Misc

Gaming Isn’t Really a Guy Thing


I game. Not hardcore – unless it’s a new release or new expansion – but I game. And though it sometimes feels like I am a lone woman in the gamer’sphere, the numbers say I am not.

As of 2014, women over the age of 18 were 32% of gamers while boys under 17 made up just 17%. Men make up 52% of all games and women are the remaining 48%, which is up from 40% in 2010.

Like most teens back in the day of arcades, I hung out. I played Tetris, Centipede, Galaxian and a bit of PacMan. It was never something I actively sought out and generally, if I found myself in an arcade, it was because one of my friends had a crush on a boy who hung out at arcades.

For the record, never once did I ever have a crush on a boy who hung out at an arcade.

I got my start in the virtual game world via The Legend of Zelda almost 20 years ago now. My late husband and I had a Nintendo 64. In addition to Zelda, which I found intuitively maddening for it’s lack of sense, we had the standard Mario offerings and some racing games. Eventually the new wore off and I gave the console to my nephew, but gaming called again about a decade ago when I discovered The Sims which, lacking rules and guidance, I was able to turn into hours of distraction during some darker times in my life.

I got back into gaming the summer before last when my husband got me a PS4 and introduced me to Destiny. I’d tried a few other games, Diablo 3, played a bit of Nintendoland with the kids and took a rather pathetic shot at Mass Effect. And really, I wasn’t feeling it.

But my husband wanted us to spend virtual time together in addition to the real time we already spent, and he was sure I would like Destiny because I had enjoyed watching him play Dust 514.

As shooter games go, it’s the easiest I have ever tried. It’s first person and the graphics aren’t cartoonish, which I find off-putting. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to play Mass Effect. It had a great story line, characters that were compelling and didn’t feel like something created for children.

I am not good. Fair to occasionally average is roughly my skill level. There were things about Destiny that I’d have never completed were it not for assistance from my husband and his online comrades, but I liked the game. I liked the time he and I spend playing, and I liked his friends – who, contrary to stereotype, are nice guys.

More imaginary friends is probably not something I need but it’s where I generally end up.

Husband now thinks I should take my rather average skills to Twitch and see if anyone will watch me. Not a lot of women streaming their play, and certainly not in my age range, but I hesitate because I prefer written words to spoken, and I am dubious about my own appeal.

And I don’t do PvP, which is what most Destiny folks like to watch, nor do I care enough about the gear and loot to cater to those who nerd out on the minutia aspects of games.

PvP is virtual mortal combat against complete strangers for imaginary rewards. A person might think this would appeal to a gal who really loves online life but no. Virtually killing strangers for no particularly good reason or, in my case, being fake murdered by strangers, who then dance – and … other … things – all over my virtual corpse is not appealing.

But husband believes that my rambling commentary would suffice, but again, I am doubtful. Plus I swear. A lot. Even more than I do on Twitter.

I share all this only because I am going to rewrite a review of the latest version of the game, Destiny 2. Mostly because the whining about it has annoyed me. And I probably will record and share my gameplay at least once just to see if it is less horrible than I think it will be. So I wanted to provide a bit of background beforehand.

To sum up, old woman games and has opinions about it that she will sharing from time to time in the future. That is all.

Making Christmas


Most everyone I know has their Christmas decorations festively strewn about their homes. Trees are up and properly adorned and the real keeners have wrapped gifts underneath.

Me? Well, I have discussed this before, my disinclination to housewifery. Decor, holiday or otherwise, definitely falls under the heading “drudgery” and I really have to work myself up to it.

This year, I am nowhere close to the loin girding necessary to clean up the spaces needed for holiday phoofery.

The problem, as I see it, is that most people look at the packed boxes of lights, ornaments and other sparkly things and they can see it on the tree, walls, shelves and every other nook and cranny. Happily they dig in. Carefully they create the festive setting. And it’s weeks later when the holidays have passed that they look around and realize that it all must be taken down and packed away again for another year.

I look at packed boxes and think “Christ, I am just going to have to repack this in a few weeks”.

I’ve been threatening my family for a couple of weeks now with “we’re going to gather around a string of lights, take presents out of plastic sacks and eat pizza” for Christmas. The teen is pretty horrified by the prospect but not so much that she is offering up her services as a decorator and so far, my husband’s protestations have been weak and unconvincing.

