More Things I Hate (Rant II, the Revenge)

So, it's been a while since I've ranted, and that's what I originally planned to do a lot of with this blog.  With that in mind, I've decided it's time.  And yesterday I found inspiration on a few different subjects.  Bill and I went to Wal-Mart with a friend because we needed quite a bit of stuff for the new apartment we moved into last weekend.  No, the rant isn't about Wal-Mart specifically, though I do think that they are evil.  But, to quote Nightwish:  "Beware the Beast, but enjoy the feast he offers."  No, it's the people AT Wal-Mart that will start this rant off.  So, without further ado, my rant.

Fat people in electric carts
This is among the most irritating things I've ever seen.  If I had been playing Wal-Mart Bingo I would have scored points before even getting in the store.  I saw no less than 5 fat ladies riding the scooters provided for people with actual physical handicaps.  Sorry, but fat isn't a handicap.  It's the result of poor choices.  Now, I realize that there is always the possibility that someone has a legitimate ailment or condition ("it's glandular...") that makes them morbidly obese.  And maybe you could argue that it is a handicap in that case.  But I seriously doubt all of these people actually had a handicap.

Fat people can walk.  If you're fat, it's most likely because of overeating, eating the wrong foods, and lack of exercise.  So, really, fat people not only can walk, but should.  Bill and I were fat.  We've still got a long way to go before we aren't considered fat anymore.  But the fact is, we never blamed anyone but ourselves, and when it became an obstacle to comfortable living and a healthy self-image, we changed.  We started going for walks.  We started taking the stairs.  We became more active.  And we began to monitor what we ate.  We have very low willpower.  If we can do this, anybody can.

So, it's not my life, so why do I get pissed off?  Because there are legitimately handicapped people for whom the electric scooters are intended.  Wal-Mart has a large number of these scooters.  But not an unlimited number.  And if they're all taken up by fat lazy people, then the people that actually need them will be made to suffer.  While I was at Wal-Mart in line to pay, the two women in front of me were both in scooters.  One of them was very fat indeed.  The other wasn't what I'd call morbidly obese.  Yes, she was fat, but not cripplingly so.  But what killed me is that to get to her money, she stood up to dig through her pockets.  So, she's able-bodied enough for that.  It just irritates me.  While waiting for Bill to be done checking out, I overheard two employees talking.  They were out of fresh scooters, so they were going to bring more out.  The junior employee said "But those aren't even charged!"  The senior employee said "but we don't have any left, and the manager said we need to."  So, essentially, if someone with a real need came in, they'd have the very real possibility of being stranded in the middle of the store when the charge died, all because of some very selfish, lazy fat people.

Parents who don't parent
Well what do you know?  This one is on the bingo card too!  The incident that specifically made me think of this one also occurred during checkout.  There was a young couple with a little girl of about three years old.  The girl was in the cart (not the seat portion, but the actual basket).  The mother was facing away, looking at the cashier.  The father was standing next to the cart, and giving furtive glances at the girl.  Well, I guess I'm just assuming it's the father.  Maybe it's just a friend of the mother.  Who knows?  The point is, the little girl was jumping up and down in the cart and screeching.

First of all, I'd like to point out that three year olds aren't known for their grace and dexterity.  So the kid could very easily have fallen out of the cart.  But the screeching had to be annoying to more than just me.  The mother kept shooting glares at her kid, but never actually did anything.  She didn't say a word.  She didn't make the child sit.  She just let the kid be an annoyance to everyone in the vicinity with the ability to hear.

The sad fact is that this is really common, and not just at Wal-Mart.  How many times have you seen kids running amok in a public place.  They're making too much noise, hitting into people and objects, knocking things over and being at best a nuisance, and at worst an actual physical threat.  And where are the parents?  Either nowhere to be seen, or even worse, right there allowing it.  When I worked front desk at a hotel, I would frequently have to deal with children running around unsupervised.  It's like the parents figured the staff would take care of them.  We have other things to deal with that are actually our job.  I don't like kids at all, so that makes this one doubly irritating to me.

When I was a kid, if we acted up, we would get disciplined by my mother.  It would range from threats of grounding all the way up to spanking if our behavior was particularly bad.  I just don't know what accounts for the permissiveness that you see in parents today.  Is it because they're afraid that if they spank their children in public, that Child Protective Services will get them for abuse?  Or are they so soft that they think spanking is wrong and you should try reasoning with your children?  Whatever the reason, they need to reassess their plan, because spanking works.  I know it worked on me and my siblings.

