#but yeah I am such a good little cog in the capitalist machine

[hbdttg]

“Hold the elevator!”

The elevator doors are mere inches from closing, but Steve dutifully shoots a hand out to stop them. They slide back open, revealing a flustered-looking man about Steve’s age on the other side.

He’s dressed head to toe in black, decked out in a simple black pullover with a modest V-neck, snug black jeans, and all-black leather Chucks with a messenger bag slung across his chest. The messenger bag is, unsurprisingly, also black, but covered in a collection of tough-looking patches and pins in varying shades of—well, it’s mostly red, dark red, white, and some yellows, but the pops of color still stand out against his otherwise monochrome ensemble.

His dark, curly hair reaches a little past his shoulders and he’s got this frankly outdated fringe that, despite its very 80’s vibe, frames his face perfectly. His eyes are large and expressive, and he’s got this frantic energy about him that reminds Steve of a live wire. He’s nothing like the buttoned-up suits Steve usually shares his elevator rides with each morning, and it’s a refreshing change of pace.

The man gives Steve a thankful look before stepping into the elevator and leaning against the side wall. “Thanks,” he says, a little distractedly. He’s got a pair big of headphones on and Steve realizes he’s in the middle of a phone call when he adds, “No, not you, Gare, I was thanking the guy who held the elevator for me. Yeah, this building’s crazy. There’s a whole-ass sixtieth floor—guess I’m kind of a big deal now.” He lets out a small, self-deprecating chuckle, reaching for the panel beside him.

As the doors close and the elevator starts to slowly ascend, Steve notices the man pressed the button for the floor above his. Both the fifty-second and fifty-third floor buttons are lit in a halo of green.

“You know I didn’t want to leave you guys,” the man continues, a bit more quietly now that he and Steve are sharing the same small space, “but shit, I couldn’t turn down the pay.” He scoffs. “Ugh, listen to me, just another cog in the capitalist machine. Man, if high school me could see me now. High school Eddie used to talk big about forced conformity and rising up against the man, and now here I am—”

Steve tries not to listen to the one-sided conversation going on beside him, but it’s difficult when a moment later, he hears his own name.

“—clocking in for my first day at fuckin’ Harrington Hargrove Hagan. The pretentious bastards can’t even shorten it to an acronym or something. God forbid they have to miss out on the sound of their own names.”

Steve manages to hold in the obnoxious snort that threatens to escape him. He’s starting to think he might like this guy—Eddie, his mind supplies helpfully—but Eddie’s next words have him freezing in place.

“And it’s nepo baby central. Yeah, pretty sure all the H kiddies are hotshot brokers with the company. All the biggest accounts—gee, I wonder why.”

Steve can feel the back of his neck burning hot with a mixture of annoyance and shame as Eddie cracks a caustic joke about silver spoons and trust funds.

“You’re kidding, one of them works at this branch? Damn, I guess I’ll just keep an eye out for the guy who most looks like he’s got a giant stick up his ass.”

This is quickly becoming the longest elevator ride of Steve’s life. He grits his teeth and stares fixedly at the floor display panel above the elevator doors, watching the numbers climb higher and higher. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight.

“Listen, I should go, but let’s grab a drink at the Hideout later. Cool, see you then. Bye.”

Forty-one. Forty-two.

Eddie removes his headphones and shoves them into his bag, angling slightly toward Steve. “Sorry about that, man.”

“You’re good,” Steve says shortly, not looking away from the changing numbers. They reach the forty-seventh floor, and all the while, he feels Eddie’s gaze on him.

It’s not like he’s openly staring, but there’s a certain weight to his furtive glances that completely counteracts his attempts at subtlety. It’s the type of gaze Steve’s familiar with, one that he’s been on the receiving end of since his sophomore year of high school when he hit a growth spurt and actually learned how to style his hair. Assessing. Appreciative. Interested.

And in any other situation, Steve would gladly engage. He’d turn on the charm, quirk the corner of his lip up in that way Robin always rolls her eyes at but reluctantly acknowledges as ‘passably effective’, and maybe even make up an excuse to sidle a bit closer.

