Okay I'm back and ready for more because as I said before this hits a lot closer to home than most people would care to think about and a little hard truth telling putting any dissenters into place is a good thing.
HG131 said:
Second, what if I don't WANT to read books by certain authors? What if I don't care who writes a book at all, just if it's good or not?.
As for books, well we all don't have the same taste and while you won't see me reading Sarah Palin's latest book Going Rogue, you will certainly find me at least trying to read Sam Tanenhaus's book Death of Conservatism and Ted Kennedy's Auto-biography and I'm a republican. The point is HG131 is about going beyond gaming as a hobby, to be more than simply saying "I'm a gamer" which has been so watered down but I'll go into that a bit later. It's about being able to identify yourself than more than one simple hobby and knowing that when push comes to shove you like in video games are able to adapt, learn, rationalize and level up.
I spent a good majority of my 4 year college experience just playing video games, I even had to change my major from Japanese to History because I screwed up and decided leading a raid was more important than practicing daily vocabulary terms. I still graduated but then I had another problem, the job market for history majors and if anything any job looking for students with B.A.'s was and still is very small because subjects like History deal with the abstract and do not physically produce a good or service in a consumption based society. So I've had a real pain in the arse time actually finding a job in anything even retail despite my fours years work experience finding employment. So the only thing I realized that if I like computers so much I should try to branch out and learn some new skills.
Since graduating I've tried to learn many different programs down to even having the tools. I've studied adobe Premiere elements and learn how to edit movies. I god Pro tools and even a microphone set up and have read books on how to do sound editing(in retrospect just getting a USB microphone instead of an XLR with a USB preamplifier is actually a lot better if doing PC recording and audio editing. USB microphones can use more programs than being stuck with Pro tools) and now I'm currently trying to open a new career path by getting my CompTIA A+ cert and getting more certifications on repairing and building computers. I already know how but I never studied the terminology but it is a trade skill that involves problem solving and is a physical product that I can use for myself and potential employment.
Tell me what does playing video games get you on your resume? Oh I know, nothing.
In a damn hard american employment market it is literally a free-for-all and if you aren't the best, you are the worst. I paid my way through college getting average grades and working customer service all the way through and volunteering and it is damn hard for employers to take me seriously when an honor's student who got an internship learning the ropes because mommy and daddy paid their way through college doesn't have to be trained in the industry like myself. They are already taught how to apply their skills into a physical form where someone like myself stuck to writing research papers that were judged mediocre and wasn't published in a magazine.
EDIT: Also when you are an adult and meant to pay the bills how much does playing video games get you? Nothing.
EDIT 2: Ya know what since you want to be such the nihilist I'm not even going to bother with the rest of my rant because it appears you are so dead set on thinking that having such a small and insignificant network is actually good for your social life and your work life that you aren't going to head the words of an elder who is currently going through hades.
So just don't say that I didn't warn you on the harm you are actually inflicting upon yourself and your future.
