I’m so far from being a gamer it’s not even funny. I’ve never been especially good at learning the controls on video games. And recently, as I’ve complained about in other posts, the controls having gotten so out of hand (no pun intended) that it would simply take far too much time and effort to become good enough to actually have any fun.

Enter Angry Birds.

Angry Birds is my kind of game and it’s on the iPhone. Basically, just launch a variety of different kinds of birds from a sling-shot (why they can’t just fly, I’m not sure) at a horde of egg-thieving pigs to destroy their strong holds and topple their ranks.

Of course, the bird’s whole nobility is called into question when one particular breed of birds uses their eggs as bombs. I mean, isn’t that what we’re trying to prevent here? I the destruction of poor helpless pre-born birds in eggs?

In any case, Angry Birds can be played for 2 minutes, or 20 minutes. Waiting for the train, sitting on the pot, trying to fall asleep. It’s like all the enjoyment of classic video games meets the simplicity of internet-flash games, but all on a hand-held device that goes anywhere.

Now, would someone in the major gaming industry please take a queue from Angry Birds and give me more involved video games that don’t ask for anything more? Seriously people. Seriously.

Back in 1998 when Starcraft first came out a group of three or four friends and I played the game close to obsessively. Though none of of us got particularly good at it, we had a good time competing against each other. These were the days of AOL dialup internet. Multiplayer with people on the other side of the planet wasn’t common. Or, at least not for any one I knew.

As I got a bit older, I stopped playing video games much. I can’t say that I “grew out of it”, per say. Lots of adults continue to play video games. I think it was more of a time thing, or more likely a financial issue. Videogames are expensive, and keeping up the hardware to play them on the computer can be taxing. In fact, the last time I really gave videogames good amount of my time and money was during the days of Nintendo 64.

In the time I spent not playing, video games became increasingly more complex. The controllers began to have more buttons, more of which were used in regular game play. Computer games also, in addition to becoming more system intensive, began to use more keys in regular game play.

By the time the game Halo was released for the the XBOX in 2004, it was beyond my ability (given available time) to really get any good at it. The learning curve was simply too steep. Things only got worse as time went on. Consoles got more expensive, games became more complicated. And although I would enjoy spending an hour or two here or there relaxing with a good first-person-shooter, that became more and more of a fleeting possibility.

Then, in 2006, Nintendo released the Wii, which was aimed at reversing the trend. Simpler games. Simpler controls. Simpler price. Simpler everything. I bought one and played through one game (Zelda: Twilight Princess), then put it down. Sure, it was fun. But ultimately, more akin to playing a really impressive board game than a real honest-to-goodness video game.

I don’t want to play a board game, I want to play a video game. So, in my case, the Nintendo Wii didn’t live up to my hopes. I was back to no video games at all.

Alternative to the new Nintendo a slew of micro-game options also emerged. Games like Farmville on Facebook, or the thousands of games on the iPod Touch and iPhone seemed to be aimed at the people who wanted to play, but didn’t have the time to make it through the learning curve of the larger, beefier video games.

But therein lies the problem. I don’t want to play Farmville and there’s only so much Angry Birds I can handle—and that is somewhere around 15 minutes.

With Starcraft 2 set to release in the near future, I want to play. In fact, a friend picked up a key so that I can play the BETA version before it’s finally released. But even with all the games’ efforts to pair players with like-skilled opponents, the learning curve is simply too steep. The video games I enjoy playing are reserved for an exclusive group who have the time to develop their skills. And as we all know, it isn’t fun to play if you can’t win sometimes.

I, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on who you ask), am not a part of that exclusive group. So, this is a message for all you video game developers out there:

Please begin thinking outside the box for ways to make the video games we all want to play accessible even to those of us without the time to meet the games’ normal learning curve demands. I promise, if you do, I’ll play. After all, no one really wants to play Farmville.

I don’t really ever play video games. I have an xbox 360, but it only gets my attention for about 45 minutes once ever couple months. Most people would probably call that a good thing. Well, in this case it actually turned out to be the problem.

See, I signed up for xbox Live about six months ago. (In case you’ve been under a rock for the past three years, xbox Live is the online is the online multiplayer subscription service offered by Microsoft). The subscription costs about eight bucks a month. A comparatively small sum. I signed up for the service thinking that I might play online with friends. This never happened.

