It's a sad thing to hear that Rich Gallup will be leaving gamespot. I want to take this opportunity to wish him well, and thank him for all the hard work and the great job he did on all of gamespot's live shows. Good luck on all of your future endeavors, and know you'll be sorely missed by gamespot's faithful readers.

Almost two days after i bought it, i am finally able to take my iPhone online. In fact I'm posting this blog from it right now. Having never owned a smart phone before I'm finding it surprising easy to type, and to type quickly. The touch screen is very responsive and the intelligence behind how the iPhone guesses at what word you meant to type if you make a mistake is quite impressive. However it doesn't appear to catch everything. Now I have only typed at length with the phone in landscape mode, which I find to be quite easy. The browser load time is great running off the wireless router I have, works just as well as my desktop computer. Well I'm signing off for the night. I hope everyone has a good week. And as always, happy gaming.

so, after more than a month abstaining from all things even remotely related to school or work, i'm starting to get back into the swing of things by putting up some photos here. First are screens from this really cool Pac-Man motif I did on a car in Forza Motorsport 2. There's an album of them, so go check it out on my Images tab... And I'm just starting to work through the tons and tons of World of Warcraft screens that have literally taken over my desktop. I've been playing a lot the last month, and have taken more than enough pictures. It's been a busy month on the server I play on, a new instance opened in Silithus, causing a whole bunch of mayhem... Too bad my main was only high enough to get to Tanaris, but there was still some madness spilling over into Gadgetzan. I'll be adding screens of the aftermath of the fights there, as well as some other odds and ends over the next few days... so cheerio for now, and happy gaming...

I have the greatest respect for our United State's Armed Forces... it's nice to see 'em blowing off a little steam... (*video does contain some language*) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhKKJ4UQ3_A honestly, you can wine all you want about them wasting a grenade, not to mention a washing machine, but really... a few moments of fun to get their minds away for at least a few minutes is worth it... they're putting their lives on the line everyday the least we could do is be in support of them.

I am whole heartedly against governmental censorship. I believe that the ultimate censor is a little thing called "supply and demand". Let me explain: in order for any piece of art and/or entertainment medium to be enjoyed by anyone, there are always one or two things that person must forfeit to enjoy that piece of art and/or entertainment. They must always forfeit time, one of our most precious commodities, and sometimes they must forfeit money. This forms the basis of what becomes the complex structure of supply and demand. The most basic explanation is if the content of a piece of art and/or entertainment is "too" anything for the consumer of that piece of art and/or entertainment than that consumer will not forfeit their time, and most certainly not their money, towards that piece of art and/or entertainment. In turn the demand for that type of art and/or entertainment goes down, and thus so does the supply so that that piece or kind of art and/or entertainment has effectively been "censored" and is no longer being produced in the same fashion. This is how supply and demand is the ultimate censor, and since supply and demand is based solely upon the consumer, they in turn are the driving force behind the ultimate censor, and so are in control of it. Thus eliminating any need for a person or an organization, no matter how "good" or "noble" their intent, to step in and be the censor for them. The content of art and entertainment is self-regulating and self-censoring based upon popular demand, making governmental censorship as unneeded as it is unwarranted.

I've been following with great interest and much scrutiny all of the wheelings, dealings, and proceedings of J*** T****son's attempt and failure at preventing Rockstar's PlayStation 2 game Bully from shipping to stores. I know that many a game player get a real kick out of JT's antics, and most hate him out of spite mixed with a little ignorance. I share much of these same feelings, excluding the bit about being ignorant. Still, among all of the unbelievable legal stunts and antics that comprise JT's career as a lawyer, no one seems to have brought up what I find to be a very odd patern. JT seems to be stuck on attacking games made by Rockstar Games, and/or games that either have an M rating, or a game JT thinks should have an M rating; this befuddles me. I recently bought the Family Guy video game. I am a huge fan of Family Guy. I have played through a few hours of the game and can say that if you like the show at all, you'll love the game. It's a little difficult, but all the humor from the show is in the game, and then some. It's the "and then some" part that I wonder, really, why JT hasn't gone after. There are a lot of jokes in the game that would not make it onto an aired episode; even the box says "Too racy for TV" on the back of it (or something to that effect). Also, JT hasn't attacked such games as Call of Duty 2. Which even I have the belief that the content matter is a little too mature for the game's Teen rating, but of course that's just my opinion. And that's just the thing: people, JT included, have to realize that the ESRB rating system is just a guide, much the same as the MPAA ratings for motion pictures is just a guide. In the end, the consumer has to make the decision. The Florida judge who presided over the hearing concerning Bully, a Judge Friedman, said "There's nothing in the game that you wouldn't see on TV every night" Bully received a Teen rating because the content was deemed by ESRB raters as having content suitable to receive a Teen rating. This is, however, no license that you have to agree to let your teenager play Bully. Judge Friedman even said he wouldn't want his kids to play Bully, but that "that shouldn't mean that the game won't ship." Judge Friedman nailed the issue on the head. The responsibility of making sure that content too mature for some teenagers stays out of those teenager's hands is the parents of those very teenagers; not the game development studios', not the courts', not a lawyer from Florida (or from anywhere else for that matter), it's the parents' responsibility. That is where the responsibility has always lie, and that's where it always should lie.

