Robomarketer

I have always said that telemarketers are one of the greatest free toys around if you can merely get beyond viewing them as an intrusive irritation. They’re paying for the call and yet they want to keep you on the line so you can say anything to them. Leading them on may be harsh, but there are many other ways to have fun with them. However the new breed of pre-recorded telemarketing messages are cheating, killing the game entirely. Gone is the human interaction, gone is battle of wits and determination (unless you’re my mother who talked to one for almost half a minute before realising it was a recording and she just had to hang up). How can we compete with a cold, heartless machine who is, more importantly, deaf. The countless telemarketers thrown out on the streets and forced to live off sewer rats as a result of this new technology does a little to warm my heart, but I fear it is not enough to outweigh the loss.

I am, unsurprisingly, very happy with my new Gamespot purchase. Mostly because it would be embarassing if I’d changed my mind in less than a day. In fact my raving about high definition video was apparently so superlative that diehard IGN supporter Toby is now also a registered Gamespot member. Talk of their 12-hour Oblivion preview marathon may well have tempted him. The community aspect is aided by the awarding of “emblems”, little badges stitched by your mother to the digital lapels of your user profile in boy scout fashion. The twist is that they are automatically awarded for a criteria that isn’t public knowledge. So the “PC Afficionado” emblem is awarded for having a particular number of PC Games listed in your collection, but to find out how many are required involves experimentation. For my part, in return for having a large collection of games which are, on average, highly rated by GS I am proud to have earned the “Good Taste” emblem, proclaiming to the community that I am a veritable connoisseur. I already knew that, of course, but it’s always nice to hear it from someone else.

If like me your patience is wearing thin with the infernal machines that have become the driving force of our lives and yet still feel compelled to crash regularly out of a proud yet misguided sense of tradition, you may require this antidote.

And finally, I came upon this horrifying revelation into Pixar’s dark secret. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?