Parents who over-parent
This probably seems weird considering my last point.  I realize it's a balancing act.  But some people just go too far in the other direction.  I didn't specifically see any of this at Wal-Mart yesterday, though I've certainly seen it in various places over the years.  Have you ever seen a parent who just completely overreacts to a small situation?  Now, I understand that there might be more than what I've seen.  Perhaps the kid was being a little asshole the entire car trip out to wherever they happen to be.  Or maybe the little brat is doing something he's been told not to do dozens of times before.  So I understand all  that.  But I've seen parents (in some cases people I actually knew personally) who were so strict and mean to their kids that it's a wonder the children never ran away.

It's always disturbing to me to see this particular thing, because sometimes you can really hear and feel the venom in the adult's voice as they yell at (or worse, do that whole "fierce whisper" sort of thing) their kids.  And if I can hear or feel it, you can bet the kid does too.  It's sort of distressing to hear a mother talk with more hate than love when dealing with her child.  My mom was stern when she needed to be, but I've never heard anything even close to dislike from her, let alone the bile that some of these parents unleash on their kids.

The other side of the over-parenting coin is the overprotective coddler.  These are the parents who act as if their children are so fragile that simply hearing the wrong thing will require years of therapy to undo.  They aren't aloud to play outside because there is evidently a child molester on every street corner.  These children are going to grow up so afraid of the world that they will be unprepared to actually deal with life.  Parents need to find a healthy balance.  Teach your child independence, but don't skimp on teaching discipline and manners, either.  It's your job as a parent.  My job doesn't involve raising your kids.

Celebrating mediocrity
This seems like a natural segue from the mollycoddling parents of the previous point.  Why do we feel the need to reward people for just showing up?  What's the point of a competition if everyone gets a ribbon?  I don't remember there being too much of this sort of thing when I was growing up, though I'm sure it must have been happening.  I never got a "thanks for participating" medal.  I never got a "participation trophy."  It defeats the purpose of competition to do these things.  And a bit of competitive spirit is not a bad thing to teach children.  Competition drives excellence.  Do you really want to teach your kids that doing the bare minimum is just fine?  If there's no reason to excel, people simply won't.

One of coworkers was bragging and showing off pictures of her granddaughter's graduation...from Kindergarten.  Really?  A full cap-and-gown commencement for kids who don't even know what the hell a commencement is?  That makes no sense at all.  It's unnecessary and excessive.  And what's the benefit?  Is it to create a false sense of being special so even unremarkable children feel accomplished?  It sort of seems like setting them up to fail in the real world, which isn't half as indulgent.

Also related to this point is the overuse of the word "hero."  These days, if you even sign up for the military, you're called a hero.  I think people confuse the concept of a hero with a personal hero.  There's a big difference.  Just signing on the dotted line and putting on a uniform doesn't make you a hero.  Getting sent overseas in wartime doesn't make you a hero.  You're doing your job.  Going above and beyond, risking life and limb to save another, taking a chance to make a large difference, regardless of the cost....those are heroic actions.  Sitting in a camp, eating MREs and doing drills doesn't make you a hero.  Even participating in combat doesn't necessarily make you a hero.  Surviving makes you skilled, or lucky.  Going to war makes you a soldier, maybe even a good one.  But a hero?  Come on.

Court case du jour and the armchair litigators
The most recent occurence of this is Casey Anthony case.  There are several aspects of this that piss me off, and I'm going to try to cover all of them.  Point one: what makes the case du jour more important or newsworthy than the hundreds upon hundreds of other murders, disappearances, kidnappings, rapes, and other heinous crimes?  The media decides that they can really get a high ratings response from particular cases.  Maybe it's because there's a cute kid involved.  Maybe it's because it's a pretty white girl on vacation.  I have to wonder why you don't see a big fanfare if the girl who disappears is black, or Mexican, or unattractive.

So the media applies their process to the news of the day, and sees which diamonds in the rough they can polish and turn into a treasure of ratings.  They present what facts they are given by the authorities (usually not all of them, of course) and make a snap judgment about the suspect.  They give their opinions like they are facts, and they try and convict the person based on conjecture.  They present the news with that bias intact, and the public eats it up, because it's a good story.  Then these armchair litigators act as if they're experts on the case because they've been watching Nancy Grace's coverage every night.  They make the snap decision they've been spoonfed, and they think it's their own well-reasoned logic that informed their opinion.

The whole process pisses me off.  Looking specifically at the Casey Anthony case, I've heard many people express disgust and disbelief that she "got away with it."  But you can be damn sure that if they were on trial, they would want the same benifit of reasonable doubt that they are indignant about in this case.  Even though she was found not guilty, she will be dogged by the assumption of her guilt.  She'll be stigmatized and will most likely have to move.  But since this case was covered nationally, where can she go?  This will very likely affect her prospects of future employment.  Yet she'll also be judged if she attempts to profit from this whole fiasco.  She's in a no-win situation, and it shouldn't be that way.

