A Simple Way To Go Faster Than Light That Does Not Work

Penny Arcade nails most of why I have stopped visiting video game specialty stores.

The remaining reason is specific to the EB Games at the Cambridgeside Galleria, though I dunno, maybe they're all like this now. It used to be a nice place to go, with a laid-back staff. But ever since time time of the GameStop buyout (correlation-not-causation, but still), the clerks there have been all about the hard sale, taking every opportunity to encourage pre-orders for highly anticipated games, even upon customers who didn't ask about them.

The last time I was in there was to buy Clubhouse Games for my DS, and the clerk tried really hard to get me to pay on the spot for Final Fantasy III as well. (The first is a collection of casual card and board games. The second is an enormous single-player RPG.) Uh? And the time before that I bought Tetris DS and the guy worked up a sweat pushing New Super Mario Bros. on me. I think at the time I wrote it off an an over-eager attempt to pitch at an obvious Gen-X game-nostalgia victim, but now it's just ridiculous.

Whatev; I'm done with those guys.

I just bought some new shoes, finally taking many friends' advice and going to Marathon Sports on Mass Ave. It was everything I was told it would be. I felt a little out of place there since all the other customers were runners, and the first question the saleslady asked me was how much I ran. The answer being not at all, at least not in the sense she meant.

But I walk many miles a day, and at very high speeds (as such things go), and completely wreck every pair of shoes after just a few months. The SL, in fact, said she had never before seen the sort of damage I have managed to inflict on my Eccos after two years of use. (I thought you said "just a few months". Well, they've been busted up for a long time, and I hate shoe-shopping.) The soles, you see, look like someone has taken a knife and, working diagonally, sawed half the heel right off, so that one one side the sole is practically untouched and on the other you can see what color socks I'm wearing.

I let her convince me that getting athletic shoes that correct for the broken I way I walk (pronation) was a healthy choice. The store's reputation says that any advice they give is good and honest. In fact I saw the reputation in action with the following conversation.

SL: Which pair do you like more?
Me: I like these more.
SL: I think I like them better on you too.
Me: Well thank you. But you'd have said that either way, eh?
Another customer [offended]: No, she wouldn't have!!

(Hmm, that makes me sound like an ass. But we'd been joking with each other from the moment I walked in, so I assure you that 'twasn't so.)

The shoes I bought were crazy-looking sneakers, covered in gewgaws as is the norm for contemporary athletic shoes. I don't know when I last wore sneakers, and I've never worn koo-koo sneakers like these before. I'm sure I'll get used to them soon enough.