These are the things that have occupied my mind these past few days. I resumed my game of Mass Effect which I started half a year ago. This led to some serious power gaming until my computer simply turned itself off. Oops. Need some proper cooling. Anyway. Then the newest Lynda LaPlante offering featured Ciarán Hinds with a very peculiar haircut. I was perhaps a little too focused on that to begin with, but got into the story after a bit.

I was going to comment upon the news item about the six-year-old boy who took his mum's car to drive to school, but after some digging around for the source, I just became depressed. What started as a funny, little story that I heard this morning on the Beeb, has now turned into a nasty POLITICAL DEBATE over in the States. For crying out loud, why do they have to twist everything to suit their own political views? Do they actually KNOW what happened? Or are they simply listening to whatever they're saying at the news on their TV station of choice? I was going to say that I found it strange that someone would let their kid play Grand Theft Auto--which is an amazingly brilliant game, but should probably be available only to those who actually understand the difference between fact and fiction--but if I do, that will probably just be taken into the long-winded, boring discussion about how games, films, music and just about anything else which is remotely entertaining, may or may not contribute to an increased aggression among those very few among us who are already aggression-prone.

Computer and video gaming is officially the number one pastime in Britain. Thus I vote for ten pages of computer news in all the major newspapers, every day, plus at least five minutes worth of gaming reviews and news on telly during every news programme. It's clearly more interesting to people than sport, so it's time we got the focus off of sport. I mean, this morning the news about Kevin Pietersen quitting as English captain was the third item on the agenda. Luckily they had the common sense to put the horrible situation on the Gaza Strip first, but only just, it seemed. Then there was something about the credit crunch again. But third? I mean, a lot of people care, but it should NOT have that sort of priority! Surely there are lots upon lots of more important stuff happening around the world? I believe, for instance, there is a list of forgotten humanitarian crises we could get back to before caring about some cricket player who just couldn't take the pressure.

By the way, have I mentioned how little I can stand people who slurp when they eat and/or drink? Unfortunately I have a few of those working nearby me, and they have like three meals a day while at work (seriously!) and lots of cups of god-knows-what (probably tea). Their meals are usually stinky fish, noodles or smelly soups or stinky, smelly noodle fish soups, so there is a lot of slurping going on and it's making my blood boil.

Labels: ciàran hinds, current affairs, gaming, personal, sport, TV