So I won’t be getting a Diablo III Collectors Edition. This isn’t due to a lack off effort or planning on my part either. Here is the sad story of how I won’t be enjoying Diablo III tonight.

Back in February I decided to preorder a Collectors Edition from GameStop.com. I had the money and really wanted the extras in the package. Ok, to be honest I was slightly obsessed about getting the Diablo skull, take that how you will. I placed my order and took ease in the fact that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting a copy anymore.

Fast forward to last Thursday, May 10th. Around noon I received a mail stating my order had been canceled. I called their customer service line to figure out why my order was canceled as I have plenty of money in my bank account and I hadn’t canceled the order myself, let alone less than a week before the game was released. After about a hour of being on hold and dealing with a representative whom couldn’t tell me anything other than, “Your order had been canceled, sorry about your luck.”, I talked to a manager who informed me that GameStop was not receiving enough copies to fill their orders. I was told that they were trying to get more copies but they were not hopeful. Needless to say I was not pleased not only for my order being canceled but it being less than a week before release so my hopes of actually getting a copy elsewhere was next to impossible. Add to this the fact that GameStop would do nothing to ease the heavy burden not placed on me.

I went around to various retailers locally to see if I could get a copy and they had all sold out themselves.  I had resigned myself to trying to get a copy waiting at a retailer at midnight on the 15th. Later that night I saw that Walmart.com had opened up their preorders and I luckily scored another copy from them. I was saddened to see it would not come until the 22nd at earliest but I was just happy to get a copy.

Around 8:00 PM tonight I received a email from Walmart.com stating that my order had been canceled due to them not getting enough copies. Needless to say I was livid. To add further insult to injury they had already charged my card for the game and I would not be receiving a refund for 10 days. So not only did they take my money and not give me my game, I don’t have the money now to try and get a copy elsewhere tonight.

I am pretty distraught over the entire ordeal. I have been crying a bit. It might be silly for a grown man to cry about not getting a video game but the Diablo series has meant a lot to me over the years. Also you add the fact that I did everything in my power to get a copy and I am still sitting here tonight without a copy and no way to get a copy at all.

So in closing Dear GameStop and Walmart: You ruined what was supposed to be a enjoyable experience for me. Thank you for screwing over not only me but probably thousands of other gamers who are stuck in the same situation tonight. I hope we all band together and sue your asses over it like I hope the Aussies do to GAME. Needless to say I will NEVER shop at either of your businesses anymore. I will take my dollars to establishments that don’t take advantage of their customers.

PS: FUCK YOU!

Posted by Djarum, filed under Personal, Video Games. Date: May 14, 2012, 10:53 pm | No Comments »

09  Apr
Oceans

 

So I turned 30 years old a few months ago. As so many internet memes will tell you, your world kind of changes when you hit this age. Gone are the days of your friends posting pictures and talking about the things they did last night. I am now inundated with a onslaught of baby pictures, wedding pictures and talk of mundane life middle aged life.  Yet, I have somehow not changed at all since you know I missed that boat.

Single life in your late 20s and early 30s is a strange one indeed. Gone are the days when you could go out with your friends to a nightspot and meet a potential partner. I had the pleasure of going out this weekend to see a friend’s band play at a local bar. It is the first time I had really gone out socially since I had moved and was excited by the prospects of perhaps meeting a lady friend or at the very least have some actual social interaction after months of being cut off from civilization.

My night instead basically went like this. I showed up, said hi to my friend, ordered a beer, sat around for awhile, watched the set and walked home. There were plenty of women there but none seemed interested in me or were with dates. Most were nearly a decade younger than me.  I realized that while I have plenty in common with them still in style, tastes and interests the fact that I am older puts me in another world from them. I remember being in my early 20s and it was a great time. Every day I think to myself that I should have taken advantage of that time more than I had. But I have grown out of that time of my life. The idea of going out every night and drinking just really doesn’t interest me anymore. Sure it is fun to go out with some friends every so often and have a enjoyable evening but it is not the end all of my existence anymore.  I am much more content to stay at home, make a good meal and watch a movie or whatnot. So even if I would date a 20 something I would feel guilty in doing it because I would feel that I was taking away those experiences and time away from them to just be with me.

Not to say that being with me is a bad thing of course. While I am not a perfect person in any stretch of the imagination, I am a pretty good catch in my humble opinion. Convincing anyone else of this of course is easier said than done. This is why it drives me crazy whenever I see on television women complaining about not being able to find a guy. Ladies, I am not sure if you are aware but it is incredibly easy for one of you to find someone. Go walk down the street and start talking to us; I am pretty sure in a couple of minutes you can find someone to take you out on a date. Any women who says they can’t get a date is either lying or hasn’t left their home. Trust me you are the predator and we are the prey.

