he sound of big, scary men whining grew louder this week with the news that the Missouri House (similar to the Ronald McDonald House, only more Missoury) has upheld state governor Matt Blunt's decision to ban all video games from the state's prisons. While the public's reaction has been mostly along the lines of "They have video games in prison? Is there anything those assholes don't have?" the reaction from inmates statewide has been much bitchier.

"Man, this shit is whack," complained Tyrell Doogins, convicted three-time murder and NBA LIVE fanatic. "If I can't get my GTA on, I gonna be killin' some suckers for real."

The move by Blunt came after months of criticism by victim's-rights groups disturbed by the prospect of prisoners reliving their real-life criminal exploits, and earning gaudy high scores for doing so, through such violent games as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Hitman: Contracts.

But not all inmates agree with that line of reasoning.

"Man, that shit is so fake," bitched lifer Tug Borrows. "That gun doesn't recoil anything like that, this game is for pussies."

Prison officials have also accused some popular titles, like Acclaim's Prison Riot and Rockstar's Shower Shiv 2 of instigating real-life violence within the state's correctional facilities.

"It's the age-old question of art imitating life, or life imitating art," explained cultural critic and perpetual college student Justin Blake. "Just because two inmates drop their controllers and get into a knife fight in the middle of playing Eidos' Prison Rec Room Knife Fight Gold Edition, it's impossible to say if the game caused that behavior, or if Eidos just did a good job getting the details right. After all, that kind of stuff went on long before they had video games in prisons. They used to blame that old Gregory Peck movie, Change That Channel and I Break Your Face for the same kind of things."

While highly violent games like Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne are by far the most popular in America's prisons, there do remain small pockets of gaming inmates dedicated to non-violent titles, who feel like they're being unfairly punished by the total ban of all video game types.

"Sure, not a lot of guys in the joint are as into Roller Coaster Tycoon as I am," admitted Dolmer Grays, a diminutive and heavily-bruised inmate in Jefferson City. "But there are enough of us. And any time we're not running away from the bigger and tougher inmates, you can find us playing RCT, baby."

Dolmer had to cut the interview short to escape retribution from a GTA fan, but his point was well-taken. However, it remains this reporter's position that Dolmer and other fans of pussy video games should spend a little more time in the gym and a little less time on the Xbox if they hope to outrun a beatdown more successfully than Dolmer did.

This reporter also received word of a small but dedicated pocket of Dance Dance Revolution fans in the Jefferson City facility, but was advised by the warden to stay out of that cell block if I valued my anus, which this reporter does.

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I heard on the news the other day, or at least the second-hand news, that some dude just won a major cash settlement after he broke into somebody's house and they were out of Oreos. He was robbin' the joint and in the course of carting out the widescreen TVs and Jacuzzis and whatnot, he worked up a powerful hunger for some milk and cookies. So he went to the fridge, poured himself a big glass of milk, and then realized his shit was up a creek because these cruel motherfuckers had gone on vacation without leaving behind any Oreos. Yeah, they had some other cookies, some Soft Batch bullshit, but this dude was hungry for Oreos. And he was just shit out of luck. So when the family got back, he sued their asses for mental anguish, and made out like a bandit. Which is funny because he kind of was a bandit anyway.

Now normally I'd be all over that action myself, since I could definitely use the money, but my uncle's diabetic and I don't want to be stuck without cookies in case that shit runs in the family. It's hard to spend those millions when you're planted ass-up in the ground.

But the other day there was something in the paper they use to wrap fish 'n chips about some other dude who was suing the power company because he got shitfaced one night, broke into the power plant, climbed up a transformer tower and was blown clean across the street when he touched the wires. I also heard that his smoking nuts were still stuck to the tower, but that part wasn't in the paper. Probably to protect his family or whatever. Anyway, this dude was suing the power company because they didn't do a good enough job keeping him from blowing his ass up after he pulled the fence down with his truck, kicked down a door and scaled the 50-foot tower buck-naked.

Now after I checked in the mirror for electric burn marks, to make sure I wasn't the dude the papers were talking about, I began to hatch a plan. If this was all true it could be the best thing that ever happened, since it meant my whole life was one big, walking lawsuit. I could make a steady living off this shit without breaking a sweat. It'd be like getting paid to be Omar Bricks.

It's probably a good thing I never finished law school, because I obviously don't have a mind for this stuff. It never occurred to me to sue when I fell through the roof of that Taco bell when Dave and I climbed up there to make off with the bell. Sure, I still came out of the deal with a home décor rarity and conversation piece, but in retrospect I probably could have sued those thin-roof-having assholes out of a couple million, if not a lifetime supply of Nachos BellGrande.

It also never occurred to me that I've been shit on legally every time I've burned the hell out of my mouth on pizza, which is more times than I can count. I always knew those negligent fuckers where making the pizza too hot, but I never realized until now that I have legal recourse. I always just assumed it was my personal responsibility to wait until the cheese stopped bubbling before I bit into the damn thing. Hey, I'm not afraid to admit I was naĂŻve.

But not any more. Now this game's got new rules, and a new name. It's called Omar Bricks Gets Paid For Shit That's Mostly His Fault. And I get the feeling I'm gong to kick some ass at this one. Now I just need to wait for some mishap to come knocking at the door.

Maybe I should buy some rollerskates. Bricks out.

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Editor's Note: Sampson L. Hartwig may be gone and presumed dead, his stuff long since passed around to the staff members who have gone through his desk, but the prolific Hartwig had oodles and oodles of remembrances we were never desperate enough to run. Until now. Enjoy!

I remember my first trip to the hospital. It was the birth of my sister, Stephanie, and I was only a little tyke. Me and my brother Goose were both five. Actually, Goose was three years older than me, but always wanted everything I had, so my dad made us both five. Come to think of it, Goose never did get those years back.

The hospital was a big, scary place for a little kid. Everything was white and sterile, people moved around gigantic electric equipment since back then everything was tubes and hand-cranks—thermometers took up whole rooms. And then there were the doctors, big old scary guys walking around with masks on their faces like bank robbers. As a kid I thought it was so nobody knew, even the nurses, who left the sponge in the guy after they sewed him up. Kind of like when they shoot a guy, there's four riflemen with one bullets. Though I guess you could bring your own bullets from home to make sure, no one's stopping you.

All I knew was Mom came in with a bellyache and a big fat stomach. I thought it was because Dad punched her there all the time, but he said he just did that so the baby would come out with good reflexes. You may scoff now, with your modern sensibilities, but back then it was common, the government even told you to do it. I remember a big poster of Teddy Roosevelt in our school telling us to "Punch one for the hun!" Man, that slogan rhymed.

The doctor tried to tell me exactly what was happening. Mom and Dad had decided to have a baby together, and they laid down in a bed, and nine months later came along a baby, which would be a little boy or girl. He said "the stork" was just a myth, and that baby's come out because of complicated biology.

Well, obviously, Goose and I beat the hell out of him, held him down, and threatened to cut out his tongue with a broken bottle if he started telling people such lies. Our Mom and Dad never laid down in a bed together in their lives. That was something foreigners did maybe, but not Mom and Dad.

Come to think of it, I never did really figure out how Mom got the baby out. You'd think I'd have picked that up over the years by now. I always just assumed it ripped its way out of the front of her stomach and that's why Mom never wore a two-piece bathing suit.

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