Friday

This morning, going 10 miles per hour over the speed limit in the fast lane, I was tailgated by a police officer. This was confusing. If I sped up I'd be really speeding, and if I slowed down (which is my typical response to tailgaters), I'd be pissing off a police officer. Fortunately, he passed me in the right lane. There was a person in the back seat. Maybe it was a really annoying suspect that the officer couldn't wait to get to jail.

Turns out that Florida nutjob Jack Thompson, the same that asserted that Janet Reno was a closeted lesbian alcoholic and hounded 2LiveCrew is at it again, trying to blame violent video games in a teenage murder case. Aparently the father of the murder victim thinks GTA3 is to blame, and Jack Thompson is helping him in his suit. Watch this one for Thompson's characteristic wackiness.

All this talk about violent video games making people violent is really starting to make me want to fucking shoot someone in their fucking face, err.... I mean makes me want to engage in rational discourse over the difference between causality and correlation.

(news via GameGirlAdvance.)

Thursday

Now is the time to get all the information about your presidential candidates and start thinking about whom you'd like the next president to be. Fortunately, vote-smart.org provides information on all the candidates available to us, although some of that information seems to reamin from the previous administration, but it's still relevant today, I think. Remember that you don't just have two choices this coming election year. For example consider these republican alternatives to our current leader:

Ms. Yehanna Joan Malone
"Rowe vs Wade state that the F. can be aborded if the feet come out first; I believe that this is illegal, it is murder because the feet are the last part of the body to be form. So you are killing a child by stabbing them in the head thru the stomac. "

Ms. Mildred T. 'Millie' Howard
"Non-profit organizations are "'UNCONSTITUTIONAL.'"

Hey, at least they bothered to fill out their own positional statements, our incumbent president's positional statements are all "Bush this...", "Bush that..." unless he's pulling a Dole and talking about himself in the third person. Well, at least I learned that his favorite ice-cream flavor is Pralines and Cream from his fun facts page.

This Mr. James John Prattas is a republican even I could vote for, however.
"No man has the right to tell women what to do with their bodies. Pardon the marijuana people. College is FREE if you qualify."

The democratic options are all pretty boring, sadly. A lot of them apparently refuse to fill out their positional statements. That sounds pretty much like what I would expect. Only one of them seems even remotely entertaining.

Mr. Albert 'Al' Hamburg (One of his hobbies is writing letters to the editor.)
His laissez-faire attitude about the middle east seems pretty solid:
"Let them crazy Arabs kill each other the world will be a better place"
And a whiz-bang catch-all solution to both America's drug woes and illegal immigration:
"Order that all dopers and illegal alliens have ten days to move to Mexico. After that all dopers (even those US citizens) and illegal aliens and those who employ illegal aliens would be sterilized and forced into Mexico."

Green party is all to sensible and dull.

The Libertarians have this guy though!

Mr. Kip Lee
"My planks in this paper is that I will immediately release space ship captives from 2 crashed ships near Roswell, NM. This took place after 11:30 P.M. on July 4th, 1947."
Well, it's about time someone did the right thing for those guys.

Natural Law and Reform parties apparently have no candidates. Oh well, it's not like they were going to make a difference anyhow. Okay, where are the crazies? The Independent, Mini-Parties and Write-In candidates must have a few of those. There are a few people in there who actually seem to want to help America prosper and encourage us all to come togather and help each other, which is very nice, but I'm looking for something a little more wacky than that. Such as:

With a name like Mr. Freddy Irwin 'Messiah' Sitnick, he's got to be good!
"What I would do if I became President!! End poverty End crime End insanity International prosperity End polution End suffering etc. Love, Messiah God's Son King of Israel"

Mr. Brian Baker Springfield gets my vote based on his fun facts alone.
Favorite Food: Coffee
Favorite Movie: 'Enter the Dragon'
Favorite Book: 'Elvis A to Z'
Favorite Type of Music: 80s big hair bands, anything on 8 track.

Mr. Robert B. Winn is running for president of bizzarro America, I believe. But at least he's honest enough to put down "Prisoner, Psychiatric Ward" as part of his professional experience.

"Crime could eventually be eliminated if trials by jury were allowed to take place." Don't they?
"The government should stop rewarding juvenile crime and stop punishing victims of juvenile crime." They do?
"Colleges have become places for the children of the priveleged to learn how to steal from their fellow man." I must've missed that class. Dang!
A lot of his stances really do make a lot of sense, though.
"Stop the activities of insane people in medical science." Well, I do agree with his firm anti-mad-scientist stance.
"People in public office should be asked to stop using illegal drugs." Anti-craskhead politicians, that's good.
"The internet is largely a waste of time." Can't argue with that.

Maybe we should just forgo the whole election process, since Mr. Caesar Saint Augustine is apparently already the Emperor of America.
"I am allready Emperor of the United States. The United States was over thrown by myself back in September of 1996 on Public Access Cable. All will be answered when I am in control."

Mr. Robert William Gottier plans to sigtnificantly reduce America's population and replace internal combustino engines with gravity engines, which are lofty ideas, but probably not very realistic. However, he's more down to Earth on other issues:
"But I will mantain adequate military power. But they will probably be easily beaten by aliens from other planets. " Yeah, probably.
"Every American should be guaranteed adequate food, clothing, shelter, a thirteen year education, some medical care, and some dental care some money for: hobbies, entertainment, dating, and for prostitute(s) (not a high-paying job)." Nope, it sure isn't. I mean, uh... gauranteed hooker money? Sweet!

