In a similar vein, another great baseball photo, the Wizard of Oz.

Proof that at least some baseball players are actually atheletes. Damn that's olympic level gymnast or diver form.

Anne - I have not. But now I suspect I want to.

Quick scientific poll: Who loves Ms Pac Man Best?

Convince me and I'll send you a present.

I gotta put a plug in for Katamari Damcay if we're gong to talk about no sex and violence games. [link]

Although I guess rolling over people and animals with a big ball of stuff is a little violent.

I think, given the opportunity, I would prefer my porn not to be computer-generated. I think that is just kinda lame.

After hearing what my dad and his devil-children siblings did to fight boredom as children since they didn't have TV or videogames, I have a hard time believing that either is all that harmful to kids in comparison.

My child is not old enough for video game, and her father goes for sci-fi violence or car racing, so we'll see what happens.

If she's like me, she'll get bored in about five minutes with anything that's not Tetris or Duck Hunt. (Okay, I also wasted hours of my life on Zelda and Nethack. And Civ.) If she's like him, she'll be swearing at Uncle Pete through the XBox live headset as she tries to take him out.

I'm with The Player on this one:

Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three, concurrent or consecutive, but we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory.

Welcome to the 23rd Century, Lego's Run.

You get that the GTA thing involves a (free, and easily accessible, but still) separate download to get the sexy sex, right? Not the regular hooker-giving-you-a-blowjob-in-the-car that's a regular part of the game, but the full frontal (video game) stuff.

Yeah, and it's difficult to get outraged at all, because of hooker scenes being standard and the whole thing being based on a life of crime. But I can understand someone being pissed their kid could download the sex, when the bought the car theft thing, or vice versa. I think they probably should be rated, and then people can make their decisions accordingly. All the liberals can buy their kids the sexy games. All the conservatives can buy their kids the violent games, and all the psychotics can buy their kids the violent sex games.

And we'll be playing Fairly Odd Parents.

Cindy, buy the Atari-style joysticks that plug into the front of your TV or VCR player. Old-style Ms. PacMan, Asteroids, Pole Position, Breakout... all of them. It rocks. We don't bother plugging in our game console anymore, just the joystick games.

They just have the little handheld GameBoy. We haven't let them get a big, goes on your TV video game, because we try to limit how often they do "watch 'til your brain bleeds" things. We don't even let them use the computer.

That said, I bet Scott still has Atari style joy sticks, unless he gave them to his nephew, yonks ago.

My parents were really anti-violence, which...whatever. I'm not sure if my distaste for it now comes from the limited exposure or if it just is not my cup and all the better I didn't see much of it.

Though I did read it, actually. And it freaked me right the hell out. Hum. The sex didn't, though when fairly young, I thought it was pretty weird and skimmed those sections....

That said, I bet Scott still has Atari style joy sticks,

These new ones have the games loaded on the joystick. I love technology.

Hec, I'm neutral on the subject of Mr. vs. Ms. Pac-Man, just as long as I get to play Pac-Man. The glowing dots are addictive, I tell ya.

Okay, I also wasted hours of my life on Zelda and Nethack. And Civ.

Don't forget Caesar. Any god-like strategy game means hours of computer time for me.

I think they probably should be rated, and then people can make their decisions accordingly.

I'd have to leave the room and go look at the boxes, but I'm pretty sure they already are rated. There's plenty of information out there with which to make an informed decision. If you're (hypothetical you) buying GTA for your kid, and are miffed at the content or possible available downloadable extras, I'm not even gonna bother with the World's Smallest Violin, I'll just go straight to the pointing and laughing and mockity mock mocking.