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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Last issue's tome on the metric system inspired more reader mail than any column since the My Friend Polio where Omar Bricks offered to sell naked pictures of my sister to the highest bidder. This time, however, readers weren't asking if I could beat Omar's price. They wanted to know how in the hell we came up with our current non-metric system of weights and measures in the first place. Good question.

Imperial weights and measures (known in modest England as "English weights and measures") range from the feet, gallons and pounds we're all familiar with to hundreds of freakish and forgotten variations that sound like whimsy straight out of Lord of the Rings. The next time somebody asks you for a chalder of coal or wants to know if you can spare a groat, you'll know you've either time-tripped into some medieval hell or else you're at the Renaissance Fair. Either way you're screwed. Likewise if someone offers you a minim of soy sauce or four roods of swampland. And if some wiseacre tells you you're twelve scruples overweight or uglier than a perch of limestone, punch him in the face first and ask questions about his outdated terminology later.

The system of Imperial weights and measures is not one defined by cold logic or mathematical nonsense, rather it's an innately human system based on how one innate human, King Edward I of England, thought things should be measured. Having grown up poor, Edward was the kind of insecure nuevo-rich king that insisted everything be named after him and that potatoes should only be grown in his likeness.

In England, length was originally measured by a unit known as the dork, which corresponded to the king's, uh… royal tackle. Later, more prurient factions within the country pushed to have the measure changed to the more family-friendly foot. Edward relented after being convinced that everybody knew what it really meant, and that nobody thought he had big feet.

The yard was developed as a unit of measurement based on the distance from the door to the backyard fence in the king's boyhood home, which indicated a home run if cleared on the fly by a batted ball. Anyone who pointed out that Edward grew up with a damned small back yard was immediately beheaded and taken off the king's Christmas card list without benefit of legal council.

An acre was originally defined as the area an ox could crap up in one morning, though over time oxen fell into disuse due to the scarcity of uncrapped land in England. In time the acre was known as the smallest area of land you could leave to your heirs without them coming to ox-drop on your grave after you'd passed.

Edward was also obsessed with barley, which at the time was known as "edwardly." The king spent much of his spare time counting grains of the stuff, and was keen on showing off his barley-counting prowess by having the standard measure of weight in England be equal to 7,000 grains. This unit was nicknamed the "pound" because that amount of barley was usually sufficient for bribing the dogcatcher to return your wayward pooch. As is still true today, the English of Edward's times were unusually fond of their dogs, though back then they didn't eat them.

The mile was defined as the longest distance Edward had ever walked without being carried, when as a boy his manservant died suddenly of a heart attack while carrying Edward to the beach and the king-to-be had to walk very far to find some ice cream. Similarly, the hour corresponded with the longest time Edward had ever had to wait in line, from the time when he was at the king store and there was a run on poofy velvet capes.

Naturally, the Imperial system was refined in the years after Edward's passing, the most notable addition coming when London blacksmith Mike Inch's ex-girlfriend Lydia immortalized his unimpressive tackle by lobbying that its length would be a perfect way to divide the foot into twelve segments. Lydia was so unflagging in her badmouthing crusade over the years that the inch eventually became a national standard of measurement, providing a powerful example that hell hath no embarrassment like a woman dumped for a slutty bar maid.

If the history of weights and measures teaches one lesson, it is that terminology and unit sizes will come and go over time, but human pettiness is an undying standard that will always remain universal.

º Last Column: Fuck the Metric System
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Salutations, truth-hungry nation. I'm happier than a pig in excrement that the commune has gone back to a weekly schedule, and that I'm writing a correspondence for them for the first time in more than a year! Oh, speaking of the pig/excrement thing, I also want to sincerely thank commune columnist Omar Bricks for the bag of sandwiches he sent to all his fans during the long commune hiatus. I hear most of them are already out of the hospital, and those who aren't are well on their way to recovery. I have the same trouble remembering cooking rules—alfredo sauce is served hot, mayonnaise is cold. They can't really expect busy adventurers like us to keep up with such trivialities.

No one was more devastated than I when the commune mysteriously stopped publishing last year. I even had to mention it to most of the people I knew, then they pretended indifference, but I assure you I didn't have to pretend—devastated I was. Our faithful favorite website did that touching Six Feet Under-themed edition around last May, then poof! No commune! Just when I was hoping they would be moving on to a Boston Legal-themed edition, since I don't get cable and have never seen the other show.

All my queries to fearless editor Red Bagel were returned unopened, with little crudely drawn maps to pirate treasure on the envelopes. But I sought something more—the glib satisfaction I get from knowing I stayed informed with the world's most controversial and scoop-tastic alternative news site! Hmm. I guess it does kind of warrant laughing, to read it all laid out like that instead of just yelling it at city hall. Regardless, I was not going to take the disappearance of the commune lying down. I jumped onto the phone (quite literally, since I've been living without furniture in my apartment after losing my job last year) to organize all the individual commune Enthusiasts Clubs into one massive coalition to raise money, threaten the Illuminati, save the world through video games—to do anything, in short, to get the commune publishing again.

Well, stop me if you guessed where this is going: The Shanesly, Vermont commune Enthusiasts Club was the only club out there! I mean, I'm sure there are others, but they sure are hard to find. Not very well-organized.

So I've taken it upon myself, as the world's single biggest commune fan (though my friend Rudy with the crippling depression is starting to come around in a big way!) to form the world's first National commune Enthusiasts Club. Or NcEC, for those of you who like odd acronyms.

I actually did all this about 8 months ago, and I have to say the result has been really overwhelming. Or just whelming, maybe. We are getting responses, and not just from those pricks at the "Do Not Call" list headquarters. I have over 15 interested potential members already! Most of them have the same thing in common: A thirst for the undiluted truth, as only an anti-corporate website can deliver. They are also all single and live with a great number of cats, which I find curious. What is it about the commune and its many feline fanciers?

Whatever I did, even if it felt unproductive at that time, it's worked! The commune is back in business, and better than ever! Or maybe it could use some improvements, but that's hardly my call. However, if they do want any insightful critiques from me, they'll find me living in their very own local Flatbush, N.J. Y.M.C.A.

In all honesty, though, it's not as much fun as the song made it sound. I have to sleep very lightly to keep from getting a kidney stolen in the night. But what's a kidney as a price to pay, really? I have two of those, despite that awful Guillermo's insidious intentions; there's still only one commune.

º Last Column: The Seventh commune Enthusiasts Club Meeting
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