So, all my friends are adults becoming boring and turning into their parents. I am stuck in purgatory, unable to move on to the next stage of life but also have moved on from my youth somewhat. I haven’t really dated in two years so I am not exactly sure how to even go about that anyone even if I could find a date. There really isn’t a playbook for dating in your 30s so I guess I am just going to float to where ever it takes me next.

Posted by Djarum, filed under Personal. Date: April 9, 2012, 11:47 pm | No Comments »

There has been a lot of talk in the last several days about Ubisoft’s controversial decision to not release a version of the new Ghost Recon game on the PC. Their reason; piracy.

Ubisoft more than any other publisher in recent memory has tried to blame their poor sales of their PC games on piracy instead of the truth. They have released cruddy ports of lackluster games with draconian DRM. People aren’t buying your games because “they are just pirating them from the Pirate Bay”. People aren’t buying them because they are rubbish. When is the last time you have read anything about a Ubisoft title other than the silly DRM included? That’s right you haven’t.

Gabe Newell of Valve Software has basically said it best that if you make a quality product, give it a fair price and make it easily and simply available you don’t have a piracy problem nor a sales one. I don’t hear Bethesda, Activision or EA complaining about PC piracy effecting the sales of their latest games and all of their latest big titles have been available pirated either before or right at release.

Piracy is the boogyman excuse in the PC gaming world for the last several years, as if publishers just discovered the practice and that it hasn’t been going on since the beginning of computers. The real facts for it becoming such a hot topic now is that the large public companies whom publish terrible games need excuses for the shareholders why their awful games aren’t selling. The world of video games is still basing itself on the Hollywood movie model of production which in the modern game development world is quickly starting to run to the end of it’s course.

Where with Hollywood you can release a couple of bombs but a cheap movie that becomes a hit subsidizes the losses of the failures. With the ever rising costs of creating video games even a crappy shovelware title costs a great deal of money and manpower to create. It is not like the 8-bit days where a publisher like LJN could get a license, put 3 guys to make a game regardless of quality and shove it out the door in a couple of months and recoup the costs and then some. Even a terrible game, and this is according to Ubisoft themselves, $18.8m-$28.2m to create. This is not counting the marketing that is put behind it as well.

I think the best solution is this, publishers need to stop trying to over saturate the market with software. We all need to take a page from the book of developers like Blizzard, Valve, Nintendo and iD. Make a quality product, release it when it is done and support it post release without nickel and diming you without crazy DRM. Sure you might not have a new version of Call of the Battlefield Hero Creed every year. But, you will have a fanbase whom will be glad and eager to put down the cash for your title.

Gamers are pretty smart, crafty folk. We can smell a lemon.

Posted by Djarum, filed under Video Games. Date: November 26, 2011, 12:38 am | No Comments »

Steve Jobs is dead. It still hasn’t quite sunk in yet. I found out at work from a coworker and hoped it was a cruel joke.

Unlike many of the things you may read today about Steve’s passing I am not going to run through a list of accomplishments and talk about how he was a visionary. Instead I am going to talk about he directly effected me.

As most kids growing up in the 1980s, every school I went to was full of Apple IIs. The very first computer I touched was a Apple IIe and it changed my life. The foundations of all my computing skills came from those lowly Apple IIs, I learned to type on one, I learned how to program in BASIC on one. It started a love affair that has turned into a obsession at times.

The first computer I ever owned was a Macintosh Classic, from that I got online for the first time although it was not really what we consider the internet today. I learned HyperCard on that system. Also I started my first hacking adventures on that machine. I probably loved that computer more than any other in my life.

I didn’t own a cellphone until fairly recently, the iPhone really has changed my life in a million different ways. I really do feel lost without it.

Steve Jobs has influenced and changed everyone’s lives in so many ways. The 3D animated movies you watch, having access to a music store anywhere at any time, even that crappy Breakout Clone on your crappy 1952 cellphone is because of him.

We lost a great person today, one that perhaps comes once in a lifetime. I know the plans he had for the future are still in the works and we will continue to feel the effects from him for some time.

I just want to say, Thanks Steve for all you have given me.

 

Posted by Djarum, filed under News, Tech. Date: October 5, 2011, 10:38 pm | No Comments »

28  Jul
All My Friends

When you are a kid your friends are the most important people in your life. It is a natural thing really as they are those who are closest to you and theoretically spend the most time with. As you get older life catches up and you start to see less and less of them until you don’t see them at all. It is expected of course as in the design you are supposed to get a partner, grow up, maybe have some kids and a million other responsibilities.

