The New PS3 Controller
Category Archives: Screwed Up Chronicles
Rants, raves, and reviews on politics, products, and more.
Hardware vs. Software Backwards Compatibility
There is a lot of debate currently over if the next generation of hardware from Sony (and maybe even Microsoft?) will support backwards compatibility.
In a word, yes, they most certainly will. As I am favorable to the Sony line of video game consoles, I am obviously more educated on their practices and the user experience I have with them, not to mention the long-term investment of my gaming collection in the PlayStation brand.
But, “in what form?” is the question that should be asked about backwards compatibility — not whether or not it will be around… Backwards compatibility comes in two fashions, looking forward:
1. Disc-based (hardware) backwards compatibility.
2. Software (storefront/online/digital) backwards compatibility.
Disc-based BC is less appealing to Sony as they can’t continue to make profits off discs after the fact, besides downloadable content, and that, at best, is probably not as profitable as we might think for most games.
By making consumers’ libraries of disc-based libraries incompatible with a potential PlayStation 4, it has the following potential benefits for Sony:
1a. Consumers will repurchase games they have.
This is obviously very attractive to all the businesses involved. The repurchasing of games that are “re-mastered” via disc, and also “re-mastered” (aka “made compatible”) with the current generation of hardware. People get to rebuy the 30 dollar/50 dollar/60 dollar games they bought in the past for varying amounts of money and benefit from software BC, which is explored below. This will also get them “new” sales from consumers who only bought games used to begin with.
1b. Consumers will “switch to Xbox” if their current libraries are cut off from them.
This is the counterweight to 1a. However, this is not the only option presented to gamers who are suddenly cut from their existing libraries. A portion of them will obviously become floaters, but they may also come back later in the generation when the hardware is cheap.
There are some that will undoubtedly choose the next Xbox (or Wii U?) as their “main console” for this reason alone, but whether or not Sony actually cares about this depends on how much focus grouping they can do and whether or not disc-based backwards compatibility actually IS a factor to keeping existing consumers who own a PlayStation 3.
I personally would assume that 1a > the losses from 1b in the long-run plus the costs of accommodating disc-based backwards compatibility (which may or may not include actual extra hardware in the box).
The result and purpose of the loss of disc-based backwards compatibility is decreasing/eliminating the confidence in optical media severely due to its resulting loss of one of its greatest benefits — longevity of ownership (aka the selling of games back as used games and resold to a new consumer), and giving more confidence to online media.
Now, exploring online-only backwards compatibility, we can almost be 100% sure that anything bought online will be made to work with whatever future PlayStation 4 is available, whether they have to update all the games with a new build or software-based solution. The benefits that come from this are (assuming all the points I brought up above are true):
2a. Customers repurchasing games online — aka “more control.”
Customers “rebuy” games that cost little to nothing to create and service. Not to mention they are cutting out the middle man — the retail store. Sony and the 3rd party get a second income from this and at a greater rate due to less hands in the pot. This also obviously eliminates used games. You can’t sell a used digital game. That makes no sense!
2b. Confidence increasing in Online purchases vs. Retail Purchases
Customers will be less apt to buy disc-based games at a retail store due to the fact that their disc may or may not be backwards compatible in the future. This probably only affects about 30 to 50% of the gaming community that actually enjoys playing old games on a new system. I’m sure that most of the people who buy games sell all of the games they buy once they’re done playing them.
The result of supporting Software BC is BENEFICIAL for the following reasons:
1. Boost confidence in online purchases, which leads to:
- 1a. elimination of retail new games
- 1b. elimination of used game sales
2. More long-term profits by having an increasingly larger selection of games available online at a more favorable cost to profit ratio. There is never a “lack” of games to buy and play, even when a new console is launched.
The most clean example of what is happening is the transition from PSP -> PSVita. People are buying PSP games to play on their PSVita, and all of the UMD games that consumers may have bought have become unusable on the new system, yet everything that was available/purchased online works on PSVita for the most part or will be patched to be able to. Anyone who has a UMD game that they want to play on the PSVita will have to repurchase it, no exceptions.
We all know video games are going to online distribution systems exclusively within the next 10 years. Sony’s 10 year plans include outlooks like this, I’m sure. PS4, coming out in 2014, sticking around until at least 2024 as an actively-developed-for platform. I’m sure every single game that is ever released on the PS4 will be mandated to be released online as well. If it gets to the point of games being streamed from some server somewhere, you won’t even have a copy of the data you buy anymore. Poopoo on us if those servers go down one day, or the rights to stream those games disappear and you no longer have the right to that software once it happens, even if you did pay for it.
The super long-term plan for Sony is to eliminate disc-based backwards compatibility. It is simply unfavorable to the industry as a whole to keep it around. It is a wholly consumer-positive practice and during this transitional period we are making into Online-only purchases (and soon cloud gaming) there will be growing pains for consumers who think they own something when they buy it.
The loss of disc-based/hardware backwards compatibility is bad for the consumer. To promote or not care for the loss of disc-based backwards compatibility is to be anti-consumer.
Dungeon Overlord (Web) Review
Developer/Publisher: Night Owl Games || Overall: 8/10
If you ever thought of opening up your own dungeon in the pits of Hell (or maybe just your local uninhabited doomy-looking mountain overlooking villages to rape and pillage), Dungeon Overlord is your game.
Screw that Farmville crap. It’s time to make some dungeons full of farms! And sleeping areas for the illegals– I mean Goblin workers — and slave chambers for the wise Warlocks writing your scrolls of knowledge to research random things you didn’t think you need to use. I can’t wait until I’m able to spend 20 million research tokens to get mastery over dragons — but I guess I’m getting ahead of myself since that’s about a year out.
So, instead of jumping ahead into the future, let’s start at the beginning. It starts with a very strict tutorial. Strict in the sense that if you don’t follow it, you will royally screw yourself, at least when you are starting to get into the game. It is very strict during that whole phase, despite the fact you can “do other things” while doing the tutorial phase. It can take a lot longer than you may be accustomed to actually “start a game” since you can end up screwing yourself if you are too impatient and look ahead to what quests you can do later on. If you don’t do exactly what the game tells you for the first hours of the game, you essentially can become stuck unless you want to wait a day to get enough resources back to fix your “errors.” You don’t go to the Overworld until you are level 10, which pretty much means the tutorial lasts until then.
