Sad State of Affairs

There was once a golden age, its time has come and gone, and the worst part is, those of us who grew up in that age, remember it. As time goes by, and things become less golden, the sheen wears off, it peels back to reveal maybe layers of lead, we start to fight, but its often too late.

At some point in time, we worked from 8 to death, we gathered food, tilled soil, fed animals, built our own farms, attended festivals, met friends, made enemies, had no expenses to deal with, just the gnawing stomach when times were lean and the fear of lean times when times were plentiful.

Then we left the farms, put on shirts, studied in school from 5 to 12, got city jobs to pay for food, and realised we had whole afternoons, lit with candles to entertain ourselves. Musical Instruments? Local friends? maybe some home-still juice? everything we needed.

But Winters were still cold, they needed wood from the forests delivered, or gas piped into the house. This cost money, so incomes needed to increase, so jobs needed higher pays, but through badly managed economies, we needed the elderly to leave work to allow young people to start, else they'd be unemployable, so now the retirement age came in.

Then we started to create entertainment, and whole industries of entertainment, but we needed money for entertainment, this meant more studies, so we went to school from 4 to 21, to get better paid jobs, but we needed electricity for entertainment, so we needed to create bigger plants, more power, more logistics, more grids, more networks, til now, its all one big network, called the Internet.

So, we're all entertained, so much so, that we don't have time for anything else, we're all connected, so much we don't want to connect.

Its like when I traveled overseas for years and years, I was not here, so when I visited, everyone wanted to see me, talk to me, visit me, because I was not available, but when I moved back here, 'we'll catch up' can mean not seeing friends for years and years, yet they live a stones throw away.

A Lack of something, creates desire for something.

Now, things have gone past this spectrum, we've passed through the eye of the storm, and things are taking a turn for the worst. instead of making lives better for everyone, we're reverting back to the old ways.

Old people, need to work longer to pay the bills, so they push for older retirement limits, this often provides governments with more income as unretired 60+yr olds are usually on the higher spectrum of incomes = more taxes. So the age of retirement creeps from 60, to 65, to 70.

Soon enough people will be working while in school, but because they're doing it all part time, they'll be in school longer, til 30 or worse.

They'll be unable to earn enough to start saving enough to create a nest, let alone a nest egg, so they won't be able to retire, as the prices of house climbs up and up beyond the means of any 30-40yr old.

The price of schools, education, healthcare, medical aid, living, gas, electricity, banking fees, transfer fees, it'll all go pear shaped as the cost to live will outdo the cost to die. the middle class will be squeezed, having children will be so expensive, only the top 1% will be able to put their kids through schools, the rest will go back to working menial jobs, curating videos or likes on entertainment social media for pittance, just to afford food, while living in sweat boxes.. better than outside in the cold.

The poor will be trapped in the never ending cycle of economical slavery, the middle class struggling to make do, with the rare few rising from the pile to greatness, giving hope to the rest, but its all part of the system in place to ensure the mass middle class don't rise up to topple the system. The few elite might cease to exist, as they slowly but surely put all the decisions into the hands of AI, too fast to be unplugged, the elite slip back down into the system themselves, unable to stop any changes.

Just like those babyboomers, realising now that they messed up so much, they're unable to make any changes, the system is a runaway train. The young are too engrossed in their mobile entertainment wallets to notice the chains being clamped around their feet.

How to escape? and where to escape to? remote forests? back to nature? I don't want to escape all of it, just the part where bills became more dominant than income, where people paid for entertainment, than make their own with their voices, their instruments, their hands and their minds.

The Goal?

I'd prefer a future where electricity is free, solar panels and watermills take care of it all. People work 20 hour weeks, study 10 more all their lives, can afford to buy a place to live by the time they are 30, so they can devote the next 20 years to something bigger than mortgages, bigger than themselves, 'Sundays' are forced offline, enjoy a full day off where shops and offices and banks and everything is shut, and TV is off and people have no choice but to get outdoors and just be.