There are some of people who the design didn’t quite work out for though, like myself. I’d love to have that “grown up” life but something tells me I just am never going to have it. It is kind of painful really, to be on the outside looking in. You waste years trying to get there and in the end if it doesn’t work out you are left behind.

I think back to all the things I used to do with my friends; the endless nights of drinking and having deep conversations about whatever, the dumb things that you don’t understand how you weren’t arrested, trips, etc. I don’t really do any of that anymore. My days are spent now very uneventful and alone. While I may make light of my situation that when my friends are older, have kids and have become boring that I will still be free to have this adventurous, interesting life the truth is my life is already more boring than theirs.

When I was younger I used to say that I wanted to be Peter Pan. The idea of being stuck at a age and with that lack of responsibility is very compelling to me. I have always been afraid of growing up and changing mostly because I have no idea how to do it. They don’t really give out handbooks on this kind of stuff. Change scares me to death because honestly I have never really had any sort of stability in my life. The only way I have known how to cope is to try to not focus on it and to quote Eddie Vedder “Change by not changing at all”. While I admit I have changed a little, I have gained knowledge over the years, have slowly became less angry at the world for my shit hand I have been dealt and perhaps become more understanding for the people around me in the end I am still the same guy I was when I was the green haired college kid.

So I sit here at my computer writing things that no one reads like I do every night, thinking back about the nights I used to have and wonder, where are my friends tonight?

Posted by Djarum, filed under Personal. Date: July 28, 2011, 4:10 am | No Comments »

27  Jul
Bound to the Floor

So I just finished watching Captain America (which is excellent by the way) and after it was done I think I took some things from it that others perhaps won’t. In the movie as in the comic Steve Rogers is bullied by others before he becomes big and strong. To solve his problems he becomes a bigger bully and saves the day.

Now this type of thought and behavior has become rampant in the last several decades in which it is perfectly acceptable if not out right encouraged for the strong to punish the weak for no other reason than they can. We see it in our schools, in our home lives and workplace, even in our government and business communities.

I have been playing a game with friends recently and we have just started to venture out into the world verse other players. When you are matched up against people of the same skill level and experience it is a joy to play, sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t but it always seems fair and you know that your own faults normally cost you the game. Now unfortunately higher level players will come in to the less experienced brackets to basically cause grief to those against them. You have no chance to defeat them and you are guaranteed a loss no matter how much resistance you put up. In the end you are slaughtered badly and you don’t have any fun.

Now after this happened a few times I wondered if there was a way to report these players to those who administrate the game. To my surprise there was a option to report a “unskilled player” but nothing to reprimand those who are in effect bullying the other players.

After thinking about it for awhile it occurred to me that there is no option because it is fully acceptable to nearly everyone today. There is no more stigma about the strong hurting the weak, it has become as mainstream as letting seven year olds wear thongs. But, much like the latter it is no more wrong.

I understand people like to be good at things and I don’t take any fault with that. But I know for myself I feel better about my accomplishments when I know I had to struggle and fight to win. In today’s society it seems that those things are not acceptable. People want to take the easiest route they have for anything. It is easier for the Captain of the Basketball team to beat up the skinny nerd than it is the Captain of the Football team. It doesn’t make it any more right though.

I won’t have any children of my own but if I did I would most certainly raise them with that little bit of morality, that just because you are bigger, stronger or better than someone else doesn’t give you the excuse to exercise it. When I was a kid I used to make it a point to be extra nice to the poorer kids. I learned that generally the kid with the dirty, shabby clothes was generally the best person to be friends with. While they almost always had some sort of bad home life and god knows what other kind of nightmares in their lives having that one person around who didn’t judge them and treated them right always meant a lot to them. In the end they were always much better friends and much cooler than the more popular kids. I still hold that belief today as most of my best friends aren’t the cool people and aren’t perhaps the most successful but they are more loyal and care more about you because we have all been in that place.

I don’t think there is a easy answer to get people to at least respect each other a little more. I just try to lead by example and maybe it will rub off in time.

Posted by Djarum, filed under Personal. Date: July 27, 2011, 2:19 am | No Comments »

Much like how I say I am “retired” instead of “unemployed” I often say I am “widowed” instead of “single”. Now withstanding how my last relationship ended, I mainly say it just because it is easier. It is like saying “I tried it and ended” instead of “I have never been able to make it work”.

Whenever I am out in public I always notice the older men alone, most people don’t. I try and see how they are and what kind of life they are leading. I sometimes think about what the circumstances were to leave them alone at their age. I think I do it because I fear that I am one day going to end up like them.

