The following is my post on truTV’s Operation Repo message board, and is a followup to this post. I’m sure the post will end up being deleted by the forum moderator, but you know what? I don’t care. I wanted to get it off my chest, and so I went ahead and posted it. If it’s not deleted, you can read the original post here.

I gave up on Operation Repo months ago. I only kept coming back to the message board to make my opinion known that I did not think this show belonged on this network. It’s not “reality”. It’s not “actuality”. There have been many examples given of how this show, if it were real, breaks repossession laws pretty blatantly. The fact that the “repo agents” are not licensed (despite some people’s unsupported statements that they have “temporary licenses”) has also been well documented. I’ve even complained to truTV directly using the contact form on the site, as suggested by Coldwater (note: the forum moderator for the Operation Repo forum). It’s obvious I’m not the only one who feels this way.

However, it’s also now becoming obvious that truTV does not care whether this show is “reality” or “actuality”. In what I’m guessing is a move made under pressure from truTV themselves, suddenly the discussion about how fake the show is is closed and removed from the sticky topics (thus guaranteeing it’ll be moved to obscurity), and instead a topic about “this is the best show on TV” (that last I checked wasn’t as active as the “fake” topic) takes its place. It looks to me that instead of addressing the valid criticism, truTV would rather sweep it under the rug and pretend that the show is real and that there are no problems.

In other words, they’re taking the dishonest and morally bankrupt route. Well, I’ve had enough. I’m not supporting a business that shows such shocking disregard for their customers. I don’t appreciate being lied to and willfully ignored, and I don’t see why anyone else does. If you want to, go right ahead, but I’m not standing for it.

It’s a shame, really, because there are a number of programs on this network I did catch on a regular basis like Forensic Files, The Smoking Gun Presents: World’s Dumbest, Most Shocking/Most Daring, and Inside American Jail. No more. I’ve deleted the shows from my DVR, I’m not coming back to the network itself, and I’m done with this message board as well.

I’m sure there are those who would see me giving up and leaving as a victory. I wouldn’t see it as such, as while I’m no longer fighting… I’m also a lost customer, and a rather unhappy one at that. I’m going to be sure to tell friends and family about what I think of this network. A network lives and dies by its viewership, and while I might be just one person… I’m not being quiet about it, and I doubtless am not the only person walking away.

I’m not sure what this means for truTV, but I do know I won’t be here to see it. Goodbye.

Well, as many people know, a few weeks ago I went to Dubai on a business trip. It was an interesting experience, and one I would very much hope to go through again…

I flew to Dubai on an Emirates Airlines Boeing 777. For the most part, the flight was comfortable even if a little long. I must be more used to intercontinental flights than I thought, though, as the fifteen hour flight really didn’t bother me all that much. If anything, the only real drawback to the flight was that my iPod Classic malfunctioned, preventing me from watching or listening to any media on it. Fortunately, the airplane’s media system had more movies than I could have possibly imagined, so I entertained myself by watching Watchmen and Disney’s Atlantis… when I wasn’t sleeping, that is.

Going through immigration and customs was a breeze, and fortunately there was someone from the hotel waiting outside of customs to pick me up and get me to the hotel. The hotel is located in an area called the Green Community, which is a bit distance outside of the city proper and kind of in the middle of nowhere. As we drove to the hotel, I was amazed by the sheer amount of construction that was being done; it was as if they were building a completely brand new megalopolis. I even saw the Burj Dubai in the distance. I tell you, even from far away that building is highly impressive.

Once I got checked in at the hotel, I decided to have some dinner (as it was around 6 PM local time when I landed), and checked out one of the hotel restaurants. I ended up sitting outside right by the pool, availing myself of the barbecue on the buffet, and especially the chicken and lamb. That’s where I realized just how hot it got in Dubai; it was around 8 PM and the sun had set, yet it was still at least 90 degrees outside. I ordered some water with my meal, and sweated as I ate and drank. As soon as I was done there, I wandered over to the hotel bar. In the United Arab Emirates, alcohol is only allowed to be served in hotels, so I figured I might as well have some there. I ended up sitting on the balcony with a cold Heineken, adjusting to the heat, and communicating with friends and colleagues back home via my iPhone. After I was done with my drink, I headed to bed.

The next day was a Saturday. The people at the facility I was going to be working at were going to be there that day working, but I felt I needed a day to try and recover from what jet lag I had. It turned out to be a good thing I was, because I ended up sleeping for most of the afternoon. I also encountered a rather unpleasant shock that showed how much more expensive Dubai could be: while internet access is generally free at US Courtyard by Marriotts, here it was $20 or so a day(!). Needless to say, for the most part, unless I was at the work facility I ended up using my iPhone for internet access for most of my trip.

Now, before I go any further, I suppose I should describe what the culture was like there. If it wasn’t for the lack of clouds and the signs being in both Arabic and English, for the most part I could have sworn I was back home. In fact, I saw more signs that were English-only as opposed to Arabic-only. The range of cars one would find there was about the same as one would find here, including even Dodges. The food available to me was pretty much the same as one would find here, too. Sausage and bacon wasn’t a problem, as places would serve beef or turkey versions as opposed to pork. Men wearing thawbs (called kanduras there) and women wearing hajibs were commonplace, though not all women kept their face completely covered. Finding Arabic books was a bit interesting, as I had intended on getting a copy of Twilight in Arabic for friends, but in the bookstores I went to most of the books were in English.

