotic species in that the both rely in a level of interaction. In fact upon doing a bit of research I find that symbiosis is the broad category for parisitism, mutualism, and commensalism.

Parasitism described above is where one thing gains a benefit from the harm of another. This is a bad thing, although it does create a certain balance. Commensalism is where one thing gains a benefit and the other is unaffected. For example one thing feeding off the scraps of another. This is somewhat rare in real life as almost any sort of interaction is either beneficial or harmful in some subtle way.

However what I am striving for is mutualism. A mutual benefit between two things is ultimately good as both things benefit while neither is harmed. Think about this objectively for a moment.

The only reason anyone really ever does anything is if it has some perceived benefit. Be honest with yourself and ask when was the last time you truly did something that had no real benefit for you whatsoever, then ask yourself if it was worth it.

If you think about there only being a finite amount of happiness in the world then parasitism and competition make sense. After all in order for your happiness to increase, the happiness of someone else must decrease. This however is not only patently false it’s also insanity. Happiness isn’t a finite resource, it’s something that can be infinitely gained and lost. There is no balancing force.

So, one is left with a choice. If your increased happiness doesn’t require the decrease of another’s happiness, you can either increase your happiness at the expense of others, possibly decreasing the worlds happiness as a whole, or you can increase your happiness *with* others and make the whole world a better place.

The reason you would want to do the second is simple. If there is more happiness in the world, it is much easier to gain happiness for yourself. Since it’s not a finite resource you can, with management have unlimited happiness. If you harvest all the happiness from those around you, soon you will find yourself without any available happiness. In the long term, this is stupid.

Instead, and this is the truely selfish part… if you want to make yourself happy in the easiest and most efficient way in the long term… you should work toward making others happy.

This doesn’t mean that you should lower your own happiness to do so. No one is asking you to do that, nor should they. Instead consider the long term benefits involved. By performing actions that might result in less personal happiness, but more overall happiness, you raise the overall happiness of your environment. This also gives your environment incentive to raise your happiness spontaneously. Think about it. Free happiness. You don’t get that by being mean to those around you.

So. What I’m saying is, if you want to be utterly selfish and looking toward your own personal gain. Simple be nice and charitable to those around you. Not the parasites mind you, cut them off ruthlessly but if someone or something may have a future benefit to you, then help them out. Once they are in a position to do the same to you, you have both mutually benefitted. Once those who only drain happiness in the long term have been eliminated, the society as a whole will be a much happier place.

Selfishness is ultimately good for society. Short-sightedness is not.

Updates are happening. Suggestions are solicited.

I’ve been trying lately to move a lot of my information to the cloud. While some people think that is silly or a bad idea, I tend to disagree.

Some of the reasons for moving to the cloud are :

• Digitized information that is easy to keep track of and organize.
• Easy access to all information from computer, smartphone and at work.
• I can update information from anywhere.
• Can backup easy without worrying about to much clutter.
• I can sync my Facebook, Outlook, and Phone contacts easily.
• And I can make public what I want.

I’ve been using Google for most of this. I’ve moved to Gmail about a year ago from Yahoo because of the free POP and IMAP options, but now I’ve moved my calendar to Google Calendar. I’m using Remember the Milk for my to-do lists, and Evernote for note taking.

For most of them the browser interface is the best and is easy to use. The one exception to this is Evernote. I usually need notes quicker then the browser can load it. So I’ve downloaded an Evernote program and just use that to sync with my account.

My one complaint right now is Evernote and Verizon. Verizon has removed the Evernote Blackberry app and I’m unable to access my notes from my phone. But at this point, I’m not away from a computer long enough to worry to much about it. But, obviously things can change rapidly.

I have also been collecting all the business cards I’ve collected over the years and manually adding them to my Gmail contacts. This is nice, because I don’t have to keep track of those little pieces of paper/cardboard, and I also have access to them on my phone once it has been synced.

The Facebook side of this is that my Blackberry can grab the contact information from my FB friends and put it on my phone. Then my phone will sync with my Gmail contacts and I now have people emails, phone number (if available), and a picture of people.

Its all a sync cloud happiness.

This all brings up some interesting privacy conversation, but that sounds like another post.

Scott out.

So, here I am. All ready to begin posting up a storm. Plenty of time now, and even plenty to write about. What could be the problem you ask? Why haven’t I unleashed a deluge of posts?

Because I have the attention span of a hyperactive gnat.

Turns out the day after I wrote my last post I found a chatroom. Now I have my own chatroom that no one is ever in. I’m just cool like that. Well this chatroom has the people who are the kind of people I want to be. Specifically judges for the game of Magic: The Gathering.

You see, it’s all part of my sinister plan. Becuase a Herald Level GM. Then become a Master Level GM. Then run events for Wizards. Awesome. Well, Magic has a Judge program. That’s also another neat way to get flown around the world and do cool things doing the stuff I love.

