This is about as far from an epic blog as it is possible to write, but... I have to shaaaaare.

So, I'm watching CNN on mute (the only way I can watchmost TV news), and I see the ticker spewing info on the bottom of the screen. Now, for those of you who don't know, recently a couple of rail cars (the DC Metro) met in less than fortuitous circumstances; i.e. one slammed headfirst into the other. There were fatalities. So, not a funny situation, right?

If you've seen the picks, the leading car of one train has been "collectivized" with the other train's car. In other words... smash. So, what does the ticker say? "Couple on DC Metro 'inseperable' since High School". My mind IMMIDIATLY thought, and I quote, "Well, there's no seperating them now..."

Wow. I'm not sure if CNN was just clueless, or if I had a "Jim Norton" moment and my mind raced several leagues ahead of my empahty, which it does.

So, short story long... I laughed at the image of two High School sweeties mushed together for eternity... this is probably why I enjoyed Hitman: Blood Money a lot more than Mario Sunshine. Maybe.

I wasn't going to blog here anymore... really; maybe you read my rant? Ok well, I was doing well until I got my repaired 360 back today! Without a faceplate. Now, I don't have skins or a custom faceplate... mine is the white bland box. I'm not saying that this has shaken my faith in MS' quality control... but um... that's because I'm pretty faithless to begin with. Holy ****!!! How do you pack this thing away, in a bag, with a free 1 month Live card (thanks... already a member...) wedge it into two pieces of foam and never realize... gee... no faceplate.

That said... maybe they figured I DID have a custom faceplate and I took it off as per instructions. That's actually pretty understandable, and even on my second xbox and third repair... ok. I'm a laid-back guy about these things at least. So, I called up MS (or Costa Rica... Nocoolnamejim is right, and if you haven't read his blog... read it) and spoke with someone who is so utterly UNempowered... that my call had to be escalated. Now, a custom "grill" for the 360 is what... 3-9 dollars? So... long story short here... 20 minutes later I'm assured that my faceplate will get to me in 8-10 business days. My response? **** that.

You see, I ALREADY snagged a 3 dollar replacement before I called... I just wanted the issue to be documented and to get a little assurance that this second repair in as many months will you know... work. Of course, once your call regarding a missing piece of plastic requires escalation, you pretty much abandon "plan A". So, I used my extensive knowledge of international cursing to call the supervisor's ancestry into question, and bought my own faceplate.

I love my 360's games... and I love Live... but I HATE this POS hardware! How much does some decent thermal paste and glue COST?!

Oh... and one neat quote, totally off topic that I heard on CNN as I wrote this blog. The issue was "Chris Brown", the guy who beat the hell out of Rihanna is getting five years... of probation. Oh, and some community service. Now, if two guys slug it out and cops get involved... SOMEONE is going to jail. Guys know this... so how on earth is it that a guy who pleads GUILTY of turning a young girl's face into hamburger (did you see those pics?!) gets a slap on the wrist. Ugh. The topper of course, that Chris Brown, now a totally changed man (HA) wants his community service to be anti-domestic violence awareness. **** that. How about some quality time on the freeway with an icepick-on-a-stick picking up litter?

Anyway... here's the quote.

"Why is it that the people who screw up are the ones we hear from? I don't want to hear from Chris Brown about domestic violence, I want to hear from someone who's against it!" Jeffery Toobin, CNN Legal Analyst. Damned good point Mr. Toobin!

After being suspended for the3 days of E3 (less disappointing with G4, and the state of GS coverage) for a truly questionable reason; all of this whichis happening in the context of what is now almost a month of trying to wring a response from what passes for the upper echelons of Gamespot Customer Service... I'm inclined to simply walk away before I lose my temper completely and do something regrettable and... regressive.

For the time being my activity on Gamespot will be limited to Unions and news commentary. Blogging and game reviews I think I'm done with, not wanting to contribute anything to Gamespot at large. On the whole my activity may be reduced, as I'm willing to freely admit that I've already moved from complaints, to canceling my subscription, and now to growing disinterest in Gamespot as a site.

I'm not going to rant in detail... frankly I just don't care enough. Maybe 7 years here is enough. My only regret is that I paid for the last three years at all. Ah well... between IGN and GS and Game Trailers and metacritic's aggregate the opinion of one reviewer is no longer relevant. Certainly Gamespot's credibility has declined in the wake of resignations after Kasavin, and then Gerstmann left, not to mention the issues surrounding Gerstmann's "removal".

With no customer service to speak of that balances out of control moderation and major technical issues, (how many times at E3 did you hear 'I don't have my laptop').... and G4 television as a viable source of live coverage that doesn't... um... have issues... I have to weigh the pros and cons of spending any active time here. There is a great community, but it's under constant stress by "news" articles that are more fanboy fodder than anything else. That same community is run mostly by its own members (mods) with minimal (andI think massive under-) staffing.