Speaking of waiting, that is what most of the game is. Everything happens in real-time and things literally take hours to accomplish. Two hours here, two hours there, things add up. This game was obviously made for people who can log in maybe once or twice a day, so if you’re expecting some sort of traditional game that you can consistently play for more than an hour in one sitting, you’re not getting it. Dungeon Overlord is by no means the only game that propagates this style of gameplay, and if you’re a traditional gamer like I am, it can be sort of annoying having to come back and only being able to do about 5 minutes of playing at any given time. The responsibilities you gain ramp up as you expand, so it feels like there’s more for you to do in any one visit to the game later on.
There are a ton of resources to gain. The list of resources I could find are:
Food, Gold, Research, Experience, Leather, Iron, Crystal, Abyssal Mantle, Adamantite Ore, Deep Ochre, Dense Basalt, Diamond, Feldspar, Heart of the Earth, Mithril Ore, Moonstone, Primordial Earth, Primordial Fire, Primordial Ice, Primordial Water, Quicksilver, Ruby, Shallow Mantle, Adamantite Ingot, Ashen Stone, Cold Iron Ingot, Crystite, Dense Iron Ingot, Goblin Twine, Mana Spark, Mithril Ingot, Reinforced Leather, True Silver Ingot, Prismatic Glass, Whirling Gizmos, Steel Ingot, Explosive Grog, and maybe more?
Why are there so many resources? I don’t know. What basis of the decision is there behind adding more resources? I’m not exactly sure, but each different room requires some of these unique resources to upgrade. Crafted Resources (included in the list) are more complex, because they are made by combining basic resources. It also seems like they can just add more whenever they want, but it’s not like they’d announce that kind of stuff as far as I can see. I don’t even know how I collect half the resources I DO have in my storage spaces right now. I also don’t know what benefit diamonds have over rubies or pig iron other than making cars is better with diamonds. In fact, there are so many resources, it could be kind of confusing trying to figure out why you have them in the first place. I don’t exactly understand how experience is earned other than quests, but I seem to get it anyway, much like other resources I randomly have or get. You get experience just from upgrading your rooms, apparently, even though that isn’t too plainly spelled out for you in-game. I’m about a week or two into the game, and the overall point of gold is to seemingly pay off your servants for the handjobs they give you. You can have as much as you want without any limits to it, and the only way to spend it on any resources you DO need, like Iron or Crystal, is via a hidden menu item in the Overworld where you can buy resources people post for sale. Once you’re able to get to a second dungeon, it increases your resource acquisition by a bit as well.
When you expand to your other dungeons, they work independently of your original one, and you have to ship goods to and from the new dungeon, such as workers, resources, and furniture. It is easy to run out of space in your starter dungeon, so you do need to expand to get more tiles. But of course, you can buy more tiles for your home dungeon!
Games like Dungeon Overlord are free to play, but they thrive on arbitrarily creating quality of life issues, such as waiting three hours for an upgrade, so that you can pay with Facebook Credits to temporarily alleviate any concerns you may have while playing. This game isn’t SO bad in this regard, as you can definitely get by without spending one red cent, but there are many many “opportunities” built into the game to spend your Dungeon Marks (which are the in-game currency converted from Facebook Credits). Using any of these boosts or upgrades gives you a huge advantage over players that do not use the same boosts, and that is probably the point. To me, it seems like the only “useful” upgrades are permanent ones. Paying money for temporary boosts and fast upgrades is not cost effective at all, and you’ll end up spending a lot of money without realizing it, not to mention forgetting to or not being able to fully use the capabilities of those boosts at all times.
The things you actually pay for are things like resource boosts, upgrade completions (at different rates, as well), more tiles to build stuff on, immunity from raids, other stuff like that. You’re not going to find much that is useful below 5 marks, and most of the upgrades and boosts are time-based and temporary, or only apply to the current dungeon you are in, allowing you to purchase those same permanent increases in your other dungeons as well. The current conversion of Facebook Credits is 20 for $1.99. That comes out to about 10 cents per credit, but you get an extra 10-15% extra dungeon marks depending on how much you redeem in-game.
The User Interface is okay, but it can be sort of lacking in regards to trying to figure out how many Dungeon Marks you have — scratch that. While I was playing, they upgraded the game to plainly show how many Dungeon Marks you have, not to mention another handy “buy” button to refill up your marks. As a reviewer playing this game, I got 300 marks to play around with, and I easily spent 105 while being super conservative. Anywho, back to the user interface, the miscellaneous amount of information that you might want to look up are in places you probably wouldn’t intuitively think they should be in, but if you click around enough you eventually do find what you need. There is also a huge “invite friend” toolbar at the bottom that takes up a huge amount of your screen, which I do not like. They might as well make that toolbar an “announce you are an idiot” toolbar, cause I ain’t using it either way.
The Overworld is an interesting place, as each player resides in their own mountain, along with four other players. Each player is able to potentially expand into the rest of the mountain, and if you wanted to, attack your neighbor’s dungeons as well. There is quite a lot of real estate available in each mountain, and depending on how active your neighbors are, you might even have the whole thing to yourself. Raiding is just another way to gain resources, and can only be done in the Overworld screen. The raids on other dungeons and towns are passive (meaning all you need to do is wait for it to happen and then it does), and they usually require a certain amount of minions. You use orcs to raid, initially, and eventually use other units such as Thieves, Warlocks, Dark Elves, etc etc etc. Once a battle is over, you can “watch” the battle as it happened, but it is basically just your minions going in and moving very slowly until they find something to whack and then I guess the goal of your minions is to get to the vault, steal gold and other resources, and then leave. There is no destruction of any rooms or anything like that. Raiding is useful because some resources are only gained by raiding, such as leather. The world map actually has many different zones and other villages around your mountain.
For some reason, the keyboard does not work when you are in full screen mode. Don’t ask me why, but that’s annoying when you’re trying to rename something into your favorite rapper. When you start out the game, annoying “share” pop-ups appear every other quest, which takes you out of the game so you can tell your friends how much fun you’re having placing a jewel box in your vault. It tapers off after the Tutorial quests complete, but occasionally you still see them. I can understand that they want you to share with your friends, but it really breaks up the experience by tossing you out of the game (especially if you’re in full screen mode) to do so. It should be integrated into the game, if anything. In fact, the invite friend bar should be used for this purpose. I’d actually prefer that this didn’t happen at all, but thems the bricks, I suppose. The constant badgering of telling you to share stuff with your friends is almost a game breaker for me, and I probably would have stopped playing if it weren’t for the fact that I was going to write something about it.
