"Why Do We Always Want More?" Or, "The Cart Before The Horse" - A Purchasing Habit Analysis

Hi, my name is Pete, and I'm a plastic and cardboard addict. ~ Pete

After going rounds with X-Wing and Attack Wing, I was considering the driving motivators which cause me to continually drop giant fistfuls of money down a white-hot money pit, knowingly and enthusiastically. I'm an educated guy, and I know that if I were to take the $400.00 that I've spent on the games, combined, and put it in a 8% yield IRA without any additional money added, in 30 years, it would be $4025.00. When I look at things like this, I sigh, and I laugh a little at the people who talk about buying a game as "an investment". Sorry, but there's very few games in history that can return 10x the amount paid, outside of collectible card games where one card may be worth a great deal in a short period of time. That said, you need to buy a lot of packs to get that one special card, and you need to know which cards will be valuable down the road for that to pan out. So, that whole "investment" argument is something that people do to make themselves feel a little less stupid about their actions, my own included.

So, then I considered what it would be like if I were to simply buy a "base set" game, and then never buy expansions. The cost of a base game is generally an order of magnitude less than the final price paid during the "active lifespan" of a game, and if the base game is good enough to buy every damned thing that ever becomes available for a game, then isn't it really about just trying to extend the useful life of a game? If the base set is so damned good, and so good that you're willing to spend several times its original cost to extend it, is it really all that good to begin with? If it's that good, why does it need a sea of new bits thrown at it perpetually when the bits don't really add anything new to the base, but rather, just add more of the same?

This is the "cart before the horse" conundrum, in my opinion. Either you need to accept that you're simply an addict who is justifying your need to collect things by the base game's intrinsic eminence, or that you're a lunatic. When you look to games that are in everyone's "top ten" lists and "game of the year lists", very few of them are games that have, or require, expansions. They stand on their own, and you can enjoy them for years without requiring any additional investment. Anyone can see this, so again, is it not putting the cart before the horse when you buy a base game that has expansions available? Is the game really that good if games that don't need expansions to support it are rated equally by "the masses"? Shouldn't games that offer expansions, or games that are immediately identifiable to have expansions available in short order, be rated lower than those that can stand on their own without needing any extra material?

I think that the punchline here for all of us is that we all know that a game is an "experience product" and we're paying for the experience of playing it. So, by extension, we're buying these expansions to either extend or enhance the experience, not have a new experience. I cannot really name a collectible game that was truly made better by buying another card or ship or character, really. They open up the options available to a player, but does that make it better, or does it simply make it more varied? I believe it's the latter, and then, extending that thought further, does it not imply that if we're looking for variety rather than improvement, that we should simply buy another stand-alone game instead of buying more deeply into a collectible game? If games are an "experience product", and buying games is, at its core, attempting to have new experiences, does it not stand to reason that extending an experience is less valuable than having another totally different experience? Should we be buying two additional X-Wings and two additional TIE fighters instead of simply buying Merchants and Marauders instead for the same price?

This isn't a new idea, I'm sure, but it's something that I've been personally debating for a very long time. At the end of the day, perhaps I'm just realizing that I'm an addict, having spent a small fortune on all manners of collectible game. Not long ago I calculated the amount of money I've spent on collectible games and was aghast at how much money I'd have had to spend in 2040, had I simply put it into a 5% yield mutual fund instead of buying collectible and expandable games. We're talking nearly a hundred of thousand dollars here. I literally could've put one of my kids through two years of school in 2023 had I not spent the money I did in 2005. Even if I had simply invested in generic miniatures that could be used for several different games and occasionally purchased new rule sets, I'd have still come out way ahead.

Back to the original point, though, it seems to me that unless an expansion truly delivers a different and unique experience, based on the idea that games are indeed "experience purchases", logically speaking, it's simply not worth buying. The temptation is incredibly difficult to resist, as I found while buying two of every ship in the Star Wars X-Wing line. I mean, with so many unique squad builds, the experience had to be totally different, right? No, no it wasn't. Playing against the Falcon with TIE Interceptors or playing against two TIE fighters with an X-Wing, both found in the base set, wasn't different; it was the exact same experience, it just happened to have different models and strategies to achieve the same basic goal, using the same basic rules. 

After realizing that, I started doing the math, and that scared the shit out of me. I had spent $90.00 on three base sets, and another $190.00 on the expansions. Just last week I picked up a couple more ships, in fact, adding more onto that tab. I found myself asking myself what these extra ships really offered in terms of "the experience", and sadly, I was forced to face the facts. They don't offer anything but diversity of models on the play field, and I had been sucked into yet another game with snazzy models for over $300.00 total. Playing with TIE fighters instead of TIE interceptors is just as much fun, and it's really not that much different. Again, if I put $300.00 into an IRA, and if I retire at 65, at a 5% return and adjusted for tax and inflation, I'd come out with just under $1000.00 cash at the end. What a fucking sucker. I mean, seriously, it is the acme of compulsive behavior.

To the end of changing my behavior, last week, I sold off the lion's share of my X-Wing stuff. I sold two base sets and almost all the expansions; I have one base set, one X-Wing expansion, one TIE fighter expansion, one Y-Wing expansion, one TIE interceptor expansion, the Moldy Crow expansion, and I just picked up a TIE bomber and a B-Wing. I did so at a loss, as one might expect. With the money, and with another hundred bucks sprinkled on the fire, I bought Star Trek: Attack Wing, and I mean all of it, including two each of the Dominion ships. Then, with Ebay proceeds from selling other things, I bought the "Dominion War OP Month 1 Participation Prize". That ran me another $30. It makes you wonder just what kind of fucking insanity has riddled my mind that I would do that, knowing that all of these collectible games add very little with each iteration, and knowing that I just did the same damned thing with X-Wing. 

Now, maybe you'd be surprised to know that I'm not the kind of guy who needs to be able to "talk about games" with my friends, or the kind of guy that feels some value in being able to talk with others about the merits of any one given game or expansion bit. I don't need to be "in the know", I don't need to be "smarter" than anyone else. I'm just me; plain old, flawed me. I don't post things much on Fortress: Ameritrash, and I virtually never do anything on BoardGameGeek. So, I'm wondering to myself, "wherein lies the value of these things if they don't indelibly change the game for the better in meaningful ways, but rather simply provide diversity, and incalculably less diversity than just buying several different games"? I don't know, and if I did, I probably wouldn't be having this "coming to Jesus" moment with myself about my predilection toward buying into collectible games balls deep without truly mastering the base game well enough to really need to extend it, if you can call that a need. The fact that I just called it a need indicates the pervasive nature of my addiction. Food, shelter, and water are needs. Buying metric fucktons of plastic for a game isn't a need.

