The Sasquatch Journal

As informed reader Jon Heupel alerted me....Mr. Star Trek Next Generation child-star turned tech/geek writer wrote this story on Suicide Girls just a few days after my arcades story got syndicated and published at a few different websites. It's not like this was a very timely story, so I'm suspicious. Check out some of the similarities in the two stories also:

Wheaton's story----
"But the video arcade's days were numbered as soon as home computers and console systems started to catch up to their arcade counterparts."

My story----
"But by the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, fewer people were dropping dollars into arcades. The first big blow of competition arrived with the home systems -– first the Atari 2600 and then the Nintendo Entertainment System -– when technology began to allow kids to play arcade games in the safe space of home."

Wheaton's story:
"I think the current generation of gamers, though they have access to more actual players than we did, are really missing out on the social and community aspect of the video arcade."

My story:
"And despite all the unblinking eyes staring at video screens, arcades also often bred a sense of community -– we’d chat with strangers."

Wheaton's story---
"Yes, arcades were dark and loud and smelled funny, and they probably confused our parents the same way MySpace confuses me, but they were real places where we could escape into countless different worlds, and challenge our friends (and the occasional stranger)"

My story:
"The arcades I grew up in were dark, sweaty, dungeon-like rooms filled with loud obnoxious lights and sounds with even louder and more obnoxious people." (also I made a MySpace reference in my story.)

Wheaton's story:
"It wasn't about spawn camping or kill-stealing or chat flooding or any of the other childish bullshit that makes so many online games and communities barely tolerable; it was about the interaction with our friends and the challenge these different games presented to us."

My story:
"It was about a community of like-minded misfits. It was about sticking it to the Man, especially if that man was the final boss in a hard-fought game. Or it was meaningful lessons like the one Spicoli philosphozied about:"

Now, I guess I should feel flattered by this, AKA imitation is the sincerest form of...but Wheaton's article got a lot more attention... For instance check out this blog on Gamespot where my article gets "Extra Reading" status.

What do you all think, should we have a throwdown on the Holodeck?