Editorial: Raving Rant - The Night Elf and The Snowman

It’s been a while since I've found myself bereft of speech on an issue.

To be fair, the last several months have had a near daily flood of information that part of me didn't want to miss by trying to nail down any one set of specifics. I've been watching the near daily revelations of Edward Snowden with the same sick fascination one would properly expect of a train wreck, particularly one of this magnitude.

For years, I've been following a lot of the topics that the Snowden Files address, but always with the degree of removal that good investigative journalism imposes: you get a clearer picture, but you know that there’s probably information even the journos missed. I've long been opposed to the post-9/11 surveillance state policies that have warped and twisted the world into the shape it’s in now. And for good or ill, we've seen far more than even I could have even begun to imagine, and I've got a very good imagination. For example, the fact that half the alphabet soup agencies on the Federal Register blew time and taxpayer money hunting for terrorists in Azeroth.

Editorial: Raving Rant - Dragging the Offline

This is Dutch Uncle Axel talking to you, EA COO Peter Moore: sit down, shut up, and pay attention.

This is important, because this is why you’re getting a second “Worst Company In America” award  from The Consumerist. I’d apologize for being brusque, but it would be an utter lie, and you need to hear this in as plain a language as possible. It will offend you. It will make you angry. I won’t spout the whole “anger leads to the Dark Side” nonsense because you’re already there. But anger does have value as a psychological motivator for survival. And you do want to survive, right?

Recently, my cable Internet service became unavailable for a prolonged period. Not a couple of hours, but a couple of weeks. During this interim, would you care to take a guess how many hours I spent trying to catch up on Mass Effect 3? Or Kingdoms of Amalur? Or maybe trying to beat a high score on Gatling Gears? The answer is zero, Peter.