Banditos! Banditos! Banditos!

Babies, Get Your Fash On

I was shopping in the newborn girl's section of Target the other day (Don't make assumptions, now.  Y'all don't know me.  Maybe my "look" involves wearing pink outfits that only cover one foot.) when I saw the three especially tacky bibs, even by today's standards.  We all know about the ten year old girls wearing clothes that say Juicy and Your boyfriend says I'm a good kisser and so on, and of course there are infant versions of those as well.  If you see an infant in one of those, it's entirely some parent's fault.  That baby didn't secretly run out and buy that outfit at the mall.  Someone had to struggle to get it on her while she wriggled around.  Amazingly, at no point did they look down and think, "Gee, I'd better not take her to the play date like this.  What if one of the other girls is baby Susan Faludi and my daughter ends up as a cautionary tale in her baby exposé of baby society?"

So I came across this series of bibs, sold as a three pack, and flipping through them as a series, I saw one little girl's life story foretold in infancy. Three little pink bibs:

Adorable, or so I'm told

then

Super Model

then

Kisses 25 cents

I think her name is Alexis, or maybe Madison.  Fight, baby!  Spit up on that bib!  For feminism, for your future, and because Gerber Butternut Squash & Corn is gross.  I can barely choke that stuff down.  (Yes, I wear onesies and eat baby food.  Y'all don't know me.)

Technorati Tags: baby clothes, feminism, baby food, want to know the saddest thing?, boys earn 50 cents per kiss

Top Ten Best Holiday Gifts

1. Money
2. Currency
3. Lucre (preferably filthy)
4. Instantly redeemed promissory notes
5. "Banker's Delight"
6. A donation has been made in your name, to you
7. Cold, hard cash
8. Moist, warm coins
9. A coupon for one free train heist
10. Lagomorpha pancakus

University of Pennsylvania economist Joel Waldfogel makes this point every year in one story or another.  It also makes the rounds at a lot of holiday parties, especially around the cynics' hangouts like the buffet table.  Simply put, when people receive a gift and are asked how much money they would charge to give up that gift, it's 20% less, on average, than the giver spent on it.  In a way, 20% 0f the value of any item is lost simply by one person giving it to another.  A well-chosen gift from a very close friend or relative will only get up to about a 10% loss.  Money is the only exception, as it's always worth exactly what it's worth.  Waldfogel's new book is pretty depressing, too.  It makes a perfect stocking stuffer, and the best part is that you're throwing away 10-20% as soon as it hits the stocking.  Ho ho ho!

Technorati Tags: gifts, money, economics, Joel Waldfogel, The Tyranny of the Market, pancakes, value added bunnies

Use Your Words

There are literally dozens of words in the English language, and if you want to make it all the way to the secret bonus words (like sesquipedalian, recursion, and portmanteau), you need to expand your vocabulary a little each day.  FreeRice offers a quick, challenging vocabulary quiz with a humanitarian twist; for each correct answer, their sponsors donate 10 grains of rice to hungry people throughout the world via the U.N. World Food Program.  Ten grains may not seem like much, but I played for just a couple of minutes, and earned 400 grains.  Then I measured some rice out on the kitchen table and found out it's a little over two teaspoons.  That would cook up to two tablespoons, if it made sense to cook up that little rice, which of course it doesn't.  Lesson learned: if I play for at least ten easy minutes a day, within a week I'll have an edible amount of rice.  Bonus lesson: rice goes everywhere.  Maybe by the end of the week, I'll have found all the stray grains.  If I threw some boiling water on the floor, they'd swell up and be easier to find.  Be right back.

As a game, FreeRice is very simple but has some nice design features.  A picture of a rapidly-filling bowl provides a little visual reward for every right answer.  Every incorrect answer is a little learning experience, as they immediately display the right choice, along with another question, a tempting chance for redemption.  The ads are simple and unobtrusive, and the game starts on the main page and rolls right along.  Click, click, learn, click, earn more grains, get a little hungry thinking about it, check to see if the floor rice is ready.  (Nope, it still hasn't absorbed all the water.  I threw in a little butter for flavor.)  The difficulty adjusts automatically, using a GRE-like initial assessment and tier system.  I got up to 49 out of 50.  In your face, English!

