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.

What if you could live in a world where Darth Vader was YOUR father... So awesome...

If your consciousness could enter limitless realms of virtual reality that were immersive in every way would you be willing to give up your physical form for long periods of time and perhaps even indefinitely? This idea might chill some. I think that not only is our technology moving towards making this possible but our society is developing to accept this fate on a subconscious level. Ascending into a spirit world is a global mythological theme from the dawn of history but I wonder if might wind up being a self-fulfilled prophecy.

You see something with your eyes, it gets logged as a memory, and in the doing certain parts of your brain are activated. When you remember the thing you have seen, when you elect to see it again within your mind, the same parts of your brain spark to life. Scientists have performed experiments and have seen this occur. The brain doesn’t care about the temporal aspect of the viewing; visualization is as good as a stored memory for eliciting an emotion. This may be salient in re-prioritizing the value we place on real life and a simulated version. If our brains are fine with either and our consciousness resides within, who are we to get picky?

Matter, or at least our concept of it, is for all intents and purposes an illusion. It’s solidity and stability; its permanence can be questioned. Atoms in part or wholesale wink in and out of our existence and this has given rise to quantum physics and the theories of alternate universes, that atoms may spend times in places other than our own reality. If other universes are apart of nature then there should be no stigma in us attempting to create our own, we ape nature continuously and to the benefit of all.

Human corporeal existence is a wearying exercise in compromise. I cannot spend an hour on a beach in Tahiti after work because of natural laws such as space and time as well as man-made hindrances such as finances and responsibility. What we call life is in fact a prison planet of boundaries and limitations that we have accepted utterly. The great promise of virtual reality is that we may escape these chains. Glorious, gorgeous Tahiti might be constructed down to the last grain of sand and we might get there after work in the same way we send an email. A simulated existence has the dual benefit of not only being exactly the same as the real world but also being something far more fantastical. Rather than beaming to Tahiti we might wish to fly there instead so that we may admire the ocean view and cloud formations along the way. A life lived in virtual reality is one that might see more, do more, experience more, and therefore live more.

A human in motion through our world consumes in great quantities and expels waste in equal fashion. We burn our surroundings steadily, much less of course when we sleep or are inanimate. Our requirements for public and private space become much reduced when our consciousness is shunted to another realm. A civilization that spends significant time within a virtual reality will use resources more efficiently and thus become more sustainable and long-lasting than what we are currently. Our society might start small in this regard and still reap significant benefit. Many of us work on computers in an office. If the office was in a virtual building you could still attend meetings, have access to the Internet, and have discussions with co-workers but you would not burn gas, use paper, or even spend a premium on fast food lunches.

Modern society has shifted its focus dramatically in the past couple decades. The infrastructure of our cities is mostly built, we don’t seek to expand as we use to, rather now we concentrate and vertically integrate. In our increasingly dense communities our focus shifts to entertainment, to diversion, and to solitary study. With the necessities of life not requiring all of our day’s attention we give ourselves more and more time to indulge our wishes and whims. This trend increases with every generation and it seems to me the modern way of living prepares us for a smooth transition to a virtual existence.

Like every human on the planet I dearly hope that our species might live on for the rest of time but it won’t unless we do some truly miraculous things. Living on a planet with minimal environmental impact is just the tip of the iceberg. One day our sun will alter in intensity and even the smallest change might make this world inhospitable. It will eventually burn out and essentially destroy the solar system itself. Long before such inevitability we might be victim to some catastrophic event such as a massive asteroid. At one point or another we will need to leave this place if the human race is to have a billions long year history. We may never achieve faster than light travel and so we’ll have to get to other stars the old fashioned way; taking hundreds and even thousands of years. Virtual reality becomes an absolute necessity at this point. We must lay dormant whole civilizations, revive them only when absolutely necessary, and in those long stretches in-between give them a life to live.

Video games are the tip of the virtual reality spear. Humans in vast numbers enjoy looking at a simulated reality of one kind or another to the point where it is now an industry exchanging billions of dollars yearly. As I type this I am doing so on a virtual piece of paper and you are reading it in similar fashion. Watching television, whether it’s a movie taking place in Japan or a hockey game is another virtual reality stepping stone. The Internet and its explosive usage is a self-evident testament to our desire for virtual libraries, shopping malls, and arenas of competition. Fake or representative versions of real things are useful and we all learn to appreciate them because of the convenience they bring. The more we use these fake things and take them for granted the more real they become. This doesn’t cheapen reality; it expands our definition of it. We are all training for the kind of future I’m describing whether we know it or not! Don’t worry, it’s a good thing. This is a serendipitous development of events. We need this. The first heaven we visit will be on-line and it will be of our own creation.

