开云体育

Maybe you could order Christmas stuff through the shop where Kirby works!
(Drugs, still, but discount drugs.)
This is no answer; this is just chitchat and commiseration.

I'm the enabling mom of the expensive game junkie. I *did* just spend on
the order of a couple of hundred dollars at his game store, since the pusher
(I mean owner) is having a 25% off sale this weekend.

An example for those who are not familiar with these particular games - it
can easily cost $60.00 for a starter set of these pieces. That's enough to
set up one kind of army but seemingly never the kind my son really wants.
So then we end up having to buy the smaller adjunct boxed sets or blister
cards. Yikes - it is never ending. You get a big fat manual when you buy
the set, but then they change the rules sometimes so you have to buy what
they call "codexes" to keep up with the changes.

Is it a strange coincidence that the owner reminds me of the comic book
store guy from The Simpsons? I thought his sort of cranky personality
might be enough to make Matthew give up the games, but instead, he's
learning how to be around someone like that - a good lesson, I suppose. He
spends enough time there that he *could* work there, but it's a fairly new
store, and he only has one other employee - which could go a long way
towards explaining why he's so cranky.

We've talked about how virtually everyone who plays these games (at this
store, anyway) is an ADULT, with a JOB, but so far that doesn't seem to have
dimmed his enthusiasm. Yesterday I talked about how when you pick an
expensive hobby, like say, restoring a vintage car, you can't always just go
out and buy the parts exactly when you need them - that sometimes you have
to wait until your next paycheck. Granted, he's not paying rent yet or
buying groceries but he has an allowance and it has to stretch the month.
He was worried that when he started getting an allowance, that we wouldn't
buy him anything any more. I assured him that I reserved the right to buy
him stuff whenever I felt like it (which is still pretty often). I just
can't make myself buy him this particular gaming stuff though - it seems
that this is his thing and that he ought to finance it. It sounds a bit on
re-reading this that we nag him about his interest, but we don't. We just
talk about it when it comes up (which is all the time<g>).

I DO know that he is getting a lot out of playing these games and hanging
around the store - I'm mostly just blowing off steam.

Jocelyn

vegan4planet@y... wrote:

This is way out there, but I feel like people can never get enough of
(be satisfied by) something that isn't really satisfying. Diving into
fantasy games is exciting, but hollow in the end because
you have nothing real to show for it. It all is social I agree, but
nothing lasting is accomplished.

(snip)

One more thing: I am not suggesting that we are the owners of our kids,
or that gamers are inferior in any way. I just wish that energy, time,
and money, were used for the power it could
really have. The power of positive lasting change in the real world.

Can't your argument against gaming be applied to reading books, listening
to music, hiking in the woods, watching the sunset, etc.? By your
argument none of these activities have any value because nothing lasting
is accomplished.

I would argue that all of these including gaming can have value. The
value is just not physical.

--

Cindy Ferguson
crma@i...