But he’s not giving this guy his A-game.

Instead, Steve waits in stifling silence until the fifty-second floor is announced and the doors slide open. He steps forward to exit, but at the very last moment stops in the doorway.

He initially wasn’t going to say anything—though, a past version of himself would have definitely spat something biting and bitchy to Eddie about his snark, would have snootily told him to take his little assumptions and shove them where the sun don’t shine—but sooner or later Eddie’s going to realize he and Steve are colleagues, and he’s going to remember shit-talking him in an elevator on his first day of work, and it’s going to be awkward and uncomfortable.

Steve’s just speeding up the timeline, pushing for the sooner rather than the later, when he decides to spin around and fully face Eddie.

“I think you pressed the wrong button,” he says, all sweet and helpful like he’s talking to Dustin’s mom over a sink full of soapy dishes. “Couldn’t help but overhear that you work at Harrington Hargrove Hagan. It’s on the fifty-second floor, not the fifty-third.” Then he takes a small step backward, moving out into the carpeted hallway.

“Oh.” Eddie scrambles for his phone, unlocking it and scrolling quickly until he finds something that has him straightening up and smiling gratefully at Steve. “I guess I remembered it wrong. Thank you.” He pushes away from the wall, takes a step forward to follow Steve out, but then stops dead in his tracks.

Steve gleefully notes the line of Eddie’s gaze, how it lingers at the breast pocket of his shirt, where, clipped to a retractable badge reel, his building keycard hangs. Eddie evidently hadn’t noticed it during the elevator ride up, but he’s certainly fixated on it now.

Perhaps on the abstract yet easily recognizable Harrington Hargrove Hagan logo in the top right corner.

But more likely, based on the positively mortified look growing on Eddie’s face, on the name clearly printed underneath Steve’s photo in bold, black lettering: STEVE HARRINGTON.

Slowly, Eddie drags his eyes back up to Steve’s face. He stares in silence, eyes bugging nearly out of his head, face turning a concerning shade of pink, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, and his reaction is extreme enough that a small part of Steve is almost inclined to take pity on the guy and laugh it all off.

Unfortunately for Eddie, a bigger part of Steve thinks Eddie looks kind of cute all red-faced and embarrassed like this. So he glances down at himself thoughtfully before turning his attention back on Eddie. “Wow,” he says with exaggerated astonishment, “now that you mention it, I guess I do look like I’ve got a giant stick up my ass.”

As if on cue, the elevator chimes in warning. The doors begin to close, but Eddie just remains rooted in place with that same wide-eyed, horrified expression.

When it becomes clear he has no intentions of actually exiting the elevator, Steve chuckles and wiggles his fingers in a cheeky little wave. “Welcome to the team,” he says airily, before Eddie’s still-blushing face disappears behind the elevator doors.

/ Now with a Part 2!

#stranger things #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie #steddie fic #modern office au #corporate steddie au #eddie's in IT #HHH is a commercial real estate firm #but steve's not a hotshot broker he's literally just a guy who makes copies all day or some shit #i personally just want to see all of eddie's baseless assumptions shattered as he gets to know steve #fic writing #hbd #actually i've never read a corporate steddie fic before so if anyone has any recs i'd love to hear them

[danny-chase]

I dropped one of my college courses today, one step closer to kinning Dick Grayson-

#ngl college is such a scam why am i paying to stress myself out #like yeah look at me i pay to do 20 hr homework assignments whoop di doo #all so i can become a more educated cog in the capitalist economy #like... there's literally no point #college is supposed to make you learn but they're really just tearing you down and building you into a little machine that will #do good things for capitalist societies #welp. that's at least how tech school is. maybe i should have gone into liberal arts

[eldritchsurveys]

o91.

582. Can you make tonight the night that you do the things you always wanted to do? >> It’s really weird what pieces of this survey end up getting passed around. Like, this fragment doesn’t even start on a logical number. Anyway, no, that’s not even a logical plan.

