Apologies: Doing them right (The Oatmeal Edition)

For those who asked:

- This morning The Oatmeal posted a rather cruddy comic.

- The Twitterverse and Blogosphere understandably blew up.
- The Oatmeal kind of apologized.
- The Twitterverse and Blogosphere were still understandably pissed.
- The Oatmeal apologized the right way.

 I apologize to any female gamers who I offended.  I didn’t mean to perpetuate the idea that women are treated more nicely while playing games online.  It sounds like in a lot of cases the opposite is true.

In short:  I’m sorry for making a stupid comic today. 

Lastly, apologies on the internet mean about as much as farts do in outer space. So I went ahead and donated $1,000 to the Women Against Abuse foundation. 

Hugs and asspickles, 

-Matthew

Yay. Major points to him for being a decent human being, humble/brave enough to admit a mistake and cool enough to make amends for it.

Think Pink

I'm torn.

On one hand, I really don't care for pink. Occasionally I indulge in something that's a brilliant, deep magenta. Maaaybe. But cotton candy pink? The single, strangely sickening color that tech marketing folks use to attract women? Not so much. It's just not my style.

I resent this shade of pink. It's patronizing. The cotton candy pink laptops (which are never top of the line models, btw), game consoles, mobile phones, game controllers, etc. scream at me from the shelves of Best Buy. "THE NEEDS AND DESIRES OF FIFTY PERCENT OF THE POPULATION CAN BE BOILED DOWN TO THIS! IT'S ALL YOU GET! CONSIDER YOURSELF INCLUDED!" When these companies got together to brainstorm ideas for attracting female consumers, this one shade of pink is all they could come up with? Really? Seriously. Really?!?!!

However ...

Somehow I feel drawn to these things. I feel a bit like it's my duty to buy them. To prove that the market it out there. That, yes, girls ... nay ... WOMEN ... like this stuff. Sometimes I want to cover my laptop in sparkling pink rhinestones. As a sign of solidarity.

I am female. I can also fix your computer. This combination is neither mutually exclusive, nor unusual.



Full disclosure: There is a cotton candy pink Xbox 360 controller sitting on my coffee table at home. I also insist of playing as Peach in Mario Kart. And I win.

Paper Mario: First Impressions

First of all, I want to say that I am a woman who considers herself to be a bit of a videogame geek. I clung to my Game Boy as a little girl, I envied everyone's Segas, Ataris, and Nintendos, and I cried for hours when Aeris died. I become conflicted when it comes to my thoughts on feminism and gaming, and I'm sure they'll come up soon enough, but I essentially want you to know that I love losing myself in this stuff. It's one of my favorite laid back things to do (ditto to hitting up the beach). I get a bit annoyed when people act like it's a novelty, and I also hate it when people call me a n00b and give me crap for not knowing that all your base are belong to us. Or insert some other random game reference here. Seriously, you'd think I, like, zoned a hoard of Lvl 55 Orcs and then slapped a kitten huffer while pissing on their precious Penny Arcade. Of which I am a fan, btw. And Sluggy. Old Sluggy. I also want to clarify that I'm not one of the gamer girls that closes herself off from society, hates pop culture and has a million pictures of pixies on her myspace page. I have dated plenty, I love me some Jimmy Choos, and unlike some geeks, I have seen the light of day. You also won't see me at ComicCon. No offense.

Anyway, back to Paper Mario.

First thoughts:

The intro is annoyingly long. I can't decide if I love or hate the mustache humor. In some ways, I feel over it, in other ways I'm eating it up because it feels lovely and familiar. Like your mom. (See what I did there?)

It stays dull until you can flip into 3D. The awesomeness commences.

The star power is awesomer than awesomeness squared. Wow. I love breaking stuff in games. Always fun. In addition, Mario occasionally finds a band of little Marios - he has an ass-kicking posse!

The talking parts are my least favorite. Some of the jokes are cute, but they aren't particularly clever, we've heard most of it before.

Even if you think you hate it, stick with it until you meet the ubergeek and his virtual dating computer program.

More to come...unless, like most bloggers, I promise you something, you get excited, and then I never follow up on it. It's like a cock tease, but sadder and there aren't any tassels.