I am an undeniable game addict, and as much as I'd like to not be, I am. It's part of me, it's always been a part of me, and that's that. If you go to the American Society of Addiction Medicine website and look up the definition of addiction, there you have it:

Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. Dysfunction in these circuits leads to characteristic biological, psychological, social and spiritual manifestations. This is reflected in an individual pathologically pursuing reward and/or relief by substance use and other behaviors.

 Addiction is characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response. Like other chronic diseases, addiction often involves cycles of relapse and remission. Without treatment or engagement in recovery activities, addiction is progressive and can result in disability or premature death.

Granted, I'm not going have any sort of disability or premature death, and the substances are plastic and cardboard, but the fact remains that buying shit you don't need that doesn't add much actual value to a game surely looks, smells, and feels like an addiction. What other possible explanation could there be? Buying lots and lots of expansions for a game, no matter how great that game is, makes no sense. If it doesn't change the experience in a dramatic and undeniable way, it makes no sense except that it's an addiction. 

I know a great many addicts: alcoholics, heroin addicts, meth addicts, pot addicts. They're not hard to find, no matter where you look: Church, work, neighbors, or just on the street, there's addicts of various things everywhere. Maybe we're all programmed that way, or at least programmed to be susceptible to it. I'm here to tell you: people don't buy hits of heroin because they're looking to have a different experience, they're buying it to have the same experience over and over again. They're looking to get the same "high" as they did the first time, which is both hopeless and increasingly more expensive a pursuit. Is this not the EXACT SAME THING? Are we who buy into collectible games not merely reaching for the same experience of awe and joy we had when we first played the game? The experience of learning a game for the first time, exploring it, mastering it? Is it not just taking more chrome onto the game to achieve that same mental "high", giving us more options to master? Really, are we not all buying these things with the action-reward impulse at its core?

I always find myself showing off the new models I buy to the wife or my daughter, talking in grand terms like, "Wow, can you believe how pretty this thing is" or "The paint on this thing is superb! Those little Chinese wage-slave kids sure can paint, baby". I cannot, in honesty, tell you if I have ever said, "Wow, this ship really changes the game in a substantial way. I mean, this ship will make it an entirely different, better game that without it, it would just not be as good." It's obvious to me, at this point, that it's about new and shiny, not better and different. That's troubling to me, because I've always considered myself to be the kind of person that evaluates purchases with deep skepticism and critical thinking. Honestly, I am, but not in the case of games, and especially not the case when it comes to collectible game expansions. In those cases, I am a blind addict, no more, no less. The sooner I accept it and start looking at what I do from that perspective, the sooner I'll be doing things smarter.

Luckily, board game addiction is, generally, relatively benign although I have seen guys I know overwhelmed with their addictions, and it destroyed them. One guy I know had so many models from a specific game that his wife ended up leaving him. He was dragging her to tournaments, essentially forcing her to take part in his addiction, and she had enough of it, packed her shit up, and got out of dodge while the getting was good. What truly scares the shit out of me is that this individual was a professor of Psychology, with a focus on pathological behaviors, at one of the nation's most prestigious universities. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. This could be any of us, if we're not careful.

I guess, at the end of the day, I'm not entirely sure that I'm comfortable with this hobby anymore. It not only allows for this kind of behavior, it actively encourages it. Instead of forums being support groups, they're enablers. I see myself buying insipid trinkets in the hope that I can reclaim the feeling that I had when the X-Wing box first arrived on my doorstep, punching and sorting chits with the joy of a kid opening presents on Christmas. Maybe that's the root cause of all of this: being trained by society that opening things is totally fucking awesome. Maybe it's the consumerist culture here in the United States. I'll probably never know, but the whole point of this exercise, and this article, is to tell everyone, or maybe just tell myself, that we need to be on our guard when it comes to game buying in general  but more specifically  collectible games. Each successive wave generally doesn't provide you with unique experiences, it simply extends the experience that the base game provided, and therefore buying these things isn't buying a new, totally different game, but rather attempts to cling onto the love you have for the base game by showering it with gifts. And worse, maybe we're doing it for its sake, but not for ours.

I Just Can't Understand Why Consumption Is Superior To Enjoyment With Gamers

I'm probably beating the last vestiges of flesh from a dead horse at this point, but I'm going to anyhow because as much as I write about it, I still don't understand it, and it's never been adequately explained: Why is it so important to so many gamers to acquire games rather than play the living shit out of what they have? Really, the question boils down to, "Why do so many gamers have no sense of value anymore?" It vexes me, and as I read about people's huge lists of shit they're planning to buy at the next big convention, I shake my head and wonder why.

It seems to me that the culture of Kickstarter is an extension of many people's good will; people are ultimately pretty generous and want to help a brother out when they can. I view Kickstarter as giving a guy money who may or may not give you something in return, and what you get in return may be quite dissimilar to what they initially thought they were going to get. That's just part of Kickstarter, which is fine as long as people remember the phrase, "caveat emptor", before they click "pledge". But it's not so much the pledging or buying something sight unseen that vexes me, it's the fact that these games are generally very expensive, even in the board game world, and that so many people are serial backers who do not appear to be serial players. Why buy 50 games a year, every year, when it's incredibly unlikely that you'll play each of those games more than four or five times in the span of two or three years, especially if you're buying and trading for the same amount of games every year?

I understand that people buy for the "experience", sort of like paying $10.00 each to go to the movies when you can pay $4.99 on Amazon Streaming a year later to see it in your home. It even makes some sense in that frame when you consider that a game played four times by two players that cost $100.00 on Kickstarter comes out to $12.50 a play, which is equivalent, more or less. The rub is that there are very few truly great games that come out every year, so it would be like going to see Ishtar and Battlefield Earth 3 out of 4 weekends, and only occasionally seeing a movie of the quality of Saving Private Ryan once in a great while. It just doesn't compute for me. Why not simply save all that money and buy the best of the best games, playing them repeatedly?

Consider also that if you buy a bunch of mediocre games, the "new game smell" wears off much faster than a game that is good, or great, because you simply don't want to take the time to play them and get really good at them, or really understand them, since they're just not good enough to command that sort of time investment. I'm sure this falls back into the "experience" philosophy, where just playing a game a couple times is sufficient to get the full experience. I'm sure there's also a social aspect to this phenomenon, as playing lots of games just enough to get the gist allows you to get onto your favorite forum and talk about your experience or answer questions, which gives one the sense of being "in the know", or a feeling of superiority in being experienced with a wide variety of games.