The problem about the Judge program is you need a ‘mentor’ that’s fine, that’s what they have the chatroom for. The not-fine part is that you also need to be physically present for someone to give you a test. That wouldn’t be a *huge* deal if the nearest person willing to give me such a test is about 3 hours away. So 6 hours round trip. Awesome. Well my weekend schedule shouldn’t be a problem, except… oh wait… all the events are on the weekend.

Anyway, I’ve been spending a lot of time in that chatroom chatting with the European Judges, since, well, they’re awake when I am.

I think I’m getting along nicely, but it’ll be a long time before I actually get certified. Booo.

In other news, I’m adding some new social medias to my intersites, I need a bit more programming done and a lot of art (I’m quite willing to pay for both). I’ll be updating my stuff soon enough, so hopefully I’ll get onto that.

Finally, I’m writing my adventure. The aforementioned GM plan is working out well and taking up my time nicely. I have a nice entertaining adventure laid out that I hope everyone will really love. I have several thrilling and exciting combat encounters and I’m working on adding some equally thrilling and just as exciting non-combat encounters.

The biggest thing I need right now is to get my social media in order. Networking. It’s the way to the future.

Also why did no one ever tell me Stan Lee had a twitter account?! This changes my life in a deeply profound way.

As I pointed out in the last thing I wrote. I am fat. While I’l slightly above average height, I’m quite a bit above average weight, and while I’m not quite at a quarter ton, I am certainly in the obese range (according to wii fit anyway).

A thing I have encountered is that people, in general, dislike fat people. Yet, most people, when they meet me don’t consider me ‘fat’. Granted, I have legs that were sculpted from pure marble (and just as white). Toned and muscled calves that make south american soccer players jealous. From the waist up however, I am soft and squishy.

I have come to realize that when people say they hate fat people, what they really mean is they hate lazy people. I am fat, but I am not lazy.

I weigh about twice as much as an underweight friend of mine. In general we eat mostly the same. I sometimes eat more than him and he sometimes eats more than me, but I suspect it evens out. I certainly don’t eat twice as much as him. Yet, I am about twice his weight.

I don’t especially eat unhealthy, I avoid fast food and pizza. I don’t drink very much soda, and when I do it’s usually an indulgence. I work the same job as my friend so he’s not burning his calories there. In fact as a general rule he even sleeps more than I do.

I have a pretty slow metabolism I suspect. It’s genetic isn’t really an excuse for me, although it could be the reason. I am fully aware that genetically fat people can work out and slim themselves down. I’m also aware that it takes a good deal of work and effort to do this. Meanwhile many people are perfectly average without doing a thing. I don’t consider this laziness of my part that I’m not willing to put in many many times as much effort as some people to achieve things they do naturally. By the same token, I don’t expect people to study for 8 hours a day just to get the same grades I do. It doesn’t make me better than them, just differently abled.

The people who *do* study and *do* bust their ass working out? Yes, they are better people than me. But we’re not talking about them.

All that said, I am trying to work out. My blood pressure has always been somewhat high, while my pulse has been fairly low. Being the ripe old age of just pas a quarter century, I begin to think about my mortality. Quite honestly, I’m pretty sure I’ve outlived my usefulness, but there are people who disagree so for their sake I’ll try to stick around for a while longer. Part of that involves trying to keep my blood pressure down.

Now, I’m by no means in shape. I’m fit in the sense that I can perform my daily tasks without passing out. Unfortunately as I get older, my stamina isn’t getting any better. So I’m working on getting my heart rate up so that as a general rule, my heart rate and blood pressure will be lower. It’s not anything I’d call fun. I may be allergic to sweat, but I’m doing it.

That is to say, I’m not actually very lazy. In general, I’m fine walking wherever I need to go. Unfortunately it’s about a half hour to get into town from where I live walking. I’ve done it several times when  I was without a vehicle. I don’t really mind it, except modern america demands that I hold to their schedules. I can’t spend an hour or two travelling every day and expect to really get anything done.

When I was living in South America? Things were completely different (I was also 40lbs lighter *sigh*). I walked everywhere and it was expected, I had very loose schedules and there was public transportation to take me if i needed tog et somewhere in a hurry. I actually miss those days.

I enjoy taking walks places. I actually really enjoy hiking and camping. I enjoy the outdoors and doing things. I’ll admit I don’t usually enjoy strenious physical activity, like most sports, but that’s usually because I am very *bad* at them. I am however looking into martial arts. Unfortunately no one in the area teaches the style I want to learn. Again I miss South America.

All this is is to point out that while I may be fat, even obese. I am certainly not especially lazy. When people say they hate fat people, I am often not included in the group. I think that is the key difference. People hate laziness.

