Darn Watch Dogs!

               Alright, Ubisoft, now you’ve gone and ticked me off.  You’ve finally released Watch Dogs, the video game that we gamers have been drooling over for a while now. No more reading articles about it and no more wondering how it will look on the various systems. I’m not going to go on a gamer rant here, so everybody please stay with me here as I’m setting this up. Yes, that means you, Brooke. Sit back down please. 

              The game has a plot, but no one cares about that. Here’s what is interesting about it: one can manipulate a city’s traffic control tools by phone. That goes for stop lights, rising bridges, traffic barriers, exploding sewage pipes, and other fun goodies.  That’s it. That’s what I’m upset about. That is what has me crying as I look at my now utterly useless “real” smartphone.

 

              Living in northern Australia, we don’t always have the same traffic issues as those of you who live in the cities, but we do get traffic jams, and we do have the same ILQ (that’s Idiot Level Quotient, for those uninitiated).  Normally when I’m confronted by traffic idiocy, I just scream and wish I had a James Bond Bazooka to remove the offending car from my vision in front of me.  Sadly, that would just create wreckage in front of me and, well, the authorities don’t take too kindly to citizens wielding bazookas. 

              But, Ubisoft, in releasing Watch Dogs, I am now resentful that I can’t use my phone to change a traffic light, or raise a bridge, or cause some traffic calamity when there is an idiot making me mad in front of me when I’m driving. I’m sitting here staring at my phone and it looks pathetic.  Sure, there are some Angry Birds on it and yes, they do cause some imaginary destruction, but if only it would try a little harder, it could really be cool.  

              Right now it’s just laying on the table in front of me. It’s trying to get on my good side by showing me pictures of my family, but I know, just know that it’s trying to cover up for its inadequacies.  “Phone, change the traffic light outside, okay? Now!” Nothing. Raise a barrier, lower a bridge, it doesn’t matter what I tell it to do, it just sits there. It doesn’t even beep anymore because I think I put in Airplane Mode and I can’t figure out how to remove it from Airplane Mode…maybe throw it from some altitude?  What a suddenly useless device I have. Can’t even hack into someone’s ATM.  Pointless.

              So thank you VERY much, Ubisoft. Thank you for showing me that my device is little more than a camera and solitaire playing derelict.  Leave it to you to release a game where you can both…

Be Good or Be Good At It!

             

SSSSend Me Home!

              This is an open letter to the World Wide Herpetologists Association. I get it, I’m annoying.  I may not take our collective love affair with all things slithering so seriously, but I hold our fascination with Eve’s weakness with no less adoration.  I admit that my attitude towards our science can be somewhat cavalier but please, please, let me come back home!

              It’s been seven years since my now-regrettable short-sightedness forced the closure of the “Boas for the Blind” and the “Cobras for Kids” programs that I singlehandedly initiated and brought into fruition, as well the effort to make “Bring Your Asp to Work Day” a global reality. Since the WWHA’s decision to send me to Ireland, I view my scientific knowledge is being horribly wasted.

              Since my arrival, I have been getting all the sneers and finger pointing that one would expect if one were perhaps selling snake oil…oh, sorry…or faerie dust.  I have been asked to leave from more establishments here in Ireland than I care to admit and if I hear one more thing about this St. Patrick, I’m going to go absolutely crazy. Why not one of you would tell me there were no snakes in Ireland I cannot possibly fathom.  Who ever heard of a place without snakes? Who would want to live in a world where there was not the slightest possibility of being bitten and envenomed by a serpent?  Nowhere I want to remain a second longer, I say!

              Sure, it took seven years to finally catch on to the WWHA’s attempt to rid itself of my talents, but now I can see clearly.  Yes, it took me a while to catch on. I kept hearing that people in one pub or another had seen a snake and I’d come running.  What did I find? The viewer in question was either passed out, or wished to show me something that was definitely not a true Serpentes.

