Bastardisms

Happy Freakin' Whatever.
Monday, December 24, 2007

In an effort to be more inclusive of other's religions, I have now resorted to the saying the title of this post during the "Holiday Season."

On a serious note. I sincerely hope that everyone is able to achieve some joy, no matter how small, out of the season. I hope that no matter what our various beliefs are, that we can take this time out of the year to see each other not as being different, but as being the same and that we can spread some peace, hope, and most importantly love during this "Holiday Season."

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 3:40 PM 1 comments    

Raising awareness of the homeless.
Saturday, December 01, 2007

As a foreword, I have recently gotten into photography. I use a Kodak C633 point & shoot digital camera. I also post my photos on Flickr. Recently, I joined a group on Flickr called Vagrants. The purpose of this group is to raise awareness of homelessness around the world.


Here are some of my better shots of the homeless:





_{Click on any picture for a larger version.}

I know that a lot of time panhandlers can be annoying or even frightening. I also know that there are people out there who are preying upon the good nature of others, but there are also people with genuine needs out there. So, please donate to one of these groups, or to your local church.

Homeless Advocacy Project: link
National Coalition for the Homeless link
National Interfaith Hospitality Network (Family Promise) link

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 11:03 AM 0 comments    

Labels: advocacy, advocate, flickr, help, homeless, vagrant

Visa: An exercise in marketing B.S.
Saturday, August 04, 2007

Visa, who has it's roots in California in the late 1950's, has grown to be one of the largest credit companies in the world. The marketing department of the company has made several commercials. These commercials range from the familiar "VISA. It's everywhere you want to be." to "Life takes VISA." Notice the not-so-subtle transition from VISA saying "Hey we are a credit card that is accepted at a butt-load of places." to "You can't live without us."

However, VISA's latest series of commercials is frankly disturbing. Most of them involve elaborately choreographed routines in which we see an assembly line of people moving around in a cafeteria or some other daily activity. Everything is going along great until one person stops to pay with cash. Everything comes to a screeching halt and all of the customers give the offending payer dirty looks. Even the cashier looks disdainfully at the non-VISA method of payment. Here are some things that need to be said:

1. CASH IS ALWAYS FASTER THAN CREDIT!
2. Any cashier that looks at you dirty when you pay deserves to be fired.
3. Visa thinks that you are stupid.

In fact, the only truthful ad that VISA has is their "Flower Shop" ad which depicts the same choreographed routine in which a woman paying with a check disrupts the flow:

Here are some things to remember if you are paying with a check:

1. Always have the check and your register filled out in advance so that all that you have to fill in is the amount! Spend your time in line filling out the check, not looking at the tabloids.
   
2. Have you driver's license or ID number printed on your checks as well as your phone number. Your bank can do this for you, usually for no cost at all.
3. In addition to #2, if you know that a particular merchant wants you to have the expiration date of your ID on the check, write it on in advance.

The motto "Life takes VISA" indicates a big, messy, corporate wet-dream in which everyone has to pay with credit cards instead of actual money. It has long been a standing theme in Science Fiction literature, movies, and video games that the usual system of money has been replaced with "credits."

There are some people who believe that this is a sign of the End Days of the Apocalypse. According to the book of Revelations, Chapter 13, verses 16 and 17:

16 He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17 so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.

So, it would appear that VISA's supposed goal of a one-world currency composed of credits would actually be a sign of the Apocalypse.

Don't let the media B.S. fool you. Use cash and remember that the best way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 12:34 PM 1 comments    

Labels: apocalypse, Bullshit, credit, marketing, Visa

Church Stuff That Pisses Me Off
Thursday, July 19, 2007

What really gets me is that one particular church member. Usually they’re young. They start out in middle school or high school. They attend the youth group every Sunday night. You see them in church every Sunday morning. These are the people that always bright and fucking chipper. They are the ones that will ask you in their best feigned sincerity voice “How was your week? How is school going? Did you get that job that you applied for?” The run you through the usual gauntlet of inane questions to make it seem like they are interested in you. Watch these people outside of the church environment. See how they really treat “the least of these.” Once they get to about college age or have just graduated the hypocrisy gets worse. They will have a conniption fit if you have a beer with dinner on a mission trip, but will go back to their dorm the next week and get plastered with the frat or sorority du jour and then post the pictures on their MySpace page. These are the same people that will say “You shouldn’t do anything in your private life that you wouldn’t do on a mission trip. Like that’s sound advice. There’s got to be a list as long as my arm of things that I wouldn’t do on a mission trip, but that I would do every day. Pay my bills for one. Give my dog a bath for another. But those are inane examples. It would generally be frowned upon to have sex with your wife on a mission trip, but I’ll give it to the missus every day of the week back home.

