Oh and Incidentally...

...while doing an image search for the picture at the end of the post about Towel Day, I typed 'people playing a game' which the internet elves took to mean video games. The result? I got a lot of stuff that looks like:

this-

 and this-

-aaaaand this. I mean look at those tools.

So obviously I'd like to have a frank and open discussion with people who don't play video games yet for some reason are in charge of staging photo shoots of gamers: Guys, please stop doing what you're doing.

Is this what you look like when you

watch TV? No? Thought so. 

All told I've probably wasted a master's degree worth of time playing video games and I can tell you from decades, yeah, decades, of experience that no one looks like that (see above) when playing video games. Ever. Yet whenever there's a picture of people playing games in a news story or in an ad it's always the same: Well-lit, neatly dressed people perched on the edge of their couches, faces twisted in orgasmic bliss while they struggle to keep a hold on the controller which threatens to be torn from their grasp by some powerful, unseen video-game wormhole of x-hyphen-treameness.

This almost never happens.

Seriously dude, put your arms

down. You look like an idiot.

With video games having been around since the 70's and something like 67% of Americans owning at least one game console, you'd think the people responsible for taking these pictures would have seen one being played before before. Despite the best efforts of things like the Wii and anything that requires the player to strum a plastic guitar, it's still a pretty sedentary experience. Go to a Gamestop at watch the people at the demo units. Note the dead-eyed stares and slightly gaping expressions. No, that's not awe, that's mouth-breathing.