No, seriously, you're way too distracted. I know I am. Things I can do while driving, at the same time:

• Use a stick shift,
  
  
• smoke a cigarette,
  
  
• change CDs,
  
  
• drink a slurpee,
  
  
• and talk on the phone.

But isn't that talent, though? I could probably eat a cheeseburger, too-which some places actually encourage, especially on the West Coast, where In-N-Out will hand you your food in a box to eat "in your car"-but it wouldn't go well with the Cig and the Slurpee. Apparently, this kind of thing isn't appreciated by The Olds at the Times, especially when teenagers do it:

"Extensive research shows the dangers of distracted driving. Studies say that drivers using phones are four times as likely to cause a crash as other drivers, and the likelihood that they will crash is equal to that of someone with a .08 percent blood alcohol level, the point at which drivers are generally considered intoxicated. Research also shows that hands-free devices do not eliminate the risks, and may worsen them by suggesting that the behavior is safe. "

So I guess what they're saying is that it's better to get behind the wheel kind of drunk than be on your phone. Oh, and some places, it's illegal.

Anyway, the only part of this Times article that's revelatory in any regard (because the entire thing is basically "if you're doing anything but driving you're going to crash," which I think they teach you in Drivers Ed but don't remember because I was napping) is that the New York Times makes crafty videogames!

Amazing. Basically, you have to use the numbers at the top of your keyboard (not your keypad, because that would be cheating) to pick out the "gate" your call will drive through while clicking letters on a phone with your mouse to simulate texting. It's pretty fun and you will laugh at how many times you crash into the gates, but also, how terrible of a simulation texting and driving is, particularly because the game has you changing five lanes every two seconds, but mostly because texting and driving is way easier than that, duh. Besides which, it's like your parents say: it's not you you're worried about. It's the other drivers.

The US Atlas Of Texting-While-Driving Laws [Jalopnik]

Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks [NYT]

Silly New York Times Driving Video Game [NYT]

Web entrepreneur Jeff Atwood, who first highlighted the ads, writes that they "take advertising on the internet to the absolute rock bottom," and toward the moronic, hypersexualized future foretold in Mike Judge's movie Idiocracy.

Yes, sure, inevitable cultural and intellectual decline of America, whatever. Vulgarians that we are, we're far more burned up by the game's false advertising: After all that flesh, there's not actually a "queen" to "save" in the game! The boobage was strictly for "marketing purposes," according to Evony. Now that's something you can (probably!) sue over.

The first ad emphasized Evony's pedigree as a clone of the strategy game Civilization, in which the player must "build an empire to stand the test of time."

The next picture used a stolen catalog photo to emphasize the game's ample... opportunities for adventure!

But that ad really didn't convey the teamwork aspect of the game. To get across the "cooperation" theme, what could be better than hot twins?? The word "lover," perhaps. There's your ad!

The words "my lord" in prior ads really didn't properly convey a player's dominion over buxom females as well as a kneeling woman with an exposed bra and a sword pointed at her chest. But we'd have gone with, "buy our game or we stab this hot lady" for the tagline, here, as it's really more direct than "Help! Save the Queen," but without distorting the original message.

Oh, forget about saving the queen. So much work! Click here to just have wench sex and rule the world, already.

The orgasmic wench-elf and the kneeling queen and the lusty court twins were all too subtle, it turns out. Click here to play the boob game!* (*Game does not actually involve boobs). (This is an actual ad.) [Coding Horror]

The best part: You don't even need to go to the movies. Just have a sponsorship from the video-game industry, apparently:

I recommend Scene It? Box Office Smash for Xbox. It helps me improve my movie knowledge, and it's a lot of fun to play either alone or with some of the homies when they come over. With Xbox Live it downloads new questions all the time over the Internet, so no matter how many times I play it, it always has new puzzles and questions. The material is sometimes really challenging, even for someone like me who watches about 300 films a year. Even if you're not as big a fan of movies as I am, the anagrams and games within the game are a lot of fun. I challenge anybody who dares to step into The Lyons Den to a game of Scene It? on Xbox... Let's get it on!

Only if the "homies" play along, Ben. Recruit Keira Knightley for a round or two and we're in.