I clean up after myself, have reasonably standard hygiene, am usually courteous and polite to people, and will certainly take time to help people. While I don’t often volunteer to help out of the blue, I don’t hesitate to help out if there is a group, or if my help is solicited. It can be reasonably said that I am not lazy. Yet I am quite fat.

Being overweight has actually done quite devastating things to my body image. I have always been overweight, I think I was even born slightly large. I have a naturally large frame and quite a large chest. It makes me very good at holding my breath (8 years on the swim team).

This image problem haunted me for quite awhile (I quit the swim team in middle school because I didn’t want people making fun of my size). I largely quit swimming because of the image issues. I had pretty low self esteem feeling that no one could possibly find me attractive. I settled a bit, and was reasonably certain that I *could* have gotten the girls I was after, if I weighed quite a bit less.

For the record, I like my girls what could be considered a bit chubby. I have no idea is this is because I understand their pain, or because I have rather Victorian standards when it comes to women. Further research may be required.

I think I had a plan when I started this, but it rather fell apart as it went on. I was somewhat distracted when I went to write this, so I took some time to take care of things and when I came back I had largely lost my train of thought. I know I wasn’t really going to deal with body image either, but that’s where this ended up I guess.

The point I’m trying to make is a bit simple. Fat doesn’t always mean lazy. It can be shown that lazy doesn’t always make people fat. Maybe it’s a stereotype, and there is certainly a basis for fat lazy people (I know a few). I think it’s a bit unfair to judge a tome until you’ve read it’s contents.

I am a gamer.

I have been playing games most of my life. Some of my earliest childhood memories involve games. The Game of Life inspired me to learn how to read (My dad was sick of reading things to me and refused to play whenever I wanted until I learned to do it myself). Games even taught me how to read. The Talking Teacher taught me spelling and math and reading at a level almost twice my actual age. My spelling hasn’t progressed much since then, but everything else laid out a rich foundation that I still use today.

I started gaming young as well. I remember playing something that I’m pretty sure was Pitfall on an old console and tv at my grandmother’s house. I remember playing Super Mario Bros. Level 4-2 (or was it 2-4, it was the first scrolling level) I played Altered Beast for the Genesis, was never very good at platformers and those kind of games, but I was there for them.

I snuck under my bed to watch my older brother play Dungeons and Dragons, and was absolutely elated when I was allowed to (still in the single-digits age wise) play the TMNT RPG made by Palladium.

I have since designed several RPG systems, programmed a handful of not very good games in ancient programming languages, and spent what could easily be considered most of my life playing games.

Yet, there are people who had the gall to tell me I am not a gamer.

I know. It’s insanity, right? I mean, I’ve spent most of my life immersed in some form of gaming or another I gravitate toward Pencil and Paper RPG’s, board games, card games, and other somewhat abstract games. Why? Becuase these are what has proven to hold my attention. I have written a couple of text based games, and played on MUD’s back in the day using stolen computer and internet time. Those are the games I miss.

I earned the nickname ‘The Blind Lemming’  playing Half Life. I earned this becuase I have the survival instincts of a blind lemming. I later earned the nickname ‘Passive Assassin’ when it was realized that most of my ‘kills’ were through secondary damage on AvP. I rarely actually killed someone of my own free ability. I didn’t mind, I had fun for the most part and it was good times with friends.

I am being told I am not a real gamer becuase my console of choice is the Wii. A large chunk of the reason I bought the wii shortly after it came out  and waited a few years to pick up the other ‘next gen consoles’ was because of the game selection. I don’t really go for the mini-game packs, everyone is so keen on berating. Rather, I enjoy the first party titles, specifically Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (which I bought slightly before the actual console) Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Super Paper Mario came with the system when I bought it used and I very much enjoyed it. I’m *still* slogging my way through Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I enjoy it, but it didn’t capture my the same way Wind Waker did, it’s been pre-empted twice once by wii-fit and again by wii-fit plus. Yes, I’m fat. Yes I’m trying to do something about it.

Because of this. I’m told I’m not a gamer. I’ve never played HALO, although I do now own all them. The same can likely be said for just about any popular game for either the 360 or PS3. If I don’t actually own them, I do plan on purchasing them sometime, eventually. The only actual game that required a disk I’ve played on my 360 was Soul Calibur 4. I’m a big fan of fighting games, I know I should play Street Fighter 4, I’m waiting until the new one comes out this spring.

Again. I’m not good at FPS games. It took me the better part of a day to beat Portal. My friends have beaten it in a handful of hours. They made fun of me the whole time. I rather did enjoy the experience.  But since I don’t spend days on end playing other games such as TF2, HALO, COD, and what other mas of capital letters is the popular game now…. I’m not a gamer.

You may begin to understand why this irks me slightly.