Can we work towards that? please?

Kickstarters, You LIARS

I see you want to create something, and you need some financial help, thats great, how can I help? Money? Hmm, well, sure, but what do I get for my money? a copy of the product you are making, well that's fair. I'll pay for 1 copy, and help get my 100 friends to pay for a copy too, so you can produce it. How much each? $100? well, its a bit steep, but we love what you're doing, so sure, we'll all give you $100, we'll all talk about it, and help it, and grow it and be part of the community, so you can make your game.

within the month...

YAY, we funded it..

6-18 months later

YAY its delivered

3 months later, but sometimes at the same time...

What?! The game I lovingly helped create, and spent $100 on, and then another $20 in shipping, is at my local shop for $60? WTF.. HEY Kickstarter Guy.. Whats going on? You sold it to the shops cheaper than to US? I could have bought this for $60.. man this sucks, Kickstarter Sucks! I'm never going to buy anything from Kickstarter again.. B&*(&@#^%ds you screwed me.. how dare you.

Sound Familiar?

Welcome to Bannister Rails, where I act like an old man and have a screaming rant fest about things that annoy me. Sometimes I even go off the rails..

Kickstarter Scams and the Lifecycle of Funding Projects

I'm a Kickstarter Super Backer, this means I have backed over 25 projects of at least $10 each, within the last 3 years, or it was when I looked it up last. So I've had my fair share of the cycles of many projects. Of the 50+ projects I backed (maybe closer to 100), I have yet to receive half, some, because I only recently backed them, so their delivery is 2019 or 2020, some have yet to deliver, even though they said 2018 or 2017. Of those in the latter category, I think only one might not ever get made, and for kickstarter that's pretty good odds.

I've read about a few people who have backed four or more products, and have received nothing to date. Most of them have never backed anything again, and they have a right to that.

There was a time when I felt that backing anything on kickstarter was a coin toss if A), you'd get anything, B) you'd get something along the lines of what you were expecting, but poor quality in comparison to the hype, and rarely C) you'd get exactly what they said they were making (or even rarer.. something better)

As time has gone by, the vetting process of Kickstarter has enabled many various people to assess the project, let other know if its unlikely to back or not, based on their collective experience. As a result its much rarer to get nothing, you're pretty much always going to get something, yet are you going to get your moneys worth.

Some people get a bad feeling in their mouth about things, and they spew it out onto the forums of the next KS project that looks like it maybe, might, do the same thing that the last one did. Its an unfortunately cycle, but slowly we have begun circling the drainpipe of bad KS decisions, and while I hope it doesn't kill the platform, I'd prefer it dead than zombified version of itself consuming projects and spitting out filth before eventually rotting away.

What am I talking about?

In the beginning, you backed a project, you backed the project creators, you and a crowd, got together an mutually agreed to fund this project because of several reasons:

* You want to see the company succeed, if they produce this project, they are likely to produce similar projects in the future and you want to be on their mailing list and maybe get a discount for future products as an extra reward for helping build the company.
* You want the product they are making, there is a chance you might get nothing for your money, or a poorly produced product, but that risk is mitigated because you're getting something extra for your risk.

But whats happening now is out of sync:

* You're not being treated as a part of the process of making the product, you've being treated as a cash-cow by the company. Someone who'll buy their product, each and every time, regardless of the quality.
* You're being treated as a dupe, someone who is spending their money up front, because they are scared of missing out. where if they just waited, it'd come to them cheaper and faster.

How can I think/say this?

I engage in the board game community more than other KS communities, I have backed some books, some art, some minis and some tech, and each has their good and bad projects, but I have a majority of board games, so Its easier to pick on targets from that.. so here we go

Some companies have figured out they can produce a half ok game, pack in Lots of Miniatures, and I mean LOTS of miniatures.