583. Would you rather watch life on TV or LIVE it? >> Watching TV is part of living life, too.

584. What keeps you chained down? >> I wouldn’t say I was chained down. I have a lot of freedom, I just don’t always use it -- or, I don’t always know how to use it in order to get what I want.

585. What is the nagging feeling in the back of your head? >> I don’t have any.

586. Do you celebrate yourself? >> Not consciously, or anything.

587. Does everyone get the same opportunities in life? >> Of course not.

588. What would you consider to be better than sex? >> I don’t know, I don’t make a habit of comparing things to sex.

589. What evil is necessary? >> I don’t know. 

590. What’s your favorite one hit wonder? >> I’m not sure, really. Sometimes I only know one song by a band, but that doesn’t mean that was their only hit. I just don’t know any other ones.

591. What would you do anything for? >> ---

592. Do you celebrate the full moon? >> Nah. I like looking at it, though.

593. Have you ever gone in the water at the beach at night? >> Not in the water, but I’ve definitely been at the beach at night.

594. Are you ordinary? >> No.

595. What makes people want to hang out with you? >> I have no idea. I haven’t been hung out with in long enough that I’m not sure what my social strengths are anymore.

596. Have you ever felt like you’ve been a little bit too good to someone? >> Yeah, I’ve definitely felt that way. Still, I’d prefer to err on the side of being foolishly kind than being cruel to save my own ass. (Not to say that I’ll never be cruel, because I am cruel sometimes, and there will definitely be times that cruelty comes in handy -- but I’d like to keep that at a “sometimes” and not a “usually”.)

597. What book did you like that you had to read for school? >> The only one I recall actually enjoying was Their Eyes Were Watching God. I read it again recently and I still love it.

598. What book should everyone have to read in school? >> I really don’t care.

599. Do you like the store Old Navy? >> Not particularly, but their jeans can be comfortable.

600. What movie sequels do you like? >> I can’t think of a movie sequel I enjoyed.

601. Do you have a lust for life? >> I suppose. Something like that.

602. Do you want to get more out of life? >> I think I get quite a bit out of life already. I wouldn’t mind getting more, but I’m not lacking or anything.

603. Would you want to learn to:

Convert to Buddhism? >> I mean, not really. I can still use Zen (the branch of Buddhism that I prefer) in my daily life without having to be a Buddhist, per se. I’m kind of... too syncretic and all-over-the-place to really call myself any specific religion.

Cure a hangover? >> I don’t really need to know how to do that, since I don’t recall ever having one.

Lie persuasively? >> I mean, I could probably lie persuasively if I had to.

604. What character from a movie is most like you? >> No character is most like me. They’re generally not written complex enough for that.

605. Are you comfortable with the idea of your own death? >> No.

606. How do you feel about arranged marriages? >> I don’t have an opinion one way or the other. Sometimes things like this have a cultural relevance that I don’t have the understanding of because it isn’t my culture. I don’t think it’s fair of me to say that something like arranged marriages is “wrong” just because we don’t do it where I come from. I don’t have enough of a full picture to make a judgement call like that. --Also, I don’t particularly care, so there’s that.

607. What do you hate that everyone else seems to like? >> Milk chocolate.

608. What do you like that others seem to hate? >> Absinthe.

609. If you had to be named after a month, which month would you pick? >> August.

610. Is time more like a highway or a meadow to you? >> The highway analogy suits me because of Reasons, but really time is morre like an ocean to me.

611. What is your favorite movie? >> The Fountain / Interstellar.

612. Which would you choose to be back in the day: a warrior, an alchemist, a minstrel, a bard, an oracle, a peasant, or a merchant? >> I really don’t know.

613. What is your favorite song lyric? >> I don’t have one and I’m not going to try to think of one off the top of my head.

614. What will you never run out of? >> *shrug*

615. If you could force someone to fall madly in love with you, (anyone you choose) would you do it? >> No.

616. Have you ever seen the Disney movie The Black Cauldron? >> Nope.

617. Have you ever read The Black Cauldron by Alexander Lloyd (or any of his other books in the Prydain Chronicles)? >> Nope.