I was reading a (somewhat dated) article saying how this or that development company will never develop games for the wii, since real gamers don’t play it. For some reason that raised my hackles a bit. Now I can understand them not making games for the wii becuase their target audience (American 18-30’s) tend to play other systems (Xbox 360), that is a perfectly reasonably choice. Not making a game for the best selling system worldwide is a bit debatable. If they’re so confidant they can make the best and shiniest games around, then why can’t they just as easily make the best and shiniest game for the Wii as well. But what would I know, I’m obviously not a gamer.

When people talk about the wii derisively they are quick to point out how it’s underpowered compared to it’s two rivals. This caught me as amusing for several reasons, first of all, the wii was specifically developed to target a different demographic. Nintendo realized it would be a somewhat silly move to go toe to to against two giants who have more money then they rightfully know what to do with. While I’m sure they could have produces a system comparable to the others, they chose to build a stable, reliable and less expensive system then the other companies, who indecently, lost money on every console sold, while Nintendo made a small profit. I haven’t heard of any hardware problems, in fact the Wii has used the same hardware since it came out, around the same time as the PS3. How many revisions have the other systems gone through to correct hardware malfunctions?

Anyway, the analogy I had to consoles was equating them to vehicles. They’re both an integral part of my life in general. While I may not drive cars professionally (although I have friends who do) I do drive them fairly often. The difference is I don’t really drive for pleasure, I drive becuase I live 20 miles from my workplace, and even when I lived closer, it took too long to walk to justify the energy. Again, yes, I’m fat, yes, I’m working on it, yes, I enjoy walking, just not by myself in the rain several miles then working a long shift only to have to walk back I’ve done it, I makes the actual working part very inconvenient.

I don’t drive a fancy car. In fact I bought my car used off of a coworker (much like my consoles). My car can’t go 0-60 in a few seconds. It actually takes  a bit of time, but it’ll get there. I don’t top out at 200 mp/h. In fact I’ve only ever came close to hitting about 90 while hurrying back from a long drive, although the spedometer tells me I can go to about 120 mp/h.

My car takes me from point A to point B fairly well. It’s not very fuel efficient, but it runs. I don’t have to take it to the shop every few months to get it fixed, and I didn’t have to take out a massive loan to get it. It has a functional speaker system, it’s not loaded with thumping bass, but I can hear the music I tell it to play.

The point is, my situation here is probably similar to many millions of drivers around the world. I have something that does what I want it to do. Sure, other people put themselves into bankruptcy to do the exact same thing I’m doing essentially, only they do it in a stylish new vehicle every few years (my car is almost old enough to drive itself and is by many years the newest car I’ve owned for any reasonable length of time).

Despite all this, few people will say I’m not a driver. People may say I’m not a very *good* driver, and I will be unlikely to despite the point. I am in fact licensed and have had a fairly trivial record thus far. So why is it that despite doing this thing only out of need and gaming for fun, people still don’t think I’m a gamer?

When people tell me they are a gamer, my first throught is, sweet someone to play Gunner with. Never heard of it, not surprising, how about GURPS, no? World of Darkenss? D&D? Oh, you don’t like those kind of games where you have to use your imagination? You like something you can see, don’t worry, I understand. Not everyone has the creativity to play those games, I’ve been playing them most of my life so I’m used to it, but I can see how someone who hasn’t played a lot of them might be intimidates. Something with rules then?

How about Mahjong.  No?  Shogi? Ah don’t worry, not a lot of people have played it, I’ve only found two other people willing to play it and only one who has played more than once. Well maybe. English games? Sure, Settlers of Catan? I’ll admit I’ve never played it, but want to badly. Never heard of it? Well no problem, what about anything by Fantasy Flight Games? Might I recommend Twilight Imperium? A little too long for you?

Board games not your thing? I have Magic, and a whole mess of other CCG games here? Ah, too expensive for you? I completely understand, I mean people have cards that cost more than my entire deck (and I can [sometimes] beat those people) with said cards with said deck) that’s fair.  Well I have regular playing cards (I always carry two decks with me) oh? the only game you know if Texas Hold’em? Well that’s fine, we can play something else.

Consoles you say? Oh great! I have those! I have Gunstar Heroes, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, I just picked up Smash TV. Something newer you say? Well, I have the newest Pokemon… Mario Party 8, Smash Bros Brawl, Soul Calibur (every version for every console thus far). Oh… you don’t like those games? That’s fair, well what *do* you play, I probably have it. Halo? Yeah… I have it, I’m not very good at it though, but I’ll watch you play, I’ve heard it was a good game and would love to see someone who is good at it play. Oh, the storyline sucks and you only play multiplayer? I’m sorry to hear that. Well, I have an internet connection, feel free to have fun playing with yourself, and the other nameless faceless people on the other end of the connection. Just one question though.

Why did you call yourself a gamer again?

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