A good time to start thinking about buying a Playstation 3…

Warner opted to put their high-definition movies exclusively on Blu-Ray disc and now that most media publishers have weighed in Sony’s proprietary format has the clear advantage. Other companies like Universal, who at first stated they will produce only HD DVD product, have backtracked, stating that they too will provide Blu-Ray material. Industry experts are calling Sony the winner and that HD DVD will eventually go the way of Beta though in truth even the unsuccessful storage medium take a while to finally die. If you are going to buy a new high-definition disc player for movies however, take a tip and go Blu-Ray. No point in having to buy something else a few years from now.

Boat fly-bys are SO not as cool as plane fly-bys…

I wanted to touch on the DEF CON 4 episode of the month. Small Iranian Revolutionary Guard speed boats got nice and close to a few U.S. battleships travelling through international waters off the Straits of Hormuz. It was a very tense situation because military analysts have predicted that if Iran was going to take down the big battleships they would do so with explosive laden small boats that could get in quickly and avoid being targeted by the big guns. It is said the Iranians issued threats over the radio but this has since been questioned.

I watched the video footage and there is no question that it was pure and blatant provocation. I think those U.S. boats should be commended for their restraint and nerve because any captain would be well within their rights to torch those boats in order to safeguard their crew mates. It was however a win-win for Iran's forces. They got to witness U.S. naval readiness firsthand and that is probably some A+ intelligence. If the U.S. did strike an Iranian boat they could play the victim and enjoy the negative U.S. press that would surely come. It was an asshole move but an effective strategy.

Everyone loves to read a great speech, right? RIGHT?!?

I’m trying not to follow the American leadership caucuses because this is journalism at its lowest, drama for drama’s sake and the tiring punditry over every teeny tiny thing that comes up. The news agencies have no filter, it’s like they have to fill all twenty-four hours of the day with this stuff and quite frankly, there is nowhere near enough real news material.

This link however is Barack Obama’s concession speech in New Hampshire, where he lost by a low margin to Hilary Clinton after beating her in Iowa. You can really see how he has studied the words of Martin Luther King and is evoking the style to great effect. This is damn fine piece of writing and oratory. I hope he wins!

Darth Vader gets a makeover!

My picture today is from this art exhibit. There are some very neat versions of the iconic, glossy black villain. In retrospect Vader should have had multiple helmets to convey his mood. One for when he was going to terrorize an Ewok village, one for when he was going to torture a princess, one to impress the Emperor, and maybe one for when he just felt like spending a night alone, by himself, some quality ‘me’ time. If that particular helmet had curlers that would fuck us all up. When a guy who can crush your throat with his mind sports a set of curlers men like me get scared as hell! There is just no beating a guy that tough and crazy. Darth Vader in curlers would make Han Solo curl up and cry. Darth Vader in curlers wearing a Wookie pimp coat may be my Halloween costume next year.

The Iowa Caucus is in full swing but I can't seem to care so you'll read about none of that here...

Happy New Year, gentle reader! I hope you enjoyed your holidays as I did mine. One high point was my daughter’s transformation into the Master Painter upon providing her with an easel and art supplies. It dominates our living room as it did on Christmas Day but I don’t have the heart to move it yet. You see, the Master Painter flourishes when working before an audience, someone who can listen to her running commentary. There are already about forty original works, should you drop by the home you may secure one before they enter the art world proper.

The turkey was another high point, it came out great. Gravy from scratch still vexes me. Who would have though that combining stock, drippings, and flour to make a divinely smooth concoction that makes love to your mashed potatoes would be difficult? I’ve received advice to this end and more than once been told about gravy making powders. Don’t get me wrong, in me you have a man who loves powder but in this case it seems wrong to throw down your culinary integrity in favour of DOW Chemical thickening agents whose inner working we are wholly ignorant to. Once I’ve perfected making good gravy from scratch then I can decide if it’s worth the effort. Until I get it right I’ll never know what I’m missing.

I just remembered something! I am not in fact a fifty year old woman and this isn’t her blog. I should therefore stop talking about cooking.