618. Have you ever written a paper the night before it was due? How about the day it was due? >> I mean, probably.

619. Is there a movie you have watched so many times that you can quote it line for line? >> Labyrinth, probably. Also The Crow, but I may have forgotten a lot of it by now. Event Horizon, maybe.

620. What is your favorite season? >> Autumn.

621. Do you mind being described as cute? >> Not necessarily, but I don’t want to be described that way by just anyone, either.

622. What is the tackiest object in your home? >> *shrug*

623. What do you think people are most ignorant towards? >> I don’t know what other people are ignorant about. That’s not my call to make.

624. What is it that makes you an interesting person? >> How I engage with my interests, the things I like talking about, how my experiences have shaped me as a person, my philosophies and musings, stuff like that.

625. What makes other people interesting to you? >> The same things, actually.

626. How open to suggestion are you? >> I’m always willing to hear one out, but I’m not always going to internalise it.

627. Is Michael Jackson black or white? >> Black.

628. Are you often lonely? >> Not necessarily often.

629. What’s the most unusual pet you’ve ever had? >> I haven’t had any unusual pets.

630. Have you ever threatened an authority figure? >> I don’t think so.

631. If you had to choose would you rather make all your decisions henceforth with your head only or with your heart only? >> I’d rather continue to make my decisions with a healthy combination of both.

632. How imaginative are you? >> Quite.

633. Do you like the Counting Crows? >> I think I like a couple of songs.

634. If you took this survey from the diary (5000 Q Survey V2.0) did you note me so I could read it? >> ---

635. Are you more tense or laid back? >> I’m generally more laid back than I am tense.

636. Does your happiness depend on anyone else, or are you happy no matter what any one says or does? >> We are a social and community-oriented species. As a member of said species, yes, my happiness is in part dependent on others. If it were otherwise, I wouldn’t even bother dealing with other people, right?

637. What do you think of the idea of putting the bible into the format of a fashion magazine to attract the interest of teenagers? >> A religion that can’t adapt to its congregation ain’t worth shit, in my opinion, so I’m cool with this.

638. How often do you drink to get drunk? >> Rarely. I usually slow down, if not stop completely, when I’ve gotten to buzzed.

639. Would you consider yourself to be diplomatic? >> Sometimes.

640. Do you think that most of the classes you have taken were taught in such a way as to make plain the relevance of the subject matter in your everyday life? >> No, which was a fatal flaw. But I don’t think USian public schooling is meant to teach one life skills, it’s meant to teach one how to be a cog in the capitalist machine. Sometimes you learn other things in the process, of course, but all in all, that’s the main point. (Mind you, that’s just my understanding.)

641. Do you remember Crystal Pepsi? >> I do.

642. When was the last time you spent a night away from home? >> When we were in Chicago for my birthday weekend.

643. Some people say that there is no such thing as a stupid question. Is that true? >> I don’t know or care, bruh.

644. What is the most interesting TV channel? >> I like Science Channel and Investigation Discovery.

645. Name one song you could live without hearing ever again: >> Oh, I don’t know.

646. Do your pets understand you when you talk? >> ---

647. What are three things you HAVE NOT done that might surprise people? >> Been out of the country, had a driver’s license, been sledding in winter.

648. Have you ever had a secret admirer? >> I don’t know. Isn’t that the point of them being secret?

649. Have you been to a museum this year? >> Yep, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

650. Do you ever watch porn? >> Yep.

651. Do you think that it would be a good idea if people served in the army, navy or air force for a while before they were allowed to vote? >> Noooooo.

652. If you were required to do this to vote, would you? >> Absolutely fucking not.

653. Do people often give you weird looks? >> Sure.

654. Do like Japanese cooking? >> I’ve liked what I’ve tried.

655. Do you care for stray animals? >> No.

656. Which animated movies have you seen and what did you think of them:

A Charlie Brown Christmas: >> If I’ve seen it, I don’t remember it.