See back in the day, Games Workshop produced the best minis, and they had, and still have, a premium price tag. 2 hours wages for a commander, or 3 hours wages for a box of 10 units.

Now, with 3D printing prototypes, 3D cad tools to design, companies like Reaper and CMON can produce decent quality minis at 50c and $2 each respectively, so they can ask people for a couple of hundred dollars for a box of a hundred minis, and like CMON, with some game tacked on, and they know they'll get funded, because the mini buyers are all over that price.

We saw a similar situation happen in the computer games industry. Decent titles being pushed to the back by weak games with fantastic graphics. Now its weak games with lots of minis.

These Mini boxes with some game rules treat the backer as more of a cash cow.. the mini backers will help fund the game and the game backers won't want to miss out on the latest hot 'lots of minis' game.

I can't fault them too much, because they still follow the basics of my understanding of how KS backers should be in on the deal. They produce a game, the game has a retail price for the base set, and a kickstarter set of goodies for the kickstarter backer. They seem to break even on the base + KS goodies, because they'll make a profit on the retail + add-ons, they know that a fair percentage of people are going to get some or all the add-ons, and all the spares will go into retail as limited edition box sets with a half decent hefty mark-up.

Game company wins, KS backer wins, retailer can win if they stock only enough to make some sales but don't get greedy, non KS backer loses out?

This, is to some extent where the issue lies. If the retailer stocks too much, he has to discount the excess stock and then if the kickstarter backer has only backed retail and sees a retail version cheaper than his retail version, then the KS backer has lost out too.

So Issue #1, Retail versions going cheaper than Backer versions.

The other side, the KS company sets the price point for retailers so that its difficult to discount it lower than the Backer 'retail' version. Now the retailer is paying more, so the price has to be higher to begin with, and Retail customers are far more fickle on price than KS backers, so the games don't sell til they discount down to the same price as the KS price, because information is free and anyone can look up the RRP of the KS, but what retailer is going to buy in on a game that has such a small profit margin?

So Issue #2, Retails won't stock the product, and the KS project needs those retail sales to increase the production, so the cost to produce is lower per product!

OR, the KS project treats the backer as a dupe, their Fear of missing out (FOMO) means they'll pay a higher up front price for a product with the hopes they're getting a better deal, then, when they discover they are not, they can't return the goods, they can't sell it for the price they paid to the average consumer, because the retail price is lower, they can maybe sell at 70% cost, taking a 30% loss, a terrible investment, or they can try to recoup some worth by opening it, playing it a few times, and then selling it at 50% of cost, at least saving themselves some other potential cost of going to the movies or out to a bar, which would have cost $50-$100 (petrol, parking, food, tickets, drinks, taxi, etc) yet, these days there is another cost.. the other games you bought and the time loss of playing a game you don't really like, just to get some worth, vs a game you do like, so you can have an enjoyable evening.

Double Screwed.

So, the conclusion to that part is: If you don't go in for the KS exclusives, you won't have a resellable product, and if they're going to bring out retail, you may as well wait for the discounted version.

Heck.. if the game isn't the be all and end all for you, you may as well wait until one of those dupes above, sells his game at 70% brand new or 50% used.

This grinds me so much..

Stretch Goals, Kickstarter exclusives, dangerous waters.. 

There are two kinds of Stretch goals IMO, one good and one bad. Stretch goals can either add to a game, or confuse a game. A Good stretch goal improves the product quality, and a bad stretch goal, either should have been there all along, or should be a well thought out expansion, not a last minute tacked on untested fail.

There are two ways to consider a product improvement. When the Stretch goal is going to take a pretty good game and just make it all the better, that's a good stretch goal.

Case in point. You can produce cards for your game in around 5 possible qualities. The blue-core and linen finish are pricey, they are nice, but they are not required to make a game great, they just add a tad more durability, and quality. the 3rd quality, is often used by quality games and is a great starting point. If your game raises more funds, you can offer up the core & linen as stretch goals.

