Gene Rodenberry Lied

I just finished a Skype conversation with my new podcast co host, that lasted for hours. The conversation ranged from incredibly serious topics, to the down right absurd. You can blame sleep deprivation and ravenous hunger on the delirium that resulted in a joke about acrobatic bacon, but I blame her for being such good company that 5 hours seemed like 5 minutes even though we are 14 hours and 9869 miles (15882 km) apart.

Madness and hunger can make a man do insane things, but neither are the reason that i currently want to punch the re-animated corpse of Gene Rodenberry in the face. When he created Star Trek decades ago, he introduced us to what would be the greatest invention for the future of mankind, the teleporter. As I sit here refueling my body with super Gatorade and Chicken Caesar salad, I am seething with anger because GENE RODENBERRY LIED!

How much better would our conversation have been, if I could step on a teleporter and instantly be in Sydney to chat over bacon and eggs? Allow me to rewind time and explain where I’m coming from with all of this. The friends that I have grown up with over the years are great people, we share common stories and experiences, with one exception. None of my long time real life friends are gamers. If I try to have a conversation with them about a game I’m currently playing, or an announcement that has me stoked, I may as well be speaking Klingon to them, because that is how they look at me.

It’s not all bad though, I have been fortunate to make some amazing friends over the years by playing, writing and podcasting about video games. People who share the same passion about the industry as I do, people who I can talk to for hours and hours about games and other pop culture, people who I have shared many laughs and good times with. There is one small problem, my friends are scattered all across the globe. From various cities across the United States, Australia, Scotland, England and Canada.I seem to have my own personal world wide web of people that I can’t have a beer with on a moments notice. I’m eternally grateful for the incredible people I’ve met online, over xbox live, through gaming forums and the vast network of podcasters around the planet earth, but also saddened that I can’t invite them all over for a lan party bbq on a whim.

So to Gene Rodenberry I say, SCREW YOU, for introducing the concept of transporters to us in the first place. And while I’m on the subject, where are our food replicators, holodecks and blue skinned go go dancers huh? I’m sensing a pattern here and I don’t like having my emotions toyed with. To bring this rant back around to video games for a moment, I would like to commend Valve and Steam for being able to gift games to your friends wherever they may be. This is a concept I would like to see Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo fully implement in future consoles, so that you can send games to a buddy hundreds or thousands of miles away just to say hey, im glad your my friend, now lets go decapitate zombies together in co-op.

Gamers tend to have a stigma placed on them by society, mainly in the form of being called nerds or geeks. I say to thee however, wear that label as a badge of honor because nerds and geeks usually tend to be the greatest friends you will ever have. So I propose this, every so often take a moment of your time and send a game or a message via Steam or Facebook or Twitter to someone you may have never met, but call a dear friend and let them know you appreciate them.

For the record, I would never punch a re-animated corpse in the face, because that would signal the zombie uprising has begun. I’ll be too busy scrounging for ammo and yelling ”Pill’s Here!”, as I step off my homemade teleporter in the land down under. For the sake of reviewing something, I give Gene Rodenberry’s lies, 1 out of 5 fingers.

Don’t forget to subscribe on iTunes to The New Groovy Gamer Podcast and listen every week and maybe Jenn and I will tell you the story about Acrobatic Bacon, but we probably wont.

About the Author

Ron DiBona Ron DiBona is Editor in Chief of GroovyGamer.net and is a passionate game enthusiast. He is a freelance video game writer and is also the former host and creator of the Gamerdork US Podcast and now hosts a similar show for Groovy Gamer.