::A Geek in Korea::

Students say the darndest things when there is a simple story the news drones on about long enough. Something gets filtered down and twisted in their brain, and they can’t wait to ask someone about it. For example, even today some of my classes will ask me about eating “Crazy cow!” which was the hottest topic when the Korean/America free trade agreement needed to be finalized sometime last year. It doesn’t matter how much evidence or science you present as a rational alternative, they never understood the issue to begin with, so they can’t be swayed by rational dialog. The same thing has started to happen with the recent “Swine Flu” epidemic.

Today, a boy came to me in class and said, “I don’t like North America!” he said.

“Why?” I asked, humoring him for a few minutes

“Because the Mexican pigs are dirty! They are sick! There are crazy cows AND sick pigs from there! You can’t eat anything from North America!”

Well, logic like that is beyond flawless. I let it drop. At least he’s aware something is going on, which is more than most of his peers.

Stunningly, he wasn’t the only person on the “Not eating pork to prevent swine flu” meme. My mother-in-law stopped by to visit. Coincidently I was cooking bacon for a BLT sandwich. She gave a second look when she saw me cooking the meat. “Most of the people I know aren’t eating pork THESE days…” leaving it an open mystery as why I would tempt fate by having bacon on my sandwich when several thousands of kilometers away some people have gotten sick with a virus related to being in close proximity to pigs. My wife dismissed her concern by saying that’s not how people get sick, and besides, I cook the bacon well. Even if a illegally smuggled pig from a quarentined farm somehow got into our apartment and did something hazardous to our bacon, the risk I’d be sick was within acceptable limits.

I did my part by enjoying my BLT. It was delicious.

Just to independently confirm that this sort of uninformed opinion has gone mainstream, we saw even more of the “Pork will give you ‘Swine flu’” nonsense later in the evening. My wife and I went to eat at an oyster restaurant. Everything on the menu was from oysters. Oyster soup. Raw oysters. Oysters with rice. Fried oyster (In the shell, what the hell is that about?) There was NOTHING you could order that was not stuffed with oysters.

On the television was a news broadcast about how the pig farms in Korea are trying to prevent the spread of diseases, and government officials touring the farms and assuring everyone that their food supply was not in danger. They do this every time there is an outbreak, and people remain just as uninformed and reactionary. I’ve been through this exact same irrational food scares with ducks, chickens, Chinese kimchi, American beef, and now Mexican pigs while I’ve been in Korea.

Three older businessmen sat down next to us. They had no social skills whatsoever, so they were shouting in our ears while they waited for their food. One of the men got up to buy some cigarettes at a nearby convenience store. When he returned, he passed them around and the three men lit up a pre-meal smoke. (Right next to the pregnant woman at the next table! Honestly, manners people!)

The guy that bought cigarettes asked the other two at the table what they had ordered for their meals. The one man answered, “Oysters, but I told them not to put ANY pork in them.”

Bravo. A comment that stupid made my evening.

It seems that Comedy Central and Viacom have started shutting down access for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report websites for viewers overseas. Right now, while Korea still allows viewership, possibly through an oversight or some quirk of fate, but I shudder to think if I woke up one day without easy access to my two favorite shows. While my current handwringing is moot because I can still access the show, I’m working on the assumption that the site should be available to everyone anyway, and eventually it will be more difficult to access from Korea.

This move to lock down content is similar to Hulu, which locks it’s content down so that only people in the proper “regions” can watch the show. It’s kind of an epic misinterpretation of what the Internet should be all about. The geographical limitations of copyright don’t make sense anymore. This is because copyright owners demand something, lawyers get involved, and for whatever reason, I can’t watch US television shows outside the United States without being clever and finding a workaround.

There are always ways to continue watching the shows regardless to whatever lock down of content the websites attempt to impose. You can purchase or find solutions to these sorts of things all over the Internet, and it never actually stops people determined enough to watch the shows. I’d rather not go into the details of how to access these things, but it can be done with a few hours of effort, and if things turn ugly here in Korea, I’ll be forced to go down that path.