People can argue that the public has a right to know.  But if it hampers justice, how can we possibly retain that right?  Why do we "need" to know the details of this particular case, when there are thousands more that no one even cares about?  How are we as the public benefitting for the case being publicized?  We aren't.  The only thing satisfied is our own prurient nature and the chance to exercise the self-perceived skills we gleaned from Law and Order and CSI. 

I get so angry when I hear someone declaim how they know someone's guilty, as if their opinion is somehow more valid than the decision of a jury of the defendant's peers, who had all the evidence put before them and had a reasoned and unbiased examination and deliberation on those facts.  That's just hubris, and there's no place for it in the justice system.


Whew, rant over.  I feel much better now.  If you fit into one of these categories, I don't mean to offend you, but I still mean what I say.  I'm by no means perfect, and I'll happily read your rants about my behavior if you'd like.

On Video Games, Escapism, and Hindrances Thereto.

I am a gamer. I've been escaping into virtual worlds at the expense of real life for more than 25 years. I remember my first gaming system. It was an Atari 2600. I received it as a gift for my first Communion. I grew up Catholic, and like a good little clone, jumped through all the holy hoops required of me. I didn't care about God or Jesus or any of that. But show me a video game, and you've shown me my new god. THAT is a religion worth following.
It never ceases to amaze me that there are people who in fact don't feel the way I do about video games. They think it's a waste of money to drop sixty bucks on a new game that I'll play for days at least, if not weeks, months, or even years. And when I'm done, I'll play it again. Yet, some of these same people spend $100 on a purse they'll wear for a month, or they blow it in hours at a bar, and the only thing they take away from that is a hangover.
Gaming is my hobby. It lets me blow off steam. When I've had a day that pushes my tolerance to its outermost limit, I know that I can bring myself back from that edge with the proper game. If I just want to escape the world, then I'll immerse myself into a fantasy realm of magic and monsters. Role playing games make me focus only on the story and the visuals unfolding before me. On the other hand, if there is a specific person that has caused my bad day, then nothing beats a cathartic session with a fighting game or a hack and slash adventure. Unwinding after a long day requires a good game.
To be perfectly honest, I have no clue how other people unwind without them. Watching TV is far too passive to do me any good. I love to read, but if you're angry or tense, how can you possibly focus on reading? I don't get it. Then again, a lot of people like to have a good workout to blow off steam, and think gaming is too passive and lazy. In return, I can't conceive of such a thing as a good workout.
Of course, that doesn't mean that I don't have some issues with the world of video games. Some of these are entirely my own dysfunction. You'd think that after 25 years of gaming, that I'd be really good. My boyfriend has been playing games for less than half the time I have, and he excels far more in his chosen genres than I do. It's discouraging, and more than a little embarrassing. After all, I'm a child of the 80s. I scarcely remember a moment in my life without games. Either the Atari, or the Nintendo, SNES, and on through PlayStation, PS2, and the glorious PS3. Yet, despite this training since childhood, I'm merely OK at most games. But that doesn't dim my glowing admiration and love for the medium.
Gaming has changed so much since I first began. It was pretty much a platformer-based industry in the 80s and early 90s. It was a simpler time. As much as I loved games as a kid, when I try to revisit the old platformers from the day, I find that I either suck really really bad, or I just don't like them anymore. Of course, back then, games were entirely 2-D, so choices were a bit limited.
These days, games are more like movies. Beautifully rendered CGI cutscenes and in-game animations are cinematic in scale. For the first time, story has become important in genres other than the RPG. Character development, customization, versatility, gameplay and voice acting are all key to a video game's success.
Video games also have a much broader audience these days. It isn't just pasty-faced geeks so pale that the sun might burn them away. Cool people play them now, too. Grown men, and most astonishingly, women are gamers. The influx of so many different people, all with diverse backgrounds, means that there are different types of gamers. It's a big challenge for game developers, I'm sure. Unfortunately, it's sort of thrown the gaming world into disarray. On the one hand, innovations in gaming and the technology are growing by leaps and bounds. Competition means that companies need to outdo each other, and the consumers benefit.
But it's also given rise to some insidious trends. Gamers can be split into three basic types. There are casual gamers. These are people like your mom. You know, they didn't play games as a kid, or they never really got into them. They aren't really gamers. They're people who play games. There's a pretty big difference actually. The unfortunate effect casual gamers have on the industry is that there are a lot of games that try to capitalize on the mindset. These games are short, simple, and easy for the non-gamer to pick up and plug in, so to speak. Unfortunately, sometimes quality is sacrificed in the crush of quickies for the casual gamer. Is this universally the case? Not at all. Some of the so-called "party games" are actually pretty fun, if you are at, say, a party. And puzzle games can be a good diversion for a short time. But I prefer a bit more depth, so I have to sift through the innumerable options to find the games that appeal to me.
The second type of gamer is the "hardcore" gamer. These are the types that eat, sleep, and breathe games. They collect trophies and achievements so they can ridicule people that don't have them. They go on to message boards to brag about how they beat the latest trendy game in 3 hours on the highest difficulty level without dying, and if you can't do the same, then you're a "noob" or "teh ghey" or whatever else passes for English these days.
Hardcore gamers have had a serious effect on games, and I don't believe it's for the better. Developers and publishers know they can count on the hardcore gamer to buy their product. So they pander to them, without regard to everyone else. So more and more often, I'm seeing games that eschew any sort of effort in developing a single-player mode and focus on the online multiplayer mode. All the downloadable content is for multiplayer maps or multiplayer missions. It bothers me because, as my boyfriend has said, there are some people who play games to get away from people.
Another problem with games that have been negatively affected by hardcore gamers is the difficulty level. I really don't see the appeal of a game so hard to beat that merely playing it adds more stress than you release. I have fun playing through the game. I want to win. I don't want to play through the same level dozens of times until I can finally (or not) beat the boss, solve the puzzle, survive the gambit, or whatever other ridiculously difficult challenge I need to surpass. I don't care about "gamer cred" or anything like that.
These days, difficulty levels are misleading. Some games don't give you a choice, and those are the ones that worry me the most. Because I know they will end up being damn near impossible for someone with my modest abilities. Now, it seems, Normal means Hard. Easy means Normal, and sometimes even Hard. Hard means Impossible, So You Might As Well Trade The Game In Now. I have a great love of games, but not a great talent for them. Is it fair that I spend $60 on a game, but I can only get halfway through the story? I say make Easy mode actually easy. Not merely slightly less of a challenge. Actually easy. And make cheats available, so we can become unstuck in certain situations. I'm no programmer, but I know it's possible to disable cheats for a multiplayer mode and still allow them to work offline. And don't punish me for cheating. For instance, there have been a few games that allow cheats, but disable saving your game when you activate them. Ridiculous.
So, you can probably tell by now which of the two previous types of gamers bothers me most. Myself, I'm the third type. I'm just a regular guy, doing what he loves, regardless of labels. I just want to enjoy myself, and as long as it doesn't directly hinder anybody else's enjoyment, why should that be a problem? I just want to escape into a game at the end of a hard day. I want to feel the thrill of playing a game to its conclusion, of conquering the bad guys, of seeing the the story through to the end. I don't have to be good at video games to do this. I just have to love them.

