My heart hurts.

Been a while.  And yeah, I’ve just got more whiny bullshit to post, so don’t bother reading.  You’ve been warned.  I let myself fall for exactly the kind of guy I would ordinarily warn others away from.  Actually, it doesn’t feel like I “let” it happen; it feels like I just slotted into the event like it was made for me.  Like he was made for me.  I didn’t know what attraction felt like until I met him.  I didn’t know what blind stupidity felt like until I met him.  Thing is, he can be so sweet, and I feel like a million bucks around him.  But then he ignores me for days on end.  I don’t even have a right to be upset.  We’re not in a romantic relationship.  But sometimes he treats me like a friend, and I’m on a high for the rest of the day.  But I think I made myself too available, too easy.  He’s quite the little fuckboy, and I thought I could handle that.  I thought I’d be okay with it.  But mild flirting, truth or dare, and time spent mostly naked and “joking” around about threesomes have just left me feeling used.  Like a plaything.  He’s got his girlfriend, and even though he doesn’t always treat her right either, he’s professed his love for her in ways that I know he never will with me.  I need to walk away, I know.  It would be better for me.  But every time he calls, I coming running.  I think he’s a manipulator.  I think he doesn’t really care about me as anything more than someone he’s attracted to.  I think if he said he loved me and wanted me instead of her, I’d still drop everything for him.  And I hate how stupid that makes me.  Getting involved with other people never works out for me.  I should have known better.  I did know better.  But I ignored it because, goddammit, I love him.  I shouldn’t, but I do.  And I’ve come to genuinely like his girl, and if they invited me into their relationship, I’d do it in a heartbeat, but I know that I’d always just be their unicorn, and that hurts.  It hurts so much, especially because I know I don’t have any other options, and even if I did, I’d ignore all of them for him.  I didn’t want to be the heroine of a romance novel, but here I am.  The best I can hope for is that he does actually care about me, and I just can’t handle the casual sex thing.  I want the romance they have.  I’ll never have it.  The best I can hope for is to be part of someone else’s story.  A side character.  Disposable.  And part of me is totally okay with that, if I could only feel like they really wanted me there.  But most of the time, it doesn’t feel like that.  Especially now, after successive nights of fun and games, I’m being ignored.  And it hurts.  And I don’t know if he knows how much it hurts.  If he does, he’s an asshole.  A big part of me hopes he doesn’t know.  I want to believe he’s the sweetheart he seemed to be, the kindred spirit.  But they never are, are they?  So here I am, pining after someone who’ll never want me and waiting for him anyway.  It’s a tragic ending, assuming you give a shit.  This feels like the longest he’s ever purposefully ignored me.  Is it because he didn’t like the way I looked without clothes on?  Is it because I made myself too available and now he doesn’t feel like he has to try?  Is he just tired of me?  I’ve done everything to be good to him and his girl, from buying dinner to offering to co-sign a loan.  He’s got me under his thumb, and I don’t even mind.  As long as he pays attention.  When I’m being ignored, it kills me.  My heart hurts.  But I keep waiting.  And I hate myself for it.  I should walk away.  But I can’t.  And it’s going to kill me.  For real, someday.

Tired and Sick

I feel like I’m almost out of time.  Like I’ll never finish everything in time.  My body is decaying right on top of me, and I’m almost out of time.  I’ll never finish all the stories I have ideas for.  I’ll never get through all the video games, dvds, and music I’ve collected.  The rest of my life will be spent in pain and discomfort, knowing that I didn’t have time to finish it all.  I wasted so much time before.  You never appreciate expressions like “youth is wasted on the young” until you’re in a position to see it better.  Where you can see what that waste really means and what you lost out on.  I put it all off, and now I’ll never finish it.  It’s almost enough to make you want to end it all early.  Why stick around just for the pain and unhappiness?  Why not just cut out early?  Because of that slim hope that you’ll be able to finish something?  Something that others will remember  you for?  The truth is, you’ll be forgotten in an instant.  When it’s all over, you won’t even be a memory.  Why are we even fucking here?  Nothing lasts, nothing is worth it.  You just sit around, being tired and sick, and hoping you have enough time left to finish it all.  But you don’t.  You’re enduring the pain for nothing.  I fucking hate life.