A Garfield Halloween: >> Haven’t seen it.

The Secret of Nimh: >> Nope.

The Last Unicorn: >> Nope.

The original Lord of the Rings cartoons: >> I didn’t even know these existed.

657. Are you ambidextrous (equally good at using both hands)? >> No.

658. Do you always say; “bless you” after someone sneezes, or do you hesitate? >> I rarely say it at all.

659. If you and your friends could go away for 2 days over Halloween weekend where would you go? >> New Orleans, duh.

660. Which of these animated movies have you seen and what did you think of them:

Watership Down: >> I haven’t seen any of these except...

As the Wind Blows: 

Grave of the Fireflies: 

How the Grinch Stole Christmas: 

Spirited Away: >> ...this one, and I liked it.

661. Do you feel that society is male dominated, female dominated, or neutral? >> I don’t know or fuckin care, by this point. I hear about it all the time and I’m oversaturated to the point of pure apathy.

662. What words offend you? >> I don’t know, the usual ones, I guess.

663. They’re just words. Can you get over it? >> I don’t even have the patience to break down why this is a silly thing to ask.

664. Have you ever looked into different religions? >> Of course.

665. Which ones have you looked into? >> Enough of them that I don’t feel like making a list.

666. What do you think of Satanism as a religion? >> Ha, 666. It’s fine with me.

667. Do you like it better when your classes are taught sitting in rows or sitting in a circle? >> I think the circular configuration is more ideal.

668. Have you ever read your own tarot cards? >> Yep, many a time.

669. Which ones do you like better, the three old star wars movies or the 3 new ones? >> I like all of them, and the 2 of the newest trilogy that have been released so far. I’m not going to pit them against each other.

670. If you scream in outer space does it make a sound? >> Nope.

671. If you saw The Queen of the Damned did you want to be a vampire/Goth afterwards? >> I mean, I was a vampyre and a Goth when I saw it.

672. If you saw SLC Punk did you want to be punk afterwards? >> Nah.

673. What is your favorite zombie movie? >> Zombieland. Tallahassee is sexy.

674. Best kids birthday party: ceramics, chuck-e-cheese, roller rink, bowling, sleep over, movie theater >> ---

675. What were your parties like when you were a kid? >> I didn’t have any.

676. Best teen (about 15-16) birthday party: ceramics, chuck-e-cheese, roller rink, bowling, sleep over, movie theater, house party, catered in a hall, restaurant, family trip, concert >> ---

677. What are/were your 15-16 year old parties like? >> I had a “Sweet Sixteen” and it was awful because I had no input whatsoever. I didn’t even know any of the kids who were invited. It was like a party thrown for some projection of what my father wanted me to be, not a party thrown for me.

678. Best 18th birthday party: ceramics, chuck-e-cheese, roller rink, bowling, sleep over, movie theater, house party, catered in a hall, restaurant, family trip, concert, club, pool hall, college party >> ---

679. If you are 18 what was your party like? >> I didn’t have a party.

680. Best 21st birthday party? >> Sigh.

681. If you saw The Craft were you interested in wicca/paganism/magic afterwards? >> I’d already been interested in that sort of thing by the time I saw that.

682. What are your top 3 priorities? >> Hm.

683. If you saw fight club did you want to get into a fistfight afterwards? >> Nope, not even a little.

684. What is your favorite smell? >> Dragon’s Blood incense is nice.

685. Give everything below a humor rating (1 = laugh your ass off, 2 = lol, 3 = smile, 4 = lame, 5 = not funny, 6 = offensive):

People falling – >> Don’t want to. Also, humour is largely situational and dependent on delivery, the person making the joke, etc, so it’s not just about the content. NEXT.

