Rodents, mousetraps, and a grim tale of operational excellence...

I cannot tell you why I remembered this today, nor can I tell you why I'm compelled to write about it. I ate chicken wings very late last night, that could be it, or perhaps the onset of a neurological disorder? Oh the things I'm willing to do in the name of content! Anyway...

There were many mice living between the walls of my first apartment. The beautifully converted attic was spotless but I lived right next to a rather large vegetable garden and the legion of vermin it hosted tended to be a rambling bunch. I stuffed as many holes as I could find and wound up keeping everything but canned food in the fridge but in the end I had to resort to traps. As the picture above attests they're rather cute but the even sound of them scrabbling away in the dead of night can make you feel unclean.

One trap in particular was noteworthy: It would go off reliably every few days and after a couple months this thing looked like it belonged in a horror movie. Blood had soaked into all of the wooden base and the killing bar was crusty with whatever you might find in a rodent's skull in addition to bits of bone and fur. You might think that any sensible rodent would have nothing to do with what was clearly the Auschwitz of mouse traps but sadly no; in exchange for a spot of cheese they would merrily place their fuzzy little heads into the merciless jaws of what became known as Old Gruesome.

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To replace Gruesome with something less monstrous - and in retrospect more sanitary - would have set me back a mere two dollars but the whole project entered a weird place somewhere between a high art and a fraternity dare. As the trap became positively gunky and could boast ending the lives of over fifty mice it eventually snapped its way into my heart, much like the favourite club of a seal hunter.

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As all evil eventually consumes itself the trap broke; its' powerful spring had been coated with enough blood to rust it through and it snapped into pieces. Old Gruesome's final victim did not fare much better and I finally threw both of them in the trash; victor and victim, embracing for all eternity, buried deep in the bowels of some nameless landfill.

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There were other mousetraps but like a grown man landing his first sucker-punch it just wasn't the same. Lesser traps lacked one-tenth of their predecessor's stamina and broke regularly, which led me to believe that Gruesome gained some measure of vitality through its' many acts of murder. If an argument can be made that mice have souls then I'm certain Old Gruesome hungered for them.

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I miss him still...

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Yes this bionic eye article DOES have a picture of Steve Austin in it...

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In hopes of not completely wasting your time with this post I am submitting an article that talks about an artificial eye complete with a hook-up to your brain. They claim this technology might be implanted into your head in about five years. It would be so cool to look deeply into your lovers eyes and see NIKON in tiny letters around the iris. I'm pretty sure that as soon as I'm able to start replacing my perfectly working parts in favour of bionic I will. I've got two words for you... TELESCOPIC NIGHT VISION. Yeah, I know. Don't worry, I'll save a space for you in line at the doctor's office.

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Wait, oh sorry. That was three words.

Shooting cyborg zombies is great fun but once they start pontificating on foriegn policy we're told it's pretentious...

I have been wasting what time I can burning through a number of second-rate games and this is in fact a public service to you; the gentle reader. I am more than willing to be the canary in the video game mineshaft when it comes to the first person shooter format. It's strange but I much rather play a mediocre shooter than a top notch racing game or dating sim. If I were to guess what it is that brings me back time after time I might say... oh, I don't know... THE SHOOTING.

These are titles that I was looking forward to optaining upon release but when they got reviews in the 6’s and 7’s my priorities naturally changed. Such titles can be usually picked up for half-price within a couple months of release thanks to the numerous copies to be found in the used aisle of your local game store. I’m going to review a few of them this week in hopes of getting back into blog-making form, to tighen up my blog-gina, as it were.

BlackSite: Area 51 was developed and published by various wings of Midway as a multi-platform release that was mostly skewered by the gaming enthusiast media. The game’s developer even went so far as to publicly denounce it by outlining the difficulties faced in the development cycle before leaving the company. Juicy! I was willing to slog through this potentially bad game because I absolutely fell in love with the demo and after finishing it my initial impressions stand. I’m happy to keep this one in the collection.

BlackSite is an alien/robot/zombie shooter (seriously, all three) that I must admit fails to deliver in several aspects. The story and level design are lacklustre in addition to being short in duration. As well the developers were unable to add a co-op element and the multiplayer is forgettable. So why am I not slamming it? Here’s why; it’s a shooter and the shooting is bloody excellent! If you get this one thing right with this kind of game then in my books most other factors will be forgiven. In BlackSite the weapon of choice is this meaty, chugga-chugga M4 carbine and it felt like a much-needed extension of my dick! This was one of the most satisfying weapons I have used in a game and as the ladies will not hesitate to tell you, I aim to satisfy! This one element made the game at least a fun-filled, visceral experience.

This game was something of a throwback; like an old Doom or Quake game. It’s hard to explain but when playing you don’t feel like a soldier with a rifle – as you would in Call of Duty 4 – but more like a mobile weapons platform. It was actually a nice break from some of the slower moving, more realistic titles I’ve been playing lately. You just move through the funhouse at high speed and blast away any zany creatures that happen to pop up. No strategy, no taking cover; just pure, unadulterated run and gun.