I think the largest reason I feel that the serial buying of mediocre games that you'll never play much bothers me is that I'm not of the mind that I want to  just experience games. I've never played Princes of Florence, or Le Havre, or a host of other games, and I'm not entirely sure it makes me a worse person for never having played them. I don't feel the need to be able to interject in every single forum thread or at every game meetup. If it's a game I've never played, I'd rather listen to the conversation than actively participate. I just don't feel like I need to be superior, or some sort of fucking game aficionado, able to speak on every game ever made and offer up several games similar to that game with different themes or whatever. It just doesn't make sense to me that having that ability is worth spending several thousand dollars or more annually.

The real problem with buying all of these mediocre games "for the experience" is that sales are the only way producers can measure quality, or rather, the market's response to any given product. For every mediocre, or just plain shitty, game that gets purchased, it sends a signal to producers that there is a demand for that kind of product. Kickstarter, for instance, has become a great way for idea guys to get out from under the oppressive thumb of editors and quality control folks, which has an advantage in that a wider variety of products enter the market, but has the disadvantage of not having anyone but some guy with an idea produce a game that may or be complete, utter shit.

For instance, Gunship! First Strike is a very neat game, but had they had someone with some practical experience looking at the game, perhaps it wouldn't need to be a $50.00 game that was designed, apparently, for people with poor vision due to huge boards and cards. Also, it might have had a professional editor overlooking the rule book and it could have been far less difficult to learn. It's abundantly clear to me that very little blind play testing was done on that particular game, something that is an industry standard, and done by every traditional game publisher on the planet. It's these problems that are creeping into games of late, and I think it's due to the fact that people are buying "ideas" instead of "products", and not just using Kickstarter, but whenever they are buying games. 

Some people buy games based on theme alone, which I fully understand, but the problem is that the industry's sales and marketing is done almost exclusively by "serial reviewers" and bloggers (like myself), and almost all reviewers that I've ever seen do not do many negative reviews for a host of reasons, some very valid in my opinion, and some not so valid. To write a negative review, you have to play the game enough to understand it on a fundamental level, and further, to form a strong opinion that will carry the review. This is a time and frustration investment, and most negative reviews I've seen (including every one of my own) were met with such venom and vitriol that it's even more of a reason to simply not review a game than to deal with the zealots. I've set up a policy here that if I receive a game, it WILL be reviewed in order to keep myself honest, but I am in the very small minority in this respect. Several reviewers I've spoken to indicated that they do not do any negative reviews because of the time involved. 

What this means is that all the games you buy are almost always tilted in favor of a "buy" recommendation because the publishers aren't going to link to a scathing review if one even exists, and most reviewers won't even produce an article if they play a game once and hate it. Pair that with the predisposition of gamers to buy games that they're interested in based on either mechanics or theme alone, and you have a swirling vortex of a consumption culture. As noted, at the center of this vortex is the publishing world, where all of these "idea guys" are being told by the market that "those kinds of games sell reasonably well", which entices them to create more games that use some of the mechanics or themes in these mediocre but oft-purchased games, continuing the death spiral.

In the end, I think that we all have to do our part in order to keep the industry honest, by not buying things sight unseen, not buying games just to buy them irrespective of quality, and really, just being good stewards of our money and not rewarding mediocrity. If we all do that, publishers will produce less games, potentially, and more importantly, they will produce better games. "No more Munchkin and Atlanteon, lots more Space Hulk and Agricola" should be our battle cry, and we should resist the temptation to buy everything we see. If we don't keep the industry honest, who will?

SFC: Taking A Stand Against Hate

As evidenced by the state of the US, there are still ongoing racial tensions and age-old hatreds that the dinosaurs simply can't let go. The fact that we still need programs like Affirmative Action here indicate that there's still a problem, and there's still the dinosaurs who still think a black man is two-thirds a man (or less) or somehow less qualified or intelligent based solely on their ethnicity.

A lingering symbol of white supremacy is the Confederate Battle Flag, the flag held aloft as Southern states seceded from the United States over slavery. Many died in the ensuing civil war, and I cannot envision a greater reason to shed American blood than for the purpose of spreading freedom and equality. In my estimation, aside from self-defense, there really is no justifiable cause to die for. Freedom is in man's heart, irrespective of their nationality, ethnicity, or background. People yearn for it. And yet, even today some states still fly this flag over their statehouses and public buildings. It's just a little bit sickening to me.

Several states' courts, such as Louisiana, have ruled that the flag is, in fact, offensive and have ordered these flags removed from public buildings. I am all in favor of freedom of expression, as you can surely imagine, but in the case of imagery, one must weigh the use of the image against the impact that it can have on people, as well as the reasons for displaying it. In the case of the Rebel Flag, it is almost universally abused by racist organizations for the sole purpose of inciting racial hatreds.  There are few legitimate purposes for the display of this emblem, in my opinion, and the bar with which to display it is set very high due to its inherent nature.

A few months ago, in a heated discussion (read: dust-up) over the new game, Tomorrow, which is all about trying to save the planet from overpopulation, I noticed that a user had proudly displayed his Rebel Flag microbadge. I was surprised that such an emblem would be so causally displayed, especially with a "Thought Criminal" icon as his avatar. In any event, I was given a couple months off in the form of "user moderation" for being a little bit disruptive and pointing out some things that made people uncomfortable. I know, shocker.

Shortly thereafter, I contacted the admins about removing the micro-badge, because it doesn't represent "Southern Rock" as much as "Redneck Racist Values", despite Lynyrd Skynard using it as a backdrop for years. In fact, in 2012, Skynyrd dropped the use of the Confederate Battle Flag specifically because it recognized that it had been appropriated by racist factions and wanted no part of it. When the guys who popularized its use take a step back and realize that it was harming people, there's just no real argument to be made that it's valid anymore.

So, after two months of back and forth, I was sent the following by the admin responsible for microbadges:

Badge is now unpurchaseable, and the creator has been contacted to update the image.

superflypete wrote:

Hey there,

I was looking for the discussion of the Southern Rock microbadge, but all I could find was this: http://boardgamegeek.com/article/11000473#11000473
...where you recognized that the Confederate Battle Flag might be offensive.

I still stand by the fact that it's an egregious double standard to have a moratorium on Swastikas (which, incidentally, some US troops used to wear before the Nazis began its use) but none on the Southern Rock Microbadge.

The Louisiana Supreme Court just found the flag to be insensitive and offensive a few years ago. This isn't some "sidebar", this is a real issue. I'm dead serious about the idea that you're literally defending 5 people's "right" to own a racist flag on their profile. And you just approved a Red "X" for 'No More Slavery' not too long ago. I mean, seriously, does that seem right to you?

