So, did you miss me? (The normal response I get to this question is, "You were away?", but you can just say "Yes.") I always love coming back to the world after falling off of it for a week or so, just to see how fast a pace of life we really live and how quickly things move.

My old shooting buddies Jack Thompson and Dennis McCauley are both, notably, in the news. Jack went and nearly got himself arrested for contempt of court, and I've been reading (and watching, thank you Destructoid) the aftermath with some amusement. It's nice to not have to sit around tapping my fingers waiting for something to happen - the suspense annoys me - and so it's nice to have the whole story thrown out in front of me. Probably why I'm such a history buff.

Poor old Jack, always stirring up trouble. At this point I think that the moral crusade has become a bit farcical now that the impetus given it by Hot Coffeegate way back when (a year ago now, isn't it? Damn, we're getting on...) has run out. It was interesting when Hot Coffeegate broke to see what would happen to the industry as it became politicised. It got kind of strange when everyone up to and including The Sims were getting naked in Jack's book. At this point having rows with judges (not Jack's first) is circus stuff. The problem with the moral high ground is that the air is thinner up there, I think...

Jack's previous arch-nemesis (coming somewhere in-between that accused lesbian opponent in an election race and Judge Dredd this past month) Dennis has sold out to The Man, apparently, and GamePolitics has been merged into the Entertainment Consumers Association. Cue back patting and cynical cat calls in equal measure. Back patting because Dennis has done such a good job at building himself and GamePolitics into the de facto source for video game political news. Cat calling is required from the cynical because, well, the ECA is not an unbiased owner and as much as Dennis might tell us that impartiality will remain the buzzword, where have we heard that before?

I suppose GamePolitics has always been biased, in the sense that it views the world of politics from the gamers perspective, as opposed to the knee-jerk tabloid view of things; but becoming part of an organisation which, as Kotaku pointed out, is out for the consumer but without stepping on the toes of the industry, puts a spin on things which is more complex than "Us and Them."

Still, you never know. As a journalist who has been involved in his fair share of rows over this-and-that, including partiality, I don't like it myself when people simply assume that 2 + 2 = 5, and Dennis may well lead the good ship GP through the waters of partiality without completely mucking things up. At the very least the ECA has bought itself a soapbox, at best GP will have got itself a megaphone without any strings attached.

Well, I'm going to get back to acclimatising myself to the week previous of October 27^th. It's a strange new world...