Throughout the game you travel with a couple soldiers who you can direct with the most rudimentary of squad commands. Though other games have fleshed this out far better in Blacksite it is nonetheless an effective mechanic. With a click of the button you can ‘paint’ a target and your team-mates will go after it with gusto. I quickly found that as battle was joined it was important to give your squad targets in order to maximise your power. This and an interesting Squad Morale system kept the fights interesting. As well, I have to give BlackSite props for using the Unreal Technology to create some of the most realistic character models I’ve seen to date. Even Bioshock with its herky-jerky character animations could take a tip or two from what Midway did with the same middleware.

BlackSite has its more than a few shortcoming; one of them being it happens to be very critical of the United States and the Iraq War it started. The game’s not-so subtle message was that volunteer soldiers are being betrayed by their government with such measures as extended tours, stop-loss policy, and institutions such as Walter Reed Hospital. I don’t think these concepts are going to sell games this year and perhaps this is because Americans don’t want to hear about that stuff right now. The reviews I read were fairly harsh and dismissive to the topic; they even questioned its place in a game. I feel it’s a topic worth discussing and any venue is better than nothing. Such talk of a nation’s culpability does not however sit well with the citizenry even in the best of times.

I won’t go so far as to say that this game was reviewed unfairly and in truth I would be very surprised to see a sequel of any kind. Overall I felt the good outweighed the bad and I found the highly charged political aspects interesting. Now I've played through on the 360 version and also did a few chapters on the PC and will vouch for them. However I hear the port to the PS3 was not as good. Let the budget bargain bin buyer beware!

The news these past couple weeks has not been doing it for me. It's been either too dumb (Clinton vs. Obama) or too depressing, but I will leave you with this.

In-Meatro is coming!!!

My comments are thus... VAT GROWN MEAT!

Don't mind my husband, the shriners are taking him to the zoo... The cage over his face prevents his tongue from touching anything...

Gentle reader I give you Big Dog! Not me actually, it's Boston Dynamic that's developing it for the Pentagon. Had I constructed this robot the rather dull sounding name would have of course been upgraded to Panzer Stomper IV or perhaps I just would have gone with Neo-Proto-Deathbot because let’s face it; the doom of our species probably lay somewhere within that hollow metal frame.

We can’t program evil yet but its coming. If we can make cheese evil with the advent of Kraft Velveeta (tm) then anything is possible! Computer and robotic circuitry is inherently malignant by virtue of geometry, much like the hives of insects.

Big Dog currently walks, can ascend angles, and carry considerable loads for our convenience. Thanks to Mike J. for this Youtube demonstration.

What walks down stairs and feeds off your tears and is the sound of despair…

Let’s get real for a minute. Putting a rucksack on Big Dog is a form of clever propaganda. Take it from me; I’m on the Internet and therefore know all about these things. You see, the army will always require a soldier to carry his own gear; it builds character and hatred. An infantryman who doesn’t carry his own pack is called a sailor in most Christian nations. They have Big Dog acting in a subservient role so that the beast appeals to our sense of laziness and entitlement. We want one so that it will carry our crap. On the other hand it doesn’t have a head meaning it will never know joy or happiness. It will therefore kill us without remorse because we have cursed it with a hellish existence.

We’re going to see what Big Dog is really capable of once it starts terrorizing Will Smith through his suburban home a la Velociraptor in his next summer blockbuster. After that we’ll hear of them being dropped out of the sky into some defiant, oil-rich, fundamentalist fiefdom. Then they’ll be prowling our very own streets after Leaf games and we’re going to have to look into their soulless television screen faces for retinal scans in order to prove our identity. Man’s best friend indeed!

Meanwhile in the Indian province of Uttar Pradesh, a baby girl born with two faces is being worshipped as a reincarnated god. Reincarnated into what? We humans, we’re just all over the place, eh? If we’re not deciding to sit on a toilet for two solid years so that our skin becomes stuck to the seat then we’re preparing to sell the most expensive champagne in the world at $6,485.00 US a bottle. It’s been a heck of a couple weeks for news! In case you just got back from a far-away place the human race is still just spinning its wheels for its own amusement.

Violence in Tibet - Protesters clash with Chinese police in Lhasa.

This might wind up big or it will just go the way of other Chinese-squashed uprisings. The dead are nearing one hundred in Tibet and violent demonstrations are popping up in India, Barcelona, and other sympathetic nations. The poor Dalai Lama has really been bent over a barrel on this one, when I’m 72 I hope my life is going easier than his. One day he’s slamming the Chinese over waging cultural genocide. The next he’s threatening to resign as head of Tibet’s government-in-exile if his people don’t simmer down. Of course he's not there - couldn't be in Tibet if he wanted to. Asking people getting hit with batons and teargas to show restraint is like me admonishing British football hooligans, telling them "relax man, it's just a game."

Don’t expect the Chinese people to pursue peace on this; they support the hard stance.

We’re seriously living in a time of moral disconnect but this isn’t surprising because when hundreds of millions of people believe the same thing it has the power to alter our reality. By rights China has earned the reputation worthy of Myanmar, North Korea, and Iran for its human rights abuses, both pre-emptive and reactionary. They’re fast becoming rich however so not only does the world at large turn a blind eye but they get the Olympics. I expect these kinds of incidences to increase through the spring and summer up to the games. It’s going to be real interesting to see how that turns out.

Admiral William ‘Fox’ Fallon: ‘Retired’ between now and the publication of this article.