Read the TOS... they explicitly deny even an implied warranty. Maybe it's time to take the hint and stop supporting an unfit product.

EDIT: Addendum response to comments. Too big to fit in comments, so placing below:...

I just want to be really clear... I am waiting for my paid subscription to go back to unpaid, and I'm done writing reviews and adding to the GS bulk of "user created content". However, I'm not going to bail out on people I like here (of which you are all members) so I'll stick around for the social milieu. The difference is just going to be my focus; entirely on Unions, friend's blogs, and moving away from the more public aspects of GS and into the more "safe" regions".

As pakhair said, and he is very cautious about the TOS... it's almost impossible to keep your nose clean here. At a certain point, getting smacked around by terribly inconsistent moderation has a chilling effect. Fanboys seem to slip through, so outside of unions, and your blogs I'm just struck by the way the moderation acts to actually LOWER the tone.

So, bottom line, this isn't a goodbye anything. I'm just taking some time to refocus how I participate here at Gamespot. That won't have any impact on friends/tracked folks I think. I didn't want to delete my blogs without explanation however. Thanks for the comments, it just reinforces that sticking around in some form is worth the downsides.

Thanks very much for the good wishes and concern however, and I'm sorry if I was misleading in any way.

@Pakhair: 12 moddings?! You're probably the most carefully spoken person I've met here on GS. You go out of your way to help out (E3 thread for example) and you won't even mention GS competition! Someone with your attitude and ability to contribute should be rewarded, not punished for expressing your views politely and concisely.

@Galerian86: Yeah, those used to be a lot of fun. I don't know... 55592 is right as well, but even if it wasn't GREAT, GS always had some charm. I feel like I've been watching DeBlob in reverse here at GS... with all the colour and personality draining out to be replaced by reactive mods and poor customer service. On the other hand at least we got to enjoy those features when they existed and still were worth watching.

@megafitch: I hear you. I don't get it either... all major websites have the challenge of a large community monitored by a smaller moderation group of some kind. However, GS has bound itself with so many petty rules that mods don't have time to focus on the really egregious **** because they're too busy working on minor complaints.

It's a bit like the GS claim that Email support is impossible because of email filters. Really? Every major retailer on the earth seems able to junk email me, and the rest never have been filtered. GS needs to stop dumping the onus of controlling a BUSINESS in the hands of unpaid moderators. The problem is that as Gamespot has grown, their organizational structure is still run like some kind of random internet forum.

The technical issues we all see daily, typos in news, and the apparent whimsy of mods all screams "amateur"... but GS is not amateur. My only hope is that at some point CBS takes notice and finds it unacceptable to own a property that generates so many customer service issues. Right now they try to redirect back to the GS websites "non" service... but CBS is huge. It took me all of 5 minutes to get all relevant extensions and numbers for GS and CNET staff, so I guess as a last resort we could always have some prolonged tet a tets lol.

All kidding aside though, I don't know. I'm going to enjoy the people here as long as I can, but I won't put myself out anymore just to be smacked around for truly weird reasons. My personal favourite... if you challenge a suspension or the like, they tell you to wait, and only issues that deny service to the site take priority. I've NEVER known a response to arrive faster than the suspension ended, and this time was no different. It's cold comfort to be told "sorry about that", or "now that you're no longer suspended this issue can't be handled through customer incidents".

This is not a sustainable model for a business, even one that opts out of every implied and other warranty and guarantee in all 50 states. They're so specific they even reject any liability for their product and the most basic responsibility back on their customers. From a legal standpoint they're opting out of even the most basic liability or customer service guarantee short of a lawsuit proving gross negligence. "No implied warranty" = ZERO recourse for refunds, or anything else. I guess I finally took the hint, CNET is saying outright 'We're selling an unfit product and passing all liability to you and guarantee NO service at all' and I'm going to listen.

So, I'm here... but . If CNET wants to make GS a place where unpaid users drift in and out instead of a strategy of retention, that's their business, literally. Without any legal recourse, I tend to start thinking along bad old lines of how to deal with unresponsive online entities, all of which are too childish and destructive for who I am now. I don't think that's a healthy line of inquiry for me, so I'm going to avoid those parts of GS that inspire me most to turn the joint into a glass crater and focus on interpersonal relationships here.

Frankly, I like the people here. Yeah, a lot of 'em are not worth the time of day, but there are 9 comments, from 9 people I like on this comment alone. It's hard to find places in life to have debates and "nerd chat" once schooling ends, and I wont' give it up so easily. That's why I'll stay, and why I won't do anything (self)destructive either on the site. Besides, 7 years is a long time. If 7 years of paid subscriptions ending needlessly doesn't register on the corporate radar... well... I'm glad I'm not CNET or CBS lol... but I'm choosing to make this their problem and not mine.

I hope this clarifies my reasoning, anger, and despite that, my reasons for sticking around in some fashion.