The problem with these mission trips is that they try to take you out of your everyday, routine life and place you in an environment that is different from the normal so that you can focus on God and Jesus and being a Christian. What they really need to do is the exact opposite. They need to come into your everyday life and work on getting you to focus on all of those things while dealing with the stack of work on your desk, the guy at the drive –through complaining that he ordered the burger with onions and without mayo, the kids screaming constantly at home. That’s where these mission trips need to focus. Mission to the Middle of Your Life. Once the artificial high from your trip to repair broken houses and broken lives in Podunksville, Wherever wears off, you are still left with your broken life. Your broken house. Your broken soul.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 12:07 AM 0 comments    

More people screwing up the Internet
Sunday, December 31, 2006

More people screwing up the Internet

If any of you aren't familiar with guitar tablature, it's essentially digital sheet music. It's usually represented by 6 lines of dashes "-" which make up the 6 strings of a guitar with numbers denoting which fret should be played at which time. Here is an example.

|-------------------------------------8--7---5-5-/-3---|
|----5-5---8---5-5--8----5--8--------------------------|
|------------------------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------------------------|
|------------------------------------------------------|

The piece that I selected for my example is the opening line of Johannes Brahms’s Wiegenlied: Op. 49, No. 4. (More commonly known as Brahms Lullaby.) The reason that I selected this piece is because it is still generally available on the internet because it was published in 1868 and is therefore public domain.

Generally speaking, tablature or guitar chords to popular songs have been readily available on the internet for sometime now. My entire endeavor to learn how to play guitar so far has come from guitar tablature on the internet. But now, the people over at the National Music Publisher's Association (NMPA) want to stop people from being able to create and publish guitar tablature on the internet. They have served a "take down" letter to Olga.net telling them that they have violated copyright laws and that they will be sued if they keep displaying guitar tablature. So, until this legal dispute is settled, one of the biggest sites for guitar tablature is unavailable to average people out there who want to learn how to play their favorite songs by their favorite artists.

Is it just me or is the music industry really reaching here? First, you have the Napster issue. Now you have them working on tab sites. As Jerry Holkins (a.k.a. Tycho Brahe from Penny Arcade) put it when describing one of the music companies:

"They imagine that their industry is not, as you might have thought previously, merely a conduit for a specific type of product. Rather, they believe that their industry is the avatar of music itself"

It is exactly this kind of thought process that provides the impetus for associations to ruin great things for millions of people.

What actually bothers me the most is that this isn't like Napster. At least with file sharing, there was the process of someone having to actually go pay for this crap, put it in their computer, transfer the data from one medium to another, and then make it available for you to listen to. With guitar tablature, what happens is that some talented (usually) person listens repeatedly to a particular song with guitar in hand and writes down the lyrics and attempts to mimic what they hear. Guitar tablature is the creation of the people who go through this process of listening and writing, not just some jackass with a CD-R/W drive and the entire Metallica collection.

I believe that the reason why this association is doing this is because they say that it cuts into their profits. Having been a musician since I was 12, I appreciate printed sheet music. It's nice. It's usually easy to read. It's generally very accurate. But it's also expensive as hell and not everything that you want is available. Also, it takes them quite a while to get out current songs.

You never heard horse merchants trying to get cars banned when they were invented. They simply realized that they were outclassed and that horses were going to be a niche market. The same thing needs to happen with music publishing.

What I suggest is that each and everyone of you got to the NMPA website's "Contact Us" page found here, and send them a message telling them what you think about their preventing the free expression of artistic talent simply so that they can make more money.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 3:27 PM 0 comments    

Yahoo! Mail Pics.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006

If you have gone to Yahoo! Mail in the past six months, then you've seen those insipid pictures that Yahoo! put up to advertise their picture mail feature. Everytime I see them, I have to make fun of them. So, here are some of the pics and the things that come to my mind when I see them. Feel free to add your own comments.