This is a great article from Esquire Magazine that features Admiral Fallon; a lifetime military man who headed Pacific Command and Central Command, which includes the Middle East region of the earth. I defy you to read this article and not wind up somewhat in awe of the man. In his youth he was a fighter pilot landing on aircraft carriers. Towards the end of his career he was brokering peace and communication through economic expansion in some of the most benighted places on earth. Admiral Fallon was the one man standing up to the Bush Administration and their thirst for war with Iran. Perhaps this article was the final straw of pressure that either forced him out or caused him to throw it in. Either way it writes up as a grievous loss in my opinion.

The arrogance of Bush and his cronies never ceases to amaze. Consider if you had a man of Fallon’s ability and experience who was duty-bound to serve and council you, would you not take a man such as this in the most serious of stead? If a guy like Admiral Fallon had a different opinion than you in the matters of war and foreign policy would you not at least second guess your own outcomes and motives? Even if you didn’t agree with him on everything, would you make life so untenable that the good Admiral would leave? It is fucking crazy how drunk on their own ignorance these neo-cons are, scary too.

Keith Olbermann points the Integrity Cannon away from President Bush for a change.

If you like reading/watching Keith’s Special Comments from his Countdown news program then this is a good one. It started with Clinton financial fundraiser Geraldine Ferraro saying that Barack Obama wouldn’t be where he is today if he wasn’t black. Nice. Clinton called the remarks regrettable but didn’t denounce or fire the woman for her racist remarks. (She left on her own volition after the public at large labelled her a dried-out old bigot.) This kind of skulduggery paves the way for Keith to hit the Hil-Dog (not a bad robot name) with a double barrelled blast of righteous outrage and sound reasoning. It’s all worth your time.

The next slum might very well be those god-awful, cookie-cutter suburbs…

I found this article very interesting. It goes over the trend of populations moving back into the cities after fleeing from the core in the 60’s and 70’s. With the suburbs starting to empty out of working class people you can naturally expect the gangs and drug trade to move in. We already know that marijuana and artificial narcotics owe their life to those sprawling anonymous neighbourhoods, soon prostitution and other illicit forms of finance might make the move as well. More than ever our city developers need to plan properly; to make sustainable, mixed-use communities that won’t fall out of fashion in a few decades time.

New war deserters find support from old war deserters…

Anytime Toronto makes it into one of the big American papers I’m compelled to put it up here. This article goes over the draft-dodging sub-culture that began back in the Viet Nam era and is getting a small revival from those who challenge the Iraq War. What a shame that this depressing predicament has become a cyclical thing!

I sh00tz t3h magik bult wit my BRAINZORZ!!!1

By using existing medical technology (EEC, ECG, etc.) this company can make retarded looking headgear that allows you to play video games with various impulses. You know, what passes for your mind. While cool in theory that’s all this toy will be unless the big game makers get behind the technology, which historically has been a tricky thing when it comes to emergent gadgetry. Getting a crummy Harry Potter game on board is one thing, Call of Duty 4 is another matter entirely. I don’t know dudes. On one hand it’s more like Virtual Reality which is really keen. On the other hand how I am going to slip that thing on in the living room and have my wife retain what little attraction she still has for me? I'm going to look like I'm waiting for my day trip on the short bus.

Then again if I touch Hermione Granger with only my brain am I breaking any laws? Decisions, decisions, decisions…

Yo Adrian!!! You gotta cut me, Adrian! Not there Adrian, that's my ass! God help me if I start bleeding out my ass...

The Year of Our Lord 2007 was not a bad first round of boxing when spectating the video game console wars. The Apollo Creed-like X-Box 360 came out strong, landing solid jabs and hooks on the sluggish yet sturdy Balboa PS3. By middle year both were in a rather unexciting clench what with the lack of titles released but in the final minute of the round both pugilists started landing some serious blows on each other, letting us know that we were in for a decent fight.

I think in the second round that is 2008 we are going to see a far more even match-up. Microsoft's momentum may finally start to wane and from here on in the X-Box 360 might face an uphill battle.

The problems lie in keeping the 360 at technological parity with the PS3 over the next five years or so. In the past couple of years Microsoft has done a very effective marketing campaign convincing us that the 360 is just as powerful as the PS3 but costs less money. They did this so that the two machines would be in direct competition for hard-core console gamer business. Hard-core gamers will spend far more buying games than any other demographic and that is how these companies intend to recover their considerable development expenses. As of this writing neither console is operating in the black and despite cheery predictions both might not do so this year.

The 360 now has two fairly serious setbacks in this regard, limitations the PS3 does not possess. One of them is a lack of either built-in Blu-Ray or HD-DVD. Not only does this limit the total size of what a game can be but it also adversely affects the streaming of data from the disk while in game play. A 360 game will have to be smaller in size and that data will take a longer time to process. The second issue is the decision made by Microsoft to not allow game developers to load game data on the HDD; all the game must run directly from the disk. What this means right now is fairly long load times and minor issues with frame rates and other visual imperfections. Mass Effect perfectly illustrates the struggle the 360 has with ambitious looking, lengthy games.

