So Saturday night I went to see Sherman Alexie at the U of M, put on by its American Indian Association. When my wife was in college, she took an American Indian History class, and one of the required reading was Reservation Blues. I read it too and loved it, reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian years later. I didn’t have an idea of what he was going to talk about. And I don’t think he did either. I don’t think anyone did. When I sat down, there was about eight or ten people sitting in a circle on the stage, which made me think it was…
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Second Old Man Rant in a Row
I hate to make two crochety old man rants in a row, but half an hour of my life was taken away yesterday by an incompetent “customer service representative” who sounded all of a disaffected female teenager. Listen up all you big companies: we can tell when you’re not being sincere. All this, “I definitely understand your problem.” “I can totally sympathize with your problem.” “I understand your frustration.” We know you don’t give a rip about us. We’re just another customer to you. We know that because WE have jobs too and WE deal with faceless customer units all the time too. Customer aren’t people, they’re customers. They have…
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Let’s Talk About the Wii U
Okay, Nintendo, let’s talk about your new console. Let’s go back to when the Wii first came out. Everyone was so happy about the motion controls. People were voting it as their favorite generation’s console, over the XBox 360 and PS3. The games were fun, short, colorful. You marketed to casual gamers, and made that known. Developers were excited to see what they could do with the new motion controls, and we consumers all waited with them. Now watch the screen as I fast-forward. Look, there. See what happened? The same damn thing you always do — your grasp exceeds your reach. Like always, you’ve got no third-party support. The…
