So.

My need for escapism and sluggish internet connection have inspired me to do something I rarely do - pay for a new game. Last one I bought was Plants Vs. Zombies, and like every game I've ever owned, I'm less than enthused about playing it to 100% completion (finally working my way up to 10 plant slots was enough, methinks).

I considered a few options. Dragon Age is appealing, in that the last big, shiny new title I snatched up was The Orange Box, and even then I was a bit behind the curve - I got to start playing in the middle of the Medic update for TF2. Something big, something epic, something fresh in the gaming world, something I could sink my teeth into and get lost in for a good while every so often sounded grand. TF2 has burned out my adrenaline gland for awhile, I wanted to dig some dungeons and take in some fantasy landscaping.

In that vein, I also considered Fallout 3. A game that managed to change minds on the videogame board on 4chan (first - "It's just Oblivion with guns", now "It's just Fallout with magic") was worth a try. But instead of either, there's also the much more reasonably-priced Fallout pack - two RPG classics I never touched, plus a strategy game. I haven't really been deep in an RTS since Age of Empires (the original which came with an old family PC), and I never got much into tactics games at all.

I want to buy it on Steam, though, which is a bit of a problem since anytime I try to get a game off Steam, it kills my internet connection. I haven't yet tried re-installing my wireless card, but I'm planning on replacing it if that doesn't work. Then time to climb out of the Vault.<input ... ></input><input ... >

This new year, I'm going to start keeping stats on my reading. I've felt for a long time now that I am well versed in the more classic, mainstream works of the American and English literary canon, so my goal for this year is to educate myself with more contemporary works by authors who are female, people of color, queer... in short, I'm broadening myself.

I started this year by finishing off a biography of the South Indian math genius Ramanujan - The Man Who Knew Infinity. Living in the early 20th century, he did face some hardships - India was still under English control, and he was easily frustrated in school. Mostly self-taught, he had to seek his academic career in England. The culture shock did not shake him as much as World War I, plus a bought of tuberculosis, did. It's a fascinating account of another time, place, and of the contributions of a great genius. However, I can't help but feel more than a little saddened at this book. Ramanujan's legacy is that he was, quite possibly, a lucky individual from amongst many geniuses who languished in South India for one reason or another. He was someone who won the right to help the world, while others like him may have fell to bureaucratic obstacles or restrictive social niches.

Afterward, I read the short novella (or possibly a long short story) Loved Into Submission (I'm also almost done with the entire run of Bruno, written and drawn by the same author). It was a beautiful read, but like Bruno, there is a difficulty in how stark the works are. They evoke such feeling, such empathy with the tragic figures within, that it is hard not to come away with some hopelessness they carry within them.

Now, however, I am knee-deep in Haroun and the Sea of Stories. It's a story about family, about storytelling, about balance in life. What I find so charming about this is, it seems quite timeless and lacks a feeling of being bound to a certain place. It's a quality I do appreciate in a work, though there is a greater art in writing about even one's own time and place specifically. It's simple yet lush setting speaks from all years and all cities, towns, villages. It reminds me of Roald Dahl and Lewis Carrol and Edward Lear and Rudyard Kipling. Perhaps I should also read some books by American authors who wrote books accessible by a younger audience...

But this is too good not to share - in a serious way, that is.

Frequent-Fliers earn free miles, courtesy US Mint.
The US Mint was offering to sell dollar coins for their face value - i.e., free shipping. People paid with their credit cards, racking up huge sums' worth of frequent flier miles, then paid their credit card bills with their shiny new coins.

Maybe this will finally get people to using efficient money again...

Via Slog, gruber, kottke, and mr (whew!)

Behold: the Trailer for the Forth Kind.

Putting aside the blatantly ripped-off name, off-center web design, the failed promise of disturbance, and the laughable "true story" angle...

Well, I probably would not be linking this here. Dunno what else to say - it seems just shy of being scary, though, which is more than I expected, really.

Eddie Izzard Runs 1,100 Miles in 52 Days

"Sport is one of those words that stopped being part of my life when I was about 14. Sporting prowess was not something I ever associated myself with," said Izzard, an English comedian and actor, after completing his 43rd marathon in 52 days, a journey which took him to all corners of the British Isles.

Partly to celebrate the 2012 Olympics in London, his feat of sudden athleticism has also raised 200,000 pounds for Sports Relief, a charity that challenges less-than-fit celebrities to perform great physical feats, such as when comedian David Williams swam the English Channel in 2006.

Izzard was training for only six weeks before undertaking the task, and his final marathon was completed in just over 5 hours.

