I will not be buying the Orange Box. I really like Half-Life 2 and Episode 1. I have already purchased them once so that I could play them whenever I want to. I do not feel the need to purchase them again just to get Episode 2. I don't care about Team Fortress 2 and I don't care about Portal. I was willing to buy the Black Box to get Episode 2, but there is no way in Hell that I am going buy the Orange Box and end up with another copy of HL2 and Episode 1! Everyone I know that wanted HL2 already has it, so I would be stuck with additional copies, which amounts to wasted money. I hate wasting money, so that isn't going to happen.

The ESRB handed Rockstar an Adults Only (AO) rating for their upcoming title "Manhunt 2". Because this title was only coming out on Sony and Nintendo systems, which do not permit AO-rated games for their systems, Rockstar has a limited set of options available to them. In case you're wondering, Microsoft does not allow AO games for its consoles, either.

Option one, which would be a best case scenario for Rockstar, is to appeal the ESRB rating and win an Mature (M) rating for Manhunt 2. An M rating would allow the game to be released as scheduled.

Option two would be to tone the game down enough to make it to the M territory. This would mean a delay in the release of the game, but the game would eventually be released. Given the nature of this game, this may not be a realistic option.

Option three, rework the game and release it on the PC. It will still have an AO rating, which would keep it out of just about every retail outlet on Earth, but it could potentially be sold via digital distribution channels or Take-2 could sell it directly to consumers.

The option I'd like to see Rockstar and Take-2 choose is what I call Option four. Option four is to not release the game at all and seek some counselling for the issues that are clearly sitting at a slow boil in the employees of Rockstar and Take-2.

Why do I say that? Because no one in their right mind would think a "game" where the object is to maim, torture and kill people for fun is a game that should be made, let alone played. Yes, many other games feature killing the enemy. Those games, however, usually have an objective above and beyond mass murder for the sake of committing mass murder, such as rescuing hostages, saving the country and saving the world.

Manhunt 2 has no redeeming value. It does not make a socially relevant statement. It is in no way "pushing the envelope". Manhunt 2 is nothing more than an exercise in extremely poor taste on the part of the developers and extremely bad judgement on the part of Take-2. I am completely against censorship, but I am equally against just plain senseless.

As some of you may be aware, I have Road Runner as my Internet access provider. As you may also be aware, I have been less than ecstatic about the service I have been provided by this subsidiary of Time Warner. Nothing illustrates this better than the visit I had from a Road Runner tech this afternoon.

My Internet connection was being its usually flaky self this week. After having no connectivity all day Wednesday, I made an appointment to have a tech come and see if he could determine why Road Runner sucks so badly, at least at my house. As is typically the case, once I made the appointment, everything started working. It worked for two days straight, which is unusual at my house.

So, thinking that Time Warner may have actually gotten their act together, I canceled the service call. You can probably guess what happened next. If you can't, I'll tell you. My Internet connectivity disappeared within an hour of my canceling of the service call. To say that I was not happy would be a severe understatement.

My wife was willing to call Time Warner for me and see if she could get the appointment reinstated. Since I was extremely upset with Time Warner, I agreed. She was able to get the appointment back on the books for today without much trouble. Had I called, I probably would have gotten us banned from using any Time Warner service ever again.

The technician arrived at about 1:30PM, which happened to be within the 11:00AM to 2:00PM I had originally been given for today's previous appointment. The tech checked out the modem, the signal amplifier in the basement, and the connection outside. What he found nearly sent me into an apoplectic fit.

It turns out that there are two cables coming into our house. One is for the television signal and one is for our broadband Internet connection. In the four years we have lived here, we have had at least six visits regarding out Internet and/or television service. None of the previous technicians ever found that the two cables were mis-connected at the box on the side of our house.

The reason they were mis-connected is due to the fact that they were mis-labeled. How they got to be mis-labeled is a mystery, at least to me. The important thing is that they are now correctly connected and this correction should improve the performance of both our television and Internet services, not to mention my blood pressure.