That microbadge needs to go, and Confederate flags need to be removed. I know that more white people play games than black, I know this is a pocket issue for a lot of white people who don't know what the big deal is (or look at it as a way to push their racism).

I implore you to reconsider.

http://archive.adl.org/hate_symbols/racist_confederate_flag....

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/09/14/louisiana-high-cour...

cscottk wrote:

Thanks. I will be considering this soon. I am just back from holidays, and I expect I may bring this to the microbadge community for discussion in the Microbadge boxing ring.

skippen

superflypete wrote:

Hey there,
Scott "Skelebone" sent over something about that Confed battle flag issue, where I formally requested that it be removed.

In the microbadge thread, you noted that "even a portion of a Nazi swastika is dicey".(*) I'd like you to consider that a swastika is as offensive to Jews as the rebel battle flag is to blacks.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/8969616#8969616(*)

There are plenty of other insignias that someone can use for southern rock; musical notes, a pic of Skynyrd or something. It doesn't have to be that.

I thank the admins at BoardGameGeek for taking this issue seriously, and most especially "skelebone" and "cscottk" for understanding that this wasn't just me being a dick, as usual, but a much more important issue.

In short, there's now one more place where people can't hide behind a racist symbol.

July 4, 2012 - Independence Day

First, I'd like to thank every person who has ever served this country, be it a  mail carrier, soldier, sailor, policeman, teacher and senator (well, maybe not senators) as all of you have played a part in making the United States a beacon of hope for the world; one of the few places left on the planet where you do not need worry about being tortured by a dictator for dissenting,  not worry about being left to die on the street due to a lack of resources, and a place where, by and large, your children will be safe and have an unrivalled opportunity to become anything that they aspire to be.

And in the spirit of being truly independent, a servant of the public, and a champion of the consumer, Superfly Circus has changed its policies on requesting review copies from publishers.

We will no longer be requesting free copies of review games from publishers, because I have come to believe that the line between the publishers and the unpaid, unlicensed, untrained horde of amateur bloggers and pseudo-journalists has become far too thin. While the Circus has never been influenced by a publisher, and we have safeguards set up so that it is impossible for us to be influenced, it is on principle alone that I have made the decision to end the practice of seeking review copies. This may cut down on the number of my negative reviews because I'll be spending my own money on games for the most part, but that's the price I have to pay.

I have come to believe that with the consolidation of Board Game News and Board Game Geek, there is no substantial outside, neutral source of board game information on the scale and scope that Board Game Geek encompasses. They are the CNN, Fox News, BBC, SKY News, PBS, and MSNBC of board gaming. Unfortunately, they have become so powerful and so intertwined with the publishers that they serve and that serve them, that they are no longer what can be considered a neutral, free, information outlet.

With the board game marketing and review system set up so that people are being compensated to write reviews, either with "GeekGold" or with a constant stream of free product, invitations to publisher luncheons, and being given access to previews, I can no longer tolerate or be a party to the pay-for-play system.

It is my opinion that is that a culture of anti-dissent has been propagated in the gaming community, and can be evidenced by several factors:

• There is a wide imbalance of positive and negative reviews, even on middling-rated and lower-rated games
• Most reviews that are positive are overwhelmingly positive
• Negative reviews are almost universally met with disdain and ridicule
• Positive reviews are given more acclaim and search position based upon "thumbs" at BGG, which is a popularity gauge, not a gauge of the value of the content
• Negative reviews are "tipped" less with "GeekGold" on BGG

As I have stated in recent articles, and all across the internet, this imbalance and culture of anti-dissent creates the illusion that almost all products, irrespective of their actual merit, are good purchase choices for virtually everyone. In many cases, products are being reviewed and advertised by third parties before an actual product exists in its final form, such as Kickstarter "previews".  These practices are manipulative and allow mediocrity to flourish while not holding publishers accountable for creating mediocre products. I think that we, as a culture, can do better, and this is why I am unilaterally taking this stand.

My hope is that other review sites will stand with me to attempt to widen the line in the sand between publishers and independent review sites by refusing to ask for review copies. I am fully expectant that this will not happen, though, which I will take to confirm that the agenda of most reviewers, although not all, is solely to gain popularity and get free product. Not act as a champion and protector of the consumer, and not to actually inform, but rather to act as the advertising and marketing arm of publishers. If review copies didn't result in positive reviews and, ultimately, more sales, publishers would not do it.

I'm sure the argument will be made that if there are no review copies being sent, then the information flow will grind to a halt. My response is, "What's the rush?" Why is it imperative that every game be reviewed by the same twenty "reviewers" before ever being released to the public? Is selling the public on a product not the job of the sales team at the publishers rather than the job of a swarm of independent pseudo-journalists?

I cannot remember the last time I've seen a negative or, really, even a "not glowing" preview of a board game product. How often do we see a negative review of a just-released game? If the answer is "never", or "rarely",  then one can only surmise that the deck is stacked mightily against the consumer, and in reality, the truth.

Isn't the whole concept of a free, and independent, press to investigate and report the truth to the public?

Consumerism, Criticism, And The Bernays Effect On The Board Game Industry

There has been a great deal of hand-wringing about the lack of what people are calling "true criticism" in the board game industry, of late. What the hand-wringers are wringing wildly about is the idea that there aren't enough truly in-depth reviews on games, or games that speak from a level of experience; from the perspective of someone who has either mastered the game or has a trained enough eye to be able to spot the flaws in the gem that is a boardgame without actually having played it to death. I, personally, believe that games do not have this level of scrutiny because, for the most part, consumers don't want to be told anything about a game at that level, but in fact, what they really want is to be told whether a game can be played more than a few times, and is novel enough on some level to hold the attention. But I now believe that without it, we are simply lemmings, following the latest hot blogger or an old standard right off the cliffs of consumerist oblivion.

I had said that most people at major sites like BoardGameGeek are bottom feeders, and that was misconstrued as a criticism of their character. It was wholly misinterpreted as some sort of a condemnation of the site's inhabitants as lesser creatures, which was most certainly not the intent. What I meant is that most of the people on the site are driven solely to consume, and even the chaff that falls to the bottom is good enough because the goal is consumption, not quality. Now, I'm not looking to write a treatise on quality, and how it's subjective, because we all know that the "different strokes for different folks" argument can go on ad infinitum, with no side giving quarter. What I am saying is that the whole board game industry has become one giant smorgasbord of hype, propoganda, and greasy haired pitchmen selling the wide-eyed consumer every single game, irrespective of merit, based on the simple tactics of immersion advertising and the age old tactics of "creating demand" by "engineering consent" in the market.

