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Three cheers for the USPS!

Actually, the title to this blog doesn’t make that much sense when you consider that the article just makes me sad.  Although, the USPS probably should still get three cheers.

So, here’s another post about the USPS, although this time I’m actually writing it and not just reposting from another blog.  It seems that the USPS is ever closer to insolvency.  I don’t know exactly what that would mean for the future of mail delivery, but it definitely can’t be good.  I have a friend whose father works for the USPS.  He’s told me that he believes our postal system will fold in five years.  That’s terrible!

Whose fault is it though?  Well, partly theirs, from reading the article.  It seems that they never really had a long range plan to remain a viable business.  They rely pretty heaviliy on first class mail to pay the bills and that’s never changed.  But it’s partly ours.  We just don’t sent letters and such like we used to but we still demand the same services at the same prices as before.  It doesn’t work like that though.  The USPS is an amazing institution.  They deliver by mule or snowmobile when it’s required.  The system works so remarkably well and is really reliable when you consider the sheer volume of mail that they have to handle each day.  First class mail gets delivered within days in the States.  And yes, I’ve experienced the anguish of having things lost in the mail, but it’s been a rare experience.  Maybe just twice in my lifetime of sending and receiving mail.  The last time, the package I mailed eventually found its way back to me too, so in the end, it did reach its intended recipient…albeit several months late.  And the price for all this service is really cheap.  Forty-four cents to send a letter by snowmobile to Alaska?  And if I address it wrong, it gets sent back to me with no extra cost?  So cheap!

I think we need to go out and support our postal system some more.  We should sent letters to friends, especially when they’re down.  We should send letters to friends who are in different states, just because.  We should send letters to friends in different countries, even.  I’ve done care packages to friends who were homesick in other countries.  Why not?  Our postal system is really great.  And if nothing else, join swap-bot.  You help support our postal system and you get surprises in the mail.  Who doesn’t like surprises in the mail?  Yay for surprises in the mail!  But more, yay for our postal system that works so remarkably well but is facing insolvency so you should go write 324892343 letters and mail them right now (you need to say that in one breath)!

Final Boss Syndrome

Hi, my name is Moose and I have Final Boss Syndrome.

Hi Moose!

Erm, I thought about writing the rest of this post like a stereotypical *anonymous meeting, but I decided against it.

So, what is Final Boss Syndrome?  Is is a syndrome, probably a psychological disorder, in which you play a computer or video game all the way to the final boss and then suddenly lose interest and stop playing.  Symptoms are obviously more apparent with RPGs or games with something definite at the end.  It might also be the reason why I tend to play more puzzle games or open-ended games now.  It seems that I really like to play games, and I apparently don’t like to beat them.

Here is a very incomplete list of games where I’ve played up to the final boss and then stopped:

Anyway, it’s a pretty good list of games that I never end up completing.  It’s not for lack of trying on some of them.  Trying as in effort in psyching
myself up to play the final boss.  I just…lose interest.  Then I don’t like playing for awhile and by the time I manage to get around to it again, I’ve forgotten all the controls or something or my strategy I had built while playing the game originally and so I can’t beat the final boss.  This is  probably the most apparent with The World Ends with You.  That game has such a different battle system, I don’t know if I’ll be able to pick it up again.  I might have to play it through from the beginning again.  Which wouldn’t really be that bad.  Another game that would be really hard to pick up again is Trauma Center.  I really liked that game too, but I don’t think I can remember all that I need to do to heal wounds and whatnot.

In other news, I have beat some games.  Sometimes it’s just a fluke that I beat them, sometimes it’s not.  Here are some games I actually have beat:

So, PvZ is the really different one on the list because not only have I beaten it, I have beaten it several times.  I have beaten it so hard.  So hard to death.  Er…yes.  Anyway, not only have I beaten the game several times, I have also gone back and beaten all the mini-games, and survived over 30 onslaughts of zombies in endless survival mode.  I also have a pretty decent Zen garden.  So you see, this is quite an accomplishment.

But, that’s not all!  What I just described was on LeeEv, my main system.  I recently acquired an auxiliary system, Codename-Roodee, and I decided to install PvZ there as well.  What I hadn’t realized is that PopCap updated the game to include acheivements and the save files of the previous verison are not compatible with the new version.  That means…I get to play it all over again.  And I did.  I beat the game over Memorial weekend and it was completely unintentional, as I was doing a lot of other things that weekend that took precedence over beating a game I had already beaten.  But it was interesting, as I got to re-experience a bunch of things that I had completely forgotten about.  Like that magic taco.  Why did Crazy Dave just give me so much money for a taco the zombies dropped on my lawn?  Because he’s CRRRRAAAAAAAZY!!

So maybe…maybe this means my Final Boss Syndrome is going into remission and that one day, I will be able to beat the games I start playing, especially the games that I like.  Maybe one day I’ll be cured?