[SPOILER ALERT]

My favorite word so far was burgoo, which I happened to know as a thick gruel served to 18th century seamen, and nowadays as a soup they make down South.  I just enjoy it when a food-related word comes up.  It's like attacking an enemy in Bookworm Adventures with the word fisticuffs.  Southern burgoo goes well with rice, in fact.  Speaking of rice, I'm pleased to say that my kitchen floor rice was a tour de force of culinary invention.  The butter and saffron (I added saffron) complete the rice's subtle flavor profile, and the slightly caramelized dust bunnies really make the linoleum flavor "pop."  But there's no time to rest on my laurels.  I've got vocabulary to learn, rice to donate, and if I start to feel peckish, storm gutter pilaf.

 

Technorati Tags: FreeRice, Poverty Center, world hunger, rice, burgoo, Bookworm Adventures, fusion cuisine, Michelin stars

Search Engine Awesomization

Oh, it's such a hackneyed Internet trope, but after six months of hits from increasingly curious search queries, it's time for the banditos to spit into the wind.  This site will not be defined by some random strangers' search terms, damn it!  Virtually everyone who happens across this site has been searching for porn.  Really specific porn, too.  Points for inventiveness, you guys, but if you think about it, that scenario is crazy unrealistic.  It sounds fun but the remainder of your life after that point would just be a letdown.  Best case scenario, you spend most of your waking hours reminiscing and applying salve.

Anyway, let's respond to some other odd search queries.  These terms have no real connection with Banditos! Banditos! Banditos!, and no one here is qualified to address them in any way.  The truly brilliant thing is that by writing about them, the site becomes even more closely linked to these dumb, irrelevant subjects in Google's perversely robotic mind.

"killing bugs is murder"  Oh, come now, killing bugs is murder like chewing gum is dinner.   

"paella rice vesus risotto rice"  You either misspelled "versus" or "Jesus," but here's your answer.  Paella rice is medium grain rice, and the stuff you get in the store usually has saffron mixed in already.  Paella cooks slowly in plenty of liquid, so you can't use risotto rice, which is short grain arborio.  You're even supposed to burn paella a little at the bottom.  Don't burn risotto.  No one likes that.  Burning risotto is murder.

"where is God when it hurts"  Wow.  Really?  OK, look, God should be the last thing on your mind when you're hurting.  Medical studies have shown that getting all religious and pray-ey totally screws your chances of recovery.  If you invite God into your heart when you're sick, God is like, "Oh, you want to hang out with me?" and then bam, you die.  They revoked God's medical license in like, the year 3.  Go see a real doctor.

Besides, what are you, God's mom?  He's off in some unknown corner of the universe doing secret deity stuff.  Maybe He's getting everyone in the office to sign a big card for you.  Way to ruin the surprise.

"i feel sorry for the men i won't be doing this forever"  These are song lyrics, but isn't it nice to think about someone just typing that into Google?  Just kind of a random thought.  "I'm afraid to watch Desparate Housewives because I think I might catch an STI."

"how to make a hat stay on a dog"  How, indeed.  Helps if you feed the dog treats, so she knows it's playtime.  Helps if it's your dog, or you have permission.  If not, you're a rude friend or inefficient burglar.  Helps if you talk it up beforehand, about how hats are the new collars, and how you saw the Pokey Little Puppy wearing this hat just before he landed that book contract.

"why Marie Curie didn't believe in God"  Didn't she, now?  Maybe God's not as impressive once you've played around with radioactive stuff.  Even mercury makes God look a little dull.

"homemade banditos"  Ah, crunchy, cheesy, delicious homemade banditos.  You can make them in the microwave or the toaster oven.  With a little masa and time, you can make hot, fresh tortillas, crisp them up, and smother them in chili con queso.  Mmm!

Wait, you did say nachos, right?  No?  Homemade banditos?  What does that even mean?  No one makes banditos at home.  You make banditos in a hideout.  It takes like four hours, two pistoleros, some loot from a train heist, migas . . . that may be where you got confused.  The banditos themselves are not edible.  Outlaws are not snacks.  Similarly, you'll never have to head some nachos off at the pass.

