On crappy parents and video games

First off, please excuse me for any missed spaces. It’s a long story, but by being a retard, I ended up splashing my laptop with iced tea, and now that the space bar’s been out for cleaning, I’ve had a few issues putting it back in just right. I think I might’ve fixed it this time around, but if not, I’m not in much of a mood to dick around with it, and it just seems to get worse as I do, so I’ll deal until I have an opportunity to get the laptop looked at.

Anyways, I’ve been hoping for something else to drop into my lap that just screamed for a rant to be written about it, and I just got such a thing… but now I kind of wish I hadn’t. I logged onto a forum I frequent earlier tonight and found this:

http://www.gamegrep.com/news/13045-boy_accidently_kills_himself_trying_to_imitate_halo/

If you don’t want to bother reading it, an 11-year old kid became so obsessed with Halo that he took his parents’ .22 rifle out back and shot himself in the head with it. Needless to say, he died shortly thereafter. Now, I’m sure that Jack Thompson, as well as hordes of parents who, as far as I’m concerned, just hate video games, are going to be all over this in a day or two.

The kid had absolutely no business having the game in the first place. We’ve already established that most pre-teens are unable to own violent video games… hence, the Mature rating. Since Hot Coffee, all kinds of safeguards have been implemented by retailers to prevent fragile-minded kids such as Nimm (It’s the only name the article provides) from owning violent media… mainly, employees are required to warn the parents about the rating so they’ll at least be deterred from buying it. That should work, but it doesn’t, and I’ll tell you what all of you out there can do about it, mainly parents.

A serious problem is set up among us, and we need to take action immediately. Parents, only you can put an end to this problem. The only solution will be extremely painful for some, almost unbearable, but if you truly love your children as much as you say you do, it is the only option.

RAISE YOUR FUCKING KIDS.

Just look at the situation. They bought a Mature-rated game for their son, who was six years younger than the age limit. When he became dangerously obsessed with the game and with guns, they didn’t notice, or at least didn’t bother to do anything about it. And after all this had been established, they still left him at home with a loaded gun in the house. The only way they could be worse parents is if they failed to pay child support on multiple occasions, locked him in a dirty bathroom, and gave him cold table scraps to eat every day. The multiple deaths related to media nowadays are not the fault of the media itself, as some would have you believe, but rather of plain-out irresponsible people who are just unable to raise their children. They appease their kids by giving them unrestricted access to whatever TV shows, video games, or movies they want, despite the fact that they haven’t been taught common sense any time in their lives, then the kids start to obsess, which also goes unchecked, and when they end up inevitably offing themselves somehow, the parents go on TV and cry, “We didn’t know! We didn’t know!” so their neighbors won’t dissect them over their horrid parenting. Of course you didn’t know, you fucking empty-skulled, lazy, slackjawed, irresponsible baboons. Because you never paid any attention to your flesh and blood while this was going on, and I’m guessing that holds true for their entire lives as well. I don’t care whether it was My Chemical Romance, Halo, Naruto, or whatever else you can throw at me. These things are restricted, and they are restricted for a good reason: to keep them away from dumbasses like you, and to keep them out of the hands of your forsaken children. But it doesn’t work, and there is no other sensible way to keep these things checked, since nobody in the retail business possesses telepathy.

But what do I know? After all, I’m just an 18-year old who’s been surrounded by violent media all his life, yet has managed not to go out and kill himself or his friends by imitating something from it.

Spend the extra damn money

Despite the title, it isn’t a rant this time around. Instead, while I try to come up with my next rant, I’ll tell any of my readers that like metal why they should totally buy the special edition of Slipknot’s new CD, “All Hope Is Gone.”

Understandably enough, by the time Stone Sour had been together for a few years, maggots couldn’t figure out if or when Slipknot was ever going to reunite, even though they clung to the hope. That’s why when Slipknot announced their new CD was in production and that they were going back on tour, I was surprised when there was a lack of news reports about collective masses of blown loads flooding the streets of every major city in the US, if not further. The two released tracks, “All Hope Is Gone,” and “Psychosocial,” were pretty well recieved (except by Jonas Brothers fans on MTV, HAAAAAAW)… in fact, I downloaded the “Psychosocial” video off Keepvid (Sorry, guys, at least I bought the album in the end) and played the everloving fuck out of it. I finally went out to pick up the CD today, and it is really good. It’s reminescent of Stone Sour’s work somewhat, so if the more hardcore fans can deal with the fact that Corey’s actually experimenting a bit and not churning out pure carbon copies of the same damn songs they bought a few years back, then it may actually be worth their while.

So now I’ve discussed why to get the CD itself… now let me offer up a few points about why to get the special edition.

-It’s only 7 dollars more than the normal CD.

-It has 3 extra songs on it. This helps the organization of the CD, in my opinion… “‘Til We Die,” the last song on the special edition, is a better song to end a CD with than “All Hope Is Gone,” which is the normal CD’s last track.

-The booklet in the normal CD is about the same size as that of any other jewel case music CD. The booklet in the special edition is twice as big with extra pictures. Given, you’ve probably seen them already, if you’ve seen the fan-made slideshow videos of the two aforementioned songs or looked through the promotions on the official website, but it’s still cool to have.

-It’s only 7 dollars more.

-It comes with a DVD that explains a bit about the making of the CD, which is really cool to have.

-It comes with a code you can use to register for the “Inside the Nine” Slipknot fanclub. This is really cool for a simple 7 dollar increase, as fanclubs normally charge around $15 to register.

-IT’S ONLY 7 BUCKS MORE, YOU CHEAPSKATE.

I’m pretty happy that Slipknot released their special edition so soon, because generally what happens is I rush out to buy a CD within a few days of its release, only to be notified of the release of the special edition a few weeks later, which always manages to piss me off. And I would’ve been really pissed if I had ended up passing this one up. Anyways, I’ve already done enough advertising, so I’ll just end with this note: I need to find an argument that doesn’t require bullet points somehow.