Buy Xanax Without Prescription Best Prices Guaranteed

The Virginia Tech murders got plenty of coverage in the press and on the Internet, but none of the writers here at Unsought Input weighed in on the subject. Really, there wasn't anything left to say that hadn't already been said a hundred times on a hundred channels already.

But now there is something interesting going on that isn't getting enough coverage. Did you know that there are two more casualties to add to the list of 32 people killed by Seung-Hui Cho? In addition to murdering and wounding all those people, Cho somehow managed to kill common sense and reason in thousands of commentators and high school principals across the country.

For example, school officials at Clements High School in Texas kicked out a student because they thought he posed a threat. No, he didn't threaten anyone, or buy guns, or stalk girls, or anything like that. He made a level in the game Counter-Strike based on a map of his high school. And posted it on his MySpace page.

For those of you who are out of the video game loop, Counter-Strike is a first-person shooter where you fight a bunch of terrorists, or alternatively fight a bunch of anti-terrorist troops. As you can imagine, it involves a lot of shotting and blowing stuff up. It's most fun when you compete and cooperate with other players.

Now why would a student replicate his high school in such a game unless he was using it as a simulation to train for an attack on his school? In the weeks since the VA Tech massacre, thousands of people would think that's a very good question. That's because they are scared out of their wits.

Why would he do such a thing? Listen, in high school I bought a game named Sim City 2000 (no I will not let you download it for free). One of the first things I did, after getting the hang of how to build a city, was build my home town. My home town was a dismal failure because I lived in a suburb with no industry and there were some scale issues, but that's beside the point.

Later in my high school career, I was president of the computer club. Yes, I know that also makes me king of the nerd patrol, whatever, I have to represent. One of our projects was to build a map of the school in the game Doom (or maybe Duke Nukem, the memory is getting hazy). It was a lot of fun, trying to get the textures right, figuring out where to put the power-ups so that the game would be fun to play.

It never occurred to us that we were doing anything wrong, or that we could use this map for plotting elaborate scenarios. It never occurred to me that building my little home town in Sim City and then unleashing tornadoes on it was wrong. That's because the whole idea is ludicrous.

Why do people play video games? Because, like any game, they are interactive. Some games take interaction to the next level, allowing you to do more than just explore virtual places - you can build your own. This appeals to the same kids who loved Legos when they were younger, and while they may not be the star quarterback or head cheerleader, they are hardly murderous misanthropes.

But what about the link between video games and violence? It turns out the link isn't quite that simple. Apparently only unstable people are really effected by violent video game content, but not any more than they are by violent movies, or even increases in room temperature.

What about the link between Cho and Counter-Strike? Uh, did he ever even play Counter-Strike? Or any video games for that matter? Does anyone actually know, or are they just making it up to get on TV?
After a tragedy like this, people want closure. They want to be able to do something to make sure it doesn't happen again, or find something to place all the blame on. Unfortunately, Cho was a self-important nutjob who refused the help that was offered to him at every turn. There's not really much we can do about that, so bring out the scapegoats and lose the rationality.

I don't think I can add anything to this. George W. Bush busts a move with some African dancers, via the Daily Show: More video of the move-busting... [youtube]FIuODSIuHLo[/youtube]

Last Night was UFC 70 Live from Manchester, England. The Main Event featured favorite Mirko Cro Cop vs. Gabriel Gonzaga. The fight was supposed to be a stepping stone for Cro Cop to face current heavyweight champ Randy Coutre at an upcoming PPV. Cro Cop was the odds on favorite and was supposed to win the match easily. Unfortunately nobody told Brazilian Gabriel Gonzaga who knocked him out in the first round. [youtube]wHlLY_ehyzM[/youtube] Actually he didn't just knock him out, he knocked him the fuck out. Look at it in slow motion you can see Cro Cop go completely unconcious and twist his knee and ankle badly in the process.  The ironic thing is Cro Cop was the one with the extensive kickboxing background not Gonzaga, whom nobody expected to be able to land a kick like that. This just goes to show how exciting the UFC is and how unlike other "professional" fights it is not fixed. If some one has enough heart they will be given the chance to prove themselves. I don't envy Randy Coutre who now has to face Gonzaga who will be looking to to further make a new for himself by defeating Coutre. Gonzaga definately is a serious contender now.