And one last term.  This is absolutely real:

"simple paragrap about if you are going to died as a teenager what are three important things you will like to take in your tomb"

Hm.  A whole paragrap?  Well, it's too late to answer this one anyway.  It's from a few months ago and by now that poor kid will have succumbed to his advanced case of Internet Grammar Tuberculosis.  Goodbye, little searcher.  He's in Heaven now, Googling for angel porn.

Technorati Tags: Google searches, banditos, welcome to the Internet, population fun

Girls, Violent Games, and Feminism

The F-Word blog (safe for work, and if your work filter blocks it, I'm sorry to say that your work filter is kind of dumb) posted yesterday about a study showing that teenage girls play violent video games, such as Grand Theft Auto.  Well, of course they do.  No one who actually plays games thinks that the female hand is only capable of moving a mouse or controller when it's connected to the Sims or, say, Barbie's Demure Adventures starring Princess Kitchen Pony.  I expect, however, that if this gets picked up as a news item it will be yet another terrifying look at our out-of-control kids.  Hooray for equality: boys and girls are all ticking time bombs.  The only non-dangerous family member left is Grandpa, because he and the rest of the Greatest Generation already got their kill on and now they just want a nap and free samples at the Costco.

The F-Word's generally fair analysis of the story gets a bit muddled in this last paragraph:

I’m not a believer in the idea that playing a violent video game makes people want to go out and commit violent acts: but I do think it’s problematic that one of the most popular games played by both girls and boys involves the male protagonist using, beating, pimping and killing prostitutes.

That's technically correct (the best kind of correct!) but a little misleading.  As a Grand Theft Auto player, this is one of my pet peeves.  Every "violent games" GTA story always mentions killing a prostitute, which is possible in the game but not particularly encouraged.  The only thing you get from killing a prostitute is a worthless amount of cash, the same amount you can get from any random pedestrian.  "Using" them is a transaction of a few dollars for a small health boost.  Beating them offers no reward, and like all violent acts, if a cop sees you do it, they pursue you and try to throw you in jail, which is a very significant deterrent.  You will get some minor funds from being a pimp, which involves driving prostitutes around and killing guys who threaten them.  However, in terms of gameplay it's no different from being a taxi driver, ambulance driver, "freelance police officer," or fireman, all of which are equally encouraged, which is to say that you can do it, but rather than saying the game involves driving an ambulance and saving lives, I would say it includes that feature.  GTA definitely involves carjacking -- anyone who says you don't have to jack cars is correct but being cute with logic.  But every single news outlet appears to have a pronunciation guide which proscribes using "Grand Theft AW-to . . . prostitute killing sex money death murder hooker game."  (To anyone who got to this paragraph via Google -- boring, huh?  The real hardcore stuff is here.)

I'm too mature, intelligent, and good looking to enjoy every single aspect of GTA.  I don't kill prostitutes, and I only pick them up if I need the health boost.  Some of the humor is hilariously clever, but some of it makes me cringe with its self-conscious edginess that only titillates teenage boys anymore (and girls, apparently.)  My favorite activity is driving the taxi and listening to the radio while being chased by the cops.  I love that fares will still get in your cab and even tip generously as police helicopters shout and shoot at you.  Combine that with a sunny Miami-like 1980s cityscape, Wang Chung's "Dance Hall Days," and, um, maybe some tequila, and you've got a recipe for awesome.  Sometimes the game influences me to be awesome in real life, but as an adult I can resist that urge.

Recently, while playing GTA: Vice City Stories, I ended up on a mission to protect some prostitutes who were being targeted by a rival gang.  I had to grab a car and quickly pick them up around town, while the gang cars tried to run me down.  When I saved the first prostitute, just in time, she thanked me, then leaned out the window and started firing a powerful semiautomatic at our pursuers.  "Well honey," she said, "you didn't think the only protection we have is rubbers, did you?"  Those damn gang cars were really killing me but once I had three prostitutes in the car firing back at them it became a glorious, chaotic high speed chase, with enemy cars exploding into flames and flying through the air -- the best moment in the game so far.  And I couldn't have done it without prostitutes.  Bless their hearts of gold and diamond trigger fingers.

