'online gamer' my arse.
From the BBC:
Not your typical online gamer
Women like Margaret Nickolls, a 56-year-old financial administrator from Hertfordshire, are fuelling the growth of casual games on the net, according to a recent report. Here she explains the attraction:
Margaret likes to play bingo and card games on the net
I started playing games online about six months ago, when my son introduced me to it.
I'd tried the odd game before, but had never played for money. I normally play for about an hour and a half, twice a week, and I probably spend an average of £10 per week, or should I say I allow myself to lose up to £10 per week.
If I win a small amount, I normally put it back into the pot to play again, but if I win a significant amount, maybe £30 or more, I ask for it to be refunded to my credit card.
There are online games and there's online gaming. I play online games. I was in a Battlefield 1942 tournament for over a year, I've got an Xbox and with a LIVE account and I've just got Unreal Tournament 2004. I'm a gamer, not a gambler and I don't want the two to be confused.
Perhaps I'm being overly sensitive about this - like a record collector arguing over the difference between two ostensibly similar albums - but for me gaming is about fun. Nothing more. There's no ulterior motive to my hopping on a server and shooting the shit out of people. There aren't any fruit machines waiting to pay out, no horses to gee on.
I'm not there because I might win something - I'm there because I enjoy it. I don't have time to articulate this properly, but there's something pure about that.
BBC news story on hag wasting money on online gambling.
IDgaf on 06.15.04 @ 01:57 PM GMT [link]
That was the strangest explanation I've ever heard.
I know what you're thinking. You're asking yourself "What is a 'compound adjective'?" Here's your answer:
A compound adjective is a group of words that provides a single description of a noun that follows. Use hyphens between the words to make the words appear as a single unit. Thus, proper hyphenation of compound adjectives increases understanding and speeds the reader along.
Examples:
• The Small Business Administration approved a small-business loan for $2 million.
• He said that the large-appliance industry has been weakened by the recent economic depression.
• His "better-late-than-never" attitude kept him from hearing the opening remarks of many meetings.
The subject of compound adjectives arose in an agency meeting I was at today, after I was asked to explain what one was. I was there with my boss (a man), a female account manager and a male account director.
I thought for a couple of seconds for a suitable example. I knew what I wanted to say. I wanted to say "Must-see movie would be a compound adjective". I'd used the phrase before. It was there in my brain, waiting for retrieval. Except it wasn't. It had dissapeared. So I said the next thing that came into my head:
"An example of a compound adjective would be WELL-HUNG MAN."
Silence.
"I don't know where that came from," I lied, telling myself to stop looking at porn involving that Cuban guy whose sausage is big as Berlin. (The look on the women's faces...)
It was only slightly more embarassing than when my boss told me to stop talking to female colleagues about pornography.
Adjective link.
IDgaf on 06.03.04 @ 08:13 PM GMT [link]
He's a bad mother... Shut your mouth!
According to the BBC, China intends to monitor video game content and has set up censorship committe that's responsible for 'banning content that could "threaten national security".
A Swedish WW2 game that portrayed Manchuria, Tibet and Xianjing as independent nations has been banned and previously a title called Project IGI2: Secret Strike angered the officials for its portrayl of the Chinese army.
In future only games that are authorised by the Ministry of Culture could be imported, if those game's "contents accord with Chinese national conditions and bring positive effects to young people's mentality".
Sounds a bit like something WalMart would do.
BBC's Chinese games story.
Story from 2002 about WalMart's attempts to change games boxes and content.
I was going to try and do a piece asking Which censors more: WalMart or China?, but I'm out of lunch time, have wind and couldn't find as much information as I wanted to online. Admittedly the comparison between WalMart and China is a little ridiculous, but it would have been interesting to see which business tried to exert the most control over its customers.
IDgaf on 06.02.04 @ 01:43 PM GMT [link]
Moon-faced brat.
While walking towards Tesco's today I noticed that a boy ahead of me had dropped a penny. I picked up the coin and called out to him. He turned to face me, held his hand out and, as I dropped the coin into has palm, gave me about as sullent,- with as much energy as he could muster - very sullen look indeed. His grimace was emphasised by his brutish Chav looks, two giant eyes adrift in a sea of fat pretending to be a face,
It wasn't a sullen look followed by a bedgrudging 'thank you'; I got now gratitude at all. Indeed, apart from his act of turning and gurning, I recieved no acknowledgement whatsoever.
Fuck man. Why can't bosses leave their workers alone?
IDgaf on 06.01.04 @ 04:00 PM GMT [link]