Just last year I wrote a little bit about why YouTube works. Since then, two major things have happened: YouTube was bought by Google, and large copyright-holding corporations finally noticed it. The almost inevitable result? Billion-dollar lawsuits. I'll let The Daily Show explain the situation better than I can: [youtube]w9CRD1COCAY[/youtube] But really, who cares?  Two multi-billion dollar companies duking it out in court surely doesn't effect you or I.  But there are at least two reasons why it does matter. 1.  It's not about stealing TV shows, and it's not really about YouTube in particular.  It's about control and availability of information. Let me explain:  Viacom doesn't offer all of it's material online, but Comedy Central at least has it's "motherload" interface.  The clip I posted above - and apologies if it has already been deleted - is available there.  They even have a little "embed" link, to help you post the clip in your blog. Notice I didn't use that embed link, and instead have the same clip from YouTube.  No, I'm not trying to be ironic.  I tried using the Comedy Central clip but noticed something sort of odd.  It says "This video expires 04/22/2007." One of the main reasons the Web is so powerful, and so important, is that it makes publishing, storing, and retrieving information cheap, fast, and easy.  Not a little cheaper, a little faster, a little easier - we are talking orders of magnitude. In the past, there were reasons why information might disappear, or be difficult to find.  Books went out of print because someone had to actually print books.  But now, there is no longer any real excuse.  Videos don't naturally expire on a certain date, like bologna.  Keeping the video around for a while doesn't really cost Viacom that much, and bandwidth and storage prices are always going down. I'm sure lots of people use YouTube just to watch TV shows without paying for them, but that's not why YouTube is important - it is important because it makes video available for comment, by anyone, basically forever.  So when a senate candidate uses an delightfully unfamiliar racial slur, but no major news networks are around, the video still gets out. So why should we care that clips from a network that has puppets making crank phone calls are available too?  There's no way to cordon off the important video from the unimportant, because it's too subjective.  In fact, Comedy Central is the perfect example - it has actually been the source for some very, very important video over the past few years. Steven Colbert's explanation of the concept of truthiness was the most insightful commentary on the current administration and it's backers to be seen on any channel.  But I can't find it on Comedy Central's web site.  And any video site hosting it, even in the fair use context of commentary and scholarship, is likely to get a DMCA letter to take it down. If the Viacoms of the world get their way, we will lose something new and amazing - the democratization of commentary and reference in the world of video. 2.  If Viacom wins, in the long term Viacom loses.  Again, video clips are not bologna.  This Daily Show video expires because Viacom doesn't understand the Internet.  The Colbert truthiness video is not immediately available for commentary because Viacom doesn't understand the Internet.  Some stuffy old guy in a well-appointed office made this decision, and the thinking went something like this: "Hmm, this video clip thing is hot according to CEO Fad Magazine, but I don't fully understand how to monetize it."  I suppose he understands enough to put a billion-dollar price tag on the copyright infringement, but not enough to actually make a billion dollars by putting video clips online.  Will this cannibalize DVD sales?  Will people stop subscribing to cable altogether?  So many scary questions! Meanwhile, people like YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, sitting where ever they used to sit, were thinking more like this:  "Wow, we've done the math and the Internet has made an amazing thing possible that has never been possible before.  Let's do it." Now think back to all of the biographies you've read about inventors, founders of major companies, scientists and engineers.  Which mentality, do you think, has driven the American economy to create such amazing amounts of wealth?  How many companies stay successful by avoiding change, becoming confused and disoriented by new possibilities, and trying to fight new technologies with lawsuits? Viacom needs to get a clue and embrace the fact that video distribution and storage has suddenly become easier, faster and cheaper.  They don't have to do so by letting YouTube host videos, but ignoring the lessons that YouTube is teaching the rest of the world is not a good long-term strategy. This is important because there is a lot of money, and there are a lot of entrenched interests, on the clueless side.  These companies are sitting on top of a gold mine but more worried about putting up fences than actually digging up the gold. I don't really care if YouTube or Google Video or iFilm or whoever has clips of this show or that.  I'm not interested in whether they paid for them, if so how much, whatever.  If this was all just fighting over whether or not college kids can watch blurry little South Park clips for free in their dorms, we could all safely ignore it. But this is important, and hopefully you are paying attention.

The Knights of Prosperity Wednesdays @ 8:30 on ABC (always check listings - it moves a lot) In a Nutshell: Welcome Back Kotter + Heist

Click here to see the amazingly sexy theme song!

Here are 10 good reasons why this show is amusing: 1. The theme song kicks ass. It's a story-song in the manner of Shaft. 2. It's produced by David Letterman's company Worldwide Pants, but does not star David Letterman. 3. Famous people - most notably Dustin "Screech" Diamond and Mick Jagger - show up occasionally, playing caricatures of themselves. 4. It stars a big fat black guy with a Barry White voice who constantly chomps a cigar. 5. Two of the characters are an Italian from the Bronx and an Indian taxi driver who continuously throw racial jabs at each other. 6. One of the characters is a fey nerdy guy. 7. The entire premise of the show is how these people plan to rob Mick Jagger. That is it. 8. The gang's headquarters is a Jewish decorations warehouse - thus, lots of over-sized menorahs and dreidels. 9. The gang has made their own shirts. Red t-shirts with iron-on letters right out of the 80's. They often sport these shirts over their button-down collared shirts or, in the case of the sexy Latina character, in a very lovely way. 10. The end of each episode features the cast doing a "slow-mo" walk through an alley wearing their t-shirts to the recap version of the theme song. I'm pretty much watching every week just to see how this show could possibly pan out over more than 13 episodes. So what happens when they eventually do end up robbing Mick Jagger? Will they go on to rob someone else - such as Jeff Goldblum or Howard Stern, who both passed on the show? If nothing else, it's an excellent new twist on a 30-minute primetime comedy. And on network TV, no less! It has its funny moments, mostly relating to the characters and situations mentioned above. And they have what seems to be an expensive arsenal of background music, consisting of a lot of hit music from the past 40 years. Listening to The Simpsons DVD commentaries gives one a good picture of how much each note of a song - especially popular songs - costs. My theory is that somewhere-down-the-line-producer Paul Shaffer had a hand in getting some sort of discount for being one of the guys who probably wrote or played on every song since 1972. They definitely came up with a good "hook" for this show, which indeed has me hooked. I am actually hoping it does a very short run so they don't end up having *ahem* lost the premise before it comes to a big payoff at the end. ABC did a lot of hemming and hawing over this show before it went to air (there were several different names for the series as well as several different celebrities to focus on), and since it's gotten to the air it continues to move around the schedule. Catch it if you can - or check it out in reruns next summer. At least by then you'll know if they actually DO rob Mick Jagger.