Technorati Tags: The F Word, feminism, GTA, Grand Theft Auto, Vice City, prostitutes, Wang Chung, being awesome

ADORABLE.

Summer memories . . . This very moment some little kids are playing outside the window.  They're playing Army or something and are shouting at the top of their lungs:

"I don't know but I've been told,"  "I don't know but I've been told!"

"I fought in the Civil War."  "I fought in the Civil War!"

They don't know it's supposed to rhyme.  And they know the tune, but only the first line.  My conceit is that these four-year-olds only know about one war, the Civil War.  I wish I could forget about all of our current lame-ass wars, too.  I find Civil War history insufferably boring, but maybe I just never heard the heroic tale of the brave four-year-olds who kicked Robert E. Lee in the shin at the Battle of Janelle's Backyard.

Technorati Tags: I don't know but I've been cute

Confessionals

I'm as far as you can get from a confessional poet.  But in daily life, strangers confess things to me, sometimes in free verse.  I don't know why.  I'm from Jersey, where we prefer our cashiers mute and sullen, but in the South they like to chat.  D.C. isn't really the South, but it's full of Southerners, and when I visit the Virginia side it seems to have just a bit of down-hominess and Confederate pride.  I never signed up for that when I moved to D.C.  The South scares me!  I got a damn futon just so I wouldn't have to check for Jefferson Davis under my bed.

Anyway, sometimes random people unburden their soul to me.  The conversations meander through a whole series of non sequiturs, misunderstandings, and attempts to empathize.  Northerners or Southerners, cashiers or crazy ladies, they all end up telling me something they shouldn't tell anyone.  And I always end up offering some lame advice.  From today's encounter with the deli counter guy:

Confession:  "I could be with any girl, but I don't want just some hood rat.  I want a nice girl.  But they don't want to be with a guy who's missing a tooth."

Lame advice:  "All you have to do is make them laugh.  That goes a long way.  A really nice girl wouldn't be so superficial."

Wow.  I should be a professional helpful talky guy.  I'm surprised he didn't give me the honey ham free of charge, after that truly insightful advice.  In that moment, I became the deli counter guy's mom.  So I got that going for me.

I'll keep y'all (it's Southern!) updated on further adventures in walking to places and stumbling into conversations.  Someday I hope to meet Marie and tell her, "You are what you do.  You're only a ho if your actions are ho-ful.  Maybe the real ho is whatever bitch scribbled your name all over the damn neighborhood.  Living well is the best revenge, but in lieu of that, I sharpened this spoon for you."

Technorati Tags: confessions, advice, D.C., Jefferson Davis, oh that Marie

Captain America's Fictional Burial

So Captain America died?  How did I not hear about that?  You would think that would be all over the front page of the Daily Bugle, with some dramatic photos by that Peter Parker guy.

 So the Daily Bugle is fictional, too?  How did I not hear about that?

This story, found here in Slashdot form (short excerpt followed by bad in-jokes and misinformed people picking fights with each other) claims that the fictional superhero Captain America will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.  Now, I know that joint ain't fictional.  I've never visited it, but I would like to someday.  I bet it's really dramatic.  I'm just afraid that I'll suddenly hear treacly music coming from nowhere and then I'll have to limp over to some random grave and tell a flashback story of the soldier who saved my life.  It's not even a very good story.  It was April, 1944.  I had ordered some oysters in a restaurant and a soldier dived in front of me, ate all of them, and died.  Suddenly I realized that April is a month without an "R" in it.  I also tell that story as an example of my heroism, because he was a Nazi soldier, and I got credit for the kill.  I went on to heroically kill a lot of enemy soldiers by almost eating things.

The money quote for this story seems to be:

Writer Jeph Loeb has been busy working through the stages of grief in his most recent titles, according to an Associated Press story. A book centered on Wolverine dealt with denial; one with the Avengers covered anger; and Spider-Man battled depression.

Wolverine's denial:  "I just (snikt!) can't believe (snikt!) he's gone.  Uh oh.  Looks like I ruined your couch."

Spider-Man's depression can be seen in Spider-Man 3.  It takes the form of an oily, soul-destroying puddle of goo named Tobey Maguire.