I received an I-Pod Nano which is cool because I’ve wanted one but it underscores how old I’m getting. You know you are getting old when you can’t easily incorporate modern technology into your life. The little black nano is sexy and the snug leather carrying case with its magnetic snaps only enhances the sexiness but now I must do things to make it functional. I must find music in MP3 format to download and then I must actually find the time to listen to the device itself. I drive to work, I work, and then I go home to raise children at various levels of intoxication. Ear buds to not lend themselves to this regiment.

New Years was especially lovely. Good friends had us over for a private pre-party social and stuffed us with finger foods. Thank you Joel and Emma! I briefly played the Wii again and it remains a gimmick. I know I'm alone on this and in truth I prefer it that way. I also belted out a few tunes on SingStar and was impressed with the high quality of microphone. Though my wife and I were home and cozy by nine we had a great night together talking in the New Year.

My thoughts remain fixed on Pakistan and their turbulent times. I feel especially bad for Bilawal Bhutto Zardari; the nineteen year old son of Benezir Bhutto. First of all this kid is going to develop something of a Harry Potter complex while attending university at Oxford. He’s going to have to deal with his mother’s death while walking the storied halls of that institution as kids whisper, point, and politely pump him for information.

Bhutto the Third ordained to eventually rule Pakistan

What’s worse however is that he has been appointed to replace his mother to rule the Pakistan People’s Party in time, which when one looks to the viciously pruned Bhutto family tree is something akin to a death sentence. Of course young Bilawal’s father Asif Ali Zardari will act as court vizier while Bilawal finishes school and a long-time member of the party will be the candidate in the upcoming election, but it looks that in the long run the line of succession will trump all.

The mindset of the Pakistani masses confounds me. Is not the concept of democracy and voting for leaders a response to dynasties and appointed rulers? The Bhutto’s have become a royal family and what’s most perplexing is that they have been elevated to this lofty post by the citizenry themselves! Do none of them think that leadership of their own country can come from within? What is the point of endorsing a nineteen year old who is years and even decades away from performing the task to which he has been assigned?

Bhutto’s Manner of Death Questioned

Thanks to Marc for this tidbit, it’s worth going over. For a little while a member of the Pakistani government claimed that Bhutto died as a result of her own clumsiness, that while she was ducking down to avoid being shot she hit her head in the car and died as a result of skull trauma. There was the predicable response of outrage and request for inquiry. The story has since receded back into the woodwork.

If you were a desperate fool and thought that such semantics might tarnish the title of martyr that Benazir Bhutto has earned then you might try the above weak ploy. It is however a tactic that cannot stand up to the facts of the case. Bhutto was attacked by a man wielding a gun and wearing a bomb. She died after his attack and the exact manner is utterly irrelevant. Had the assassin not attacked she would still be alive.

Some fool must have believed that this kind of hair-splitting would be a worthwhile gamble and in doing so they not only exposed their own flawed judgement but tipped the hand of President Musharraf as well. Anyone willing to capitalize or spin the death of another has to appreciate the fact they died at all. If Musharraf thought Bhutto’s death was a bad thing he would not try to fight the fact that she would be regarded as a martyr. As well, he is the President and a General. If he wanted Bhutto protected he could have, in fact no one in Pakistan could have done a better job. So while I can’t say he ordered the kill I’m prone to believe that he knew it was coming and did nothing to prevent it. There is no doubt in my mind that he knew this smear attempt was coming and did nothing to prevent it either.

Conflicting Stories on the Basra Pull-Out

Thanks to Mike for this article. A while back I posted a link regarding Basra and the British troops that pulled out in order to halt the violence directed against them. The end result was a more peaceful province. Now it appears that the original report may have been only so much good press for the peace of mind of the English back home. Iraqi officials are stating that Basra is as lawless and violent as ever and that the British pulled-out before the task was completed.

Into the Valley of Death

This article shows us what life is like serving in Afghanistan in one of the most contested stretches of land in the entire theatre. Here a small group of American soldiers are fired upon daily by the Taliban and of course it takes a heavy toll.

On-Line Gaming Gone Evil

Thanks to Jeffrey of Pundit for sending this excellent article out. It explores a Korean MMORPG called ZT Online. Most games use time as their currency: you play a lot and you get more powerful. One clever but corrupted businessman decided that if money is used instead of time players could get everything they can afford and he would get rich in the process. Not a bad concept for a certain kind of player; those with coin and a busy agenda but this being Asia it’s taken to the extreme. The story starts with a wise and benevolent girl who becomes Queen, tries to buck a system that compels people to fight, and winds up getting gang raped repeatedly in prison. Hey now, that's my kind of fairy tale!

