Crime is Pride

Think: all men make mistakes

But a good man yeilds when he

Knows his course is wrong,

And repairs the evil: The only

Crime is pride.



The Greek playwright of Sophocles wrote these immortal words within Antigone. Before I get into whether or not this statement has actual validity or not, let's analyze this quote. I think we can all agree that men make mistakes. The quote notes that even though this is true, it only matters what is done to make up for those mistakes. The only crime is having too much pride to admit that what you've done is wrong.

 

Now, as for the validity of this statement, I believe that it carries some weight to it, but isn't entirely correct. Sophocles seems to impress upon his readers that no matter what has been done it can be fixed by what the perpetrator does to correct it. In this regards, I don't agree with what he says in this quote. Regardless of what is done to correct a wrongdoing, there are still repercussions to one's actions. For instance, take a common thief stealing a simple lighter. If they get caught, they will face the authority of the law. If they are successful, however, there have been cases where they return to the clerk and admit their crime. While their actions redeem them of their action of stealing, they still must deal with the possible punishment that the clerk chooses to bestow upon the perpetrator.

However, while the above may be true, I think the statement made by Sophocles also has a sort of validity to it in one aspect. While people should still face the consequences of their actions, there is a sense of salvation in attempting to correct any harm done to anyone or anything. To revisit the anecdote of the clerk and the thief, he showed honesty and courage by telling the clerk that he took and admitted it was wrong to do so. By doing this, he still has to face the person he stole from and, by apologizing, may have lessened his punishment by doing so, demonstrating that there is some redemption depending on how one handles the situation.

My dad always told me that it's not what you do to mess up, it's what you do to fix it. And being a man is having the courage to deal with the consequences of your actions. I'd like to offer this as a counter-quote to dear Mister Sophocles, for there is little that can be fully redeemed by undoing what has already been done.

I Wish I Had a Portal Gun

Perhaps one of the most unconventional genres of games are puzzle games. From the classics such as solitaire and Minesweeper to more recent developments like Bejeweled, people of all kinds and all ages partake in the occasional puzzle game from time to time. However, a gaming franchise has taken the notion of a puzzle game to an entirely new level. Valve Corporation, company known for games such as the Team Fortress and Half-Life franchises and their content delivery service, Steam, developed a game that revolutionized the meaning of a puzzle game with the Portal series.

In Portal, the primary objective of the game was to navigate your way through the Aperture Science Enrichment Center designed by an artificial intelligence known as GLaDOS. To do this, you must use the Aperture Handheld Portal Device, or "portal gun" to create wormholes between two flat planes. In some cases, the only way to solve a puzzle was to carry momentum through a portal, a key game feature that was developed for the game. In the second installment, they added more features such as repulsion and propulsion gels that allow the player to jump higher and accelerate much faster respectively. They combine to make a challenging game that requires some thought as opposed to the shoot first without thought games that most first person games end up being.

The Blame Game-Football and Hockey

Many people love to watch sports in this country. Whether it be the American pastime of baseball or the ridiculous notion of curling, everyone has their preference, or lack thereof, towards sports. But when it comes right down to it, there are certain things that tend to occur within teams that deal with victory and loss conditions. In many cases, there is a primary focal point around one player that always seems to take the fall. In golf, it is typically the player (or the wind if you're a dishonest golf player). In baseball, it may be the outfielder that misses the game-ending catch. But the two sports that have the most black and white, clear cut player that get blamed the most are football and hockey.

In football, the star player of any team is almost always the quarterback. They have to make the right move, keep track of the plays and make the right call as to which option is the best. Not to mention they have to throw the ball to their receiver with enough precision that they can hit their mark and not turn it into an interception for the other team. These are the players in football who, I believe, receive the largest portion of the blame even if it's not entirely their fault. I've seen games where people blamed the quarterback for a bad throw when, quite honestly, the receiver was a high enough caliber player he could've caught it no problem. But he didn't and the quarterback is blamed for the mistake that was made by his teammate. Now, don't get me wrong there are definitive times when the quarterback is at fault for a bad play, but in general they get blamed way too often for a teams success.

Goalies are another great example, being victims of the "blame game." No doubt a good hockey team needs a good goalie in order to be successful, just like football with their quarterback. However, just like football, it's not all about the one player, it's also about the team overall. While a good goalie can make or break a team, sometimes they get too much credit or, in some cases, not enough credit. For instance, the other day in a Penguins game, they lost to the eighth seeded team, the Islanders, in the playoffs four to three. Two of the goals were made, not because Fleury wasn't good enough, but because of the skill of the two players that scored. the game-winning goal was scored on a fluke, yet Marc-Andre Fleury will still be blamed for the ersatz goal.