It's So Easy When You Know the Rules

Here is a picture of the alien commander getting ready to send his Dora The Explorer army out to take over the world, one toddler at a time.

So, here's kind of a weird thing. You know how when you start hanging out with someone, you learn about their world through their interests? Sometimes you aren't all that interested in their shit, and that's okay, because if you were exactly the same, you would get very bored. Other times, you find yourself becoming more and more intrigued, and sometimes you realize how much you miss it after it isn't around anymore.

That's what I found happening to me the last week or so with video games. I played them a lot in high school and then kind of stopped when I got older and worked several jobs and went to school and then worked several jobs and raised children. The girls had a PS2, but I didn't get all that into it. Then when I started hanging out with Mr. Dateman, I discovered a whole new world of shooting people's heads off, and crashing into cars and blowing shit up, that frankly, appealed to me. Video games were like comic books, but better because they were interactive, and did I mention you could crash into stuff and blow shit up?

I didn't play them around Mr. Dateman, because he is very good at them and, of course, I sucked. Last week, in the privacy of my own home, I started playing Galaga again. I started out pretty sucky, but the thing about video games, is that you get better really quickly and I shore do loves me some instant gratification. Today Stinky and I went to look for Centipede for PS2 and had absolutely no luck finding it. Since we were standing in front of all the games anyway, Stinky asked if we could get a few. She told me she thought I'd like a game called Burnout. It turned out to be a game where you not only race cars, but you get points for crashing into them. Once you hit several cars, the word "GOOD" comes on the screen to give you some positive reinforcement. We also got that one game. You know the one that is so violent and misogynistic, and where you drive around and shoot hookers? That one. I haven't played it yet, but I think after my first day back to work in a week, I'll be all ready to shoot me some hookers. Hey, it's way better than shooting my co-workers, and what's so wrong with displaced aggression, anyway?

We'll see where all this takes me. Seein's how I'm single now, my girls are rarely home and hibernation season is a stone's throw away, it could be just the thing for me. I worry a little bit, because I tend to have a bit of an addictive personality. (running, anyone?) And when I talked to my friend J. about it last week, he told me once you play Guitar Hero, there's no going back. Is there some kind of 1-800-GAME-OFF number, just in case? I guess it could be worse, I could have dated a crack head.