______Yahoo Picture_________

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Legal Notice: All images are the property of their respective owners. Yahoo does not endorse this site, it probably doesn't even like it or acknowledge it's existence. So, since I put up this here legal notice, please don't sue me. Thanks.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 1:28 PM 0 comments    

I hope that this is a gag.
Sunday, August 06, 2006

While surfing on the net I found this. Good Lord in heaven I hope that it's a joke. If not, then someone went to a lot of trouble to make a convincing website.

Update:
According to the website Snopes.com and their Urban Legends reference pages, this product is a gag, simply because you can't buy anything off of the site.

I know it's a weak comparisson, but what about the video game trailer websites? You can view screenshots and trailer videos, but you can't buy the game. Same thing with Genpets? Maybe.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 1:08 PM 0 comments    

You look like you got beat with this!!
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

This is a picture of one of the combo sets from where I work. I actually bought myself a Zebco Genesis 30 combo set. I'm going camping in June and wanted to go bass fishing as well. Among other lures, I'm going to be using a white 1/8 oz painted jig head with a white spinner tail. I'll post pictures of anything that I catch.

Post your favorite bass lures in the comments section.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 12:42 PM 0 comments    

National "Bese Mi Culo" Day
Monday, May 01, 2006

I don't know about your part of the world, but here in Austin, TX we are experiencing what I like to call "National 'Bese Mi Culo' Day." For those who don't speak Spanish, that means "National 'Kiss My Ass' Day." I'm pretty sure that the actual name for it is something like "Dia de la Revolucion del Trabajador" or some shit like that. The idea of this is that every Mexican worker isn't going to go to work or spend money at the pinche gringo shops for one whole day to "close down" cities and show us gringos how much we need immigrant workers. Also, according to one site (that I refuse to link to), the protest is to show support for the illegal immigrants.

Personally, I think that this is going to backfire. What's going to happen is that every Mexican who doesn't go into work on Monday is going to go back to work on Tuesday and find that some other Mexican has his job.

Besides being as insipid and offensive as Dia de la Raza, this protest is in support of ILLEGAL immigrants. This isn't about the thousands of people who go through the appropriate legal channels to obtain their citizenship. This is about showing support for the people who jump fences and hide in the back of trucks or do any number of other activities, including waiting 9 months, then jumping a border to pop out a baby on American soil.

So, since they are exercising their right to peaceably assemble, I suggest that you exercise your right to laugh at them and point out that their jobs are going to be gone.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 12:23 AM 1 comments    

Tasers work...
Monday, January 09, 2006

According to the medical examiner, a person who has to go through decades of education before they are allowed to hold that position, ruled that the death of Michael Clark was the result of sickle cell anemia that was exacerbated by Clark's use of PCP and cocaine. All of this was reported by KEYE news and The Austin Chronicle.

However, according to Clark's mom this a coverup by the Austin Police Department because "he didn't have no sickle cell." Yes, you who are barely able to string together an intelligent sentence, know more than the medical examiner. Forgive me for being skeptical about your prognosis.

The facts are that Michael Clark was high. He didn't follow legally issued orders from the police to submit to arrest. He bit one officer and injured another. It took nine officers on scene to subdue Clark. The officers had to use Tasers to do this. Tasers work.

Had Clark not been high on PCP and Cocaine at the time of his arrest, he may not have been as aggressive and resistant towards the police officers. He also, probably, would not have been in an argument with the woman that required the police to be called out.

The major complaint from some groups like the Texas ACLU is that most of the people "who died while or after Austin police officers used force on them were minorities". 13 out of 14 according to the above site. However, this data is from 1998. Austin P.D. hasn't had the Taser since 1998. That is a recent addition to the equipment carried by A.P.D. officers. APD acquired the Tasers sometime before 2004, because in Mach of 2004, according to an article, they acquired 730 X26 model Tasers. So, this tells us that not all of the 13 minority death after police use of force were the result of Taser use. The score: Bastardisms 1 Texas ACLU 0. Secondly, anyone who has lloked at criminal justice statistics for America in the past 3 decades or so has seen that minorities, particularly Blacks, are represented more than Whites. That means that more of the deaths are going to come from minorities because it s more likey that that a minority will be in the criminal justice system. Update: Bastardisms 2 Texas ACLU 0.

The Texas ACLU blog goes on to quote an Austin American Statesman article that printed the following exceprt from the A.P.D. Taser use protocol:

According to the department's policy, officers are allowed to use Tasers to control a dangerous or violent person when deadly force doesn't appear to be necessary, if attempts to subdue someone by other tactics haven't worked or if it is unsafe for officers to approach the person.

