The Smidgen

So I’m reading a BBC News article and firstly, there’s no author that I can see so the part of my rage the would be directed at said author goes unfulfilled, crafty British.  Anywho, the article is about “Raz”, a “massive Xbox gamer” who uses his console every day after work and all day on the weekends.  You know, a socialite.  Well it appears that after “acquiring” the latest record setting Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, he was “gutted” to learn that Microsoft has banned him from playing games online.

Why, you might ask?  Well he’s a theif, plain and simple.  Raz has a modded Xbox and pirates his games.  Now no one get all uppity about pirating software one way or the other, I don’t care how you feel about it if you don’t realize that a company or person will be disinclined to let you use a product they’re trying to sell for free, you’re a friggen idiot.  Anyway I would ordinarily think nothing of this article, that kind of thing happens fairly frequently, people steal games and sometimes they get caught, boo-hoo, he’s not getting some sort of ridiculous RIAA fine or jail time, just no more online gaming because you’re a criminal, whaaan.

What sets me off on this is that this guy is literally flabbergasted by this fact.  He’s astounded to learn that his openly admitted, publicly communicated theft of £600 worth of games (just under $1,000 to us Yanks) has earned him a ban.  Furthermore he states that, while he won’t mod another console, he’s unsure if he will buy another Xbox or get a PS3 now instead.

Let me get this straight, you essentially stole one large worth of games, got a slap on the hand and now you’re so mad at Microsoft you’re going to get a PS3 instead?  Wow, guess what chief, I don’t think they’re going to miss you.  Maybe Sony can use this for some creative marketing, “Xbox Live won’t let you play because you’re a dirty criminal, welcome PSHome!”  Somehow I don’t think Sony will exactly be thrilled with that sort of support either.

Some good quotes from the article after the break:

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Well, it’s Monday and that means the start of a new work week and I couldn’t be angrier.  Let’s get rolling.

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What the hell happened to television episodes?  Recently I’ve been watching a lot of old school Trek and it has forced me to realize the shift that has taken place in the world of television.  Up until a few years ago television shows have followed along with this definition of and episode: an incident, scene, etc., within a narrative, usually fully developed and either integrated within the main story or digressing from it.  Yet now, the world of the television drama is more like a “mini” series that actually lasts 5 seasons long, spanning more than 100 segments.

If you enjoy watching 24, Lost, Heroes, Battlestar and the rest like them then just pray you have a DVR or the network masters will gain one more slave.  Miss an “episode”?  Forget it, you won’t know what the hell is going on and now you’ll have to wait until the DVD comes out.  Of course when that happens they’ll already be on season 34 so you have no hope for ever catching up with the current plot line.  You can forget casual conversation at work too, because they’ll all be talking about what happened this week.  So what can you do?

Honestly I don’t know, I’ve personally stopped watching TV but it’s not really a protest so much as laziness.  I have a DVR and even then when I realized I had 4 “episodes” of Heroes recorded and a new one was airing that evening, I just gave up.  I liked the show but I really didn’t feel like watching 5 hours of it just to keep up with the Jones’.

The thing of it is, this “mini” series format has actually seemed to increase the quality of TV dramas by giving them cohesion and forcing the writers to keep the overriding plot in mind.  For example, when watching season 2 of Star Trek (this is the original series were talking about, remember) there is an episode where an alien race from another galaxy took human form to commandeer the Enterprise.  Spock points out that the odds of an alien race developing and evolving to be exactly like humans was a near impossibility and they realize these people don’t quite know how to be “human” after all.  Of course, the very next episode they find a planet that not only developed humans, but America, Russia, the Cold War and the Constitution.  Yes, this is Star Trek, it was pioneering, it was low budget, it’s campy and it was the first of it’s kind so there are plenty of excuses for this oversight, but the series formula of today’s TV dramas actually forces writers to think from “episode” to “episode” giving us smarter TV and far fewer of these incongruities.

So why can’t there be a middle ground?  Why can’t we create a new Star Trek series that continues it’s episodic journey through the galaxy but plan it out?  Write a series from start to end (plots only, I don’t expect every episode and all dialogue here) and pitch it that way, go Babylon 5 on it and plan for the end but let me miss an episode here and there without feeling hopelessly lost.

Ok, I’m better now.

Someone once said, “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover”.  I don’t know who the hell it was but lets say Abraham Lincoln, he gets credit for all kinds of crap he never said so why not, right?  Anyway, while we might not be able to pass sentence on said book based solely on it’s cover, we certainly can, and will, evaluate it quickly.  So what book am I talking about?  People, of course, this is a vent and I don’t think there’s another topic I vent more about.

So in this life lesson I’ll share with you some knowledge about business professionals in the workplace.  The nicer they dress, the ruder they are while waiting in line.  Could be these people are as successful as they portray, and maybe they truly are as busy as they want you to believe they are but I don’t really care, if your ass is in the back of a 20 person line when a new line opens up, your clothing is not a free pass to the front of that line.  Now get back there and like it!

Ok, I’m better now.