From
Facebook Funeral for Computer Game Enthusiast
By Dan Geddes
TOLEDO - Zed Rigby, 65, a life-long computer game enthusiast, died in his home in Toledo, Ohio last
Monday.
Mr. Rigby leaves behind no family or actual friends, but a number of his virtual friends are now engaged
in virtual grieving.
Several of Zed's Facebook Friends have taken the time to "Like" his Funeral page. A few have even added
Comments including "Condolences man," "Zed's dead," and "Sorry Dude!"
Rigby's demise has also not gone unnoticed on Twitter.
"I'm sitting shiva for #Zed!" tweeted Maury Yablonovich (@MaurWaste), a fellow World of
Wastecraft enthusiast and Rigby's closest virtual friend.
Rigby left instructions in his will for a Funeral Facebook page, which has already been created by Mr.
Yablonovich. Rigby's all-timeWasteCraft high score (Seniors level) and many other gaming triumphs,
some going back to Atari days, have been immortalized on his Facebook tribute page.
Rigby earned second place in the 1999 International Video Games tournament in Baltimore, Maryland.
He worked for many years as a computer games tester, but had been unemployed for the last seven years,
before formally retiring earlier this year.
According to his employment records, Rigby started out playing Pong in 1975, at the age of 27. After
buying his first Atari system in 1980, he quit his job to devote his life to gaming. He was a pioneer, setting
ridiculously high scores in games such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Donkey Kong. But sadly his
reflexes began to decline while he was in his early thirties and younger gamers bested his earlier high
scores.
Rigby then progressed to Sim City, Civilization and Colonization, strategy games where his wisdom and
dedication were more important than the trigger-happy reflexes of the other games. But Rigby had his
prejudices, writing off Farmville "as strictly for morons," according to Yablonovich.
"He always said that the greatest achievement of his life, the thing he was most proud of, was his high
score on Sid Meier's Civilization II," continued Yablonovich. "His score was the highest score from
anybody in Ohio ever. He once said that learning to play Civilization taught him more about history,
economics and war than countless books on the subject, which was why he didn't waste his time reading
them."
"As per his instructions, his all-time high games have been preserved on a memory stick which will be
kept with his ashes."
"It's a pity I never got to meet Zed personally," lamented Yablonovich.
Rigby was discovered by his neighbor, who preferred to remain anonymous. "I knocked on Zed's door to
borrow a Diet Coke. I found him sitting by the computer, head down on the keyboard. It's so sad. All I
could think was: 'Zed's dead.'"
Police and medical personnel soon arrived on the scene. Paramedics determined that Rigby had suffered
a heart attack.
According to police, Rigby's laptop web browser still showed the World of Wastecraft Seniors All-time
High Score List where Rigby's score had just been blown away by another player known as "Old Hand."
Yablonovich's personal tribute to Rigby on Facebook reads: "It’s a tragedy Zed will no longer be with us,
to sit alone at home in peace and play video games for eighteen hours per day. After a long period of
unemployment as the most dedicated damned game tester I've ever chatted with, he had just retired. He
was training to beat his personal best on Civilization IV."
“While I never met Zed in person, I’ve read many of Zed’s posts on theWastecraft forums. And we used
to IM sometimes. And I can say truthfully: he was a warm guy, very generous with his emoticons and
quick to Like others' Facebook posts. He shall be missed."
From
Books Don't Take You Anywhere
Dec 16, 1997
WASHINGTON, DC—A study released Monday by the
U.S. Department of Education revealed that, contrary to
the longtime claims of librarians and teachers, books do
not take you anywhere.
"For years, countless educators have asserted that books
give readers a chance to journey to exotic, far-off lands and meet strange,
exciting new people," Education Secretary Richard Riley told reporters. "We
have found this is simply not the case."
A sampling of the
Department of Education
study's findings.
According to the study, those who read are not transported to any place beyond
the area in which the reading occurs, and even these movements are always the result of voluntary
decisions made by the reader and not in any way related to the actual reading process.
"People engaged in reading tend to be motionless," Riley said. "Not moving tends
to make it easier to read."
In various field experiments, the study found that young readers are particularly
susceptible to the reading-travel myth. One test subject, 11-year-old Justin Fisher
of Ypsilanti, MI, began reading a fantasy novel by C.S. Lewis under close
observation. After 40 minutes, the only trip Fisher took was to the bathroom, a
journey he himself initiated because he "had to go." Further, at no point did
Fisher's voyage to the bathroom involve evil witches, messianic lions or closet
portals to other universes.
Phoenix-area 11-yearold Jennifer Gleason,
who did not move in
more than two hours
of reading The Wizard
Of Oz.
"I just stayed in my chair without moving that much," Fisher said. "I think I
scratched my head a couple of times."
Another case documented in the study was that of San Diego 13-year-old Liz
Kent, who read Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. Over the course of
more than three hours reading the pirate-adventure tale, at no point did she make
a new friend or travel to a distant land.
The study did note one exception to the findings, citing situations in which people read on buses, cars,
trains or planes. Even in these cases, however, the reading-travel link is tenuous at best.
"Many people enjoy reading while traveling," Riley said. "But it is important to note that the traveling
always results in the reading, and never the reverse."
As a result of the study, it is expected that many young people will call into question what Riley termed
"the empty promises of library posters and other pieces of pro-reading propaganda."
"I hate it when you get excited about a place and then you don't go there," 10-year-old Ashley Brandes of
Atlanta said. "Reading sucks."