I'll look for you. What time, (GMT) do you normally play?

I'm a big fan of the GTA franchise, but I gotta say there was something about GTA V (story mode) that bothers me a little bit. And maybe it's part of what the developers were trying to do.

And that is, a life of crime can be pretty goddamn tedious. Now don't misunderstand me: parachuting off a building onto the back of a flatbed truck is great fun. Exploring the bottom of the ocean in a 1-man sub is hypnotizing. But the "drive over here, pick up that thing, now kill a bunch of guys and then drive over here" for what turns out to be slightly underwhelming rewards (and sometimes no rewards at all) is not all that much fun. Especially with the company. I like Franklin pretty well, and I found myself rooting for him (and making sure he invested his money wisely), but Michael is a self-pitying pain in the ass and Trevor's act starts to wear a bit thin (except for two particular moment that were kind of magical - more about that later).

So a life of crime is a tedious, low-reward endeavor. Maybe that's a good message now that I think about it, but it wasn't as much fun as turning Nico Bellic from a fresh-off-the-boat immigrant into a kingpin. GTA IV had an operatic, Scarface-like quality to the story that appealed to me. GTA V is like having to go to a retirement party for someone you don't really like all that much and having to hang with co-workers that you already get to see more than you want. But at least in GTA V the scenery is spectacular, which is more than I can say about the people at the retirement party.

I've just started the Online Mode and so far, it's a lot more fun, except I can see how having to do crimes with random people online who are mostly knuckleheads might also get tedious. I've had mostly good experiences with random online players so far. They seem to genuinely want to get the heist done instead of blowing themselves up. We'll see if I'm able to find some grownups to play online with. I'm betting it will make it a lot more entertaining.

OK, now for the two magical Trevor moments: #1 is when he's driving his older girlfriend, Patricia, back home to her husband, mob boss Martin, and Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now" comes on the radio and Trevor gets tearful. It was a little moving and hysterically funny at the same time. #2 magical Trevor moment is his encounter with fitness fanatic Mary Ann. "We belong together!"

Rich people are richer because they, overwhelmingly, inherited capital from their parents.

It was tried for a while, the 0 dollar wage. It was called slavery, and it DID work. The plantation owners were the wealthiest humans to ever walk the planet. Still might have been, adjusted for inflation. A great success. Those owners would have bought the world up with their wealth, bit by bit, had slavery not been sort-of stopped. Of course, normal non-slave humans were competing against free labor, and so barely got by, with lousy schools and dirt roads and abysmal ignorance that lasts to this day. We paid a lot for that free labor, didn't we? A truly "free" market - once side got their goods for free.

And that is only if they weren't forced to take it out of the their net profits, instead of the customers' pockets. They've made a KILLING in profits.

People were paid 18/hour in 1966 to work like a dog at McDonald's (you've never worked a restaurant chain job, I see). And the corporation grew into fantastically profitable giant. Seemed to work.

And people who get paid minimum wage don't get forty hour work weeks. They usually are capped at 18-29 hours, to avoid full-time employee status. And the work hours are jangled weekly so they can't get second jobs. Fun!

You're not everyone. And you've no imagination when it comes to life's little snafus. I take it life has treated you well. You've never really been too ill, or blacklisted, or locked into a bad situation because of family issues, or been unable to find employment because of past accusations or convictions, or had a nervous breakdown, or been hit by a car and been unable to function, or been employed in an industry that was gutted for profits.

And no, you've not seen the minimum wage jacked over the years. It was down to 40% of its original value even after all the "jacks", until finally someone performed arithmetic and found it started life at $18 an hour.

Worth, to whom? People who work 7 buck an hour burn a hell more calories than you do, probably. Your version of their worth has a lot with your perception of yourself. Who gets what is a rigged game.

Perhaps they would be happier being employees, then. I await their conversion to the wage earner world. I will be waiting a long, long time, won't I?

Even with a poverty minimum wage, corporations were getting workers for no pay whatsoever - interns - with the promise that if they slave now, someone would smile on them someday and hire them. This is what happens when there are no real laws. After a time, people will be paying businesses to hire them for nothing - logical, same reason. And it is happening overseas - H1B and other workers are paying for the priviledge of not being paid much, or at all, when they bribe recruiting companies.

Your words are marked. It may be possible, but only if other states don't raise the MW. But they will. So, when all is done and you are wrong, will you admit it?

Said cramming is illegal in most American cities, even in private homes. They like to have it both ways - a reliable pool of impoverished people, and no impoverished people living anywhere in their town.

don't you people ever get tired of being wrong?

Austerity failed. Give up. And there is no inflation anywhere that didn't adopt the notion.
The minimum wage was about 18/hour in 1966, and the republic did not fall. Some inflation took off later, but that was Vietnam and OPEC which blew our heads off.
It is possible to pay a decent wage and survive as a business - if you don't demand infinitely growing profits. Inflation and profit slowing is the bugaboo of the wealthy, not the giant group of the people known as the nation. Germany kept its decent paying jobs, and is one of the powerhouses of the planet. They didn't worship corporate profit increases over all else. Balance is the key.

in 1966, the minimum wage was about 18 an hour, adjusted for inflation. The world did not end. Actually, we were doing pretty damned well.

Rich people get treated better, news at 10.