Before I came on as community manager, I usually had a dozen or so articles unpublished. Taking on the position, I immediately starting writing different kinds of posts, and all that unseen writing is still there. Perhaps some of my back log will never see the light of day, but I do want to share some that were probably too weird for the front-page. This is one of them.

I like the band Pavement, and for whatever reason their song "Fight This Generation" seemed to fit my new console purchasing problem in February of this year. I ended up getting the Xbox 360 Elite, for the record.

i can't so i won't stand
up chuck break luck
look for the splinters you might see where they come in
go down, sweet yardley
i won't let you fall down, sweet yardley
i won't let you fall down, here, now

The PS3 is the young and melancholy face on the back of the milk carton. It stares out oblivious to its future peril, but as the observer wishes the poor thing will get back home, they cannot help but think there is a desperate quality, a projected sense through hindsight that something will go dreadfully wrong. And it has.

While the console is getting its legs, the amount of selection available is the perfect example of why I am having such a hard time selecting a new console. I own a Wii. I am married. Getting a new console took an incredible amount of nefarious manipulating and reckless cunning. But now I have the go ahead to waste some of the family finances on new video games. (Thanks Bitmob! Tens of thousands of combined article views also gives me a quasi-job. Despite a lack of pay, the effort has given the hobby some reputable quality that can now be banked!)

But what the fuck do I do about the PS3? Bundles and SKUs and backwards compatibility and goodness-knows-what-other-variables differ between one box on the shelf and the next. There have been 9 different models with 7 different sizes of hard drive. Just how much fucking space does a Pixel Junk game take?

For these reasons I cannot buy the PlayStation 3. I can't be certain as to what I will get.

ah- god damn the guts and the gore
nobody's crying 'cause there's no one to score for
come up sweet randy
i won't let you fall -what you got to lose?

The Xbox 360 provides slightly clearer answers if you don't look under the hood. There are 3 models, but the insides and some of the outsides have changed. I asked the question: Does the Xbox 360 20 GB model have HDMI? Jon Shults answered "Some do and some don't." What kind of answer is that? (You are excused Jon, it's not your fault). Unlike the PlayStation 3, I will have to check the expiry date instead of the complex flow chart to figure out what I will get.

And expiry date it has. You will find incredible deals on refurbished units, which may (or may not) be the only consumer electronic device on record to be better refurbished than it was new. But I don't trust it.

I will probably buy an Elite Xbox 360.

My purchase decision is not based on games or marketing or anything that Microsoft has deliberately done. It is a balance of convenience and effort. For the money value, it offers the least amount of research, the greatest possibility that I will know what I have bought, and a reasonable probability that it won't blow up in my face or kill my wife and I or whatever these fuckers do when then red ring.

The N64 kid has certainly grown up. There is no more screaming glee, just quiet surrender.

what you got to prove?
who you gonna screw down here? ..now
here now ..i am.. here now..i am... here... now...

your life is about to-to come
away from the mirror in a rainshed
generation
fight this generation

Interestingly enough, I may have gotten it right the first time with the Wii. Why not? There is no trouble in picking one out. The only trouble is getting a fully functional Wii remote collected and assembled. Repeat x4.

Maybe that's why the Wii has sold well. It's so easy to buy. I suggest the opposite. It is easy to buy because they have sold so many. Once the sales plateau or some some hint of a shrug, get ready because Nintendo is going to get confusing. Case in point: the 4 DS brothers. Well, I think they are still doing better than PSP.

generation
fight this generation
stop right

Italicised and centered text feature lyrics from Pavement's "Fight This Generation", available on their 1995 release, Wowee Zowee.