So, as long as no one is actually looking over my shoulder, I'll squeeze in one more post while it's on my mind, and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to concentrate on my work.

So, I saw that Men In Black 2 flick last night at the Drive-In (which is unfortunately located not only underneath the approach path to San Jose International, but also next to the train tracks. Total vehicle count: 2 freight trains, 11 airplanes.), and It was well worth the $2.50 it cost to get us in. I wouldn't really recommend spending much more than that, however.

Anyways, my point is that in one scene (Don't read any further if you don't want to have the movie spoiled, OMG!), Will Smith has a beatbox communication with an alien played by Biz Markie. Now, my problem was this: Not only did they give Biz Markie's beatbox routine some sort of backwards treatment, thus betraying the whole non-electronically altered purity of the human beatbox art, but why the hell was it Biz Markie? I mean, don't get me wrong, Biz makes the music with his mouth just dandy, but you'd think that in a Will Smith film, he'd have made a bid to have Ready Rock C do the human beatbox routine.

Ready Rock C was the human beatbox for the Too Damn Hype Crew, fronted by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, also known as Willard (Not William, but Willard, hee hee) Smith. But I looked up what has become of Ready Rock since the days of Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, and it turns out he sued WIll in 1999 for like $5 million in back royalties for co-writing credit on "Parents Just Don't Understand", so I gather that there is some animosity between them. Bummer. At least Will and Jeff still get along.

Now I just wonder what happened to Charlie Mack... Is he still the first out of Will's limo?

Addendum: kc! had shared with me a few years ago his idea for a fighting game in which one would be "able to pick a different guy or girl and go star
in pornos and work your way up by performing the right tasks at the right
time. you could earn money to buy new toys to help your quest to be the
porn king/queen!"

Credit given where credit is due. I guess I merely re-envisioned it within the framework of the Stuntman game.

And I should probably credit kc!'s mom with all the ideas she's given me, but I'm still at work.

So, I'm sure by now that any of you with a game console and genitalia have heard about this supposed wild new direction the industry is barely moving in. In short, there are two titles coming out in the future, Dave Mirra BMX XXX and DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball (Believe it or not, these are actual titles) which will take more advantage of the ESRB's "Mature" rating. So now gamers everywhere are getting all super-excited about the possibility of viewing some 3-D modeled nipples in their BMX or Volleyball games.

Here's the offical 1moredork stance on these announcements: Whoopty doo.

Acclaim and Tecmo, the respective publishers of the two titles, aren't even committing to showing the nudity which they are sorta kinda dangling in front of gamers. They're too afraid of parents, legislators, and Wal-Mart to give any sort of solid stance on the direction their titles are taking. They should take a lesson from Rockstar and just go balls-out. GTA3 is one of, if not the most violent, immoral, criminalistic and downright fun titles out there, and it's sold like gnagbusters. Mostly because it's a really geat game. All the violence and sociopathic behavior is integrated well with the game and makes for a solid gameplay experience, it's not just violence for violence's sake.

Both these publishers are making games here which have great gameplay potential, and they made it clear that they're backing up the theoretical nudity with solid fun factor. However, after making claims like they have, if these games don't actually feature nudity, which is totally allowable under the M rating (it's like an R rating for movies, essentially), I personally will feel let down, disappointed and pissed off. They have a chance to push the gaming industry in a more mature direction, and if they blow it, screw 'em.

If Dave Mirra lives up to its hype, then I'll be the first in line to get a copy. Partly because it's looking like a decent Tony Hawk rip-off, but mostly because I want the gaming industry to grow the hell up and realize that 18-34 year old males does sell. Violence has its place, but 99% of the violence in video games is stupid and mindless. Again, consider the movies: There's your Pulp Fiction violence, and then there's your 3000 Miles to Graceland Violence. Some great stories have violent events.

Sex really can drive a story, or a gaming experience. Violence, violence, violence, blah blah blah. It's been done a million times. I'm tired of my video games characters killing people.

I want my video game characters to get laid.

I'm waiting for the video game of Midnight Cowboy, or The Graduate, or even Fast Times at Ridgemont High or American Pie. I want to see a game in which my character gets the girl, and I mean really gets the girl. Or gets the guy, or the girl gets the guy, or whatever, I don't care. I want stories driven by real people with real desires. It's getting to the point where the extreme sexual tension between the main characters in Final Fantasy X culminates in a kiss. Although it is a pretty awesome kiss, let's be realistic. People really do have sex sometimes, you know. If they didn't, game producers woudln't get born (Although I've begun wondering if they're not somehow mass-produced in laboratories).

