You Know Things Are Bad When...: Pokemon Edition

Usually I'd love to be able to leave the government out of my videogames.. Well, unless its some sort of government plot I'm fighting for, or against, or I'm simply having to save another president (or be one).. But that becomes harder and harder to do as the years pass, it feels like. I'd really love to not talk about sanctions, censorship and all the other things that come with politics, if only because those things can make me ranty, a little irrational and pretty much inconsolable at times. But this is a little too hard to pass up.

I have feelings about that I've formed since I've become an adult about the government that isn't really something for a blog or major publication that doesn't deal with those sort of political thoughts directly at its core. What I will let myself say is that this shutdown in the government is a complete joke and really goes to show how little we've actually healed as a nation over the years. I mean, it is a real, actual, tragedy alone that this shutdown is effecting thousands of government workers who are left without pay, or -maybe worse- saddled with the "promise" of an IOU. And, because of a completely-unrelated-to-videogames article I saw this morning, the realization I had about how the shutdown will effect a lot of states and communities, in a direct way, that pull in a lot of their money through federal park/monument related tourism. And all right before Christmas, too.

But this hurts me on a whole different level. Now the government shutdown is effecting our videogames, and not in the ways ones conclusions would usually jump to. Now we're simply unable to get games on shelves in some cases. And right as Pokemon X/Y is coming out; a holiday for some people in its own right.

I'm not saying this is a bigger deal then anything else. There really is much more heartbreak because of this shutdown then the inability to get some unnecessary-for-survival entertainment. I'm more saying we've piled on so many "big things" that we're now starting to have to focus on the really stupid little ones, the ones that actually become annoyances to our everyday lives unless your directly affected by the shutdown. There is really no reason that anyone shouldn't be able to sit down and play a videogame, to get a little joy in our joyless lives, simply because they can't get one, because they couldn't be shipped, because a bunch of government officials are in such a ridiculous deadlock.

This is enough to make me want to look into moving to Canada. As if I didn't have enough reasons to want to before any of this happened.

(Unrelated sidenote: I named this one as if it would be a series, but I'm not expecting if I make it one that it'll be exclusively about the government or the shutdown, or any one subject. As cynical (and just like me) as it sounds, there's quite a bit that could be said about things being to a point where you can call them "bad," in the world.)