Motivation and Priorities...

Once again some bubba named Josh Moore from my state makes the news, this time for waging a campaign against Microsoft and the Xbox people because they banned him from playing their on-line video games over the name of his town.

Microsoft Corp. and the chief rules enforcer for Xbox Live are apologizing to a small Wayne County town and a 26-year-old gamer accused of violating the online gaming service's code of conduct by publicly declaring he's from Fort Gay -- a name the company considered offensive.

The town's name is real. But when Josh Moore tried to tell Seattle-based Microsoft and the enforcement team at Xbox Live, they wouldn't take his word for it. Or Google it. Or check the U.S. Postal Service website for a ZIP code.

Instead, they suspended his gaming privileges for a few days until Moore could convince them the location in his profile, "fort gay WV,'' wasn't a joke or a slur: It's an actual community of about 800 residents, along West Virginia's border with Kentucky.

"At first I thought, 'Wow, somebody's thinking I live in the gayest town in West Virginia or something.' I was mad. ... It makes me feel like they hate gay people,'' said Moore, an unemployed factory worker who plays shooters like Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and Ghost Recon under the gamertag Joshanboo.

"I'm not even gay, and it makes me feel like they were discriminating,'' said Moore, who missed a key Search and Destroy competition because of last week's brief suspension. His team lost.

Angry and incredulous, Moore contacted customer service.

"I figured, I'll explain to them, 'Look in my account. Fort Gay is a real place,''' Moore reasoned. But the employee was unreceptive, warning Moore if he put Fort Gay back in his profile, Xbox Live would cancel his account and keep his $12 monthly membership fee, which he'd paid in advance for two years.

"I told him, Google it -- 25514!'' Moore said, offering up the town's ZIP code. "He said, 'I can't help you.'''

Mayor David Thompson also tried to intervene, but with little success. He told WSAZ-TV, which first reported the dispute, that he was informed the city's name didn't matter. The word "gay,'' he was told, was inappropriate in any context.

"It was so inappropriate for them, they wouldn't even say the word,'' Thompson told the AP Wednesday. "They said, 'that word.' It's beyond me. That's the name of our town! It's appalling. It's a slap in our face.''

Fort Gay has been a community since 1789, when 11 people tried to establish a settlement at the junction of the Tug and Big Sandy rivers, across from what is now Louisa, Ky. It was incorporated as Cassville in 1875 but was simultaneously known as Fort Gay until 1932, when town leaders changed it to the latter for good.

Now that's all well and cute, and Microsoft is apologizing to Josh Moore, but I have to point out the obvious here--this loser Moore is UNEMPLOYED and he's just sitting around all day playing VIDEO GAMES.

Perhaps this is why he's still unemployed.

Apparently he's so dedicated to his on-line world that he participates in competitions with other couch-potato wanna-be heroic men, and when he was suddenly deprived of the ability to waste so much job-seeking time, he went to the town's mayor and and the local media as well and begged them to help him get back into his on-line fantasy world. Maybe if he'd asked the mayor or the local news to help him find a job...

29 years old, sitting at home playing expensive video games all day and not working, and when he finally gets the world to pay attention to him for fifteen minutes, he begs not for a job or a better life, but "more video games, dude!"

I therefore nominate Josh Moore "Dorfman of the Month" for September, 2010