So I've come across a bunch of people on the Internet (proper noun) who are using the word 'addicting' to describe the properties of video games. This underscores a fundamental lack of understanding of the properties of adjectives. 'Addicting' is not the word these people are blindly groping around in the dark for, and I will now explain why you should all be using the correct adjective 'addictive'.

When applied to a person, the adjective 'addicted' describes a physiological state the person experiences. A person is imbued with properties objects do not have (by virtue of being alive), and this is reflected in our lingua vernacula. When applied to an object that same adjective names or describes a property of that thing, and this is reflected in a modification of the word. So a person can be addicted to video games, and video games can be addictive, but neither can be 'addicting'. This is because 'addicting' is not a word. It has not yet been published in a reputable dictionary because you cannot use it in a sentence without sounding stupid.

Consider the nonsense; "I am addicting to video games." or "I find video games addicting."

Now consider the sentences; "I am addicted to video games." and "I find video games addictive."

Clearly the former makes one sound like a resident of Hicktown, Nowheresville. The latter, on the other hand, conveys a certain sense of cultured propriety. A knowledge of how to use words to convey a sentiment we can all understand and agree with, rather than nodding our heads in the knowledge of what was actually meant, while tittering behind our hands at the sort of lexical inflexibility arrived at usually by the wilfully ignorant. The implication is not that people who use the word 'addicting' are the poorly educated denizens of Nowheresville! Just that they are perhaps so addicted to video games they find it difficult to pay attention during English composition class. Kids, don't play video games! Stay in school and do drugs so you don't wind up making this sort of mistake.

"But consider the common usage!" I hear some reasonable voices among the gaming community cry. Well, I do, but in this regard, you can be respected on the street for your idiomatic speech, or you can be respected in the literate upper echelons of Audobon gaming society. Use whatever form you feel is better for the circumstance, adhering to linguistic convention or detaching from the ordinary both suit different states of mind. But even if its full of very interesting ideas, you won't get your article on the addicting properties of gaming published in any of the major journals without major consideration to editing.

So I was reading up on gaming addiction and came across this article By Erin Hoffman who poses this question:

"...to what extent are we obligated as individual human beings to fulfill the expectations of our peers, when they run counter to our individual desires?"

To which I posit the simple answer; none. None at all. Not even if they run parallel to your individual desires. That you do so anyway means only that you are engaged in the practice of being a good person (the practice itself being arguably addictive).

I can even extend my answer from peers to any other human. There is no extent to which you are obligated as an individual human being to fulfil the expectations of another human. That we do this anyway is a socially advantageous adaptation, and fulfilling the expectations of other humans is something people do for several reasons. Among the most compelling of these reasons are: anticipation of reward for doing so, the actual reward, and the kudos (the respect you get from other humans for being nice).

Really the only reason anyone does anything is for the reward, and the respect. This feeds the ego in anticipation of further reward for doing the same things better, which continues the cycle. Its not a bad cycle to be in, which is why people find themselves doing it a lot. We also do things purely for ourselves for the same reason, but the respect you get from other people for doing something well is worth only such goodwill as that respect carries without some form of tangible reward.

It feels good to fulfil your own expectations, better if others fulfil them for you in reward for your fulfilling their expectations. Thus the cycle continues. Despite the obvious benefits to a social organism for this ever-increasing expectation/reward cycle continuing, the fact of its continuance still fails to place anyone under any obligation to fulfil anyone else's expectations. None whatsoever.

Just ask any profoundly autistic child if you can, or mass-murdering dictator if you dare. Suicides happen every day. We are under no obligation even to engage with reality, that we do so regardless because we exist inside it just makes our engagement mutually advantageous.

One day, for the edification of certain people I know, I'll write the inspiring true story of an every-man who, through sheer force of will and true grit, fixed his own computer. Its likely the actor who plays this every-man will win awards, get laid, do the talk-show circuit... and go on to emulate the inspiring true story of others in the acting profession like Thingy Whatshername (Google will tell me) who went on to such extraordinary performances like "lines of suspicious powder off questionably hygienic surfaces" with amateur paparazzi lenses looking on in amazing DVD releases which Wikipedia informs me were made on a budget of $500,000 in the early 1980s.