Only one officer is allowed to use a Taser on a person unless it is obvious that it did not work, according to the policy. Officers also must warn a person that they are going to use a Taser, unless the warning would jeopardize the officers.

The author of the article then goes on to assert that "Tasers aren't toys, and they're more dangerous than an officer's nightstick (when both are used according to training)." Of course I don't have the reserch study where the author gathered this data (mainly because they didn't cite a source) but I do know that the Taser rarely, if at all, produces lasting, long-term damage to the recipient, like a nightstick would. Ex: bruises, contusions, cranial damage, broken bones, trachial damage, etc. if used in various ways. If the author is suggesting that police officers physically abuse the violent suspects with their nightsticks rather than using a Taser, then by all means let them step up and recieve the first beating. Final Score: Bastardisms 3 Texas ACLU 0.

I, personally, if given the choice would prefer the Taser. But, then again, I don't forsee myself ever needing to make that choice. I have a simple plan that will ensure that you never have to have the Taser used on you: Don't break the Law!!

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 10:04 PM 0 comments    

The Truth? Not Exactly.
Friday, December 23, 2005

I'm sick and tired of all of these "The Truth" ads that you see on T.V. They feature a bunch of whiny, pretentious teenagers with nothing better to do than protest something that has no real bearing or importance on the world.

Go check out their site. It's www.thetruth.com. Although what is advertised is far from what you get.

In particular, there is one part of the site that bugs me to no end. The Facts.

This section is chock full of small tidbits of info. However, the site developers seem to have left out one major part of facts: sources. There is no citation of these "facts" anywhere on their site. They never mention any of the tobacco companies by name. Is this because they are afraid of being sued for libel because they take things out of context? Who knows?

Besides, most of these "facts" are just statistics. Anyone who has been through a basic statistical analysis course will know not to trust stats that are displayed to back up an argument because more than likely the stats are worded or arranged to say what the quoter wants them to say.

It's an old saying in stats that whenever someone asks you what the statistics say, you respond "What do you want me to make them say?"

But citation and statistics aside, do you know what the major flaw with the whole premise of their crusade is? The fact that smokers choose to smoke. No one holds agun up to their head and makes them smoke cigarettes. It always has been and always will be a personal choice.

The other problem that I have with them is that they criticize the tobacco companies when they try to help out:

On its website, one tobacco company lists “cancer services” as one of the community programs they support. Yet they continue to make a product that leads to 339 deaths from lung cancer each day.

If a tobacco company wants to provide cancer services, then let them. Next you will probably hear them complaining that tobacco companies provide smoking cessation support.

With all that is going on in the world that needs time and devotion to aleviate, such as world hunger or homelessness, I refuse to listen to a bunch of people whining about other peoples choices. These are the same people who, if they had their way, would make it illegal to smoke outdoors or in your own home. These people are almost worse than the environmentalist wackos at Greenpeace or EarthFirst! or the ELF.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 10:23 PM 0 comments    

Walk the Line
Saturday, December 10, 2005

Earlier this week I went to go see Walk the Line with some of my friends. For those of you who don't know, this movie is about the life of Johnny Cash. He sang songs like "Ring of Fire," "I Walk the Line," "Boy Named Sue," and others. Johnny Cash was played by Joaquin Phoenix and June Carter was played by Reese Witherspoon.

I have to say that this is the best movie that I've seen this year. This movie definitely deserves a lot of awards. Joaquin and Reese are to be commended as well for singing the songs themselves.

The movie chronicles the hardships that Cash went through, from his drunk and abusive father, his brothers death, through Johnny's battles with drugs and alcohol. The acting is simply amazing.

I give this movie 5 stars. Go see it.
[* * * * *]

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Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 2:22 PM 1 comments    

I hate PETA...
Thursday, December 08, 2005

I know that I have already covered this subject before, but I feel passionately about it.

To anyone who has seen the site Meat.org, let me say "I'm sorry." I'm sorry that you had to witness that tripe from a group of terrorist harbingers. I know that sounds like a harsh indictment, but its true.

PETA members are involved in direct action campaigns (read: terrorist activities) every year. The people that throw paint on fur coats and hand out comic books that say "Your Mommy kills animals" are terrorists.

Terrorism isn't necessarily about violence for the sake of violence. It is very direct and very controlled violence. It is violence with a purpose. Although the violence may be direct at one group of people, that group may not be the intended recipient of the terrorism. The violence is designed to instill fear in the rest of us.