There is a lot of noise pollution created by this game. Sound effects are constantly going, and doesn’t seem to have had much design intent involved as to when you hear most of the sounds going on. They are just on an endless loop. There is music, which you can mute independently. You can also mute everything, but there is no way to mute ONLY sound effects if you felt like you wanted to listen to the music in the game. I guess I should be thankful that the game remembers you keep the sound on mute.
The graphics in the game are reminiscent of Roller Coaster Tycoon, a game about ten years old. It’s not exactly something I missed, but I guess its nice to see that quality of art again in a new game. It has a sense of humor, which is nice, as well, but that’s only if you care to read anything the quests say, and some of the nuances in the things your decorations do on your rooms. The game can “improve” or “change” at any time, as well. Earlier when I was playing the game, I was going to make note of terrible use of screen real estate with the friend invite bar that is so usefully (/sarcasm) placed at the bottom of the screen at all times, and not knowing how many Dungeon Marks you actually have, but it was updated literally the next day and alleviated that “issue.” But that doesn’t mean that every version change is a good thing. The new version I had been playing made me freeze on the loading screens between different areas, resulting in it taking for-fucking-ever. When stuff like that happens, I guess you just have to wait until they fix it since they can potentially update it at any time without letting you know. In this case, the freezing issue was fixed by the next day.
Gameplay issues come mostly in the form of the intentional gating to artificially inflate the time one can spend on the game. For instance, you can only upgrade one thing at a time. Though, this provides a challenge in and of itself in the form of using time as a resource — what should you waste more time on to upgrade first and what will be more useful. It is easy to run out of tiles to build rooms on, and there is a hard cap for each dungeon — you just have to pay for the last 50. Research costs will grow exponentially, meaning you will have less and less times where you’re going to actually have enough research to get new features in the game. It would also be more convenient to be able to “request” supplies from your main dungeon rather than having to go your main dungeon and move supplies to your expansion dungeons each time you need something.
There is no “end” to this game, and that is good and bad thing. Good, because well, you can keep playing until you don’t want to, and bad because of how much money you might actually sink into the game. It is so easy to spend Dungeon Marks on temporary benefits, that it is quite scary. I also see the boasting of the game being a “massively multiplayer” game as a buzz word to get drawn in to initially playing. It is simply multiplayer with many people having persistent locations for their dungeons. There isn’t much of a way to tell if these other players are actually playing consistently or as much as you, other than checking out what level they are.
Whether or not the game is fun, I guess you could say it is. There is some sort of satisfaction in seeing your progress and upgrading of your dungeons as time goes on, and acquiring a massive amount of resources also has some weird pleasure factor involved, even if I don’t understand the intricacies of every single mechanic. If you like this sort of drop-in-a-bucket gameplay that Dungeon Overlord has to offer, then you should give it a try.
If you have a Facebook account, you can check it out here.
Pawn Stars (Web) Review
Developer: ??? | Publisher: History Channel || || Overall: Good
Ever want to own a pawn shop? What do you mean no? Why are you walking away? Come on, you know you want to! Before I delve into this Pawn Stars Facebook game review, I’m going to give a brief summary of the show that it’s based on:
Rick Harrison, his “Old Man” (I don’t think he has a name), his son Corey aka “Big Hoss,” and a friendly, simple man named Chumlee star in a History Channel show about a pawn shop that operates in Las Vegas. The show features staged presentations of people trying to sell their antiques for various reasons. Nine times out of ten, the person is completely ripped off by Rick, who pretends that the item they’re trying to sell is only attractive to a limited market, only to turn around to the camera and remark that he already has three potential buyers for it.
Now that you know the skinny about the show, let’s talk about the game.
You start out by naming your pawn shop and choosing the person who will be behind the counter. At level 1 you’re limited to just the free workers, who are good enough at this point. They each have three stat bars that show their expertise: Knowledge, Happiness, and Selling. These stats can make a big difference when it comes to making money, as they are all important when it comes to the pawn biz. They also have different categories that they are especially knowledgeable in. I personally chose “Al” who mysteriously looks like Al Roker and appears to have his same charm and wit. After all is said and done you start to actually play the game.
This is where the hardcore pawn (oops, that’s a different show) business starts, but at least you have the gang from the show to help you out! Well, they don’t really help. They just pop up occasionally and make faces at you. Anyway, you should already have a few customers waiting in line. A preview of the items they want to sell you appears over their heads, along with bars that indicate their current moods. The longer they wait, the more their moods go down. The Happiness stat on your worker also affects this. When you decide who you want to deal with, simply click on them.
The haggle screen is pretty simple. The person offers what they think the item is worth and you can either counter-offer, accept their offer, or refuse the item altogether, which makes the person leave your shop. On this screen you can also have the item appraised for $200 if you think you may be able to con the guy into giving you a lot less than it’s worth like Rick does on the show. The final choice on this screen is to pray to the pawn shop gods and automatically receive wisdom on the item in question. This costs money, though. The gods have to make a living too.
After buying something you can proudly display it on your shelf or table and wait for someone to make an offer. The time you have to wait for an offer increases the higher the item is worth. Hopefully after the time elapses, the offer made is higher than what you paid for it. If it is, sell it! If it isn’t, you can either cut your losses and get rid of it anyway or wait for the next offer, which could be higher or lower, no telling.
Occasionally someone will bring in a broken item. You can buy these “restoration” pieces and either try to restore them, or break them down for parts to use on other restorations. Restorations can be a long and expensive journey, as some items have several stages of fixing up that cost valuable time, money, and parts. There is a nice selection of ways to fix things up, however, so you can customize things to your liking, whether it makes you money or not.
Too much buying and selling, you say? You also have the option to decorate your shop with various items, some of which have benefits like increasing happiness of customers, decreasing time to wait for a customer, etc. Some of these cost money, some cost “candies.” This is where Facebook rears its ugly head and tries to get you to pay real money for fake Facebook credits so you can buy more candy. If you’re not willing to do that, then it is going to take a long time to earn enough candies to buy anything.
All in all, the Pawn Stars Facebook game is a very addictive, fun little time waster. If you want to be like Rick Harrison, put on a hundred or so pounds and wear a tacky polo shirt with no undershirt. But if you want to own a pawn shop, play this game and see if you have what it takes to make a living off of other peoples’ ignorance and gullibility!
If you have a Facebook account, you can play Pawn Stars here.
Bilton Scraggly’s Board Gayme Bonanza
Bilton Scraggly specializes in entertaining board games for the modest homosexual. These are just a few of the many fun adventures waiting on the shelves at your local retailer!