"I’m going to have a party somewhere that is dry and then I’m going to sleep for a week," he told a cheering crowd that was, unlike him, sheltered from the London rain by umbrellas.

Via Times Online


Springfield Postal Worker Steals $30,000 in DVDs

Netflix, the online movie rental service, noticed that they were experiencing a lot of missing DVDs from a certain Springfield, Massachusets, post office - as many as 100 in a week. Former postal worker Myles Weathers, was charged when agents filmed him working on his night shift, slipping DVDs from the mail into his backpack.

"[U.S. District Judge Michael A. Ponsor] said the maximum penalty for mail theft by a federal employee was 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. By pleading guilty, Weathers faces significantly less time, between 10 and 16 months, under federal sentencing guidelines,"

Via masslive.com

ETA: Looks like I beat one of my favorite blogs to this one.


Woman's Tooth Becomes Her New Eye

Sharron "Kay" Thornton, of Smithdale, Mississippi, 60 years old and blind for nine years, has regained her sight - she can recognize faces and read a newspaper with a magnifying glass - thanks to doctors who implanted an artificial eye fashioned from one of her teeth, the first such procedure done in the United States.

Thornton lost her sight due to Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a severe allergic reaction to medication. Her eye was too badly damanged for an artificial lens or an eye transplant, and a stem-cell procedure attempted six years ago failed.

"We're excited. We believe a lot of patients can benefit from this," said Dr. Victor Perez, cornea specialist at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute of Miami, where the procedure was performed.

The procedure involved many steps. After Thorton's tooth was extracted, it was shaved it flat horizontally, then a hole was drilled in it and an acrylic lens was inserted. The tooth was then implanted under the skin of her shoulder for three months, so that it could heal. Scar tissue in her eye had to be removed, then replaced with skin from the inside of her cheek before the new eye was finally implanted.

"I'm looking forward to seeing my seven youngest grandchildren for the first time," she told CBS.

Via The Seattle Times and The Miami Herald

What is this?

WHAT IS THIS?

How long have I been away from console gaming? Not long enough, apparently. While my game of choice continues to expand for free, the people at Bungie are releasing expansion packs, which is usually the equivalent of "We cut this from the actual game to make a release date, so now you have to pay us again for what we left out!"

Story director Joseph Staten penned a detective story utilizing film noir settings, design, and characters. Composer Martin O'Donnell abandoned his previous Halo themes to create a quieter, jazz-influenced sound. During development, the game grew in scope to that of a full-sized game.

That could work. Post-apocalyptic super-soldiers trying to find brothers-in-arms who have gone MIA. Except there's really not much of a mystery - the other humans probably got killed by aliens, just like in every damn Halo game ever! But maybe there is a bit of difference, here - instead of being a faceless lone wolf, maybe this will give players a chance to step in the power armor of someone with a personality, a character who is surrounded not just by disposable NPCs, but actual story-worthy characters with backgrounds. You know, the sorts of characters that wouldn't feel out of place in a movie, the kind that develop over the story.

Although the gameplay of ODST bears a strong resemblance to previous Halo titles. the player does not assume the role of the enhanced human supersoldier Master Chief. Instead, the player controls a lone UNSC soldier, known as "the Rookie".

Nevermind.

Instead of the Chief's damage-absorbing energy shield, the game uses a stamina mechanic. After taking damage, the screen flashes red; the player regains stamina by resting. If the player receives more damage past their stamina threshold, their health takes a permanent hit. Players restore permanent health via the use of medpacks scattered around the game environments.

So instead of regaining health by not being damaged for a time, the player must regain health by "resting", which is totally different and will definitely set Halo 3: PTSD apart from every other game that's been using the regenerating health gimmick since Halo 1 came out. In fact, since you have health to lose in addition to your regenerating shield, it's actually pretty much the same mechanic from Halo 1.

As an ODST the player has access to new weapons for the series, including a suppressed submachine gun and pistol that is a throwback to the Halo: Combat Evolved weapon.

That's kinda... dumb. It's like Bungie is going "Hey fanboys, remember the best weapon from the first game? The one we totally neutered and made a neutered Covenant version of? Yeah, we realized it was actually pretty cool, but instead of bringing it back in earnest, we're just gotta stick it in this half-game to get you to spend your money."

The soldier HUD is different from the previous series, with red outlines for the enemies thanks to a new feature called the "VISR" (Visual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance). The "VISR" also gives you a compass and outlines important items in yellow, but has no radar. However, the aiming reticule remains. It will also include an open world environment.

So instead of helping you to be aware of things you can't always see, we're going to help you see things that are right in front of your face. So things will be less challenging and more frustrating!

