What is sparking controversy, is a level in the single-player campaign. The level takes place at an airport in Moscow, Russia. You and four other men, enter the airport with automatic machine guns fully exposed and begin a massacre of killing the innocent.

I was shocked when I played this level. I had no idea it was in the game, and I was surprised that Infinity Ward was allowed to publish the game, as it is a simulation of a true act of terrorism.

I must note, before the level begins, there is a disclaimer warning you that this level may be offensive to some people, and it gives you the option to skip it if you so wish to.

I imagine this will make some people furious; more specifically parents. The game is rated M for a reason. Am I appalled at the game? No. Why should anyone be when you can mow down crowds of people in Grand Theft Auto and have been able to for years?

Is a game with this kind of content unacceptable? Probably not. I see no wrong doing here from Infinity Ward. After all, this kind of stuff happens all the time in the real world anyway. Might as well play it on a video game.

Comments welcome.

For $249, you can get a refurbished HP Compaq desktop PC with a 320 GB Hard drive, 3GB of RAM, a AMD Athlon X2 processor, bundled with Windows Vista Home Premium. BYOM (Bring Your Own Monitor.) The PC is eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium. The only reason it is under the category “Refurbished” is because it has Windows Vista on it. They are brand new machines. And HP is willing to send you a free upgrade.

I picked one up. I could not resist. The specs on the machine aren’t half bad and the price for one is a steal! This is a perfect example of the deals that Micro Center has to offer. I do a lot of shopping at Micro Center. Sometimes, their deals are just too good to pass up and their customer service isn’t half bad.

The Dock. The Dock is a very nice feature and has been in OS X for quite some time. However, it lacks a few things, in terms of customization. Apple  needs to put in “themes” for the dock. The glassy look is nice, but it gets old. And not everyone like the 3D look. Yes, you can download applications that modify the dock, but I strongly believe that this needs to be built in.

UI Themes. Like Windows, OS X needs themes for the overall interface. The gray look with colorful buttons is nice, but gets old. I would love to see Apple creative support for themes that are built in to OS X, such as an “Aero” look, similar to Windows. Again, you can download software to have a themes in OS X, but Apple needs to make their own, built in to the OS.

More options in Expose. Expose is great, especially in Snow Leopard. I still think it is unfinished, and could use more customizable options, and I also think Apple could implement Expose in other Apple software, such as iTunes, Safari, iPhoto and iMovie.

The return of support for third-party screen savers. When you upgraded to Snow Leopard, you probably noticed that all of your third-party screen savers no longer worked. It is unknown why Apple removed the support for this, but it would be nice to have it back.

These are just a few, but important, things Apple could improve OS X with. There are more, I’m sure. Comments welcome.

My Saturn has been the most reliable car I have ever owned. My Toyota died long ago, and my Chevy Silverado is getting a new engine again, for the third time. Not my Saturn. The only thing that I have ever had to replace was the battery. It’s a 1998 SL2, and has over 214,000 miles. My Silverado has just under 114,000. You tell me which vehicle runs better.

Someone from a Saturn dealer posted this on the Saturn forums:

I work at a Saturn Dealership in Tempe, Arizona and I thank those of you who support us. This is a huge blow to one of the greatest brands ever designed. Many people never understood what GM designed Saturn for. We were made to compete against the overseas brands. We were never designed to be a money maker like everyone keeps crying. We were to keep one more American family in an American car to have the chance for them to grow into other GM brands. Our cars, if you take the time to look, have identical features and options as the Toyota, Honda and Nissan. GM’s mistake is to believe Saturn owners are just going to find another GM brand. That customer that we saved from buying the other brand for years and years will be buying the other 3 brands now. They didn’t buy into the belief of GM; they bought into the belief of Saturn.

I wholeheartedly agree. This was a great brand, and now GM has destroyed it forever. It’s not fair, nor is it right.

