So here I demonstrate yet another Achilles heel in my strip... I find it really hard to work peoples' names into the strips because, well, that's not how people talk. Anyhow... that's supposed to be Meghan, and the guy with the apron was the waiter at Charlie Brown's. That's where we went for Commie's birthday party, and then afterward we went to the mall for DDR, but that's another story (and strip).
     Well, I shouldn't waste a good rant, so I'd like to report that I'm starting to lose any faith I ever had in Slashdot being a semi-serious site. I've submitted 4 stories (2 serious, 2 funny) and all got rejected. What gets at me, though, is that now those 2 serious stories are getting some play on CNN, and so I'm sure they'll show up on Slashdot by the end of the next week. Meanwhile, some of their recent stories were incredibly insignificant (like "Smaller XBox 1.5 Rumored In Japan" and "Apple Wooing Smaller Labels"). So lets see what articles they said were less significant than rumors of a smaller X-Box, shall we?
     Wash. bans 'violent' game sales. Or more accurately, sales of games containing violence toward law enforcement officials to gamers under 17, but it doesn't specify which side the police are on. So obviously, GTA Vice City is out of the question... but what about Time Crisis, Police Quest (any of 'em), or Die Hard Arcade? In those games, the player is the cop, and violence is perpetrated on them... but they're on the good side. Still they portray violence toward law enforcement officials, but they definitely don't encourage it. Well, the follow up is that a federal appeals court ruled that Constitution protects video games, and this ruling will probably go a long way in reversing Washington state's decision to ban certain games. But hey, I don't care what games I'm allowed to play, as long as my X-Box could possibly get smaller.
     Second was the FCC's plans to relax regulations regarding what media outlets a media corporation could hold. Basically, with enough money, a media corporation can now take over an entire market by force, giving them a complete monopoly. But, by getting all information from one forced source, we're setting up a propaganda machine... by forcing restrictions on these companies, we get things like CNN and FOX News (one liberal, one conservative, competing for separate markets). Without these restrictions, FOX News could (in theory) buy CNN, thereby quashing the liberal viewpoint. Now, the regulations only apply to broadcast, and not cable, but I needed an example everyone could understand. At any rate, not more than a full day later, Senators rail FCC decision on media ownership. Granted, Friz Hollings is involved, and that makes the situation endlessly complicated and stupid, but nevertheless, the FCC tried to screw up the system, and the Senate wants to keep the regulations in place to encourage a diversified marketplace. (I'm sure, though, Fritz just wants to keep away from content distributor monopolies because the competition benefits the content creation industry because the distributors try to outbid eachother for broadcast rights... a monopoly would not have to outbid itself). At any rate, this was beaten out by Apple wanting to get independents in it's iTunes store. w0000t...
     Slashdot seems to be avoiding anything serious, or at least anything that's not completely bizarre or Apple related. They refuse to even post links to difficult topics like the ones above, but keep trying to vilify people like Bill Gates. Fuck Bill Gates, he's more-or-less irrelevant. Let's concentrate a little attention on Michael Powell, Fritz Hollings, and Joe Baca. But hey, that's just my opinion.