I think these two issues are going to really make themselves increasingly apparent in the next couple years. It hasn't been a problem this past year because multi-platform developers are making games with moderate-spec PCs and the 360 in mind. Game tech advances however at an incredible rate so at the heart of the issue is whether or not the 360 is future-proofed or is it a machine with a game PC-like life expectancy?

There is something to consider in the video game industry right now; just because 'next gen' hardware has been made, it doesn't mean that software developers are going to capitalize on it smoothly or easily. The reason why so many PC developers have gone like gangbusters on the consoles is because they were the best trained to do so by making last-gen, high-end PC games. This is especially true with regards to the 360 and its very-PC-like architecture. It gave the 360 a killer launch year. The PS3 however is radically different and the companies that made games for the PS2 had little previous experience that was relevant. They are well on their way to learning however and what they are doing with the Cell processor is very encouraging. We've already seen some pull-away, titles suitable for the PS3 that the 360 can't play with all the features intact (Unreal Tournament 3, for example.) This year it looks like we will see even more.

The PS3 took a real ass-kicking for sticking to their guns and making such a high-end device with options and capabilities no one knew what to do with. In the long run however it looks like they made the right choice. They took their time, they didn't succumb to short-term solutions, and now they have a machine that third party developers (like Crytek, developers of the super-advanced Crysis) are very interested in because they find the unit has much room for growth.

The X-Box 360 offered a stripped down console at lower prices and advertised their lean product as giving customers the power of choice. Hard drives and high-def players were an option the buyer could consider rather than being forced upon by the company. Choice is all well and good but these options have a direct and deep impact on how advanced the games themselves are going to be for that system. In order to include all your customers the lowest common denominator must apply. 360 games therefore have to run without using the HDD and on standard DVD. None of those two issues are going to be the industry standard much longer.

In a couple years time Microsoft may very well find it having to reverse some key decisions in order to justify hard-core gamer loyalty. They may find their product being described as a middle-tier unit; the step between the Wii and the PS3. That might not be a bad place in the long run (the Wii seems to revel and thrive in it) but their yearly financial expectations will have to be seriously lowered from that point on. Halo 3 broke all kinds of records but it wasn't a game built for a mid or low end system - no blockbuster is. You want the big bucks, you have to play in the big game.

If I'm still writing this blog a year from now we get to see how wrong I was and you get to read how I'll explain all of this ass-wind away. Stay tuned!

Two all-cloned patties, special clone, cheese clone, cloney-clone-clone-clone-clone...

The cloned meat for us to eat; it's all good baby! You don't have to worry your pretty little head because the F.D.A. released a final risk assessment that's over nine-hundred pages long, giving replicant livestock the two-thumbs up. I want to make a comparison here. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about a fantastic world of elves and dwarves and dragons - you may have heard of it. Now if Tolkien made a quicky brochure outlining Middle Earth we readers may have not have felt the magic, but Tolkien wrote around nine-hundred pages and what that did is give us a dense and complete enough picture so that we may suspend our disbelief and enter this world while we read his fiction.

And that's what this fucking shit is too! It's the same thing except instead of the Dark Lord Sauron we get diseases mankind hasn't even thought up names for yet. It takes the F.D.A. around nine-hundred pages to convince Americans what we all know in our hearts to be wrong: Cloning animals for food is going to get us into serious trouble. This technological advancement is going to result in ass-blood, as in blood pouring out of your ass, non-stop. I have NO PROOF to support my notion but be honest, you believe me more than the F.D.A., right? I am armed with nothing but profanity and alarming imagery but I know that in this particular case you hold my predictions in higher esteem then F.D.A. doctors and scientists. That's because we humans have evolved with a moral core that steers us away from wrong-doing if we choose to listen. You won't touch cloney burgers because you know that lunch comes with 32 oz. cup of ass-blood on the side. Search your feelings, you know this to be true! We all do.

It's total war between the Mexican government and the drug cartels.

This is an interesting slice of news. The drug situation at the U.S. border has become so intense that they are really cracking down on the cartels now. I guess they should seeing as the gangsters are packing rocket-propelled grenades. It's amazing how wrong-headed our drug policies are. Prohibition has resulted in producing criminals with the money and connections to sport military-grade hardware. This isn't taking control of the situation, in fact this situation is a result of total lack of control. We need to legislate and tax these products, that's how you get them back under government control again.

I've always found it interesting that so many narcotics grow wild in third-world countries and that it's the developed nations (those with money and therefore most likely to enjoy the luxury) that ban them outright. I guess in the end we don't want to give these developing nations a product that might make them legitimately wealthy. We keep them in their lowly place and if they bring the bounty nature offers them to market they are branded as criminal regimes. Convenient that.

In todays hip-hop the expression 'Drop The Needle' has a whole new meaning!

Is this even news? I guess I find it strangely satisfying, like potentially finding the answer to a question I never asked. "How do those rappers wind up so buff?" It could be the hiring of personal trainers and chefs, maybe there is lots of time to pump iron while on tour, but in our quick-fix more-is-more society shooting up growth hormone is as good an answer as any. The allegations are there but I guess we'll have to see if this story goes anywhere.

It's remarkable that prayer and fear adopt such similar poses...