Worth Less

That’s right.  Not “worthless.”  Worth Less.  As in “worth less than…”  You know how sometimes people say they’re worth more dead than alive?  Especially in movies, some guy will lament that nobody wants him around, and he can’t do anything right.  So because he has life insurance that will take care of his family or whatever, he’s worth more dead than alive.  Not me.  I have no life insurance and no savings, so I’m actually less than worthless.  If I died tonight, nobody but my mother would miss me, and only her because she has this OCD thing going on.  Nobody needs or wants me around.  But since I have no insurance, there’s nothing to pay my bills or funeral costs.  I would actually end up costing somebody money if I died.  FML, as they say.

After nearly a year of looking for work and asking for my medical problems to be recognized, I find that I have lost the war.  Not just the battle, but the war.  I can’t do much because of carpal tunnel, my former employer is fighting me on unemployment, I’m fat and ugly so I can’t get either a good job or a significant other, and my dream job doesn’t have a leg to stand on.  I’m so sick of not being able to afford even the basic necessities, mooching off of my parents, begging to borrow off of my brother and listening to him whine about it all the time, and just feeling hopeless and worthless.  I just want it to end.

But I can’t do that myself.  Not until I know it won’t be a burden to my financially strapped family.  As big of a burden as I am now, it would be worse with a $10k or so funeral bill to deal with.  So I guess I’ll scrimp for a while and see where it gets me.  The irony is that if I could save up $10k, I wouldn’t be so worthless anymore.  Or at least, I wouldn’t be worth less than worthless.

Not Here

“I’m just trying to make the food last,” she says.  Last for whom, exactly?  I would like to know.  I live here too, and she’s always saying “help yourself.”  But when I actually reach for something, I get the old “what a pig” look, or she whines behind my back about money.  I’m not working right now, either, you blockhead.  Make up your damn mind.
She still buys his food, and he’s got a good paying job.  Why should I still be made to feel like a burden?  I admit, I’m not worth much.  But if you claim to care about someone, shouldn’t you show it?  Just saying it isn’t worth much, either.

That’s okay.  I didn’t want more than one meal today anyway.  Everyone else had two bowls, and I only had one, but hey, I’m not worth much.  I’m out of vitamins, nearly out of food and water, but hey, everyone else is far more important than I am.  Maybe when I sell my last possession, I can pay you back for that bowl of cereal I ate this morning.

You say I should take care of myself?  Why?  I’m not worth much.  Besides, taking care of oneself is expensive.  Maybe I should leave so that I don’t bother you anymore, so that you don’t have to think about all the trouble I’ve caused  you.  Don’t mind me, I’ve never lived in the gutter before.  It’ll be an adventure.
Melodramatic?  Maybe.  But all I wanted was what everyone else had.  You hide shit from me all the time.  Like I’m a zombie just waiting for a chance to pounce and eat everything.  I’m so fucking sick of being treated like a burden and annoyance.  You don’t even talk to me anymore.  You used to say that you wanted me around to talk to.  Well, I stayed.  I’m still here.  But I’m not a part of the family anymore, am I?  I’m not worth enough.  I worked my ass off for over a decade.  Then, I got hurt.  So now I’m worthless.  I didn’t know we were living in a communist country.  I guess that prick on Faux Newz was right.

Maybe I am being immature.  Maybe it was just a silly thing, not worth fighting over.  But all those silly things add up, and you worked hard to keep me immature for your own ego.  Would you notice if I were gone?  Probably.  Would you care?  Only as far as it annoyed you not to have all your ducks in a row.  I’m just a knick-knack on the wall at this point.  Not worth much.  Not really even here most of the time.

I have my mother’s knuckles.

This may not seem like such a big deal.  But it’s not the same as having your mother’s nose or  your father’s eyes.  I’m talking about the dry, desert-cracked knuckles of an old woman.  I’m 30, and I have my mother’s knuckles.  My hands used to be so soft.  I took pride in them.  Funny how everything I took pride in has been stripped away by the hands of time.  My hair is thin now, my skin is drying out, and I’m no longer the fastest typist in the town, due to carpal tunnel issues.  I can’t begin to describe how depressing that is for me.  I feel like I wouldn’t feel so bad if I had made use of my youth while I had it.  But I was a homebody and a shy one at that.  I never spent the night painting the town red or anything like that.  I feel like I lost something that I never fully enjoyed or took advantage of.  And it’s not fair.