I’ve been a loyal fan of both The Daily Show and The Colbert report for as long as they have been on television. I’ve seen every episode of The Colbert Report available, and I’ve seen the vast majority of the Daily Show, save for the time when I first came to Korea and had to do without. I’d rather not have to go without if there is any other option open to me. There are many options.

One way or another I’ve watched for years, and recently the easiest way to watch the shows is to actually go to the website of the show and watch their hosted shows. This is a good thing for them, as I’m now a counted viewer that has eyeballs on a message they control and could alter to capitalize on it’s profitability. Watching on the official website is not as fast as other methods in getting what I want, and it’s not always as convenient for me, but I’ve continued watching regardless because I’m such a fan and am willing to watch the show despite the physical limitation of needing to be at their website while in front of my computer to do so. There isn’t a option to watch either The Daily Show shown on my television provider, as I don’t even have the heavily edited “World Edition” they run on CNN.  I no long even have access to CNN. (TV is pretty much my wife’s domain these days.) I’m making an effort to connect to the show, and I have been for years, so I’d hate for them to turn their back on me.

I know they provide me a service, but it’s one I’m now totally spoiled by, as it’s redefined my relationship with the show. Removing it would alter how I interact with the show. I’m not “bitter” about Hulu because I never really got to watch stuff on the service before they locked out other foreign users. They’ve always been that way, but these shows are now changing the rules and it rubs fans the wrong way.

I like the streaming website service they provide so much I’d be willing to sit through an advertisement, or even register to maintain such a privilege. This is not a common thing if you observe my web habits. I would prefer to stay with the arrangement I have with the show now, but if the copyright holders change their part of the deal, it’s very unfortunate for me. I understand that maintaining a streaming video website is a costly thing. Putting on the web for the entire world to have access was a tremendously good thing and garnered a lot of good will from me. A smart company would try to capitalize on that good will somehow instead of trying to put fans in a difficult situation.

Back when I was growing up, my brother and I had a globe in our room. We’d play a game where someone would spin the globe as fast as possible, and then the other would stop it with one finger. That’s where you were going to live in the future…or something. I think it was more of a “don’t land in water or you die” game, but it probably was responsible for my interest in geography in elementary school. There were so many countries in the world!

Google Earth has been a toy in my classroom for a little while now that there is a computer and projector everywhere I teach. Any time we talk about a new country, I make it a point to spin the globe around for a while, then search for the place in question. It’s one of the few programs on the Internet that makes me feel like I’m living “in the future”.  I’ll never forget when I first saw it in action and how easy it was, “Snow Crash really is coming true!” To be able to spin a globe, point to a country, and zoom in and see satellite images of places I had visited, or would like to visit was amazing. It took my childhood interaction with a globe, and updated it for the Age of the Internet. It’s so simple, but so satisfying on an informational and visual level.

Google Maps was also a tool I found impressive, but of limited use. I didn’t live in the United States, and for the longest time couldn’t use it for any destination I wanted to visit in Korea. Back when Google Earth was lower resolution for Korea, even finding my apartment was a challenge, so trying to use it for anything other than a curiosity was pointless.

There has recently been some sort of update for Korea, and now not only does Google Earth have higher resolution photographs, but Google Maps has service in Korea. Here’s the area of Daejeon you’ll be likely to find me in. It’s like a giant game of “Where’s Waldo!” for potential stalkers. You can actually point someone to a map of Korea and give them directions to a place without relying on “Look for a coffee shop next to a noodle restaurant…” sort of landmarks. It even supports public transportation for giving directions to other cities! That’s amazing. I’m never going to rely on it as my sole source of information, but it’s a start. If I had access to a phone that could connect to the actual Internet, I would love to have access to something like this whenever I was visiting another city.

