Well, my work day has finally come to an end. My brain is fried and needs some relaxation and nourishment. I’m still waiting for my annual review which kind of stinks because it’s one of those things that weighs on you until it’s over, but that’s alright. I’m patient, and as it has been for the past year, things are busy at work.

I temporarily don’t have internet access at home, but I will soon enough. I just need to give them a call and see what kind of deal I can work out.

The weekend was fantastic. Friday night was a little bit of a cluster f*ck, but it came together in the end and ended with the much anticipated opening of a bottle of champagne. Saturday, Jessica and I woke up and went for a swim then worked on unpacking her boxes and rearranging a little. George and Lauren came into town so they came by and we went to The Mustard Seed on James Island for some really good pecan encrusted chicken and laughs with an old friend and former member of Tykes with Guns. Afterwards, we headed over to Gene’s Haufbraugh for a couple of bruskies. George and Lauren came over for a bit after that which turned into looking at some funny photos of George from the past. Yesterday was filled with grocery shopping, returning an item at Bed Bath and Beyond, movies, and more home organization projects. Trust me, the weekend was a lot more fun than reading this post. You gotta believe me boyeeee.

So this is something that has me a little pissed off lately. Here is a quote from Hillary Clinton regarding the “Hot Coffee” download for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

“We should all be deeply disturbed that a game which now permits the simulation of lewd sexual acts in an interactive format with highly realistic graphics has fallen into the hands of young people across the country,” Clinton wrote in a letter to the head of the Federal Trade Commission.

Link to the story.

Let me go ahead and point out that I am not against violence on TV or video games whatsoever. My beef with all the hoop-la about sex on a video game is simply that I cannot believe people are outraged that their kid might be able to make a character in a video game have sex. Why is the kid playing the game in the first place? It’s rated “M” for mature, meaning that a kid shouldn’t be playing it without parental discretion. If you are a parent that lets your kid play games that glorify murder, abuse towards women (especially prostitutes), and ta-da…grand larceny; you probably aren’t a parent that gives two shits about the character taking a break from his day of slayings to “get down” with another character. Cheap stab here (pun intended) but I think we know why Hillary is so offended by sex. Sex is legal though. Drug trafficking, grand larceny, prostitution, murder, manslaughter, driving on the wrong side of the road, driving on houses, driving on baby strollers, knocking old ladies in the head with a baseball bat; those are all in fact illegal. The one thing that could happen in the video game that is legal has to be downloaded, has made Rockstar Games claim that it was a hacker’s fault, and is now being placed on front pages everywhere.

Then there is the issue that this download is only available for the computer version of the game. If a kid has access to the internet to download a sex code, I’m going to bet that the kid has access to all kinds of other illegal activities as well as access to being picked up by sick, murderous, proven child molesters and pornographers that have free reign of the internet in the name of human rights. Children continue to be kidnapped, raped, beaten, and buried alive while people with power worry about pixels in the shape of penises disappearing into pixels in the shape of vaginas.

Sex is the last thing that is wrong with video games. Sex is in fact the formula for life, but I guess it could be distracting if you’re almost out of time to make the drop of the car you stole from an old lady that you clubbed like a baby seal before you picked up a prostitute and ran over her after you used her like toilet paper.

I’m glad I didn’t have the internet growing up. I played with toy guns in the woods with my siblings and friends. I was taught how to handle real guns in the back yard with my siblings and friends. I was taught basic virtues in the backyard with my siblings and friends. I shot ducks on a TV screen when it rained and I couldn’t go outside. When I became an adult I played Grand Theft Auto, watched violent films, downloaded things that made me feel guilty for clicking “save-as” before I ever knew what it would show. But, I was an adult and I hadn’t forgotten all the times with my siblings and friends when I learned that some things are very serious and others aren’t worth crying over.

So these are some old pics that I’ve recently added to my DeviantArt gallery. I’m also trying out Blogger’s new photo uploading tool. I don’t really know if I like it yet though.

Happy 4th everyone.

It’s been a fairly uneventful weekend, but a good one at that. Friday night Jessica and I went to T-Bones and had a tasty appetizer called Tommy’s Colossal Texas Cheese Fries or something like that. The meals were okay, but the cheese fries certainly were the best that we had. They were big chunks of potato with your typical winning combination of ranch, cheese and bacon.

On Saturday, we lazed around here for a while then headed over to Northwoods Mall for some window shopping. There is a bedspread there we like a lot, so we went to visit it. After that we stopped by Michael’s for some bead stuff, and for me to see if they had foam core in the sizes I am looking for to make my homemade softbox. We were starving by then, so we went over to my parent’s house in Goose Creek for fresh veggies from Gary’s garden (he’s my step dad), burgers, boiled peanuts, and cookies. Yum. We both ate entirely too much…oh yeah, there was watermelon too. When we got home we pretty much just went right to sleep.

Sunday was another lazy day. I played some Super Mario World on Super NES, and then we went grocery shopping in the evening while it rained. Rainy days are my favorite for shopping. When we got home I started to make some boiled peanuts, and then we called it a night.

Today, I thought we might head out to be in the 4th crowds. I love watching people. We ended up hanging out here again though. I woke up and finished the boiled peanuts then went out and hung up my American flag in honor of the day. I also set up a light I bought for my photography to experiment with it and with a homemade reflector from a Bi-Lo cake tray. That all worked pretty well, and confirmed that my homemade studio will suffice until I can spend money on “proper” equipment. Jessica and I made some hotdogs and tater tots with baked beans for lunch, and watched a little A&E. After that, we took a nap, and I just woke up from that a few minutes ago. Now I’m going to take a shower and waste a little time before bedtime and the short workweek.

I hope yours was as exciting as mine…haha. They don’t call me summer-catalyst for nothing. It really was relaxing though, I’m just being an ass.