But if you start at paper and bring the product up to mid tier.. that's a bad stretch goal. You shouldn't try to fund your product as the crappiest version and stretch goal your way to average.

A Similar aspect is game components.

If your putting standees in, cardboard tokens, to represent your game characters. You'll likely miss out on a set of backers that want minis for all games, but you'll get a large number of people that can't afford to pay $$$ for a board game and are happy to play with standees, if they can at least play the game.

Offering a standee version and a mini version, you're going to get two sets of backers, you'll have to do some logistics to ensure you get enough mini backers to break even, but with stretch goals to unlock these, you can ensure that your staggered costs don't break the bank. classically, heroes, boss monsters, monsters and furniture, in that order, could be unlocked as add-ons, and then if you get everything unlocked, you can group them together for the 'mini version'

Or, maybe run two campaigns back to back.. to ensure the numbers of each set.

But some companies actually drop whole parts of their game instead, taking out monsters in sets, but selling them as add-ons. Add-ons should always enhance the game, not be required to play.

Apparently, there is an argument against kickstarter exclusives. Retail sales loss. There are people who will see a retail version of the game, knowing that there are KS exclusive add-ons who will not buy the retail version, because the FOMO on the extras. To acquire those extras, you'll need to convince someone to part with their extras, but not with the main game, or you'll end up with the main game and need to try to find someone else to buy just the main from you, hopefully at cost (but why would they, since its in retail at 25% off!)

This is the dangerous waters that came up before, that I touched on.. How Kickstarter has created this backlash situation, unintentionally, which is causing the issues and problems.

What IS kickstarter.

If its a retail platform, that allows people to buy a product, that would be harder to sell in the traditional manner, then why are traditional retailers even getting this product at all, and even if they are, surely its such a small amount that it doesn't cause too many problems..

If traditional retailers are happy to take on a product, then why didn't they in the first place?

You can't win both ways.. either take the risk, back the game as a bunch of retailers and sell it in retail, or run the campaign for backers and don't cater to the retailers at all for the Kickstarter product. Retail it later on 2nd print.

Solution?

Maybe a whole new website "RetailBackers", once your campaign has come to an end, your fixed costs are all paid for and you want to sell another round of games, the retailers all come together, get a 15% discount to purchase 6-12 copies, and the sales price is 25-50% higher than the KS price.

These retailers are getting a known selling game, but also, the main audience has already got a copy, so their market are those who could not back it in time, didn't have the money, or wanted to see if it was worth it and the standard retail customer who might buy as much as a year later.

KS backers who don't like the game can on-sell at cost, or up to a % of the retail price based on if they opened it or not. unscrupulous retailers who bought in early but at the higher price can sell their limited but was risky stock. If the game tanked, they'd lose out, if it rocks, they win.. like stock market.

Seems more like a win for all, except the greedy, who never deserve to win.

Conclusion

Being a KS backer has risks, Its one thing to back a game that may or may not be produced, that may be produced but lower quality than expected or advertised, you can research to mitigate this. Yet, having to make a choice that the game may retail lower than the backer price, may be delivered to retail before arriving at your door and at least you can see some reviews on the game before forking out any cash, breaks the whole KS model.

Why back/pay for a game that is just going to be in shops, cheaper, faster and stress free..

Final thoughts - with less rant:

Traditional Product creation allowed the product to be created at costs 1, sold to a merchandising company at price 2, who sells to a warehouse at 3, on to the retailer at 5 who sells to the customer at 7-10 dependant on seasons.

When the creator sells to the customer, they don't have the costs of the merchandiser, the warehouser or the retailer, but they also don't have the skills, the room to stock it, or the shop front. Yet in the world of websites and connectivity, They now have the shop front, and storage 'can' be cheap.

Yet deals have to be made between the stock you sell yourself and the stock sold to the merchandiser. If you undercut them, they won't buy from you and Traditionally, they couldn't undercut you, due to the price difference.

