Rambling Rhodes

Credit Cards and Odd Excuses

I've never been in debt. Okay, that's not entirely true. Yes, I've been in the kind of debt where I had to make car payments, and I'm currently in the kind of debt that says I have to make house payments.

I've never been in credit card debt, however. Truth be told, I've never even owned a credit card. I don't trust them. I've been conditioned not to trust them thanks to many years of living with college roommates.

Most of my college roommates had this weird outlook on credit cards. Basically, they thought credit cards were magical pieces of plastic that just magically paid for things and that they were somehow immune from the the ensuing debt that came about due to excessive credit card spending.

I'll admit it: I was sort of jealous of my roommates and their magical credit cards. After all, they always seemed to have money and, if they didn't, they just whipped out their credit cards. Books? Put them on the credit card. Food? Put it on the credit card. Night out at a strip club? credit card.

And yet there I was writing checks and budgeting like a fool. I remember thinking that I was doing everything all wrong. I mean, there I would sit, meticulously lording over my finances, while my roommates went waltzing all over town swiping their credit cards with the careless glee of a six-year-old with a loaded pistol.

Then, one year, I was a roommate with a guy named Chad. Chad was actually a former high school classmate of mine. He was, and is, a tech-head. He's one of those guys who was born to know technology. Way back in elementary school, he taught me how to write simple programs for the Apple IIc, and he always just seemed to know everything about computers.

But he didn't know shit about personal finances. He whipped out any one of his many credit cards with the swiftness and ease of a Old West gunslinger. By the time we became roommates, he had already accrued over $10,000 in credit card debt.

I remember thinking what an incredibly large amount of money that seemed to be, especially when I factored in the understanding that he also received financial aid, and that he also worked. Granted, he worked at the local Brach's candy factory on the Gummi Bear line, which paid about as well as you might imagine, but it was still money, so I came to the conclusion that old Chad was a pretty carefree spender.

Well, one day, I popped into Chad's outrageously messy room where I noticed, tucked between two huge bags of pilfered defective Gummi Bears, a credit card notice that was slugged "Urgent!" and another that was slugged "Immediate Payment Required" and still another that read "We Break Fingers And Toes."

Then the calls started coming in, usually two or three a day. "Is Mr. Haugen available? We really need to speak with him." No, he's not here. "Are you sure you're not really Mr. Haugen?" Yes, I'm sure. "Well, when he comes in, have him call Mike at Discover immediately." *sound of shotgun cocking* Will do.

Chad was masterful when it came to avoiding creditors. He always seemed to leave the apartment just two or three minutes before a creditor called. It was like he had some sort of sixth sense. Which was all fine and dandy, except that I ended up being the intermediary between Chad and the creditors, so I got to absorb all the impatient anger and suspicion of basically every credit card company on the planet.

It was the day a creditor appeared, in person, at our doorstep that I realized Chad's debt situation was probably more dire than Chad cared to admit. There was a knock at the door, I answered, and a gentleman in a suit that looked both impressive and threatening stood before me. He asked to see a Mr. Chad Haugen, at which point I heard a little scuffling emanating from Chad's room as Chad scurried out the back entrance which, conveniently, was located at the far end of his bedroom.

We chatted together, the ominous creditor and me, for about an hour, waiting for Chad to get home, even though, of course, there was no way in holy hell Chad was going to make an appearance while that guy was in our apartment. I even had to produce my ID, so the creditor was satisfied that I wasn't, in fact, Chad Haugen.

After that, I believe, Chad ended up getting a loan from his parents, or somebody, so he could pay off his credit card debt at least enough to keep the creditors at bay. He eventually got a job working at IBM, which was a long-assed commute from Winona to Rochester, but paid a whole lot more than the Gummi Bear line.

As for me, Chad's experience with credit cards pretty much scared me away from plastic for good.

Memories (again)

Ah, that good old day. (Thanks Jim. Me much dumb. Jim, not so much.)

Unreal

So, I went and bought Unreal Tournament 2004 last weekend. It's your typical first person shooter, one of those games that would have Maude Flanders dropping to her knees and screaming "Would somebody please think of the children!!" (or is that Lovejoy's wife who always does that? I simply MUST brush up on my Simpsons).

Basically, Unreal Tournament is like this: you run around, you pick up an arsenal of totally foolish but super-cool weapons, you shoot at people, you die, you respawn. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It's astounding to realize how far computer games have come in just about six years. My first PC that wan't a Mac was a Compaq Presario, which featured a massive (for its time) 4.3 GB hard drive and a screaming fast (for its time) 200 MHz processor. That computer was top o' the line back in 1997.

Unreal Tournament 2004, by comparison, requires a 1.4 GHz processor, and takes up 5.5 GB of hard drive space. My old Compaq couldn't even consider thinking about possibly even installing UT 2004.

