Confidence Game

“Do you feel like you have enough confidence?” my wife asked in the waning hours of the afternoon as we lay on our two-person hammock.

“Yeah, I suppose so,” I replied. “Sometimes I feel like I don’t have enough, and sometimes I have too much, but it all evens out.”

“Do you ever think it comes across as arrogance, or self-righteousness?”

“Of course not,” I said looking down at her from a great height. “No one would ever say that about me, and by the way, you’re not fanning me fast enough with that palm frond. Could you speed it up a little?”

Well, no- I didn’t actually say that. If I had, then I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be sitting at all.
But, even more absurd than my possible list of smart-aleck replies is the question of why my wife has an issue with confidence in the first place.

Our fifteenth wedding anniversary is next week. That alone should convince her that she is an amazing woman. I did the math a few days ago- my mother was married twice and both relationships lasted just over ten years. My wife’s parents were married about ten years before they split up, and while both of them have remarried, they are still only twenty years into their second relationships. We’ve almost caught up to them, but this is our FIRST marriage. I’d say that gives us a good five year handicap so the next time any of our parents decide to dish out marital advice I’m going to ask to see their counselor’s license and a list of references.

Then there is the issue of being married to ME for fifteen years, which is its own accomplishment. No matter what perspective I come from, my wife is an amazing woman.

She graduated from college, has two beautiful well behaved children, mentors women is substance abuse programs, and works outside the home. She is well respected in her church, she is considering going back to work on her masters degree, and, if I may say so- she’s a hot babe. I mean it.
Gorgeous.
So what reason does she have to lack confidence?

I stayed outside on the hammock by myself longer than I should have, and as I entered the house a little groggy from “resting my eyes” my wife was sitting on the couch combing our eight-year old daughter’s hair. The TV was on and I realized they were watching “Age of Love,” the new reality show where a group of young women compete against a group of “seasoned” older women for the affections of some dashing bachelor with a weird Kathleen Turner accent. I watched as the women competitors ran a grueling race that ended with them paddling a surfboard out to a yacht were their suitor stood waiting at the railing to give them a hand as they crawled aboard.

“There it is,” I thought. No wonder women like my wife lack confidence in themselves and their abilities. Reduced to cheep circus entertainment, these women deserve to be kicked in their silicone enhanced backsides. And while that statement doesn’t even make proper medical sense, I know that they are not totally to blame. Media is part of the problem, but it appears to me that many of the women I know lack confidence in themselves and their abilities. Those that have confidence and some sense of pride are often thought of in very negative terms by their female peers. I do not pretend to have the ability to shift through the last century of cultural flotsam and jetsam to present to you the single defining moment of the female inferiority complex, but doggone it- this kind of television program can’t be helping. And then part of me takes a step back and wonders if I am the problem. If I think less of these women for making fools out of themselves, then am I contributing to the overall decline in feminine confidence? Am I?

Nah, never mind that, I am going to judge them. In two words-
How pathetic.
And that may come across as arrogant or self-righteous, but… I’m okay with that. As I told my wife today after rattling off a list of the things she has accomplished that make me so very proud of her, maybe I have too much confidence because she has so little.

“But isn’t that co-dependant?” She asked.

Remind me to find the person who invented that phase.
More backsides need a good kicking.

Mom, Can I be a Buccaneer?

NOTE: This post was originally published on 1UP.com in June, 2006


"Mom, Can I be a Pirate when I grow up?"

I don't know if I ever asked her that, but if it ment I could now shirk all my worldy responsibilites, pick up my pack, and sign on with a square-rigger bound for Port Royale, I'd call her right now.
"Mom?"
"What is it honey?"
"I want to leave Marie and the kids and become a sailor on the Elissa, in Galveston Harbor."
"Aren't you going to paint my living room? Can it wait till after that? Come on over, I'll make you some chicken."

Actually I wouldn't go. Why?

I just taught my 7 year-old daughter how to ride a bike today. In fact, I made a bet with her cynical 13 year-old brother that I could teach her how to ride it in 30 minutes. After two hours of sweaty pursuit, running beside her in a back-breaking, knee-jarring lope, she looked up at me and said in wide-eyed amazement, "I can ride a real bike!" I was very proud of her- she accomplished something she thought she couldn't do.
And that's why I love video games...

