Speaking about geeky stuff look at this:

Model guns based off Gungrave firing

From A Gamer's Manifesto - 20 things gamers want from the seventh generation of game consoles:

5. And on the opposite side of the nipple coin...
Developers will be shocked one day when they notice that the world is full of women. It's true! More than half of your potential customer base are penisless. They have money. They like doing fun things.
...
Have you guys ever met a woman? Then why don't you try making just a few games that don't play off of a 14 year-old male's idea of womanhood on the apparent hope that he'll play the game one-handed?

Chances of that happening...

Sadly, the proven money-making designers in the industry are the same ones that have given us Dead Or Alive Beach Volleyball and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (where the main character rampages though a city populated with violent men and sex-crazed street whores). As it turns out, they’re all men. The female demographic is seen as something that can be “targeted” by adding features to existing games, such as in-game clothes shopping, in-game makeup application and in-game cute animal pets. Game creators aren’t just casually missing the point, they’re showing a unified front of stupidity.

12. Don't bullshit us on the difficulty
...
Instant-Failure Stealth Levels. Ack. This brings back horrible memories of a Goldeneye level where if you tripped an alarm, an infinite number of bad guys poured forth. We knew a man who failed that level 37 times, then got the Infinite Health cheat for it and came back. He intentionally tripped the alarm, the guards rushed out. Laughing maniacally, he proceeded to shoot those fuckers for four hours, killing 1,183 of them - 682 with groin shots - before his thumbs cramped up. Your game should not create this kind of bitterness.

15. Stop the Short-Sighted Business Bullshit

Patents. Did you know there's a patent held by some microscopic software company on spherical camera controls in realtime 3D, and they're starting to level lawsuits against EVERYONE? Did you ever wonder what happened to force feedback, controllers that push your hands around so you can feel the action in the game as well as see it (we're talking real force feedback, not controllers that vibrate like pagers)? Somebody has a patent, that's what. Did you know you can't have mini-games during a loading screen because of patent law?

oh. and the Foo Fighters too yeah? the new (double) album's called Brain Damage yes?

lots of good stuff over at:
http://regnyouth.blogspot.com/

and COLPLAY'S X&Y is finally totally leaked and shit. about time Internet, about time.

your nigga Nigo and Lil' Skateboard P



and a BBC website actually worth going to (that's not a dig on Brit Broadcasters- that's a hateon the official Boys Club site)

Yeah, the Conservatives finally translated the tapes and released them today (why it takes nearly two weeks to translate four hours of Punjabi is beyond me...). My own take is that either the ethics commissioner or the RCMP (or both) should investigate and air the situation out, just because there are too many speculative questions surrounding the whole affair (What else is on the tapes? What's the role of the PMO in all this? What, if anything, was being offered? etc.)

My question about this story, though, stems from something that my Dad mentioned when I was discussing this with him yesterday. He said something to the effect that this will end up tarnishing the East Indian community. I had difficulty believing this; mostly because the only overt reference to the nationalities of the Grewals and Ujjal Dosanjh in the media (other than their names, of course) is the fact that the bulk of the recordings were in Punjabi.

(On a side note, my Dad also believes that there exists a popular opinion that Asians are taking over the country's universities (with the implication that this is a somewhat conspiratorial and patently unfair takeover), but he wouldn't divulge to me the source of such an opinion.)

Supposing for a momment I grant that most Canadians (or Albertans, for that matter) can associate the "Grewal", "Dosanjh", and "Punjabi" with India without some sort of prompting, is the potential tarnishing of the image of the East Indian community because of this incident a valid concern? I get the feeling that the only people who would consider that possibility are either East Indians themselves or those with some prior standing issue with the community.

I realize this may not be the best group to ask this of, and that this story perhaps isn't prominent enough to get a conclusive answer to my question. Nevertheless, I am curious if anyone else, either from opinions of other around you or from the media representation of this story, considers this an "East Indian" issue, or simply a "bah, politics. who cares?" kind of issue?

Bah, I forgot to close a tag...

Anways, here is another link with a bit more about Grewal and his past.

Well, I have to say that the Zolf article was a bit of a surprise. Generally he expresses a more partisan twist.

Here is another link from CTV today. The interesting stuff in this one was:

"Transcripts of Grewal's taped conversations show Prime Minister Paul Martin was ready to talk to Grewal about defecting and to offer him a government post within two weeks of the vote, CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief Robert Fife reported Monday."

Yet, PM PM had always said "No offer was made". My impressions are that it sounded like something was in the works...

Also, that links says that Grewal had asked for Volpe to be involved... yet the impressions I had from the news before was that the PM's aide Murphy that had offered that up. Either way, Murphy did mention it to Volpe (link)

Oh yeah, here is that link to the Andrew Coyne acticle that Zolf mentioned: "He started it" is not a defence

Anyways, I would have thought the ethics commisioner or RCMP would have been involved by now and that the other party leaders wouldn't have to be calling for it. Maybe everyone is waiting for the tapes.

Here's that George Galloway transcript, Gaut. (That's the Scottish MP that dressed down the US Senate committee on its allegations against him relating to Iraq.) The BBC has video, too.

Assigned reading, class: L’affaire Grewal.

Seriously, though, if some of you could read this, I have some questions later. (I apologize for selecting an opinion piece, but this seems to give a good overview of the story. If you prefer, here are a couple of CTV stories about the topic.)

I appreciate your help on this one.