“We can’t joke about things or take things lightly anymore.”

How bleak a quote is that? Depressing, huh? It gets worse. You know who said it? Mary Ann Simpson. Sad that a person actually get quoted saying something so horrible. She said it while acting as spokesperson for Fort Bend ISD. That’s “Independent School District.” See, it turns out that there was this 17 year old kid, really smart, about to graduate high school. He really likes video games, particularly Counter Strike. He used tools to create a video game level that was modeled on his high school. In our grief over the Virgina Tech incident, we’ve now sent this kid to alternative school and jeopardized his future because his creative outlet wasn’t writing sonnets. His creative outlet was taking something real and turning it into a virtual playground. And Mary Ann defended this action by saying humor was dead.

Mary Ann, you live in a desert land with no hope of the cool waters of happiness, but don’t condemn the rest of us, or even one of us, to walk those dusty dunes. I vow to joke about all things and take absolutely nothing too seriously. Especially video game levels, especially created by 17 year olds.

Read the whole story here.

Hex Bandwagon

Hey, did you know that several companies are trying to censor the Internet? It’s true. I’m going to paste in what they’re trying to censor, so if you’re squeamish, you might want to sit down.

09 F9 11 0g2 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 5G6 C5 63 56 88 C0

This number is quite offensive, apparently. It’s the HD-DVD master key. I’m curious if I’ll get a cease and desist letter to take it down…