Giving up Gaming 3 – The Bells of Change

One. Month. It has been one month since I started cutting games back to one day a week, and good things are going down!

So let’s start this update with something I am very proud of, something I’ve always wanted to do. With my new found time I was able to go ring the bell for the Salvation Army. I live in a very poor area and so I did not expect to see much come out of my community. I was wrong. In the one hour I rang for (wanted to do more, couldn’t) I saw so many people not just give the change in their pockets but open up their wallets and empty them. People here can sometimes barely afford food and here they were giving so much. On top of that were the people thanking me for being there, wishing me a happy holidays, and even bringing me hot coco. I was magnificent and I will be doing it again next year.

Just a side note. If you wish to tell me how the Salvation Army doesn’t help particular groups please see this list of people they do help. I’m more concerned about the long list of the helped instead of the short list of the unaided.

Following along the Christmas train, another wonderful thing happened to me. A regular customer of mine brought me a Christmas present. It was delicious chocolates. This is not an uncommon event among those in customer service but it is something that has never happened to me. My last job had me working somewhere around seventy hour a week from November and into January and never interacting with my customers. So when they handed me this present I could barely keep my composure. This Christmas has been one of the best in memory and the actual holiday is still several days away.

Enough sappyness, let’s get down to the weird stuff.

It is strange, cutting games down so dramatically. Usually this time of year I spend my spare moments playing something portable. Now I actually have to plan a bathroom trip. What am I going to do in the bathroom? Do I really need to spend that long in there? Should I take a fictional book or a reference one? If reference, where is the highlighter? Can I connect to the internet to load up DuoLingo? Maybe this is more information than you wanted but it’s what happens when I can’t just play Flappy Bird.

The usual conclusion is to read a book and that is currently “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” It was recommended to me by Amazon and I figured I would give it a shot, knowing nothing about it at all. It’s not exactly what I was expecting and not a book to get into if you don’t feel like heavily evaluating yourself. That being said it has helped me to align myself further with my eventual goals. EG: By following some of the lessons I have been working to expand my circle of influence. A few days ago I was called into my store’s manager meeting (alone) just so they could ask my opinion on a few topics. It’s not much but I would call that progress.

Also it turns out that I can take Taekwondo classes with my wife as there is “family pricing” which is the best deal I can hope for until my sixties. I’ve gone a few times and will update when I’m not getting my ass beat. It’s too bad life doesn’t have bars that fill up like The Sims. I’d love to know when I’ve reached a level 2 on Spanish. I guess Taekwondo has a similar structure with its belt systems but getting used to the mechanics make it challenging to level up. Life might be easier with some free-to-play options.

Speaking of games. I sunk some more time into Pokemon and Infamous Second Son. The former is still pleasing; the latter is severely disappointing. I should point out that I’ve platinumed both Infamous and Infamous 2 and enjoyed them greatly. That is why it disappoints me so much that Infamous Second Son is exceedingly mediocre. I’m not going to go into a full review but I will list my grievances in order of emotional severity.

The powers are lame (in execution, not in concept) and subvert traversal on and around buildings; something that was excellently executed in Infamous, less so in Infamous 2. Climbing up buildings is not nearly as sticky as in the previous games and feels broken. The enemies are all faceless marionettes with no interesting visual design at all. There is really only one “villain” which limits the potential for character exploration for the protagonist that a series of different villains creates. Why do I have to tap a button to absorb a blast shard, it’s a needless step. Tell me again why I can’t swim?

All these aside, I’m still going to finish it on both evil and good but I probably will not platinum it.

I have one last thing to bring up and that is a question. I’ve thought about doing this as a Vlog. I could edit in video of stuff I’ve been able to do without videogames controlling my life. Would anyone watch that? Let me know

As always you can reach me at [email protected], on twitter @Snickelsox, or just by leaving a comment. Let me know what you would like to see more of. What you want to see less of.

P.S. My wife and I bought Cards Against Humanity and some expansions. These are some of the cards we came up with. Feel free to use them if you want.