After having lunch at a Chili’s Too in the shopping center connected to the hotel and resting for the afternoon, I decided to take a free shuttle to the Mall of the Emirates. To say the place is huge is an understatement. The entire place was two to three levels, and had at least two food courts (one with full-size restaurants), a movie theater, an entertainment complex, and of course Ski Dubai. At least one part of the place was set aside of traditional Arabic wares, while many sections were nothing but Western stores, including places you’d expect to see in the States like Marble Slab, TGI Friday’s, Border’s, Virgin Megastore, and the like. I spent a full two and a half hours looking around, seeing what they had compared to us, and overall being very impressed. A friend asked me if I stood out like a sore thumb (as an Arab in a thawb would here), and the answer is, “Certainly not.” There were about as many Westerners as there were Arabs that I could see, and even many Arabs were wearing Western clothing.

Another thing that one notices over there is how many foreigners there are working there. For example, most of the “working class” grunts I saw over there were primarily Indians, working to send money back home to their families in India. In restaurants, that I saw, the women working as waitresses were primarily Asian. As for the “working girls” in Dubai, well… believe it or not, I never saw any. They mostly congregate around the hotels in the city, and the Green Community is far enough out of the way they apparently don’t consider it working hanging around.

After two and a half hours of wandering around the mall and taking in the sights, I headed back to the shuttle pickup area to head back to the hotel. Once there, I went straight to the hotel bar and had a Heineken and people-watched, while communicating to friends/family back home via iPhone. I ended up going to bed early, but didn’t sleep too well as jet lag was still being a pain.

The next day was the big day for me, as I had to get to work at the facility. Posts about that will be forthcoming in the next couple of days. :-)

It’s kind of funny. With the advent of the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, it’s been appearing more and more in things I read like Penny Arcade, PvP, and Something*Positive (though, to be honest, tabletop RPGs have come and gone in S*P throughout the comic’s history). It makes me sad, in a way, as I never really got into D&D, even though I always wanted to. I’d been wondering why I never did, and it finally occurred to me recently why that was.

Now, keep in mind, I’m not against tabletop RPGs as a whole. During the 1990’s, I used to play the various World of Darkness games (especially Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse) with two different groups, and I loved playing them. However, while I got into those and enjoyed playing them, I still couldn’t get into Dungeons & Dragons. I have no idea why, as “sword and sorcery” fantasy tales are something I enjoy watching and reading. I thought it might have been just the whole “hack and slash” nature of D&D as opposed to WoD, but talking to my friend George recently helped me put it into perspective.

The thing that had never come into my mind before then was that D&D ISN’T inherently all “hack, slash, get the gold” like I had imagined. Reading tales of the D&D games played by the Penny Arcade guys, Scott Kurtz (of PvP), and Wil Wheaton hammered that point home. What, then, made it that way when I played? It then dawned on me while talking to George.

Another friend of mine who was in the RPG group with George was Chris, who I’ve known since first grade. The other RPG group I was in (headed up by Malinda and Jeff, aka my ex and her now-husband) didn’t play D&D, but instead played only WoD at the time. Chris was the center of the D&D group. However, Chris has never taken much to actual roleplaying. He gets the most enjoyment out of hack and slash. A perfect example is one of the times Chris and George played together in EverQuest II; George would want to read the NPC’s dialogue and find out why he was killing these particular monsters they were hunting, while Chris would impatiently drag him on to the next one, saying, “Come on, come on! Let’s get the next one!”

In fact, if it wasn’t for the nature of WoD itself, I’m sure Chris would have been the same way in those sessions. In WoD, for the most part, going in and hacking/slashing will get you nothing except very dead very quickly, especially considering some of the monsters out there. Chris had to do character roleplaying as a result, but he mostly only ever played one type of character. Still, it would explain why Chris preferred Werewolf out of the five WoD games, as it was easily the most violent and combat-intensive of them. We ended up playing it far more than Vampire, and almost never played the other three games.

Since those days, I’ve only done one RPG session with Chris et al, and that was a D&D fourth edition campaign run by Chris’s former roommate Preston’s wife. Even then, the hack and slash mentality was there; Chris complained that there wasn’t enough combat, while I was the one who worked out the riddle behind the entire story and came up with the plan to fix things. It was fun, but the combat wasn’t something I was thrilled with and even was any good at.

So, where does that leave me now? Well, the answer is… in the cold, I guess. I don’t have any real RPG groups to play with, even though I would like to try D&D with a non-hack and slash focus. I play these games to act out a different role. If I wanted pure hack and slash gameplay, I’d play either Diablo II or Gauntlet. Heck, I have a couple of board games like Talisman and Dungeonquest that would fit that category. It’s not just D&D, either; I’d even like to try something like Paranoia, Shadowrun, or even Dark Heresy. I’d been thinking of going into World of WarCraft or Warhammer Online, but then I like the versatility that comes with a tabletop game. (There’s also the MMO burnout to think about, but that’s a whole different subject right there.)

In the end, it’s just a bit of geek culture and entertainment that I wish I had had a better opportunity to get into. It’s not too late, I know, but for now, I’m just going to wait and see what comes up. Here’s hoping I actually do get to enjoy D&D on its own merits sometime soon.