Hell, it's about time.

Arrived!

After a very long morning of getting up early, playing Phoenix Wright, waiting for Tarlach the postman, receiving no game, ringing up the Post Office, Parcel Force (on two out of service numbers) ringing up Amazon, 118-118 and finally placing a left shoe on, intending on leaving to head to the depot myself to pick the damn thing up, GTA IV finally arrived at my doorstep, in all its Special Edition glory.

And, well, is it good?

Expect a review if I ever stop playing it: yes it damn well is. The driving is a bit off to begin with, the physics in it are... well... different compared to previous incarnations. Its more realistic, the turning is harder and the impacts have more of a crunch. I like it. Adam doesn't. Adam is strange though. More later.

There's always one.

Delayed!

Amazon, great creatures that they are, are not renowned in my abode for being that reliable when it comes to release dates. Way back when in '04, when Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 were scheduled to be released, Amazon didn't even bother dispatching them until the day they were released. This meant they came a massive three days late. What's the point in pre-ordering a game that won't come until after it's released? This is folly! This entire thing is folly! What to do?

GTA!

Yes, yes, it is currently one day and counting until the release of GTA IV on Xbox 360 and PS3. Is this, perhaps, maybe, the most important, defining moment of our lives up until this point? Certainly not, well, not for most of us. It will be awesome, yes, it will be the best game this year (so far) and yes, I have already booked the days off work and pre-ordered the special edition. There will be other games though. There will be better games. Until then, though, I am absolutely exploding with glee.

Yep, that's right.

Cheerleaders.

I am not a big city lawyer. I do not claim to be. I claim to be a lot of things - doctor, part-time jungle-mining explorer ninja king, big city lawyer - but this is beyond my realm of pretendation. The video above is sure to be something you will hear about for some time. It depicts a selection of "cheerleaders" beating seven shades out of a young girl who allegedly taunted them on the "popular" networking website MySpace. While the attack was happening, it was videoed by one of the participants. Two other people - guys, no less - stood outside the door to stop the helpless victim from escaping.

As I have already said, I am not a big city lawyer. I am not even a small-town lawyer, nor do I qualify for a hamlet lawyer, although my knowledge of law (garnered through my fantastically intelligent girlfriend and episodes of Law and Order) does qualify me for applying to be a tiny burg lawyer. This is besides the point though. My lack of knowledge surrounding law, especially American law, where the attack took place (I am Irish, you see, our law system involves potatoes and astroturf) does not give me the luxury of commenting on how long the assailants should be held in prison, if they are held at all, but I do think they should be tried to the full extent of the law.

I am not an unfair creature. I realise that the people involved had a reason to cause the attack. The girl taunted them in a public forum, for all to see. This would definetly be enough to set them off, seeing as the individuals don't seem to be all there to start off with (they punch a defenseless girl around the head, yet care about a piece of furniture, probably because it belongs to one of the persons parents. Yeah, like grounding is worse than the three years in juvie this tape is going to bring them) and if it happened in a public place it would be grounds for slander. But battery? GBH with intent? Attempted murder? False imprisonment? No. What makes this case even worse is the fact that the cocky little fiends had the audacity to place it online, for all to see. Contrary to popular belief, we are not all anonymous on the internet, especially when a video is shown that explicitly shows peoples faces, locales and has their voices all ins.

As a piece of evidence for prosecution, the videotape is pretty much solid. It was taped and posted by one of the attackers, shows them ridiculing the poor girl and punching her about the head and body. The victims bruises, hospital bills and the fact that she was blinded (apparently) is a pretty hefty thing to work against. Even Johnny Cochrane (God rest him) would have a tough time getting the eight scumbags out of this hole. Even if the "MySpace girl"'s (as she is dubbed) online diatribes took the form of a three hundred page manifesto, complete with chapter headings, songs, poems, diagrams and references, it would still be hard to show against an unedited video of a savage beating. Slow burn, I suppose would be a factor, but, my God, it's a video of Rodney King-like brutality. Does anyone get the subtle motif here?

I only hope that this is a staged viral video, for all concerned, especially the poor girl herself, but, apparently not.

Playing: Dead Rising (XBOX 360)

I do enjoy a cold gun.

Playing: Final Fantasy III (DS)