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Riverty City Ransom Banned!
I was reading a story over at PalmBeachPost.com regarding the possibility that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City violates state hate crime laws and could possibly be banned because of it.
Now, in all honesty I don't think I have ever met a Haitian, but I can guarantee you that the next one I meet I am certainly not going to jack his car and leave him bleeding in the street. I played a lot of GTA: Vice City, a whole lot, and yet miraculously the urge to knock motorcysclists off their choppers with a chainsaw is still somehow missing from me. The truth is that a lot of gangs tend to have some sort of theme going for them. At least they do in pop culture. In reality the lines are a lot more fuzzy. But in 90% of the movies and video games I have ever seen or played if there is a gang, it is a themed gang. In River City Ransom, one of my favorite 80's NES games, you were a lone high school student who beat up on numerous gangs. One of those gangs was The Cowboys. Suprisingly this game has yet to be banned in either Texas or here in Alberta, both of which are quite proud of their cowboy heritage. If anyone really feels like it, you can join my nerd gang. We're going to rampage the streets in Homestarrunner t-shirts pelting people with 20 sided dice until they hand over all their Lord of the Rings collectibles.
I'm not saying it is right to hate Haitians, or anyone for that matter. I'm just saying that if you want to stop people from hating each other putting the Rockstar Games development team in jail isn't necessarily your first step. For one thing you can start by taking notice of all the little things around you that help to continue these ridiculous sterotypes.
I have my fiancee, Carolyn, to thank for this. I didn't really notice it as much before, but I am noticing it more and more thanks to her influence. For one thing it sickens me how many people here in Alberta use the word "gay" as a negative connotation. It's getting more and more popular, and it's terrifying. There's just no call for it, really. Not when there are so many existing words that can define something negatively that aren't racially or sexually based.
For example, the test I took the other wasn't gay, but it was without a doubt a festering pile of dog snot. See how easy that was? I even checked with my dog, and he feels no offense at his snot being referenced in such a way.
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The Point
Well, here it is, the point. The whole reason I started this blog. Routine. That's it. It isn't quite as simple an answer as 42, but it is an answer nonetheless.
The reason behind the answer is that I have gotten into such a rigid game playing routine that I need to start doing anything I can to escape it. And that's where this blog comes in. Since it is something that I haven't really done before it is definitely outside the scope of my crrent routine, and that makes it a good thing.
Another good plan might be for me to perhaps start communicating with my friends again. I received news yesterday that Yuri is being deported from Taiwan, which is unfortunate for him, but fortunate for everyone here in Edmonton who knows him. It is also fortunate for the Canadian alcohol industry... I forsee a crazy night or two when he gets back.
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I just read my last blog entry. I must be more ticked off about flunking that exam than I thought. One of the sentences in my last post runs on longer than Terry Fox.
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What a day.
Yesterday I took a test. Or was it the day before? Dammit, was it even me who did that, or am I remembering a story someone told me? Crap.
Okay, let's assume that the memory is mine. I took a test the other day and failed it. I got a miserable 75% on 28 questions. The passing requirement for certification was 80%. Anyway, two of us here at Tietokone Consulting took the test. I took it first, and then when I flunked it I went over all the questions and figured out what the hell had gone wrong. I then sat down with the other person taking the exam and helped him so that at least ONE of us here wouldn't look like an idiot. Thankfully he passed.
Today we both sat down together to conquer the next test in the series of Maximizer certification exams. And today, we flunked it. It is a damned open book exam. OPEN BOOK!
If anyone out there is collecting obsolete technology, let me know. I think I would look great on a shelf next to your TRS 80.
So anyway, we flunked the exam, and as a sore loser I immediately compiled an e-mail with every spelling mistake and inconsistency I could find and sent it out to them in the hopes that I could get the test rendered null and void.
I do have some good news, however, the boys over at Penny Arcade have a link today to another web comic. A Modest Destiny is actually kind of fun, it's not really groundbreaking, but it's a good read, and it features characters who seem to have been rendered in the 8-bit era, which appeals to the kid in me who is still sitting in a darkened room somewhere playing the original Final Fantasy and listening to Maestro Fresh Wes.
Anyway, back to work, I just needed to vent some steam. I think later I will explain the whole reason I decided to start this blog, and what it has to do with games being more addictive to me than crack cocaine.
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My Left Nut
I am going to go off on a tangent here about my left nut. Why? Because right this moment my left nut has decided that it is more important than the rest of me. It sits there in my pants moaning about what a rough day it had yesterday. Now, I'll give it some credit, it was a real trooper yesterday.
You see, I own a dog. And I'm not saying "I own a dog" like this person:
I'm saying it like a person who owns an 18 wheeler says, "I own a truck".
My dog is big, he weighs almost as much as I do. He's part great dane and part something else, something bulky. So he's tall, and built like a brick shithouse. Occasionally he even smells like a brick shithouse. Anyway, he's big and thinks he's a lap dog. Normally this isn't a problem, I'll be watching TV and he'll crawl up onto the couch and flatten me, whining until I pet him. Yesterday, however, when he got up to get off the couch he decided that my left nut would be a great platform from which to launch himself off the couch. I'm surprised my left nut didn't stay at home today, really, if I had been attacked by a creature over 100 times my size I wouldn't have come in to work today.
Thankfully, this blog post managed to distract my left nut for a few minutes, so he stopped complaining for a bit.
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And away we go...
I think that it would be appropriate to start with a little bit of background. My name is Aaron and I have been a gamer for longer than I can remember. Of course, I have also been a blogger for longer than I can remember, and I have been wearing this pair of underwear for longer than I can remember. Of course I think that a lot of this has to do with the fact that I can't remember much of anything beyond about an hour ago.
My poor memory aside, however, I have been playing video games for a lot of years. I was around ten, I think, when I started. I have received two consoles as gifts from girlfriends in that time, and bought about a dozen others. I currently own one and a half ZILLION games, many of which I have only played for a few hours, and some of which I have never played.
So what's the point of this blog, then? Simply put, to escape. I have been a gamer for a long time, but it always seemed that throughout my life I was other things as well. For a while I was an actor, a rollerblader, a comedian, a cyclist, a rickshaw driver... I did a lot of things. As I recall, I used to even use books as something other than montior stands.
But now it seems that my hobby is dominating my free time. I wake up at six thirty AM and play an hour of games before I go to work, then I work until lunch, when I break out the gameboy while I eat, and then after work I zip home and drop down in front of the computer, PS2, or GameCube, where I spend every minute until my fiancee gets home.
Truth is, I want to be making games, I want to be doing something again. So this blog will be a journal of my detox process. Somehow I think that this is going to be nasty...
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Okay, I might just be a nerd, but doesn't