One of my "guilty pleasures" in life is playing a PlayStation boxing game by EA Sports called "Fight Night," in which you control a boxer's moves using the PS2 controller.
I play it in spurts, not touching it for many months and then playing it a bit too much for brief periods of time. Once I actually injured my thumb playing this stupid game, putting a little too much "body English" into my right cross. I had to put myself on the DL for a few months while my wounded thumb healed. My wife gets a laugh over my videogame injury.

I say all that to explain that I am NOT categorically opposed to violence in videogames. But I think computerized boxing is way different than shooting or stabbing someone in a videogame. And I believe that some videogames get disturbingly graphic and/or too realistic in presenting their violent scenarios.
I've played the incredibly popular videogame "Halo" a couple of times, but older versions, not the newest "Halo 3" version. It's your basic shoot-em-up game where you have to shoot the enemy before they shoot you, but set in a futuristic scenario.
I've always feared that the potential problem with such games is the way endless, two-dimensional onscreen shootings can desensitize people to the potential of such violent actions in real life. For normal people, this is not a concern. But for people who are already in fragile mental, emotional and spiritual shape, this can push them over the edge.
Such appears to be the case in Wellington, Ohio, where a 16-year-old boy fatally shot his mother and critically wounded his father when he shot them in their home with a 9mm pistol. The boy, Daniel Petric, killed his mother, Sue Petric, 45, by shooting her in the back of the head, and shot his father, the Rev. Mark Petric, in the face. The father, an Assembly of God pastor, is alive but was in critical condition last time I checked.
Police only would say that the boy had "some kind of reason" for the shootings, but did not elaborate on what that reason might be. News reports have said Daniel played Halo 3 online frequently, and I've heard unofficially that the reason for the tragic attack was that his parents had banned him from playing the game.
The fact that a 16-year-old boy would shoot his parents is unbelievably tragic to begin with. If it turns out that he shot them in retaliation for being banned from playing Halo, it makes this bizarre tragedy even that much harder to fathom.
It's a strange world we live in today, where computer games have the potential to cause real-life horrors.
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I went to the doctor's office this morning for a physical. The entire staff was dressed up in costumes, except, fortunately, for the doctor -- now that would have been too much.
Thank the Lord, I received a clean bill of health except for the usual concerns (in my case, anyway) of slightly elevated blood pressure and cholesterol levels, which can be controlled by medication.
I've had too many friends lately who have either died or been diagnosed with serious health problems. I admit I had been a bit lax about going to the doctor, but the death of Blade sports editor Mike Goode and family friend Kathy Lucio, and the quadruple bypass surgery that my close personal pal Peter Owens underwent a few weeks ago have snapped me out of my lethargy.
As the good doctor said today, you don't wait to change the oil and filters in your car until the engine breaks, do you? And even if you do, you can always get a new engine. It's not so easy to get a new heart or a new brain... We all need to keep up with those "oil changes."
Toledo, Ohio
Oct. 31, 2007