This sort of behavior we can all obviously identify with leads me to ask; "Do we as a species do dumb shit to numb ourselves from the pain of living or to calm ourselves from the fear of dying?" Maybe its just because knowledge (especially self-knowledge) is a really harsh buzz, kind of like knowing that people don't dig you. That you're essentially as unattractive and lonely as every other meat bag who drew breath and will settle for anything which satisfies. Life is a bitter pill, and I'm betting I'm going to be awake all night thinking about this because I don't have one.

Maybe we do things to let off steam to try to face up to the fact that the people we're interested in for the qualities which please us are completely out of our league. We're constantly bombarded in the media, in the shopping malls, in the street, in our homes, with people who are beautiful, smart, sexy, funny, stylish, friendly, outgoing, kind, active, vegetarians and an inspiration to many. They are always innately imbued with these virtues and by comparison the only thing we have is a current unpaid parking citation.

So the only way out of this dire predicament is to test positive for awesome-ness or a terminal disease. Either way the result is the same. Even if everyone you know is something and you're nothing really you'll all leave this world eventually so its best to make your time here count for something. Happiness is not a bad goal. Sometimes I like to find happiness in poetry, so because the only reason anyone posts anything to the Internet is to feed the ego (for we are all simply ego monsters), here is some I just wrote:

I don't want to face the world today
and be dehumanised, belittled.
I just want to lie here
until the buildings crumble
civilisation collapses
till the humans are gone
the sun swallows the earth
and there is nothing left
nothing will matter
there will be nothing at all
to worry about
to remind me of the mistakes I've made
I look forward to that!
and sleeping in.

So its a good thing when I'm trying to be sincere and vulnerable I do it on my blog so that nobody is online to witness it. Thanks for reading, if you liked it please call Planet Delusion and request a return address for me to return their lame misconceptions.

The child can jump on one foot.
He's still jumping
He can jump on one foot
not like you can jump on one foot!
Want to try?

Jump on one foot...
Go on, jump!
Hey, you CAN jump on one foot,
but not like he can jump on one foot!
Fifteen more jumps?
Lets do it.

The child can ride his bike on the road.
But not without a helmet!
You can also ride on the road with a helmet,
But not like he can ride a bike.
Can we ride on the road?

Riding is safer when there are no cars
Go away, cars!
Hey, we CAN get off the road
But not quickly like you get off the road
Twelve more near misses?
You betcha.

The child CAN ride run back inside quickly
For a snack of fried jelly babies
Lightly dusted with icing sugar.
Not like you can run,
You're way too tired

Its nice to relax with a snack.
The child is jumping on one foot again
He can jump on one foot forever,
Face lightly dusted with icing sugar
He's going outside again.

Want to play in traffic?

Lets say you're carrying things back and forth from your garage to a large moving truck. You've been doing this all afternoon, its the middle of summer, you're hot and sweaty. Your four-year-old child is supervising the work from the back of the truck while drinking icy cold homemade lemonade.

So, without thinking of the consequences of interacting with children when your arms are full of boxes you ask for a drink. Since you're on the ground and he's in the truck he simply pours the lemonade into your mouth from his glass. He continues pouring until your capacity to swallow is as exhausted as the rest of you and you begin to make strangled, gasping, choking sounds.

Your life is flashing before your eyes, you're asphyxiating and begin to believe it possible that you will die, here outside your garage with your arms full of boxes. Your child (whose common sense is a quality you have just avowed to nurture from this day forth should you survive) suddenly realises your predicament and stops pouring lemonade into your mouth.

So now you're slightly sticky with lemonade, you've dropped half of the boxes, your head is spinning with the re-acquisition of oxygen, you're trying to cough and trying not to swear. Your child is laughing at you for being so silly. This is how flow control works.

A résumé (en français for the document formerly known as 'Curriculum Vitae', or 'CV' as it was known on the street lingo of ancient Rome) is a summary of the lack of creativity, dearth of inspiration, and totality of inexperience you've managed to garner in the hive-like arrangement of office blocks understood collectively as "the work force".

Every second résumé earmarked as recycling or landfill languishing in the in-trays of recruiters or human resources managers displays accurately how the author's skills, education and work experience match up with the requirements of a job. A "truly professional résumé" is a document which catches the eye, delights the senses, and accurately displays how none of these things are relevant when it comes to hiring you.