I'd say something about the Avengers here but I don't know who they are.  I guess they avenge things?  Good luck with that.

Anyway, who really cares if Captain America got killed?  I wouldn't read too much into it.  If Marvel Comics wanted to make some kind of symbolic statement about the current political climate, they would have killed someone who represents our political system, like Sergeant Separation of Church and State or Vice-Admiral Vice President.  Although I am a little suspicious of the manner in which Captain America died.  I heard he choked to death on confiscatory tariffs.

Technorati Tags: Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Man, symbolism, superheroes, oyster danger

My War Stories

As a member of the U.S. Armed Forces, Memorial Day is my favorite day of the year.  It's the one day where all patriotic Americans take a moment to kiss my ass a little.  I like Veteran's Day, too, but that's mostly for the old soldiers who fought dinosaurs or whatever.  Plus, it seems like every Veteran's Day, I'm off in some foreign hellhole fighting for your freedoms, so I tend to forget until it's like 11 PM and all the stores are closed, so I don't get to celebrate.  But on Memorial Day, every soldier gets a day off, so we can relax in a big old bubble bath of praise and trumpetry.  Today I will regale you with some of my best war stories, and you pretty much have to listen.

First, let me tell you about basic training.  My drill sergeant was a very rude man.  He referred to us all as "maggots" although I think he meant to say "caterpillars" because we would soon become "butterflies."  He got his larval creatures mixed up, but it's still rude.  He was also kind of a control freak.  Everything had to be done his way, without any creative input from the caterpillars.  For example, he wanted us to march in synchronized formations, with no destination, while shouting.  It was like we were cheerleaders.

We all disliked Sarge at first, but with time his ways became familiar, and eventually our attitude toward him changed, because one of us shot him.  Then we were all sent off to the front lines.  After all that buildup we were dying to see some action.  To be sure, some of us wanted to see other things.  I wanted to hand a candy bar to a foreign kid, who would give me a homemade scarf in return.  One guy, Tony,  wanted to have his life saved, or almost saved, by someone Jewish.  And poor sweet Luis wanted to see a tank blown up into the air and land upside down, but he never got his wish.

My best war story:  It was an ordinary mission for me and my elite squad.  Our orders were to secure the perimeter, rescue a hostage, take a hostage, eliminate the insurgents, set up a communications array, take back the night, win hearts and minds, and return to base.  We were in the Purple Zone, three clicks south of Waypoint A, if you know where that is, when something went wrong.  It got really quiet and then all hell broke loose.  We were surrounded by people who were firing guns, at us!

Bullets flew at us from all sides as if we were an inbox suddenly being spammed.  Re: Hot molten death, CC: Every last fucking one of you.  I had to act fast.  "Return fire!" I shouted, but it was too late.  My men had already returned fire and won.  I knew then that war is no video game, or movie, or podcast.  War is real, and it's lame.  Seriously, there's all this buildup and then it's just some shooting and then we win and it's not even close.  Meh.  We're the bravest, smartest, most technologically advanced military of all time and God is on our side -- gee, I wonder who's gonna win this one?

For my heroism that day, I received our nation's highest honor, the Red Badge of Job Well Done.  I wear it to the store sometimes, and people salute me, and the cashier bags my groceries for me.  But deep down I know that I just did what anyone else would do in those circumstances, which was be a hero.  But this Memorial Day, I'll just ignore all the hero stuff and try to remember why I enlisted in the first place: to protect my precious liberty.  And now that I've shot some folks in defense of liberty, I'll finally be allowed to vote, and publish a newspaper, and have a trial by jury, and burn a flag or two, and I think the Twenty-first Amendment says I can have a beer.  So I have a lot to do today.

Adventures in Walking to Places

I was walking down the street today and a guy started to spange me.  He was white, and I don't give money to white people, so I told him, "I can't help you."  That's my patented not-giving-money to people phrase.  I use it almost every time.  It's better than "I'm sorry" because I'm not, but it's not as rude as just "No."  And it's much, much better than a three-sentence excuse that, even if true, won't convince him, and besides, he's not your therapist.  Sometimes I add a little oomph to "I can't help you" by looking very earnest and voluble, as if I were about to continue with: "But you know who can?  The Lord King Christ Jesus!  He has a dollar . . . of love!"