The activities that I described earlier have one desired effect: to make people afraid of reprisals if they wear fur or animal products.

What's more is that these people want you to be vegetarians for moral reasons.

Here is a screenshot of PETA's goveg.com website. (Emphasis added).

Point 1:At the top of the page, Paul McCartney is quoted as saying

"If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you can do."

No, Paul, not eating meat will not save the planet. Nothing will save the planet. It is physically impossible to save the planet. The planet is very old and has gone through several climate changes already. Nothing the human race can do will "Save the planet." Why? Because the planet will adapt no matter what. That and time is on the side of the planet. As it was said on Fight Club "On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero." You are not saving the planet, you are saving the humans.

Point 2:PETA is trying to claim that a vegetarian diet is the most humane diet there is. This rips that idea to shreds.

Point 3:While people like Paul McCartney, Alec Baldwin, and Alicia Silverstone sit around and preach that we shoudl save the animals, thousands of people in America go hungry. Thousands of people don't have enough food to feed their families. All of the money and effort designed to get people to switch to "alternative diets" could be better spent on feeding the poor. I have no sympathy for a group who wastes money on trivial issues like whether people eat meat or not.

If you really want to help animals, join a respectable group like the A.S.P.C.A. (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). Don't let PETA's shock tactics fool you.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 8:13 PM 2 comments    

The P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act of Video Games.
Friday, December 02, 2005

I know that I have already posted on this, but I'll be damned if I'm going to sit by and let the government intrude on what kinds of video games that I can play. I, personally, like and prefer violent video games. They are cathartic, especially after dealing with rush hour traffic. According to an article over at Gamespot.com, junior Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Joseph Lieberman, both Democrats, have authored a bill that could possibly have some devastating effects on the video game industry.

In what amounts to the equivalent of the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act for video games, this legislation would give the government unprecedented powers of regulation over the industry. What is interesting is that the ratings that the government wants to make law are those same self-imposed ratings that the industry came up with on its own.

If we already have a rating system in place that people are already abiding by, then why do we need to make it a law?

Senator Clinton has made some interesting remarks about why they authored this bill:

"video game content is getting more and more violent and sexually explicit."

In my opinion, it isn't the violence that is bothering them, rather it is the sexual content. Violence has been a part of video games ever since you could shoot down airplanes on your Atari system. What I'm having a problem understanding is how two Democrats could have a problem with the freedom of expression inherent in these video games. Wasn't it the democrats who were supportive of the artist who displayed a picture of the Virgin Mary made out of elephant feces and dead farm animals in 1999 at the Brooklyn Museum of Arts? I know that I am painting with broad strokes here, but in this case the generalization supports the point that typically it is the Democrats who are more liberal and allow more "controversial" stuff into the public arena because it broadens our minds.

Why is it that the left preaches that we should be tolerant of all beliefs, except for those that the right hold?

Another interesting quote from Senator Clinton is:

"A majority of parents are feeling increasingly victimized by a culture of violence that makes it difficult to protect their children against influences they find to be inappropriate,"

Isn't this the same thing that Christians everywhere are trying to do? "Protect their children against influences they find to be inappropriate?" We can't teach Creationism or even Intelligent Design as alternatives to Evolution? What about the influences that are already out there that parents don't want their children exposed to? Ex: Will & Grace, The L word, etc.

As is to be expected, the pissing match has already begun.

As the shirt says:


Shirt available for purchase here.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 10:58 PM 2 comments    

I got dumped.

I wrote another post on this, but it was too wordy and mainly for my own benefit. So, here is the boiled down version:

I got dumped on Sunday November 26th by a woman that I cared a lot for.

It hurts...a lot.

Listening to the version of "Wicked Game" by HIM helps a little bit.

I don't really know why she dumped me.