To write a truly professional résumé is to be noticed for who you truly are, and to own this identity completely. The advice in this guide will make reading your résumé almost as good as vicariously living your life. To incorrectly paraphrase Chuck Palahniuk; you are a beautiful and unique snowflake, all singing, all dancing. Your existential pain itself is a beacon of healing light to others. You have a name.

Begin with a name:

Using someone else's name is best, such as a friend or senile relative. A risqué pseudonym is acceptable if including a mobile number with the résumé.

Move on to an education:

A good education lays a foundation for a great life. Even great thinkers such as former United States president G. W. Bush ask if our children is learning. However, learning is only beneficial for children. Adults are better off being as incompetent as possible or society will completely collapse due to contraventions of occupational health and safety restrictions. Technically you shouldn't even be changing a light bulb, so beyond learning to breastfeed its a good idea to keep knowledge of how to almost anything secret from employers.

If you've ever wandered into a lecture hall, drunk, to sing the second part of Pink Floyd's "The Wall", definitely point out this high point of your academic experience. Be sure to include your emeritus professorship in the sensory examination and evaluation of fermentations, noting in particular any Special High-Intensity Training Exercises undertaken.

If you truly believe anything you have read and understood beyond kindergarten is important enough to mention, be sure to crowd this salient fact from the reader's eye with as many qualification irrelevancies as you can. Good 'padding' includes swimming and cardio-pulmonary resuscitation certificates with issue numbers, pathology test results, primary school report cards, secondary school excuse notes, certificate of immigration, citizenship certificate, certificate of deportation, birth certificate, or your grandmother's congratulatory tandem parachute jump certificate.

Remember, none of the qualifications you list need necessarily be yours. Collecting interesting trophies from other people shows your enthusiasm for the acquisition of knowledge. Besides, your psychiatrist isn't going to miss a diploma issued in 1974 when homosexuality was still classed as a mental disorder, and what the hell, that primitive pen ink their name is written in will probably lift right off with a liberal application of solvent followed by some spirit gum and elbow grease.

History of employment concepts:

Begin with your current state of employment and provide all relevant details. Then provide the next most recent work history and work backwards in stochastically oscillating fashion until you find yourself recounting how your parents used to give you five dollars for mowing the lawn until once you did it badly enough they never asked again. If you are currently unemployed make something up, for instance "Chief of Wine Country, district of Bridge with all the Graffiti".

Make sure to mention how you are consistently promoted to unwanted positions of responsibility. If any previous employers have outstanding legal cases against you definitely mention this as it shows your willingness to continue a sustainable relationship.

If you're late with alimony or child support payments put that down in this section as well, Since being married and having children are basically other fulltime jobs society refuses to recognise at all, this is the time to let your employer know you're going to be showing up in yesterdays clothes reeking of alcohol and puke either because you're in this situation or because you sympathise with friends who are.

Mad skillz and inabilities:

A list of the things you're good at. Begin with broad headings such as "Communication" and "Teamwork" and list the basics, you have a good command of a language nobody else speaks, you like to be captain of your pirate vessel, act like its always your birthday, and don't accept blame. When you get down to the nitty gritty of your complete skill set you need others to understand you can use cutlery at a professional level and you know the difference between cross-hatching and hounds tooth patterning in competitive quilting.

A good idea at this point is to list a bunch of things you can't do, have no interest in, or likely will never have the time for even if you find the idea thrilling. Nobody is going to care enough to check anyway, and don't worry if someone surprises you on casual Friday when you wear brown trousers by suggesting you go for an impromptu base-jump from the 50th floor balcony. Not everyone who base jumps knows someone who's died base jumping, so with those odds you'll likely be fine faking any capacity you care to.

Since everyone is technically 'able' to binge drink irresponsibly before driving recklessly on public roads, those important life skills are not something employers care about unless you're applying for a professional driving position.

Career objective (optional at best, depressing at worst):

Unless you're applying for a promotion in the armed services during a tour of duty, "spending more time on the couch" likely tops your list of objectives. Along with the vast majority of today's grey-suited Monday-to-Friday brigade, the crushing sense of ennui you experience being driven carrot-and-stick fashion to achieve pointless milestones by impossible deadlines set by sadistic imperialists self-styled after Stalin, Mussolini and Mao blinds you to any contentment you had a chance of experiencing by completing tasks.