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Gay Checkers
This simple yet surprisingly fun game is the one you’re more likely to see being played by young ones. This checkered board will make you checkered with joy and make you scream out your darkest fantasies when you reign supreme!
Game rules: The two teams consist of rainbow colored and pastel colored pieces. Enemy pieces are not jumped, they are humped, forcing the enemy piece to live in their lavish gay community. The player must giggle and smile at the opponent before taking his turn. When a player’s piece reaches the opposite side of the board, that piece gets gay rights and gets the honor of having a second piece stacked on top of it (every man’s dream). The game ends when all of a player’s pieces are trapped in the other’s gay community or when Will & Grace comes on, whichever comes first.
Game terminology:
Teapot Tap – When the player moves a piece with their pinky.
Head & Shoulders Solution – When a player attempts to distract the other by complimenting the volume of his hair.
Intermission – When the players take a time out to brush each others’ teeth in the middle of the game.
Elton John Backstroke: When a piece with gay rights humps a piece behind itself.
Don’t ask, just yell – Alternate term for winning the game.
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Gay Chess
Ahh gay chess, the gay thinking man’s game. This strategic masterpiece will test your wits and patience in a skimpy fight to the death!
Game rules: There are no kings in gay chess, only queens, so each player gets two of them. No piece is allowed to move in a straight line. The game ends when one player admits their secret carrot cake recipe to the other.
Piece types before and after:
Bishop – Gay clergyman
Knight (horse) – Richard Simmons on a pinata
Pawn – Catholic boy
Rook (castle) – Neverland Ranch
Game terminology:
Cross-dress – When the player’s piece is switched for another on the opposite side of the board.
Geisha confidence – When the player bows after moving.
Paris Hilton Position – When the player sits cross-legged during play.
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Manopoly
The original buying and trading properties game, only this one is gay! Let Rich Aunt Penny Bags lead you through a journey of building houses and hotels, showing off your country’s gay capitalism.
Game rules: Kisses are the only currency used in Manopoly. If a player lands on the income tax space, they must kiss a close male relative. If the player passes Joe, they get a helpful pat on the rear. If the player lands ON Joe, every player sticks their finger in his belly button. Community’s Chest and Glance cards are drawn and performed down to the smallest detail.
Card examples:
Go to mail – Do not pass Joe. Go to the post office and make all postal workers uncomfortable.
Take a ride – On another player, then proceed to the Reading Railroad.
Gender error in your favor – Turns out you’re half woman!
Game terminology:
The big tease – When a player blows on the dice before rolling.
Homoerotic barter – Alternate term for a trade.
Free parking – When a player sits in another’s lap.
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Bodyship
Imagine this–you’re on a gigantic warship in the middle of the ocean, firing artillery at any boat that comes by. Then you wake up in a bathtub with a man. Welcome to Bodyship!
Game rules: The players divide their body up into sections. When a section is guessed, the player wipes that section of the opponent’s body with a moist towelette. The game ends when the player “hits the spot,” or until the players run out of moist towelettes/licked toilet paper.
Game terminology:
Frosty – When a player breaks out into a cold sweat.
Mowing the lawn – When hair accidentally comes off with the towelette.
Honk attempt – When the player tries to wipe something that makes noise.
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Other family friendly games available from Bilton Scraggly:
- Gay Connect Four
- Gay Topple
- Slip ‘n’ Ride
- Gaytor Golf
- Hungry Hungry Gay Men
- Guess Who (is gay)
- Gay Risk
- Electronic Talking Bodyship
Knights of Mayhem (TV Show) Review
Channel: National Geographic Channel
A show about jousting. Doesn’t get much more exciting than that. Except maybe shows about pinball, cake walks, knitting, and the pawn shop show with that delightful Chumlee!
Knights of Mayhem follows jousting captain and “World Champion” Charlie Andrews as he dons a full set of metal armor and gets medieval (literally) on the other couple of people that engage in this idiotic activity.
Charlie is apparently very experienced and has given up everything, including his family, to do this for a living. This proves that he has major priority problems and various mental disorders, possibly stemming from seeing his paw get runned over by horses as a child.
I don’t care who you are, what you look like, how long you’ve been doing it, whatever. If you’re a grown man wearing armor and hitting other men with sticks, you’re a jackass.
What happened to National Geographic? When I was a kid it was all about half naked African women riding elephants. I guess a good thing can’t last forever. I give this show a THUMBS DOWN.
Rock Stars (TV Show) Review
Channel: National Geographic Channel
Would you like to have proof that anything can be made into a television show? Here you go!
Rock Stars is a show about men (manly men) who scale walls of rocks next to roads and poke them with sticks until the rocks fall. This is all it is about. It is 30 minutes of guys acting macho and digging rocks.
While we’re making shows about boring jobs why don’t we make a series about insurance salesmen or pizza delivery boys? I wish there were more to write about for this review but that is quite literally all there is.
So if you get your rocks off to people getting rocks off, this is for you. Otherwise, rock this show. I give it a THUMBS DOWN.
“‘An Explanation and Some Reflections’ – by Reed Hastings” Breakdown
Netflix has been making some profound missteps in recent months. It definitely shows up in their stock price… it’s not every company’s intentions to drop 50% in three months due to the lame moves you are making. This past week’s lame misstep comes in the form of a separation of businesses, and a really dumb “apology letter.”
Now, not everyone seems to read things the same way that I do. In this edition of Dave’s Breakdown, I will go in and explain Mr. Reed Hasting’s apology letter for all to truly understand, along with some of my own reflections to top it off. To preface this, at the moment I have been a Netflix customer for about five years.
The original article is located here.
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“I messed up. I owe everyone an explanation.
It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming, and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. I’ll try to explain how this happened.”
What this really means is “I’m sorry you guys didn’t like the price adjustment, but oh guess what, here’s something coming up that is universally more inconveniencing for everyone that we forgot to mention when we separated our services…”
What he’s really sorry for is that their stock price fell by 40% when they raised prices and split services.
“For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business. Eventually these companies realize their error of not focusing enough on the new thing, and then the company fights desperately and hopelessly to recover. Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.”
Rarely dying from something doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Netflix may just be another case study in the “rare” category. Not to mention, how does something that COMPLIMENTS what you are going to be focusing more on in the future TAKE AWAY from it? For example, AOL had dial-up. What the hell else were they going to do once dial-up connections were not state-of-the-art? They had to defend dial-up connections, there was no point in providing their services for Broadband connections on account they don’t even provide the service for it. AOL could have probably done stuff a little smarter, but they’ve transformed into a web conglomerate. What happened to EarthLink, another dial-up provider? They’re still in business, apparently, doing what they’ve been doing. The “real” AOL is essentially Time Warner. Time Warner just shat out what was left of the AOL brand and company that they didn’t want anymore and the “new” AOL is like today’s AT&T — not the same, but not new either.