The other day, a kid across the street came to our door.  A teenager, one of the ones that my parents call “hoodlums” and “juvenile delinquents.”  They don’t mean any harm; they’re just a bit noisy.  He had accidentally flung his keys on a lanyard onto our roof.  It was an amusing situation.  But after we got the ladder out, I realized he was a cute kid.  Cute enough that I would’ve fangirled all over him when I was ten years younger.  And that made me sad, because I’m too old for that now.  And if I so much as complimented the boy, he’d think I was being creepy, and his mother would probably call the cops.  Is this how dirty old men feel?  It’s not like I wanted to jump his bones or anything, just admire his youth and vitality and cuteness.  I never had that, and now I never will.

It’s not just maturity that lowers our standards.  It’s society.  And that’s a good thing.  It’s just hard to deal with.  Even for an ace like me.  It’s not that I want what I see; I’d just like to have the option.  I never appreciated it when I had the option.  I never had a lot of options to begin with, being the fat, brainy chick.  So knowing that they’re being restricted even further is disheartening, to say the least.  It doesn’t help that this is a very difficult time for me right now.  It feels like I’m becoming useless to everyone, including myself.  Knowing that I’m even useless to society, even as a decoration, is the final straw.

I honestly don’t know what to do.  I’m sure there are people who think I’m being a big baby.  But I’m scared to death that I’m going to lose everything, even though it isn’t much.  My carpal tunnel made work too painful, but I can’t go on disability because it’s considered a “fixable” problem.  I can’t find any other work that I qualify for AND that won’t make my arms worse.  I could probably power through the pain for a little while, but I suspect I would end up unable to do anything at all in a matter of months.  So I’m mooching off of my parents, selling everything I can think of to make some cash, and trying to get my dream career of writing books off the ground.  Like that’s gonna happen.  I’ve sold exactly ten books in three months.  I love to write, and I fear losing the use of my arms mostly because that would mean no more writing.  That, and I’d never be able to play another video game or hold a book again, either.  But I can’t support myself like this.

I feel so useless.  I wish it would just end.  I don’t have the guts to do it myself, at least not in this world.  I saw a picture online of that game Portal 2, the one where you’re looking through a portal at the backside of your own character.  A cool effect, for sure.  But, and I’m sure there aren’t that many people who did this, my first thought was that it would be an easy way to off yourself.  Think about it.  The reason it’s hard to shoot people in real life is because they’re people, and you can see their faces.  But if they’re wearing helmets, like Stormtroopers, they’re easier to kill.  Think how easy it would be to aim a gun at your own backside.  You wouldn’t be able to see your own face, and you could pretend it was someone else.  Maudlin, perhaps, but it, more than any other possibility, made me yearn for portal technology in the real world.  Pathetic?  Yeah, I know.  But so easy.

All the things I never did when I was young, I’ll never be able to do now.  The doors around me are closing faster now.  I have all these signs, but they’re more like notes than warnings.  They tell me what’s already happened, instead of what will happen.  I’ll never be rich or famous or even moderately well-off.  I’ll never be loved or happily attached to anyone.  I’ll never be successful or admired.  I may as well not exist.  If only I could make it happen.

Part of me is still a little unbelieving.  I can’t believe these are really my knuckles.  I’m a little shocked every time I look at them.  One day, I suppose, I’ll accept them, and it won’t surprise me anymore.  Then I’ll be horrified that I’m no longer surprised.  Just like I’m horrified now by what my life has become.  I once dreamed of being a bohemian writer in a studio apartment, sought out for her intelligence, wit, and skill with a pen.  Phoebe Buffay with a brain.  Instead, I have a ton of junk, no skill, no friends, and no independence.  And soon, no pen.  Life has narrowed my choices to just a few, and they all suck.  If I felt like I had a purpose, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

But I can’t save the environment.  No one can.  The more I read about the state of the world, the more obvious that becomes.  There are species of animal out there that we will never see again after a few more years.  And all my years of holier-than-thou vegetarianism makes little sense now that science is discovering that plants may be partly sentient in a crude fashion.  Nature is red in tooth and claw, so who gives a flying fart.  If I were a cow in a factory farm, I would rather see my whole species die out than continue living in that way.  And there’s no way my fellow humans will set up cow sanctuaries.  So why not.  Let’s kill ’em all.  If the world ends, there’ll be no more suffering, right?  If only the damn LHC had actually created a black hole.  That would’ve made it easy for everyone.