As the year draws to an end I find myself thinking on the commitments I’ve made in my life. Can I maintain the ties that currently bind and do I have the strength to make more? We all desire things we do not have or think we might enjoy a different set of circumstances but without commitment they will never come to pass. I wanted to improve my writing and so I created this journal but even this simple pleasure demands more time than I have to give most weeks. The family I started with my beautiful wife appears some days to be a monstrous commitment; a thing with an appetite so great that by nightfall I am stripped of all my energy and patience only to be left with doubt and feelings of inadequacy. I worry that I take more than I give when it comes to the friends I have committed to and in doing so I take them for granted.

I am not quite forty but deep in my being I feel that my life is at its half-way point. My capacity to change seems diminished these years. In my wild youth change seemed to occur by choice but now change seems to take place due to circumstance and this unfortunately is a far less empowering notion. A commitment to change is invigorating because therein lay the seeds to self-improvement but a mandate to change underscores the ineffectual aspects of your existence, over time it can leave one feeling windblown and on dark days even victimized.

Such goth-ridden ennui!!! Surely this level of introspection will hasten the decay of my still delectable nards! Perhaps I need to commit to a change in perception? A re-invention of one’s world-view has always entailed a change of identity in my life. I am not the boy I use to be but what manner of man I am? Not young, not old, but already carrying baggage from both destinations, I am marooned in a duality of video games and RRSP contributions.

As I’m writing a co-worker just came by my desk and inquired as to where he might purchase a pipe to smoke his marijuana. What an excellent non-sequitur! I told him that bongs might be a nice way to inhale - or so I’ve heard, of course. He said a pipe is required, something he can stow in his car. I think it’s a sad story because if you’re going to smoke a bit of dope then you should certainly be doing it with a loved one nearby to laugh at - or so I’ve heard. Of course it’s or so I’ve heard. It’s always or so I’ve heard…

It’s such a silly society that has been constructed for us to inherit. Is that a benefit of aging? Shall we too get the chance to vote in stupid laws of our own? The Pope, Hilary Clinton, and a few other idiots have been publicly speaking out against video games. Why must every generation have its officially sanctioned tool of the devil? Does no one ever look back and say ‘geez that fad didn’t amount to much after all.’ Where the hell were these alarmists when Heavy Metal came on the scene, or the hippie rock of the sixties, or Elvis, or the god-damned Jitterbug? Remember when dancing the Jitterbug was going to turn you into a sex fiend? My grandfather and I had a good laugh when he reminisced over that one.

It’s always something but what I don’t get is that someone like the conspicuously awkward Hilary was no doubt doing her best trying to fit in while grooving to the then much-reviled Beatles and now she’s liable to become the President? Alice Cooper was and still is one of the most insane, blood-spitting rock stars out there but now he’s a semi-pro golfer who runs a quaint looking pub. Anyone familiar with Gene Simmon’s rise to reality TV stardom can plainly see that the tongue-lashing front-runner of KISS is nothing if not a doting parent and wise old jew these days. If you and Hilary Clinton loved kissing the sky with Lucy Diamond or whatever the fuck you kids did for kicks back then, why would you shit on its modern contemporaries today? You turned out just fine, didn’t you? Or is there something you’re not telling us?

Hey have I stumbled on the cure for my blues? Should I commit to nothing less than changing the world in order to give my life new meaning? It’s a thought that fills me with a sense of exhilaration, delusional though it may be. Will you, gentle reader, entrust me with this awesome and surely corrupting responsibility?

Don’t answer. This plane, I have landed it. It was a round trip, a full circle. Thank you for flying. Here’s some of the news I came across this week.

I’m no girl but this face looks like it could freeze a vagina!

President Vladimir Putin has been fairly elected as Time Magazine’s Person of the Year and why not? He’s been everywhere and rooting for him has been a guilty pleasure of mine these past twelve moons. Putin’s graceful slide into the uncontested rulership of Russia proves once again that effectiveness trumps morality on the world stage every time. Nuclear frikken poison people! Tom Clancy didn’t have the balls to invent it in one of his books and we were too afraid to even imagine such deviltry until someone critical of Putin died from polonium exposure. Another female dissenter was shot dead riding an elevator. Who on earth could shoot a woman? It’s horrible, it’s monstrous, it’s cold-blooded in the extreme… I imagine it takes some true grit however. It all sounds very Russian, don’t you think? Anyway I found this to be an interesting read and the pictures are great too.

Sure he’s a cold fish but he swims in a lake of money!

Thanks to Marc for this supplementary Putin article that follows the fortune he allegedly amassed. You can’t begrudge a Soviet-styled power broker a forty billion dollar pay-off now and then, can you? Most would but I got a thing for leaders who fashion themselves after James Bond villians.

I hate to say I told you so but really I never hate to say I told you so…

Surprise! The United States is deeply concerned over the prospect of failure in Afghanistan. They can’t bring in any more troops and so naturally their NATO allies are following suite. You see, the world at large would just love to transform the bandit-spawning narco-economy into something less scary but without the required (here comes that word again) COMMITMENT it’s just so much ass-wind standing in for foreign policy. We white people, it’s true we’re the most awesome people of all but I have to tell you that we can be pretty damn arrogant most times. There are in total around 40,000 troops in Afghanistan and somehow these übermensch were going to change the destiny of twenty-seven million people, a great many of them for which the words soldier and citizen are interchangeable because they have been at war with others and themselves for decades! It was, still is, and the history books will condemn it as pure delusion. One line says it all. Our Canadian government and its armed forces leaders need to read this one line and let it serve as a wake-up call. This comes from the U.S. Admiral and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs:

“In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must.”

