Kind of been a blogging binge a little bit here lately, but that's just because I've had a lot of new thoughts, or I am cultivating old ideas. The following has been a concept I've had in my head for a little while, but never have really talked about just because I didn't have any good examples to back it up with- until now.

I used to be addicted to video games. More specifically PC video games. I started playing them in the 8th grade. My first game "fix" was Monster truck madness. When that got old, I got caught up in a game called Mechwarrior. For the next 5 or 6 years, I was completely hooked on the franchise. I was involved in gaming leagues, I was on a team, I was good enough to have league accolades, and I was thought of within my community as a really good "pilot"

On other side of the coin, was a kid in high school, that wasn't socially involved like the other kids because of my out-there tastes in music, and clothing style, as well as my choice to not drink or smoke, and claim to be "Straight-edge" along with being involved in my church. These seem like all good things, but couple that with bad school habits, failing grades, and lack of social interaction, (besides school activities) and you now see a kid who was midly-depressed, and incredibly addicted to a virtual world.

My grades were never good in high school. I was always just scraping by, and I was addicted to my computer, and the games inside. There was no productivity in my life. I was not using the computer to learn how to do web design for a future career. I was not editing and design map terrain for video games. I was not drawing graphics. I was doing none of that. I was sitting. Scrolling a mouse. Slapping some keys and saying into a voice communications program "He's critical" "good game" "let's pwn these noobs". Nothing. NOTHING. good came of all this.

When I began to start working out of high school. I decided I liked money, and I liked having friends out of high school, and I started to be more social. I started enjoying myself more. I then went on a mission, and on my mission, I made a conscious decision to not get a PC when I got home, and to get a mac. Not because I was trying to be fadish, or hip, but simply because mac's did not have the same game titles as PC's did. The only reason why the PC exists is because of business who have longed kept using windows, and because of VIDEO GAMES.

I made conscious decision to not get into the habit of games because I didn't want my wife to see me just playing video games all day. I didn't even think I would get far enough to have a wife, and having a girlfriend would have been hard enough as it was, if I were to try to even think about having a gaming habit in my life.

Today at work I saw the fruits of what video games does to marriage. I went to a house, and I was spraying around the house, the wife had two very curious kids. I was spraying the base of the house, and as a procaution, it is important to try to keep the kids from stepping in the product, or touching it in any way. These was quite the task as the lady was showing me around, and then trying to fight these two kids.

Her husband was in the other room playing a zombie game called left 4 dead, and when I came in to say hello, he didn't even hear me, or maybe he didn't acknowledge me, until his wife commented, "Don't worry he has a job, it's just his day off" and I said "no worries, but that's a pretty cool game" and before I would say anything more, his silence was broke with "Oh, what's your gamer tag." I told him I didn't have one, and it's just a game friends alot of times play, but I wasn't really into games.

With that being said, he lost interest in me, and also in aiding his wife with his roll as a father. When she asked him to come help her make sure the kids didn't get in the product he simply screamed at them in a hollow and fruitless yell, "Stop touching the product!!" He did nothing to repremand.. He didn't even stand to try to give them any warnings of any kind. He simply yelled what he probably had said many times verbatum in that same situation.

But it only got worse, when his wife asked him to bring in a ladder for us to use and he said, "I'm in the middle of this, can you guys wait 2 or 3 minutes?" I rolled my eyes at the lady, expressing my time constraints, and she yelled at her husband to turn it off and come help. With 10 seconds of delay, he stood and became extremely defensive, as if we had just takin away his teddy-bear.. He got the ladder grudgingly and returned, handed it to me, and went back to his computer...

I WILL NOT BE THAT MAN!!! Two kids, a wife, and a video game? No way. That man was a loser and a half, and not fit to be a father, or husband. When someone you love, or someone you consider as friend, ask you to do something, will you be stuck in a vice of frivolous means? Be it video games or otherwise. This is what I have been avoiding, because any person, especially males, can get caught in this. I know we cannot multi-task well, especially within addictions. We must avoid evil. The lord takes it further and says avoid (even) the appearance of evil!! Meaning- don't even get close to that stuff!!

I'm sure I could write a whole book on this stuff. But I felt bad for that poor man's wife, and for him, because he won't realize a good thing until it's walkin about the door, with his two kids and a suitcase...

That's what I'm avoiding.