Because brushing your teeth is just too hard.

[lemon_says]

I hate those commercials where they use ineptitude as justification for the existence of their product. Like when they try to sell the pasta pot with the holes in the lid, they show all these people dumping their spaghetti into the sink, or on the floor, or anywhere but into the colander.

It's not that hard to drain spaghetti.

There's one where the person is trying to cut a straight line to separate some photos, and the scissors veer off across one photo to show how she needs the straight-line-chopper. The can tops all drop into cans, contaminating tuna or splashing soup, because these people didn't have the magnetized can opener. People chopping vegetables cut their fingers and fling zucchini hither and yon. Eggs are burned, pancakes folded. I just now saw a commercial for a spinning toothbrush because brushing your teeth manually is "a lot of work." I don't personally consider brushing my teeth to be particularly taxing, but maybe it's just me.

The banana slicer is, I'm sure, one of the most necessary inventions known to man.

What is the least-necessary gadget that you own?

Comments

[pipistrella.livejournal.com]

I've actually had to curtail my bitstrip creativity. It was pointed out to me that I was doing a lot of strips about work, and that I can be traced back to the company I work for.

I'd love to write more about work, but I have this NDA, and although our game is not yet released we have a bunch of people on the forums who have been known to discover and stalk our blogs.

But yeah - I'm a geek. A geek who doesn't (I hope) look or act like a geek. I like to think that if you saw me in the street you'd have no idea that I do all kinds of role-playing games - including the supremely dorky live-action kind - and write video game dialogur for a living.

[jaysaint.livejournal.com]

You definitely don't want to be Dooced.

I try to practice a fair degree of discretion as well, since I'm a media person by profession.

Let me preface the rest: I have ZERO gaming cred. Really. None. But I love that stuff. The most I can claim is that I played Diablo through twice and may do it again some day. But I'm always looking for games I can play in that genre that don't require me to learn reams of new information. I just want to shoot things with arrows and solve (non-Mensa-level) puzzles.

Live action? Neat!

[pipistrella.livejournal.com]

Oh, live-action is supremely dorky! You can do these elaborate stage sets and create role-playing scenarios around moral dilemmas and to most of the world you will still be some nerd in chain mail. You sort of have to get over that to do it.

I love puzzle games. The one I work on is set to be an MMO, but I love those single-player games that are all about escaping the castle or whatever.

[jaysaint.livejournal.com]

What's "MMO"?

Do you have any of those single-player castle games to recommend? I have a computer and a Wii on which I can play. Because a new baby means lots of free time for epic quests.

[pipistrella.livejournal.com]

Um.

Here's where I have to admit something embarrassing. Because I work on an MMO, I've been focusing on playing MMOs lately and pretty much all the single-player games I know are for the PS2. However, my office is a wealth of gaming knowledge, and so it'll be easy to find out what's good.

But you DID say epic quests - does that mean WoW is an option?

After writing this, I noticed your initial question.

MMO or MMORPG = massive multiplayer online role-playing game, e.g. World of Warcraft or Everquest.

The one I work on is not yet released, but the job does allow me to, when people ask what I do at work, say, "I'm in charge of ninjas."

I noticed you said you were in media - what sort? I'm assuming it's something way less nerdy than gaming.

[jaysaint.livejournal.com]

I think WoW, from my limited exposure, proved to be too complicated for me. With a new baby in the house I really need a game I can just jump in and play. Annoying, I know.

I would love to be in charge of ninjas, there's no way my job is as cool as that. I run a web site. Right now it's Redbookmag.com but soon it will be another one, as I've just taken a new job. I can't reveal that one yet, but will very soon. That makes it sound glamorous, and it shouldn't.