Rape jokes – 

Sarcastic comments 

Blonde jokes

Dirty jokes 

God/religion jokes 

Long-ass jokes 

Death jokes 

Pain/sickness jokes 

Animals doing cute stuff 

Bodily functions 

Knock jokes 

Ethnic jokes 

Puns 

Ironic situations 

685. If you saw Cruel Intentions did you want to have lots of meaningless sex afterwards? >> LMAO nope.

686. Do you get at least three hugs per day? >> No. That’d be too many, anyway, unless they were in headspace.

687. What should someone never say to you/call you if they want to remain on your good side? >> I mean, there’s a lot of things. I don’t like to be insulted, even when my feelings aren’t actually hurt by it. It’s just fucking rude and unfriendly.

688. If you saw Trainspotting did you want to do drugs afterwards? >> I don’t remember. Maybe, lmao.

689. Do movies have a great influence on you? >> Sometimes.

690. Do you have a favorite reality TV show? >> I don’t think so. If I do, I can’t think of it. I like a few of them equally.

691. Are there certain roles that people are pressured to play in society or can they basically do whatever they want? >> Yes to both. Or something in the middle -- people can play a role in order to secure the freedom to do what they want when they’re not busy playing that role. That’s basically what gainful employment is, innit?

692. How does the 2004 Dawn of the Dead remake compare to the original movie? >> I don’t know, I didn’t see either one.

693. Have you ever held a magnifying glass over an insect to burn it? >> No, but I sure wish I’d done that at least once in my life. (I mean, I stlil can, but I don’t have a spare magnifying glass lying around, or anything. Whereas my dad did, and I just never knew that that was a thing you could do with it.)

694. Have you ever pulled the wings off a fly, butterfly or any other insect? >> No. Never had one in my hands long enough.

695. What would you think of a guy (if you’re into guys) or a girl (if you’re into girls) who wanted to take you to the park to feed the birds and look at the turtles and fish in the water on a date? >> That’s adorable and sure, I’d go.

696. Do you use public pools? >> I avoid them.

697. Do you use public bathrooms? >> If I have to go, I’m gonna go. Like, come on.

698. Do you use public showers? >> If I’m at the gym or something, yeah, but I’ll definitely have shower shoes / flip flops with me.

699. How old will you be in 17 years? >> 48.

700. Would it effect you at all if you knew that a very large meteor was headed towards earth that would impact in 17 years? >> Of course that’d affect me, like... I don’t want to have that kind of dark cloud looming on the proverbial horizon for the rest of my life, fuck that.

#surveys #survey #random survey

[delcat177]

My Dinner With Garfield: An AppVenture

Just because you’re smiling doesn’t mean you haven’t drowned --They Might Be Giants, Dark and Metric

There was a time in my life where I genuinely enjoyed Garfield.  There has never NOT been a time in my life where I haven’t genuinely enjoyed free money.  I consider myself a warrior of fortune--you can daily find me dutifully filling out surveys and watching ads in various services that will give you gift cards for being a cog in the capitalist machine, and I’ll put my hand in toward anything promising semi-paid semi-labor.

This is especially true with ground-floor terribly-planned enterprises, which is how I was able to legally flimflam Bing out of $15 worth of gift cards by searching for pictures of animals once a day.  So of course after the initial wave of nausea and secondhand embarrassment over Garfield Go, I was installing it and ready to see how effectively I--and any other card-hunters--could grin and bear my way to some free Starbucks.

The Garfield emulation is so complete that you already know the punchline before reading it, but come along, won’t you?

WARNING: Yes I will be comparing it to Pokemon Go.  To be fair, it knows EXACTLY what it’s doing.

WARNING THE SECOND: I batch-edited these and Tumblr doesn’t like the size, but in keeping with the true Garfield spirit, I’m too lazy to edit them again.  You’re not missing anything.

The first thing I managed to do was break the app.  I disallowed AR, thinking that it would have a stock background similar to PoGo, because that shit eats battery like...God, I don’t have it in me to make a lasagna joke, just let it be said that rather than issue a warning, it went to an entirely black screen.  I fixed it manually and was greeted with Not Garfield on my coffee table, demanding food.  Contrary to his nature, he refused to eat anything I didn’t curveball directly into his dish.  My sister and warrior-in-apps commented on how I managed to land it in on my second try, and I realized I actually had an edge from never giving up on PoGo.  Not a lot of edge, and not enough to get it more than one out of three times, but it set my spirits moderately high.

