Musings of a Rogue Mind

It’s going to be hard to convince people that Blu-Ray is a superior format if you can’t even skip to the main menu…

I wish I could be more specific, but allow me to just say that I am in a prime position to discern the overall attitude of video gamers.

The recent outage of the PlayStation Network (and the continued outage of the PlayStation Store) has yielded some curious revelations. Seeing the reactions of people as they attempt to cope with loss of the PSN was - shall we say - interesting.

One of the things I noticed is the rage. Yes, I’ll admit that such an outage can at least be described as an inconvenience. For those games that don’t include offline multi-player, this makes playing with your friends virtually impossible. And if you were playing Dc Universe Online, this is made even worse by the complete lack of offline play. Yes, it sucks, but the level of rage I saw directed at Sony was baffling. People were actually blaming Sony for the outage, despite the well-publicized hacking. Some of them even felt that Sony did it on purpose. The level of misplaced blame was rather odd.

More curious than the rage was the obsession. I spoke to numerous people who were having withdrawal-like symptoms by not being able to play online. Naturally, this was most evident in Call Of Duty players, many of whom play nothing else (or do anythingelse for that matter). I had the chance to meet several people who were so obsessed with online play that they traded in their PlayStation to get an Xbox. That’s right: rather than wait a few weeks to play online again (or better, broaden their gaming experience by playing something other than Call of Duty), these folks would literally drop a couple hundred dollars to buy a brand-new system, solely for the purpose of playing online as soon as possible.

And then, of course, there’s the, “What is Sony going to do for me?” crowd. To be clear, I do firmly believe that Sony should do something for their customers, even though PlayStation Netowrk is a largely free service. When I initially heard that they were going to give all PSN customers a free month of PSN Plus, I thought that was fine (of course, those who already had it would get that month tacked on to the end of their subscriptions, and those playing SOE games like DC Universe Online would also get compensated for the downtime). But that wasn’t enough, was it? Of course not; now I’ve heard that Sony is going to be giving away free digital versions of some games, including LittleBigPlanet. And some gamers feel that this still isn’t enough.

The outage of PlayStation Network has revealed many (certainly not all) gamers to be a bunch of whiny brats. The outage didn’t cause these people to be this way; it just allowed their true colors to show. It has shown us that the gaming community, despite repeated protests to the contrary, has yet to fully mature. All the above traits are akin to a kid throwing a temper tantrum when their mother takes away their favorite toy. Yes, the outage was unfortunate and certainly bad for gamers, but I’ve got news for you:

It wasn’t Sony’s fault - they got hacked; the world didn’t end - your PS3 can play games offline, too; Call of Duty will still be there when everything is fixed - but you really should try something else for a change; you and your friends need to grow up.

So by now, it’s offical: the world didn’t end on 5/21/11. We’re all still here, and I have heard exactly ZERO reports of anybody being Raptured. Most of us had some good fun with it today (includng numerous ‘rapture’ photos and one awesome video).

But I’d like to address those folks who truly believed that the world should be over right now:

How does it feel to be the biggest laughingstock in America right now?

So many people actually gave up their lives (not literally, of course) for this belief. It was so solid in them that they gave up their jobs, their homes… even their families. They took this message on the road, bringing it to the unbelievers, trying so desperately to convince people that the Rapture was coming.

How’s that working out for you now?

I’m actually of two minds about how to deal with these people. If my brother had been one of these people, how would I treat him? Would I welcome him back with open arms, and try to ease his sorrow and pain? I’d certainly be tempted. My brother and I don’t get along all that well, but I DO love him. He’s my brother.

But can I truly excuse that kind of idiocy? I don’t know. I’d like to think I could for the sake of a loved one.

But the fact remains that these people are delusional. Even as an atheist, I know that the Bible clearly states that only God knows when the Rapture will happen. No amount of math is going to allow us ‘mere mortals’ to figure it out.

This whole mess is yet another example of why religion is bad: otherwise sensible people are reduced to mindless sheep who will believe anything - and will gladly pay you for it.

Religion (not faith - I differentiate the two) is dangerous. Religion allows nutjobs like this a forum to spread their nonsense (or hate, in the case of the Westboro Baptist Church). Religion has been the cause of more issues in the past than any other source. Religion is the reason some states wish to deny abortions to teenagers who are the victims of rape and incest. Religion is why many states are legalizing second-class (by denying same-sex couples the right to marry).

I’m not saying you can’t have a personal relationship with God. I don’t, but that’s my choice. And that’s the real beauty of it - choice. Faith is all about choice. You can choose to worship your god in any way you choose (so long, of course, as it doesn’t negatively impact others - I’m looking at you human sacrifice). Or can choose not to.

Religion doesn’t give choices. Religion gives orders.

Recently, while coming out of the mall, I passed a vehicle with a curious pait of stickers.

The first was a sticker proclaiming the driver to be US Army (retired). The second was a sticker that read, “Waterboard Liberals”.

One can assume that if this person is retired from the army, then they had probably spent a good number of years in the service. And if that’s the case, then it’s also likely that this person had possbily fought in at least one conflict (most likely Desert Storm). Again, much of this is speculation, but it all makes sense.

So this person spent years defending our freedoms, one of which is the freedom of speech. Yet, they are now suggesting that we tortue those who disagree with our standpoint - not our actual enemies, just our fellow Americans with a different viewpoint. This is clear hypocrisy, one that most often comes from the right.

I think I’m going to start taking pictures of things like this as I see them. Someone needs to expose the lies of the right.

Every time I hear/see something cool about a Transformers movie, something causes it to blow up in my face. Case in point: Bay tossed Megan Fox, so he decided to actually bring back continuity and dig up Carly (Spike’s girlfriend in G1). So who did they get to play her? A model. Look it up on IMDB yourself. Her ONLY previous credits are (A) Britain’s Next Top Model (though as a judge, it seems); and (B) the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. I’m all for eye candy, but for a big-budget film, don’t you think you should get someone with SOME acting experience?!

For starters, it’s about damn time.

I think the American people will rest a little easier now, knowing that Public Enemy #1 has been killed. People are cheering in the streets outside the White House (and, I imagine, in most large citites). After all the crap we’ve had to put up with in the last ten years, I think we’ve some jubilation.

Make no mistake though: The job isn’t done. Al-Qaeda is not going to just disappear overnight as a result. We still have armed concflicts (I wish people would stop using the term ‘war’ here…) in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention our contributions to the situation in Libya. We have so many hands involved in the Arab world that there are still plenty of people who want to kill us.

We can address that in a day or two. For now, though:

Party on, dudes!

I’m going to assume that one isn’t going to make a huge name for oneself by setting up a free tumblr blog, but one must start somewhere, yes? This shall be the start location for all thoughts I have regarding numerous subjects including, but not limited to:

-Religion

-Politics

-The state of humanity, and what we can do to fix it

I shall warn you now that I will say things that will offend people, and I may share some thoughts that will prove wildly unpopular.