I imagine the next step will be “Google Street view” in Seoul, or some other cities around the country. However, this will probably be a nearly useless thing because so many businesses change so quickly in Korea. The businesses will move out over a weekend, and something completely different will be in it’s place. There is no way Google could employ enough Street View cars in Korea to ever keep up.

I was going to work via subway like I normally do, but something was going on that struck me as “off” as soon as I descended the stairs. The control room was filled with half a dozen men wearing uniforms, and they were taking pictures. It looked like they were looking at something of interest that was happening on the monitors and in the computer system. There was also a PA system bell tone and some sort of announcement I couldn’t understand. I thought it wasn’t anything big, because no passengers were paying any attention to what was going on.

I descended the stairs and sat on a bench to wait for the next train. Usually people are all siding down, but there was a large crowd of people watching what was going on near the elevators and vending machines. I decided to check out what was happening and why there was a crowd. There were three people that were carrying things and walking around near the center of the crowd doing something, but I didn’t know what. They were wearing the masks that are supposed to prevent gas and smoke inhalation. Maybe it was fire fighting gear? What’s going on!?

I saw two people carrying the emergency fire fighting hose that is stored on one of the walls, but the water wasn’t being sprayed on anything. No one was running for their lives. I didn’t smell smoke either.Whatever was happening, one of the people in the fire fighting gear was dragging an old lady off that looked to be unconscious away from the scene, yet no one in the crowd was expressing any concern.

When I got up close enough to actually see what was happening, it took me a second to figure it out. There was a box sitting on the trashed marked with some sort of big text in Korean. I guess it was supposed to be a fire that was set in the trash can next to the vending machines. The woman being dragged away was supposed to be a “victim” from this fake fire, and they were taking her to safety. They were testing the response time of the people reacting to an emergency.

There was a woman that watched me taking a picture. She said in English, “Don’t worry. It’s not real. It’s just a test.”

Cool, I haven’t seen any public safety tests for a long time. It’s good to know there is some kind of plan in case of a fire. I’m guessing it would be a lot more traumatic in reality though, because despite it being a test to see their reaction to a fire, no one stopped the next train from arriving. If there really was a raging fire and lots of people getting off the train, there’d probably be more problems than one old lady that needed to be revived. If they are planning on fighting fires and keeping all the trains running on time, this was a very accurate test. I wasn’t even late to work.

I haven’t been able to watch as many movies as I’d like for the past few weeks, with my computer being out of commission, making Rifftrax inaccessible for the movie I had in mind. I made up for it with a vengence this weekend, watching “Twilight” and getting the accompanying Rifftrax synced up. The only jokes I had heard about Twilight was about glitter paint and pale dudes, so I had no idea what I was in for when I started.

What the hell America? Why was this popular? This movie has made $379,912,947 in worldwide box office releases according to Wikipedia! There is a limit to the number of times this lady saw the movie, so it couldn’t be all her cash propping up that total. I know that there was a rough time where everyone was frazzled about the 2008 election campaign, but that still doesn’t excuse this movie from making money. The Rifftrax was good to listen to, as it soothed the pain somewhat, but I think the movie left me so shellshocked that I was numb to all laughter and goodness. For me, the scene where the PTSD set in was the scene with the vampires (who glitter, and are “deer eating vegetarians”) play baseball and growl at each other. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a long time.

As bad as Twilight is, the sequel sounds around twenty times worse.

I was left so disturbed by how poor the entire movie was that I woke my wife up and helped her get ready to go out. We had plans to visit the Daejeon Art Museum in the afternoon. It was both for exercise and to see something different for a change. We walked across town in the cold/rain waiting for it to start coming down. The art museum was pretty interesting. It wasn’t nearly as big as the European art museums, or the museum we visited in Seoul, but it was a nice walk, and it was cheap to get in.

We decided to see “Monsters vs. Aliens” at a theater on the way back to kill some time. My wife and I haven’t been to a movie for a while, and it was the only thing of any interest to the both of us. I thought it was going to be projected in 3D, but we saw a standard version of the film. The movie’s voice cast was excellent and hilarious. The animation was good, but all the characters seemed perfectly created to sell toys.