Borders bookstore was a retail store that sells books, and they offered no electronic versions of books. Ok, except the reason they failed is because the Print industry, the Music industry, and the lack of them creating a service to take advantage of the new evolutions of those industries into account. They also operated as retail stores and leases are expensive when you have thousands of stores. Now, you have the polar opposite of Borders (a failed retail bookstore chain) with Barnes & Nobles (a still-successful bookstore) that is selling electronic books and music IN ADDITION TO having their brick and mortar stores. Hey, wow! Barnes & Nobles didn’t close all their retail stores or spin off all their retail bookstores into some weird half-breed retail company, did they? No. They kept them all under the same guise, and guess what they sell EVERYTHING, not just one thing.
“When Netflix is evolving rapidly, however, I need to be extra-communicative. This is the key thing I got wrong.
In hindsight, I slid into arrogance based upon past success. We have done very well for a long time by steadily improving our service, without doing much CEO communication. Inside Netflix I say, “Actions speak louder than words,” and we should just keep improving our service.”
What this really means is: “Before we started to worry about our stock price losing value and in-turn any investment opportunities we may have needed, I didn’t have to write anything to our customers in hopes to stop our free-falling stock prices before they hit the flushing toilet.”
“But now I see that given the huge changes we have been recently making, I should have personally given a full justification to our members of why we are separating DVD and streaming, and charging for both. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.”
“I just thought that you guys would accept whatever business decisions I wanted to do because you guys love Netflix, and by association, MEEEE!”
“So here is what we are doing and why:
Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD, plus lots of TV series. We want to advertise the breadth of our incredible DVD offering so that as many people as possible know it still exists, and it is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection on DVD. DVD by mail may not last forever, but we want it to last as long as possible.”
Yes, yes, we love DVDs!
“I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We feel we need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolve, without having to maintain compatibility with our DVD by mail service.”
Wait… so what you’re saying is…
“So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are becoming two quite different businesses, with very different cost structures, different benefits that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently. It’s hard for me to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary and best: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to ‘Qwikster’.”
AW MY GAWD WHAT THE FUCK IS A QWIK. It’s hard for you to write that you’re renaming a service. Ok, so what, you’re renaming the service. That means you can market it and yaddayaddayadda and I can still do what I’ve been doing for the past three years, right?
“We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name ‘Netflix’ for streaming.
Oh, ok, well that’s acceptable.
“Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to.”
Sweet, sounds good.
“It is just a new name,”
Ok, I get it.
“and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies.”
Wait, what?
“One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, and now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. “
Wait, don’t try to change the subject here. What the hell are you talking about, a different web site? You just said it was the same site!
“Other improvements will follow. Another advantage of separate websites is simplicity for our members.”
HEY! YOU ARE A FUCKING ASSHOLE. LOOK AT WHAT YOU JUST SAID IN THE LAST PARAGRAPH:
“Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to.”
What the FUCK are you talking about? You just said Qwikster will be the same web site, and then you’re saying they’re SEPARATE web sites. Are you talking about it being on the same web host? No one cares that you’re on the same computer as another web site. I’m sure that my web site is on the same server as some other famously popular web site, but I’m not going around saying I’m the same web site as some random popular web site.
“Each website will be focused on just one thing (DVDs or streaming) and will be even easier to use.”
Easier than… what? What your web site is now? I guess that the most logical way of making this easier is to make both web sites work with each other, right?
“A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated. So if you subscribe to both services, and if you need to change your credit card or email address, you would need to do it in two places. Similarly, if you rate or review a movie on Qwikster, it doesn’t show up on Netflix, and vice-versa.”
HOOOOLLYYY SHIT, and there’s the killer. What in the FUCK just happened. It’s like your boyfriend saying he’d use a condom and then taking it off right before he inserted. Or, it’s like your girlfriend taking off her pants and there’s a penis hanging off what you thought was going to be a vagina, but is really just testicles. This is the most asinine shot in the head I have ever read, save The Joy Luck Club. Holy. Shit.
“There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). Members who subscribe to both services will have two entries on their credit card statements, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as the current charges.”
I’m still numb from the last paragraph…
“Andy Rendich, who has been working on our DVD service for 12 years, and leading it for the last 4 years, will be the CEO of Qwikster.”
“We’re sending Andy off to die. See ya later, Rendich! Don’t forget to write!”
“Andy and I made a short welcome video. (You’ll probably say we should avoid going into movie making after watching it.)”
This video is a great reason why you shouldn’t make your corporate strategy into a video. It is not interesting. Also, what the fuck is with the sole red envelope there? Just so they can wipe their ass with it after the video is over? What’s with the sunglasses and the laptop? Were you doing some leisurely work (wearing sunglasses and using your laptop in the sun, even!) discovering what hue of red the Netflix envelope truly was and decided “Hey I’ve got a few minutes, let’s get Nathan down here with a camera while I’m typing up my ultra-cool apology letter that will totally fix all of our problems and make our stock go back up to 300 points and re-iterate what I’m saying to the populace of people who don’t care to read. We’re Netflix, after all!”
“We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready. It is merely a renamed version of the Netflix DVD website, but with the addition of video games. You won’t have to do anything special if you subscribe to our DVD by mail service.”
Wait so if it is so easily renamed and its actually just the same fucking thing, why can’t you just have the fucking web site be the same fucking web site!
“For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy.”
That’s because it means money to you.
“The new envelope is still that distinctive red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be the same for many of you.”
I think the least of our worries the color of the envelope and the way it looks. The experience has ALWAYS BEEN with the web site and the ease of using it, you sentimental tree murderer!
“We’ll also return to marketing our DVD by mail service, with its amazing selection, now with the Qwikster brand.”
Herein lies the only legitimate reason for them renaming their DVD by Mail service. Yes, you should have a different brand to promote your DVDs again if that’s what you wanted to do. However, Netflix DVD would have sufficed. Netflix Video Games would have sufficed to. I’ve heard weirder mismatches for companies in the past, not that I can remember any off the top of my head at the moment, but no one would have said “I don’t understand why Netflix has video games. They have ‘flix’ in their name, for crying out loud! I am totally canceling my account with Netflix because they have video games now, and it has nothing to do with streaming or television or movies or anything and it’s totally not optional oh em gee.”
