Grandma's Little "Habit"

There is a certain stigma that comes with being an elderly gamer. Those outside the gaming community sometimes see a 65 year old man playing flight simulators, or a pensioner hunting the neighborhood kids in a friendly deathmatch in the FPS of your choice, as eccentrics. No matter how lucid, how intelligent they may be, if they aren't playing chess or minesweeper, they are viewed to be reaching into a culture not designed for them. Nothing could be further from the truth. Marketing, now that's a different story, for another time maybe. Right now, I want to tell you about doctors.

Grandma loathes doctors.

Grandma hates doctors almost as much as she hates not being able to finish Fatal Frame.

Whenever she is honest when they inquire about her lifestyle (i.e., "So what do you do for fun? Gamble, smoke controlled substances, dismember transients, illegally download Madonna tunes, smoke controlled substances, eat red meat, what?") and she mentions gaming, they breathe the heavy sigh of a parent who discovers Little Billy doesn't know the birds from the bees and say... well, it usually goes like this:

Doctor Dipshit - "I hear your knee hurts a lot since the operation, and that you're an artist. So what else do you do besides painting?"

Grandma - "I play video games, mostly."

Doctor Dipshit - "You what?"

Grandma - "You know, PS2, XBox, GameCube, a little DS if I'm stuck somewhere..."

Doctor Dipshit - "What games do you play, exactly? Solitaire?"

Grandma - "Well, right now I'm playing Xenosaga II"

Doctor Dipshit - "And what is this.. Zebra Soccer Two, what kid of a game is it?"

Grandma - "It's a role playing game."

Doctor Dipshit - "Ah!"

Grandma - ".....yeah."

Doctor Dipshit - "So...... [long academic pause]....do you think that maybe this role playing game has made it so you cannot distinguish reality from fantasy? Are you playing a role right now? Does your Pokemon character's knee hurt? And perhaps maybe that's why your knee is hurting, that maybe it's all in your head?"

Grandma - "....."

Doctor Dipshit - "........"

Grandma - "How fucking stupid do you think I am?"




...Grandma's "habit" just happens to be gaming, but it's not hurting her. It keeps the old bag STRONG. What's going to make you more sharp, feeding the pigeons and doing word-search puzzles or mastering the Materia Junctioning concept? You decide.



--Coming soon: Grandma's Strategy Guide Collection Part I..., Video #3..., Thanks everybody! Keep on keepin' on with the e-mails and comments!--