As Gimps go, I'm pretty easygoing. I don't even trip the bastards who visit the Urinal but neglect to tip me. Of course, the cat urine I sprinkle on their hands instead of after shave lotion usually puts them in a pretty pissy mood anyway – so to speak.

But this time, I want to fill a van with toilet paper, collect bags of crap (to be set aflame on Hillary Clinton's doorstep) and buy a couple hundred dozen raw eggs and go forth and reason with the fringe group of lunatics who can't make up their mind how to best confuse the few parents who actually USE the game rating systems (currently the ESRB) to determine whether or not to let their child have access to a particular videogame.

The politicians you expect nonsense from – it's their job to make sure people aren't having any fun – but why does it always come from the so-called "Liberal Democrats" like Clinton and Lieberman? Do they think that by casting themselves as videogame censors they will somehow prove themselves even more hardass than the Republicans and thus more worthy of election?

Not that the Republicans offers any hope. Sure, they say they want to keep Government at bay (while creating a deficit that your grandchildren will be paying off), but when they talk about Big Government, why do I always get the feeling that the REAL message is: "The Government is spending too dang much time and money looking into MY business – and not nearly enough looking into YOURS!"

But skip the politicos for now and let's focus on the freelance Cotton Mather-types like Thompson and Yee. The former, fortunately, having disgraced himself one time too many, has finally been seen as a hypocritical manipulator by even the family groups who had previously allowed him to sponge off their name and influence to leverage his various deals. One group officially ordered him to stop using their name in his literature and to stop suggesting that they support him.

The latest of these videogame buzzkills is David G. Kinney , co-founder and CEO of PSVratings Inc., who has come up with a way to confound parents, screw up the game industry AND make money for his PSVratings outfit all at the same time. Now while the last thing I want to do is boost their hits, I strongly advise you to take a trip to their ratings site and check out the whole thing.

"It's as easy as 1-2-3" (plus RGB and some geometry.) Parents can barely understand what an "M" with a 17+ next to it could possibly mean. Now they're expected to memorize the fucking color wheel?

What is this supposed to represent? The ambiguously gay nuclear family?

Now maybe it's me – I mean, I DO live in a pit and wear a feces-smeared leather body suit – but doesn't this system make the ESRB or the movie rating system look like no-brainers? Here's the problem: once you start listing things that might possibly offend people you either have to be so vague you can't get the ratings to stand up in court when they're challenged or so specific that by the time you're done you've got a guidebook the size of the fucking Koran.

For example, you'd think "Nudity" would be obvious, right? It isn't. I mean, what kind? Topless? Rear view? Beaver shots? Even "sexual content" can be confusing. Sure, somebody's getting laid, but is it discrete or is it full-on XXX porno?

These guys are such dimwits they're using INTENTIONALLY vague and mistaken wording. Why "Profanity," for example? Profanity refers exclusively to religion and giving offense to a deity. Of course, they mean "talkin' dirty" but then we go back to Lenny Bruce and ask: "What's so dirty about human beings and their bodily functions?" And that's just the beginning of a mess that will have parents trying to figure out these ratings for hours. What's the difference, for example, between "Profane Slang" and "Obscene Slang?" I have to wonder since they don't even seem to know what Profane means, or else why name the category after it?.

Also, as one game fan observed: "I can have the sex scene from 'Matrix Reloaded' and get the same rating as hardcore porn." And you can have blood particles and get the same rating as a live beheading by, say, I dunno, maybe a boomerang machete.

This system is beyond stupid, and it's not just a "fuck you" to the ESRB and more confusion for parents -- the fact is that PSVratings is selling this system while lobbying it into position in a deal that absolutely screams conflict of interest. And then, of course, there are the politicians with whom they're in bed all cozy with not a condom in sight.

And that, dear readers, is the scariest thing I could think of this Halloween (AND I LIVE IN A PIT!). As Count Floyd would say: "That's scary, kids! Scary enough… to make you drink your own blood!"

Happy Halloween and I'll see y'all again next month, Postal Babies!

--The Gimp
Editor, The Urinal