Anyway, the only problem is that I happened to be going to the liquor store.  I really couldn't deny a guy money and then walk back ten minutes later with a bottle of aquavit and not share.  I always give liquor to beggars regardless of race, it's just something I do.  And the liquor store's little trick of putting the bottle in a paper bag and then a plastic one doesn't fool anybody.  Why do they do that?  It's silly.  If they really wanted to disguise the bottle, they should put it in a teddy bear or tape it to the bottom of a skateboard.  If they found a way to make beer lighter than air, they could hide it in a toy dirigible ironically shaped like a beer bottle -- kind of a Purloined Letter sort of thing.

Anyway anyway, I ended up walking back to my car by circling around two whole blocks on a hot day, just so I wouldn't have to share a drink with some guy who I'm sure is perfectly nice and probably has a lot of magical wisdom to teach me.  On the way, some other guy asked me for a cigarette, and I made sure to smile at him as I replied, "I'm sorry, I don't have any.  I don't really smoke.  But it's OK that you do, and I hope you find a cigarette soon.  By the way, no pressure, but would you like some aquavit while you wait?"

Fallout 3 vs. Washington, D.C.

Only 20 days until the trailer for Fallout 3, a post-apocalyptic RPG that takes place in D.C., according to the screen shots.  It's being made by Bethesda Softworks in Rockville, MD, so they didn't have far to drive for reference photos.  This picture shows the Washington Navy Yard all post-apocalypticized.  I think it looks creepy but lovely and not at all what the actual game will look like.  Still, I'm quietly optimistic, which excludes me from the vast majority of gamers discussing this game on forums, who are loudly pessimistic and can't spell.

This game has so much going against it.  For every person who loved Oblivion, Bethesda's last game, there is one who hates it just as much.  They're like particles and antiparticles -- as soon as an opinion is formed, a counterpart is created somewhere in the world.  And the Fallout fans are crazy.  Just avoid them.  I'm not saying don't play Fallout or Fallout 2, just do it secretly, and never discuss it with anyone.  If you meet a Fallout fan, run away in a zig-zag pattern because although they can spray invective for hundreds of feet, they turn slowly.

Fallout 1 and 2 were set in the desert.  I'm tired of that.  I hope this one is confined to D.C.  I think it's the perfect location for post-apocalyptic fun:

• New York is too sensitive.  GTA IV is already getting crap for depicting violence in a New York-like city.  D.C. actually burned to the ground once.  Every other sci-fi movie blows up the White House, so Bethesda can score points for originality by leaving it mostly intact.  I would love to shoot mutants in a "mostly intact" White House.
• Big traffic circles everywhere.  If Fallout 3 has vehicles, imagine the thrill of being able to get into a traffic circle without stopping.  Without even slowing down!  Want to drive on Connecticut Ave between 7 and 9 in the middle lane or whatever?  Go for it -- everyone's dead!
• I wonder what radiation does to snakehead fish?
• You do know this city is riddled with secret bunkers and tunnels, right?  So instead of trekking through endless desert to get to the underground vault, you just drop in, get radiation meds, pop out, shoot mutants -- it's quicker than a trip to Panera.
• Lobbyists.  Without the legislative branch, they'll need to put their unique skill set to use in other ways.  If you played the original Fallout series, you see where I'm going with this.
• I keep hearing about this exclusive-to-D.C. musical genre called Go-Go.  Well, with everyone dead, I bet it could finally catch on.
• The Empty Shell of a Broken World Cherry Blossom Festival is always nice.
• Racing down the Potomac!  I'm thinking something like the canal chapter in Half-Life 2, except rather than a giant bomb-laden gunship, the boss at the end is a symbol of the military-industrial complex as well as the indifference to civilian casualties that led to the nuclear war in the first place.  So, uh, two gunships.
• Finally, although I'm sure we'll see plenty of familiar landmarks half-destroyed, I think the most exciting will be the World War II memorial.  I want to see the work of some unknown graffitist who just paints another "I" at the end.  Take that, greatest generation!

