So Hillary Clinton and crew have succeeded in getting Grend Theft Auto pulled from stores because there's a patch you can download in the PC version that lets you unlock a sex scene. And in the console version you can unlock it if you have whatever Game Genie type device exists these days. Anyway, the fact that our government got involved and pulled this game from stores and forced it to switch ratings from the M (17+) rating to an adults only rating, effectively making the game porn. Here's where I have a problem with this. R rated movies, which are marketed at the exact same audience as an M rated game are allowed to have much more graphic sex scenes than GTA (both people are fully clothed in GTA) and there are hundreds of movies that exist on store shelves like this. Yet somehow in a game sex is an offense worth banning the game for? Videogames aren't just a kids thing anymore, because all the kids who grew up on videogames are grown up now. We like games sometimes that don't feature cartoon characters jumping on each other. Maybe something a little more mature than that. Not that I'm saying I need sex in my videogames, but I don't see what the giant issue is here. If the argument is that children have access to the game, the same argument can be made about R rated movies - kids can get into them with an adult at theaters, or just watch them at home after their parents buy or rent them. Plus, little kids who shouldn't be seeing the videogame sex probably wouldn't know how to download the patch and install it, or use the Game Genie to input the correct codes. Yet I like how this is what the big deal is, and not the fact that you can have sex with a hooker in your car (but you can't see it), pay her, hop out and kill her and take your money back. Or the fact that it realistically portrays gang violence, killing innocent people, etc. For the record, I have no problem with that either, it just goes to show how prudish we still are about sex. You know, sex is what keeps the human race from going extinct, yet we treat it like it's some kind of disease to be avoided at all costs. So there goes my vote for Hillary Clinton in '08 if she decides to run. Dumb bitch. I have a serious problem with censorship.

Officemax has been pretty boring so far, just sitting in the break room listening to policies and whatnot. Tomorrow I think I'm actually going to do some work, so that's exciting, I guess. What's not exciting is that I have to go in at 7am for a meeting, then come back at 3 to work until close. But whatever. What else would I be doing? All the people I've met that I'm going to work with seem cool, and all the girls who work there are hot, so I can't complain about anything in the HR department as of yet. The bosses seem a little strange, but overall it seems like a nice place to work. We'll see. It'll really be the customers that make or break this job, and if my previous experience with customers is any indication, I'll be wanting to kill someone by next week. Speaking of next week, Brian comes to visit on the 26th. Fun times are sure to ensue. Probably not fun times as in getting drunk and laid every night, but more like fun times like playing videogames and generally being huge nerds. Cause I'd by lying to you if I said we weren't huge nerds.

I got two new books yesterday. Vurt by Jeff Noon, which I read half way when I was waiting for Leslie to get her nails done. It's a really cool scifi type book about these drugs that are contained in feathers that put you in like another world, kind of like virtual reality but a different dimension. The main character lost his sister in one of the particularly bad feathers and got this alien in exchange, and he's trying to find this super rare feather so he can go in and trade the alien back for his sister. Sounds weird, and it is, but it's really good. Then I got Americana by Don DeLillo because I liked White Noise by him last summer, I think I'm taking a class on him next semester, and the back of the book made it sound interesting. Guy gives up his cushy life to travel across the country with a videocamera. Sounds like my kind of book.

I went driving up inthe mountains alone yesterday and it was pretty awesome. I took along a lot of good punk rock driving music: Cadillac Blindside, Lawrence Arms, Descendents, Against Me!, and Less than Jake. Sung at the top of my lungs until my throat hurt, drove way too fast around sharp corners, and generally enjoyed being the only car on the road. I was going to drive over some pass, but the road got too shady for me, all bumpy and stuff, and I didn't want to damage my car so I turned around. Kind of lost momentum after that, but whatever. If I get bored enough again I might do it today and just keep going but not take that pass and see if I can ever make it to a town. There are lots of houses up there, big expensive ones, and ranches, but no towns. No gas stations, no grocery stores. I don't know where these people get their stuff unless they just eat what they raise. A 45 minute drive into Fort Collins for gas seems a little ridiculous though. Ah, well, it cleared my mind for a while and wasted a couple hours of my time, and that's all I needed it to do.

It's hot hot hot here. Like around 100 degrees every day. Yeah. I don't have anything to say about that, just felt like pointing it out.

As far as Sarai goes, it's hard to talk about here because she reads this every now and again, but I have no idea what's going on there. I'm thick and clueless to begin with so that doesn't help any. I guess we're just going to see what happens when she gets back, but I have no idea if she's interested in dating or just friendship or what. I guess that mystery will reveal itself in time, but as for now, count me clueless. Her parents made her get rid of her pink hair though, and that's really disappointing, though the red-brown color it is now is still pretty cool. Just not pink.

Leslie and I are talking more now than we were for a while, and that's nice. I think she's coming to visit on Sunday assuming I have the evening free and nothing comes up on her end. That should be fun. I haven't seen her in months now. So that'll be nice.

And I guess that's it. It's been pretty slow, this update was kind of forced, but whatever. Enjoy your summer, I hope it's cooler there than it is here.