I like frogs

Why do people call pokemon Pokey Mans? Do they really not know the name? I doubt it. The spelling doesn't look anything like pokeyman. Nobody would actually mispronounce it that way. Certainly not a large enough population that the mispronunciation should be as widespread as it is. No. It is obviously a method of mocking the children's game. Many time, I believe it is a term used to represent that an adult is unwilling to confess that he is aware of gaming culture enough to pronounce a weird Japanesey word properly.

Next is more of my weird emo drivel that I tend to write when I blog. It just came out. Like freaking puke. This is your opportunity not to read it.
I could erase it or keep it to myself, but I guess this sort of thing is... cathartic? Maybe at your expense.
[spoiler]
The sad truth is that I know pokemon real well. I played red a little after it came out, probably when I was too old to be messing with such things. I was probably around 15 or 16? I had friends who played it, but that's no excuse, since those friends were socially and developmentally retarded nerds without girlfriends, kinda like myself, except that they didn't work their asses off in a machine shop all the time that they could be doing kid stuff. They chose to cast away their youth into tiny, glowing grey screens.

I often look back upon my youth with anger and regret. I blame my father, who's life motto seems to be: Work. There is no fun for him, except boating, maybe. Everything we ever did while I was under his rule is work, then work, then prepare for work, and then talk about work, and then accept sleep between workdays as recreation. Also Animal Planet, which is good, but not nearly as cool as sports and art and movies and whatever it was that other kids my age did.
But then I think that I was probably socially mindsmurfed anyway. I'm probably the kind of kid who, if I was exposed to more of "friends" my age, waste all my free time away on some bs like video games and D&D anyway. No matter what my experiences, I think my natural personality would predominate it and I'd think I tossed away my youth on video games (more than I already played any time I could get away) instead of work. Or I would waste it on women. Maybe have a relationship with a girl that ended in an explosion and then regret the years we spent together.
Actually, I had a really cool youth, driving race cars, fast boats and building the engines to make them go fast. Sure, I sacrificed a lot of childish things, but I guess it was cool. I hate it. I like the wind in my face, but I still hate it, and I did it because my dad told me that those were the things that I was supposed to like. That my rebellion was childish rubbish. That rebellion is suppo- I have really stupid issues. Lots of kids deal with divorce or dead parents or mutilation of drug addiction. My life is awesome, and anybody who disagrees is probably self-absorbed.
But I digress. Heavily.

Anyway, I kinda like pokemon. It's real easy. Fire burns plants. Plants eat water. Water drenches fire. Electricity shocks water. Earth grounds out electricity. Ghosts eat the green dreams of the Earth. Psychics exorcise ghosts. It makes sense. It's a great way to relax, and when I beat a trainer, I feel some cute little sense of accomplishment.
But is it really something I should've been doing at 16, less in my twenties? The weirdest thing is that I know people my age, with college educations, with adult lives, who openly talk about pokemon as something they do. Who have pokemon ringtones. Who think it's okay to play a game that is so feared and eschewed by adults that many daren't pronounce the name right for fear of being found out to know the pronunciation of the name?!
Maybe it has to do with self confidence? Or is it geek culture, plain and simple, which is usually a turn off to hot Cubanitas shaking their hips in the salsa clubs?
So whenever I go through a tough emotional time, I tend to turn to simple, old video games as a method of relaxation. As I have already described, they are the only way I've ever known to get away from the other stressors of my life, hiding in my room, in the dark, when everybody's gone to bed, playing children's games on a secret and well hidden hand-sized gaming machine that cost me 2 weeks of school lunch money.
So, for one reason or another, about 7 months ago, I downloaded Poklemon Red on to my computer and was playing it. Pokemon with no human interaction is kind of silly. The only competition is the game trainers, who aren't a competition. I mean, one is all birds. Then all water. Then all earth, so suddenly the electric pokemon has to switch. I mean, it's silly. And there's no trading with other traders, so I have to use cheat codes and mindlessly catch a bunch of pokemon in the wild in tandem with codes so I can collect them all.
???
So I did that, which was a waste of time. It was ludicrous. But I didn't stop. I tried pokemon yellow and blue (for the first time ever). Then I played the gb color one. Gold? I think. Then I went online in search of human interaction and played these really weird pokemon-type games that were really simple and obviously marketed towards twisted whackos in insane states of mind - like me. Pokemon sapphire or lava something etc.

And then, after trying to find a human opponent in a pokemon game for about 2 weeks, I finally became disenchanted and said, "Look at yourself dude. You're 27 and in a pokemon frenzy. I was. I played for about 4 to 6 hours each day. From 12.00 to 4(pm) and 12.00-2.00(am) - I had really tough workdays and two jobs, a day and a night job, at the time, so this was all my free time, and I should've been sleeping in the afternoon.

So I had some revelation of the failure of myself and couldn't believe it. I felt like some sort of warped addict. No control over my mind, acting like a 10 year old. I hid in my room every weekend while my roommate was out dancing (I don't know if he knows what I was doing. He probably assumed I was masturbating. I wonder if that's more respectable...).

So, one day, I deleted every game off of my computer, and I put the machine in a box. I put all my WORD files on a zip drive and put them on my crude, ancient laptop, so I could still do my writing work while not being tempted by the allure of pocket monsters and swords and using might and magic to kill cartoons.
But I was still really depressed. Tired. Feeling overworked and lost and friendless. So I quit my night job (I had accumulated a lot of money from working so much. I could afford a mere morning part-time job for a little while.
I hoped I would spend the time for self-improvement, but I didn't. I somehow frittered away about 12 hours each day doing things so forgettable that I still don't even know how I managed to pull it off. I think there was a mega job search involved, which didn't amount to anything. Long walks in the park, falling asleep in the grass. I ate a lot of pizza and fast food, gaining a little weight. But I had gained weight from my previous lifestyle too. In the past two and a half years, I probably gained almost 20 pounds.

I guess I remember it a little like an acid flashback, and somewhere in the middle of it all, between fast food, video games, despising 4-6 hours of work per day, psychologists and hiding along the trees to write drivel that I have long since eradicated from physical existence, the opportunity to become a minister to people in pain fell on my lap. I could not bear the idea of taking on that kind of responsibility, but I was either going to take the job, try to make money, sacrifice my freedom to the bondage of family affiliations once again and own my business OR wither away and die.
I chose the former.
And that is how Pokemon helped me become an adult. Or something.[/spoiler]