Sam Hart

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, etc. and so on.

Okay, so technically it's 12:37am on the 26th (local time), but I'm still awake from the 25th so we'll count it.

Anyway, I do hope everyone is having a pleasant holiday. Personally, mine was very good. My wife and I decided to open gifts the night before (since she didn't really have much time off), which was a lot of fun. Understand, I'm not someone who particularly likes the ritual of wrapping presents just to hide them from the other person with the intent of surprising them. I actually dislike being surprised and don't see the point in withholding a gift from someone for a period of time when they could be enjoying the gift instead. I'm not against giving the gifts, in fact I like that aspect of it. I just think the ritual of withholding the gift is really a self-serving pretext (which is why people view the act as a competition instead of an act of love) and, thus, I don't see the motivation for doing it. So, usually my wife and I just give gifts leading up to the actual Christmas ritual, saving a few select ones to satisfy said ritual for my wife's benefit.

If you think that makes me some sort of Scrooge or killjoy, well, at least I'm not blindly following an idiotic ritual for the ritual's sake...

At any rate, my wife and I have enjoyed our holidays. She returns to work tomorrow (rats) and I have a bit more time off (time I likely won't take because I do have so much to get done).


Not everyone is enjoying their holidays, however. This weekend my wife and I discovered that my favorite game store down the street was... well... "destroyed" is the best way to describe it.

See, I'm someone who intensely dislikes shopping in stores. I hate overly friendly store-personnel. For some reason the "fuck-off" vibe I exude seems to draw sales persons to me. When I go into any store I invariably leave angry because some jackwad didn't leave me the fuck alone. And the worst kinds of stores for idiotic store-personnel tend to be the kinds that geeks frequent; namely video game stores, comic book stores, electronics stores, etc. These stores have a tendency to attract the most abrasive, infuriating, and grating personalities. If you've ever seen the "Comic Book Guy" from "The Simpsons", believe me when I tell you that this man exists and works in 99% of stores such as these.

The problem is, I'm a gamer and something of a computer-guy. Admittedly, I'm more of a neo-luddite, but it can't be denied that I work with computers and play a lot of video games. This means that I occasionally have to go to such stores and deal with the people I've described.

What all of this means is that I am very appreciative when I can find tech stores that employ reasonable and rational people. People that don't bother and pester me when I come in the store. People that are friendly and courteous without being overbearing and intrusive.

Well, I found such a place when I moved to my home last April. It was such a welcome change since I hadn't been to a game store with agreeable employees since Tucson. This place was a Funcoland/Gamestop located on Washington street, approximately 9437 East Washington street. I use the past tense "was" as well as the approximate because this place is no more...

Apparently, sometime this last week, people drove a van into the store. They then proceeded to ransack the place. Cleared it out and left a holy mess.

The problem is that there is another Gamestop located just a couple of blocks away in a mall. I guess that one was always a Gamestop while the other was originally a Funcoland. When the deal occurred that merged the two companies, they ceased being competitors. However, they didn't close either down because they were still doing business in both.

Now, the Gamestop in the mall I never liked. It seemed to have the same idiotic employees you find elsewhere. Plus, it's in a mall, which is an obvious mark against it. So I never went to it, instead I went to the one that had people working at it who I could tolerate and even like.

With the one destroyed, apparently it doesn't make sense to restore it due to the fact that there is another so very close by. Thus, they are just cutting their losses and letting the destroyed one die. The employees I liked there are being transfered to another Gamestop on the other side of town, well beyond the limits of how far I'll drive for a game.

I may be someone who generally advocates clemency due to the failures of our prison systems, but I think the persons responsible for this act should be drawn and quartered. If for no other reason than because they denied me the one video game place where I didn't have to deal with idiots who would argue with me over buying whatever it is I'm buying.

Yes, that's right. The world does revolve around me. At least, it used to....