by Ice Cream Jonsey » Fri Jan 04, 2008 9:24 pm
Worm wrote:Those guys apparently threw away a Nintendo DS given to them by EA for their little charity, because they didn't open the box and wanted to blog about how beyond reproach they are.
That's the best part of all this. And I have seen your work on other bulletin boards this evening, and I agree with you completely. You're going to encounter some very, very stupid people by typing those opinions, but you won't encounter any here.
The Penny Arcade website is like Wikipedia. Go out into the world (well, the 5% part of the on-line world that gives a shit about an on-line encyclopedias and comic strips) and say, "I hate the Wikipedia," and people - on average - will get mad. "What the hell is wrong with you?" they will say. "I use it all the time. You're dumb." What they don't get, unless you explain it to them, is that you're not against encyclopedias, you're against some of the practices of
that one.
PA is the same way. As I am desperately attempting to get some fresh blood on this bulletin board, I'm going to go ahead and guess that randomly insulting a possible reader's favorite web cartoon is not the way to go about increasing the size of the community here, and I'd rather have people to talk to than hold these screeching nerd opinions. But! Everything there is to know about why I dislike that website comes into play here:
They were given a Nintendo DS, signed by Doom programmer John Carmack, from Electronic Arts. They wrote (and drew) a snide web comic about it. They gave the DS away to -- and here I am just going on what Worm has written elsewhere -- the guy who best made a cake look like an engorged penis.
Then, later, they read the note that came with the DS and found out that it was supposed to be for charity. Whoops!
But Jesus Christ, how fucking
jaded do you have to be to just start treating received hardware like shit? I am personally amazed and overjoyed when computer hardware I
specifically order and pay for manages to arrive at our house. I am absolutely flabbergasted if I can order a save kit from eBay and see it in my person within a month. But not these two clowns.
Let's go backwards in time for a second. When you're a kid, you want to get into the field you're obsessed with, and unfortunately that sometimes that takes an enormous amount of talent and luck, unless what really gets you going is construction or, like, murder. I know my father said, "Study hard and get a degree, and you can make computer games in your spare time." Well, those two guys managed to figure out a way to make being tangentially involved in the gaming industry their jobs, but in the meantime they completely lost any sense of what it's like to be in the real world.
This is unbelievably depressing! I have days, I'm sure we all do, where we'd like to say, "If only I could make a career out of my hobby. Stay at home, work on my surfboards / lobser traps / knitting, it'd be great." Well, PA shows what happens when you manage to achieve that. Without the shit-eating, daily grind and total aggravation of the real world, nothing you create will have any worth outside its own sphere of influence, and you'll ultimately turn into a spoiled, brain-dead dick in the ass.
Working in an office is a soul-crushing experience, but as this little venture shows,
not living in the real world is somehow, strangely worse. They've gone beyond snuffing out the dreams who we were when we were kids ("I want to make video games!") but they've crushed any hope we have as adults by making us fear turning into them.
[quote="Worm"]Those guys apparently threw away a Nintendo DS given to them by EA for their little charity, because they didn't open the box and wanted to blog about how beyond reproach they are.[/quote]
That's the best part of all this. And I have seen your work on other bulletin boards this evening, and I agree with you completely. You're going to encounter some very, very stupid people by typing those opinions, but you won't encounter any here.
The Penny Arcade website is like Wikipedia. Go out into the world (well, the 5% part of the on-line world that gives a shit about an on-line encyclopedias and comic strips) and say, "I hate the Wikipedia," and people - on average - will get mad. "What the hell is wrong with you?" they will say. "I use it all the time. You're dumb." What they don't get, unless you explain it to them, is that you're not against encyclopedias, you're against some of the practices of [i]that[/i] one.
PA is the same way. As I am desperately attempting to get some fresh blood on this bulletin board, I'm going to go ahead and guess that randomly insulting a possible reader's favorite web cartoon is not the way to go about increasing the size of the community here, and I'd rather have people to talk to than hold these screeching nerd opinions. But! Everything there is to know about why I dislike that website comes into play here:
They were given a Nintendo DS, signed by Doom programmer John Carmack, from Electronic Arts. They wrote (and drew) a snide web comic about it. They gave the DS away to -- and here I am just going on what Worm has written elsewhere -- the guy who best made a cake look like an engorged penis.
Then, later, they read the note that came with the DS and found out that it was supposed to be for charity. Whoops!
But Jesus Christ, how fucking [i]jaded[/i] do you have to be to just start treating received hardware like shit? I am personally amazed and overjoyed when computer hardware I [i]specifically order and pay for[/i] manages to arrive at our house. I am absolutely flabbergasted if I can order a save kit from eBay and see it in my person within a month. But not these two clowns.
Let's go backwards in time for a second. When you're a kid, you want to get into the field you're obsessed with, and unfortunately that sometimes that takes an enormous amount of talent and luck, unless what really gets you going is construction or, like, murder. I know my father said, "Study hard and get a degree, and you can make computer games in your spare time." Well, those two guys managed to figure out a way to make being tangentially involved in the gaming industry their jobs, but in the meantime they completely lost any sense of what it's like to be in the real world.
This is unbelievably depressing! I have days, I'm sure we all do, where we'd like to say, "If only I could make a career out of my hobby. Stay at home, work on my surfboards / lobser traps / knitting, it'd be great." Well, PA shows what happens when you manage to achieve that. Without the shit-eating, daily grind and total aggravation of the real world, nothing you create will have any worth outside its own sphere of influence, and you'll ultimately turn into a spoiled, brain-dead dick in the ass.
Working in an office is a soul-crushing experience, but as this little venture shows, [i]not[/i] living in the real world is somehow, strangely worse. They've gone beyond snuffing out the dreams who we were when we were kids ("I want to make video games!") but they've crushed any hope we have as adults by making us fear turning into them.