Tag Archives: time

“My Video Games Were Talking to Me Last Night”

“Oh, yeah, what did they say?” Sam asked.

The wind rushed down the street and made the trees dance and sway; some became a little silly and nearly fell over. Suzanne already started to walk away as the wind grabbed hold of something that fell out of her pocket. That thing was a crumpled piece of paper: the wind dragged it through a terrible state of torment before bashing it against Sam’s sneakers. He picked up the note as gusty winds threw up enough dust to make Suzanne disappear.

The note read, “They told me to stop talking to you and to spend more time playing.”

There was only dust in the wind as Sam stood there—cleaning his glasses.

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Filed under Video Game Misc.

Gotta Get My Daily Dose of Video Games

Last night I realized I had no time to play video games. I realized this as a tear dripped down my cheek while I scrubbed filthy pots with a smelly sponge. Sure, my apartment has never looked cleaner, but my games have never been more neglected.

In a vain attempt to make time for video games, and also because I like writing lists, I decided to do something about my problem. I wrote down six ways to squeeze more games into my life. The list was and is a little half-baked: I wrote it while I was fading in and out of sleep one night.

  1. Take video games with me on my next undercover mission. I can’t discuss this further: it’s top secret.
  2. Play video games while making toast.
  3. Play video games while brushing my teeth.
  4. Play video games while tying my shoes.
  5. Play video games while juggling pots and pans.
  6. Play video games in the shower.    Update: This one was not a good idea. I tried it on Sunday afternoon. I don’t think my hair will grow back. I will be revising the appearance section of my dating profile.

 

 

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Are Video Games a “Waste of Time”?

What do you think? Why or why not?

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Filed under Video Games: Reader Q&A

Play Time the Video Game

Play Time the Video Game¹ and add more hours to your day. One hour playing gives you three more hours to live your life. You can do whatever you want with all that time. But what if you don’t like video games?

You might consider video games unappealing, but you’ll love what you gain from playing this game. While playing, you might, unlike a bad job, have some fun. You wouldn’t do the same dull, monotonous and thankless tasks all day. Unlike a boring job, you wouldn’t stare at the clock all day and long for free time. Instead, you would repeatedly tap A,B, and sometimes pause.

But, at some point, you need to stop playing and spend all that stored up time. You can only reap all the game’s benefits when you stop playing and do something else. You’ll be back for more.


¹ Not to be confused with Thyme the Video Game: The Ultimate Cookery Course.

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“5 More Hours, Please”

“I want to play this video game for five more hours.” This is the refrain of the person who wants to game, but he or she is not an addict. You might think, though, that this quote suggests an addictive behaviour.

You might picture someone sitting on a couch with Cheetos stained fingers. In the other hand, the person clutches a frosty Big Gulp, sporting a pronounced couch groove and sunless skin. This couch potato description might be true in some cases, but one should not assume this about people who play video games. One should not store negative imagery about gamers in one’s head and drew upon these images at will.

Instead, I see the plea to play for five more hours  as an acknowledgment that video games are wonderful and engrossing. They are so wonderful that one wants to spend more time with them to enjoy everything they offer.

However, it’s probably not very wise to stop everything and play for five straight hours. Don’t stop living your life and loving others. Find a responsible way to make time for games.

 

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Filed under Non Gamers, Video Game Misc.

I Can’t Quit You, Game

I glued myself to the couch from the moment the images flickered on screen.

Outside night was starting to cover everything across the land. Inside, I felt like someone had locked me in a reinforced concrete bunker with a dying light petering through a crack in the wall. Note: that’s a fun reinforced concrete bunker. Or maybe some accident left me stuck in an elevator with no means of escape. Hmmm wait, no, it couldn’t be that one. That’s no fun.

The fun started after I picked up the controller. When I started playing, the clock “ding donged” three times. Then time flew by so fast that the hands fell off the clock and landed, as I later discovered, on the floor.

Suddenly, the rooster crowed and the light from outside blinded me.  One minute I picked up the controller at night and the next minute the sun pushed through the crack to light up everything around me. The shower and food that I needed yesterday had faded away from my memory. “How could that have happened?” I asked myself.

I guess it was because I wanted more, more of the same. Sure, it sounds like an awfully long time, but awful had nothing to do with it. For I was playing a video game.

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Desperately Seeking Video Games

seeking video gamesI’m lying there in my bed as the fog of sleep is about to clear in my head. My dream of playing video games on an idyllic Saturday afternoon has just ended. It’s time to act. I want the dream to come true.

What do I see now? Golden sun rays stream through the window next to my bed and trigger my eyes to open. It’s a sign that I should get up and start my day. My eyes slowly open like a theatre curtain and promptly shutter because of the light’s stinging harshness. I force them open again and sit there in my bed trying to come to my senses. I feel slightly inebriated with fatigue from a long night but sober up in a couple of seconds.

Now, I’m all bright-eyed, sleep refreshed and ready for the rigours of the day. Nothing can stand in my way as I spring out of bed and land on my feet. The calendar is empty. It’s go time!

I gallop out of my bedroom but stop mid stride as I notice something. I’m overwhelmed by a wave of choices that float in my head. But I artfully dodge that indecisive danger and resolve to play games that afternoon. After all, I have absolutely no plans for the day to thwart my gaming dreams.

