I'm practically addicted to Tetris. That and mahjong. I've always loved Tetris; I'd steal people's phones to play it in middle school. I've never had it on my own phone, though, and now that I'm almost never on Facebook I don't play it there.
But a couple of weeks ago I realized "the Internet has brought me many things, such as everyoneisgay.com and randomkittengenerator.com! It can probably bring me Tetris!" So, thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web, I was able to type "free online Tetris" into Google and find a site that let me play it as much as I want. The same thing happened with mahjong.
Games like that are huge time-wasters. They keep me from doing things that are actually productive, like working on an idea I've had for a while now. I'd like it to end up as a short story or a novella-length piece, but since the only thing I have in the way of a plot at the moment is a collection of notes that are mostly caps-locked rants about soda shops, I'm not sure that's happening any time soon.
I'm pretty fond of the idea, though. It's some type of vaguely-defined sci-fi thing where everyone lives in little white cubes and has a rigid schedule to follow every day. The most exciting thing about it is that real life is used only for eating and sleeping: everyone starts to spend most of their lives in virtual reality at the age of fifteen.
The main character is a dude named Kai who's just turned fifteen and gets to go into virtual reality for the first time. He's also depressed. (All my characters recently seem to be, I wonder why.) The problem with that, aside from the whole mental disorder part, is that his futuristic society is horrible at dealing with depression. Virtual reality lets you think yourself better, and since you only leave it to care for your body, the government doesn't think they need to do anything.
But depression can stop you from taking care of your body. Depressed people often overeat or undereat, and they have a lot of trouble sleeping. Since the people in this future have to meet certain health standards to be allowed into virtual reality, anyone who can't meet those is blocked from virtual reality. So you end up with depressed people who have no way of getting therapy, medication, or even the fake relief of virtual reality. Most of them commit suicide and are erased from the system for good.
Kai doesn't end up like that, though. He meets a boy in virtual reality whose name is Fior. (I think Fior is a gorgeous name, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone in real life.) Kai and Fior become friends and do that whole little thing where they lean on each other and learn to help each other through life's struggles. Then Kai tries to meet up with Fior in real life and finds that according to the system, Fior doesn't exist.
My notes at this point say "LOL YOUR BOYFRIEND IS A ROBOT" and then end.
Wow, I rambled about that for a long time. I don't really talk about ideas I have much, though I like to. I'm too awkward to talk to people about these things. Besides, I feel like it's not as interesting to hear someone talk about their story as it is to actually read the story in question.
That's all for tonight. I'll probably be in every day this week, since it's mid-winter break, or whatever the kids are calling it these days.
