GTA4 drives mothers M.A.D.D.!

Mothers Against Drunk Driving have issued a statement demanding a stricter rating on Grand Theft Auto 4 because of the player's ability to drunk drive during the game. The organization is calling for a "Adults Only" rating to be implemented as opposed to the "Mature" rating the game currently contains.

Are we serious here? Does anyone realize that the effort and time put into getting as far as creating an organization as well as acting on issues by these mothers could have been used to parent their children? Honestly, if these anal mothers spent half the time they did with creating M.A.D.D. to sit with their kid and talk about what is and what is not right for them then there would be no problem in the first place.

I'm sorry but if your 17 year old needs to be reminded that drunk driving in the game is obviously fictional and not meant to be done in real life, then you better get some bulletproof vests before your child shoots a rocket launcher in your house and gets arrested for killing hookers and selling drugs. Oh but, getting head from a prostitute and murdering civilians is mature, but drunk driving??! Hell no, that's even beyond mature!! Are you kidding me...

It's safe to say that M.A.D.D. is D.U.M.B. but it's not safe to trust parents in this generation to do their job and raise their kids instead of sitting them in front of the television so you don't have to pay attention to them.



You think Mad Mothers would be mad over something much more significant than 'simulated' driving under the influence. After all, the game is eye popping when the story involves your main character working for low-life hustlers and loan sharks bent on milking innocent entrepreneurs, kidnapping the daughters of rival families for ransom, eventually killing them along with their wife and kids, carjacking someone's police cruiser, driving down the median of major avenues/sidewalks while hurling lighted kerosene glass bottles at them, pummeling through hot dog stands and washing the blood of pregnant women off your windshield, scoring head shots on random commuters through their windshields, picking fights with bystanders, so on and so forth.

Of all those heinous acts, driving under the influence is enough alone to change the game's rating from M to A.O. According to sources generally (i.e. Wikipedia), switching the game's rating from M to A.O. would effectively prohibit retailers from selling the game. As if that will help M.A.D.D.'s mission at all, there are plenty of other outlets where this game would be distributed.

As in real life, the game doesn't simulate drunk driving without consequences. The main character's walking and driving skills are substantially impaired while under the influence, and considered somewhat over-exaggerated by some people. A player driving under the influence will immediately attract the police and award the player two wanted stars, resulting in a flood of police cruisers trying to stop and arrest your character. Another simulated effect on the player's driving skill is an oscillating steering motion, making it difficult to travel through narrow bridges/roadways without crashing your vehicle. While in reality the effects of alcohol differ from person to person, the risks are violent and dangerous, and the consequences are real. At least in this video game, you can load a previous save game if you crash your sports car through the front door of a fast food restaurant. However in real life, you sit in a concrete cell for a couple years to reflect on the stupidity of your actions.

All seriousness aside, changing the game's rating to A.O. isn't the right approach. It is up to players to draw a clear distinction between simulation and reality, and those who lack that capability should either watch themselves critically, or abstain from playing these games at all. As for M.A.D.D.'s mission, I'm sympathetic with their cause, but banning alcohol or censoring video games is not an appropriate avenue for meeting their objectives.

VEISHEA 2008

In case you didn't know, I'm an undergraduate at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. I'm in my senior year and getting around to graduating by the end of this calendar year. Each year, Iowa State has an annual celebration known as VEISHEA, to celebrate the various colleges of Iowa State. In short, it is a student-run college festival. VEISHEA was cancelled for 2005 after riots took place in 2004. However, it returned in 2006 and was a major success. I had a lot of fun because it was my first VEISHEA, and I took the liberty of filming the various activities that occurred during the week. I participated in the free lunches, the rides, the street vendors. But the most fun I had was when they played live music, and I vividly remember seeing for the first time, college students pit moshing to the rock music while under the influence of alcohol. First, I was disgusted, but then I realized that they were just having harmless fun. It was an interesting spectacle to watch.

The following year, I attended VEISHEA again, but this time around I was 21 years of age, so I took the liberty to get myself intoxicated. I spent most of Friday and Saturday hanging around with old friends that I hadn't seen in a while, and we cooked some hot dogs and barbecue pork, while working on a 30 pack of beer. That year, it was particularly warm and nice outside. My friends and I attended the live music that was part of VEISHEA. By the time I went there, I had stopped drinking and felt good enough to stand on my own feet. This VEISHEA saw a huge turnout. An estimated 12,000 people came from all around Iowa to see the headliner Mike Jones perform, although he did a miserable job. He showed up 45 minutes late and only played for about ~30 minutes, sampling his tracks for a minute or less, and spending the majority of the time lecturing the crowd on how to sing along. Too bad the crowd isn't really into his music.

But with all the background info aside, let's get to the subject of this blog post: VEISHEA 2008. It sucked. Pardon my incomplete sentences, but I am trying to exaggerate the effect of that statement. VEISHEA 2008 sucked.

Why did it suck?

1. Bad Weather: this is the main culprit (also a convenient scapegoat for the VEISHEA organizers). Most of the week saw overcast skies with cold weather (close to zero degrees Celsius). Particularly on Friday and Saturday, it rained and snowed. That's right, it snowed. Some people attribute this to the fact that VEISHEA 2008 was held on the first full week of April this year (VEISHEA was held on the third full week on April of 2007). It is not uncommon for a last-minute blizzard to sweep through Iowa during the last week of March, or first week of April. Hats off to the VEISHEA committee for moving the festival closer to winter. Even better, they are talking about moving it up another week for 2009. Brilliant!

