GTA Lessons Here!

I'll be damned if I'm gonna pay some 8 year old 25 bucks an hour for video game lessons. But that's cause I've got some pride. And skill. And I don't like people telling me how to do things, I wouldn't sign up for guitar or golf lessons either. When I think about it, this seems more and more like a legitimate business and less like those 1-900 tip numbers. People pay experts for advice in all kinds of things they want to get better at; why not video games? I guess the real hurdle you have to get over is that people train in and play games professionally. But look at baseball, tennis, golf, poker, or any number of other games that we're accustomed to hearing about as serious sports. Take a step back and every one of those seems just as ridiculous as pressing buttons as a career.

Northwest Florida Daily News: Want to get good at videogames? Hire a kid

Hands Off The Internet?

Where the hell is that lame astroturf movement now that government is actually screwing with the Internet? Oh it has nothing to do with hurting broadband providers' proclivity to gouge money from the Internet, so they don't care. This new bill banning social networking from schools and libraries in an effort to "protect" the children from cyber-stalkers is terrible. Its just lip service to the "save the children" bullshit that politicians all stoop to. You know that when some one says "won't someone please think of the children" on the Simpsons they're making fun of you, right? Tech dirt has a good point, that sticking your head in the sand doesn't make the danger go away. The kids are gonna surf the web, whether you want them to or not; hell they probably understand the concepts you're trying to legislate. Like that new goatse law that some embarrassed senator pushed through legislation. (of course that might be false, its hard to do research on that kinda thing) Legislating against practical jokes, yeah you guys are certainly getting worthwhile shite taken care of. Of course there are various interpretations of 'obscene' or 'misleading' and there's also a nice loop hole in just not using a DNS link. Whatever. The real flip flop is that bush apparently agrees that misleading links should be punished with jail terms, but his administration was responsible for ICANN denying the .xxx domain. Way to be consistent. I guess the message these career hillers are all sending is that they'll vote for whatever will get them re-elected.

Techdirt: House Rushes Through Bill To Make The Web More Dangerous For Kids

Boys With Toys.

Ok, so here's a normal reaction. The town changes zoning laws somehow and you lose your business as a result. So you spend a couple weeks converting a bulldozer into an armored tank and run over everything associated with the town government. This actually worked amazingly well, the cops couldn't touch him. Although if I'd been trying to take him down I think I would'a thrown some C4 under there. Take a lesson from like any WWII movie you've seen, guys. The hero always disables the tank, he doesn't shoot through it.

YouTube - Man destroys town with armored bulldozer

Something to Talk About.

Google talk updates.  Well I think I've successfully made the switch from AIM to gtalk.  I hardly ever sign on to the yellow guy any more, and that's just to see if some obscure person is online.  But Talk is about to get better with three new updates.  File transfer, yeah I know AIM did this but I bet it'll be sweet.  Voicemail, basically for leaving funny or embarrassing recordings.  And music status, I don't think this'll actually work.  How does it know what music player I'm using?  Mostly this'll just be a trick, people go to my the myspace page to see what I'm listening to anyway.  So nothing mindblowing here, just some interesting changes.  Unfortunately you don't seem to be able to download the newest release.  Its being rolled out like all the gmail and chat features were.  You sneaky bastards!  I still love you though, just make sure I'm high on the list.

Google Talk