The game's campaign mode can be played alone or with up to three other players cooperatively. As the Rookie, the player's goal is to discover what happened to his missing teammates. After finding a piece of evidence left behind—a sniper rifle hanging on a lamppost, for example—a flashback is triggered and the player assumes the role of the missing soldier in a daytime setting.

A story told through flashbacks? Hasn't that been done a few times before? And isn't it kind of odd to have this sort of out-of-character knowledge in a detective game, unless "The Rookie" has some kind of psychic ability, which would have been pretty handy in previous Halo games, what with the war against technologically advanced genocidal aliens and all.

I guess it's easy to complain about a game I haven't played, but I'm not impressed with any of it. It's like seeing the trailer for Transformers 3 - only it's not even directed by Michael Bay, nor does it have a mega-budget, so all that's left is the meh and bleh. I know that not all of it is completely tired cliche, but it just sounds so half-assed I can't help but feel unimpressed.

So the Valve kitchen has released yet another yummy batch of tweaks for TF2. Mmm, smells dramatastic!

The Medic, always the unsung hero of the game, is still getting the beefing up that Valve ha been dealing out almost since the beginning, what with his being the first Class Update. He now regenerates his health at a faster rate, which is nice. Maybe this is to make up for the ridiculous Medic Achievements, who knows. I always liked a slow, steady self-healing in a game (when it's working for me, and not against me - DAMN YOU, BOSS I-NO!), and while I never thought that the Medic's rate of self-healing was too slow, I'm not at all adverse to it being upgraded!

The Blutsauger, the alternate needlegun that heals the Medic as it hurts his opponents, will get critical hits now! This, I am intrigued by, since it's original drawback of never criting at all hardly seemed penalizing - a good Medic knows to let the meat shields do the dirty work. Plus, with the chance of getting a critical hit now more strongly based on recent damage done (as opposed to when the Medic Update first came out, and crits had a higher base rate of occurring), the poor ol' Mr. Plain Needles hardly seemed worth anything.

I didn't give it much thought, really. The point of the Medic Update was to make the Medic less of a pain to play, and if that meant never, ever using one of his default weapons, oh well. Valve tweaked the Kritzkreig until it didn't totally suck, but pretty much left the Blutsauger alone (except for putting it on the exceptions list, along with stickybombs, for weapons that did more damage when the wielderwas closer to the target, but I digress). But now, the Blutsauger nerfs the Medic's health regeneration - back to the default level, before it was boosted. So in essence, the default needlegun doesn't suck health, it boosts the Medic's regen.

I like this idea. It seems to me that the point of the alternative weapons was to add a bit more challenge to the game, and I think this works well for both skill levels - more experienced players will still hold on to their Blutsaugers, while those who aren't so battle-ready will like being a bit more fireproof.

The Heavy's Sandvich abilities seem... a bit odd, but not broken at all. Dropping a Sandvich to heal teammates? Why not give your buddy the Medic a little nourishment, huh? He seems thin. Reminds me of some servers where Medics could drop healthpacks at the expense of some of their Ubercharge meter. Also, I'm looking forward to fully healing myself with a Sandvich taunt - beats nomming that thing twice in a row, which is fun but feels too silly.

Explosions are now no longer cubes, but spheres. Uh - how this escaped my Adrian Veidt-esque levels of awareness, I shall never know. But it is good to know that a game about constantly reincarnating mercenaries with identical personalities is now more realistic. Er, fair.

The Spy no longer speaks as the class he is disguised as when he makes a kill. I was not aware this was a bug, but since everyone loves the Spy, and his razor-sharp wit, let's rejoice.

Oh, and the halo will no longer give you away, as a cloaked Spy. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go show off my angelic nature as I stab people in the back.

No Flurry to make up for Labor Day. And this one is quite late, as well...

Robot Mother Births Robot Son

Her name is Noelle. She "grunts, screams, yells at the doctors, pees, bleeds -- and yes, even gives birth (to a cute little robot baby named Hal)." She delivers at the University of Arizona Medical Center, so that medical students can train on her, and not humans. She was taken out of commission for a while when students broke her pelvic bone, but now she is birthing again. It's hard work, too - she simulates a variety of complications, from hemorrhaging to breech births, while screaming in pain and yelling things such as "don't touch me." Little Hal isn't a slacker, either - he can turn from healthy pink to blue, simulating asphyxiation. "According to Chief of Technical and Laboratory Services David Biffar, Noelle has helped at least 3,000 medical students, and has been in "labor" for nearly 4,000 hours this year."

