Stupid Evil Bastard

Things aren’t looking good for Michigan’s recent video game law that was due to go into effect on December 1st. The lawsuit filed last month by the ESA, VSDA and the Michigan Retailers Association has already won a partial victory in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan with the judge granting a preliminary injunction preventing the new law from going into effect:

“(Michigan) has been unable to demonstrate the perceived harm it seeks to protect against,” Judge George Caram Steeh wrote in a ruling obtained by Reuters.

He added that the state had failed to show what harm could result from selling games to minors. The judge also said “obvious harm” could arise from “stifling free speech” if the law goes into effect as planned on December 1.

“Plaintiffs have demonstrated that the Act is unlikely to survive strict scrutiny, and that irreparable harm follows from the loss of First Amendment freedoms,” Judge Steeh wrote.

This isn’t that big of a surprise as similar laws in other states and cities have been struck down for similar reasons, but that hasn’t stopped other states from jumping on the bandwagon with Delaware being the most recent along with Illinois, Florida and California. It’s interesting to note how many of these laws are being initiated and hyped by Democrats. You’d think they’d be smart enough to realize that these laws, as crafted, won’t hold up in court and if you’re as cynical as I am you’d go as far as to think that they’re counting on it. Ever since the last Presidential election it seems some Democrats have been scrambling to pile onto any issue that’ll show the voters that they too have Family Values. If the courts strike down the laws then they can pile onto the Activist Judges bandwagon as well. Two birds, one stone.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you can’t deny that Google puts some pretty cool tools into the hands of some very creative people who go on to do things with it you’d never expect. From coming up with a social mapping application that lets you pinpoint members of your group on a map to a new app that lets you play a round of the classic boardgame Risk using actual maps. Now that’s damned clever.

Link found via Boing Boing.

Well it’s Thursday and I still haven’t heard back from my previous contract house about the job I interviewed for so I’m assuming that they weren’t able to move the staff meeting up to Monday from its usual time of today. On the downside that means I’ve just spent the last three days worrying, but on the upside it means I should hear something later today or tomorrow; assuming the stress hasn’t given me an aneurysm yet. The decision to move in with my in-laws is pretty much a done deal unless there’s some last-minute lottery winning miracle that should occur, but I still have one more month of rent to pay for before that happens in addition to various bills that are starting to come due right about now. Freelancing jobs with Compeople have been sorely lacking as of late so needless to say I’m particularly anxious to get back to work soon so I can earn at least a little money to deal with some of these issues before they become major problems.

But there’s a new wrinkle that’s just developed. I got a call from my buddy Rob yesterday that his boss had forwarded my resume on to the folks in charge of the server group at Ford and I just got off the phone after a brief discussion with the recruiter about the position. She didn’t have much time to talk about it at the time, but wanted to touch base and ask if it would be OK for her to call back later this evening around 5PM to discuss the job in greater detail along with my background. To which I replied, “Absolutely!” I have no idea how much the job would pay, but it’s fairly decent based on what I know from talking with folks who already work in that group as back when I was a planner at Ford the guy who was the Second Level PC Administrator who supported most of the buildings I had under my wing ended up moving into that very same group and seemed quite happy with the pay raise he received as a result. It would also be full-time work as opposed to part-time. It wouldn’t be with my favorite contract house, but you go were the work is. I should be able to fill in a few of the details this evening.

Life, in its constant struggle to make sure any good news is evened out by some bad news, still had one more surprise in store for me yesterday. The last molar in the upper left side of my jaw has a pretty good sized filling in the side of it and yesterday the back half of the remaining tooth decided to break off so I could swallow it before I realized what happened. The filling is still intact and in place as near as I can tell and I’m not in any pain, though I am a bit wrought over suddenly being minus a good chunk of tooth back there. Last time something like this happened they ended up putting a cap on the tooth and if they do the same with this one it’ll make for the fourth cap in my mouth—two of which are literally gold teeth because I wanted a reminder when I brushed of why I’m brushing—but it doesn’t seem like there’s enough tooth left to put a cap on. Not to mention that not having any insurance at the moment pretty much means I’m going to have to hope it holds up in its current state until I do get back to work and get some insurance going.

So there’s were we stand as of today. Still waiting to hear back from the last job I interviewed for, maybe getting ready to go to a new interview for a possibly better position, and swallowing chunks of tooth that have decided to go into early retirement. I don’t know how much more of this kind of fun I can take.