I've been a Satanist since the age of 5, apparently.

That is, if you agree with self-described "frumpy, middle-aged mom" Marla Jo Fisher of the Orange County Register.

I truly believe that video games were created by Satan to turn otherwise normal children into his drooling, glassy-eyed stooges. After my son plays them at his friends’ houses, he comes home irritable and testy for the rest of the day.

Even though his skin is normally mocha-colored, after a day spent in a darkened room with a controller in his hand, he comes home with a sickly pallor.

Nice hat.

I'm tempted to call bullshit, as Marla Jo Fisher seems to fit the stereotype of the panicked, uninformed parent to a T. But no, Ms. Fisher really is a staff writer for the Orange County Register, and some of her previous missives deal with such hard-hitting topics as children wanting cell phones and the sudden popularity of Blackberries.

I breathed a slight sigh of relief when she revealed in her next article that the whole "Satan" bit was a joke. But of course she's still convinced that games will turn your child into fat, lazy zombies.

I'm not going to refute Fisher's comments point by point, as many others on the Internet have beat me to it, and most people with common sense can see right through the bullshit anyway. Instead, I'd just like to point out how every counter-point comes from a gaming blog or Web site, and I've seen pretty much nothing from traditional, mainstream media. This says to me that ignorant opinions like Marla Jo Fisher's are still the most prevalent, and it's up to us in the interim to set the record straight.

I'm still waiting for the day when this balance shifts. Just as comedian Bill Hicks wondered why you never heard a positive drug story in the news, I'm wondering when the major news media is going run a positive video game story.