Via Geekologie and Phoenix New Times

Carrier Pigeon Beats Broadband in Race

After a South African IT worker said that a carrier pigeon would be faster than data transmission over his country's broadband, others from his IT company decided to put it to the test. By the time Winston, an 11-month-old pigeon, had carried his 4 GB memory stick 60 miles and people on the other end had uploaded the data, the data transmitted over the ADSL line had only reached 4% completion. "We renown ourselves on being innovative, so we decided to test that statement," said Unlimited's Kevin Rolfe. A website for the race included rules such as "no cats allowed" and "birdseed must not have any performance-enhancing seeds within". "Hundreds of South Africans followed the race on social networking sites Facebook and Twitter. 'Winston is over the moon,' Mr Rolfe said. 'He is happy to be back at the office and is now just chilling with his friends.'"

Via BBC News

Chili's Pepper Theft Thwarted

At 4:30 AM, an alarm went off at a southern Vermont Chili's that led to the arrest of four people - two college students, one recent graduate, and one student "between work and school" - who were attempting to steal the iconic chili pepper sign off the restaurant. They made the attempt armed with 470 feet of extension cord (stretched across a four-lane road and a Home Depot parking lot), an electric drill, plus a hacksaw and an SUV for a getaway ride. The value of the sign was estimated at $8,000.

Via azcentral.com and Associated Press.

Drunken Grandmaster Naps During, Loses Match

Grandmaster Vladislav Tkachiev, a leading French chessplayer, lost on a technicality just 11 moves into a game when he drunkenly fell asleep. He was "in such an inebriated state that he could hardly sit in his chair and soon fell asleep, resting his head on the table," Hindustan Times newspaper reported. Organizers attempted to rouse him, but were unsuccessful, leading to his loss due to his failure to complete his moves within the alloted hour and 30 minutes. He was "warned and reprimanded", but has been allowed to continue in the competition.

Via Reuters UK

"Goat-Sucker" Found by Texas Taxidermist

When Lynn Butler left some poison out in his cousin's barn, he was expecting it to put a halt to the "racoon or other varmit" that was getting at the chickens. Instead, the strange, dog-like carcass he found the next morning has been compared to the legendary chupacabra, whose name is Spanish for "goat sucker."

Sightings of the creature began in 1995 in Puerto Rico, though it has been spotted numerous times in Mexico, California, and Texas, with more sightings reaching up to Maine and down to Chile. It earns its name from its alleged habit of draining all the blood from goats and other livestock.

Butler is a former student of the Blanco Taxidermy School in Texas, whose owner, Jerry Ayer, plans to have the creature stuffed, though even he isn't sure what he has on his hands. He does know it is unique – having seen nothing like it in his 10 years of taxidermy. He points out the longer front legs, "bulbous" footpads, and the "very odd-looking" bits of hair along its backbone and around its feet, while the rest of the animal is strangely hairless.

Via LA Times

Facebook Friends For Sale

Austrailian online marketing company uSocial says they can boost your friends list on Facebook, for a fee.

"Facebook is an extremely effective marketing tool," says uSocial CEO Leon Hill. "The simple fact is that with a large following on Facebook, you have an instant and targeted group of people you can contact and promote whatever it is you want to promote."

The company sells up to 10,000 friends at a time, and that many followers will cost clients a little more than $1,000. Hill says, "All we do is send them a welcome message or friend request from the client. If they decide to go ahead and add that person as a friend or a fan then they will; if not, then they won't."

Though the company boasts over 250 million registered users, it has drawn the ire of some major internet communities. Both Twitter and Digg.com have struck back, trying to shut down the company for allegedly spamming users.

Via MSNBC

"Hubby Hubby" Ice Cream: Ben and Jerry's Celebrates Gay Rights Victory in Vermont

Though Vermont made waves back in 2000 by becoming the first state to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples, it wasn't until Tuesday, September 1^st, that the state allowed full marriage rights to all couples after April saw a bill gain enough votes within the Vermont State legislature to overturn the governor's veto. This also has made Vermont the first state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage without doing it via a struggle in the courts.

Vermont ice cream company Ben and Jerry's, famous for being politically aware (last year, they reacted with a good-humored refusal when PETA recommended they use human milk, instead of cow milk, in their ice cream) has honored the new law by re-naming their popular ice cream flavor Chubby Hubby to Hubby Hubby, complete with a picture on the carton of two men in tuxedos on top of a wedding cake.

"The legalization of marriage for gay and lesbian couples in Vermont is certainly a step in the right direction and something worth celebrating with peace, love and plenty of ice cream," said Ben and Jerry's CEO Walt Freese in the company's press release.

Via Ben and Jerry's and Freedom to Marry