After all, what’s the point?  You’re born, you live, you die.  Sometimes, you leave something behind that people remember for a little while.  But that fades after a time.  Nobody today knows what Abraham Lincoln was really like.  Your kids will remember you if you have them, and your grandkids may.  But after that, you’re a footnote in the family bible.  They say leaving something behind is a form of immortality, but that’s bullshit to make you feel better about dying.  The truth is, no one’s immortal, and when it’s all over, nothing you did or said will really matter.  Yeah, we’re all part of the circle of life, but that’s not as beautiful a thing as Elton John would have us believe.  It’s crude and ugly and mean, and red and raw and bloody.  It’s dog eat dog.  And that’s the only part that’s really memorable, because it’s the only part that’s really important.  Nature has tricked us into thinking it’s important that we survive; therefore, the most important thing that we need to know is HOW to survive.  But in the end, it’s all stardust.  And the things that seem important right now don’t really matter at all.

The point of life is to enjoy it.  But even that doesn’t matter when it all comes to an end.  And anyway, I’m not enjoying it too much anymore.  Maybe I never did.  I got pretty good at pretending there for a while.  I could almost make myself look normal.  But almost doesn’t win first prize, just like very old doesn’t make you immortal.  I’m back to whiling away my time and waiting for the old Reaper to pay me a visit.  I wish I had the guts to meet him halfway.  I should go back to poetry; I’m certainly emo enough these days.  At least, it would give me something to do while I’m being useless, something to distract me from these knuckles.

Are You Tubing?

Everyone I know has a freakin’ youtube channel, so I decided to experiment. The easiest video for me to make was one of those ubiquitous “haul” videos, which I still don’t really understand. Unless the goal is get a lot of product placement in and possibly some sponsorships, I really don’t get it. But it’s quick, simple, easy, and great for people like me who aren’t exactly photogenic. It did result in 8 views so far, which may not be a lot, but it’s a hell of a lot more than I was actually expecting anyway. So here it is, all two-some minutes of it.

Just an experiment. It’s kind of addicting, so I can see how people get so into it. I might try something a bit more complex next week. Just, you know, for the experiment. Heh.

Customers Vote on Used Game Stores

Used video game stores prey on the economic instability of the times by promising consumers a cheap alternative to the high prices of brand new retail games. As many unsuspecting customers soon learn, however, “cheap” is not always as cheap as it should be. With a constant stream of incoming inventory, low overhead, and no retail middleman to deal with, used game stores can make big bucks and have no qualms about increasing their profit margin by squeezing their customers a little.

There’s a lot of argument about how much used game stores hurt the game industry as a whole, but one subject that hasn’t seen much discussion is how much these stores cheat the average customer. Most of them set their prices just low enough to be cheaper than the new retail titles, often by just a few dollars, but they’re usually considerably higher than used games that can be purchased online through auction sites or third-party sellers on major retail sites. To anyone who’s paying attention, however, it has recently become apparent that the average consumer has noticed this trend and is starting to fight back.

Used video game stores in major cities are starting to see a significant decrease in sales, while online auction sites are seeing an increase in the number of used games for sale. One victim of this change in the consumer tide is a chain in Wichita, KS, called CD Tradepost. CD Tradepost once enjoyed plentiful sales thanks to their wide selection of games, movies, and music. They also carried used video game consoles for prices just low enough to make them look like a bargain. They opened a new storefront on the south end of the city, bringing their total to eight, just two years ago. But after only a year, sales died down, and regular customers started shopping online or purchasing new titles for just a few dollars more. That storefront closed six months ago.

Even giants like GameStop are finding themselves in a position where they have to struggle to keep the customers they have. The smaller stores don’t stand a chance unless they can undercut the used prices these larger businesses use. There’s still a steady trickle of income for these places, especially during the holidays, but customers are starting to vote with their wallets. And what are they voting for? A chance at a fair price for a used video game.

Are You Shopping for the Flu?

Working second-hand retail is gross, so I wrote this right after I started:

With all the things you’ve probably thought of and worried about when it comes to protecting yourself and your family from the flu, especially in these times of flu pandemics and influenza strains named after animals, you might find it surprising to note that you’ve overlooked something. Unless you’re a bit of a germaphobe, you probably haven’t considered that the stores at which you shop, where you get the over-the-counter medicines to make your cough go away and the warm winter clothes to keep your kids from getting the sniffles, could make you sick. Now before you lock your doors and refuse to leave the house, consider some simple precautions you can take without going overboard. After all, staying cooped up indoors can be just as dangerous as venturing out.