The only AO titles I've seen are completely unplayable pieces of garbage with videos of skanky porn stars holding plastic machine guns and telling me to touch them here, not there, here, faster, now here. Basically these titles have about as much play value as trying to adjust the tracking on your VCR in order to watch a 12th-generation skin flick dub. Eventually one just finds the movie files on the CD, decodes and watches them. Pow, you beat the game congratulations. In terms of sexual interation, it's either that or those damn Japanese dating games where you need to buy some schoolgirl a $600 necklace just to convince them to hug you.

What this might teach gamers about interacting with women is not really a concern of mine. Anyone who is actually playing these games for their educational value is probably the kind of person who has trouble convicing a woman to stay in the same room as them for longer than 30 seconds. While I frequently pretend to steal cars, blow up buildings and shoot people in the face in video games, this is not an activity I am about to try and do in real life. I do, however somehow manage to have sex in real life, believe it or not. Maybe I'm just not doing it right, but it seems to be far more complicated than simply pointing and clicking on a boob over and over.

Parents shouldn't be concerned about this at all. Of course, they were super-duper upset about titles like Carmageddon, Soldier of Fortune, and Grand Theft Auto. But let's see hmmm.. aren't those all M rated games? So why would anyone buy them for their kids? Frankly, I'd be more upset about my underage kid playing a game in which he shot people than games in which he tried to make sweet sweet love to them. But there's no need to argue, parents just don't understand their ESRB ratings system. That's a rant for another day.

So shape up, video game industry! Yeah, I'm talking to you! I want games in which the characters have their sexual tension culminate in ohhh... let's see... um... sex! And let's see some sex simulator games which are actual dynamic and fun and not degrading to women and more than just an interface wrapped around 120x160 mpegs of hookers in vinyl skirts. We've got the analog sticks, people! Put them to some use!

If in fact the industry does decide to ever make an actual, playable game with an AO rating, I think it would have to use a music-game style interface more like Dance Dance Revolution (Hump Hump Revolution?), Gitaroo Man (After all, iz not playing an eenstrument not ze same as making sweet love to eet?), or, as I was discussing with Ari the other day while playing the Stuntman game mentioned previously, one could hit the current trend of occupation-related games. Enter "Pornstar".

Dig this: You could start out as a fluffer on gay porn flicks and then work your way up to some sort of superstar Ron Jeremy status. Following the director's instructions, ("Lick faster!", "Okay, now let her get on top!", "Run your hands through her hair!", "Cut! That's the wrong hole!") you enact scenes, save your replay, and earn toys, costumes and special moves for your freestyle stunt..er... freestyle sex arena. Causing simultaneous and multiple orgasms could earn you bonus points and whatnotwith trick multiplers for complex positions. And multi-player would be fantastic!

Anyhow, Lunch break is almost over, and I can't be sure that no one's going to look over my shoulder and read the phrase "wrong hole" and terminate me with extreme prejudice. In short, all I ask is that my mature-rated games treat me like a grown-up. Which I am... honestly!

Okay, back to playing video games for a living.

So is it really cool or really creepy when a self professed Nazi Dyke e-mails you a picture of herself dressed up like you? I'm thinking half of both.

And she's learning HTN songs on the accordion. That's cool! Unless it's part of some diabolical bid to kill me off, and take over my luxurious lifestyle... that would suck. I guess it's just hard to believe that someone else might actually try to play something I wrote.

Stuntman is fucking hard.

Here is the sound of a typical session with the game for me:

(vrrrrrrmmm...crash)

What?! What exactly am I supposed to do there?! Oh no, you certainly can't be bothered to let the Stuntman know ahead of time what he's supposed to do ahead of time.

(vrrrrrrmmm...crash)

That's great. "Get it right next time.", he says. Maybe if you guys would pony up for an editor so I woudln't have to do this whole entire scene in one goddamn shot then I wouldn't have so much fucking trouble getting it right!! What is this movie supposed to be?? Andy Warhol's Cannonball Run?!?!

(vrrrrrmmm... crash)

You fucking fuckheaded fuckwit. Shut up. Shut up! Shut up! Always with the "Chase the car!", "Jump over the dumpster!", "Corkscrew through the moving boxcars!" You might as well be yelling, "Write a symphony!", "Cure cancer!" Need I remind you that I am going 90 miles an hour out there through head-on traffic, with no one having shown me the script!!!

(vrrrrrrmmm...crash!)

perfect... load.. load... load... Why such the long load times?! Why don't you just load up the first 3 seconds of the level I can't seem to get past for the past 3 days!!

(vrrrrrrmmm... 'Cut! That's too slow!')

You stupid director! You awful, awful man! I'm fucking your wife! There, I said it. And she loves it! She takes direction very well!! Aah! Aah! Aaaaaaahhhh!!

(Dual Shock Analog Controller for Playstation 2 smashing to bits)

In other words, it's fantastic.