“It was good, but not Wall-E good,” my wife said. The story was a standard kid friendly trope with a few clever jokes now and again. I particularly liked Stephen Colbert and Seth Rogan’s performances. The Close Encounters of the Third kind gag had me laughing. There are worse things you could see, like Twilight. Don’t see Twilight unless you have a thing for glitter paint and pale dudes. It’s terrible.

We were invited to my wife’s grandmother’s lunar birthday party celebration with the rest of the extended family. This was supposed to take place at 7 o’clock from what we were informed, so I took a nap around 2 pm. There was a sudden change of plans and the party got bumped up an hour. I got dragged out of the house at 5 o’clock, groggy and grumpy. We had to go shopping for a gift right before the party, of course, and we were also supposed to pick up the cake. I don’t know why everything has to run in a “just in time” style operation, but I was very tired.

My wife and I went to the “Old Ladies” floor of the department store near the restaurant. This is where they keep the gaudiest, strangest, brightest colored clothes in all of Korea. It’s like a peacock vomited all over the weirdest clothing designs ever. Imagine the most eye-popping clothing ever in very small sizes for old ladies. I had to sit down because all the clashing colors were giving me a headache, but my wife went around the floor looking for something in her grandmother’s size. The most amusing part of the entire shopping experience was while we were looking at old person clothing, 50 Cent was rapping some song on the PA system. It didn’t fit the scene at all. Who picks that music?

Her grandma’s request was a “Shirt, bright colors, No crazy designs.” This was not an easy task. The most important thing was to get the shirt in the proper size, which is difficult because she’s extremely tiny, and shrinking. In the past, my mother in law had purchased her a traditional Korean hanbok for our wedding ceremony, but she complained that it was too big for her. After searching the entire store, we couldn’t find anything that would fit her.

We left and decided to split our losses by picking up the cake instead. While we were waiting outside for our ride to the restaurant, we finally find the diminutive “Old Lady Shirts” that matched her description. We got something and jumped in the car to go the restaurant. Some of our directions got crossed, and my brother-in-law and my wife had to call three times to find the restaurant. Ironically, the restaurant was a place we knew where to get to, because it was right across the street from a friend’s apartment. We only figured that out when we arrived, so there was much debate about where to go, and how to get there before we finally arrived. I sort of zoned out in the back seat, as I was still feeling the effects of my nap.

We arrived late, but not last. No one else brought as many gifts as we did, but of course we didn’t pay for dinner or sneak Grandma any money on the side either. The dinner wasn’t great, more like a series of small embarrassing events stacked on top of each other. We were the center of attention far too often, and there were a lot of the same gauwdy clothes on my wife’s aunts that came from the very same floor we had just visited. After the cake was eaten, and the duck was put to rest, everyone decided to leave mercifully early in the evening. We avoided riding home with anyone and walked back to the subway station in the cold rainy weather.

One cool thing I learned was that depending on when the baby is born, there is a chance that there might be a sort of “Lunar Leap Month” in effect. Because of the differences in the Lunar and Solar calendar, there is an intercalary month being inserted this year. This only happens when the Lunar calendar has drifted too far from the actual seasons, and “Lunar Spring” isn’t in spring anymore. I’m sure there is some sort of mysterious logic to it, but I’ll be damned if I’ve ever been able to figure out what it’s all about. To keep it simple, it’s like a Leap month. The calendar just repeats one extra month to set things straight, and this has a special name, yoondal.

Grandma told us that if our baby was born during this time, there is a chance she’d only celebrate her Lunar Birthday twice in a potential lifetime. I find this pretty interesting, but also a little pointless, as most people our age don’t even follow the lunar calendar unless there is some elder that still marks their birthday by it.

Yesterday there were only three things the very bored veterinarian said to me while I was preparing Yoshi for his free rabies shot. While my wife was signing our dog up for his shot, the vet got out a batch of already prepared needles for the dogs in queue, then pointed at me to go first.