To begin with, let’s clarify the issue. This is not one of those panic-inducing reports about chemicals leeching out of the containers that you buy your food in. This is about common sense and some things that you might not have thought about yet but might be worth the thought.

A store is not your personal pantry. You know that; you see people there whenever you’re there. But have you thought about how many people or what their circumstances might be? To put it in perspective, if a hundred people trooped through your house in one day, coughing and sneezing into their hands and touching your doorknobs, telephone, refrigerator door, bathroom countertop, everything, wouldn’t you do some cleaning after they left?

In this mechanized society, we often forget that the human touch is still present, especially in retail. That carton of milk you bought has been handled by someone who packed it onto a truck (a truck that’s almost never cleaned, you can bet), someone who unloaded the truck and put the crates into a warehouse (a warehouse that probably isn’t cleaned as well as it should be, either), and someone who stocked the shelves. And that’s a minimum. Let’s not forget the drive-by shoppers, who pick things up, look at them, maybe even put them in their cart, and then put them back, having changed their minds. And their kids, who like to touch things for no apparent reason. And the people who just cough and sneeze their way through the store, building up clouds of germs that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, can stay in the air and on any surface for hours after they’ve been expelled. Keep in mind, as well, that Sick Building Syndrome can affect not only office buildings and homes but also grocery stores and department stores. Poor ventilation can result in a building staying sick permanently, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

You’ve probably already guessed the solution to this problem: wash your hands when returning from the grocery store, especially if your store doesn’t have complimentary disinfecting wipes to clean the handle of your cart. And don’t touch your mouth, eyes, or nose until you get the chance to clean up. Germs pass most easily into the body through these moist orifices. Now what about your clothes and shoes and anything else you might buy at your local retailer?

Every item in a store has undergone the same process to get to the shelf that you read about in the milk example. In fact, clothes, shoes, purses, and other items may be handled by even more people because shoppers are more likely to pick up and examine these things. And don’t forget that clothes are often tried on in the changing rooms and that shoes are tested out the same way. The best thing to do is to wash the clothes before you wear them, wipe down the purses, and maybe even hit the shoes with a germ-killing spray of some sort.

But what if you don’t even shop in the regular clothing stores? It’s possible you can’t afford retail prices these days. Many of us can’t. Maybe you shop second-hand stores, thrift shops, and whatever else you might call them. They wash the clothes before they put them out, don’t they? That would be a resounding “NO.” Having worked in one of those types of stores for a while now, I can tell you from personal experience that absolutely nothing is done to protect the consumer (or the employee, for that matter) from the germs of any kind that may be harbored by donated items. Some donators are kind enough to clean their old clothes before dropping them off, but most don’t bother. After all, they’re getting rid of them; why should they care? The same goes for stuffed animals, dishes, electronics, bedsheets, shoes, jewelry, and anything else you find there. Employees don’t have the time or the resources to properly clean the floors, let alone the merchandise. Processors check for obvious stains and dirt, but they can’t see what’s invisible to the naked eye.

Then, there’s the back warehouse, where donations are kept until they can be processed. These often poorly-ventilated rooms house piles of clothing and wares that can create breeding grounds for germs of all kinds. There are no washing machines, irons, or anything else to put the clothes in tiptop shape before they go on the sales floor, although there might be an air freshener to create the illusion that everything is shiny and new. The unsellable merchandise is thrown out, and the rest goes straight to you. Certainly, treasures for the online auction block can be found in these massive garage sales, but giving them a good cleaning when you get them home would still be in everyone’s best interests. And if you’re going to wear it yourself, you might consider throwing it in the wash first. I certainly wouldn’t recommend trying it on in the changing room, so if you’re uncertain, better to err on the side of caution and not buy it.

It’s good for the community to shop at these stores. You’re recycling and helping to support others at the same time. But consider where your treasures might have originated. Not every item came from a worst-case scenario kind of house, full of sick people. But when the sales associate has handled the merchandise that did come from a sick house and then touched your chosen items on the shelf or at the register, isn’t it better to take a few precautions?

To recap, wash your hands after shopping, don’t touch your face until you do, wash your new clothes before you wear them, and wash everything you buy from a second-hand store. It sounds like a lot of cleaning, but if it helps you avoid catching the latest flu virus, it’s worth it.