• The Buzz Board [The Daily Beast via Hollywood Elsewhere]

The game, which was probably invented by Barack Obama and William Ayers during a sex-having orgy with illegal immigrants, was brought to Hasselbeck's attention when she interrogated a local third grader for tips on improving her Wii Bowling score. Apparently, Wii Fit's balance board (which measures body mass index) has shown the child a frightening glimpse of his future as an obese shut-in frantically posting "FIRST!!1!!" on redstate.com blog entries. So what, Joy Behar said. Shouldn't overweight kids be told the truth? Haha, Joy, The View is no place for simple logic. Elisabeth Hasselbeck is now going to trade her Wii for a PlayStation 3, which will never tell her she looks fat (and also won't work anymore after the third time she stands on it).

• The View [ABC]

What the game does is provide an incentive for people to develop new software and ideas for collaborative production. Many of those ideas will translate to other group activities, including those within the business world. I think [massively multiplayer online games] will be, at a minimum, a significant testbed for these new technologies, because users see a direct benefit and are willing to experiment with new things.

(Photo by Brian Solis)

Former president of Dennis Publishing (Maxim, Blender, etc) Steven Colvin will soon be leaving his year-old postion as head of CNET / CBS Interactive entertainment and lifestyle division (Gamespot, mp3.com, tv.com, Chow, etc). Within the department, Colvin is widely believed to be the "brains" behind Jeff Gerstman's unceremonious canning last December. Just before the firing, Colvin spent hours in a meeting with Eidos attempting to salvage the relationship after Gerstman's negative review of Kane and Lynch. No word on if this departure is volunary or not, but his role is being taken over by CBSi COO Steve Snyder, which might be indicative of hardly-unexpected "restructuring" occuring sooner rather than later. Control of one of the department's largest assets, tv.com, was recently transfered out of the department.

There was also an annoucement today that CNET's extremely generous vacation hours package will be discontinued after this year, sick time hours will be reduced, health care providers will be changed, and benefits cut for "opposite-sex domestic partners", in order to be "consistent with CBS' company-wide poilcy".

On the plus side, parking fees can now be paid pre-tax.

• WATCH VIDEO

Chloe Parker went from tycoon tot to tycoon twat... She's got it all. Daddy, money, and one of those tiny little dogs that rich people keep in their vagina... Her penthouse in Algonquin's exclusive Little Barkings district is a palace in the sky complete with a motor drawbridge, torture dungeon, and servants with scurvy. This is real estate we can only watch on television and masturbate over. (After the jump, the clip, and two screenshots from Liberty City's self-mocking version of the web; and here's blow-by-blow coverage of Grand Theft Auto's new release from Kotaku.)

the terrible irony, shawn rose should never have been hired to run tv in the first place, as he talks and talks his way into all kinds of crazy shit. now another suit replaces the suit they booted, and this one's wearing purple. he literally got nothing done at Y, and to date, has done nothing at CNET

another examaple of how over-puffed-up yahoos wiggle into new digs and maintain that same level of low-productivity and paper pushing...

i'm a former cneter with friends at both companies, and it's just sad to see a good (though embroiled) talent like Larson go, for a sucker like Rose - all my contacts on the inside are literally scratching their heads... totally blindsided the team... they feel like chumps because no one told them this was coming

if Rose gets you in a room, he doesn't shut up... talks and talks, and his claim to fame that he'll invariably bring up to everyone he meets, is that he created some search engine that he sold to AltaVista some 10 years ago. Something I'm sure he made a few bucks on, enough to buy a small bit of vineyard up north, but something that is so entirely irrelevant to any current internet job it's laughable

She writes that Trevett sent her a platinum American Express card to cover expenses on a trip to Vietnam. But she captioned a photo of herself holding the card, "Guess who loves this douchebag?" Before, maybe it was just Piggy, Chinh. But even though we're not sure quite what's going on here, you can count us as fans, too.