Huh? Okay- I did a flyby, so let me explain.

I'm a father of two. I work very hard to keep my kids in clothes, my wife financially secure, and my bills paid. I will be 40 in less than 6 months. I reasearched building a sailboat in my garage this summer and after looking at the nearly $5,000.00 price tag, considered that it may be my "retirement project." So here is my reckoning:

1. I will more than likely never cross swords with a man who is trying to kill me. So I practice fencing in the backyard with a wooden beater sword, and relax by playing Devil May Cry: Dante's awakening.
2. I will probably never travel to Mexico and dig around the ruins of the Aztecs while being pursued by a demon with a grude, because I just stole a purple amythyst eye from his shrine. So, I spend an evening with Laura Croft, and delve deeper into a Tomb, jumping from ledge to ledge and avoiding the spikes below.
3. I drive a Pontiac Bonniville- and while the raw, awsome power of a true V8 engine gives me a thrill in the passing lane, I have never "checked traffic" and scored a Crash-Breaker Take Down while launching a Dodge Viper off a roof in Europe. Nope. Never done it. ...Except with a dual-shock in my hand.

I play games to experience things I can't do in my real life. Things I thought I could never do are suddenly open to me with the press of a button, the investment of a little time, and a few hours on the weekends. Like my daughter on her bike this afternoon, I beam with anticipation and feel the exhillarating sense of accomplishment when I've made it to the next level, or found a secret room. I go to lands I've never seen, breath in vistas from unreal planets, and load the cannons while I tack into the wind- my heart beating in my chest as I finally position a broadside between two enemy ships.

You see, I'm a dreamer...

But in this Walter Mitty life I lead, the guns are always loaded, and the runway is clear for takeoff as long as I have a few hours, in the dark, with the sound turned down and the glare of the TV illuminating the hallway to the kitchen. And while I take out the last ship in the drone fleet, or fell the red-eyed monstrosity that guards the Sword of Thunder, my daughter is upstairs sleeping. Dreaming of tomorrow when she finally learns to turn her two-wheeler without taking a dive into the saftey of the grassy patch above the curb-

...and there's a Nintendo DS under her pillow :)

G-man

all your Wii are belong to us

Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to buy a new game console this year, but hear me out.

As you know, I have two kids. Justin is 14, and Hope is now 8, and incidentally- I'm 40. So I can officially decree my midlife crisis and if I want to buy a Wii, I'll gol-darn buy a Wii! Yeah, you heard me!
Oh- and the kids wanted it.

I had no interest in updating graphics for $600 "a la" PS3- and I still don't. If I want to play great looking games then I have a bad ass PC for games like Oblivion and The Battle for Middle Earth. Heck, even some of my old PC games like "Aquanox" and "Secret Weapons Over Normandy" look better than anything the PS3 has out right now. Sorry- no sale.

The Wii is a return to gameplay and that is what attracted me. At the moment the graphics are simply functional and take a backseat to control, but what you get is something closer to imersion.

Imersion.

That is something I haven't felt in a long time. It is a concept that sold me a Playstation all those years ago after I rented one from Blockbust and tried out games like Descent and Tomb Raider. That feeling of the living room metling away and looking through the eyes of the screen at my new world has returned- albeiet with a silly name.

My son tells me that Nintendo development follows a cycle of "Revolution/Evolution," and the Wii is the new Revolution with a promissing "Evolution" on the way. In much the same way that the Super NES was the evolution of the NES, I expect the next generation of Nintendo's Wii to be an apex in gaming history, and I'll likely be standing in a line in a late November three or four years from now with my pre-order ticket in hand.

Now if you're really smart you've probobly already figured out that I am just supplying justification for breaking my staunch hard-line refusal to by a new game console. But if you are really, really, really smart- you'll just shut up and join me for a midnight session of Wii sports Bowling practice.
Hey, I gotta get in some hours cause the boy is kicking my ass.


G-man