So, I walk toward my desk, turn on my PC, and get ready to dive into some great games. I pick up the controller and another thought pops into my head. My beard is a little itchy. Maybe I could use a shave.

The mirror never lies. It looks like I have a lumberjack’s beard. Scratch that. I look like a lumberjack who’s been sleeping in the wilderness for a month with nothing but his axe and the clothes on his back. In other words, I look a little rough around the edges. Also, the urban lumberjack look doesn’t suit me.

So it’s time to practice all that boring hygiene stuff. Give me about half an hour… Ok, now I’m back to my regularly scheduled programming.

Wait! I need to refuel with some good food to get me through the day. Contrary to what you might have thought, Mountain Dew is not the fuel that I’m talking about.

I better make some steel cut oatmeal for breakfast. Of course, you’ve got to top it off with some fresh fruit and stuff. All right, now I’m fully charged and ready to spend some energy on games.

Hmmm my fridge is empty though. So I run over to the store to stock up on groceries. It sounds like a simple task. But there wasn’t a cloud in the endless blue sky and the sun was still shining. How can I be expected to ignore that?

I think to myself, “I’d better go for a bike ride and make the most of this day.”

So forty-five minutes later, dripping with sweat, I get back home in one piece. A quick wash up and I’m ready this time. But I should munch on this delicious sandwich and soup that I made.

Alright already, I’m rested and full of energy, as well as good food. It seems like playing video games will happen in the immediate future.

Then my computer starts to taunt me. “Come on, write a blog post or two. Write another short story. Or do both!”

After couple hours of writing, I’m exhausted. I slowly turn towards the clock and realize it’s late. It’s 6 p.m. The phone rings. It’s my friends. They want to go out for dinner to a new pizza place and got tickets to a show no one thought we’d get. This is too good to turn down.

About 6 hours later, I get home and get ready for bed. I figured I could squeeze in an hour or so of a good game. But my bed, and the book on the nightstand, are beckoning me to come closer. I fold. Then I plop myself into bed. I instinctively reach for Don Quixote and read until my eyelids can no longer resist the concrete weights pushing them down.

Just before I doze off, I try to plan what I’ll do on Sunday. Well, chances are I’ll wake up with book on my head and end up looking for my twisted glasses on the floor. After getting myself cleaned up, I have some volunteer work to do, among other things.

I guess I’ll get a chance next Saturday.

***

Do you ever have enough time to play video games? If so, how do you make time for them? If not, what’s keeping you from living out your dream of playing more video games? What will you do to make your dream come true?

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When Do You Play Video Games During the Week?

When do you play video games?

The sand that slipped away.

There’s not enough time in the day.

I’d like to squeeze in some play time, but the week is usually jam-packed with things to do. Time seems to slip through my fingers like sand.

I wonder how people find the time to play all the latest games. Seriously, you can find games that are hundreds of hours long, and some people go through them like daily clean shirts.

How is it that we will all find time to pursue this awesome hobby when there’s so much to do?

Some Wonderful Things That Can Keep You from Your Beloved Video Games

• You’ve worked so hard that you can barely stand on your feet. The fridge is empty and dinner doesn’t cook itself.

• Young students have an alphabet [soup] to digest and new crackers to crunch at school.

• You have other hobbies to pursue and want to spend quality time with more than a machine.

• You’re running around a house trying to keep order as your children laugh and play. You probably would like to prevent more crayon frescoes on your walls.

• You’re taking your spouse out for a fancy dinner.

• You care about what’s going on in the world around you.

• Surviving a zombie apocalypse… Oops! That belongs in another list.

What Keeps Me from Playing Games?

I’m so glad you asked.

I’d say all the things in the list above, except for kids and a spouse, learning the alphabet and zombies. I would add things like volunteering, reading and writing.

Maybe I’m also not very good at games because it takes me a while to wrap up one. You won’t find broken controllers in my apartment; you will find me replaying sections of a game though.

How do I Make Room for Video Games?

That’s easy! I make time for them. There are few things as relaxing as playing video games when you have nothing else to do.

When do you play video games during the week? How do you find the time to play them?

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Skyrim Has Really Got a Hold on Me: I Got It Bad

Skyrim has really got a hold on meOn my 19th birthday, I got a shiny new Xbox 360. But what on earth was I going to play? I embarked on a journey to find a fun game.

I thought The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion would rock my world. But my friend saw things a bit differently.“Don’t buy that game,” said Kevin. It takes hundreds of hours to play. It will eat up your life.” “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I replied.

Then The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim came out, and I tried to resist it. I thought Skyrim, a lengthy game, would just eat up my time too. No video game could be worth one hundred hours of my life, right? Well, I can’t stop thinking about Skyrim.

I looked past Skyrim’s nerdy frame and fell in love with its inner beauty. The game reached out, grabbed me and begged me to explore it. I mean, I just stood in awe at the majestic mammoths that moved across Skyrim at a snail’s pace.

It doesn’t matter if the game is nerdy. Skyrim is just too hard to resist!

Now, if only I had the time to waste more time.

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