What happens if Netflix wants to go into video game streaming, such as new services like OnLive have been doing? Is Qwikster going to separate out their DVD and disc-based video game services into some tertiary company? Where does it end! They only want to focus on one thing at a time in each business, yet they’re launching video games, which is arguably a different expenditure all together, and they’re doing omigosh, TWO THINGS AT THE SAME TIME! Call the board, let’s get another company split up in here!
Also, the reason why people were clamoring for video games in the first place was because it would have been from THE SAME WEB SITE FROM THE SAME COMPANY, WITH ONE BILL, AND ONE PAYMENT SYSTEM! If people wanted a gaming rental service separate from Netflix, they would have had GameFly already!! Focus groups would help you out to learn that!
“Some members will likely feel that we shouldn’t split the businesses, and that we shouldn’t rename our DVD by mail service. Our viewis with this split of the businesses, we will be better at streaming, and we will be better at DVD by mail.”
Why? You’re not EXPLAINING why you think it would be. What barriers are involved that make this necessary? You haven’t said anything that convinces me of any sort of argument that makes it seem like this is a good move. You say you want to focus on things one at a time, and you want to make another business. How does splitting out the WEB SITE or even your business do anything more for you? Whether it’s called Qwikster or Netflix, you guys are still in the same fucking buildings, aren’t you? Maybe you should reorganize your company and make a streaming division and a DVD/video game division underneath Netflix instead of spending money and creating a new shell company to send your neglected business model off to die.
“It is possible we are moving too fast – it is hard to say. But going forward, Qwikster will continue to run the best DVD by mail service ever, throughout the United States. Netflix will offer the best streaming service for TV shows and movies, hopefully on a global basis. The additional streaming content we have coming in the next few months is substantial, and we are always working to improve our service further.”
Moving too fast? How? You’re not moving at all. You’re taking your company in two different directions and, dare I say, setting up your tried-and-true business model up for sale when Netflix really decide to focus on one thing and one thing only — streaming.
“I want to acknowledge and thank our many members that stuck with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.
Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.
Respectfully yours,
-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix”
You know, I would have thought that a co-founder and CEO of this company would have thought, maybe just maybe, throwing out their original business model which started their company and made their success would be something more… unsettling than he may have originally thought the process to be. Starbucks wouldn’t spin off their coffee business into another retail store if their muffins became the hot new item at their stores. Hell, even if their muffins started pulling trillions of dollars in, they wouldn’t split that out into a new muffin chain. It doesn’t make sense!
Now what I think Netflix will see when this happens is a large drop off of subscribers to their new Qwikster service simply because founding a new web site and brand name is quite obviously an uphill battle, and forcing people to accept it is quite another entirely.
Netflix has a fanbase, Qwikster does not. I certainly say that I have no loyalty to something called Qwikster, but I do to Netflix. I can see why they would need to have a “different” brand because of the video games options coming about and for marketing purposes, but instead of being a completely separate web site, it should be a “portal” or “skin” to the main Netflix web site. Let’s say I go to Netflix, and then there’s a tab for Qwikster DVDs and Qwikster Games. Or if I go to Qwikster, I see an extra tab for Netflix Streaming Video.
As long as there is the same sort of integration for what we currently see, I don’t see why separating web sites benefits anyone — Netflix loses subscribers, I lose DVDs from Netflix, and we have to be mindful of another service with its own payment system, with its own customer service communication (if needed) etc etc.
It’s a hassle, especially when you consider you had it all in the same place before.
In one of the blog comments, Reed Hastings said that they don’t see Qwikster as being “that far away” from Netflix — as its only just “a link away” from each other… but so is MySpace to Facebook, and MSN to Google. There is a REASON people use Facebook or Google instead of all the other hullabaloo of assholery out there.
The Netflix web site is fine as it is.
If the excuse for this is their business is what needs to improve, how is separating web sites going to improve that considerably? If you need a different brand name, then make one. But don’t separate the services for the convenience of saying “that’s a different company, they’re doing their own thing, and we don’t care about it anymore.” You are still responsible, as a parent company, to make sure customers who are with your new company LIKE your new company, and you’re not just sending it off to die.
What it really comes down to is that Netflix is definitely interested in killing off the DVD portion — the only reason they’re even keeping it anymore is because streaming is going to see very high increases in cost, and they’re not sure if DVDs will end up having more business when the hammer comes down after their streaming licenses expire.
Associating the DVDs into the streaming plans only makes that amount charged for streaming go higher than it actually perceptibly is. It is a pre-emptive attack on what is bound to come. There are also rumors about how some companies force them to supply DVDs for some unrelated movies to have the license for a streaming version available, but how does spinning a company out into a subsidiary solve that? Netflix still owns Qwikster! For the time being, at least.
Maybe Netflix have to split it out to survive, after all. It still doesn’t change my opinion about having some sort of integration of services that make it easier for customers of both. But I’m not a business manager/CEO type person, so what the fuck ever, I guess Netflix is just smarter than their customers!
–
Update Oct 10, 2011
It appears that Netflix doesn’t want to spend money on focus groups or hire actual people to do research for them, instead they have opted to have their customers be exposed to flip-flopping decision-making and putting absolutely zero confidence in the way the company is thinking. If they stuck by their laurels, at least they wouldn’t have seemed like a bunch of pushovers.
However, apologizing for an apology seems to be a pretty funny concept, and in the end, I can at least be thankful that this stupid business decision wasn’t put through. The only good thing to come of the whole thing was Video Game rentals… and that seems to be put out to pasture as there is no mention of it anywhere. Do we really need to tell Netflix how to run their company well enough to not run it into the ground?
BAN (PC) Review
Overview
The game BAN has a strange title for so many reasons. One I can think of is that this game should have a BAN slapped on it for being completely crap. All you do is play a crap drawing of a person and shoot what looks like a monster by frantically pushing CTRL. You then die and think hmmmmmm that was fun and then you think how did I get that score. The gameplay is so minimal but then again what do you expect from PG Games.
Graphics
A stick with a head and a head for a monster well okay long story short there a pile of shit the was no effort in this area.
Sounds
Nothing but a crappy sound track, which is very annoying and is probably why the game is so dam big. I would personally prefer hearing someone straining when having a crap.
Gameplay
It’s all down to button bashing and is well very boring, it is so boring this can be called a medical breakthrough, a fast and effective sleeping drug with no side effects.
