I recently read an article where a guy posed as a kindergardener to find out what the senators' favorite jokes were (about 30% responded). This inspired me to find out what their views were on video games.
I decided to go on an emailing campaign to see "who's got game?!" I decided on a specific topic and made this email message:

Dear Senator,

I am a sophmore in (my high school) in (my town, state). For a project in US History, I am asking every senator this question: What is your policy on Video Games? Would you pass a bill for a law that puts a tax on video games? I would like it if you honestly answered this question to the email I specified.

Thank you,
Anthony

It's all really only half-true, but I don't think any senator would go to my school to check up on my school projects. I sent this to senators with last names starting with A & B so far. I am thinking of doing about 7-8 emails a day. I have already gotten 2 responses, nothing interesting though.

Senator George Allen (VA) writes:


Dear Anthony:

Thank you for contacting me regarding our nation’s standards of media decency. I appreciate your concerns and value the opportunity to respond.

As you may be aware, the Senate passed and the President signed into law the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005, S. 193 of which I was a co-sponsor. As the proud parents of three young children, Susan and I understand a parents’ desire to ensure that their children are protected from indecent material. This legislation will increase the maximum fine for indecent television and radio broadcasts. I believe the current level of fines do not sufficiently deter multi-million dollar corporations from airing inappropriate material. As written, the bill will give the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) the ability to increase fines against networks and its broadcasters that are found in violation of existing decency standards. The bill does not change existing decency standards used by the FCC.

I advocated for similar legislation during the last session of Congress and sent a letter to then Chairman of the FCC, Michael Powell, voicing my concern regarding the FCC’s seemingly perfunctory approach to enforcing our nation’s media decency standards. While I believe that regulations should not unnecessarily restrict individual expression, I do maintain the belief that media outlets have a responsibility to their consumers to exercise proper judgment when airing potentially offensive programming.

Traditionally, standards such as television rating systems have been self-imposed and self-regulated; and I support efforts by the entertainment industry to keep consumers informed of the content of their product. I also support developing technologies, such as the V-chip, that enable parents to control the programs their children watch. Please rest assure that I am keeping a watchful eye on the FCC, while also looking for ways to safeguard our children from indecent material.

Please feel free to contact me again about issues important to you. If you would like to receive an e-mail newsletter about my initiatives to improve America, please sign up on my website (). It is an honor to serve you in the United States Senate, and I look forward to working with you to make Virginia and America a better place to live, learn, work and raise a family.

With warm regards, I remain

Sincerely,

Senator George Allen


It's not really what I asked, but I appreciate the quick response. I might need to check on him one more time.

Senator Barbara Boxer (CA) writes:


Dear Friend:

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and concerns with me
via email. I hope you will understand that, because of the volume of
emails I receive from residents of California, I cannot at this time
respond to messages received from residents of other states.

If you are a service member from California but are stationed out of
state, please return to my webform at
http://www.boxer.senate.gov/contact/email/policy.cfm and enter your
California Home of Record in the Address section. I will then receive
your message and can send you a response.

If you are a civilian, I encourage you to contact your U.S. Senators if
you have an issue or concern that needs immediate attention. You can
access your Senators electronically by visiting
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index_by_state.cfm for a listing of their
contact information.

If you are still interested in learning more about the work I am doing on
behalf of California, I hope that you will continue to visit my website at
http://boxer.senate.gov.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator


Well, I can understand, since California is so frickin huge. I might need some help from a Californian with this one.

This is as far as I have gotten at the moment. Will update with more when I get them.

I decided to make a topic of all of the major Nintendo news stories of the day, hopefully I can make this a daily thing.

Gearbox Software, the makers of games such as the Brothers in Arms series, officially announced its support for the Wii.  CEO Randy Pitchford notes strengths such as its price and its unique interface.  Pitchford also announced its concern that the Wii is lacking in power compared to other next-gen consoles.  Pitchford didn't announce any games for the Wii, but he wasn't ruling it out as a candidate for Gearbox games.  More...

Media Create Co. recently reported that the DS Lite had sold over 262,000 units last week.  By comparison, the PSP had only sold just under 36,000 units.  Also, six Nintendo DS software titles were among the top ten in sales.  Nintendo has sold over 21 million DS and DS Lite units so far.  More...

Nintendo has announced the Japanese release date of the official Nintendo DS headset to be September 9th.  The headset was made specifically for games utilizing the microphone feature such as Metroid Prime Hunters.  Also, Nintendo has revealed the first picture of the headset, pictured above.  More...

The latest Nintendo Power magazine has made a stir as their letter-to-the-editor article, Pulse, actually takes a trip back in time to 1991.  The editor had asked for subscribers to write in their dream video game system.  Jimmy Peterford had wrote in a letter with his dream console, and there are many similarities between his dream console and the Wii.  The most notable one is the title of the game it comes with, Super Mario Galaxy.  Other similarites:
The dream console is 512-bit and the Wii has a 512 MB internal flash memory.
The dream console could play any game ever made and the Wii has the Virtual Console.
The dream console has a mini band inside that can play any song, and Wii has Wii Music.
The dream console has a seperate chip you can buy to make your own games, and the Wii's official website quotes "'It also will be home to new games conceived by indie developers whose creativity is larger than their budgets."
More...