List of things I don't care about

1. The economy. I know I probably should care about it, but I don't. I guess I just don't have the level of understanding that other people have. Or maybe it's because I was poor, living paycheck to paycheck before the economic crisis. And I don't have a car, so I really can't even complain about fluctuating gas prices (which seem to have calmed a bit anyway).



2. Politics. I have such a hard time even getting two sentences into any news report about politics. It's just so boring. While the last presidential race was stirring up emotions everywhere, I found myself, as ever, coolly indifferent. And when Obama's win galvanized the nation, I just can't muster that kind of enthusiasm.



3. Your opinion. This is specifically in reaction to your opinion of point number two. My opinion about politics is just that: MY opinion. You don't have to like it. You don't have to agree with me. You don't even have to be quiet about it. Comment on it, tell me what you think. But don't be put off by my indifference. Of course, point three isn't solely regarding politics. I think it's important to just be okay with being yourself. Nothing more, nothing less. So, if you don't like that I shave my head or have tattooes, if you think the music I listen to is crap, or if there's anything I love that you hate, you're entitled to your opinion. And I'm entitled to ignore it.



4. The popular news of the day. Whether it's the mom that offs her daughter so she can party unhindered, or the ridiculous caricature of a woman who spawns more children in a day than most families have in a lifetime, I just don't want to hear about it. I hate these news fads. And I hate when people watch them, plastered all over the news, and give opinions or sage observances as if it's even remotely important or necessary. Seriously. Enough. Nancy Grace has enough money, so stop lining her pockets with your ratings.



5. Facebook/MySpace applications. These are the bane of my existence. I can't log on without being overwhelmed with requests to take a quiz, join a mafia, send a fluffy angel bunny egg, and so on, ad nauseam. It's one of the major reasons why I'm spending less and less time on those sites. I just don't care about these things.

OK, I'm done being a curmudgeon now.