“Bum.” (Hold the dog so I can give him a shot in the leg.)

“Hold Neck.” (Don’t let your dog bite me when I give him a shot.)

“Do not give bath, get wet, 3 days.”

I am not a veterinarian, but the last command has to do with complications that arise if the area in question gets wet. We don’t have to collar the dog, or put any sort of treatment on the wound. We just have to keep the dog dry for three days. Seems reasonable.

Today, on the other hand, was not playing nice. It started to look like a storm was coming later in the afternoon. My wife was leaving for her traditional Korean paper art class around 11:30, which is the normal time I walk Yoshi. This is timed to allow me to download a weekday podcast that will last the entire walk. I walk the dog with the newest news, then when I go to work I tend to switch to comedy to put me in a better mode. It’s my system, and it works well for me.

The weather, and Yoshi’s shot was causing this to be thrown into doubt. When my podcast arrived, the weather was looking like a shower could break out at any time, so I carried an umbrella and set off down the heaviest wooded path for cover from the rain, sticking in the apartment complex to be as close to the house as possible just in case it got worse and the wind picked up.

I decided I’d try to stick to a route that passed mostly under trees and to keep the leash short so Yoshi wouldn’t be exposed to water. We got half way around the apartment complex when I had to call it quits. The rain had picked up too much, and I wasn’t going to risk whatever complication would arise from a wet dog after a rabies shot. I picked up Yoshi and carried him back to the apartment. When I picked him up, he let out a whining, audible sigh, as if to say, “Hey, what’s going on here, I can make it! I’ll be fine!?”

Yoshi’s accustomed to a walk, then when we go to work, we leave him in the house. Nothing changed today, except that when my wife returned from her class she also couldn’t walk him on account of the rain. He was stuck inside all day. Since he’s a sleepy dog all day, and energetic when I get home, he doesn’t cause problems. We hope the weather will improve tomorrow so that he’ll get more exercise. I’d also like to get out of the house and walk some more myself. If the weather doesn’t clear, he’ll be stuck in the house again tomorrow. We’ve also got a family reunion to attend tomorrow for my wife’s Grandmother’s birthday.

Poor little dog, always trapped inside the house.

Today was a great day to score some free stuff.

It started out for our dog. The government office on our block was giving out free rabies shots for any dog in the neighborhood. My wife and I took Yoshi for his shot, as this was around the time he was due to get one anyway. All you had to do is show up, give your name and address, and they’d give your dog a shot. I guess we are registered pet owners now. Yoshi got his free shot before his walk, and my wife went to check out the real estate prices for her friend.

My wife’s friend was considering a move. She wanted to know where in the neighborhood she could get an apartment as cheap and as large as ours. It turns out we bought this apartment at well below the going market rate, and the market has now stabilized at a price point that is higher than we purchased our apartment for. We got a deal! I had been the one pushing for the apartment we ended up in for a variety of reasons, and it looks like all the fundamentals I had listed when purchasing the house had held true. So, while our friend is out of luck trying to buy an apartment in our neighborhood, at least we can feel good in our purchase.

While my wife was in the real estate agent’s office, a woman that was finalizing the sale of her home came in to talk about when she was moving out the next day. The lady and my wife started chatting about housing and where she was moving. It turns out that she was packing up her house, as she was moving to meet her husband who had already moved to another city for work. Her baby was with her mother-in-law while she packed up.

She said that she was going to have to throw out all the baby items she had because her mother-in-law already had everything they needed and had insisted she get rid of all the infant stuff they had at their house. The baby was already 18 months old, so there was a lot of stuff the lady couldn’t use anymore. My wife, never too proud to beg, asked if she could take the stuff off her hands instead of having all the stuff thrown in the trash. All this was happening while I was walking the dog after his shot.