Christmases past, I have hinted at simply running away for the holidays but even that requires effort that I am not certain the holidays warrant anymore.

It’s not that I don’t love holidays.

The music is jolly and there is eggnog.

The teen is off from school so there are no lunches to pack or chauffeuring to do.

We sleep in. Binge on Netflix or wile away the hours with new books and gaming.

It’s not all bleak with obligation and work but what there is of that has become … un-fun.

The past few years have witnessed a steady decline in decorations and baking. Minimalist has become my middle name and not just during the holidays.

Today, I need to start excavating the living room. Reclaim the spaces devastated by never-ending reno projects and recent episodes of influenza. My preference is leaning toward stuffing garbage bags and just taking things to the dump but that’s probably overreacting. Right?

Making Christmas is not something I’ve spent much of my life doing. Until I moved to Canada, I packed up myself, and later myself and child, and drove to my parent’s. They made Christmas. My mom still does. But now it’s on me and I seriously can’t wait until circumstances allow me to offload this on one of my own kids, who aren’t exactly stepping up and volunteering at this point. And I don’t blame them.

Eugene Should’ve Died


I gave up on The Walking Dead a while ago, but I confess to still keeping up a bit via YouTube clips and recaps from various internet sources.

I was curious to see how they would handle the Negan thing. He is the kind of villain who sucks the oxygen out of a story-line because he’s so over the top evil, and it makes almost no sense at all that someone hasn’t killed him long before Rick and company ran afoul of him.

In a post-apocalyptic world with no rules, and virtually limitless places to retreat to, a guy like this would have met his end long ago.  You have to perform some serious disbelief suspending to believe in a world where this guy wasn’t bludgeoned to death as he slept, but in the lucrative world of serial television (and comic books because he’s still alive there too), he gets to overstay his welcome because lazy tale telling and profits overlap more than they should.

The reason I gave up on The Walking Dead though was once again starkly portrayed in it’s mid-season 8 finale.

Good seldom ever wins nor is it rewarded. The show’s main message is, and continues to be, that only the extremely violent use force will save people. Community is coerced. Decent people are subjugated. And acts of kindness and caring about humanity for its own sake will get you or your loved ones killed.

Great lessons that remarkably predate the era of Trump and the resurgence of Nazis.

Last night Carl, the teenage son of the main protagonist, Rick Grimes,  revealed at the end of episode that he’d been bitten by a walker (zombie) in the previous episode as he tried to help a stranger. The stranger in question, it turns out, is a member of the group led by the evil Negan, reinforcing the show’s main theme – being a good person means eventually being a dead one.

The young man joins other characters, whose kindness and general interest in rebuilding on the ashes of society, has earned them similar death sentences.

But it is hope that is the eternal victim in the land of The Walking Dead. Nothing and nobody is allowed to nurture ideas of a better life for long.

This isn’t the best message in the best of times, and North America is not enjoying the best of times right now, but violence and the idea that might and brutality are the only answer to every question is recycled in every conceivable way by this show, and last night’s snuffing of Carl is just one more example.

I saw a tweet today that summed up what should’ve happened. It said “Eugene should have died. Eugene should have fucking died.”

And it was right.

Eugene is a weaselly, self-serving cunt of a man. But his continued existence validates his loathsome choices, which have been largely selfish and treacherous despite the fleeting moments of self-awareness and contrition that were ultimately self-interested too.

Eugene surviving while Carl doesn’t reminds the viewer that being a good person has no reward while being a rat-bastard earns you material comforts.

And that, in a nutshell, is why The Walking Dead isn’t worth serious attention anymore. Even it’s heroes, Rick, Daryl and Maggie are relativists, who take life with as little thought as their big bad rival, Negan, does.

I haven’t watched Fear the Walking Dead since it’s first season but have seen a few clips here and there. Same thing. Good equals dead. Morally challenged or vacuous equals … hero or villain because they are interchangeable.

Having just finished bingeing on Stranger Things, I am struck by the difference in world views in two shows that both deal on the edges of societal failure but approach the human component quite differently.

And they approach outcomes differently too. The Walking Dead has given up. There is no hope. There is no tomorrow. Nothing to fight because the fight is all there is. That’s just depressing. And it’s a tedious tale.

So R.I.P, Carl. You were always a goner. Like Beth. Like Glenn and Sasha and Tyrone and Herschel. Like hope.