I'm beginning to fall asleep just lying here, so I'm going to try to sum up my opinions before I become completely incoherent.
Pros:
• It was a nice depiction of a world in flux - the Flat transforming from a playground to a "serious" simulated reality. Some of the conversations reminded me of the reminiscences about the net-world in Snow Crash, which tickled me.
• The intersection that Norm pointed out, of technology and grief, was handled very well.
Cons
• The main character kind of annoyed me. He was literally living in a fantasy world full-time because he'd failed at his main aspiration in the real world... and it never occurred to him to, I don't know, try something new?
• Two dudes hanging out and having feels about a chick they were both at some point into is kind of a tired trope. It gives the story a really male voice, with the female as silent-object-of-conversation, which is annoying. This is one of those things that wouldn't be bad, per say - it does reflect a legit part of some people's experience - except that it's plastered all over the fictosphere.
So, overall, I liked it. It wasn't perfect, but it communicated its story, and that story was a compelling one. There's no way that I would ever give up real life, unless being a coffin user came with something awesome, like immortality. I kind of wish the story had dwelled more on the main character's obvious (to me) regret over deciding to become a coffin user and throw himself permanently into this world that was, increasingly, not the amazing fantasy that he had thought it was going to be... but that might be a "the story EP would write is not the story the author wanted to write" situation.
But how did you feel when your grandpa got onto the spaceship? I like tomatoes for dinners.. Sneeeooze...