Save Some Trees

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Taking People's Word

Many people (I hope, or rather, assume) research their purchases. Personally, this usually involves looking up opinions of products from critics of major website and fellow consumers; perhaps even browsing consumer reports. However, I wonder how many people actually take the common man's words with a grain of salt? For example, this following snippet is a comment concerning an interview of Jack Tretton, the VP of SCEA (Sony) about the PS3. Go here to read the interview http://blog.wired.com/games/2006/11/scea_vp_on_back.html. The comment below is about PS2 problems.

“Friday, 17 November 2006 - 2:19 AM

Okay... I'm sitting in my apartment right now. The one I share with two other guys. I bought a PS2, but the disc tray broke a year into it and I bought a new one. The same thing happened to my friend. My other roommate (I don't consider him my friend, I guess) is on his third PS2, due to breakage.

So that's 7 PS2s for three people. Of the "150,000,000 PS2 owners" in the world today, how many have the same fingerprints?”

Should you take into account the fact that you don't know what these knuckleheads put their PS2s through? This guy is more than likely a college student, and the common gaming college student, from my experience does some pretty stupid crap. Now, the slot loading PS2 (which is the older one) has understandable breakage issues. If you put the disc in incorrectly, press the eject/insert button, the disc jams up the slot. You'd think he might be more careful with his next machine if that was his problem. Whether or not he was delicate with it, we truly do not know. What transpired between these people that could have caused such malfunctions is a mystery. Perhaps their drunken friend continued to insert a disc when it wasn't properly in the tray, who knows? I've seen some stupid things in my day, and I'm sure of the billions of people on the planet (150 million of which [roughly]) have probably witnessed some asinine things their fellow man has attempted.

I make a point to reconsider the tactless comments of the angry consumer. Not just the usual, “This thing suckzorz!!!!” but actual, cleverly guised, vengeful comments that, at least at face value, could contribute to the ruin of an otherwise good product.

Orbacle

Post from long ago (5/7/07)

I feel like everyone I know is moving away from me and it shouldn't affect me negatively but it is. I am happy for all of my friends, but they indirectly make me feel tied down because they are free to move around. I feel that with my job, I'm stuck where I'm at, and I can't travel anywhere and really feel free. Maybe when I'm out of debt I'll go scurry off into the world.

Now I'm going to get off subject for a bit. I've found that the more debt you have, the harder it is to get out of it. With all these payments and things coming from every direction, you have fewer and fewer "free" funds to allocate towards paying things off in larger chunks. Ever wonder why with all of the debt you have, you manage to just make due? Maybe this isn't the case for everyone, but I think many people have it this way. It's almost like all of the loan companies and credit card bureaus/companies have devised some sort of devious plan to always keep you just above water with your money and payments.

All right, back to it. I have a friend who's leaving for Europe and then Africa in the next few months to experience the world for about a year (she's actually back now). A close friend of mine is just beginning college soon and even though the college is close by, he will be distracted with that for a number of years (it's not as bad as I thought it would be). My other good friend has a baby and his time, as much as I think he doesn't want to admit it, is going to be shrinking in availability. Another college friend is in Madison for the summer, maybe longer, working at an archaeological dig site. An old friend who I've been in and out of touch with over the years is moving to New York for a few years. He's engaged and I'm truly very happy for him, but I'll miss him all the same. He'll be back in two years or so, so I await his return. Man, I tend to overdramaticize things...

Now, my selfishness aside, I'm actually very excited for all of my friends! What adventures they are all going to be going on!