I was almost back to the house after walking the dog when I got a call from my wife, who insisted I drop off the dog and swing by this stranger’s apartment. She said I’d be carrying a lot of things. When I got there, there was a mess of things on the floor. There was an infant bath, lots of oils, wipes, and skin care stuff too. There were socks, a blanket, and some early infant clothes too. I don’t know the overall utility or price of the stuff, but my wife was ecstatic about all the free stuff. She got me to carry it all home, then went about sorting it. The formula was from around the time of the Melamine scandal, so we’d have tossed it even if it hadn’t been expired. The rest of it was pretty salvageable, and hey, it’s free.

Students in my class needed to learn the word “suspension” today. The way I approached it was by writing down the various degrees of punishment I remember at school. I went from the vague and nebulous “in trouble” to “detention”. The students understood all of these. Most of the class was actually facing detention because they had forgotten their homework. The idea of spending more time at school for doing poorly, or doing nothing, wasn’t anything new to them.

I told them I had detention one time in High school (for talking in Study Hall.) I had to spend an entire hour after school studying and doing homework instead of going home on the bus. The only annoying thing was calling my busy parents for a ride. Not really the worst punishment I ever faced, and it’s absolutely laughable now. The students I teach would shrug off an hour of wasted free time. They don’t get free time most days of the week, so one more hour spent studying is nothing.

Punishing children here on the level of what we call a detention, from what the students told me, usually involve things like light beatings and forced push ups in uncomfortable positions. Gorilla push ups (on your knuckles), or finger push ups doled out by Korean elementary school teachers were particularly loathed by the students in my class.

Then we worked onwards to the words “suspension” and “expulsion”. At first the students were very surprised that a teacher would tell a student not to come to school. “Wait, I do something bad and I don’t HAVE to go to school? That sounds like….heaven!” was one response I wasn’t surprised to hear. Then I explained that in my school district, a suspension went on your permanent record (Oh! THE HORROR!) and it also meant that all homework, tests, and assignments due were instantly given a failing grade. Then there started to be a few “Oh, that’s not good” sorts of remarks.

Expulsion didn’t seem like a familiar concept to them at all. “Why not go to another school?”

Since there are schools everywhere in their neighborhoods, it didn’t seem like much of a deterrent. I couldn’t remember if an expulsion from a public school meant you couldn’t attend any other public school, or if you had to enroll in a private school to continue your education for the year.

The students wanted to know what would lead to a suspension or an expulsion. The only thing I remember anyone getting expelled for in my High School was a kid who got caught with a gun in his car and went to prison. At least, I think that’s why he went to prison…he was a bad guy. Another student got suspended for having a pearing knife in his lunch box.

I told the students that toy guys, and the cutting knives they use for art class would probably get them suspended or expelled in American schools. They were shocked to think that anyone would be upset by a toy guy, or making a “gun finger motion” at someone. I told them that if there is a “Zero tolerance policy”, the school can’t do anything but suspend or expell students that break the rules. They kept trying to think up situations where they’d have problems in class for doing nothing wrong.

“Teacher, I couldn’t study in my physical art class because I have to use a knife. How would I do my work?”

“Teacher, I think next year there is actually a class on knife safety, and we learn how to cut things safely. Would there be that class in the United States?”

My foreign coworker was hanging out near the door waiting for another class to start, and when they asked him to verify my story, he laughed. “Oh, of course you could never play Cops or Robbers on the playground if you made a gun like motion at another kids. You’d get suspended for sure!”

The Korean students don’t come from the context of heavy gun crime, or student on student violence reaching the levels we have in the United States. They have bullying and hazing, but not nearly the tragedies of the United States. I thought their reactions seemed…sane, but only by the standards they know. I think the zero tolerance stuff leads to nightmares but I’d also be frightened to send my kid to a school with a gun problem too. I think they have a memorable lesson to help them remember the distinctions of these words, so while they had a bit of culture shock, at least they’ll remember it for next time.

According to The Washington Post, 8.5% of children in the United States are addicted to video games.

