Oh, Come On! Yeah, We’ve Learned Stuff from GTA, But Do We Gotta See It in Reality?

Okay, for those of you not in Houston, Grand Theft Auto-mentality has reared its sometimes-ugly head in real life. A guy by the name of George Theobald is accused of stealing a Range Rover, getting into a fender bender in a busy shopping center parking lot, then hitting and killing one of the other vehicle’s occupants when she got out to check the damage. (Read more at http://bit.ly/Fzmat.)

Kill frenzies only happen in video games, people! Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m just waiting for someone to blame Grand Theft Auto, Saint’s Row, or, heck, even Modern Warfare 2. After all, they’re hit games, two of the three are about stealing cars and other crimes, and one was just released to a veritable fuster cluck of hype. The thing is this: Just like the omnipotent “they” blamed music for the rash of school shootings in the late ’90s and early ’00s, video games have become a scapegoat. But here’s the facts:

• Theobald is almost 40, and while that doesn’t preclude him from being a gamer, his record, which stretches back to 1987, just might. Also, he’s definitely past that age when peer pressure is a marginally accceptable excuse for bad behavior.
• Hitting a person and killing her when you were just in a minor, low-to-no-damage accident with her car is a jerk move. All the more so when you consider that there are plenty of witnesses and you saw the person get out to check the damage.

You have to wonder why anyone would try to run from the scene of a double accident. (I don’t know if that’s a real term, but it seems to fit.) What could you think at a time like that? “I got their attention with that first hit. Now, let me pin a person between the cars and see if they notice if I run”? Dude! I don’t think that’s going to fly.

What about you? What instances of complete video game jerkery have you seen enter real life?

Ask Questions about the New Job Before You Wind up in a Bad Situation

Okay, given the economy, my shakey employment status, and a slew of other issues, this is relevant stuff, people.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a person to dissolve the monetary bonds which have connected them with a business, and to assume among their powers a new station to which the laws of bill pay and of supply and demand supposedly entitle them, a decent respect to their opinions requires that s/he should declare the causes which impel him/her to a new position. But then again, a prospective new employer should be up front about who they are and what they do.

These problems are seen mostly in newer games, namely the GTA series, its clones, and all their officially unemployed protagonists. However, when searching for a job, this gentle riff off of the Declaration of Independence also holds true.

See, last month I enquired about a magazine writing job recently, and at first everything seemed on the up and up. But upon further inspection (now roughly a month after applying), the business has gotten back in touch with me. In the meantime, though, its address has all but disappeared; a new website has gone up, more or less eliminating the magazine’s connection with a legitimate advertising company; and it would seem the only contact information is a cell phone number. I can’t tell you how often I’ve seen this kind of weirdness happen.

I really feel like this economic fuster-cluck is upping entrepreneurship in a very negative way. Yes, people are coming up with new and exciting products, but they’re scams, hoaxes, and other forms of complete lies. I don’t see the point. I mean, why scam people who are already broke? Okay, yes, there’s identity theft, but with the way things are, I have my doubts that very many people have enough credit left for such efforts to be worth the time.

Anyways, it’s odd that someone would go through the trouble of creating a scam that makes them seem like an industry-specific magazine, headed by a media company from Oklahoma. There’s no glamour. There’s no potential for fame. So who are they targeting? Whatever the case, given the unprofessional form letters, the mySpace site, and the lack of information, I’m uneasy. I’ll still interview, but I’ll be on the lookout for giveaways.

But I’m beginning to understand circumstantial anti-heroes like Niko Bellic.