Kickstarter products are sold at such low volumes, that the fixed costs are not mitigated across tens of thousands of units, so the cost to produce is much higher. Yet once the product is produced, the fixed cost no-longer exist, so it seems simple to just cut the price for the next run, and supply the retailers at a lower price.

No deal has been formally made between the stock being sold by the KS creator and the retailer, so the retailer is in a position to undercut the creator. Most of the time, this is just discounts to clear stock. But unscrupulous online retailers are offering sets upfront at 10+% cheaper than the KS itself, with lower or hidden delivery costs. Either way the KS creator loses out, so the retail customer and retailer win.

KS backers, smartening up, will be unlikely to back a project if the retailers get the same deal, and retailers are unlikely to buy a KS project from retail if they don't get the full product. Damned if you do, Damned if you don't.

So, whats the preferred Win-Win? KS Creator and KS Backer, in my opinion, but whats happening more is the Win-Win is the online retailer and the KS aware retail customer, both of which screwing the KS ecology. Retail backers don't increase the funding, don't increase the rewards offered and this is a Win/Lose for the Creator, The Project only gets retailers if the project funds, the retailers don't back the project, they only 'open the door' for retail options. The only way a KS project is funded above and beyond, is if the Backers feel like their getting a great product, a great deal and will miss out if they don't get it now, (FOMO)

I have increasingly seen backer groups demand exclusives from a product or they pull out, They may not have the knowledge or the insight to understand their feelings well enough, but they are saying the same thing..

Why back it now, if I can get it cheaper later.. I'm waiting a year anyway, I can wait.. 

Final Final thoughts.. Backlash as a result:

I have seen private groups form, where a retailer forms a small team of at least 5, that purchase a retail pledge and buy 6 copies at the retail price, paying the Taxes themselves (on a reduced price) and their team all get a copy, maybe 10% maybe 50% cheaper than the standard KS backer, This only works for KS projects that give out retail copies, identical to KS copies. Follow that rabbit hole, and you might see KS just falling apart at the seems in the next few years.

Coconut, my new Enemy

[Disclaimer: Bannister Rails is a grumpy old man that takes over from time to time and likes to complain about life, he enjoys it, and leaves me alone for weeks afterwards.. just smile and be polite]

Dear Food Companies:

I noticed this increase in the amount of coconut at my local cheesecake shop. The delicious creamy top, now sweeter than normal, had a base of woodchips.. that's right WOODCHIPS!

Now, I might be getting on in my years, 300+, but I know that eating woodchips is not good for you. I even did the research, thanks to this new fangled interwebs

Coconuts are trans-hippy fat wood seeds. They're seeds, they grow trees, and you want to eat them. Ok, lets look at seeds in general.. full of trans hippy fats, usually taste nutty, but they're all filled to each and ever bite with fats (they need these fats to grow into trees)

But I don't need these fats, and I especially don't like chewing on woodchips.

Yet here was my local cheesecake shop, making their entire base practically from woodchips, blurgh!

Next, I noticed it creepin into my health-food bars.. WHAT? FAT is getting in a health food bar? O.M.F.G. What is happening..

well it seems that the hippy nutritionists started saying it has the good fats, but they failed to mention, it ALSO has the bad fats.. so you gotta be careful you don't eat too much of it.. yet my afternoon snack bar was chock full of coconut woodchips.. great.. So i changed brand.. and THEY had MORE coconut woodchips! Argh,, its a conspiracy..

So I googled it.. and nothing.. How is this possible, not a single post or topic or page about the cocnut conspiracy.. obviously they've squashed all the news.. I'd expect that sometime soon this site will get taken down because I've discovered the awful truth!

its the 6th hated food in the world! Hows that, seems I'm not so crazy after all.. HA..

