We don’t have great lighting in this spot…but I guess this is what I look like when I play video games.

(Sunday Paper, Year VI, Issue 39)

A year ago I made a big decision.

I’ve mentioned before - work never really dried up for me in the pandemic, which was a good thing.

But I was missing my distractions.

I didn’t have comedy, sports was not happening for a while, and there was nowhere to go and not much to do.

So after a little hemming and hawing, I took some of that money I was earning and treated myself to a PlayStation.

I’ve written about video games a couple of times before - once when we got a Nintendo Switch for the girls, and then again last year in a little reflection on 2020.

I won’t repeat myself, but I will remind you (if you didn’t click on those posts) that I stopped playing video games pretty cold when our oldest was an infant - around 2006 or 2007.

At the time I had a PS2.

So I totally missed out on the PS3 (if there was such a thing…I did also have a PS1 before the PS2, which ushered in an era of much better sports video games than I had ever played before)…and I got the PS4 when everyone was really excited about the PS5. (And, as it turned out, I made the decision to get it just before it became really hard to get any video game systems.)

What I’m saying is I’m not a video game trendsetter…but I don’t need to be. The PS4 is a video game dream come true:

I got myself a headset so I can talk to a friend as we play together - either against each other or just at the same time. That’s pretty cool.
I’ve never played video games on such a big screen before. That’s a new thing for me.
MLB The Show is the best baseball video game I’ve ever played. (And it allows me to play as Gary Carter, which I haven’t been able to do in decades.)

I have a few of the adventure games like Spider-Man, and they’re cool, but I’ve yet to finish any of them….maybe I’ll poke back into them and see if I can beat the game after I wind down the baseball game.

But the truth is, the baseball game has enough content to occupy all of my time.

And even more than that, the truth may be that the baseball game has too much content.

I sometimes find myself scheduling time to play it to make sure I get certain baseball missions accomplished…and that’s when I think maybe I need to cut back.

But I don’t usually, because I enjoy it.

That’s the weird thing about not having played video games in so long - I was depriving myself of something that I really enjoy.

I don’t think I wrote this in either of the other posts I linked to where I touched on playing video games - once I had kids I certainly had less time to play the games, but I was also unsure if it was a good dad thing to do. I certainly couldn’t picture my dad playing video games in the evenings before bed…or sneaking in a quick game at lunchtime. (Also, he would suck at it. We tried to play video games with my parents a couple of times when we were kids…it didn’t go well for them.)

But that’s a different generation. Hopefully my kids will remember I was happier during a bummer of a time because I found something I enjoyed to occupy some of my time.

My kids are interesting. They don’t seem to have a video game bug. We played a lot of MarioKart when we first got the Switch. They got into Animal Crossing over the past year…but they’re pretty good about separating from it.

Better than I was at their age, anyway.

But that was then. Now, although I am playing a lot more than would be ideal (it would be nice if we had more places to go and things to do), I can treat it more as a reward after a hard day’s work than as a device to avoid said work.

And with the Mets’ 2021 season turning out to be an unmitigated disaster….it’s a good thing there’s plenty for me to do in The Show.

Because there will be no post-season for the Mets, but there will be lots of post-season content in the video game.

Notes

*Running Update: Saturday’s run was 12 miles. We are in taper mode, which means we’ve done our longest runs and now we dial it back a bit leading up to the marathon. I am saying ‘we’ because I’m referring to all marathon runners, I guess, but I should probably just say “I”…because who cares about them.

No, I’m just kidding. It’s so weird to think that I’m (we’re?) down to just two more weeks of training - and really by the end of the second week it’ll be time to stop and just wait. I am not sure what I’ll do with myself without having to set aside the time to run.

*It’s been so nice seeing the different names popping up on the donation page. It really makes a difference knowing all of these people who I know from all aspects of my life are thinking of me and want to help me out. If you’re interested in giving and haven’t already done so, you can do it at this link. Thank you for all the support!

*DId you see my Wednesday post this week? (If you didn’t maybe it’s because you don’t “Like” my Facebook page - you can do that here. You can also follow me on Twitter here - I’ll often post a Wednesday pic there too if it’s a good one.) There’s a banner with my picture on it hanging in downtown Framingham right near the Marathon course. Since we did an out-and-back from Framingham to Natick/Wellesley Saturday I could see the banner pretty good coming back through Framingham from the course. But it wasn’t too visible going in the actual marathon direction.

*Matt Tour Update: Well, it’s mostly over. He should be home today or tomorrow, I think, and then don’t be surprised if you see him popping up on New York shows. The final show he’ll do with Counting Crows is here in Boston on October 9th. You can connect with him on social media and keep tabs on what he’s up to here.

*I’m three-quarters of the way through the ESPN 30 For 30 on the 1986 Mets. It’s such a trip down memory lane. That fall of 1986 was amazing. Maybe in October I’ll write about that and what I remember of my 8-year-old self.