The Corporatization of My Favorite Things

Corporations are the faceless entities that tell us what our health insurance will cover and spend their time endlessly buying and selling each other on the world’s stock markets. But these days, we all know how close these mindless drones are to our everyday lives. We pick up dinner at their fast food restaurants and purchase clothing at their retail outlets. Most, if not all, of us work for them. It’s become a cliché to complain about them. After all, what good does it do? They’re everywhere. And believe it or not, we’re the ones who asked for it.

The holy grail of the perfect “free market” economy, the beloved free enterprise system, is what we wanted. Be careful what you wish for. If you dislike being a nameless number in a faceless machine, earning money from the “man” so that you can put it right back into his pocket by purchasing the goods your neighbor helped create, you can thank yourself and the rest of us for the privilege. The dream was that people who were free to buy and sell according to the laws of supply and demand would do so, and that all would be right with the world. The problem with trying to recreate a dream within this imperfect world is that the people involved in it not only aren’t perfect themselves but also will take the quickest, easiest route to get whatever they want.

The first thing anyone in a position of power is going to do is cement that position. The second thing is improve upon that position. Both of those actions are most quickly and easily done by stepping on other people’s heads and taking what other people have. But you have to do it carefully. You have to make it look like you’re doing what’s best for the company you work for or the organization you head up. Easy enough, when you’re at the top.

We can’t really blame them. We’d do the same in their position. It’s the American dream: to rise to the top of the economic structure and then boss everyone else around with one hand in the cookie jar. Deny it if you want to, but you know deep down that you’re no different. That’s simply how we human beings are: flawed, imperfect, and selfish. It’s part of our survival instinct, the most powerful instinct of all.

The problem stems from the fact that we’re all like that, and that we all get a little jealous. Why should one person have all that power and money instead of me? Sometimes, he worked for it. But sometimes, it just seems like he lucked into it. Then we realize that he’s taking more than his fair share of the profits. Instant cause for rebellion. Certainly, no one would argue that anyone should get more than what they’re due. But the market is set up in such a way that there’s no method to tell what is someone’s fair share, and we’re the ones who set it up like that. We wanted the market to be free to do whatever it wanted and make as big a profit as it could. We thought that meant that we would be able to build our own capitalist dreams and live happily ever after. Instead, the big guys got bigger, and we got lost in the shuffle.

Now, some people are yearning for the days of the Mom ‘n’ Pop stores, the days when a new business had a few years to get on its feet before being crushed by the mega-corporations. Such small-town quaintness had its drawbacks, but at least you knew who you were dealing with, and everybody had a chance to give their dream a try. That wouldn’t work today. Small enterprises can’t support themselves. So what do they do? They farm themselves out to the big boys, wholesale or piecemeal. We can’t blame them. They can’t survive any other way since we buy all our food and clothes from the faceless machines that run our world. And we can’t afford to support the little guys since the faceless machines we work for pay us only enough to buy more of their own products.

Eventually, this won’t seem so bad. Eventually, things will get even worse or make a big change, and we’ll all look back on today as the “good old days.” In the meantime, we can watch the corporatization of our favorite things change the face of our world forever. It’s not just the new Walmarts moving into town or one big company buying another, sucking it dry, and reselling it. It’s the little things. The corporate sponsorships of school lunch items, the advertising spaces set aside within movies and video games, the way everything becomes more and more generic as it tries harder and harder to succeed at garnering enough attention to survive. Do we want everything to be the same as everything else? I hope so, because that’s what we’re getting.

No one would begrudge some start-up company the opportunity to make a little profit by partnering with a big corporation on a sales deal. After all, how else are they going to do it these days? But what that means in the long run is that everything becomes just like everything else. When the Dippy store has to buy and sell WeOwnEverything Corporation’s products, what happens to Dippy’s products? What happens to the customer’s options? They both disappear. Eventually Dippy becomes just another piece of the big machine, and the rest of us have to buy from the big boys whether we like it or not.

Humans are creatures of habit, so it’s no surprise that we’re most comfortable in a homogenous society, where everything is the same. There’s nothing to shock us, right? Well, almost nothing. And there’s nothing to confuse us, right? Except maybe that nagging doubt in the back of our minds about our lack of choices in this brave new world. We like to think that our freedom of choice is important to us, but the truth is, we willingly give it up every day. When you choose the same thing over and over, no matter how you rationalize it, you’re guaranteeing that tomorrow there won’t be any other choices.