"If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits." ~ Edward Bernays

There was once a man named Ed Bernays, who is the true father of modern Public Relations and social engineering. His techniques were unprecedented, and immediately recognized as an incredible methodology to shape public opinion without the public actually realizing they were being manipulated. Some of his techniques were used in advertising, such as his "Torches of Freedom" campaign that manipulated women into equating smoking cigarettes with standing up for equal rights. But, unfortunately, politicians took notice, and one man took his examples so well that he effectively manipulated a society into war and genocide. Dr. Paul Joeseph Goebbels was, in fact,

the man, and the techniques developed back in the 1930s are still in use in politics today by people who wish to manipulate public opinion for their own ends. Now I am not alluding that there is a parallel in the scope of convincing Germans to look the other way while people were being sent to the ovens and what is happening in the board game world other than the same techniques are being used.

"But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought." ~ George Orwell

If you look at the lexicon used by game reviewers, has it not occurred to you that amazingly nebulous and imprecise words such as "elegant", "innovative", "derivative", "immersive", "compelling", and the single worst offender, "interesting", are continually used. But why is that? Is it that these are the only words that are descriptive enough to use in board game reviews? No, it's because it's that people have been conditioned to use the same words repeatedly. In 2001, there were a reported 290,000 words in the English language and a total of almost 700,000 word derivatives, yet the entire board game community can only come up with what amounts to about a dozen adjectives to repeatedly use in their reporting? How is it that such a small handful of meaningless words has developed into what is now, essentially, the primary lexicon with which games are described?

My thoughts on the matter are that when a well known reviewer uses a word, that word slowly burrows into the minds of the group-think that it's a word with power, a word that means something. And to sound more academic or well-rounded, the next guy down the line will start using it. And 10 years later, you can look up virtually any board game review, at random, and will find at least one of these rather imprecise, nebulous words therein. And thus, the continual rattle of meaningless words being used in something written to influence people's behavior, in this case a buying decision, becomes the norm. And these words have come to invoke a conditioned response in the reader, which is the insidious part, since when a person sees a word such as "elegant", which by itself has little meaning, they immediately believe that if they like it, they, too, are smart enough to understand such an elegant product, thus making them elegant as well. Wouldn't you like to be smart and elegant? Of course you would, if you were smart, or elegant. Aren't you smart and elegant enough to understand that?

“It is possible to argue that the really influential book is not that which converts ten millions of casual readers, but rather that which converts the very few who, at any given moment, succeed in seizing power." ~ Aldous Huxley

The latest method in the saddling of humanity with unproven, untested, and otherwise unknown products is the latest Billy Mays of board games, Kickstarter. Gaining  notoriety around a year ago, and originally thought to be a crowdfunding site that allowed outsiders to afford to self-publish products that could compete with the large publishing houses, the publishing houses have taken advantage of the system and now use it as a multi-purpose tool to produce games. Kickstarter campiagns went from a person with an idea pleaing for help with developing a product of their passion to a way to gauge demand, pre-sell product, and get more margin from their initial sales push than going through distribution without pissing off their distributors.

The key technique that is used to shape opinion on a Kickstarter game is threefold. First, the pitchman convinces you that the product is a good idea, and is different and exciting. This is really shown well by Michael Mindes of Tasty Minstrel Games in their campaign for "Kings of Air and Steam". Everything about the video is integral in the pitch and the attempt to convince you that you have to have the game, and without you, they can't make it the way it "deserves" to be made. The words used and the use of the music to set a somber tone indicates that it's a serious matter, and it's crucial that you help them fund the game, because you wouldn't want a sub-par game. But what evidence is there that the game is good, different, or better than the other 100 games you already have?

At an initial buy price of $45.00 USD, is it really a value? The Kickstarter page even adds a note that at $45.00, the game is underpriced by 15%, which is an obvious attempt to use a sales technique called "instilling urgency", which means that if you don't act now, you'll have to pay more later. Note that virtually every Kickstarted game ends up in the hands of distributors, and they almost always are cheaper to buy later then paying a premium to buy in as an early adopter.  In some cases, people actually got Kickstarter-purchased games AFTER those who bought through distribution! So where's the value?

But regarding Air and Steam, it's a wooden cube game that is wholly derivative of other games, has nothing really novel other than the fact that it has a new theme on old mechanics, but is essentially the same as many other wooden cube games. Puerto Rico, Tikal, El Grande, and many others all have similar components, the same mechanics, were priced around the same amount upon release, are selling into the same core market, and none of them required Kickstarter to produce. So, why is it that established publishers use Kickstarter? It's to mitigate the risk to their own pocketbooks in case the game doesn't sell well.

The fact is that publishers want to pass the risk onto the consumer, and by selling you a game that doesn't yet exist and hasn't come under public scrutiny, they don't have to worry about producing a boring or subpar game and not having it sell because in most cases, the pre-sales cover the entire cost of the first edition print run, and since much of that goes direct to consumers, the publishers make far more money per unit sold than they would had they gone the traditional "publisher to distribution to retail" sales channel. For  consumers, it's a terrible deal, but for publishers, it's brilliant.

This is not to pick on TMG or Kings of Air and Steam, because all of the Kickstarters are the same. They plea to the consumer that they require large sums of their cash in order to produce a game that they promise will be spectacular, and they use age-old sales tactics to convince you that you "must act now" or will foolishly piss money away later, when in reality, pissing away money on something that doesn't exist on the promise of a person you've never met is the definition of a "confidence game" in the real world. And every good confidence man has a shill, who benefits in some way from aiding and abetting the confidence man.

The best con men, though, are the ones who can create a shill out of an honest person without the honest person ever knowing they've been used. This is what the internet hype machine lives on; people who attempt to be impartial being wooed into giving positive reviews. Let me ask you this if you doubt me: How many negative previews have you ever seen for a Kickstarted game? Me, I've never seen one, and I go looking. I suspect its because if you're sent a preview copy, you're already predisposed toward liking it as you've asked for it. And if you weren't, why would you be sent a copy in advance? So, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy; there is very, very little hope of getting an impartial game preview of a product that doesn't exist because of these factors.

When you then look to BGG and the internet, you can easily find a legion of reviews, articles about the game, and interviews which all feed into the hype machine that is screaming to you that you have to buy the game. The publishers are willing to take the small risk with spending advert money and marketing time selling the idea to people and raising public awareness, and the avenue which is most widely used these days is through the unregulated and underscrutinized blogisphere.  Bloggers have, largely, not undergone ethics or journalism classes, so you're trusting in the reviewer's good faith alone by taking their word for it.

