Grinds My Gears: Video Game Edition

Yes, I really couldn't come up withe a better title. My creativity is kicked. Terrible. I need a spark in my life to get back into this.

Okay, so I play video games. Mainly the sports games. Definitely get some Call of Duty in there too. Anyways, they come out with a new version of the game every year. I wrote earlier how annoying it is that video games come out every year and expect people to milk it. At the same time, how else can they make money every year?

For me, it's a constant black hole. I give in easily. While I don't buy a new sports game every year, it's easily every few. Gives me and my friends something to do instead of going out and being reckless causing mayhem.

Anyways, long story short, I just bought Tiger Woods 12 since it was on sale. I bought it and found out that it comes with something like 12 courses. That's fine. The problem? They offer another 18 courses online that you pay for, at 4 bucks a pop. 4 x 18 is 72. So if I were to buy all of the courses available, I'd spend 60 bucks on the game, 72 on the courses, for a grand total of 132 bucks.

Hanh? 132 bucks? For a game that comes out once every year? Something where if I were to buy Tiger 13 I'd have to do it again? Greedy bastards.

I think offering additional content is a nice way to increase interest in a game, although I believe companies now purposefully leave things out to sell it later, because they want to milk money out of us. The problem with Tiger? They incorporate the courses into the single player game, effectively not allowing you to play the way they want you to. They're trying to force your hand into sinking more money into it.

Again, is there anything we can do? No. The fleecing of America.

Wrestling

Like I said last post, I still haven't forgotten you. I just have had zero creative things to write. I'm not going to write posts that suck.

Okay, so I think I've half gotten back into wrestling. And by wrestling, I mean the WWF/E Vince McMahon monster that I was obsessed with in like 6th grade. But when I say obsessed, I was obsessed. Not quite Star Wars obsessed, but it was the show I watched. I couldn't wait for Thursday Night Smackdown.

Can you blame me though? Back then, The Rock and Stone Cold were excellent entertainers. It was just enough violence for me to think it was cool. My parents wouldn't let me watch any of the other episodes of it, so I had to settle for that Thursday.

Why'd I fall off? I can't honestly say. I don't remember. My guess? The Rock left. Stone Cold "retired". Episode 1 of Star Wars came out. The Lord of the Rings. I don't really know. It just ended. I'd watch it every now and then and say "good God this is terrible."

What brought me back? Very simple - The Rock. If you watch that clip, and you grew up loving the Rock like I did, then you are guaran-damn-teed to get goosebumps. It's amazing.

Now that I'm somewhere like 12 years older than the 11 year old that watched it and thought it was real, I do have a little more appreciation for the "business" of wrestling. Everything is very calculated and they write the storylines and blah blah. When I was a kid? I thought it was all real. They all hated each other. All the punches were real. The chairs were real etc. They know exactly what they're doing to maintain an audience, keep them interested, build up new superstars, and ultimately grow the brand even further.

Bringing back The Rock got me - and I'm sure many more - half back into it. I'm not going to watch an entire show. I'll read highlights. Watch the YouTube clip, whatever. If I'm channel surfing and see it on, I'll at least check it out. I was also excited for Wrestlemania because the meatball Snooki was wrestling, and thought it'd be great to see her get beat up. Needless to say, she didn't.

The matches are somewhat entertaining sometimes. Trying to decipher the real vs fake is fun. Sometimes the stupidity of the storyline or the way they have to hint at inappropriate content makes me laugh. The corniness of these characters is so stupid it's funny. Seeing Stone Cold give someone the Stunner and pour beer all over them is all I really need to see. The Rock isn't "really" back. He's half back. Which is why I'm half into it. He's out promoting movies and shooting movies, so it's not realistic that he's going to a) be a consistent part of the show or b) fight anytime soon so he doesn't mess up his movie career. Huge insurance pay out on that.

I'm not sure if I'm regressing because I'm watching wrestling. Or is that just because I'm bored with everything else on? The only thing I have looking forward to is Treme, and there isn't a huge amount of entertainment value there. Sure I'm going to enjoy it, but I won't laugh the same way I will like I laugh watching the clowns fake fight each other. Maybe I'm just trying to re-live some of the glory days before I get full-on sucked into being an adult. Who knows. But in the meantime, I am smelling what The Rock is cooking.

I hate politics

No, I haven't forgotten about you. I just haven't had a good idea in months. This isn't a good idea, I'm just pissed. I also have no clue what I'm talking about. Ummmm, thanks for sticking around?

What the hell is going on with our government? This whole "government" shutdown is the biggest crock of sh!t I've ever heard of. We can't agree on a budget. Okay. Who approved the $86 billion budget for the Department of Defense? This is a joke.

The reason why I hate politics is over crap like this. Nothing gets done. They argue over mute points and threaten to shut down - failing the people who elected them into power. Nice going guys.

In school we talked about politics as "the art of compromise." So, elected officials of the government, COMPROMISE DAMMIT.

Again, I really don't know what I'm talking about, but this just makes ZERO sense to me, and it angers the hell out of me. The greatest country in the world and we cant agree on a budget. Maybe if we didn't just spend $126 some million in Libya over two days then we could have an agreement. Or if we weren't still in Iraq. Or Afghanistan. And instead, maybe we could help fix ourselves, our still unstable economy, and our ever-slowly growing unemployment rate.

Seriously, this is outrageous. I want to move to the Bahamas or some Carribbean island once I can. I'm tired of this nonsense.