Crappiest Part
Well all you really have to do is read the review but I would have to say the graphics they look like a 3 year old drew them.
Overall
Am I allowed to give 0? If not then I will have to give it a 1/10 just for the fact it has no good features.
If I ever find the download for this game, I will post it.
ViSalus Sciences: How Being A Scam Is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Recently I was introduced to a… unique company. I don’t want to say “pyramid scheme,” but it really is a legal version of it — known as multi-level or referral marketing. Wikipedia will give you a big insight into what these terms mean and how they are related to each other.
ViSalus Sciences is a company that is in the business of weight loss. Excuse me — I should rephrase that.
They are in the business of MARKETING weight loss products, and having you do most of the leg work for them. That’s what multi-level or referral marketing is. It’s a marketing tactic that markets to people, either in-person or through someone you know, rather than traditional means such as television. They have representatives from their company come by to talk to you after you are invited to a “Challenge ‘Party'” (notice the double quotes) or some sort of get together by a friend or acquaintance under the guise that the product that they are selling is healthy for you.
It may very well be healthy for you. It may even help you lose weight. But when a company talks about how their product is good for you for about fifteen minutes, and then spends the next hour or so explaining how you can MAKE MONEY while using it and becoming an “Independent Distributor” (read: selling the product to your friends, and then they sell it to their friends, and you get a cut of that), you have to question the intentions of this company.
Right?
… Or are you allowed to?
There’s no question that obesity is a problem in the United States. The underhandedness of it all comes from playing off the emotion that if you reject the product for any reason (since they say anyone can benefit from losing weight or becoming more lean) then you are seen as someone who doesn’t give a shit about their body and scrutinized for it. Of course, it’s totally not because you don’t agree with what you are presented with, and question why it was presented to you in such a manner! They tell you you are going to die if you don’t change the way you live. And that may very well be true. But what they mostly want you to do is to buy into their marketing plan.
ViSalus Sciences doesn’t care if you lose weight or not. What they really want you to do is to market their products to the next guy, and have them market it to the next guy. Yes, I understand that businesses exist for the sole purpose of making money. But there is a reason why certain business ethics are in place and why business models like a “pyramid scheme” are outlawed, and others like “multi-level marketing” or “referral marketing” are walking the fine line. The reason why these are so controversial and not legitimate business models is because they are UNSUSTAINABLE. What happens when there are no more people to sell your product to and make money off of? In this case, what happens when everybody is skinny? The whole system falls apart, and only the people at the top are left with any money.
The oddities don’t stop there, of course.
When you dig deeper into (or, rather, get poured on with) the details of their referral program, it starts with you getting your ViSalus powder meal replacement substance for free when you refer three of your friends into buying one of their kits — the most expensive being a $250 “Transformation Kit.” That’s probably a tough sell, but its the “most rewarding” from ViSalus’ standpoint when they’re trying to sell you into selling their stuff. What’s more, is if you keep selling to people and then THEY sell to other people, and so on, you start getting checks cut to you in terms of percentages of what they buy and keep buying. Pretty sweet, right? And eventually you’ll get to a point where they’ll actually pay you for the lease of a BLACK BMW at 600 bucks a month!!!! Oh, did you read the part where it has to be black? That’s okay, if you don’t want black, they’ll give you 300 a month for something that isn’t black.
So, wait. Did you read that right? What the fuck does the color black have to do with any god damned thing? I’d probably just chalk it up to the CEO of the company wanting his minions to look like a fleet of stealth fighters driving into the parking lots when they have any stupid meetings or expos for their marketing clients. Maybe it’s an inside joke and he actually hates black BMW’s. I don’t know what the fuck they’re trying to get at. Besides, what happens when you repaint your black BMW into a red one? Do they still give you 600 dollars? It’s still technically black on the pink slip if you don’t change it, right? Are they going to send someone to your house to inspect your car’s color? Who knows, maybe they send a person to your house to gain intelligence on other matters, like when you take a shit or beat off. And it doesn’t stop there… you could potentially be making millions of dollars with this marketing plan. Hooray! And you’re not even an actual employee of their company, yet you’re bringing in 10% of their gross income! Makes a lot of sense. Toss in a bunch of other random shit like a magazine subscription to the aptly named “Success” and you’ve got yourself some fireplace-burning material in addition to pumping weird chemical powder into your body and all the other benefits that come with it.
I think what irks me the most about the company, other than its obviously questionable business model is that on the first page of a Google search there are literally two to three results asking if the company and its referral marketing business model is a scam. That is a red flag in itself. You should not see that for any legitimate company. You don’t search Target and see “is Target a scam?” as the second result, right? I’m sure if you dug deep enough you’ll see some randoms on the Internet gloating about how they may have scammed Target or how some idiot doesn’t understand how a credit card transaction works.
Not only that, I have a sneaking suspicion that ViSalus themselves are actually putting these “Is it a scam?” articles up on these random web sites. ViSalus is owned by a huge marketing company known as Blyth, and they have probably flooded the internet with articles of this nature to bury any real “evidence” of any legitimate complaints about the company. Nearly all the articles you can find about ViSalus asking if it is a scam talk about the dicey things they may do, but end up praising them and saying how good the products are… topping it all off with a referral link to their own referral page to have you buy their shit. If these articles were actually by individual writers, then they have no knowledge of journalistic ethics (what’s that?) since there is a HUGE conflict of interest apparent and no way to actually tell if they are saying what they’re saying just to get you to buy into it all. This is what makes the company possibly being a scam a self-fulfilling prophecy. They apparently say that it is a scam… only to conclude that it isn’t. But by flooding the internet with these types of articles, it makes you question what they’re really up to.
To conclude, I’m not saying that the products they sell don’t work. I’m not saying either that there isn’t money to be made by falling into their weird referral marketing program. I just know that I want to stay the hell away from this company, and if anyone wants my suggestion, it would be to do the same — and make sure you skip on giving them any of your personal details.
