It's funny. The reason I got in to computers was to design video games. Pure and simple. It ended up being interesting for a lot of other reasons... It really appeals to my love of the arcane... and it suits my obsessiveness to a tee. Of course I never got in to game development. Even with our modern videogame madness I would guess that .1% of programmers actually do. The funny thing is that I'm not sure I would want to any more.

Maybe it's just backlash from my EQ addiction but the very thought of writing a videogame that might actually make it to the market makes me feel a little dirty. Maybe I'm just getting old. I don't know.

I don't regret the countless hours I've spent sitting in front of my computer hacking or writing or whatever. I don't really even regret ALL of the hours that I've spent playing games.... but I do regret SOME of them. The hard thing for me has been figuring out why I feel this way. Seems like there's nothing wrong in any larger fashion with spending countless hours playing some game or another so what bothers me about it?

In the end I think it just boils down to reward. I don't find the pure recreational value of videogaming to be be enough of a reward. Even doing something as solitary and inward-focusing (is there a better word to express this?) as reading a book seems to me to be somehow more rewarding.

On the other hand the problem may have something to do with my nature. Part of being a computer geek is an obsessiveness. Frankly that's what it takes to sit down and beat your head against a wall for 8 hours until you've knocked it down or the blood smears are at least aesthetically pleasing. Coding is like that sometimes. This obsessiveness doesn't translate in to videogames well, though.

Consider the fundamental mechanic of most videogames: run gamut of obstacles to reach goal... in fact, in most cases, do it many many times. The obsessive's reaction to this is to run the gamut over and over again until the goal is reached or perhaps even reached perfectly (no lost health, no missed secrets, whatever). As you can imagine this doesn't make for short gaming sessions... or a relaxing gaming experience.

I wish that I had realized this a little earlier so I could have made better choices in my gaming. Ah well... Know thy self. That should be my motto. :P

...

It's been an interesting week, this week. The Council of Jared's Friends has apparently selected this week to be reunion week. Just trying to keep me on my toes, I guess. There are few things that are more rewarding to me than having my friends pop back in to my life even if it is only briefly. Welcome back you guys :)

...

I guess that's it for now. I really want to keep writing but I can't think of anything that I particularly want to talk about. Grruuuuuuu.