But, these days, anyone with fingers or a video camera is entering the arena to start doing reviews, and those are the soft targets that are best utilized by the publishers, because they will be the most pliable to the end of selling games by horse trading. Further, the reviewers can always chalk any dissent up to "a matter of taste" or "its an opinion piece, and that's my opinion, " which universally garners them credibility for being so resolute and standing by their opinion even when they're being screamed down by the entire world. It's as if they think that if they simply repeat themselves enough, the people will eventually believe it.

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over” ~ Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels

What's worse is that Kickstarter itself has an agenda. This was proven out by the brilliant article by Samantha Murphy who had damning evidence that Kickstarter intentionally hides its failures from public scrutiny (http://mashable.com/2012/06/12/kickstarter-failures/) even in the face of the fact that people could learn what not to do in future campaigns by studying what failed in the past. All of this ties into the propogandism of the game industry, that Kickstarter is a great place to buy into an idea of a game, because there aren't any Kickstarter failures, so therefore they must all be successful products.

I spoke, recently, with a up and coming blogger about this, a guy who I feel is smarter than most, about how publishers try to lean on bloggers: "I have actually gotten into some rows with SOME GUY about obligations to the consumer vs. the publisher because back ... when I was writing my perspective on what games were worth buying vs. not buying based on rulebook reads and I trashed a few that he had issue with. He talked about how much it would suck for that poor first-time publisher if my article ended up tanking the sales of the game, and my response was essentially, “My obligation as a reviewer is to the people who are buying these games, not the the publisher.” He did not like that very much, but I got a better understanding of the basis for that dislike after I discovered that most of the games he argued with me about were games SO AND SO was importing."

This is typical, as publishers tend to pal around at conventions and give extra access to those who review their products and give positive reviews. Fantasy Flight, for instance, publicly trashed and excommunicated both Matt Drake and Michael Barnes for bad-mouthing the company's products, and in one case, the company's lack of editorial oversight on production. Now, unless a blogger has independent wealth or a large capital base, he's not going to be able to buy new games all the time. And any person in the board game world knows that it's virtually impossible to break through the glass ceiling into the upper echelons of reviewers where Matt Drake, Matt Thrower, Michael Barnes, Shannon Appelcline, and Dale Yu reside unless you're writing reviews of current or upcoming games, because the cult of the new demands a constant feed of information or they will abandon your site. In our world, depth is secondary to expediency, and the goal of reading a review is more to reinforce the reader's subconscious desire to be right about a game that they want to buy, not to explore the game from the perspective of critical analysis and explore not if they should buy or not, but why they should buy it.

"It is the emergence of mass media which makes possible the use of propaganda techniques on a societal scale." ~ Jacques Ellul

In reality, the hype apparatus that has developed over the past 15 years, driven by information technology and the proliferation of easy to use interfaces on home computers has had the unfortunate effect of creating an illogical mindset when making buying decisions. The constant stream of programming from television, radio, and the internet has convinced people that the only decision they have is to buy a product, because if they don't, it will be a stain upon their character; a mark of Cain, so to speak. The board game hobby is populated with many who are introverts to begin with, and the whole culture has started to turn into a battle for supremacy in the land of the nerds. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, right?

MC Frontalot is a prime example of how the culture is changing, as the Nerdcore rap scene embraces its nerdiness and doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. Nerdcore Hip Hop not a predictor or shaper of culture, it's a response to the changing culture. Nerds want to fit in, even if that means only fitting in with other nerds. And in every society, be it nerds, jocks, or whatever, there's always the Alpha, the apex predator. Since the hobby of board gaming is, at its core, a highly competitive hobby, it stands to reason that someone will always wish to emerge as that Alpha, and if that means being the one to bring the latest game to Tuesday Game Night, then that's precisely what you'll do, and the publishers understand this all too well.

"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume." ~ Noam Chomsky

Now, due to this phenomenon, which is partially driven by the consumerist Western culture, one way to leap to the forefront of the herd is to have the latest, greatest shiny, precious thing. I proudly coined the term SHINYPRECIOUS to describe the latest product that is at the current eye of the advertising maelstrom. Thus, it is, in board gaming, a mark of distinction to have had the courage to go out and back a Kickstart project, or to be the first to buy a game. The evidence is everywhere, because there are countless internet threads where people are chomping at the bit to proclaim not only what they're backing, but for how much.

All of this reinforces, in my mind, the idea that the decision to buy a game or not has been taken away from the consumer, provided they have the means. And most astonishingly, for such a smart and resourceful group as board game aficionados are, the only questions that they are asking of their media, the blogisphere, and their advertisers is "if I should or should not" buy a game, which only serves to prove them right or wrong when they go out to look at a game that's in the hype zone. That is simply the wrong question to be asking. The question that all board gamers should be asking themselves, more than any other, when making a buying decision is WHY.  Not if, or if not, but WHY.

Too often people will buy a game based on a single review from a person who gives almost exclusively positive reviews, and they do it primarily without thinking. They do not ask why, because they're not interested in the basic questions that someone buying a car would ask, instead they generally scroll to the bottom, read a couple of "pro's and con's" lines, maybe a summary, and then pat themselves on the back if the review coincides with their intention to buy the game. Also, unsurprisingly, if you look at any given game in the Board Game Geek database, virtually all entries overwhelmingly positive reviews and very few, if any, truly negative reviews.

The reviews that are negative, however, generally are met with a violent backlash of dissent that customarily dissolves into name calling and personal insults. This is because people in our hobby generally cannot stand to be wrong, even in the face of facts, or if the subject is opinion-based and there is no real right or wrong to be found. Yet people have this inherent need to be heard, and even worse, a need to be right, and this fuels a death spiral of shilling, vast inaccuracies, and the quashing of dissent.

At the end of the day, the whole reviewing and rating system is set up as a carrot-first system, where positive reviews are rewarded by free items, larger GeekGold awards, power, influence, celebrity, and negative reviews are generally rewarded with smaller GeekGold rewards, less influence, and being attacked by proponents of the game as well as the publisher. One of the most critical reviews I ever wrote ended up with a pissing match between the publisher and the designer to determine who could passive-aggressively mock me the best. So, the impetus is to only write positive reviews to reinforce the idea that all games are fun for someone, so by extension, all games must have some good qualities and, finally, all games must be good, if you're enlightened, elegant, or smart enough to appreciate their elegant, innovative, and interesting designs.