The best and most enlivening option in this bleak landscape of despair is to explain how the universe will cool, with the particles matter left over from the sun's inevitable explosion eventually getting so far away from each other that all energy exchange becomes impossible, thus rendering the ultimate hope of all human endeavor utterly pointless. This shows you have given thought to your future, yet continue to strive in the wasteland of human existence. If you use that last thought verbatim, it also shows you've also considered Yeats, which is likely someone the person reading your résumé hasn't even heard of (so at least you've achieved the objective of "become cultured poetry snob").

The most usual fall-back option of dull people is to list their main career objective as "attending the nursing home of their choice", so be sure to indicate your propensity for risk-taking far outweighs the chances of your prospective employer having to pay any kind of retirement or redundancy benefits.

Disinterests:

Much like listing your skills and abilities, detailing your interests gives employers even more personal information about you for ease of internet searching, and more accurately shows areas of your life where you've made the wrong choices (commitment to a cause) or fallen in with a bad crowd (teamwork). If you're a member of the socialist alliance or Resistance, or any Marxist cult which avows the power of an "elitist class" of people who force your peers to work against their will or better judgement, definitely state your views here. Don't dilute your opinions with more information, just tell it like it is.

If you spend as much time logged into any particular website as you will doing work you are paid for, definitely put the address and your username down in this section. This will assure your prospective employer that you understand reciprocity to be a two-way street (To outline a possible scenario: you post that you're sleeping late, they write on your wall asking when you're coming in, you update your status with "searching regional maps for litigation services specialising in prosecuting privacy invasion cases", they email you stating you've exceeded your allowance of sick days, you post a reply on your wall that someone's lost their sense of humour, they try to ring your mobile phone, you change your status to "AWOL BBQ!", upload a 'shopped photo of yourself smoking a joint then are free to arrive sometime after midday, self-esteem at an all-time high and job security completely intact).

Referees, fouls, penalties, and red flags:

Referees in résumé are not like the ones on the football field, although if you can get them the cute little black and white outfits are a plus. Unfortunately friends or family are not good referees, since a referee will ideally be able to tell a prospective employer more about you in a two-minute phone conversation than you would over a candlelit dinner with a glass of wine.

The truly ideal referee would never require you to ask their permission to be listed. Employers are always impressed with your organisational skill if your referees are surprised when they call, so be doubly sure to keep it secret from the people you list. One of the best ways to sustain relationships is never to thank your referees when you've successfully applied for a position.

Completion:

Before you've written your résumé, and after sending it, go through this checklist:

Never Proofread - Those spelling mistakes, typos or grammatical errors are a part of who you are. Would you change who you are just for a job? Don't change who you are just to fool your English teacher into thinking they did a good job either.

Tailoring - Make sure everything you mention shows how incredibly unsuited you are for the job you're applying for. Nothing impresses employers more than a square peg valiantly trying to get into a round hole.

Presentation - Creating lovely documents is a joy. For the sheer thrill of it, make sure the resume is well laid out, easy to read and printed on clean, white paper in a standard font (like Times New Roman, Arial or Verdana) and at a standard size (10 or 12 point).

Detail - Make sure you've provided specific examples of every infinitesimal ineptitude you've ever amassed records of. Go into intense, crushingly detailed descriptions of your lack of achievements and how you've failed used the skills you have or live up to the potential you showed as a child for best effect. For an atypical twist, use rhyming couplets.

An infinite crowd of mathematicians enters a bar.
The first one orders a pint, the second one a half pint, the third one a quarter pint...
"I understand", says the infinitely wise bartender - and pours two pints.

I know we'll all feel weird for reading this, but those who know self-reliance on twitter...

• 21:19 Does logic demand every event have a cause? I admit a causal loop is very weird, but that doesn't make it illogical. #

...will know self-completeness through feedsm at the expense of self-respect.

I know we'll all feel weird for reading this, but those who know self-reliance on twitter...

• 04:49 I hereby coin a new word! "Pomobo." Meaning post-modern hobo. Street-waif ghetto chic for the MMX internet generation. KTHXBAI! #

...will know self-completeness through feedsm at the expense of self-respect.