• Williamsburg - Bedford & N5th
• Harlem - 112th Street & 1st Ave
• Lower East Side - 2nd St. & Ave A
• SoHo - Lafayette btw Spring & Prince Street

Harlem

Lower East Side

SoHo

Williamsburg

Readers posted an astounding 485,393 comments across our 15 sites in February. That puts the average at 16,738 comments per day, which is the highest activity level we've ever seen across Gawker properties.

At 219 million pageviews, traffic declined softly but continues to show momentum. Setting aside the January spike, growth from December to February held strong at 29%. Contributing heavily to this increase — Kotaku (33.8m), Jezebel (16.4m), Consumerist (10.8m), and Valleywag (4.4m) with their highest monthly numbers ever.

Takeaways? Last month's noisy news events may have exited, but publishing and reader activity on Gawker properties continue to chug along, month over month.

In Forumwarz, you don't play something stupid like a dwarf. You play something stupid like an Internet user, who goes to forums, wreaks havoc, gets points for lowering the quality of discourse to nil, and repeats. This gives the satisfaction of acting like a moron without the repercussions of actually screwing around on the web. Your constant raiding of Internet forums like YouBoob ("You'll spend hours searching for pornography at YouBoob - but you'll never find any!") and Fanfiction Freaks builds you "cred" and helps the secret plans of a shadowy Illuminati figure who gives you new quests.

Forumwarz knows its stuff. The game references 4chan, Fark, emo kids, camwhores, Ron Paul, and everything else that makes the Internet beautifully stupid. Blogger Andy Baio, who interviewed the game's creator, says there's even a minigame riffing off R. Kelly's "Trapped In The Closet."

The gameplay is actually simple and well thought-out. The copy is clever. And because users can create new levels, the jokes don't run out. If Kingdom of Loathing wasn't witty enough for you, and you'd rather be caught watching porn than playing World of Warcraft, give it a little try.

Forumwarz! Interact with the web's greatest intelligences and wits!

A vegetarian-owned and managed emerging sports games startup in San Francisco is looking to hire vegetarian software development interns for summer 2008 (and potentially beyond) who are interested in entrepreneurship and promoting vegetarianism. We were founded by experienced entrepreneurs and venture capitalists with a track record of success, and deep technical and business experience at top companies in the industry, such as Microsoft and Square Enix, as well as consulting experience at McKinsey. Our management team includes MIT-educated computer scientists and Wharton and INSEAD MBAs.

Interns will join an experienced team developing a new product that will redefine its segment in the sports gaming space.

Interns will have the opportunity to work with experienced entrepreneurs across many facets of a startup business. Roles include a breadth of responsibilities, including:
* Development in C++, high-performance network programming, and 3D graphics development
* User interface and game play design
* Unit and user testing

The successful candidate will be proficient in C or C++, creative, have a strong work ethic, and be an enthusiastic learner. This paid internship will provide significant development opportunities, as well as an opportunity to experience a broad range of roles in a startup company.

Please submit resumes and enquiries to <vegprogjob@bigfoot.com>

Who knew EA had so much money to spare for a chap who owns $37 million worth of EA stock, including options? EA continues to bleed cash, lay off workers, and shut down studios. And yet it can take care of Riccitiello.

We've seen the perils of tech-obsession firsthand: Earlier this month a reader emailed to complain about a business dinner she attended, where "there was music, champagne, the food was amazing, the setting lavish. But did the men at my table pay any attention? No. They were all playing with their iPhones." And she's not the only one to forfeit male attention to Steve Jobs. Our very own guest columnist, Heather declared herself an iPhone widow last year. "Wherein we used to actually interact with one another during cab rides or walks or, you know, dinner," Heather lamented, "Now I sit there and watch him make love to that damn phone, his unblinking eyes glazed over with rapt-geek puppy love."

But guys aren't the only ones with geek love to go around. My own boyfriend tried to ban laptops after work hours in our household. The first day he made me go cold turkey and I was relegated to answering emails on my BlackBerry in the bathroom. Since then I've maybe gone one night without perusing the internet for at least ten minutes. But I'm not addicted at all! Though if someone destroyed my wireless network I would cut them in a hot second.

"Technology Overload" Can Ruin Relationships: Expert [Reuters]

Earlier: The iPhone is Cool and All, But Can You Stick Your Dick in It?