2. Wristband Policy: somehow the huge turnout of 12,000 people last year had sent the Iowa State University Department of Public Safety running for tighter rules. Or maybe it wasn't the DPS, but the University Administration, or whatever. Some moron decided that it would be a good idea to close off the free live music to the general public, restricting it to a closed fenced-off venue, where they could sell wristbands that would guarantee admission into the venue. While I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to that, they instituted two wrongs here: Only Iowa State students/alumni can purchase one wristband. Wait? What about my friends from high school? Oh too bad, they have no affiliation or interest in Iowa State University. They aren't entitled to admission. WHAT THE FLYING @($*%! Even better, they would only sell 7,000 wristbands. Further, they would move the music to a smaller venue so as to fence it off and maintain tight control over the event. Nevermind that 12,000 people came to see Mike Jones the previous year. They said that after a few days of selling wristbands, they would sell one additional wristband per student if they had any leftover. That wasn't good enough. I was actually looking to invite my sister, and his boyfriend (who will be an incoming freshman next year) to the celebration. But scratch that, they aren't Iowa State students. This policy actually caused a firestorm. Overnight a Facebook group popped up, and over 10,000 people joined it in a heartbeat. There was even threats of riots being planned, which caught the attention of the Des Moines Register.

3. Wristband policy. Wait, I already covered this, but this fiasco has made me feel completely disenchanted at a lot of players who were behind this crap:

a. Iowa State University Administration - I am not sure what role they played generally, but no doubt there are a few individuals who used their "iron fist" powers to apply some top-down pressure on the other players.

b. Iowa State University Department of Public Safety - I suspect they are the culprits. The previous year, they wrote close to one hundred citations for underage possession of alcohol at VEISHEA 2007. I think they would be happy to have written so many citations and bring in a ton of fine revenue for the State. Oh, and there weren't any angry mobs. Mikes Jones did show up a little late, but 2007 didn't see any burning trash cans or broken windows. But I must be mistaken. Apparently DPS was shitting their pants when the time came to discuss VEISHEA 2008. Moving the live music to a smaller (and controlled) fenced-off venue sounds like a wish list item that DPS would want. Limiting attendance to a fraction of the student population would provide for officers to maintain proper control. With the entrance at one place, they would strip search all people entering and confiscate any contraband, as well as identify people who are intoxicated so that they could throw them in the clink.

c. VEISHEA committee - Okay, so maybe they were given an ultimatum by the administration to carry out this policy. However, they essentially became a mouthpiece for the University. The policy "will not be revisited." 10,000 angry e-mails and they won't budge. Passing the buck must be pretty convenient, eh?


Either way, many people pledged to boycott VEISHEA this year. Buying a wristband would basically validate their policy, which is what many students did not want to do. In the end, the VEISHEA committee allegedly sold close to 3,000 wristbands. However, a less-biased source (i.e. Des Moines Register) reported 2,000 wristbands sold. The boycott worked for the most part. They didn't sell anywhere near their limit. It is also alleged that only 350-450 people attended the headliner band, EVE 6. But if we listened to the VEISHEA committee and the student paper, we would believe that the weather was the reason why attendance was so low. Another convenient scapegoat, eh? It's funny how fast they can spin the facts just to boost their P.R.

It doesn't change the general consensus that this year's VEISHEA was a complete failure.

edit: I endorse this letter, pretty powerful evidence to show that there was something awry with moving up the VEISHEA celebration.

welcome

Hello and Welcome to the official blog for the TNT network. In the past, I've tried setting up blogging systems, usually developing one "in-house," but I usually lost interest in the development process when it came to creating a slick administrative interface to maintain it without having to log into phpMyAdmin. Hell, there is usually no better way to manipulate MySQL databases than with phpMyAdmin, but that is beside the point.

Thank you Google for coming up with yet another free web service where I can post my day-to-day activities, random thoughts, rants, and whatever else that may or may not be read by anyone in particular.

I'm a little leery of what I will post here, since it is very possible that my employer, government, media outlet, various Internet communities (e.g. Strange Talkers, AIM buddies, guild members), classmates, instructors, school administrators, administrators generally, family members, enemies, life-long arch-nemesis, deities, critics, dissidents, newspaper readers, random Iowans (or American citizens, generally speaking) and angry ex-girlfriends may very well read the content off this blog, learn about my online persona, and be able to associate that online persona with my real life identity (which I will not name on this post for the sake of protecting the parts of my life which are fragile... that is, my work life). After a connection being made, I would have to answer for every single little sin, mistake, mishap, injustice, crime (nothing major, don't worry), and insult that I have committed. It would be worse than applying for a job, but not as bad as running for public office, but still, where's my thick skin when I need it?

Anywho, if you just found this blog randomly, you can browse the subject of the blog title, the TNT network, at http://www.tnt.gs. I originally registered the domain on January of 2001, and have claimed it since. A search of archived pages on the Web Archives will turn up a few feeble attempts at making a personal web-site, but I ultimately decided to strip it of the gibberish, and basically left gibberish on it: lots of funny, unfunny, offensive, pleasing, disgusting, violent, and political flash animation cartoons which I found to be entertaining (for at least one view). The views espoused on those flash cartoons do not necessarily reflect the views of myself or my close buddies or friends.