Several months went by. I didn’t use the service. Instead the system collected dust. At one time I attempted to cancel the service, but I couldn’t find a way to do so in the xbox menu. So, I gave up, rationalizing the purchase by thinking perhaps I’ll decide to play in the future. This of course never happened.

Fast foreword to today.

I was going through some general lifestyle cleanup. Taking care of old papers, cleaning out drawers and cabinets. And, coming upon the xbox, cancelling an unused expenditure.

So, I called Microsoft to cancel the account. They asked for the usual information. Name, email, username, last four digits of the credit card used for billing. I gladly gave them all of these, but they couldn’t get into my account. It would seem that somehow I didn’t have the credit card anymore.

I became increasingly frustrated with the billing representative as she basically said, “If you can’t give us those numbers, we can’t cancel the account”. I was pretty steamed. So I asked for her supervisor. Which, in fact, just proved to be a reboot to the whole process. Eventually, I let her have it. All of my frustration with the corporate system (and likely pent up rage against Microsoft over the years) spilled out at this poor woman on the phone.

I felt justified in my lashing out. At least until I caught a subtle tone in the woman’s voice. Something like, “I really am trying as hard as I can here and I’m frustrated too, just stop yelling at me”. I know, it’s impressive that I could pick that all out of a tone. But it’s the truth it was all there. Suddenly, I felt pretty bad.

It also happened to be at this moment that the woman came across an account that was almost exactly like mine, except missing a letter. She asked what password I signed up with. When I confirmed it she was able to see all of my information.

To my horror, I discovered that I had given her none of the right information in order to look up my account. Why? Because when I signed up months ago, I used false information. Not even a real address. The problems in the billing department couldn’t have possibly been more clearly my fault. Once this was done, she sped through the cancellation process. She asked if I needed anything else, then jumped quickly into a closing script that concluded with a the phone hanging up.

I wanted to apologize. I wanted to explain my frustration and tell her that it was wrong of me to have lost my temper with her.

But it ended too quickly and I didn’t get a chance to say it.

It’s too late now to express my regret. But it was indeed a shot in the arm from my nemesis in the software world. Humility is a bitter pill—with any luck I won’t need to take it for something like this again!

Something I’ve never really done is play sports. There are various contributing factors in that, the most notable probably being that I’ve just never been all that captivated by them.

Never in elementary, middle or high school was I ever a player on any kind of organized team. I think if I remember right, I tried to play soccer for like two weeks when I was 8 or 9. But that might be some composite memory I picked up from TV or something.

Long story short, that pretty much puts me in a position now where I neither care about sports nor am I any good at them when it comes to participating myself. I could care less which team wins the Super Bowl and probably I couldn’t kick a ball into a net to save my life.

But, I think I’d like to change that.

So, the past couple of weeks I’ve been giving it an honest effort to cultivate some interest and skill in some kind of sport. I have to admit, things aren’t going particularly well.

Last Sunday I went with some friends to watch the Redskins Cowboys game. In the beginning, I didn’t really know what was going on (being that I’ve never had an interest), but thanks to wikipedia, my iPhone and some helpful insights from a friend, by the end of the game I was pretty well clued in. Apparently I was supposed to be excited that the Redskins won? I don’t know.

But also, I’ve been trying to give it some effort myself as well. A very patient friend has been playing tennis with me. Here’s the thing, I really might be the worlds worst tennis player. If I’m not missing the ball completely, I’m sending it soaring over the fence. It’s seriously annoying.

All that been said though, I am giving things an honest effort. I really would like to not be an outsider in the world of playing and enjoying sports.

So, wish me luck!

We invented this game:

One person is “it”. The other players toss a Frisbee to each other. The person who is “it” intends to tag a person while they hold the Frisbee. Or get the Frisbee himself. If someone is tagged while they’re holding the Frisbee, they are “it”. If the person who is “it” gets the Frisbee himself, the last person to touch the Frisbee is “it”.

When someone gets the Frisbee, they are only allowed to take four steps in any direction before they must throw the Frisbee to another player. If a player is tagged while they are empty handed, they are frozen and can’t move in any direction. If a frozen player touches the Frisbee in any way, they are unfrozen and able to move again.

If all players are frozen and the Frisbee is in the hands of the one who is “it”, he wins and the game is over.

Who says we ever get too old for children’s games?