What I hate the most about Pokemon GO.

One of the biggest challenges that I face in life (other than the fact that I have six children), is that I am an extreme extrovert.
I love to listen to other people's stories.
I love to share my stories with other people.
This is one of my biggest rules:
Rule #1. Always be safe or take the safest option.
Rule #2. As long as you're being safe about it, always choose the option that will ultimately have the best story.
I don't know if this was a choice that I made early in life, to be an extrovert, but I do know that most of my life this has pretty much been thrust on me. What I mean by that is; I'm always the guy in the DMV office or any large public groupings (concerts, the mall, a line for ANYTHING) that everybody ends up talking to. I always seem to be the guy that people just flock to and they tell me about what a horrible day they are having or share a great experience they just had and I enjoyed this very much. I see it as an incredible honor that people are willing to share these things with me.

Now with that said, here's the problem; most of the things that I enjoy doing in my spare time and as a profession are designed or centered around the introverted lifestyle. for instance I love creating programs writing code or writing apps or creating databases etc.. But you have to do this sitting alone in a dark room most of the time concentrating on the couch trying to not sit in a social environment and be able to be productive as a programmer.

I also love fishing. Fishing seems to relax me, there's something about the pull of the line letting you know you have a fish on and the fight is has begun. But even if you are out with your buddies this experience is very much a personal one YOU are reeling in the fish, YOU fight the fish and YOU caught the fish. they may watch but this is not a social event <as it were>.

I am also a lover of video games. I have been playing video games since they FIRST came out. but again most video games are designed for one person to achieve such and such or beat a certain boss. now I do play World Of Warcraft (an MMORPG or Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) and although you do get to interact with other players in the game you are still behind a keyboard and inside and stuck to your computer.

All of the things I have chosen as hobbies or my profession try to guide or even push me to an exclusive and often lonely environment.

Then 2 days ago my son (a burly, 6.5, 250lb monster of a man) came into my front room and said "Hey dad, have you checked out that new Pokémon GO? I totally thought it would suck, but I am addicted. you gotta check this out" he then proceeded to install it on my phone. I didn't really do anything with it until yesterday while I was waiting around for something or other and I opened it up to see what all the fuss was.

Basically the idea is there are all these cute little "Pokemonsters" around you that you can not see without the app and you have to catch them. You can then level them up and once they (or you) are a high enough level, you can meet up with other people and battle your little monsters against others.
Ok I have to admit this thing is a lot of fun. For me the greatest draw is that it is deigned to interact with others IN PERSON. this is a huge game changer (excuse the pun) for those of us use to being stuck in our homes or on a mobile game (game on a tablet or on cell phone). We now HAVE to talk to each other to play.

You run around town and try to catch thee little guys, but you MUST be safe and aware of what's going on around you. it would not be difficult for instance to chase one of these things into oncoming traffic if you are not paying attention.

But isn't safety and awareness always important? I mean there are more then a hundred ways to hurt or kill yourself just going out fishing, if you aren't paying attention or acting irresponsibly and as a parent I have to monitor my kids online video game play for a myriad of dangers there. So to those who might safe the game is unsafe I say it's not the game teach yourself and/or you children to BE AWARE OF THEIR ENVIRONMENT.

But the thing I hate and I mean I HATE the MOST about this silly little game is..... I didn't think of it first. You can bet there will be following games that will require you to interact with others and run around outside and do ... something (and I will design one of them). Just be careful, watch out for dangerous situations and never... I mean NEVER EVER meet up with ANYONE without friends or parents with you.

Thank you for reading, cast a big net and keep tight lines.
Until next week.