And to wrap it up, here's the fun facts for Mr. Randy Wade Sutherland:

Articles or Books Written by the Candidate:
'I HAVE WRITTEN BOOKLETS, CONSPIRACY PLOT AGAINST PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE RANDY Sutherland. I RAN FOR MAYOR THEN PRESIDENT. MIRACLE I SAW HAPPEN ON EASTER DAY 1995.'

Favorites:
Favorite Book: Bible.

Pets:
'Babe (TAKEN FROM ME BY THE CONSPIRACY PLOT AGAINST ME!)'

Astrological Sign:
Scorpio

Sadly, I know none of these more interesting folks will win, but I think the election should really have other categories so that the losers can feel at least a little consoled. Here are a few ideas:

Best Fun Facts:
Best Name: Mr. Max Hacker
Best Party Name: Mike's Party - Mr. Michael Ross Tunick Strauss
Best Hair: Ms. Temperance Alesha Lance-Council

In case you haven't read yet, a study was recently completed indicating that people who played action-oriented video games showed an increase in their ability to quickly pick out significant details in scenes, tune out irrelevant distractions, and quickly identify symbols. Oddly enough, these are the same skills that typically one needs to succeed in action-oriented video games. So, correct me if I'm wrong, but this study shows that the more you play video games, the better you get at the skills which the game requires to succeed.

So, the more you play games, the better you get at them. All right! Give those guys another grant for proving that practicing something makes you better at it!

Of course, some of the skills which apply to gaming also apply to other fields, such as being a soldier, a short-order cook, or a pilot. I'm just not sure why people need research to prove these things to themselves. One may as well do a study of lumberjacks to see if chopping wood improves upper body strength. Every activity requires certain skills, the more you practice that activity, the more you will improve those skills. Seems like common sense to me.

Wednesday

I must say I'm not a big fan of the slasher movies. I've never seen a Friday the 13th movie, or a Child's Play movie, or any Halloween except for 2 (which was nto at all scary), nor any Phantasms. I once saw Critters and Terrorvision within a few weeks of each other, and had to sleep with the blankets over my head for about a whole year. The VHS cover for Ghoulies made bathroom-going a harrowing experience, and my father had to take me and my sister out of the theater when The Secret of Nimh was playing because I couldn't handle the owl (my sister has yet to forgive me).

But that's all in the past. I'm a grown-up now and am no longer troubled by such schlocky horror fare. After seeing the preview for Freddy Vs. Jason before The Matrix Reloaded, I decided that this was a cultural phenomenon I could not afford to miss, and I must thus familiarize myself with these two mythologies. Fortunately, Ami is glad to help, having already shared multiple cinematic classics such as Hellraiser, Cyborg, and Rad with me.

So far I've seen Nightmare on Elm Street, and Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors (which oddly enough, had a lot in common with the Matrix: wire-fu, gaining special powers by freeing one's mind, and lawrence (larry) fishburne). We haven't started on the Friday the 13th series, but I did a little internet research in order to make more educated bets on the final outcome of the Freddy Vs. Jason matchup. Here are the estimated body counts for both Jason and Freddy thus far:

Jason - 111+
Freddy - 36

As you can see, Jason is a far more efficient killing machine than Freddy, and he's also had more films. So, unless Jason falls asleep, I'm guessing that Jason will be the ultimate victor in this one. Actually, the most likely outcome is that they'll destroy each other, and the kids of Elm Street and Camp Crystal Lake will once again be safe... but for how long?

Freddy, Jason, Chucky, Michael Myers, the Cenobites and their ilk are kind of like the giant monsters of Japanese cinema. They're bad and kill lots of people, but folks just can't get enough of them. I'm hoping that in the future artistic license will prevail over intellectual property and we can see some super movie monster showdowns a la Destroy All Monsters and Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. Already there have been comic-book version of Robocop Vs. Terminator and Aliens Vs. Predator. The people want to see movie bad-asses beat living hell out of each other. Hopefully Freddy Vs. Jason is just the first in a long string of schlocky film adaptations of comic-book store arguments.

A few I'd like to see:

Army of Darkness Vs. McHale's Navy
Daredevil Vs. M.A.N.T.I.S.
Killer Klowns Vs. Killer Tomatoes
Wong Fei Hung (Once Upon a Time in China) Vs. Wong Fei Hung (Legend of Drunken Master)
ALF Vs. Howard the Duck

Here are some prototypes for my new line of bumper stickers:

Real men don't try to dictate the criteria for manhood.

Real men take it up the ass from giant hairy men in clown suits.

Anti-Choice, Pro-Death.

Oh yeah? Prove it.

Honk if you want me to ignore you.

Abstinence is not 100% effective birth control. Mary was a virgin.

Guns don't kill people, bullets do.

I drive this crappy car to compensate for my enormous penis.

Life ain't nothin' but bitchin' and moanin'

Tuesday

Okay, the Fun Fund thing is gone now. I'm not even going to make a pretense of any kind of continuity here. Plus that Matt guy at X-Entertainment never sent me a Mystery Box, and has not responded to the 4 or 5 e-mails I've sent him regarding it. Jerk. Is there any way to recoup funds from a PayPal transaction? Or is it even worth bothering over?

Monday

To add to the list of broke things:

My fuzzy dice, which have sat on the rear-view mirror of my car for about 5 years, broke.

Reading Rainbow, the children's show with the coolest opening animation and theme song in the whole world, is broke.