I have reached that age where most of my friends either are or are about to be married and are having children. I see and hear from them less and less now. I understand that this happens as we get older and have more important responsibilities in our lives and our friends fall by the wayside. That does not bother me. What does is that I feel that I missed on going down that road with everyone else.

When you are younger you go out and socialize with others to find a relationship and hopefully a partner. The pond is full of fish and when you are that age you are able to base your choices on a different set of needs. You ideally try to find someone attractive, who is smart, funny and understanding. Sometimes you luck out sometimes you don’t. You might leave someone who has those qualities for someone else who you think could be better. Maybe it works out, maybe it doesn’t. You don’t worry about the consequences because there are plenty of fish in the sea and you don’t realize how short of time span you have there.

Once you hit a certain age people start panicking because the fish are leaving the pond at a alarming rate. I think a lot of people get married or stay in relationships that are not great because they don’t think they can do any better and they are afraid of being alone. For many people it is better to sleep next to someone than no one at all. I understand that.

Now being single when you get older is rough. Before the sea was full of all sorts of fish, giant bluefin tuna as far as the eye could see, now it is less sea life and when you do find something it has three eyes or is deformed from where a fisherman’s hook caught it. It is nothing you want in your net or on your plate. But the fear starts to creep up on you, the fear of being alone.

I have a friend who has that fear badly. They have been single for years now, they are ready to get married and have a family. They have what I call “the desperation”. It is where they have tried everything to get a partner. You know the type, get involved in something new every couple of months to try to meet someone new; religion, bars, dating services, etc. In the end they date someone a bit, try to change themselves a bit to please them and in the end when it doesn’t work out they get even more depressed, lonely and desperate. You feel sorry for them but when you take a step back you wonder how much longer will it be until I am in the same boat.

I had a coworker many years ago. He was a older gentlemen, divorced. He had a son but he was grown and lived far away. We got along fairly well and after awhile he started asking me to come over and visit him on our days off. I would make excuses on why I couldn’t go, mostly because I wanted to go out to the bars with my buddies. One day he called and I decided to do it once and get it over with. Now this was a man at work who was full of life and vigor but when I visited his home I saw a different side of him. It was a older home that was in various states of repair I think mostly due to his increasing age. He showed my around his place, full of joy and pride. We sat down, ordered a pizza and watched a movie. He seemed so happy to have someone to share the evening with as if he didn’t have this happen to him often. At the time I thought it was strange since it was a everyday occurrence to me. After the movie ended I decided it was late and I needed to get home. At that point my coworker got sad and pleaded with me to stay a while longer, to watch another movie, anything just to stay. I kept firm and left. At the time I didn’t understand his behavior and it soured my friendship a bit. Now as I am older I get that he was a lonely guy and I was probably the first friend he had over in some time. What was a everyday occurrence to me at the time was probably the highlight of his year.

I haven’t seen that coworker in many years and I am not sure he is still alive today as he was in poor health then. If I would I would apologize for the way I acted and tell him that I understand now.

Back to the old men again, it makes you wonder if at a certain point they just gave up. If one day they woke up and realize that continuing down that path would give them nothing but more pain, misery and heartache. Perhaps they came to grips with knowing they will sleep alone for the rest of their lives.

Being alone frightens me especially now that I am getting older and to be honest my health is not the greatest. I don’t have much in terms of family and of course as you get older that goes away as well. I fear that I am going to be alone in a shitty apartment, die and no one will find me for months if not years. Whenever I read a story about someone finding a corpse in a house years after they die I have a different reaction than most who say “I don’t understand how that could happen?” I do understand, it is because they had no one to care about them. They were alone and not by choice.

With age comes knowledge. If I could go back to when I was younger I would tell myself to focus more on finding that partner more and work harder at being a better person for them. I have been in relationships, perhaps with some of the people reading this, they all have failed for one reason or another. I know with some of them it was we were both settling for each other because it was easier than being alone. It is hard to admit that.

A friend and I were having a conversation about my lack of a love life the other other night. I expressed my doubt at being able to find that someone now. He says to me full of optimism,  “She is out there for you, you just haven’t found her yet.” I would like to believe him, I really would. I would love to believe that there is that perfect person for everyone out there but then reality kicks back in and I think of old man walking around, doing his errands or whatever he is doing. Contrary to what Disney has sold us, everyone does not end up “happily ever after.”

Posted by Djarum, filed under Personal. Date: July 26, 2011, 4:47 am | No Comments »

I have been quite a bit of soul searching in the last several week for various reasons. Thinking back about the past and coming to certain amounts of closure on several things. One of the downsides of this of course is confronting things that you never knew were there and regret. The example I feel comfortable enough to talk about right now in this semi public forum is about a girl. Well she was still a girl when I met her, but like myself we are both adults although I am sure she is much more of one than I.

