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Robbed at EB Games

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Rants

Published: 06 October 2009

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The children want to swap some of their unused video games, so we go through the box and line up a dozen or so they no longer play. Mostly XBox games, some in the case, all in good working order, and as I'm not familiar with the process the boy explains that I'll have to go along, they need an adult, they'll exchange the games for credit and get some different ones.

So we head on down. It's a busy little store this, a popular chain that sells both new and used games for all makes of console. And the clerk begins to scan the games in, the price he gives is the price that comes up on the computer. 50 cents. 25 cents. And I'm a little surprised, these things are expensive new, but maybe they're really cheap used. He looks a bit sheepish as he scans them in, the games, 50 cents here, 25 cents here, by the time he's scanned all the games in the kids have earned a whopping $6.00 in credit. For a dozen used XBOX games. And I'm wondering how much their used games are, if they're paying 25 or 50 cents per game, how much can they be charging for the same games?

I quickly find out. $15-20 per used game. For a game they purchased from their customers for under a dollar.

I catch the boys eye, can't bring myself to say anything, it would have been better to simply dump the games off at a thrift shop than trade them here at their usurious rates of exchange.

Now I understand they have to make a living. And maybe these games we were exchanging, they weren't the most popular of titles. But then why wouldn't they sell them at a dollar or two? Or, if they don't need the game, why take it at all? Why not set up a table in the middle of the store where people can simply swap unpopular games, 2 for 1, and make their money off the traffic that will naturally come through?

But reason is frequently lost with these companies. Suffice it to say I'll never purchase anything there again. And I think there needs to be a T-Shirt - "I was robbed at EB Games...", given away free to anyone stupid enough to exchange a game there.

Plays, Chinese boy, living north of Texas

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Dreams

Published: 30 September 2009

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I've had a wealth of strange dreams lately. I put it down to stress. And while I won't write these down in their entirety, here is a brief sampling.....

There's a Chinese boy, maybe 7, he's over in America on a scholarship, hiding in a now defunct radio telescope array, I see him, his family, shadows flitting about the unused equipment, he's a prodigy, there are other people living down here, some are more legal than others, and his story is that he was a prodigy, brought over when NASA was still thriving, now, with NASA defunct, they're living here....

Or I'm on my way to see a play, Orpheus and Euridyce's at the Grand, and I've caught a bus in from out of town...It drops me off in an old neighborhood not far from the theater, I think, and so I begin to make my way towards the play....I pass somewhere I used to live, counting the street numbers, it's getting later and later and I realize that I'm not going to make the play....

There's a building and I'm inside, it's a poetry reading, famous local lawyer is reading, he's tall, thin, good looking with shock of dark hair, those fashionable thick dark rimmed glasses and a peculiar overbite that sees his top row of teeth extend an inch above his bottom. He's a lawyer but he'd really rather be a poet, the lawyer business is just something he does to pass the time... I've somehow volunteered with this play, and so go along with a coterie of volunteers to the theatre to see a pre-screening. It's in his law offices, there's a stage below and 1 floor up, perched precariously on the edge without room to move are the seats...I get vertigo finding mine, looking down at the stage, feels as if one could fall at any moment, and there's no guardrail to protect you.

It's a modern dance number, the dream passes, we help the dancers with their blocking, the view from above looks through a cross-shaped cut in the floor. He tells my my role as volunteer, I'm to hold up a sign on the Whitemud freeway in Edmonton that tells traffic how to get here....

I think this is absolutely useless, I've missed my play, Orpheus and Eurydice, but he's very persuasive and charming, and now begins to tell me about how the law firm he works for has hidden a cashbox full of money in a corner of the law office, buried right in the concrete, and maybe there's room for a bright young man such as myself to be his intern, we could split the proceeds....

I'm living somewhere north of Texas with a woman and her child...my daughter is there, we're only 3 hours from the Gulf of Mexico, the ex swings by to tell me it's OK, she doesn't mind living here, it's strange, the house is dark, like a woodsy log-cabin, something isn't right and I keep thinking that the Gulf of Mexico is only 3 hours from here....

***

All in all a strange assortment, a rather unbroken streak of half-remembered, disquieting dreams...

New Landlord....

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Miscellany

Published: 30 September 2009

Hits: 2252

The house has sold, and is now in the hands of the new owners. 

Which is the cause of some stress. 

Mainly because the last owner was enormously patient with my varied rent schedule.

The new owners I don't think will be so kind.

But they've owned the house now for 2 days, and have not yet swung 'round to enquire about the rent.

That could be a good thing. Or not.

It isn't there. There are cheques outstanding, as always, but the rent, the rent and damage deposit they're probably expecting, it isn't there.

It's a warning sign that the freelancing thing isn't quite working out, and so I've made up my mind to move back into the world of paid labour.

Not an easy or light decision, but in light of the past year a long overdue one. 

So, if the blog posts are a little slender, or less than your expecting, this is why. Until I've some sort of confirmed, regular employment I'll be investing my energies in other directions. But I'll resume this, hopefully in a sunnier vein, in the very near future....