Thus, there is a neverending parroting of the same overused words, the same praise for mediocre products, the same lack of any real semblance of scrutiny on games for fear of being ostracized, cut out of the loop, banned from internet sites, or the worst possible consequence for a critic, to be made irrelevant. As long as the persistent cornucopia of praise is heaped on mediocrity, the masses will be led to believe that mediocrity is the new "great", and something truly novel, such as deckbuilding, becomes "stellar" and spawns hundreds of mediocre clones, endlessly, until the new "thing" emerges from the ashes of the truly average. Until we, as consumers, stop to ask the important questions of "WHY" and stop believing that your worth or credibility is based solely upon how many Kickstarter projects you've  backed, or how many games on the "Hotness" you own.

So, while we may not want to actually read real criticism, I am forced to submit that we need it now more than ever, as the hype apparatus has been developed to devour any shred of willpower or self control that we might have. The pitchmen have honed their marketing skills, used psychological tricks, have manipulated the willing press, and have developed intricate networks for the sole purpose of selling you mediocre products under the guise of the "next big thing" for years, and the only thing to stop them is the single precious gift that God granted man, the ability to reason. To see through the hype and not ask "if or if not", but why.

Until we, as readers and consumers, stop simply begging to be agreed with so we can feel empowered and righteous in our judgement and start requiring the media to scrutinize the products they peddle by proxy, we will always be slaves to the hype machine. They are simply better at selling than we are at buying, and it's been so since the world at large developed the science of psychology to the point that it could be used to manipulate people into being controlled into mindless consumers. When a game like Earth Reborn is on the Tanga deathwatch along side Hotel Samoa, the gaming world is in a state of crisis.

At the end of the day, the overarching question isn't whether George Orwell or Aldous Huxley was right about our subjugation, because it's clear that both of them were influenced by the same man, Ed Bernays, who ultimately proved that free men can be made willing slaves, provided the right marketing is in place. The fact that CCG games have ever been allowed to exist, and thrive, proves that people have ceded the power of choice to publishers, and will spend money foolishly if you can convince them that they absolutely have to have a whole set, otherwise they're robbing themselves of the full experience. They never demand that the publisher sell complete sets, never ask if the game is even good enough to buy more than a few packs in the first place. Just that they must collect the entire set. Not because you require a Gonk power droid or a useless promo that adds absolutely nothing to the game, simply because it exists.

It's not whether Orwell's bludgeons or Huxley's distractions would be the ultimate tool to manipulate us, rather it's that neither are required since we have been utterly convinced not only to buy a neverending supply of mediocrity, at a premium price, BUT THAT DOING SO WAS OUR IDEA.

The Perfect Job And Income Inequality

Imagine this job, and tell me it's not perfect:


* You join one of two unions, who will pay for your application fees.
* You spend several months in the interview process, and you get to beat up on the other union members.
* You can say anything you want, true or untrue, and you have a 50/50 shot of getting the job.
* The job is almost always guaranteed for 4-6 years.
* You're hired based on what you said during the interview process, but your employers have no real avenue to fire you if you didn't do what you said.
* The expectation is that whatever you do, either way, you'll fail.
* Even if only 9% of the decision makers that employ you like what you're doing, you'll still keep your job.
* You have a review every 4-6 years, and while the interview process is generally arduous, you have better than an 80 percent chance you'll keep your job.
* On the job, companies (clients) will pay your interview fees, and do much of your work for you, provided you simply agree with their point of view.
* Some companies will offer you a job to fall back on if your current job doesn't work out.
* You can vote with other union members to NOT increase your salary annually, but if you don't, it will automatically raise.
* Almost all of your expenses are paid.
* You're offered a full staff to handle your day to day work.
* You're given a private bodyguard.
* You're paid in excess of $150,000 a year.
* 47% of your co-workers are millionaires.
* The job affords you the right to break certain laws, such as insider trading, or sexually harassing one of your staff.
* Your job's only requirement that you only show up at specified times, and during those times you are required only to vote. You are allowed to abstain from the vote, but you need to be there.
* If you don't like the rules in the employee handbook, you can rewrite them and vote on them as you see fit.

Yes, I'm describing the US Congress.

While Wall Street may turn a blind eye to the protesters who are clearly piss mad about income inequality, I'd expect that Congress would not. After all, Obama himself stated that "We should spread the wealth." But do we really expect that Congress will act? I mean, why would Congress not see what's going on in the streets, or at least examine whether there is an income gap, and how to stop it?

Well, for starters, look at who enriches Congresspersons' "re-election campaigns" the most. Well, wouldn't you know it....the Financial industry as a whole is the #1 campaign donor, with a whopping $122,000,000+ going into the political machine.  Let's do some math...there's 535 members,  plus the President. So, $122,000,000 divided up by 536 people...let's see here...that's $227,611 for each and every elected official.  And that's just in 2008. And that's JUST from the Financial industry.

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/index.php

But wait, there's more!  Besides all that Federal "donations" (read: bribes) there's also lobbyists. People that go wine and dine people, offer things in return for votes or sponsorship of bills.  Best part? Many of the guys who got fired from their "perfect jobs" get to come back and talk with their old friends who kept their jobs. "Remind" them of the fact that when they were sitting in the front row that they made "compromises", and use those "reminders" to help steer the "still employed" Congresspersons of their "responsibilities". Guess how much gets spent on Lobbying. Guess! How about $3.51 BILLION ($3,510,000,000.00) dollars in 2010. I mean,  if you go back to the 536 guys....that's $6,436,567 per person! Six and a half million dollars was spent to help "persuade" Congress. But it's not bribery, right? No, these are men and women of honor. Their character is above repudiation; above the stain of bribery, right?

The argument I hear from Congressional apologists is that while the lobbying industry is there, they don't really change votes. There's no graft. But, the question is this: if it wasn't effective, why would industry and special interest groups spend three and a half BILLION dollars in a year? Who would spend that kind of loot on "persuasion", persistently over the span of decades, if it wasn't effective? Only Congress spends money forever on wastes of time like that, right? Yeah, lobbying is effective or it would've been replaced by a different system long ago.

But, let's take a step back. Get back to the "perfect job" and ask why these Occupy Wherever people aren't getting noticed in Washington. Let's note that it's not remotely conjecture to say that there is income inequality in the United States. It's proven. It's verified a trillion times over.  The wealthiest top 1% of Americans control 40% of the money. I can live with that. I'm sure that it's been earned. But, moving forward, don't you think that "Trickle Down Economics" has proven to be an abject failure? Time and time again we've proven that giving federal dollars to the richest people doesn't spur economic activity. We're in a terrible recession, for the second time in ten years or so, due to the failed policies of spending money we don't have, giving it to the people who need it the least.