I decided to make a union that would enlighten all members of the comings and goings of Nintendo.  I think that the Nin In is going to be a big hit despite my past efforts to make a creative, out-of-the-box driven union that everyone can find useful to be enrolled in as a member.  The Nin In will be very different from my flop of a union I tried to set up a long time ago because I feel that every Nintendo fan will be buzzing when Nintendo spills the beans.  Nintendo has a very secretive behavior to keep its ideas from being stolen in this very aggressive industry, it has become almost trademark.  So, the Nin In was set up so that the very minute the news hits the internet, it can be found here.

The Nin In is still in the charter member recruitment process, but as soon as a fourth person accepts the offer, everyone is invited to join in on it.

Today I recieved word that my GameSpot Deluxe toolbar has been approved for the Mozilla Firefox Add-on list.  It is a major achievement and the man who tested it told me about how it was perfect for any gamer who uses GameSpot.

This is very exciting to me because I have already had 23 dowloads in the first three hours or so it has been available.  That's about 1 download every 10 minutes, which is good for a monday morning.  This adds to the about 575 downloads I have already gotten.  Thanks Mozilla!

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2750/

Ok everyone, I'm officially back.
I'll be much more active in the coming weeks/months

It's called the Game of the Week Union, so check it out.

Edit: It died...:(

Wow, finally!  Lvl 6!  Yay!  I'm gonna start a union now.  I'm gonna get all my friends to join.  But wait, they are never online since the new GameSpot!  Oh no!  I gotta get new friends fast (no offense)!  So, what am I calling my new union?  Could it be something about my GameSpot Toolbar?  Nah, that's just silly... I suppose it could be about an upcoming game.  The Movies is looking nice.  Of course, I could do it on the DS and Mario Kart and stuff, but there are too many of those unions already.  And yet, it could be something completely unrelated to video games, but no one would buy that...  Why am I rambling?

YOU SUCK!  I must say, you can't blame your problems on video games.  At the most, blame them for your accomplishments.  I mean, look at how well I'm doing:

I just thought I would share this information with you all. It's a Dear Annie article snippet, this person has a serious probem.

Dear Annie: I am a 35-year-old woman with four children, an advanced degree and no serious health problems, but I have compulsively and secretly been eating crayons for months. I don't mean chewing on a crayon here and there. I mean eating an entire 64-count box, and doing it several times a week. I can't stop, and I don't know why I'm doing this. I am too embarrassed to tell my doctor, because I know he'll think I am crazy. The box says the crayons are non-toxic, but I'm really eating a lot of them. And this is a really dumb question, but are they fattening? Why am I doing this? Am I crazy? Please help.

-- Crayon Freak

gameszmaster18: First victim

oldname20128(4:45:11): yo what up
Gamezmaster18(4:45:24): hello?
oldname20128(4:45:35): how r you?
Gamezmaster18(4:45:45): you are..?
oldname20128(4:45:58 ): hmmm, what do you want to talk about?
Gamezmaster18(4:46:06): who are you?
oldname20128(4:46:20): my name is roy
Gamezmaster18(4:46:25): WTF?
oldname20128(4:46:37): wtach your language!!
oldname20128(4:47:46): Please talk to me
Gamezmaster18(4:48:00): who are you?!?
oldname20128(4:48:08 ): I'm roy
Gamezmaster18(4:48:14): roy who
oldname20128(4:48:23): :-P
Gamezmaster18(4:49:06): if you dont tell me exeactly who you are i will block you. you apparently arent someone i know and you have 1 20% warning level
oldname20128(4:49:19): u sure? hmmm maybe not, can we talk tho?
oldname20128(4:50:22): :-p
The user has signed off or has blocked the bot! Conversation ended...

Lu_bu01: Second victim

comedianz622(12:51:51): hey what up its yo friend from gamespot
LuBu998(12:52:01): who's this?
comedianz622(12:52:10): I'm roy
LuBu998(12:52:17): roy...?
comedianz622(12:52:27): :-\
LuBu998(12:53:04): wat's your gamespot name?
comedianz622(12:53:15): oh crap i forgot my dentist appointment :-/ oops
LuBu998(12:53:26): :|
comedianz622(12:53:38 ): are you ayn good with computers? I am pretty illiterate when it comes to computers, haha
LuBu998(12:53:59): you're not going to tell what your GameSpot name is?
comedianz622(12:54:12): roy 55/male/texas
LuBu998(12:54:24): GAMESPOT NAME NOT REAL NAME
comedianz622(12:54:39): have u seen the new War of the Worlds? i thought it was really good
LuBu998(12:55:05): yeh, I've seen it.
comedianz622(12:55:16): cool
getgoing3585(12:55:44): hey! sorry, i switched screennames
LuBu998(12:55:53): ...
getgoing3585(12:56:03): oh crap i forgot my dentist appointment :-/ oops
LuBu998(12:56:15): Freak told you to do this?
getgoing3585(12:56:27): sorry, I am forgetful lol
getgoing3585(12:57:05): :-p
LuBu998(12:57:13): who is this?
getgoing3585(12:57:23): roy 55/male/texas
LuBu998(12:58:11): goddamn
getgoing3585(12:58:25): hello? ugh aol keeps freezing on me
getgoing3585(12:59:32): ???
getgoing3585(1:00:42): Please talk to me
LuBu998(1:00:53): tell me your gamespot s/n or PM it to me or I'll block you permanantly
getgoing3585(1:01:05): you want me to tell you?
getgoing3585: You have been talking to a computer! One of your friends is reading the whole conversation and laughing it up right now! GET EVEN! Have the bot prank all your friends by visiting imprank.ebaumsworld(dot)com
http://imprank.ebaumsworld.com