* This is taken from an essay I wrote denouncing a certain tenant of the Formalist Theory of Literature. I won't get into what that is, but this section of that essay has true bearing on what Nintendo is doing in the gaming industry today with the DS and the Wii. * One of the most used phrases inside the business world today is “innovate or die.” The idea that continually pursuing the same end through the same means will eventually drive you to utter failure is something that has been the subject of study for many years. If “...continuity in literature...” was truly “...more important and significant than innovation...” the state of literature today would be very different. Today there are bookstores full of novels of many different genres, many of which have existed in their modern day forms for less than 100 years. Take the Graphic Novel for instance; the first Graphic Novel published in the United States was “The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck”, published in 1842. However, stories have been told via pictures even before the beginning of written history. There are Petroglyphs in the American Southwest that date back thousands of years. These Petroglyphs were carved into the walls of canyons to record stories. The modern day Graphic Novel is only the most current iteration of a long line of innovations that began with Petroglyphs etched onto canyon walls thousands of years ago. The same can be said of all genres currently in existence in literature. They are all just the most current iteration in a long line of innovation brought on by progressive thinkers who took to heart the fact that innovation is the only real means of progression. (C) Jonathan A. Daley, September 11, 2006

"Any gamer can play M games. Parents and your age got nothing to do with playing M games. If you really wanna play M games, you can. If you feel you can't, ur a wuss." I read this earlier today... this is exactly the attitude that politicians are using against the entirety of honest game players. Parents, and the age a game player is has EVERYTHING to do with playing M rated games. If the game player is under 17, then it is up to their parents to decide whether or not the game player should play that game. Really, this is a lousy attitude to have about this, and will only invite governmental control over not only game ratings, but possibly even game production and development itself. So when the day comes that video games can no longer be made freely and unadulterated we will have attitudes like this to blame for it all. Any serious, honest game player who cares even the slightest about video games and the video game industry should take offense to anyone who holds such an opinion about the video game rating system. And they should speak out against anyone who holds such a view, tell them why they should not hold such an opinion, and explain to them why.

Upon hearing the initial news that E3, the fair maiden from whom many a video game blessing has flowed is to be no more, much grief ensued. I am going to work in the video game industry as a writer, hopefully as a journalist. Nowadays with digitally distributed demos, trailers, and the like, there are fewer and fewer things that are game journalist exclusives, save E3. The world's largest trade show, THE main event on the calendar year for all game journalists, the ONE thing I was looking forward to being able to attend as a game journalist, to be able to stand at the entrance to the LA Convention Center under the huge "Welcome to E3 20XX" and say to myself "I've finally made it"... but alas, E3 is now but one of a seemingly ever growing list of fair maidens that are now out of my reach. So I raise a toast to the Electronic Entertainment Expo... to all the glory that I, and many others, will never personally know... To E3!!! ... may she rest in peace...

last Sunday I sent an email to The HotSpot crew, the second one i've ever sent. And they read it on their podcast!!!!!!! This just made my week man... i'm right in the middle of a move, and have spent the past six days packing stuff up and making phone call after phone call making sure everything's ready for my move and in the midst of it all I'm listening to The HotSpot, and boom... they read my email... how freakin' sweet is that?!?!! I asked them about moving my 6 game consoles, which include an SNES, Dreamcast, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, GameCube and an XBox 360. Now all of my consoles are packed safely away for my move. I can't wait to unpack 'em and set 'em back up again. When I set them all back up I'm planning on completely redoing how I had them set up before I packed them all away. I bought a nice audio tier at Target a few days ago and all of my consoles save my PS2 slim are going to be set on it. I'm putting my PS2 slim right next to my tv since I have it sitting up vertically on a stand it's too tall to fit in any of the audio tier's shelves. I'm also going to be purchasing a bookshelf like shelving system for all of my games and DVD's. I have 130 odd game cases and about 50 odd movies that will be in need of a place to be displayed. An odd thing I noticed when looking into options for storing my games and movies is that many of the shelving and/or storage systems one could purchase have on their boxes the following feature as a selling point: Hides game/DVD/cd cases from view. My immediate reaction was: "well I don't want to hide any of my games and movies from view... I want to display them and show off my collection." I guess it comes down to what one takes pride in, a clean, sleek looking living room... or one that looks like a personal video and game store... I opt for the personal video and game store myself...