Another lunchless lunch break. Thing is, the local roach coach comes by between 10:30 and 11 am, so I usually just get something from there and eat it, and that way I don't have to leave work during my actual lunch break and instead I can just space out and fall halfway asleep in my chair or go be antisocial and read on the lawn outside.

And what is up with those manicured corporate knolls anyhow? I mean, they're a pretty common geographic feature around here. FInland has fjords, sunnyvale has knolls. Really I'm not sure knolls is the right word for them. It's kind of halfway between a knoll and a berm, or maybe a hillock. I'm thinking I will dub them knerms.

So anyway, all these grassy knerms (Three innocent terms that have been forever corrupted by the Kennedy assassination are: grassy knoll, motorcade and book depository. "I've got to drop some books off a tthe book depository, bye!" "Why, you want to snipe at a passing motorcade, you lone nut?") are very green and perfectly mowed and clean, but no one ever uses them for anything. I feel kinda conspicuous sitting out there upon one and reading a book, but they're very pleasant, so oh well. Deal, you corporate drones, you can look at me funny all you want from your idling E-class luxury sedans! I'm not going to let your hangups get me down!

The only trouble is the ants that constantly feel the need to crawl across my copy of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. We all know how I feel about ants, but since I'm outdoors and in their turf, I don't smite them mercilessly as I would in my own home.

Speaking of LOTR, does that book have anough walking in it? I mean, I hate to dis a fantasy literature classic like that, and I appreciate all the time Tolkien took to map out every single puddle and stone in MIddle Earth, but seriously, that doesn' tmean we need the genealogical history of every soldier and barkeep. I guess it makes the parts where stuff actually happens that much more exciting. The details are what you read the book for, after all.

So was that tangential and disjointed enough? I'm not sure. My steering wheel cover looks like it has mange. I heard someone say "Are you soaking loons?" yesterday and it made sense in context. My fingernails are dirty and I'm not sure why. I wish that database was online already. Sensitivity training in an hour! I'm not scared if you are go home I'm wearing a tie look across the street.

"Hey, I heard about you losing that life. I'm sorry to hear that, man. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm actually doing alright, I'm trying to see itas a lesson learned, y'know?"

"It's good to hear you're taking it that way. You remember what happened to Luigi. It was hard to see him go through two lives in one year like that, but if he'd only paid attention to how long that invincibility lasted, he wouldn't have been set on fire by a dragon twice. Now he won't even leave the house."

"Yeah, I've been thinking about that. I was thought maybe I should go back to school. After all, if I'd completed my minor in precision jumping, I might still have all three lives, y'know?

"That's a good idea. That's what the 3 lives are for after all. You get a chance to do it right. You study hard and get good, you might even earn an extra life or two."

"True, true... But, you know... I was talking to this Hindu guy the other day, and he told me about something called continues..."

Well, the wicked temptress sunglasses (temptress? Well, "sunglasses" is a feminine noun in French, so I guess that works) are broken. I left them in some pants pockets and they kinda fell apart. So either my ill-gotten gains are crumbling in my hands, or I shouldn't feel so bad about taking them becuase they were cheap (although cool-looking) pieces of crap.

So, because you're dying to know, and because I've had to make some crazy-ass decisions about right and wrong recently, here are some simple rules I use to determine what is moral and immoral. Some of which I've even managed to never break.

1. Don't cheat.
   
2. Don't pursue someone who is in a relationship. (If they go after you though, that's a different story. Hence the famous "I was just sitting there" defense.)
   
3. Don't be an asshole. (A gem acquired from Paris that has served me extremely well. (Although I generally like to add the qualifier: "Unless someone really deserves it."))
   
4. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. (The Bible isn't totally without merit.)
   
5. Do what you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone. (Neither is Wicca.)
   
6. So use your turn signals.
   
7. Don't fuck around with people's feelings. (Probably the most difficult one. IMHO)
   
8. Don't kill anything that makes the world a better place.

Well, it's non-comprehensive and occasionally contradictory, but they are simple rules which have worked pretty well so far.

Really, I just can't figure why so many people are just flat-out bad. Most of the time it's not that difficult to figure out the right thing to do, or to determine is a certain action is wrong. I mean, I'm not a complete moral absolutist or anything, but really people... I don't do it because I think there's some deific referee keeping score on everyone and meting out consequences in the afterlife. I was raised without religion, which is not to say I was raised without moral guidance. Maybe I just have that advantage.

Anyhow, one should do the right thing for it's own sake, not for reward or fear of consequence. Hell, I'm not forward-thinking enough to consider consequences or rewards. Although more often than not, doing the right thing has been more beneficial than doing the wrong thing.

Besides, morality is totally sexy.

One of the perks of playing video games for a living is that I can say with a fair degree of confidence that I have the dubious honor of being the absolute best player of one or two games right at this very moment in time. At least until they get released.