Bland and tasteless

How to blog, lesson #1: First, recall a personal anecdote of little to no actual importance, and then extrapolate on it to make a sweeping and simplistic generalization about the state of society.

So I had it in my head that I would go and buy Trivial Pursuit recently. I had just found out that all four of my roommates had been in quiz bowl together in high school, and there was a gauntlet that definitely needed to be thrown down. Plus I was sick of losing to Bill at chess, so any new board game would be a welcome relief. Now there's not a whole lot of places in this area I could think to go to for that kinda thing, but I figured Target was a decent starting place. Of course the problem with Target is that since they carry EVERYTHING, they don't carry a very wide selection of any particular item category. Apparently "Totally 80's!" trivial pursuit is the only one that sells well anymore because it was the only one they stocked. No worries, I figured, I'll just head to my back-up, Wal-Mart. Normally I wouldn't touch a Wal-Mart with a 10 foot fucking pole, but I really wanted that game and I've never been a man to stand too strongly on principle. Problem was, Wal-Mart had the EXACT same game selection as Target. I know this probably doesn't surprise many people, but I try to avoid big box stores whenever possible so it wasn't something I was prepared for. I decided it was time for my ace-in-the-hole, I would go to Toys-R-Us.(I wish I knew how to make the "R" backwards, it doesn't look right without it.) Of course I didn't go straight there. As I was driving there I saw a K-Mart and figured it was worth a shot. Man, I haven't been in one of those in years, and it'll be years before I make that mistake again. It was like visiting a sickly old man on his death bed. Sure you feel bad for him, but at the same time you're not about to touch him. I'm pretty sure even if they had the game I wouldn't have wanted to buy it, but as they had astoundingly less of a selection than the other stores I wasn't forced to make that choice. So on to Toys-R-Us (seriously, that just doesn't look right) and, I was sure, to a decent trivial pursuit game. It seems though that it just wasn't meant to be. Sure they had the trivial pursuit "Totally 80's!" edition, they even had the kid's version and something called the booklovers edition (which was full of the most obscure literature questions i've ever seen, seriously i couldn't come close to answering a single question), but they didn't have the normal fucking version. It seems if you want to play trivial pursuit you now have to choose between a version a five-year old can play, a version that no one could possibly play without a PhD in modern American literature, or a version that NO ONE FUCKING CARES ABOUT. Of course I must be wrong about that last bit, otherwise why would every damn store have stocked "Totally 80'!" trivial pursuit? Seriously, if you own "Totally 80's!" trivial pursuit, I hate you. One last bit before I finally get to the point. The other stores had also stocked this jeopardy game I looked at a bit. It seemed like a reasonable replacement, it even had electronic buzzers you could use and it plugged into the tv to read you the questions. Only thing was it was a bit pricey. At that point though I was frustrated enough to front the extra money for electronic jeopardy. The problem was when I looked at it again, the game was multiple choice. What the fuck is the point of multiple choice jeopardy? It might be a stupider fucking idea than "Totally 80's!" trivial pursuit. If real jeopardy was like that it would be...well I guess it would be Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but cheaper. Hell maybe it would work.

Ok, so that story went on a bit longer than I figured it would, but it brings me to my point. Big box stores suck. Specifically they operate under economic conditions that make it profitable only to stock the most highly purchased items in any one category so that they'll have room to stuff everything you could conceivably need to buy into one store. In the end you're often left with little to no choice when it comes to buying something. I guarantee that there are still some toy stores out there that I could have gone to, but thanks to having to compete with the larger stores, there are so many less than there were even fifteen years ago when I was a kid. It's the same for other goods too, when a national chain replaces all the smaller specialized stores, you're left with only what that chain chooses to provide. Putting aside a rant on how that leaves these stores with unfair amounts of power over manufacturers, you're still left with the fact that the selection just plain sucks.

Ok, maybe that's not a very original point, but I've got another unoriginal one, so bear with me. While desperately searching for a normal trivial pursuit game, I was struck too by the fact that there were no suitable replacements available to buy either. The trivia games were all simplistic and easy or about disney or pop culture. The "brain games" all involved making clay sculptures and singing. Other than the obligatory chess board, there were no games that weren't, for lack of a better word, dumb. And these games aren't here by chance, they're the games that sell the best. People love the dumb games, and anything intellectually challenging just can't compete with "Totally 80's!" trivial pursuit for shelf space. Now look at me, snobbish and superior because I want to play trivial pursuit, truly the past time of great minds. Still that's partly the point, 9 times out of 10 I prefer the dumb games too. I'm not trying to say it's a sign of the times, but I am saying that people in our country are pretty fucking dumb. We do much prefer Who Wants to be a Millionaire to Jeopardy. I'm not going for a Mike Wallace moment here, I don't think it's a condemnation of modern society that more people don't want to play more trivial pursuit, but at the same time it's a bit disappointing, and a bit depressing.

Anyways, to wrap the story up, I was able to find a new version of trivial pursuit online, and despite the steep price tag (70$ for a board game?!) I ordered it and once Vijay hits the rare lull between cramming for med school exams, the gauntlet can be properly thrown. Of course that didn't stop Bill from finding an older copy of trivial pursuit in his room and promptly beating me and robbie at it. I fucking hate that guy.