There’s a lot of talk about the “fat cats” of corporate America, but we built those “cats,” and we built the machines that make them fatter. We did it because “capitalism is the fair way to run an economy” and because “it gives us choices about what to buy and what do with our lives” and because “corporations are efficient.” None of that is true, though. Capitalism is only as fair the people behind it. We’re losing choices and freedoms every day. And corporations are only efficient when it comes to making a profit, but they do so at the expense of everything else, from employee health and happiness to variety and uniqueness of product (not to mention quality). If the world were a game of Monopoly, this would all be a good thing. Profit is always good, right? What if it’s soulless, heartless, faceless, generic profit? Is it still good?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Video Game Review

Wrote this a few years back.

Much like the movie it was based on, EA’s game “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” is not the best in the series. A couple of elements were improved upon, but overall the game is missing too many things that were present in the earlier games as well as the latest one, “Order of the Phoenix.” That doesn’t mean it is without merit, simply that longtime fans of the game series were somewhat disappointed with it.

The plot itself mirrors that of the book and movie by the same name. However, the way the plot and cutscenes are showcased is sorely lacking in entertainment value. Rather than utilizing traditional animated cutscenes, the game inserts stiff, storyboard-type pictures between levels, throwing in some audio narration that makes it seem even more like a child’s picture book. This method of storytelling is bland and unimaginative and makes the plot secondary to everything else, which it may be for many gamers but most definitely is not for Potter fans. Additionally, it doesn’t make a lot of sense not to use real cutscenes since one of the few things this game has been praised for is its improved graphics.

Visually, “Goblet of Fire” is a feast for the eyes. Everything is better, from the movements of the playable characters to the details of Hogwarts Castle. Unfortunately, the player is not allowed much room to appreciate these improvements. The game is set up to be played on a level-by-level basis. No free exploration is allowed, even though that is one of the best elements in all of the other games in the series. There are a few minigames accessible from the menu, but the way it is all set up makes the entire game feel disconnected and abstract. None of the levels relate to each other in any tangible way, and each of them must be replayed in order to obtain all hidden objects, making it confusing for newer Potter fans to recognize which events were supposed to happen first. In fact, it’s difficult to see any sort of connection between this game and the original story. The playable levels resemble the castle and story of the book in only the most obscure fashion, as if the designers were given a description of the sets from the movie and a few vague plot points and told to make it up as they go along.

Other than the improved graphics, the best thing about this game is the co-op play. Playing solo is not impossible but can be rather difficult when particular enemies are encountered or the minigames are attempted. Some situations require help from a consciousness other than the PS2, one that can think clearly enough to avoid shooting a spell at the wrong target. Additionally, it is a great deal of fun to have one of your friends play one of Harry’s friends while you’re running around as the hero. This innovation in the series is worth playing the game through once just to enjoy working together on your spell-casting.

The usual spells are at your disposal, including Wingardium Leviosa and Incendio. The same spell cast at the same target by two or three of the playable characters is often necessary to defeat certain monsters or puzzles, which is where co-op comes in handy. Mostly, the game involves running around and defeating a number of different creatures while searching for the very difficult-to-see hidden statues and other objects. The game can be completed without them, which may be useful for easily frustrated players, as there is no specific list for each level to tell you what you’re looking for or how many you need to find. Luckily, such a list can be found on the internet, courtesy of some very determined players.

Of course, the final climactic level involves fighting Voldemort himself. This level looks and feels closer to the movie than any of the others but is far too short when compared to the amount of time that must be spent going back through previous levels in order to achieve that coveted 100% completion. Defeating the evil wizard is also far too easy when compared to the fights you must endure with such lower creatures as the blast-ended skrewts.

What it all boils down to is a game with some fun elements but virtually no connection to the series it was meant to be a part of. As it consists of a limited number of levels with no freedom of movement around the majority of the castle and none of the beloved RPG elements, the game’s replay value is extremely small, almost non-existent. If the developers were aiming for a short game whose only purpose was to get Potter fans to play together and talk about the movie, they succeeded. It may also have had the added bonus of introducing new Potter fans to the game series since it’s more action-oriented, assuming that they would buy “Goblet of Fire” without having purchased the rest of the games. One of the best things that can be said about this one is “It’s not all bad.” As long as you don’t go into it expecting too much, you won’t be too disappointed.