I did some checking around in the app, and wasn’t able to find much to do while stationary except bake food.  I wasn’t sure what it was for, but when an app tells you to do a free time-based thing, you do it, and I threw a lasagna on.  I was offered the option to bake it immediately for more in-game currency than it cost to buy one.  I had a couple thousand free starter coins but also first-grade math skills, and declined.

The time was ripe.  After trading comments on how janky the controls were (you have to use two fingers in a twisting motion to change the map view, which is one of the dirtiest sounding and looking mechanics I've seen since jerk-off jogging in Wii Fit), my sister and I parted ways and the experiment began.

My nightly walks tend to be heavy on the “nightly”.  This led to the game’s first flaw disguised as a perk: While it’s true that it will gladly put its Pokestops anywhere (they’re Bistros here), “anywhere” includes “your neighbor’s apartment”.  They’re also full minigames, which means instead of giving your phone a quick swipe, you stop dead and play a lackluster Simon expy, because there is nothing less awkward and likely to get security called on you than standing in front of someone’s house at 11:42 at night silently tapping away on your phone for an extended period of time.  I threw the game, got some free food, and quickly moved on before I had to explain my motivations.

Things got dark fast.  I mean that literally.  One of the other reasons forced AR is a problem is that it isn’t built for nighttime play.  Every time I tapped a hotspot, it gave me a “Waiting For GPS” screen before dropping Goblinfield in pitch black, enticing me to appease him with baked sacrifices.  It’s a simple mechanic: If you successfully pitch food into his dish, Gerbfield will eat and then find a chest for you to open.  It’s also a highly broken one.  The food items are all made of lead that turns into rubber on the impact, requiring an unsatisfying Herculean toss to pitch a piece of cake that’ll most likely either miss or bounce back out again.  You get three tries, which is somewhat generous, but the sheer frustration nullifies it.  My frustration was amplified on the realization that GarGo does not allow you to throw high enough to even possibly hit Goobfield in the face.

"Hey kids, wanna see where I hid Lyman's body?  Tap the box."

One of the things that is admittedly sort of clever is having a button to tap to refresh hotspots.  One of the things that is not is not instructing the player that it's there.  I was a third of the way through my usual route before I noticed it and could begin playing again.  I stopped for a moment to relate the information to my sister. She replied that the app was claiming she was ten blocks from where she was and near an inexplicable horseshoe-shaped structure.  I took a side-by-side of where I was to relate GerBo's...relaxed attitude toward geography and also the laws of physics.

Novelty was running low, but I got a boost in determination from getting my first gift card...fragment?

Well, that explained how the gift card scenario was going to shake down.  I could guess how many first pieces of the promised $100 gift card were already being given out and how few of the next two would ever be found, much less that golden fourth, but that was fine.  I play these for the little prizes, not the big ones, because expecting to win anything that isn't roughly 1/80,000th the value they squeeze out of you is a recipe for disappointment.  I kept going.

The hotspots led me into the local Safeway, which happened to also house a Pokestop, and I ran flat against a new flaw: The game is NOT subtle.  PoGo can be played with relative normalcy 80% of the time, since you can turn AR off and keep marching staunchly ahead as you catch.  GerfCo requires either violently whipping around at 180 degrees or slowly turning the same distance with your phone up like a pod person, and I was quickly pressed to decide which was worse.  I ended up buying a candy bar as a social apology for looking like a jerk in a public place and hopefully as an unspoken excuse for being there.  Upon doing so, I realized I didn't have any cash on hand and was paying for a dollar candy bar at midnight in Safeway with a credit card, which made me look like a right pillock instead of a jerk, but now one hundred pennies deep into this venture, I soldiered on, chocolate in hand.

I had noticed by this point that the food system was tiered, so I switched to the one piece of lasagna starting the game had given me and stuck the landing. This gave me a "better chance" of finding the highest-tier chest, but I was unsurprised that it wasn't one.  I was more surprised by what was inside.

