Here we go again. Another teen kills someone and video games are to blame. Grand Theft Auto is being blamed again for a guy killing a police officer after being taken into custody. The families of the police officers are suing Take 2 Interactive (makers of GTA), Sony (PS2) and Wal-Mart (selling the game). The families are claiming that the game "taught" the guy how to kill police officers.

How many lawsuits will it take before people learn that video games don't kill, people do. If video games teach people how to do things, I should be an excellent baseball,football and hockey player. I should be able to chop people up with a sword. I apparently have the ability to eat enough pills to make ghosts palatable, jump over barrels to rescue women and climb vines in order to rescue a giant gorilla. Thankfully, I've played The Sims so that I know how to go to the bathroom and take a shower.

Take 2 Interactive should be happy to be targeted by another lawsuit. This will bring even more attention to the game. Every game should try to be in this spotlight. It's typically free advertising since the video game companies always win. Since this lawsuit is happening right here, it should be fun to watch and laugh at the idiots trying to get money for nothing.

The busy month of February has begun. This past weekend marked the beginning of 4 weeks of celebration: Valentine's Day, the eighth anniversary of meeting my wife, my thirtieth birthday, and the four and a half year anniversary of getting married. Saturday night, I shared one of the most unique Valentine's Day experiences with my wife. I actually ate chocolate until I was sick. A local wildlife refuge held a charity event consisting of a silent auction and all the chocolate you could eat. I'm not talking about Hershey's kisses. They invited some of the best restaurants in town to provide delicious desserts for free. I'm not necessarily a chocolate lover, but this event was an orgasm waiting to happen for female choco-holics.

Even though it's been hectic, I've been able to process some updates. A review for The Aviator has been posted as well as a Cyber Quickie for Aliens versus Predator.

Well, nothing has changed since my tirade last week. Their proposal to the problem was to trade out a day class for a night class. I don't think making my schedule worse is doing anything for me especially if the night class is a class I've never taught before either. However, I have calmed down some. I'm not as bitter about the situation as I was. I'm going to begin looking to see what's around, but chances are I won't be able to start anywhere else until the fall semester starts. Unfortunately, that means 2 more quarters at ITT. The worst thing is that I'll be loosing about $650 a week because I'm not teaching higher-level classes.

So, because of the extra time I have to put in preparing for new classes, my updates may be a little slim for a few months. I expect to have at least one day a week to devote to updates. February is going to be extremely busy with Valentine's Day, an anniversary and my 30th (yuck) birthday. However, there are some new treats awaiting you. Old School has been updated. Read about the popular Koosh ball. I've also updated the Trivia Challenge on the message boards as well as a new CyberQuickie in the Gameroom.

Yesterday was horrible. I really wanted to quit my job. I haven't felt like that since working at Safeguard. I got to work ready for the week ahead and saw my schedule for next quarter. This had to be the worst schedule I've ever seen. They had me working two 14 hour days (not counting 2 hours commuting) and a Saturday class plus another night class. On top of all of that, most of the classes were low level programming classes, not the web classes I was there to teach. And, if that weren't bad enough, 3 of the classes I had never taught before. For the cherry on top, toss in the fact that all of our books are new next quarter and you've got yourself a bullshit sundae. Maybe they should have just kicked me in the nuts for good measure. I don't know what's going to happen. I managed to get rid of half of one 14 hour day thankfully, but I still voiced my displeasure about the situation. There's no way I can prepare for 3 classes I've never taught, rework my lesson plans for the new books and grade all my assignments in less than 60 hours. They want to take away the "premium" classes (anything higher than 100 level class and pays extra money) and increase my hours. I told them I couldn't handle that. I got lots of excuses, most importantly being that they just don't have web students coming through. Well, since that's what I'm there to teach, it might be time for me to find another pasture. I got this job for a reason (mostly to make moving easier) but I think I have finished whatever I was supposed to accomplish here. I'll find out later this afternoon (I hope) what they were able to do about this crappy schedule. Unfortunately, I'll have to suck it up for a little while as I begin a see what my other options might be in the area.