I would not play basketball with that kind of partner never mind go to war! The Canadian soldiers who have died and their grieving families deserve way better than to have done so in a second-rate misadventure, a campaign of lesser priority.

In my mind it is an unforgivable sin of leadership to entrust your military with a mission they cannot complete. Military engagements are won by making a wish list of everything your forces could possibly need and then doubling it. The commitment to this plan of action was far too small and in doing so blood and treasure was pointlessly wasted, to say nothing of our reputation as an effective and serious nation. It’s simple really: If you don’t commit fully, then you just don’t go, you find an alternative course of action and you take military occupation off the table. Our government paid but a pittance of Afghanistan’s true price in order to cynically curry economic favour with an ally whose pretence for warfare is even faultier than our own. In this our government has failed us, utterly.

The C.I.A. is doing nothing wrong but they don’t want you to see it anyway…

This issue is making news but stuff like this has happened too many times lately for me to think anything will come of it. I’ll throw it up for posterity and continuity however. So the C.I.A. took videotapes of them torturing Al-Qaeda members but then they destroyed them. I don’t think there is any reasonable doubt that they were destroyed because the tapes captured some truly monstrous behaviour. Some say the White House said ‘don’t destroy the tapes’ and others say the opposite. Lawyers are counselling all concerned parties as to their responsibilities and culpability, which really says all you need to know about how morally ambivalent the U.S. Government has become. Look for even a shadow of strong leadership in this issue, you will not find it.

Adorable sounding physics lessons can be found on YouTube.

I’m going to download these physics presentations from M.I.T. professor Walter Lewin over the holidays. They sound really interesting!

The Reuters Pictures of the Year 2007

Reuters pictures of the year are always neat. The one above is from the collection and is of a Canadian soldier seeking cover just second after his location was shelled. A thousand words indeed.

The men who read these books are now in my belly and boy did they give me the meat sweats!

I haven’t abandoned the news or current events entirely, they have merely had their priorities adjusted while I’m reading Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy. I’m nearly finished The Golden Compass and it has really drawn me in. I think Mr. Pullman has created one of the most exciting and believable child heroes in fantasy fiction and yes, I completely agree with you in that there are too many of them as it is. Lyra is a bit different however; she’s not the usual, cerebral weenie who finds her confidence and courage at the end of the book. Rather she’s something of a self-assured unholy terror right from the get-go. Lyra’s true strengths lie in her being an uber-kid; her vast quantities of determination and deceitfulness are the only tools she needs to overcome a variety of legitimately discouraging obstacles… Well that and a spot of future telling… Oh yeah, and one of the most insane combination bodyguard/all-terrain vehicle a ten year old could ever hope for, but still I think most of the credit belongs to her.

Nearly twenty years ago fantasy and science fiction were stitched together into horrid, clunky abominations. The Shadowrun line of books and games we’re forerunners of this Frankenstein-style genre-splicing. They thought it hip to have elves sporting assault rifles and I detested their products roundly for it and their other short-cuts to creativity. Writers have since had time to hone their surgical techniques and now we are treated to something far more subtle and interesting. The Golden Compass bends time in its own alternate version of earth. Oxford remains firmly in the 1600’s, London’s moved ahead a bit to the 1800’s, and the North Pole seems to have been catapulted into the 1940’s. It somehow works even if the end result is a Texan cowboy and a polar bear sharing a hot air balloon ride.

The reviews of the just-released movie are not altogether kind and at the time of this writing it’s getting a 45% on Rotten Tomatoes. Such is the peril of making a fantasy book into a film; the medium has a lot going for it when it’s kept firmly in the mind of the reader. Seeing a cowboy and a polar bear in a hot air balloon probably looks preposterous but having a writer set it up for you as a climax to an excellent adventure scene is an easier sell. When you read a book you don’t have it entirely play out in your mind like a movie; it’s a shadow version of sight, there and not, the visual intermixed with the sentence structure, all of it incomplete and yet somehow cohesive in the end. Fantasy movie makers must be careful to not make things too blatant. As well time plays a heavy roll. A book that takes you two or three weeks to read gives you ample time to digest the wacky and wild, there’s a rest period between meals. In a two or three hour movie it can result in way too much at once. It has the same effect as the Mandarin Buffet has on me; too much cheap food under one heat lamp, all of the combined smells turn me off the concept of lunch completely.

It has however been an interesting news cycle this past week so for the sake of posterity I’ll throw up some links.

Russian President puts the cool back in Cold War...

There goes our man Vladimir! One day he’s scaring the hell out of all Europe and on the next he sweeps his party into a Parliamentary election victory with an impressive 64%. Plus have you seen him without a shirt on? Weapon of Mass Seduction more like it! With the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty now serving as Putin’s toilet paper the Russians are free to move tanks, jets, and helicopters wherever they please throughout their western regions. I hope the European Union enjoyed their time negotiating with Russia as some kind of spent drunken has-been because those days are over.

Hugo Chavez can't get ahead in politics. Get it? It's a PUN!