–
Here’s a few extra reference materials from Yahoo-related web sites (so you know that it isn’t some fucker posing as a legit consumer):
Same article as above with a different name: http://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2011/08/08/entrepreneurship-nothing-to-lose-and-everything-to-gain/
http://news.yahoo.com/blyth-increases-stake-visalus-sciences-20110415-153430-696.html
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110605130954AAGG2va
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070701165240AALx2cL
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Update 9/12/11:
And it keeps getting worse. Not only do they have your friends selling you this shit, they have five-year-olds explaining it to you like they know everything. BUT HEY! Don’t forget about how you can REFER YOUR FRIENDS! Yes, even a five-year-old knows how multi-level marketing works — its that simple! Here’s one video that pretty much shows how bad this company wants you to get sucked into its ploy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U091N-ZrXYk
The comments are nothing short of hilarious. Especially the one that says:
“So many of these responses amaze me. I would be willing to bet most of these people know nothing about these shakes, eat at McDonalds or Burger King every week and talk about eating properly. I have had these shakes as my breakfast for 2 years and would drink them for the rest of my life. They have more quality nutrition packed into each one than I can get from just about any breakfast. I exercise daily, which we encourage, and eat fruits, veggies, fish, daily. No need for such negativity.”
By some guy named “TheViGuy.” Well, that isn’t some viral marketer employed by ViSalus, right? Wrong. It is.
It looks like there’s even more five-year-olds-explaining-multi-level-marketing videos on YouTube, too. Enjoy.
Looking Back At: Oh Minseok the Rebel Korean
One of the few things I think seriously about is spam e-mail. Not only do people actually spend the time to write out huge paragraphs as some random African country’s prince – which is called role playing where I come from (The Internet), sometimes you’ve got to wonder about whether or not a few of these “situations” may in fact be real.
Let us hark back to Oh Minseok.
I got a spam mail once that wasn’t trying to sell me anything. It wasn’t trying to convince me to give my social security number to get a million hot dogs shipped to me from Uruguay, although I would seriously contemplate the prospect – this spam mail I got was about how Korean electronics companies were trying to kill him and how he needed help because they were hacking him and essentially trying to stab him through the computer screen.
Now, there are likely two possibilities that had made this e-mail come about.
One, he is an insane paranoid Korean who somehow learned English (but obviously not very well) and somehow got access to a mailing list with a million people on it, one of those being me.
Or, second, he actually is trying to be killed by Samsung. I usually like to give people the benefit of the doubt, even if they are insane, so I honestly think he is trying to be killed by Samsung because Samsung is involved in crimes and is paying off police to not investigate them. Not only that, but they’re in collusion with Hyundai!
Sounds plausible, right? I certainly think so.
I wouldn’t think it’d be that hard to piss Samsung off, considering you could fart in their plasma television screens and piss into their liquid crystal vats. That’s probably what Oh Minseok did. And Hyundai probably bought a lot of those little LCD screens from Samsung to put into their stupid cars and were none too pleased to see piss ooze out of the screens.
So, whoever this Oh Minseok guy is, I’m sure he’s probably dead because someone he spammed this to tracked him down and sold his location to Samsung. I think the last thing I’d ever do if I were being hunted down by a corporation that ignores the world’s laws and can apparently pay off any police force it feels like would be to post across the whole internet that they are trying to kill me.
Memorial Day – What Does it Mean to Me?
Decoration Day is another name for Memorial Day. Memorial Day honors military people who have died in wars that Americans have fought in. It is a patriotic holiday that was originally honored to the Civil War. Now it also honors veterans from the Spanish-American War, World War 1, World War 2, Korean War, Vietnam War, Desert Storm, Antirent War, The Aroostook War, Black Hawk War, Mexican War, Seminole War, Tripolitan War, Utah War, and the War of 1812.
Memorial Day is celebrated on the last Monday in May. On Memorial Day people place flowers, flags, and other memorabilia on the graves of people who died in wars which Americans fought in.
We should all be grateful that these people have given their lives so that we can have the freedoms that we have today.
That Was a Weird Dog Walk
Went outside to walk my dog and these things happened:
2 people were pulled over in their car in a “no stopping at any time” zone. One was on his phone away from the open passenger car door. The other, which I assume was a girl, was making puking/spitting sounds inside the car, even though the car door was open and she was actually standing outside. and the guy was just on his phone talking about something I didn’t understand.
I cut across the street so I don’t have to walk past them. then I see some random fat lady sitting on the concrete box thing full of phone/cable equipment or whatever it is in there just sitting there doing nothing, staring at a wall.
Then I avoid her and walk back towards where I came from, and some old guy comes out of the gate and just stands there and just stares at stuff around, he’s not even doing anything.
So I walk farther down the sidewalk away from him, and some shirtless younger looking guy is walking in my direction putting a shirt on. He says something like “good morning” to me and then goes over to where the old guy is and stands around him. No idea what they’re saying cause im far away from them at that point.
So I’m kinda looking in the general direction to see if they’re doing a drug deal, then I see the fat lady getting up and walking down the middle of the street going towards something I didn’t care to find out because I was freaked out and ran back into my house.
And this all happened before 12 am, thursday night… wtf was that all about?
Don’t Copy That Floppy
MC Disc Protector makes amazing points in his ridiculous rap “Don’t Copy That Floppy.” Remember when it was so easy to copy a floppy disk game onto another floppy disk? NO, BECAUSE SOME RAPPER GUY ALWAYS HACKS INTO YOUR COMPUTER AND PLAYS HIS STUPID SONG! This is essentially an annoying 10 minute song. Also, I think there’s a lot of innuendo between the white kid and the black chick.
Having a Child Is Child Abuse
This has been stirring in my head for the past month or so. There’s this recent uptake in the health community that having a child that is obese or overweight is considered child abuse.
Now, let’s take a step back here.
Why would you consider having a child as being overweight the ONLY form of… let’s call it “contemporary child abuse.”
Couldn’t you say that having a child at all would constitute as child abuse? As soon as they pop out of the womb, they are subjected to torture day in and day out. They must breathe polluted air. They have to deal with getting sick. They have to deal with everything that kids have to deal with. Why not call all of the problems that children have to deal with child abuse because their parents could’ve done something more to prevent anything from happening to them? They could have made them wash their hands after every contact with something that has germs on it. What if a child has a fever that goes to 103 and they are forced to take medicine that tastes bad?
I would even go so far as to say that if you allowed a child to be born with a birth defect, whether or not it was your fault, this would also constitute as child abuse, since you are now forcing your child to live with a defect. The “right thing” to do in this case would have been to abort the baby and save them years of “torture.”
Where does it end?
If people are considering having children that are overweight in any capacity as an allegation of child abuse, then why aren’t we looking at everything? Why don’t we just remove every single child under every single parent have them raised by the government?
It would certainly solve a lot of problems society has with children.
For example, the state will never pay to have their employees bring annoying little kids to Rated R movies. They will never be seen at the mall making loud crying noises or running around on the escalator at my job without someone getting angry at them.
They’ll be stuck in what is essentially a jail, and we’ll all be better for it.