I would have considered myself addicted to video games as late as last year. I think I’ve turned a corner where I don’t really follow gaming news, the gaming hobby, or the gaming lifestyle as much. I still love to game, but I don’t think I’m nearly as “addicted” as I once would have been.

1. Symptoms included spending increasing amounts of time and money on video games to feel the same level of excitement

This was absolutely true for me for several years from college all the way to about the last two years or so. I would get obsessed with games, spend money, and lots of time obsessing over their details. As much time as I spent playing games, I probably spent ten times more talking about them.

The last money I’ve spent on video games was for purchasing points for WiiWare, and a year long Dungeons and Dragons subscription.Of course, importing a Wii when they weren’t available in Korea just to play Super Smash Brothers Brawl was ridiculous and expensive, but since then I haven’t purchased a single physical disc for the Wii. I’ve gone entirely download only, and I purchase games at the rate of about once every three months.

The D&D subscription actually saves me much more time than not paying for it would. I’m going to play D&D with friends twice a month, plus through a Play-By-Post if I’m lucky, and I’m going to need to make characters and design dungeons. I might as well spend money on it and save heaps of time not needing to do it all by hand. Instead of spending hours obsessing about character details and tweaking my build, I fire up the excellent Character Builder tool, get an up to date character in 5 minutes, and stop having to worry about everything all the time.

I’m still happy to play D&D twice a month, and if we’ve added Play-By-Post stuff recently, that’s only because our games in person need to be shortened due to babies and schedules. It all balances out to a few hours a month, which is entirely reasonable. There isn’t more time to devote to a D&D game like an RPG because it’s all done with other people. I wouldn’t think of joining a second game unless I had a lot more free time, and even then I wouldn’t be as active.

2. Irritability or restlessness when play is scaled back

I’ll admit to getting a little pissy when my games get cancelled, or plans run afoul of some sort of unseen complication. I’d rather be hanging out with friends doing something than bored at the house. That’s not a bad thing, is it? If we happen to spend time hanging out playing a game, and people cancelling means I can’t hang out, it’s normal to be disappointed. I do go hang out with people and not play games, but if I put work into preparing something and someone cancels, it kind of sucks when everyone else’s fun is ruined. It’s like a rainy day on a picnic.

3. Escaping problems through play

This is bad…why? People get their stress out in different ways. Rolling some dice, or killing some virtual monsters via video games doesn’t seem particularly bad. It’s when this happens exclusively to everything else that it’d be bad. I’ve never missed work because of a game.

4. Skipping chores or homework to spend more time at the controller

This doesn’t happen anymore. Back in the day I might forget to dishes when I wanted to go play something. These days it’s chores first, then when I’m bored out of my mind, I’ll go play a video game. Much better.

5. Lying about the length of playing time

Lying? About video games? I’d be lying if I told you I could beat Mike Tyson’s Punchout. If people want to know that I play games, I’ll tell them. Occasionally our D&D sessions do run way long, but that’s not a secret or anything.

6. Stealing games or money to play more

I don’t steal games or shoplift, and I certainly would never steal money to afford to be able to play. I don’t do this, and I can’t imagine how I would feel if I had. No way. I’m paid up, that’s why video games stopped being a fun hobby. I couldn’t justify yet another video game system in my house. As cool as the Nintendo DSi might be, I’ll never get one. Unless someone sends one to me.

Results?

While I think I used to be addicted to video games, I think my habits have cleaned up considerably. I might slip occasionally when a new game lights my creative fires, or I get a particularly hot idea to use in D&D, but I’m not nearly as bad as I used to be when I played games all the time. Now my schedule doesn’t have as much time for games.

Am I addicted to the Internet? Without a doubt I am on the computer, and the Internet way to damn much. I’m working on that too, and perhaps in time I’ll look back on the days where I would spent hours on the computer with the same amusement I had when I was interested in all video games. I think the Internet is a much harder hook to pull out of your lip however, and I’ve been on the Internet a long time. I want to improve my habits, but sometimes I don’t realize where all the day has gone when I look back at what I did. Sad but true.