There were once the top three for me: Twitterrific, Twhirl, and Tweetdeck. All three of those have changed this week, with new updates that now render them useless to me… well almost.

Twhirl was my favorite. It is slim, easy to use, and constantly up-to-date. However, since Seesmic acquired Twhirl in 2008, I can’t stand the thing. It now posts as “via Seesmic” instead of “via Twhirl” like it once used to. Yeah, so what if I am being picky. I do not want people thinking I am using Seesmic Desktop. I HATE that client. The other thing they changed in this update is that Twhirl now posts to yFrog instead of TwitPic. yFrog is a poor excuse of a service to post Twitter photos. Great job at failing that one, ImageShack. Uninstalling.

Twitterrific no longer lets you post photos at all. Uninstalling.

Tweetdeck is so bulky, and now they have added a MySpace column because you know that MySpace is reeling in the dough these days. /sarcasm. I am going to have to purchase a third monitor just to use Tweetdeck.

However, Tweetdeck is the most reliable, most up-to-date and the only one that has not gone to sh!t. So it’s what I use, for now.

And don’t even recommend Tweetie. That’s a whole new rant.

Another guy dressed in blue, and three times my brother’s size, runs up on my brother demanding the keys to his ‘84 Buick Regal. Of course my brother doesn’t give him the keys. The large man gets my brother on the ground, punching him left and right. My brother told me there was nothing he could do; the guy was too big and too strong.

Needless to say, a co-worker of the restaurant saw what was happening, and threatened the Crip members that he was calling the police. They split, my brother managed to pick himself up, and drive away. He’s all right, but he has purchased a license and a taser.

Facebook today realeased an update to their current application for the iPhone. They have totally overhauled the interface, making it more appealing and useful. And I must say, this may bring me back to Facebook.

I still have my original account, but all it does is feed updates from Twitter and Friendfeed. I have a feeling that will change now. With this new iPhone app, it makes you want to do more. Don’t take my word for it; check it out for yourself. The price is great: free.

This week, I have had three different women in three different places in Kansas City try to make a move on me. One wanted me to let her put her number in my iPhone. I’m sorry, but NO ONE uses my iPhone for ANYTHING. The same goes for my Macintosh computers.

Another met me at an intersection and wanted me to pull off to a restaurant. Now, the funny thing is, I drive a basic Saturn sedan. No fancy sports car. So it wasn’t because of my “ride.”

The third was at a coffee shop I go to regularly.

Since when are women into geeks? I find it odd that three different women, all of who were at least average looking, would hit on me. IN ONE WEEK. I am never hit on, so why the sudden change? And, if you are wondering, I declined to go any further with all three, for the simple fact that I LOVE BEING SINGLE.

It must be the AXE body spray.

Twitter needs to get their act together. This is highly unacceptable, among other things. They have a lack of security, and are very easy to attack, and have a large spam problem. Last week, they were hit with a DDoS attack from some guy on the other side of the planet. How pathetic is that?

Not to mention, their servers are always going down, “fail whales” pop up everywhere, and it’s just all bogus. They need to learn how to run a company, and a service better. If these errors persist, and are not fixed soon, I’m getting rid of the bird altogether. There are other forms of social networking on the internet; in fact, you are on one at this very moment.

I take a snapshot of the error with my iPhone, and send the shot over to geeks.pirillo.com. Minutes later, people are telling me that it was AVG that caused the error. And they were right.

I go to unistall AVG completely from my system, and before I can press restart, I get another BSOD. Nothing like going out with a bang.

AVG is horrible. The laughing stock of the Antivirus industry and in my opinion, worse than Norton. They were once so good and did such a great job at keeping your computer clean and safe. Not anymore. They have lost their reputation among the geeks, and are avoided like the plague.

Looking for a good (and free) antivirus? Try these: avast!, Avira, BitDefender. Or go with the “big boys”: Kapersky, McAfee, Windows Live OneCare (does not work with Windows 7).