              Then the impressive joke at my expense along with the kindly mad gentleman from the ISAFUC, which I later found out stood for I Saw A Freakin’ Unicorn Conglomerate. There’s a bit of information that would have been nice to have prior to my spending half of the snake money I had left on that monkey head scepter I was told I had to have for the occasion. And I don’t know what I needed to wear a dress for, being a guy and all. But now I see it all for what it was, a further effort to keep me from joining the WWHA, where I truly belong.  

              Please, please WWHA, let me back into the fold.  I promise you, no more snakeskins in your salad or Coral Snakes in bags of Skittles.  I’ve learned my lesson, I swear.  I’ll even take the gig to that island off of Brazil.  You know, that lighthouse job, with a snake three snakes every two meters and no waiting? I’ll gladly accept that reassignment.  So please write me back with your decision. I’ve got a lot of time on my hand, it seems.  The only good thing is that I’m attending a dinner tomorrow where a traditional Irish potato dinner will be served. Supposedly the Irish recipe dates back to 1847.  I’ll skip breakfast and lunch so I’m extra hungry for it. 

Until next time,

Be Good or Be Good At It!

Help! I’m Being Bullied by my Coworker!

              I’ve just about had it with my coworker Dundas.  The man just seems to exist solely for the purpose of making my life a living Hell!  What makes a person constantly taunt someone just because they may be slightly more successful or having graduated from a slightly more prestigious university?  I just don’t understand the source of the joy he finds in making me regret my career choices day after day.

              Perhaps I should backtrack slightly. I am a doctor, but if you want to get fancy, my official title is Chief Faecal Encephalopathologist with a fairly well known hospital in Massachusetts.  Dr. Dundas (whose first name will not be included here because I don’t want to get sued) is also fairly high up in his career food chain as a surgeon and he has, coincidentally, some of the same patients I have, but for his specialty, which is Embolectomy.  We both attended a hospital retreat last year and I absolutely wiped the proverbial floor with him in the Doctor/Nurse sack race (those specializing in testicular surgery were not invited for obvious reasons).  

              Well, ‘ol Dundas didn’t take too kindly to the fact that I made him whimper has I held the trophy aloft and he was left to rethink that whole donut eating contest he participated in only two days prior to the race.  But since then he’s been seriously messing with me and making me wish I worked in a different hospital.  Sure, I can be rather sensitive, but what would you do if the following abuses were being thrust upon you?

              First, the post it notes in the gauze. There I was performing a complex appendectomy on Mrs. Wiggins when I noticed a piece of gauze had been left in her body during a previous surgery.  I removed it, of course, but on the gauze was a small note from Dundas saying that his spastic colon diagnoses were stronger than mine.  Oh, that really bothered me.  And the widower Wiggins? Well, he didn’t seem to care a flipping farthing that my feelings were hurt! It was just ‘me, me, me, my wife, how could she be gone!?’ and he cared very little for my torment.

              And the time I lost my car keys, only to have them mysteriously reappear inside Mr. Barber’s cranium.  I would have never noticed if my car didn’t keep locking and unlocking every time Mr. Barber had one of his ‘sneezing fits.’  And Dundas' stupid trick of replacing the roast beef in my sandwich with samples from the organ donor stock is simply childish.  Sure, it’s funny to see me take a bite of someone’s spleen when it’s hiding underneath a piece of lettuce, but come on now, you’re acting so childish.  

              But the thing that really threw my game off was the incident with the medical college.  Granted, it was slightly funny, but really Dundas' stupid stunt was terrible. There I was, demonstrating the proper procedure for making an incision into an abdomen, when yep, you guessed it, out of the cadaver pops up a live King Cobra.   I mean, sure we’ve all been there before, but the fact that it bit and killed Nurse Cummings really was too much.  And there was Dundas, with his mask in his hand just guffawing.

              So to you, Dundas, I say stop with the stupid practical jokes.  So I beat you in a sack race. Get over it and stop bullying me!  Until then I’ll just be careful to…

Be Good or Be Good At It!