Last week, on a chilly Chicago afternoon, I was walking from campus to Union Station. It was windy, as usual, but the not so warm temperature of 50 degrees ensured that everyone was wearing a jacket. As I passed outside the Federal Reserve, there was this decent looking girl with a clipboard standing on the corner. We made eye contact. She smiled. I smiled back. We were captivated in that moment in time. We had a bond. Then she asked me if I wanted to sign a petition to stop global warming. The bond was broken. And thereafter, so was her neck. She was a prime example of a “beautiful bimbo.” First off, if you’re stupid enough to think a petition to stop global working is going to work, or even be remotely effective, you’re a dumbass. Second, if you’re going to try to get signatures for that petition, don’t do it on a chilly spring day. For some reason the fact that it was mid-May and the temperature was 50 degrees makes it a tad bit less believable that global warming is actually an issue. Instead, it just shows that the real issue is common sense and the lack thereof in this individual.

Let me repeat myself: there is no possible way you can stop global warming via a petition. The only way to reduce (not stop) the effects of global warming is by increasing energy costs. That’s right, if you’re bitching about paying at most $4 per gallon for gas, get ready to start bitching about this idea. Gas should be at least $10 per gallon, if not more. Illinois residents are bitching about energy price hikes because the 20 year energy rate freeze is finally over. Fuck that, I want to see utility bills break $1000 for a single family home.

Now before you disregard this because you have your head up your ass, consider the following. The leading “polluters” in the world, aka the leading causers of global warming are not individuals, but corporations. If you’re a little dick 40 year old Hummer driving asshole, your contribution to global warming is miniscule compared to what corporations churn out. Let me put it this way…1.2% of the total U.S. electrical consumption comes from companies powering and cooling their servers (source). That’s 1.2% just to operate a bunch of fucking computers. And you know what’s even crazier? It is estimated that 30%-60% of that energy actually goes to waste. With that knowledge alone, you can only imagine how much of the U.S. energy consumption is actually attributed by companies, and not individuals.

Energy costs are slowly becoming a larger and larger chunk of a company’s budget. If we increase energy costs tenfold, companies will shit bricks. An era of energy innovation will be spurred like no other. Millions, if not billions of dollars will be dumped in the R&D departments of companies in order to find effective and efficient alternatives to oil, coal, and natural gas. The alternatives already exist, they just don’t exist in an economically efficient manner. Hybrid cars still cost more than a gas version. You don’t see windmills providing electricity to metropolitan areas. Hydrogen power is only now being harnessed. And you still need a shitload of solar panels (many football fields worth) in order to power a single data center. Increasing energy costs will force companies to research and use alternative energy sources, instead of using their “pollution credits” as a way to dupe the government into saying they’re “eco-friendly.” Make those fuckers run on rice instead of coal. Once the companies take the first step and lead the way, the consumers will follow. So write to your local congressmen…do the world a favor and petition for higher energy costs.

I think most game companies in the industry should explore the possibility of expanding their support departments to include Apple Macintosh computers, even if their games are PC only. Apple has a nifty piece of software currently in beta testing called Boot Camp that allows Mac users to install Windows XP or Vista on a separate partition of their hard drive. Boot Camp will be released in it’s final form as part of the new Mac OSX called Leopard, which comes out this fall. Unlike Windows emulation software that is available for Macs, such as Parallels Desktop, Boot Camp allows for the entire Windows experience, including the use of DirectX. This means that when Leopard is released Mac users will have access to the vast array of titles available in the PC gaming market.

With the swarm of Mac gamers knocking on the PC gaming doorstep, it is only logical that gaming companies start supporting their products on Mac’s using Boot Camp as well. This doesn’t mean creating Mac ports of their products, but it means that if a Mac user has some issues with their game while running Boot Camp, the game company’s tech support team will be able to help him or her resolve that problem. What do you think?

Spiderman 3 was shit. Save yourself the money and don’t bother seeing it. To sum up the movie, everyone fucking cries (Peter Parker, Aunt Mae, Mary Jane, Sam Raimi, Cameraman #3, and the fluffer). I tried to follow the half a dozen plot lines as they weaved themselves into a spider-web of their own, but only succeeded in realizing that Peter Parker had become an emo. Waa waa waa, I’m a fucking pussy and after three fucking movies I still can’t come out of the closet and tell Mary Jane to fuck off and that the only reason I am so close with Harry is cause I loved taking peeps at him coming out of the shower when we roomed together. Waaa, the world depends on me, yet I’m so insecure. Fuck this shit, this movie is a great example on how to turn a thriving movie franchise into a disaster. I swear, at the third moment in the movie where I thought to myself, “OK, it’s going to end here. I know it, this is the spot where the movie ends” I was duped into another half hour of dragging bullshit and the addition of five new plot lines. In fact, now that I’ve seen the movie, I am a firm believer that Sam Raimi did not direct this movie, but in fact George Lucas did. I mean, who else can fuck up a blockbuster franchise so bad, other than George Lucas? Save your money, save yourselves. Don’t see Spiderman 3.