So how come all this coconut is coming in? Price.. and Hippy Food Groups

Compared to Wheat, coconut is cheaper, its perceived wrongly as a health food because of advertising.. there you are again, my old nemesis "ADVERTISING!", people without any google-foo skills are clueless as to how bad coconuts are for you, so they believe this hype and pay MORE for the right to have coconut milk in their starblurgs coffees..

Of course it tastes nicer.. its full of fats..

So, Now I spend another 30% of my shopping time, reading ingrediants lists, and throwing products on the floor when I see the dreaded words...

... coconut ...

How can you people LIVE?

Now there comes a time in every old mans life, when he gets on a bus, and asks himself the question.. where am I getting off? If I'm getting off in 1-2 stops.. I'll go stand by the door.. if I'm getting off in 3-5 stops, I'll sit by the door if there is room or stand close enough. If any longer, I'll take a seat. Then 2-3 stops before mine, I'll excuse myself from the seat, and move towards the door, letting each person quickly see that I'm going to go for the doors soon and get off, so they can politely move out of my way.

This kind of thinking is critical for living. Bills coming soon? bank the money for a few weeks in advance, although with the way banks are going, it'd be safer to bury it in your backyard. Then when the bill arrives, pay it.. up-front. Nice and easy.. Personally I buy some shares and sell them again to pay the bills, that way I earn a little of the difference in the three months.

But these kids today.. whats up with them, credit cards to buy stuff today and pay tommorrow, then more credit cards to pay off the other credit cards.. kids, don'tcha know, if you get a credit card, you're just giving 7% of your money to the banks? rising their profit margins? where will that money come from? every year 7% of all money is siphoned off by the banks, and it never goes back into the system.. that's why everything costs more, we're all chasing those gawd dang banks.. and losing... by 7%..

And it all starts with thinking ahead.. yes, thats right.. if you are the kind of person that needs to jump up and push past people to get off the bus, you're the problem with this world. Your attitude is whats bringing us all down into the pit.

Breakfast is Breakfast, don't take away my breakfast

Dear Media,

Dear Media..

I've been bombarded with an overwhelming amount of social and news media about the "normal" times to have a meal. Yes, I'm old, but I have learn't to use the twizzler and the facedjournal. I can still read, my eye's ain't gone yet.


In my day, we had breakfast in the morning, you know breakfast actually means to break fast, so it matters not what you eat for breakfast, you can eat cereal (disgusting stuff to my mind) bacon and eggs, mushrooms, steak, a sand which is a good thing. Lunch happened in the middle of the day, because its fast, you just lunch yourself at the food, then its done. then at the end of the day you sit down and properly dine, knives and forks, proper like, with napkins. Oh and if you woke up in the night, you grabbed some more of that delicious artichoke soup that Aunt flo would make. We used to say the verb 'to soup' but eventually it changed to sup.. and I think my grandkids used to say supper.

So whats up?

Some nincompoop has got it in their head, that breakfast is only the food, if you eat bacon and eggs for lunch, its breakfast, well maybe if you haven't eaten yet, then yes.. you can wake at 3pm and eat breakfast, everyone would be eating a late lunch or afternoon tea, and you'd be sitting there along with them, eating exactly the same food and it'd be breakfast for you.. thats perfectly fine. but I mean, if I want bacon and eggs for dinner, that's perfectly fine, but its not breakfast, its dinner.

But then some bigwigs in govt, they were going to do a brochure, and the artist in commission is in a tizzy because someone said, "you can't have an icon of Bacon and Eggs for Breakfast, Not everyone can have bacon and eggs for breakfast", not everyone eats breakfast, you need a symbol that's more inclusive of the other forms of breakfast.

The argument got quite heated, as per the news, a heated exchange took place, but no blood was spilled so I doubt the word heated nor exchange was truly appropriate, maybe they had a tizzy is all, but young folks today are such pussies, its hard for them to know what a real heated exchanged means... because the heat was generated from the guns and the blasting and the warfare, as you exchange bullets, and a heated argument is when blood is needed to cool down, by smacking it out of the face of the one who started it.

