If any of you have Yahoo mail, I'm sure you've seen him. He's a cyber guy with glasses and a purple vest. Next to him is what I assume is some kind of game for feeding, entertaining, and caring for Liam. Liam informed me today in his little box that if I wanted cybermercial free mail, it would only cost me $19.99 a year. Imagine that! Pay $20 annually so I won't have to see Liam, guess whose lips are these, click to find out who has a crush on me or how to contact rich single men in my area (and, of course, they have a few pictures of these nice looking guys). It makes me suspicious. If a guy is single, rich, and attractive, why does he need an online dating service?
Liam reminds me of a brief foray I took into the world of the Sims. If you don't know about the Sims, it is a computer game in which you, sort of, play God, with these people's lives. Except you're not really God because you can only control SOME things that happen in the Sims world. I had a happy little world in which two women shared a home. Everything seemed to be going okay until one of them was burned up in a kitchen fire. The first time it happened, I was traumatized, and so was the roommate. She became depressed, frequently wept, and refused to get a job when I tried to get her one because of her depression. I tried to solve her problem by making her call a friend on the phone, but all her friends worked during the day (guess the Sims World workplace environment prohibits personal calls). And when she would try to call them at night, she got one of those Peanuts cartoon cussing out like Woodstock frequently did to Snoopy. I didn't know what was said, but I figure it had something to do with this pathetic jobless woman calling decent hardworking people in the middle of the night when they are trying to sleep.
Well, it was pretty shortly after I put the Sims game away for good. I mean, honestly, who needs that grief? If I want drama, I'll call a family member thank you very much. Or heck, if I want to manipulate people's lives, I'll just open up Microsoft Word, create a world, and make all my people do what I want them to do without some mysterious freakin' Sims providence burning up some poor unsuspecting sap up in the kitchen just because she felt like eating microwave popcorn. Then with a bit of polishing, good luck, and perseverance, I'll get a contract for the masterpiece, and get an awesome cover for it.
And even if I don't, I can sleep well at night knowing that within the cyber pages of their world, my characters enjoy a work ethic and will NEVER lose a roommate to a tragic fire which began microwaving popcorn.