I met her in when I was in college back in 1678 through a friend of a friend as these things normally happen then. Now I had been in relationships before, had my heartbroken and found women attractive but the moment I laid my eyes on her I had a experience unlike any I had ever had before or since. She is still to this day the single most beautiful women I have ever laid eyes on.

Now of course due to my utter lack of skills with the opposite sex and flawed social skills coupled with my hamstring of being shy with women but somehow attempt not to be and make a utter fool of myself I really never had a real chance. I remember being slightly funny and talking a bit of music or whatnot. I honestly thought she was out of my league and while I gave it a half hearted shot I think a mixture of her being extremely shy and myself at that time being WAY too out there made the attempt futile. After my college attempt was over I would run in to her every so often over the next several years, we would chat for a bit and go our separate ways.

I haven’t seen her in many years now nor have I talked to her through other means. From what I understand she has a good job, interesting life and a longtime partner. And if it is true I am happy for her since she deserves that kind of happiness as does everyone.

Now you maybe asking, so what does this have to do with confrontation, regret and yours truly? Well I realized that there hasn’t been a day that has gone by since I met her that I haven’t thought about her. This person who I frankly barely know I think about more than people who are in my life everyday. I started to ask myself why this person effects me in this way unlike no one else. I have come to realize that it is the one thing in my life that I truly have ever wanted and didn’t bother to fight for at least. As a young person you don’t realize what is important in life at the time, only when you get older do you find the important pieces of what has shaped you. Perhaps I would have screwed it up badly like I have in every relationship before and after and knowing myself at the time I probably would have. But there is always that little part of you that thinks that perhaps that other person is the one holding the little thing that it takes to complete you and in the end you get the little piece of happiness that everyone always wants in the end.

Now it is said, even by me previously, that while people are still alive there is always a chance. While this is true I feel like my moment for that has passed long ago. Maybe one day we will cross paths and the stars will align but I have a better chance at finding out I am next in line to be the King of Monaco. I have to choose to accept that she will forever be beyond my reach and while I don’t think I will go a day in my life without thinking of her I can not fool myself with false hopes and dreams.

Posted by Djarum, filed under Personal. Date: July 24, 2011, 9:16 pm | No Comments »

23  Jun
Nerd

I am not exactly sure when it happened but all of the sudden everyone want to be a nerd. I remember back when I was a kid being a “nerd” was not a thing you wanted to be associated with. I had to somewhat hide my love of video games, Indie music, computers and comic books from other people. I am thankfully very lucky in life that I had a group of friends who were equally as into the same interests as was and we didn’t look the part of social outcasts so we could blend in somewhat. Still I remember getting hassled and not getting dates with girls because I was a geek or a nerd.

Fast forward to now, as a single guy again and trying to ease my way back into the dating world in a new city I browse a few dating sites from time to time. Inevitably on almost every one of these girl’s profile they announce how they are a nerd for liking something not “cool”.

“I watch documentaries so I am kind of a nerd.”

“I play video games so I am a nerd.”

Listen I am all for “nerd culture” becoming more accepted in popular culture. You have to remember not too long ago comic books were thought to contribute to the delinquency of minors, Video Games made you murder people and Dungeons and Dragons made you worship Satan. So the fact that I can talk about the new issue of Captain America or World of Warcraft in public and not get dirty looks from people. But I feel the term has been co-opted by people to pretend they are not cool to be edgy.

Much like how every girl in college is “bisexual” everyone now is a “nerd”. While this is great for things like comic book movies and good television staying on the air I don’t see it changing the lives of the kids in school right now getting the shit knocked out of them and not getting dates. While that girl on the dating site talks about how nerdy she is for watching Doctor Who the 16 year old kid who plays Warhammer 40k on the weekend with his friends isn’t any more accepted to the captain of the football team.

Maybe it is time we start taking it back and calling out the fake nerds.

Posted by Djarum, filed under Uncategorized. Date: June 23, 2011, 12:00 am | No Comments »

So after seeing the amazing set by the Arcade Fire this weekend at Coachella the main question on my mind was, “HOW THE HELL DID THOSE BALLS WORK?!”

A little bit of information came from someone who got one and ripped it apart for the sake of knowledge. Now today we have more information about them from the folks who did it along with learning that it is a part of a larger project. Very cool if you ask me.

Posted by Djarum, filed under Music, Tech, Videos. Date: April 18, 2011, 12:56 pm | 1 Comment »

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