So there's all this tizzy about pictures being used by society and how the minority are all in a tizzy because of it. Pictures have meaning. You can't just go taking away the picture, nor can you change it. It is what it is, and no amount of chanting and ranting is every going to make a rainbow anything less than a bridge made by a leprachaun to find a pot of gold.

Sure, the young folk try to make wicked things from exciting things, and cool things from interesting things, because its easier to say "cooooool' and 'wiii-ked' than it is to say "that is very interesting" or "those things excite my creativity" like normal grownups, but eventually wicked things once again become evil, malignant things, and cool is a level of cold that is tolerable.

So Breakfast is still bacon and Eggs, lunch is still a sandwhich, dinner is steak and mashed potatoe and supper is soup.. because anyone with any sense of decency and education can quickly identify those symbols, regardless if they eat those foods themselves, which is most likely 90% of the world, but they can see the symbol and say "ahh, food" without the need for text in the right language, you don't need to include every single variety of breakfast, clever people will know it means breakfast, and stupid people don't matter.
 

Spoilers!

When did this word begin to creep into the language.. probably about the time it became normal to watch movies years later on VHS, but more regularly now that we stream what we want..

[spoiler warning .... this blog has spoilers]

Don't tell me.. Spoilers!! 

Do you remember watching each and every Teenage mutant Ninja Turtles as they came out? me neither.. in Australia we were lucky if the channels stuck to the correct order of shows, let alone stuck to the same season.

But growing up with TV, you only got to see new episodes of anything the same friggin time as everyone else. So the next day at school or at work, you could talk about the new episode.

Moreso, was Movies, it happened from time to time, our 'clique' would go to the movies as a group, and we'd be talking about Predator for days, replaying parts in our minds, getting it wrong, rewatching it years later on VHS and complaining how this wasn't the movie that Danny described, Danny's version was better.

Movies were only "good" for the first 2 weeks, if you hadn't seen a movie by then, you were 'low class' or 'ousted' by virtue of either not being in the right 'clique' or being uncultured. (As an Adult I know better, Australia, unlike Yoghurt, has no real culture)

But Now we have Netflix and Showtime and Torrents and we watch, when we want, and so, half the time when I want to talk about Game of thrones, I always have to ask.. Have you seen, episode, um. what number was it? the one when the big guy stabs the little guy...

HEY SPOILERS!!

Sh*te, now I have to remember and catalog the numbers of the episodes, and as often, the name of the episode, like, ok, have you seen the red wedding (which in my mind is already a spoiler anyway.. red = blood = death, and we already know its two groups, one betrayed the other, so its extremely obvious who is going to kill who, do I even need to watch the episode now that I know?),

The Rains of Castamere

Season 3, Episode 9

See I even had to look it up, and then Copy Paste, because quite frankly I don't care to know the name and number of the episode.. Why is it even called rains of Castamere.. wouldn't it make more sense to call the episode Red Wedding? Its all we remember from that one anyway..

So, Gone is the day or chatter about last nights television, Gone is the chatter about the latest movie, because the only people that watch the same things I watch, is the person who's sitting beside me.

Hey Hunny, remember last night when we watched House of cards? Do you think he'll become VP?




Eventually, I hope/expect that you'll no longer pay for a channel, but instead pay for a viewing / show. They'll be like drugs.. first 3 episodes for free, $0.10 per episode + 5c per star as given by voters who have shown good taste in movies. good tv shows will raise a 3-5 million an episode, poor shows barely $100k. sorta like youtube, but with better star/like system.  

Irrelevant Useless Me Generation

I blame the parents and the eduction system. They give prizes to kids for participation. so Now they all think they are relevant to everything in life.

Why you don't actually matter 90% of the time, so shut up.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

-Mark Twain

Recently I've seen this as a reply on some forums and chat rooms, facebook posts and tweets; It irks me, to no end.

