I'm particularly scared of the decay that others have noted. One of the things I hate most is not being taken seriously, being on the receiving end of condescension, et cetera. I refuse to go through a pathetic second childhood. I see it in my customers, and I've seen it in relatives and others. If it becomes necessary, I can always avoid the worst of aging via the Ernest Hemingway/Sara Teasdale/Hunter S. Thompson/James Whale method, but I don't want to have to do that before I've accomplished what I want to accomplish.

My happiest moments have mostly occurred in the context of things that I can't imagine doing past a certain age. Suppose one dies past 100. What does one do for several decades? My mother recently commented that she doesn't want to live that long. She said earlier that I should just shoot her so that she doesn't get like her mother. I want to tell her that she shouldn't expect me to do it.

I'm scared of aging, but I'm a little terrified of women aging. I think this is just the particular fear of a severely frustrated person, but having amazing sex with one or more brilliant, beautiful women is one of my goals in life, and I can't abide letting that possibility pass by unfulfilled.

I've mentioned this before: last year, a friend of mine died rather suddenly. She was in her late 40s. It was very sad, and I'm still saddened by it, but a part of me envies her. She saw The Clash and The Sex Pistols live (she was at the show in the Dallas area where Sid Vicious got hit in the mouth with the unopened beer can,) she saw R.E.M. and 10,000 Maniacs tour together in 1987, she followed bands around, she had a lot of hot sex, and she presumably died before experiencing the problems associated with aging. She also escaped all the serious pains and trauma she experienced in her life (and they were numerous.)

"[I] hope I die before I get old."

People often do forget that life expectancy takes into account all deaths, including infant mortality. In Ancient Rome, life expectancy might have only been in the 40s, but all the senators were in their 50s and 60s.

I've read onto the 22nd page. I hoped it might help, since the discussion seemed to leave the parameters of the original article and become more general, and I need help with that kind of thing. It hasn't helped. It's all so confusing and complex.

My best (and pretty much only close) friend just stabbed me in the back. There was a woman involved. After we met her at the same time, we made a gentlemen's agreement, I thought, that since I took the initiative and since he's leaving town next month, he wouldn't interfere with my efforts. To me, that means he would not be unfriendly to her, but definitely recuse himself from any advances she might make, because he should know damn well what an easy time he has with women, and how that would cause problems for me.

He did the exact opposite, and since then I have gotten the "friends" speech and the two of them are involved in a dissimilar love affair. He claims he didn't notice her attitude until it was too late. He says "she's not girlfriend material," which I don't understand very well. I don't think I fit in this generation. Someone once told me that the problem isn't with me, it's with the people I try to befriend/date. Maybe he, perhaps unwittingly, took advantage of my good nature in order to get laid repeatedly before he leaves town.

I talked to her first, DAMMIT! This is not what a friend should do. It's not what a gentleman would do. Do my decency, erudition, seriousness, et cetera doom me to perpetual celibacy?

Women, even the good ones, seem to want Rod Stewart, not Davey Havok or Greg Graffin. I like music metaphors. If a good man is hard to find, why am I alone?

Thanks, ClearBlueSea. Yeah, there's certainly no guarantee I would have been successful with her, indeed, I might have decided later that I wasn't interested, but his involvement just made it that much more difficult. It's the general violation of principles that has me so offended.

The problem is not some sort of connection between GTA and real-life misdeeds. That's a red herring. It's a value judgment. The disturbing thing is that people find this the least bit entertaining. It's like my objection to religious clothing: It's not the veil (or whatever,) it's what it symbolizes. I'm a bit bothered that people would find it enriching or diverting to make their character murder prostitutes and such. Context is critical, however, and thus the violence in (for example) a war game is somewhat different.

I don't think this next statment is a generational conflict, since most video games, particularly GTA, are bought and played by adults, so hear me out here: I don't play video games any more, but when I did, I was a big fan of Road Rash. The game is very antisocial (I'm using that word correctly, by the way...) but it's also completely ludicrous. The Mortal Kombat series was very controversial, but many people pointed out that those games were deliberately absurd. The GTA series is clearly different.

As a side note, I have anecdotal evidence that American women complain of sexual frustration because their men would rather play video games. This is another thing that exasperates me. I just can't fathom it. Has anybody else heard this?

Bradleys aren't tanks. Tanks are tracked, heavily armored, and their primary purpose is to carry a heavy, direct-fire cannon. Bradleys are Infantry Fighting Vehicles, IFVs. That's a particularly tough form of Armored Personnel Carrier, or APC.

I think George Carlin noticed "near miss/near hit" first. At least he publicized it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFW6NHbWX0E