Andy Wood

Sometimes it is simply amazing just what people come up with to make a buck. A gent sitting at a gathering when he struck up a conversation with a man who described his job as a “commute helper.”

“OK, what exactly is a commute helper?” He asked

“I help people have a smooth and quick commute,” The commute helper replied.

“How do you do that?” He asked

“I sit in their car, ” The commute helper said with a smile.

This is what a commute helper does. If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, the commutes in certain sections are absolutely horrendous. This commute helper was sitting in a traffic jam one morning watching all the people in the carpool lane drive by while he was moving at snail’s pace. The commute helper decided that he needed to get someone else in his car so that he could get to work in a timely manner using the carpool lane, and at first thought that his only option was to start a carpool.

As the commute helper thought about it more, he thought that he (as in himself and his body) was actually a valuable commodity and he could sell himself and that is exactly what he did. He walked to the freeway entrance and held up a sign that said,

“Traffic is bad. Spend 2 hours or pay me $10 and get there in 20 minutes”

The commute helper said the first day he was picked up within 15 minutes. When he got dropped off, he walked to the other side, held up his sign and got paid to go back the other way too. On a typical day he makes 2 to 3 round trips during the morning commute rush hour and 3 – 5 round trips during the evening rush hour. If there is an accident and traffic is really slow, his price doubles. He clears $100 – $300 a day sitting in a car so others can get to work and home faster!

For those of you that either have been living under a the WOW 1.11 patch (aka rock) or haven’t had an Internet connection for the last couple of days should now be aware that the PC demo for Prey is out. As for the Demo for the Xbox 360, reports are stating that is hasn’t been fully tested and that is why it hasn’t been released.

From what I can tell so far, the really new and cool aspect of Prey is the new portal system. Some of the portals are embedded in doorways, crates, and I would imagine other items as well. (I read in fact that they will show up out of thin air as well) Upon stepping through, you are seamlessly teleported to a completely different area of the game, but here is the kicker, ‘no load screen‘ or any kind. [way cool]

The Prey demo (which uses the Doom 3 engine) will include two levels for multiplayer. From what I have experienced so far is that Prey has given us another solid shooting experience with impressive visuals and enough unique gameplay elements to keep us shooting through it.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I am taking off for 4-5 days….