Ooh, ouch, you got me that time Miller. Twice with the get-a-grip burn, stop it, I can’t take it. If you say it another time, I might be forced to leave and never come back, I mean it.
Well, hell it’s worth a shot:
Hands. Grip. Tightly. Head. Ass.
You gone yet?
All ye who say Scylla is fucked up, are yourselves fucked up ungrateful swine who are using comptuers to post your opinions that capitalism is unfair, while forgetting that without capitalism, you wouldn’t have computers in the first place.
The spirit of Ayn Rand is smiling on you today, Scylla.
I also like skeeball, though the amount of money I spend playing it isn’t worth even the big prizes. Nevertheless, the enjoyment of the game is also a benefit, albeit an intangible one.
However, I don’t WANT a Spongebob Squarepants toy, even though I used to be pretty darn good at skeeball. When I play arcade games, what I want, most of all, is to put “LYN”* on the high score list, so that all might wonder at my prowess.
Nowadays, of course, I have my PS2 and a selection of arcade classics, and I still play them for the sheer joy of trying to beat my high score. Mostly I play video RPGs (not to be confused with P&P RPGs) these days.
*Actually, putting “LYNN BODONI” up would be even better, but just about all the high score lists limit one to three letters.
Right now I’m playing Nethack, and my elven priestess is getting desperate for food, but I’m holding out for a vegetarian meal. I REFUSE to eat a kobold, I’m sure it will disagree with me.
So does this make G.W. Bush the kid who had more tokens than most of the kids, but still had to resort to prying open the machine and stealing the whole roll of tickets to get the big prize? 
I could have sworn skee-ball had to be a right wing thing because God was so into it.
Elf needs food badly! Elf is about to die!
Sorry, Gauntlet flashback there.
I thought the post was hilarious, and was making as much fun of the supposed narrator of the post as of his targets of ire. Some damn nice writing.
I always love these posts, and watching people take them entirely too seriously only adds to my joy.
Me too.
…and Scylla produces another rare gem of insight and commentary on daily life and the Big Picture. Nicely done, dude.
Well, duh. I could make a pretty firm case that the Inner Party of the former Soviet Union did largely the same thing. Admittedly, their excesses weren’t formed by market capitalism, but “inadequately regulated environment” seems to hit it right on the mark.
It’s a matter of private vs. public. Private is good. Public sucks. But private costs more money than public. You want P.J. O’Rourke?
“The perfect paradigm of public service is the public restroom. Filthy, stinky, and inadequate.”
No, it’s not an exact quote, but as good as my memory allows. And he was right. You want the good shit, you have to pay for it.
Admittedly, this does not mean that by paying, you will get the good shit. “Inadequately regulated environments” include “marketplaces that allow selling nothing for something.” This is what happens in carnivals where you try to play that basketball-shooting game… without ever realizing that the hoops are bent slightly so as to almost never allow the ball to actually go through the damn thing. “Inadequately regulated.”
Unfortunately, this is an area where the Modern Republican tends to fail miserably.
Y’see, I used to be a Republican. Hell, yes! Who wouldn’t wanna be a Republican? Standing for firm fiscal policy, good sense, responsible management of money and policy, a strong military, and against idiotic giveaways to crack whores and layabouts?
…but then… Reagan came along. And ever since, Republicans and Regulation have never agreed too well with each other.
Republicans don’t like regulation. They say it raises the cost of doing business, and hurts everyone. Oh, wait – they DO like regulations on PRIVATE CITIZENS, like caps on lawsuit awards and like that – but regulate BUSINESS? Never!
…which means that the little pusher games where you pump your quarters in and wait for the landslide of tokens and prizes are the perfect symbol for the modern Republican administration. After all, if Chuck E. Cheese actually had to allow you to WIN, that would raise the cost of doing business to the point where they’d have to, like, lower the quality of their pizza, or something, wouldn’t it?
No, actually, I don’t think Chuck E. Cheese’s pizza could get any worse. They’d just have to close down.
Or, perhaps the claw games are a better example. Once upon a time, claw games kicked ass. They had these big-assed steel Steam Shovel claws, and you’d press the buttons and maneuver the claw, and crank the little crank, and once you got a GRIP on something, you’d WON the sucker. No way that claw was going to let go.
