Category Archives: Zesty Gal

Lab Rats

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For almost a year and half I’ve been playing this augmented multiplayer reality game with players from all over the world -about 7 million- set on a location-based map of the area you live in, basically a map of the whole world. So if you’d go to other countries in real life you would be seeing that environment on the map in the game. I won’t go into details but what it comes down to is the fact that you need to capture, build, and/or defend areas among other goals.

Although I’ve been playing it for a while already, I still have mixed feelings about the game as it brings out emotions in people that can have a serious effect in real life. Some tend to become overly protective about ‘their’ area, others become even aggressive. People use different tactics all the time which makes it a constantly changing psychological battle. It’s interesting -in a twisted way- to see how one responds and either retaliate or change tactics altogether.

At times I get fed up with the game, not the game itself but mostly a certain type of people who take things way too seriously. I get tired of the politics that are going around -just like in real life by the way- where you have dictators, followers, protestors, sheep and the common idiots in general. I often wonder what the makers of this game had in mind when they developed it and I honestly believe that we’re all basically lab rats playing in the maze that’s called our world.

I’m ‘almost’ at the highest level of this game and I’m not sure what I’ll do the moment I reach it, I’m taking my time in doing so because I’m not in a rush. In the meantime I keep thinking about what’s going on in the backend. Are they collecting data on us, are they watching human behaviour whilst under stress or in victory? Are we manipulated by the rules they come up with? Or are we blissfully ignorant and willingly participating in a worldwide psychological examination?

I wonder what will happen when their intentions will be out in the open one day… It sounds like a bad science fiction movie some how. A mixture of data rebels, network surfers, whistleblowers, a matrix, domination and a few scientists who track each and every move you make in real life watching your GPS location and collecting data on who you interact with and how. I’m sure there will be uproar if the truth comes out about what they do with all the collected intel.

Call me paranoid ;)

Sweetest Revenge

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I remember that one early morning -when I was a kid- my mother came into my room. I guess it must have been Saturday or Sunday since it was early but I wasn’t up yet to go to school, instead I was in a deep sleep when she woke me. She came into my room calling my name and I asked her what was going on. She told me to get out of bed and look outside through the window. I was still very sleepy and my bed felt nice, cosy and warm, I didn’t want to get up but I did anyway. I walked over to the window where she stood and pulled the curtains away.

The moment I had pulled the curtains she said to me ‘Do you see the horse attached to the post of that street light over there?’ whilst pointing her finger in a certain direction. I tried to see where her finger was pointing and saw different street lights but no horse to be seen anywhere. So I asked her ‘Where do you see a horse mum?’. She said ‘Over there…’ pointing in the same direction as she did earlier. Again I looked but couldn’t see a horse attached to a street light. I was confused and when she noticed the puzzled expression on my face, she said ‘April Fool!’.

I’ve never forgotten that moment of feeling tricked and being intrigued and amused at the same time, until this day I have to chuckle each year when April Fools’ Day comes around thinking about how my mum played the joke on me. But last night I finally had my moment of revenge after almost 40 years. And it was sweet ;) I called her last night around 23.00 because I’d promised to call and also to tell her that I’d had an interview that day about a new assignment and to ask her how she was doing. She sounded a bit depressed and not too happy about life in general.

At times she gets these moods where nothing seems to matter anymore and she seems tired of life. I won’t go into details because those are private but she does have a tendency to be negative and complain about certain things, expecting others to solve these issues for her. So I guess I’m kind of used to this pattern and won’t let it get to me. I will lend an ear and express sympathy but will not hold back to tell her the truth every so often if she is willing to listen that is. She can be pretty tough on herself raising the bar too high and ‘punishing’ herself accordingly…

*hmmm I know of this other person and a bar as well, as I write I observe and learn ;) *

We were talking for about an hour and half when I noticed the date and time on my MacBook Air, it showed fri 1 apr. 00:34. I immediately got this idea in my mind and started grinning from ear to ear wondering if it would work after nearly 40 years or not. So I interrupted my mum and asked her if she could get out of her chair for a moment. To my surprise she did without even asking questions. So I told her to go to the window and asked if the blinds were down, she said they were only halfway. Then I told her to move closer to the window and have a good look.

I asked her if she could see the street light, she answered she could. Then I asked her if she could see the donkey attached to it… And she bursted out in laughter! She remembered exactly what I was on about and smirked in triumph about something that happened nearly 40 years ago. We both had a good laugh. I said to her ‘I finally have my sweet revenge, do you realise what you did to me all those years ago you bad bad mother?’ and we laughed some more. It was a really nice, close moment that we shared together both silly laughing and grinning.

But the best part was when we were about to hang up she said to me that she was going to bed and that she would probably still be grinning whilst trying to get some sleep and even the day after in the morning when she would wake up. It was nice to realise that I had the ability to turn her slightly bad day into a better one even if it was at her expense… ;)