I hope you weren't expecting "that $100 gift card".  Ah, yes, Garfield's trademark white fedora, the one he's so known for wearing.  Compelled to take every chance available to make this experience as viscerally unpleasant as possible, I equipped it immediately.

This is why I need meninism.

Things weren't getting better.  The next refresh of the hotspots spawned absolutely every one on the other side of the street.  I was now adding "crossing the road in the middle of the night" to the list of fun-filled family activities GlorpNo had to offer.  I had run out of food and was now using the in-game currency to buy it fresh.  My iPod, which has slowly developed sentience over the years, kept shuffling up Mountain Goats songs.  I was starting to feel distinctly unnerved.

PoGo wasn't averse to getting its two cents in on the matter.

Standing outside of a dimly lit Pizza Hut where the cashier was closing out their drawer and probably wondering if the guy whipping around in half-circles outside the building was planning the world's illest-advised burglary, I won a comic strip panel.  Not a comic strip. A single panel.  Despite the ability to look up literally every Garfield strip ever made on multiple platforms with a casual Google search, I was being given a single panel of a single strip as a hallowed reward.  I pictured a small child working for days for the RNG to let them read a three-panel strip in full, staring bleakly at the one they had in the meantime and wondering if it was the punchline or the setup.  

I began redefining my understanding of the term "liminal space".

By this point, I was entirely out of food, nearly out of coins, and on my last percentage of patience.  As if sent by Jim Davis’ automated humorbot itself begging me to reconsider, I got a notification that the lasagna I had started making an hour and a half ago was done.  I hauled ass to the next hotspot and got ready to make good.

Yeah you all saw that coming.  You know, Globeel, if I tossed a fiver toward a busker’s case and it landed behind it, they would just pick it up.  I know it’s food but 1) you’re a cat 2) you are Garfield the Cat (question mark heavily implied) 3) at least the busker offers a return service.

I need to state that at this point I was actually going to stay with this game, despite my readily apparent feelings on it.  It's not fun, it's not a mentally rewarding experience, but I am by nature a patient person, and I was willing to stick with it for the eventual gains.  That's how you win at these things--being willing to put the time in for the gradual increments to stack up.  I was actually looking forward to going home and checking in on food I was baking and slowly going after the gold.

Then I decided to check what I had earned so far, and the entire thing came to a screeching halt.

Here’s the grift, folks, here's how the carnival game works.  Remember how the system is tiered?  You have to have the highest-tier item to get a chance of seeing one of those diamond chests, and there's no guarantee the piece will be inside.  Again, it takes an hour and a half to bake one piece of lasagna, or else 350 coins to buy one.  You get a small handful of coins from chests and a slightly larger handful if you finish a "trinket" collection, but unless you are willing to devote your waking hours to the game, your recourse is buying your way there.  And...how much are those coins?

Yyyyyeah.  It's Vegas, baby.  You pay to play and the house always wins.

So, friendly fast-buck-sters, this app definitely isn't worth it for money value.  If it was a matter of staying inside and rolling the dice while I multitask, I might be on board for chasing the golden ticket, but GlerbGubler demands all of your attention in public spaces and turns out Sisyphean as a result, if Sisyphus was constantly aware of how awkward he looked pushing that damned boulder. Play Lucktastic, join e-rewards, get into the sites that actually reward you consistently for a reasonable amount of effort.  Your time does have value, so make sure it's honored.

I uninstalled the app on the way home.  Deleted all the data I had, torched it. Stood on the sidewalk laughing, watching it burn, all tabby cat orange and lasagna sauce red.  Then I put on a top 40 station, got on the Hollywood Freeway, headed north.

Never could stand that cat.

#garfield go #garfield #apps #app review #e3 blogging #this is the nightmare bill watterson saw when he said no to merchandising calvin and hobbes #bless 'im for it #appventures #del's abuse of song lyrics #although i think mr. waits would understand #i spent too long on this #food tag