Chavismo looks to be in need of Viagra. I just had to post his picture. Look to that massive, swollen, torrentially perspiring melon of his and those teeny, tiny books! He looks like Ogre King of Hobbiton! He must eat one-hundred head of steer every fortnight! The little folk who serve him must have to butter-skate on his skillet before they fry him up a thousand eggs!

This is Hugo’s first defeat since assuming power, though he remains President until 2013. He was looking to fast-forward his socialist Bolivarian revolution by giving himself the power to unilaterally alter Venezuela’s constitution and remain in power indefinitely. It proved to be too much to ask despite the fact that he is wholly beloved by his people. The vote was close and chances are he will take another run at these changes again.

This, the Russian election, and the one in Palestine last year show us the full range of democracy, how one government system can result in such different outcomes. Power to the People sometimes has pretty crazy results. Russia loves the strength and identity Putin has restored in their hearts and for this he seems poised to become all but a Unitary Executive. It’s what they have demanded with their votes so you can’t rightly disqualify the notion even if it does collide with our version of government. When the Palestinians voted for Hamas the U.S. and Israel howled in disbelief, thinking that the servile Fatah party was the only viable choice. They never stopped to think what would motivate the Palestinians to pick what they have labelled a terrorist organization. They don’t get that things are just that bad for these people, that a free choice for anger and outrage is better than accepting the yoke of servitude in some sham of an election.

Hugo Chavez has given his people more education and empowerment than any Venezuelan leader before him. I find it both reassuring and ironic that in doing so his own people have come to realise the difference between the struggle and the figurehead. Chavez will be gone one day, one way or another. Their work will go on.

If Iraq sucked any more their women would be prostitutes... Oh wait, that's happening too...

Iraq has been rated the third most corrupt nation on earth, sitting below only Ethiopia and Myanmar, both of which I don’t think are even human countries but rather some kind of emerging simian stone-age empire. I kid, I kid! Just because a nation doesn’t have a space program doesn’t mean they’re destined to make my acid wash jeans for pennies a day in a sweat shop. I know these things but I can never seem to remember them. By the way acid wash is coming back and it’s coming back big because it’s awesome. Fuck you!

So you have to pay several hundred dollars to become a police officer in Baghdad. I’m trying to think of a better way, a more nefarious way, to cause a society to collapse in on its own moral crapulence but I think this is the clear winner. What do you think these new police officers are going to do on the first day of work? If you said: “Why Dyno, they are going to re-coup their losses of course,” then I would say: “Why do you bother pointing out the obvious to me? Do you think I’m some kind of idiot?” And then you would say: “Let’s not fight. I have this dime bag and it’s never going to snort itself.” And then I would say: “How can I not love you? Here, let me unzip that fly.”

Afghanistan: Big in the Bandit Business since 982!

What I find interesting in this article about the Afghan road between Kandahar and Kabul is that if you picked up a newspaper five hundred years ago you would probably read a very similar article. There are bandits on this ancient trade route still, and they will rob and even mutilate you as they did back then. What I don’t like about the article is how they spin the repaving of the road itself as a humanitarian effort. Read any military history book, building roads is not a P.R. move. You can spend a quarter million dollars on asphalt or you can spend a full million in repairs to your battered motorcade. That the Afghans get to use the road when American Humvees aren’t convoying on it is purely incidental. It’s like when a fly crawls over your shit. Letting the fly do it doesn’t make me a fly-lover. “Go ahead, fly! I’m done drawing with it, it’s all yours.”

It's kind of stony but I would still eleven herbs and spice the fuck out that shit yo!

Its Dinosaur With The Skin Still On Time kids! They found a Hadrosaur with skin and muscle still attached and in good form in a bizarrely fossilized state! You get to actually see the cool dinosaur scales. Already this has given them corrections on what the Hadrosaur actually looked like, stuff the bones didn’t tell, like for example it has a meatier backside for the T-Rex’s to dine upon. It sucks that dinosaur’s became extinct because you know that they would be delicious on the barbecue.

But-but-but the nuclear bombs and the hating our freedom and the terrible terror!

I will surely return to this topic because the blow-back is even now huge and will not go away any time soon. The latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear weapons capability gave the Persian regional power a clean bill of health. They don’t think there is a program and they don’t think there has been one in years. This report was given to Bush in August but that didn’t stop him from war-mongering about nuclear holocausts and World War III. Already there has been downplaying and spin control. It is now clearly evident that the response Bush was trying to muster against Iran is in no way justifiable given the actual level of threat. Carrier Battle Groups are stationed off the Gulf of Hormuz, bombing campaigns are ready to go, and for what? No weapons, no weapon programs, nothing even close for years. It’s the lies of Iraq all over again.

A pathological presidential liar, or an idiot-in-chief. It is the nightmare scenario of political science fiction...

Keith Olbermann is my favourite pretend-older brother because he’s been calling Bush on his shit and taking him out behind the woodshed for years now. His comments on this latest issue are hellacious even by his own excoriating standards. I have never heard anyone speak about a world leader in these terms in my life! You can watch the show or read the transcript. It is a scorcher!

This post has no title because there is no definitive theme... You shouldn't bother looking at this part anymore... Seriously, cut it out...

