I know everyone is just dying to read another fiery rant about video games, but I gotta vent.

The people who design video games today are pathetic dorkface turdbrains. Sometimes I wonder if they conspire to make sure there is at least one fatal flaw in every game that comes out (with rare exceptions). Either the bosses are insanely difficult, or there's some stupid system of item manipulation, or you can't tell where you're supposed to go, or they assume you've got a 30 foot TV screen.

I'm a humble high school English teacher. I work hard, I put lots of energy into the classroom, I grade papers, I pay my taxes. When I get done working for the day, I want to have some fun and smash up some bad guys. I do NOT want to conquer some insanely difficult challenge. I do NOT want to prove to myself that I have some supreme ability, however meaningless. I do NOT want to feel superior to non-video-game players. I do NOT spend my entire life playing these games. I just want to spend some time playing something laid-back and enjoyable.

Well, maybe I have the wrong game system. XBox360 is for the "hardcore gamers", a nomenclature that makes me want to vomit. Spend five seconds on XBox Live and you'll find that they are the most annoying, insipid, self-obsessed, racist, sexist, homo-hating, ignorant people on the planet. Their only concerns are leaderboards and bragging rights about things that don't matter. No one cares about having fun, they want to "pwn n00bz". (They also like to laugh about "raping" the other team, a description that I despise. These people have obviously never spoken to someone who's been raped, or they wouldn't toss that word around so blithely.)

Maybe I need to switch back to a PlayStation system or get myself a Wii. Of course I was plenty frustrated with certain PS2 games, and the NES provided more than its fair share of headaches for me when I was a young'un. Maybe I need to take a break from video games altogether. Or maybe the people who make games need to get their heads out of their posteriors and design some games for us casual players once in a while. Grr.

TimeWaster™

It's not a waste of time, but it's on YouTube, so it fits here. This hour-long speech from economist Ha-Joon Chang explains clearly and with excellent humor why Thomas Friedman is full of crap.



Today I'm listening to: MDFMK!