Ahh to blog.

Believe it or not I’ve written at least one post a week since the last one. It’s just that by the time I’m done writing them they feel like I’m just trying to talk about how great I am. Honestly I think this post may go the same way… (If it does you’ll never know though huh!?)

Tobold posted something about being ashamed of being a gamer. With the whole Real ID debacle that went down recently I can understand the misinterpretation of a large portion of the community. I have never been ashamed of being a gamer in my life. To me being ashamed of something means I regret doing it. I never have. I love video games; I love everything they have brought me in my life. I understand that the good things and the bad things have all brought me to where I am today and I like where I am today. I am a productive member of society with a full time job, military reservist, wife, kids, pets and I own multiple pieces of property. Why should I be ashamed?

However I have a very good friend who I play video games with. He is the same age as me and we met through the Military. He lives with his parents and has no job other than our reservist pay. Guess what? He isn’t ashamed either. He is happy. Isn’t being happy the point? He loves everything that video games have done for him and accepts everything they have taken away. Everyone in our Unit knows we play video games and often times when we are in the field we have a Wii and Xbox 360 with us.

I don’t think ashamed or even embarrassed are accurate descriptions of my… or our feelings towards how we present our gaming hobby to society in general. I know that no one in my military unit will judge me based on the fact that I play video games. We are in a technical field so in fact many do play, and those that don’t seemly write it off as a none issue.

Enter the civilian world, the free market. Here I keep my gaming as much as secret as possible. The people who do the hiring and firing aren’t of our generation. They don’t understand video games beyond what Facebook is providing them with or what CNN reports on… which more often than not isn’t a good story on us. When people apply for a job at my work now I’m the first one to see their resume, and I google everyone. If I were to see some Real ID posts come up from that person I would probably put their resume in the back of the pack assuming I didn’t throw it out all together. We don’t need to hire gamers, even though I am one. (I understand the hypocrisy there)

I want to choose who knows I play video games and who doesn’t. That should remain my choice and not the video game company.