Mushrooming: Mom said this is called witch's butter. I call it cheezewiz.
I like the idea of video games (is that what they're called?) but I've always resisted the urge because I already have a tough time doing all the things I want to do. I don't need any new distractions.
Co-worker bought an Xbox so I went to his house to play Left4Dead2.
I thought it was super fun but I was terrible at it. Since I've never played games like that I have zero coordination with the controls. I'd always be shooting my feet or the other characters. They kept yelling at me to stop shooting them. The rest of the time I was running into the walls and it took me about 2 hours to figure out that I can jump over things.
Even when I understood what I was supposed to do by the time I figured out how to work the controls I was already being dragged away by zombies. After awhile that got frustrating.
Also after each level when we got the statistics it would always say: Character X killed 987 zombies. Character Y killed 642 zombies. Pam killed 11 zombies.
You're probably thinking I'm exaggerating to make it funnier but sadly, I'm not. I guess just pointing the gun in the general direction of the zombies and shooting like crazy doesn't accomplish much and my teammates were doing all the hard labor. Plus sometimes I just stood behind them on purpose. Why use up all my ammo or get splashed by the noxious whatever?
In sum, I thought it was fun but I'm not running out to buy my own.
More Mushrooms.
One of those consumer studies groups brought us a survey. If I had fully understood what was involved, I never would have done it. She was talking about TV shows and I desperately wanted to pimp all our nerd television so I agreed to participate.
She asked a bunch of questions at the house. Like she wanted to know all the live television I watched in the last week. I don't watch live television. Ever. I DVR everything or use OnDemand. She also wanted to know what radio I listen to and I only listen when I drive and I only drive about 100 miles a week. And I have 5 stations programmed in and I punch buttons until I hear a song I like. I don't know the call numbers or letters.
Then she left this booklet with about 2000 questions about everything I buy and brands and then other questions that are about opinions or attitudes.
I'm a terrible consumer because I don't know what anything I buy is called. I also don't buy enough new things. Everything was "how many TVs have you bought in the last 12 months?" We haven't bought a TV in the last 12 years. We are the only people left in the western world who don't have big giant flat TVs.
The booklet took hours to complete (they pay you $60 and I earned it). It was kind of interesting to see the attitude questions because they had a lot to do with brands and owning things and caring what other people think. But overall, by page 75 of 155 I was sick of the whole thing.
My main point is that when you look at survey results you have to think about the kind of person who is willing to deal with the survey. I generally don't participate in polls or surveys because I think the data is manipulated and it is a waste of my time.
At least I got to pimp my nerd TV.