Bethesda, feel free to use any of these suggestions.  In particular, I think you could use the tagline, "Go for it -- everyone's dead!"  It's playful and inviting.  It's kind of a Wii Sports meets everyone dying kind of thing.

Denis Dyack and Playing Pretend

In an interview with gamesindustry.biz, Denis Dyack, who has been working on a game called Too Human since before humans descended from trees, opined that gamers want “shorter, better games.”  Presumably all that development time has gone towards making Too Human better, which sounds nice.  But the really brilliant strategy has been to make it proportionately shorter.  It was originally planned as five PSOne discs worth of game, and now, hopefully, it will fit on a single 5 1/4” floppy.  But it will still cost $60.

Saying a game has 60-100 hours of play doesn't mean much.  Chutes and Ladders has 60-100 hours of play if you're very, very unlucky.  However, for a truly fun game, that's at least $1/hour of fun, a rate you can't even get from very entertaining illegal immigrants.  The real question is, what is the dollar-per-fun ratio in Too Human?  Well, the game isn't out yet, so reviewing it would be unfair to Denis Dyack and probably upset him.  So, let's examine an imaginary action/RPG instead.

Excessively Homo Sapiens: Dollars/Fun

$1 = Opening it for the first time.  That's fun no matter how awful the game turns out to be!  It's true!

$1 = Ooh, pretty manual!  Hmm, too much/not enough information. Screw this, let's install this thing.  I didn't come here to read.

$3 = Opening cutscene.  THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVER.  Come look at this, honey!  What?  No, I can't pause it.  Fine, I'll tell you about it later.  You'll love that.

$10 = What is this?  Oh, it's the tutorial.  Clever, I didn't realize I was in the tutorial for a second there.  Oh look, people are telling me how to do things.  This was all in the manual/This should have been in the manual instead.

$10 = This action stuff is pretty exciting, if a little easy.  Is this for the RPG players?  Come on, I can handle it, give me a challenge!

$4 = Menus?  What?  Upgrades?  Leveling up?  Oh damn it.  I'm in the RPG part.  I wish I had a gun big enough to blow away this boring-ass crap.  I'll just randomly choose things.

$5 = Yee haw!  More action!  And it's more challenging, too!  Yes! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?

$1 = OH MY GOD THAT THING JUST ATE ME

$1 = YOU ATE ME AGAIN YOU SON OF A BITCH

$1 = STOP EATING ME I MEAN IT

$6 = Screw this.  I'm going to Gamefaqs.  I think it's a bug.

$4 = Damn it!  I screwed myself when I leveled up.  I knew I shouldn't have put all my points into Emotional IQ!  Better reload a save.

$8 = Put all points into Shootery, and . . . that was easy.  Oh well.

$15 = Look at the size of that thing!  Oh, that was easy, too. Hooray.  Gamefaqs said I should start building up my Smack Laser now, because I'll need it for the final boss.

$16 = Branching storyline.  I guess I have an important choice to make.  Should I kill the baby bunny or pat its head?  This is a real moral dilemma.

$23 = I have to collect how many pieces?  Oh come on.  Why is it that everyone thinks they can break the most valuable thing in the universe into 3 to 20 pieces?  Someone is just going to go all over and re-assemble them.  And fuck, it looks like that person is me.

$42 = Here we are at last.  Me and the guy I'm gonna kill.  Maybe I can learn his pattern, time my attacks just right – Ow! Ow! Ow! Fine then.  Smack Laser!  Smack Laser!  Smack – oh, he's dead.

$100 = Why is everyone crying?  Oh no!  I just got the bad ending! So I was supposed to pet the baby bunny?  How the hell was I supposed to figure that out?

As you can see, if anything, games should cost more than $60, a lot more.  And then we enter the realm of replayablity, where you try to suck more entertainment out of that disc by playing it over and over again because that money sure ain't coming back.  Can you get 100% and the super special secret ending?  Answer: No.  No you can't.  But you can get carpal tunnel syndrome.  And the next time you pull out your credit card to buy a game, you'll do it with your teeth.

(Note to Denis Dyack: Stop Googling yourself and get back to work on the game!  It's not going to ruin itself!)