Wednesday, January 30, 2008

"Score one for Internet justice"

So I got this little writing gig going on which really sucks so I’m not gonna say anymore bout it cos this blog is not gonna be bout things that suck.

Anyway, it’s almost Chinese New Year again. Looks like most of the popular places selling really pineapple tarts are all sold out. Looked at the pussywillows on sale this year and they really looked bad so decided to get this other auspicious new year plant instead. Sorry, but I don’t know the English name for it. It’s supposed to last a year and the twists at the top, they symbolize your luck improving, increasing, raising up etc. By the way, I didn’t tie those red ribbons. The lady who sold them offered to do it for me. ;)

One of the cool things I discovered is Kotaku.com. If you are a gamer of any sort, go visit it. It updates very regularly and its not just games, there are also lots of social commentary. My recent fav has to be last week’s Mass Effect/FOX News/CooperLawrence fiasco. Go Google it! It’s worth it! Basically, its bout ultra right-wing FOX News inviting Cooper Lawrence (some self-help author guru) to trash Mass Effect, the video game, calling it porn, bad for kids and so on (even though the average age of today’s gamer is like in his late-20s to 30s). Of cos, it’s all not true and Ms Lawrence even admitted to never even playing it but they STILL continued to do a witchhunt on it. No research was done for the news report, they just took a swing at the game.

Well, EA (Electronics Arts) the makers of Mass Effect issued a statement pointing out all the mistakes in the news segment but FOX refused to apologize. Then comes the cool part, the Internet gaming communities … they spammed her book at Amazon! At one time, there were over 400 one-star reviews! I saw them! Amazon had to keep deleting them! It was huge, hilarious and all over the Internet news!

After all, since she was so quick to condemn a product she never used/played, why can’t people do the same to her book? Score one for Internet justice!

She finally apologized on The New York Times over the weekend and admitted that the game isn’t porn at all (having watched someone play for over 2 hours). Nothing from FOX News though.

3 comments:

Richard said...

Isn't that a bamboo? They suddenly became the crze over here 3 or 4 years ago.

Happy New Year!

Cavalock said...

Happy Year of the Rat to you too! ;)

nah, its not exactly a bamboo. wow, u mean they got that too in north America? hah

Richard said...

Next time I'm wandering around a mall with my camera, I'll snap a picture for you of them on sale.