It hurts...a lot.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 7:00 PM 1 comments    

1 year of eXTReMe Tracking!!
Saturday, November 26, 2005

I have had this blog tracked by the good people over at eXTReMe Tracking for 1 whole year now. Here are the stats:

Unique Visitors:	2,044
Highest Day of Traffic:	20 May, Fri, 2005
Number of Visitors on that day:	47
Visitor Countries:	listed below

United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Netherlands, France, Australia, Bulgaria, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Switzerland, India, Brazil, Mexico, Poland, Hungary, Spain, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, Denmark, Malaysia, Norway, New Zealand, Portugal, Thailand, Peru, Indonesia, Argentina, Ireland, Islamic Republic of Iran, South Africa, Turkey, Romania, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Colombia, Pakistan, Austria, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Uruguay, Chile, Egypt, Lebanon, Czech Republic, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Luxembourg, Iceland, Lithuania, Kuwait, Venezuela, Latvia, Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, Qatar, Jordan, Croatia, Russian Federation, Cyprus, Costa Rica, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, and Greece

I would like to take the time now to thank everyone that has visited my site. If you are visiting from another country, feel free to post a comment and give a shout out.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 1:27 AM 0 comments    

The new Bond, James Bond.

I don't know if this is verified. I haven't been able to find anything about it anywhere else. On KVET 98.1's RateTheMusic Site there was a mini-article about how R&B star Usher wants to be the first black man to play James Bond.

I'm able to accept a blond James Bond ala Daniel Craig. He did exceptionally well in L4YER CAKE. I can accept him as James Bond namely because he is British. Usher, however, was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

That's all we need is a guy like Usher playing James Bond. If I were to have to recommend a black actor to take the part of 007, it would have to be someone like Morgan Freeman. Freeman is a distinguished actor who could bring something to the role that Usher or those of his ilk never could: class. Remember James Bond isn't just cool, he's classy, he's suave and debonair. He does not role up to Monte Carlo casinos in a Cadillac with spinners on the wheels!!

I sincerely hope that the Broccoli family treats the franchise right. Sean Connery started something great. Roger Moore carried the torch for too long. Timothy Dalton took the life out of it. But Pierce Brosnan brought it back from the dead and did so with style. Don't screw it up!

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 1:06 AM 0 comments    

Gamers are people too.
Monday, November 21, 2005

I want to apologize to anyone who saw tonight's (Nov. 21, 2005) episode of CSI: Miami. While normally, this is a great show and generally very real and accurate, tonight they created a picture of videogamers that I think will only reinforce the already negative image associated with gamers. To spoil the plot, what happened was that several college students were using a video game as the basis of their criminal activity. It turns out that the writer/developer of the game was providing weapons to help them out in order to boost sales of the game: "Urban Hell Raisers".

Unfortunately, thanks to people like Jack Thompson, this has become a widespread fear for many people. Reports that criminals had copies of certain games leads to a media frenzy about whether the video game was the cause of violence and speculations that criminals may be using video games as "trainers" abound. Let me se something straight here. Video Games Do NOT cause violence. Violence is something inherent within each and every person. It has to be. Humans did not evolve to become the top of the food chain by being pacifists. Humans had to fight in order to be where we are. Individuals however may not necessarily be inclined towards violence, and human society in general is not violent, but we all have violence within ourselves. Some people more than others have a very thin layer of civility separating them from being violent while others may take a lot to get to that core. What's more is that some either cannot or chose not to distinguish fantasy from reality. However, these are preexisting conditions. Yes, video games may be the catalyst for some people to behave violently, but for others they are the a means of escaping where they can act out aggresive fantasies in non-harmful ways.

Video games are not the problem. People are the problem. Individuals who cannot or will not distinguish reality from make beleive.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 11:13 PM 0 comments    

Justice upheld!
Thursday, November 17, 2005

Neither of these picture were used with permission.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 5:33 PM 0 comments    

What Makes A Good Video Game
Sunday, November 13, 2005

I've been a gamer for nearly all of my life. I remember having my Atari system and loving it. Then I remember being wowed as I guided an Italian plumber across the screen when I got my first nintendo. But what really got me into gaming was computer games. Ever since I first got on the Internet when I was in the 3rd grade (about 1989), I've been into computer games. So, now, despite all of the controversy surrounding video games, I thought that I would write about what I think makes a good video game.

1. Mods. Your game must have the capability to be easily modded and to have those mods easy to play. For reference, check out the Half-Life Series. These games have spawned some of the best mods in the industry. Cuonter-Strike is an all time favorite. What's more is that you can easily play any of the mods for this series with minimal frustration.

2. Decent Graphics I understand that at every time a game is released there is only so much that computers can do. That being said, the developers need to make sure that the game looks decent and makes full use of the possibilty of what is possible. Too many time have I been disappointed by games whose screen shots look nice but the gameplay fails to live up to the hype.

This isn't a comprehensive list, but something that I will update soon.

Posted byJ. R. Guinness at 9:40 PM 0 comments