Now, the big steel claws are gone. In their place are these slender three-fingered chrome things that don’t have the strength to grip much of anything. You put your coins in… you maneuver the claw over the stuffed toy of your choice… you hit the DROP button… the claw descends… grabs the toy, perfectly… begins to pull it up… and halfway up, the toy slips from between the weak fingers, and falls right back where you found it.
Claw machine 1, user zero. Unregulated capitalism in action.
But wait! There’s another claw machine right next to it! And this one sells CANDY! And has a neat little sign on it that says PLAY TILL YOU WIN! It’ll let you keep playing until you actually manage to claw up some candy and drop it into the dump slot!
Admittedly, the value of the candy you’re likely to get is less than the quarter you paid to play the game, but, hey, you won something, didn’t you? Don’t you feel good about that?
Unregulated capitalism in action.
Admittedly, the Democrats aren’t much better. They’d regulate pusher games out of existence, and simply allow everyone to use the crappy games from 1983… after you’d filled out all the proper paperwork and Environmental Impact Statements, and suchlike, of course.
sigh…
Me three. I got it right away. Good story, Scylla.
I think the course of action is obvious.
Chuck E. Cheese seems perfectly willing to overcharge for the ‘services’ provided to the liberal cause, all the while holding back the best to be sold to those wealthier patrons willing to pay the black market price.
I suggest we name a special prosecutor to look into Mr. Cheese’s willful theft and defrauding of the family.
What? And REGULATE a BUSINESS?
No, I must counterpropose a legally imposed cap on the size of the prizes your children are allowed to win there, instead.
Joke’s on you, Scylla. Those “kids” you think are so liberal and socialist are obviously Bush-administration neo-conservatives.
Dear Scylla’s Tyke
If you’re reading this, its because you’re just as smart as Daddy thinks you are. This, in itself, is amazing. But you might be a little confused now, what with all these big words and funny ideas. Personal responsibility, entreprenuership, boot straps…what does it all mean? Don’t worry, child. None of that matters, because Daddy is a pushover.
Bat your big brown eyes once, and Daddy will drag Chuck E. Cheese out and pound him to mouse goo. You want “free range cheese”, “free range cheese” you will have. Because Daddy is a pushover. Get the dictionary and look up the word “dote”. See that picture? Daddy.
Bat the big browns twice and Daddy will sell a kidney to provide you with enough money for graduate school, while you pursue your double major in Art History and Women’s Studies, with minors in Queer Theory and Deconstructionism. Because Daddy is a pushover. Because Daddy loves you.
Now, Daddy has some funny ideas, child. We’re working on that, and some progress has been made. Not much, but some. But you don’t have to worry. Those ideas don’t apply to you, they apply to us. Just listen very carefully to Big Bird. If Daddy disagrees with Big Bird, Daddy is wrong. Sooner or later, all Daddy’s are wrong. It doesn’t matter. Because Daddy loves you.
I thought it was showing that you were a moderate Republican.
Nice piece of writing Scylla.
For what it’s worth, I went to my nephew’s birthday party a year or so ago at a place with free video games. And the games were a lot of fun.
On the main topic, I think that economic conservatives have a tendency to present us with a bit of a false dilemma. While it’s true that ultra-socialist policies can mess up peoples’ incentives and create a lot of misery, it is still perfectly possible for a wealthy western nation such as the United States to offer socialized services; to redistribute wealth; etc., without ending up like the Soviet Union.
While it may annoy you that 40-50% of your hard-earned income goes, in part, to help subsidize goods and services for poor people, the reality is that you still go to work every day, do your job, and help to keep the U.S. the richest country in the world.
Yes, the average amount of wealth might be greater without such redistribution, but IMHO there’s a lot of value in having a country where the poorest people are a little better off than they would be in Dickensian London. Just MHO of course.
You know, Scylla, I thought my friend Russell in college was weird when he brought his calculus book to me and explained in great detail how it was really the history of the 20th Century in disguise. (He showed me, among other things, the assassination of President Kennedy and the Great Depression – in a calculus book. Riiiight.)
But I think Russell just found some competition.
Thought it was great, dude. Anybody who’s ever been to Chuck-E Cheese or one of those places can identify with the horror that is children on too much sugar and not enough supervision, and can see the sociopolitical and economic microcosm that they represent.