Monthly Archives: April 2003

Rapper Cannibal

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“Part of what makes a Gansta Rap artist marketable is the fact that the artist is a current ongoing participant in violent gang activities,” the lawsuit said.

“Singleton met this criteria and was even more marketable because his songs were as violent as his lifestyle and included rape, murder and ended with him eating his victim’s body organs.”

Pretty creepy article here.

Money well spent

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Although probably harmless reading to most people, it’s articles like this that really piss me off. A “war on video game violence.” Fucking ridiculous.

It amazes me that modern liberals can sit back and claim they want the government to keep their nose out of our private lives. They want government to keep their noses out of abortion, and they cry foul when things like the Patriot Act are created because it makes them nervous that the government is monitoring our personal business… and I’m with them! But then it comes to entertainment, and employment, and health care, and all of a sudden the government is great? “More government!” they say. I want them telling me what to do, and I want them paying for everything! What? I was with you guys for a while there, and then you all went looney. To be fair, it’s typically conservatives who love to crack down on entertainment (Brownback is mentioned in the article) and they also have their own slew of inconsistent views on the government’s role in our lives.

Someone explain to me why Joe Lieberman is using my money to pay for a study on video games. Explain it. Explain why it’s the role of government to do this. There are thousands of educational institutions and non-profit organizations conducting tons of studies and authoring plenty of papers on every subject known to man. Parents can give their money to non-profit groups to conduct this research if parents really care about this.

“Lieberman said in the statement that the game links violence with sex and rewards players for degrading and killing women. ‘This is sick and indefensible…'”

So there are two possible outcomes: 1) they find this “sick and indefensible” material is harmful to children, or 2) they don’t. Well, my guess is they’re going to find #1. Even if the study doesn’t find #1, they’ll keep doing studies until they come to that conclusion. That’s fine. We already have a ratings system in place. Just get it over with. Make it illegal for kids to buy mature video games. Make it illegal for kids to buy all video games. It doesn’t matter, kids have limited constitutional rights as it is. Just remember two things: 1) Game manufacturers should be able to produce whatever games they please, and 2) Adults should be able to purchase whatever games they please. This is a “war” we don’t need to start.

No Highs, No Lows, Buy Bose

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I’ve been shopping for speakers recently (home theatre-type) and in doing research unearthed what kind of surprised me, but in retrospect doesn’t. Ask most people who dig electronics, or even who just visit Best Buy or Circuit City from time to time what the best speakers around are, and in general you’ll hear “Bose.”

Well, after a few trips to audiophile-type newsgroups, I quickly learned that Bose are generally regarded as cheap, overpriced speakers. This FAQ was pretty interesting (although it’s a bit dated). I’m currently looking at Paradigm, and based on a test listen at a small local speaker store was pretty impressed.