Acts of Gord

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Gord is a local deity. Very local. He's a regular guy who owns a game store, and that makes him God over that store and its customers. Technically, no one ever claims that Gord would be a god; it's just that the whole story of how he's running the store and dealing with all kinds of moronic customers is written in the form of scripture. The nickname "Gord" helps as well.

Acts of Gord is an archive of true anecdotes about the Gamer's Edge Video Game shop in Penticton, British Columbia, Canada. Basically, this site is a mix of sarcastic storytelling and a (The Customer is) Not Always Right focused on the rise and fall of a single retail establishment.

Tropes used in Acts of Gord include:

• Animation Age Ghetto: There is one section where this happens. Two children try to rent an anime named Ninja Scroll that, due to its nature, is not a "family film". So thus he has to allow the kids' dad to come in to rent the film and he complains about having to come in "so that they could rent a cartoon". Then he comes back and yells at Gord for renting pornography to his kids.
• Badass: The Gord, anytime he chases down thieves and other jackasses.
• Berserk Button: Gord has two in particular. Human stupidity is the first, the second being game copiers.
  • Gord himself notes while he was not against mod chips for defeating region locking, and in fact endorsed it so long as the foreign game bought was a legally bought one, he still despised mod chips for the purposes of game piracy and several stories are devoted to the Gord venting his rage on the topic.
• Bittersweet Ending: The end of the Apocalypse Book. Despite the victory, Gord hasn't returned to the game-retailer world since, leaving only what's written on the site. On the other hand, Gord seems to be very happy with his new life.
• Catch Phrase
  • "Some people's children!"
  • "Door's to your left."
• Cluster F-Bomb: Oddity -- a parent on how the profanity in Grand Theft Auto is a bad thing.
• Comically Missing the Point: "The Gord often wonders why people threaten to never come back after they've been told never to return."
• Crazy Prepared: As revealed in the Book of Apocalypse, he had multiple fallback plans just in case someone tried to do a hostile takeover and rob him blind. He was a bit surprised to find he didn't even need to use them, as the Gord's enemies assumed he was as foolish as they were.
• Dan Browned: Most of the "Proclamations," i.e., "Console Wars" section.
• Deadpan Snarker: Take a guess.
• Extremely Overdue Library Book: The owner of a game store rented out games, instead of books, though he had a similar problem. Since a few of his customers that are mentioned kept games for so long that Gord bills the customer's credit card for the game's price, as the late fees eventually exceed the cost of the game.
• Face Palm: Each page is illustrated with a facepalming Gord, each with a different complaint about stupid customers. See the page illustration above for one example.
• Freak-Out: Some customers seem to do this over the tiniest things.
• Frivolous Lawsuit: Oft threatened. The Gord is shown having lots of fun making attempts at this backfire.
• God: Gord
• A Gord Am I: This is how the site is written.
• Heel Face Turn: To Gord's shock and pleasant surprise, a former wannabe thief took being granted mercy seriously for attempted theft and became an honest customer since.
• Homage
  • To Al Bundy in this Vengeance story.
  • The usually facepalming image of Gord drawn like Calvin.
• I Resemble That Remark: In Acts of Gord, Book of Annoyances, Chapter 23, a reporter asks Gord, the owner of a video game store, for a quote for the front page of the newspaper, pertaining to video game violence and its impact on society. Gord replies, "Video games don't make people more violent, and I'll kill anyone who disagrees." After a dramatic pause, the reporter replies that he doesn't think his editor can print that.
• The Quisling: The Guardian
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The most common ending has the would-be customer/thief storm out of the store.
• Second Place Is for Losers:

"And the winner of the tournament won the controllers that were opened for the tournament (worth $80), and $20 in cash. Second place was a can of coke and an autographed picture of Gord. Third place was $20. The Gord likes to remind people that second place is just the first loser."

• Schmuck Bait
  • On numerous occasions, Gord would price crappy games higher than they were worth, or place broken hardware in tantalizing places, just to see if someone would steal them.
  • Another favorite pastime of Gord's is to take old crappy games and tag them with a sign that says, "Hey, I suck! Buy me!" The author notes with amusement that any game the sign is placed on sells out within a couple of days.
• Stealth Insult: Book of Annoyances, Chapter 3;

Gord: I'm sorry, I'm afraid I subscribe to the theory of intellectual osmosis. As such, I must now cease our conversation and move away from you before my intelligence begins to drop. Good day.

The beauty of that is that another customer had to explain to the guy what he meant.

• Taking You with Me: When his store was being closed and robbed, Gord robbed himself.
• That Came Out Wrong:

Talking to a person about being into the hardcore gaming scene is completely different than talking to them about the hardcore anime scene. In the future, I must find a new adjective. And do not, I repeat, do not say "if she is really into the hardcore anime scene, I can get import DVDs from Japan and Hong Kong" when I'm talking to a 14-year-old girl's mother. Further notation: Do not attempt to salvage this by then saying "I mean, I can get DVDs from Japan that you can't get here." Next time, say "really likes anime" and "can get DVD's not on sale here yet."

• Too Dumb to Live: More than a few of Gord's customers. Special mention goes to the "Hey... FIFA." kid and the guy who used Gord as a work reference despite never working there and having never returned games he rented.
• Troll: Gord is fond of trolling the hell out of people who annoy him enough. To be fair, they pretty much always deserve it. The Book of Victory is probably the best example; specifically when he tricks a truly fucknuts crazy woman into ringing his store number to complain to a non-existent "Bureau of Video Games and Customer Service" and proceeds to tell her exactly what he thinks of her.
• Unreliable Narrator: Don't take the site too seriously.
• What Do You Mean It's Not for Kids?: See Animation Age Ghetto above.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: In The Book of Villainy, Chapter 9, Gord decides that his Curb Stomp Battle approach to handling shoplifters won't be the right way to deal with a 15-year-old girl.
• X Days Since...: In one of the stories, he comes up with the idea of having an "X days since I've had to deal with an idiot" sign. The idea was that while dealing with an idiot, he would sigh and flip it back to 0, right in front of them. He hoped the customer would be offended enough to leave.
• You Make Me Sic: "The Gord" does this whenever someone gives him a CV. An example (about halfway down).