So, let's get to the 1% theory. Does it hold water? Seems to be.
 http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/10/income-inequality-america

But do the Occupiers, as many occupying forces before them, really believe they can change hearts and minds?  You bet your ass they do, and it's the idealism of youth that fuels that incredible belief. The problem is that they forget psychology. Most people, when faced with a decision, will choose to do whatever they perceive benefits them the most at the time. And while they're getting "donations" from bankers, the banks will never be held responsible for the carnage they've wrought upon the world economies.

As every occupying force should know, there's only two ways to break the will of an occupied people: win their hearts and minds (Bush Doctrine), or cause them so much pain they give up (Chuck Liddell Doctrine). Unfortunately for the Occupiers, they have no power to win the hearts and minds of Congresspersons (read: racketeers) making millions in the protection business, and they sure as hell can't cause them more pain than the local constabulary can cause them; they have no super-humanly strong overhand right coming from a crazy angle.

On the flip side, most people think Occupiers are nothing more than a bunch of homeless, lazy, dope fiend, radical hippies. Therefore, no heart-string pullers in hand and no mind control devices.  No leverage, no power. Not a snowball's chance in the coolest part of hell of getting anything more than an occasional bone, stripped clean of the marrow, to appease the great unwashed masses. When Congress has a 9% approval rate in the middle of a huge, calamatous recession and yet virtually all of the electable incumbents are re-elected, it's clear that it isn't working.

In other words, go home. It was a nice try, and I commend you fine folks for exercising your First amendment rights. But until the system changes, nothing will change for us 99%. It's not in their interest to change. When it comes right down to it, they ARE the 1%. In fact, they're above the 1% because they have the power to take from the 1%, and everyone knows that if you have something that can be taken, you never really had it in the first place. And Congress has the power to make anyone an offer they can't refuse.

Solution: The Welfare Program And Energy Security For America

I've heard over the years that poverty is cyclical because people who grow up in poverty tend to be in poverty most of their lives. That the "vicious cycle of history repeats itself" over generations unless something changes. I don't see a problem, I see unrealized opportunity, because I'm a opportunity kind of guy. Where others would throw money at the problem, I throw solutions.

You see, many people think of spending tax money on Welfare checks and food stamps is simply wasting money. I disagree. I see it as investing in our future energy security as well as creating jobs and a healty lifestyle to the empoverished. You see, with General Motors being owned by the taxpayer and General Electric's CEO being 'friendly' with the current White House, I think the time is ripe to capitalize on the amorous relationship between the poor, corporate chronyism, and the Government.

The key to all of this is in putting Welfare recipients back to work. Republicans are always lamenting the fact that men need work to retain dignity and that welfare is a form of modern slavery, so let's put that mentality into action. Let's give those on Welfare a reason to be proud, a sense of national pride, so to speak, knowing that they're contributing to the energy independence and security of the nation.

We feed them healthy foods through the Food Stamp program, we provide them shelter through Section 8 housing, and we provide them cash for everyday needs through the Welfare program. But thus far we don't provide them anything to do in those houses, while eating that food, in their government-subsidized housing. Let's explore how all of these seemingly distant factors I spoke of above can be tied together to create a better future for everyone involved.

First, General Electric should develop portable battery cells for the new Chevy Volt, a taxpayer-funded electric automobile. These batteries should be easily portable and as simple to install as your everyday double A battery. This would allow service station workers to swap out the batteries on-the-fly at newly created swapping stations. This would be the first step in creating jobs, since engineers and United Auto Workers union members would now have a new project to work on, let alone all of the newly-certified Government Auto technicians that would be hired at the swapping stations.

The next step would be to use TARP construction money to build warehouse-sized power generation facilities that have several drive-through bays. This would put unionized construction workers back to work on building thousands of these new buildings. Union electricians, plumbers, carpenters, framers and roofers would have a windfall of newly created jobs to work at. These facilities would be state-of-the-art accomodations, complete with beds, and televisions that are programmed for Jerry Springer, Maury Povich, and Judge Judy. Why, you ask? Let's get into that.

Michelle Obama is all about talking up healthy eating and lifestyles, so let's put her ideas into action. Her husband was keen on mandating health insurance for all, so let's take it a step further and mandate healthy lifesyles and food for those who require government intervention in their lives. You see, every person who receives government assistance through any of the above programs will be required to report to government-controlled medical centers for health testing for the purposes of determining their suitability for exercise. Those deemed unfit for an hour a day of exercise would have their Food Stamp allocation cut if they are too fat, and if they're simply out of shape, they will be sent to the government warehouses for a Richard Simmons exercise program to get them into shape. Those with medical conditions outside that would preclude them from exercise would, of course, be exempt.

Those who are worthy to exercise, though, would report to their assigned warehouse swapping station where they would perform an hour's labor on a stationary bicycle that is mounted with a high output battery charging dynamo. These systems would, of course, be built by General Motors and General Electric, all funded by taxpayers either through the bailout money (GM) or through tax avoidance and tax breaks (GE). Each station will simulate the experience of being at home, on Welfare, where they will have comfortable easy chairs and the aforementioned television shows piping to their station all day. The only noticable difference would be that they would be pumping away on the dynamo pedals for an hour at a time before being offered the opportunity to take a nap in the resting areas.

But what of those who have young children, who need care, and would deny some Welfare recipients from being able to perform an hour of work? Got that covered. In these same warehouses there will be Teacher's Union approved teachers working at the government Day Care centers. This keeps unionized teachers working, and allows those who have several (or several hundred) children to earn their Welfare checks through an honest day's work pumping away on the cycles.

So, you see, this is the perfect solution. It puts "shovel-ready" jobs into the market, spending only TARP money that's already allocated, it makes electric cars viable, and it puts tens of millions of people to work doing labor that not only supports energy independence, but it also creates an entire new industry. The best part is that while the system can be copied in places like China, there won't be any outsourcing of jobs to Mexico, India, or China. It's real Americans doing real work, and it will establish America as a leader in national good health, environmental protection, and the fight against Global Weather Weirdness. Truly, it is a remarkable plan.

But how, do you ask, can you ensure that these Welfare Patriots(TM) will actually show up, since they're often characterized as lazy? It's simple - provide their daily allowance of Welfare cash right there at the service station where they show up to pedal their way to American energy security. The upshot of all of this is that once the entitlement-minded folks that had always received Welfare money for nothing will now understand what it means to have a purpose greater than themselves, to understand national service, and to understand that if they can pedal a bicycle for money, they can go out and start new small businesses such as owning their own bicycle courier companies. This is not even beginning to touch on the national savings on healthcare costs from people getting several hours of exercise a day and seeing doctors regularly.

Long and short: Vote For Pedro.

Note: This is a satire piece. If you can't figure that out, you're probably retarded.