Like many in America (sans yours truly), my family had Monday off as the nation remembered the contribution to civil rights made by the late Dr. Martin Luther King.
Like many in America (this time including yours truly), my family has become addicted to video games.
For me, it’s the thrill of riding an x-wing in space or taking on a group of virtual monsters from the safety of my chair. For my wife and children, it’s the thrill of cleaning out a sink, taking a shower or answering a doorbell when it rings.
I just don’t get the allure of raising a Sims family.
Sims is the virtual reality game (short for “simulated persons” I assume) whereby players take complete charge of an invented person’s life or even the lives of an entire invented family.
That means getting up, going to the bathroom, and deciding what to wear every morning. That means eating and then cleaning up, building walls and floors of a home and decorating them by buying things from the store. It means not leaving the stove unattended or a fire will start; it means not leaving food out or it will turn green and stinky. In short, it means taking care of all of the mundane things for a cyber-family that we have to do every day to keep our real families going.
The reason why I play video games is to be taken somewhere else, someplace that I can’t experience in my world. I’ll never land a space fighter in the hostile hangar of a battle cruiser and come out blasting. But if I want to clean the bath tub, the Pine Sol is under the sink.
As I covered the march and memorial on Monday, my wife and kids spent their holiday building a new virtual family. There was a Dad called Scott who looked nothing like me, and a Mom named Diane who looked nothing like my wife, but wouldn’t you know shared the same name.
At last look the Sims Bremners were getting along pretty well. Of course, they haven’t had to wrestle yet over who gets to use the game controller like the real Bremners do.
HEY! We still have a simulated comments section waiting for the spam monsters to go away. If you would like to send your cyber-thoughts, email me at scott.bremner@35wsee.com. Write Comments in the subject line so I don't miss it, and your thoughts will follow mine. Thanks.
COMMENTS
The world of Sims does provide me with something I can't experience in the real world: Sims Scott cleans toilets.
Diane Bremner
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Guilty.
Scott
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