(Taken from the Schlock Mercenary Open Letter, Saturday, December 18, 2004)

My last Open Letter was written shortly after renting Fable for the XBox. I spent around $6.00 on the rental, which isn’t too bad.

Then I spent around 24 hours during the week playing the game that WAS bad.

Symptoms of the opportunity cost of gaming: the house is more cluttered, the dishes haven’t been done consistently, the buffer has slipped a few days, and the Open Letter hasn’t been updated.

The game went back to Blockbuster this morning. The kids are sad — they liked watching Daddy play Fable, and are already clamoring that we rent it again. Nope. It’s too expensive. If I had the $6.00 to blow on it, I’d pocket the money and keep the associated three full workdays (24 hours divides into three eight-hour workdays, folks) for doing actual WORK.

I don’t know how you kids these days get anything productive done. I hear you telling me about console games, MMORPGs, cool new TV shows… all these things take TIME, and I don’t for one minute believe that you’re actually DOING all that cool stuff in the same lifetime.

Fable, ironically, bothered me on two time-related points. First, the load times were awful. I’ve heard that this is likely a problem with my XBox, and that I should have it modded with a giant hard disk. This is not going to happen, because it would be akin to forcing me to rent the game (or BUY it) to get my money’s worth, and we’ve already discussed that. Those load times, though… they kept breaking the game-play into discrete, fourth-wall-shattering “bricks.” It yanked me out of the game every time I traversed an area.

The second problem is that in the course of 23 game-days, my character aged SIX DECADES. Sure, I ran around doing non-questy sorts of level-whoring, but discovering that suddenly I’m 60 years old was pretty distressing– probably because I can relate in real life. What kinds of stuff am I wasting time on today? When I wake up one morning at age 65, will I look back and wish that I’d finished some quest or another earlier in life?

I play video games to ESCAPE that kind of thinking.

The good news… yesterday I did some coloring for a corporate client, and made some breakthroughs on my coloring technique. Granted, this type of coloring won’t make it into the daily Schlock until I’ve gotten really, really fast at it, so don’t hold your breath. Still, I made progress as an artist this week. When I wake up one morning and discover I’m a geezer, I’ll look back at that moment and say “well, THAT was pretty cool.”

I was reading one of my favorite comics, Doctor Fun, and I didn’t get it.

Contents may be disturbing

Here’s a useful LJ meme:

Identify one goal that you’ve had, and that you’ve not been able to reach in the past.

State WHY you don’t think you’ve reached it.

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Here’s mine: I’ve been meaning to drop my body fat percentage to the low teens for about 6 years. I’ve made very careful plans that include nutrition and exercise schedules. Today my body fat percentage stands at 24%, which is too high by about 10%, or (on me) close to 20 pounds.

Why haven’t I reached it? Because the goal was set ABOVE that which I was willing to settle for, and I’ve consistently compromised and settled for much less. Usually this happens because other things (earning money, goofing off, cartooning, spending time with the family, eating foods I love) have been prioritized ABOVE the elements of nutrition and exercise.

This meme isn’t about coming up with a solution to the problem. It’s about IDENTIFYING the problem. That said, I’m well on my way to solving the problem above — I deprioritized some activities, and have regular exercise and appropriate eating back on my schedule. The 24% figure above likely represents a DROP of at least 4%.

–Howard

I’m not sure it means all that much in practical terms for the jury in the Peterson trial to sentence him to death. The media has made a big deal out of the fact that the State of California is not in the habit of executing those so sentenced. I really feel for that jury: it’s one thing to read about the atrocities men commit against their loved ones in the paper. It’s another thing entirely to spend 9 months talking about one guy, and the evil things he allegedly did, while he, his family, and his victims’ family sits on.

To the Peterson jury: Good on you. You made it through this one, and from the sound of things you made a tough call.

A friend of mine was a juror for a local murder trial. The ex-husband in that sad story murdered his ex-wife with a shotgun at her front door… while their daughter looked on. The daughter testified against her dad. My friend’s experience was gut-wrenching, but fortunately not drawn out. He came back to work after the trial at peace with himself, which is probably as much as any juror in a capital trial can hope for.

I’m also reminded of the recent Lori Hacking case here in Utah. Mark Hacking is yet another man whose lies and infidelities (whether consummated or not) led him down a darkened path where the only exit he could see required him to commit a murder. Ah, the deceptions we practice upon ourselves when we begin deceiving others… foremost among them is the mistaken belief that we can choose a destination other than the one at the end of the road we’re on without having to leave that road first.

I have little doubt that Scott killed Laci. Sure, it’s POSSIBLE that this was a third-party crime, but even without evidence, when the wife is murdered, the lying, cheating husband is ALWAYS the suspect at the top of the list. We married men have a horrible, horrible track record. Not all of us, mind you, but there’s this small, sociopathic segment in our demographic that makes us all look like potential killers, like murderers waiting only for a motive.

–Howard