Like I said, there are no doubt foks out in the world today who would hear the premise behind UT 2004 (basically, kill everyone) and they'd rant and rave that it's games like UT 2004 that are behind school shootings, a decline in moral values, the Iraq war, big tobacco, and bad breath.

Phooey on those people. Phooey, I say.

Look. I mean, just look at the time-honored board games like Monopoly (premise: make everyone go bankrupt and stand triumphantly on the backs of the poor), or Risk (premise: pretty much like Monopoly, except with a war theme), or Stratego (premise: checkers, except with a war theme).

But, even beyond that, I'm convinced that those people who decry video games like UT 2004 have never actually played the games and experienced the absolute ridiculousness of the experience.

In UT 2004, the most wimpy weapon you can have is pretty much an M-16 with a grenade launcher. That's the most WIMPY gun you can have. It's the gun they start you out with, and it has about as much effect on enemy players as a mosquito with a dull proboscis. The weapons increase in size and craziness, all the way up to gigantic rocket launchers that are innacurate as all hell, but if you hit the target, there's a 20 percent chance they'll atomize (provided their health level is low enough). Yep, in UT 2004, you can get hit with a salvo of exploding rockets, and there's a very real possibility you'll live through the experience, at the expense of most of your health, of course.

My point, of course, is that first person shooters are so ridiculous and fanciful, and so removed from reality, it's virtually impossible for them to be taken seriously.

Imagine, if you will, the following boot camp scenario:

DRILL SERGEANT: Listen up you maggots! You will now learn to fire your standard issue M-16 assault rifle. Learn to love this rifle, men, for it will be your life protector!

RECRUIT: Excuse me, sir. . .

DRILL SERGEANT: What is it, dog-breath!?

RECRUIT: Well, sir, it's just that, I don't know, doesn't this gun seem a little bit wimpy to you?

DRILL SERGEANT: That, you little puke, is a rifle! It is not a GUN!

RECRUIT: Whatever. Listen, I'm just a little concerned that you're equipping us with less-than-effective weaponry here.

DRILL SERGEANT: What in the hell are you talking about, Alpo brains!? The M-16 assault rifle is lethal to a range exceeding 100 yards! It has been proudly carried into battle spanning the last four decades! How in the name of holy hell can you call it wimpy!?

RECRUIT: Well, jeez, man, couldn't you at least start us out with a bio-rifle, or maybe a chain gun?

DRILL SERGEANT: *blank stare*

RECRUIT: I mean, this gun, sorry, RIFLE, here would only really do any significant damage if it had a grenade launcher attached, which this clearly doesn't. I think we should at least have the option of selecting a link gun or even a sniper rifle so I can try for a head shot. I didn't even see a translocator in the gear I was issued.

DRILL SERGEANT: Drop and give me as many push-ups as it takes for you to start making sense, you pathetic hermaphroditic tree frog!!

When I step away from a bout of UT 2004, I don't have some urge to load up my SKS and pick off people walking by, just as when I was 12 years old, playing Ninja Gaiden on my Nintendo I didn't come away from the experience wanting to go all samurai sword on my brother, just as, many year priors to that, playing Combat on my Atari, I didn't feel the need afterwards to crawl into a tank and shoot things.

If anything, I find myself envying some of the kids today. Last night, while playing UT 2004, I was basically annihilated by a bunch of kids ranging in age from nine to 18. I mean, they wiped me out over and over and over again, the damned whipper-snappers, and yet I found myself wishing I could be that quick and accurate.

And, after each frag-fest, most of the kids would right "gg" on the screen, meaning "Good Game." It's a game. They know it's a game.

Are there kids out there who may take silly games like UT 2004 too seriously, and it alters their sense of reality? Perhaps. But, there's more than likely some sort of psychological disorder operating under the radar to make that possible.

That being said, I have to say, head shots are really freakin' cool!

A place to call home - In triplicate

Well, if you read this post, you've probably been wondering how the house updating has been coming along.

Melissa and I have come a long way, even though we fight almost every second on what looks good and what looks bad. I usually concede to her, because, really, what the heck do I know?

Judging by the last update, the picture was of the living room. Here's what it looks like now:

As for the dining room, it once looked like this. It now looks like this. Granted, the chandelier still has to go, but it still looks better.

Nothing has been done with the kitchen, because that's expensive as hell, but Melissa put contact paper down in all the shelves, and I discovered that the 4, 5 and 6 buttons on the microwave don't work any more, which makes for some creative heating machinations on my part.

On to the bedroom, which once looked like this, but now looks like this:

And now for the PINK ROOM, which isn't pink any more:

No, it's not pink any more:

Oh, and just to make my point:

You may be wondering where I've been actually LIVING as all of this transformation has been going on. Well, what once was this, is now this. So, I'm Spartan, and so is Mel.