I Ask the question: Who here is a Doctor? and get answers, I am not. Sorry, I'm not a doctor. Too bad I'm not a doctor.

When I was a lad, if your teacher asked such a question and students replies in the negative, you would get berated by the teacher for wasting her time. "I didn't ask who WASN'T a Doctor, I asked Who WAS - 50 lines, I must not waste the teachers time."

These days, the teachers hand out prizes to kids for 'being at school' or 'running the race' so that every kids grows up with some sense of worth, useless worth. 

You are worth nothing, you don't matter to 99.99999% of the planet, the faster you get used to the fact that your opinion, your ideas, your world is a small little bubble of your own perception, that can be shattered into a billion pieces with .. no wait.. thats the problem.. no matter what life throws at these people, their perception will rarely be shattered.. sure maybe a crack might appear in yours after you read this, and you might see the reality beyond, but 99.9999% of the planet, after reading this, would say "You need therapy" LOL.. because what I write here? now? this is my little bubble.. and it doesn't matter back.

Changing someones mind is a very hard thing to do. You either agree before you read, and this blog will only reinforce your opinion or you don't and you'll be offended (or just ignore) everything I'm writing.

So next time you see a question: Hey are you relevant to this question? ask yourself before you respond. If I'm not relevant, Why should I say anything at all? I'm just wasting time writing, so that they waste time reading and I show the world I'm an irrelevant useless dope. 

CRaPaGe

To All you Kids,

It has once again come to my attention that you are all a little uninformed about the state of affairs when it comes to things.

So, as per my responsibility as an adult, I am here to inform you when you do things that make you look stupid.

Making up words is fun, and you get the limelight for your cool, hip, knarly, bad, good, wicked, don't have a cow man, cowabunga, lingo.. but at the end of your high-school years, you'll probably forget them all anyway, and look back nostalgically in your grey years at the bodaciousnesss of your youth.

And I am aware that language changes, words change meanings, being gay isn't so happy anymore, and rainbows don't have gold at the end, mostly because people stopped using the word in one way, and began to use it in another, and fogerties like myself remember a time when we were gay about that.

But, and this is one hellova butt. But, when a word is being used, by a community.. and not just a tiny little niche group.. but pretty much a whole chunk of geek internet.. its understood that they OWN that word.. its not available to go dilly dallying with. You can't just start saying that twitter means to have a coffee, mostly cause twitter will sue you into the stone age.. when I was born...

No, No, No.. if you want to use language, and not sound like a complete spit-wad, google it.

no, better yet.. Wiki it.

I give you CRPG, or in my day, Crappage. Computers hard a hard time making decent plots, and since ROLE play games are all about plots.. it sorta pretty much didn't really cut it. No Sir Re, It did not. hence, Crappage!

Now, skip forward 10 years, and people started making better computer games, and they got better at pathing, and scripting and such, and so the CRPG games got better, and some american nincompoop went and named them RPVGs, roleplay videogames. Video.. where is the Video in a Computer game? Hmm? but thats a different Rail for another day..

No, a Roleplay Game pretty much started to mean a story based game, and that was fine..

Then you lot came along, with out your beatings and gruel to keep you in line, you think its ok to smash words around without any respect.. and worse yet, you write blogs and make U-Tube videos about it.. Gak makes me sick.. so now there are so many litttle twerps out there writing videos about RPG Games.. Pfft, its like ATM Machines and PIN Numbers.. idiots.. but when I see a nice link about 'top 10 selling RPGs or Best RPG battle systems.. I expect to come across an insightful article about how someone made a great review about roleplay games.. Not a damn Computer game.. who gives a fly about the battle systems of Computer games.. you can't take the time to pick the best skill for a fight in a damn computer game, they just go to fast to make the right decision.. everyone alive knows that button mashing rules 80% of the time.. wheres the skill in button mashing..

sheesh.. damn kids...