I got back from Winnipeg late Sunday evening. I just wanted to say that I had a damn kick ass time, and to send props to all my people for making it a wicked week. I'll post pictures soon.

Penny-Arcade Steps Up

Jack Thompson has revealed his "Modest Proposal" to be a lie ('Satire' he calls it). Which, by extension, means he never really intended on giving $10,000 to charity. As a result, Gabe and Tycho over at Penny-Arcade decided to call the mans bluff, by donating ten thousand dollars to the ESA Foundation in Jack Thompson's name. I can't imagine what an ass he feels like right now. His counter of course, was to contact the Seattle police department and request that they shut down the "little extortion factory" (PA) and arrest the employees (Gabe/Tycho).

All I'll say now is Way To Go to the PA team, not only for making Thompson look the fool, but for stepping up in such a big way with a huge donation. Kick Ass.

Elderly White Male Desperately Seeking Attention - Please Call!


Jack Thompson is at it again - this time with A Modest Video Game Proposal. Mr. Thompson has promised to donate ten thousand dollars to charity if a video game company follows through on his proposal to create a violent video game where the protagonist goes on a murderous rampage against basically everyone involved in the creation and distribution of video games. The cause being the death of his son, murdered by a gamer - with a baseball bat.

Thompson has been advocating for years the destructive effects of violent video games upon the youth of our time. If there's a murder to be investigated, you can bet Jack the Lawyer will be on the scene insisting the murderer played too many games. That's just the way he is.

I understand if someone wants to crusade against something, seems to me everyone needs to find some sort of meaning in their lives. Unfortunately, Mr Thomspon's latest efforts at publicity have merely dragged his efforts further into the realm of absurdity.

Because simply donating the money to charity would be too easy, there needs to be a catch. Tell the bastards to make a game about getting themselves killed - hah! So what's he really proposing? Thompson repeatedly refers to video games as "murder simulators", so I can only conclude that he plans to utilize the medium he detests to train an evil army of his own. An evil army of murderous teenagers that'll bring down the industry he's never been able to beat using the forces of law and logic.

Either that, or it's pure publicity, and he's aware the game will never be made. Ergo, Mr. Thompson has no intention of donating money to charity. So who's the asshole now?

To be honest, I really find it absolutely ridiculous that the man would demand the creation of a murderous and violent video game, considering his stance that those types of games create murderous children. I mean, wtf?

Children today are influenced by any number of forces, including but not limited to music, television, movies, books, magazines, friends, school and yes, video games. Know what's missing here? How about Parents. I know it still appears to be a novel concept in America these days, but aren't parents meant to be the primary influence upon their children? Is it really just that we're too busy to look after our children, or that we're simply irresponsible?

I'm not saying video games don't have the potential for harm. I'd be the last person to claim it's ok for an 8 year old to play a game where s/he kills cops and bystanders and spits or pisses on them or whatever. But instead of saying "Damn video game makers!" I'd be more inclined to say "How the hell did the game get into your hands?", and then remove it. That's the whole responsibility thing I was talking about.

If Thompson thinks bringing down the industry is going to solve any problems, then he's sorely mistaken. The unfortunate reality is that whether games exist or not, crime will continue without proper nurture and education. As Tim Buckley points out - Ignorance causes violence. Not video games.

Off to Winnipeg in the morning! WooHoo! Party time!

Canucks won their first game of the year against Phoenix. They'll be facing a tough match against Edmonton tomorrow night - The Oil and 'Nucks matches are always tight and ridiculously entertaining. Should be a good one.

Man U play Sunderland next week, I'm voting for Ruud to pop in his 8th league goal of the season - the man is a machine!

The last seven days have been pretty busy here. The folks were gone to New York so along with work (including overtime) and hard hours at the gym I entertained myself by cooking new and different things. I'm not dead or sick, so it went very well I'd say :).

Adam came over on Saturday for what we dubbed a Windows Reload Party. He had a computer hooked up to my tv and I had mine mere feet away. We drank Bacardi and ate Chinese food while the comps formatted and reinstalled - then after getting everything back up to speed we hooked up the LAN and did some gaming. The compy should be lovin me right now - I hooked it up with a new 250GB 7,200RPM Seagate HD, bringing my total capacity to 410GB. I also plugged in another 512MB stick of Corsair RAM - bringing that stat up to 3x512mb. A few other toys were added as well, a network card and a nice sound card to tide me over until I finally buckle and buy an Audigy2 ZS from ebay (providing I can actually win an auction).

The cost of all this fun was sleep, of course. I slept a grand total of 25 minutes before getting up for a 5am shift of overtime at work. I got home just past 1, but have been busy since.

But it's Monday now, and that means only 5 more days of work until I leave for Winnipeg! I'll be gone from the 8th until the 16th. Should be an awesome time!