Kirk Hiner's

"When thinking differently just isn't different enough."

"Grow Up...Play A Game"

By Kirk Hiner

I'm thirty. There. Now you all know something about me other than my hatred for Sierra and my love of Queen. As of March 29th in the year of our Lord 2000 A.D., or After Earth, A.E., I am thirty years old. Does this bother me? Do I feel older? Do I feel out of touch with the kids of America? Honestly, I was never in touch with with the kids of America, even when I was a kid of America. I did, however, live for the music. Go round.

Consider for a moment what I got for my birthday. Most men my age would receive a renewal to their Business Week subscription, a couple of white, knit shirts and some power ties, maybe a set of novelty golf balls emblazoned with their favorite basketball team's logo, and probably an Enrique Iglesias CD because they once pretended to like him in an effort to look sensitive in front of their girlfriends. Me? I got an Intellivision B-17 Bomber t-shirt, a couple Steve Martin movies, some clothes (all Levi's, of course...no Gap crap for this rugged man of the mountains), and from my fiancee...well, here's the kicker. From Tieraney I got the WWF Smackdown game for Virtual GameStation and I got...dolls. I got little stuffed replicas of Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup from The Powerpuff Girls. I'd be furious with Tieraney for embarrassing me like that if I hadn't asked her for them at least a dozen times. Of course, I may have just been pretending to like them in an effort to appear sensitive.

Does all this make me immature? Some would say so. Two weekends ago I had a college friend over to watch "Rebirth of Mothra." I invited this particular friend because, compared to the movies he prefers to watch ,"Rebirth of Mothra" is the daikaiju Citizen Kane. I mean, come on, Jon, you and I both know that you can't fit that many women into a hot tub even if they are wearing nothing more than string bikinis.

Anyway, I also invited another friend that I hadn't seen for a year, and this proved to be the mistake for the evening. Mothra may be quite popular amongst females in Japan, but I'm afraid that popular doesn't transfer across cultures. My friend did nothing but complain the whole time. She bad-mouthed the movie, and the she let loose on the decor of my apartment, stating that I hadn't grown up at all since college. Now I'm a good person, so I won't drag up this friend's completely screwed up personal life and compare it to the maturity of my collection of Flash Gordon memorabilia and rows of movies about giant bugs, but her comment did make me think. I am thirty, after all. I have a job. I have an office and business cards. I have bills to pay and a prostate that has to get checked. So at what point do I heed the words of 1 Corinthians 13:11 and "...put childish ways behind me?"

The answer? Not until well after Aspyr quits publishing games for the Macintosh. Indeed, the title of this article is taken from a t-shirt Aspyr gave me along with my review copy of Tomb Raider III. I laughed when I first saw the comment on the shirt, as it took me back to high school stage band (bass trombone, just so you know). For some reason I vividly recall being scolded by another student--a trumpet player, even--for goofing off. "When are you going to grow up?" she asked in her haughty, rich girl, never-had-to-do-the-dishes manner. I wanted to say, "About the same day you quit stuffing your bra," but as I said, I'm a good guy. Her question made no sense to me, anyway. Grow up to what? To whose standards?

If this girl were to see me today, playing computer games each evening for the next week's review, I wonder if she'd still think I need to grow up. I also wonder if she still stuffs her bra. I may actually consider going to my next class reunion just to find out.

"Hi, Sheri. It's me, Kirk."
"Hi! How have you been?"
"Clammy. Say, I want to know if you still stuff your bra."
"What?! I can't believe you just asked that! When are you going to grow up?"
"What, all I said was 'You really know your stuff...and all.' "
"Oh, thank you!"

On second thought, perhaps it's not worth the aggravation.

What I don't understand is how it makes sense to judge my maturity level from that which entertains me. So I watch the reruns of The Wild, Wild West in the morning instead of CNN. Does that mean I can't deal professionally with my clients? So I play Myth II in my spare time instead of reading The Wall Street Journal. Does that mean I can't be a good friend to those who know me?

The trouble is that many adults--and precocious teens, I should add--assume that one's level of intelligence can be derived from that which entertains him. This is not the case. I take great pride in the fact that my CD collection has Wagner stacked next to Wall of Voodoo, or that I can receive issues of The New Yorker and G-Fan (G for Godzilla, of course) on the same day. I attend the ballet, and I attend WWF house shows. I write novels, and I write Macintosh game reviews.

Of course, only the game reviews get published...for now.

This is why I have no fear of growing old. I'm surrounded by objects that keep me young, the center of which is my Macintosh. After all, even the stereotypes support me in this belief. Macintosh users are still considered to be the "art types" working out of their Soho lofts, while PC users are stiff, old executives in their corner offices. Oh, and if the Gateway commercials are to believed, PC users can also be families who just want to get on the internet so that their children can study and the parents can check the weather.

Yeah, maybe during Ronald Reagan's presidency.

But my friends, it's so easy to not care about growing old. It's so easy to avoid the whole sports car, jet ski, wood furniture building, dating someone half your age thing. Well, considering my fiancee is only twenty, I really should drop that dating bit. But anyway, the trick is to just find something you like to do and then do it a lot. What better place to turn than to your beloved Macintosh? It worked for me, after all. Nothing makes me feel young like logging into a Quake III: Arena server and systematically destroying gamers half my age. Of course, I have yet to actually pull this off successfully, sometimes the attempt is ample quest.

Or how about Rainbow Six? We know from the movies that there are no lazy, out of shape operatives running around European nations freeing hostages, so it has to make you feel good when you clear out the Belgian Embassy, right? Now that takes skill and intelligence. Forget mowing the yard, there are millions of lives at stake here!

But you don't have to be a gamer to dive into the fountain of youth hidden deep inside your CPU. You can log into the Led Zeppelin chat room and try to convince the fans that you believe the band's only song ever was "Stairway to Heaven" and that it was written for that Heaven Can Wait movie. Oh, to hear what they'll call you. Great fun, but first put the kids to bed.

Or hey, how about this? Got a good printer and a photo editing program? Create your own video boxes! Absolutely! Make up your own movies, put some photos and descriptions on a box, print them off and stock them on the shelves on your nearest video rental place. Then sit back and watch the mass confusion that ensues as the clerks try in vain to figure out why The Triplets Go to Mars and There's Dog Hair On the Grape don't show up on the computer when scanned.

That's it, you see. Within your Mac lies the secret to eternal youth...or at least to eternal immaturity, right Sheri? And if people can't understand that different folks are entertained in different ways, that just because you appreciate a good ladder match doesn't mean you can't also appreciate a Cezanne exhibit, then so be it. These people deserve our pity. If they're so jaded that they can't see the entertainment value in the micro-management of an outer space civilization, that's their loss. The willing suspension of disbelief is a wonderful thing, and it should be exercised often. That alone can insure a youthful heart and mind for as long as you want. And besides, if we so desired, we could move on to different things and give up gaming altogether. Poor Sheri, on the other hand, will still have to stuff her bra.

Now there's one game I don't wanna play.

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Friday, 29-Aug-2008 01:59:02 EDT