This picture comes from Ubisoft’s upcoming big-budget game. In it you play the pictured Altair. He’s a medieval assassin whose skills involve killing people and disappearing into crowds. Looking at him you can tell that he is not a person to be trifled with and therein lies a problem I have with videogame storytelling.

Imagine you're a guard and there are clues that a deadly assassin is afoot! Your crossbow is loaded but who is there to fire at? Who in the sea of peasantry could be the dreaded assassin? Worry not friend because sussing out the killer has become quite easy in the video game world. See that guy over there who looks really, really cool? Shoot him. Don't ask questions; just put one in his back. There is no way a normal, everyday, unthreatening person winds up looking that cool. Check the peasants around him, not nearly as cool looking, are they? No, in fact they look rather lame when put up next to this guy so really there should be no doubt. Kill the really fucking cool guy because that will be your assassin each and every time. If I was an evil tyrant in a video game I would simply execute anyone wearing metal-as-fuck armbands and crazy belts, and in doing so I would live to be a ripe old age.

Consider Mungo; he who herds sheep in the video game world. I have no picture of Mungo to show you because he is undeserving but worry not, your imagination will suffice. You can tell worthless Mungo is harmless because his serf’s rags are lame and he wears boots made out of burlap. His belt is but a piece of knotted twine and there are no daggers tucked within. If he was designed by a Japanese person he might be wearing a pot on his head and be prone to breaking out in dance. Hiding behind Mungo, however, is this impressive looking fucker who's sporting some insane leatherwork and looks as if he’s never danced or known happiness in his life. How in the video game world does a guy come to own such finery? Really there is only one answer...

He looks that bad-assed because he can kill a lot of people easily. The toughness of a person is in direct proportion to the crazy gear they sport. See the detailed embellishments on his bracers? Translated that means he can kill like ten guys in a row, so shoot him.

Shoot him in the back.

If only real life bad guys were so easy to spot.

A number of Donald Rumsfeld’s memos have been leaked. Chances are his former employees stopped being afraid of him and are cleaning out his desk if only to show the world what kind of insane fucking goober they had to work under. It seems this guy was completely consumed with image and how to manipulate it. He was a pre-internet dinosaur who vainly thought that he could still control the message despite the avalanche of facts at our disposal. The delusion of this man stems from the fact that he thought the States could be run as it was thirty years ago. The real shame is that he was allowed to do so.

Can you even say weapon of mass destruction using clicks and whistles?

Civilized nations around the world are moving to ban the use of cluster bombs. What a bunch of pussies! Most of the countries who want them banned have to import fire so of course they’re against them. I think that if you can’t invent it then you shouldn’t even have a say. Settle down there Swasiland, adults are talking, it’s big boy time. Tell me what’s so wrong with a weapon that releases a thousand other indiscriminate weapons that lay dormant until a child finds them? These things are better than land mines because you don’t have to bury them; they do all the maiming and require none of the shovel work. Israel dropped cluster bombs on the Lebanese last year so if you don’t like these horrible weapons then an argument can be made that you are in fact an Anti-Semite. You’re not an Anti-Semite are you? America loves their cluster bombs and their Jews so thankfully I don’t see these rocket propelled amputee factories going anywhere soon.

It will be just like the bible only with no god.

You know what Iraq needs, a flood! Did I say need? What I meant is gonna get. The Mosul dam is shoddy and the money that was going to go into fixing it is gone. If it breaks the city of Mosul will fall into the jurisdiction of Aquaman and parts of Baghdad will be under a dozen feet of water. Can you image some guy with flippers and a suicide vest paddling towards you? That would be pretty interesting.

Freedom and Democracy - It's super-effective!

Apparently a few hundred of them there Taliban were spotted poking around the Afghan city of Kandahar. That’s bad because Kandahar is where all the Canadian hotel journalists hang out and wait for the military to give them news on the war. When the Taliban move into a village the residents are forced to flee, not because they fear the radical Islamists but because they want to avoid getting caught in the customary NATO bombardment. Nothing like fighting the good fight eh? In other news from Kandahar the war is going super well and we are all totally awesome.

This is a totally bragible statistic...

This is Parade’s annual 20 Worst Dictators in the World list. There are some truly diabolical assholes on this list but let me break it down to you in the way you really want; 6 black dudes, 7 brown dudes, 4 yellow dudes, and 3 white dudes though one of them is named Islam so there is no fucking way he’s on my team. Not one woman tyrant was able to break the barb-wire ceiling. It’s like I always say, vagina and human suffering just don’t mix.

I'm Robert Frikken Goulet! I AM LAS VEGAS!

Robert Goulet died this week, he was 73. Mr. Goulet had a French-Canadian dad and spent some time growing up in Canada so we can lay claim to him in that desperate way that Canadians lay claim to American celebrities. His later commercial work was pretty hilarious as was Will Ferrell’s belligerent rapping impression. When he was young he looked totally different then when he was old too. I hate that about old people.

Consumption and Bowel Movements: The building blocks of the universe.

I’ve gone from vaginas to the elderly so my next logical stop will be Black Holes! These aren’t just any Black Holes either but the super-serious ones that eat suns and can fart out a planet! Check the gallery to see some beautiful pictures of space. If looking at things that are not beautiful is more your thing then the article also provides a picture of an astronomer.