Assassins make the dreams end... Death is merely incidental...

I’ve been reading the daily news for years now and like to think that I have a grasp on various world events. That said there are some occurrences where I simply do not have the experience or mindset to fully comprehend. Some stories take shape in your mind with the answers you know, with the knowledge you have discovered. Other events take form from the questions you create out of the confusion. You become versed in the facts at hand but the core of the issue; the true understanding is just not there.

No doubt you have heard that Benazir Bhutto has been killed.

Well, they finally got her. Benazir was shot at a political rally just twelve days from the election that was sure to make her Prime Minister for the third non-consecutive time. The assassin blew himself up afterwards, killing some twenty people.

Bhutto’s return from exile was a sensitive diplomatic gambit over a year in the making. She would endorse President Musharraf’s tenuous hold on power for a third term and he would drop the corruption charges that forced her out of her own country. Together they might have achieved a stability in Pakistan that neither of them could manage on their own. The White House gambled heavily on this union, it would justify the billions in military aid Pakistan has received over the past several years and keep a chief ally in the War on Terror solvent in the face of internal crisis. What a mess!

The Life and Times of the Former Pakistani Prime Minister

Islamic Fundamentalists like the Taliban have been steadily gaining ground in Pakistan and the Oxford educated Bhutto was presumably a threat to them. It is said that Musharraf has been fighting the extremists but the Pakistani military and their intelligence agency has always had close ties to the Islamists from as far back as the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

So why did it happen? No scenario I can cook up makes complete sense to me. Musharraf was no fan of Benazir but without her the best he can hope for is to rule Pakistan as a tyrant, shuffling the nation in and out of martial law. She was far more popular than he and the assassination of Benazir is going to generate a tremendous amount of backlash against the Islamists. They can’t win an open fight against the military and that is what the public is going to howl for. The pro-democracy faction who supported Bhutto’s political party is in a very dangerous position, being the most likely to become incensed but the least likely to stand up for itself. Benazir was all the leadership the Pakistan Peoples Party had. I don’t see this death being good news for any of the three sides.

Al-Qaeda Claims Responsibility

It’s interesting to watch a country pull itself apart. I wonder how many Pakistanis truly believe that a more powerful nation will arise from this multi-sided conflict. History has many more examples of the opposite occurring; of countries who wind up fractured and in disarray through sustained violence and are forced to bargain from positions of increased weakness on the world stage until they are ripe to be exploited by their more stable neighbours. A wounded and weary nuclear-armed Pakistan is one of the potential nightmare scenarios that strategists have warned us about for years now. It’s not often that the death of one single person can tip the world so far out of balance.

We Like Our South Asian Leaders Dead

There are many articles out there today discussing the life and times of Benazir Bhutto from historical pieces to personal reminiscence. By all accounts she was a very intelligent and charismatic person. I like the above article best though, it’s written with a non-western perspective which goes back to the limits of understanding I face on topics such as this. This author takes for granted a concept that I might never come to naturally myself. It’s a very good read and the last remark I’ll leave on this.

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.

My game tastes seem to be refining... I wish to kill more people at faster speeds...

The deluge of worthy games continues but I have seen the high water mark, the tide begins to ebb ever so slightly. In the strangest twist of fate ever I am honestly thankful of this because the quantity of desirable product through the end of 2007 was forcing me to do questionable things. If one possessed a perfectly excellent game (in this case Call of Duty 4) and one was dying to play it, why then would that person buy another (Mass Effect) game? Even worse, who in their right mind would only play the first chapter of the new game and then set it aside once ANOTHER hotly anticipated title (Unreal Tournament 3) hit the shelves? No one with a strong command of his faculties, to be sure. Games I have reviewed in the past couple of months are insisting they be re-played, they actually nag my brain whilst I am spending my time constructively. I literally have more games then I can play right now and I try to calm my increasingly indignant sense of responsibility by assuming there will be lean times on the horizon; a dry season where each of these purchases will receive time meriting their financial commitment. It seems I am becoming some kind of game-storing camel or squirrel. Is it mere coincidence that a newly emerging hump and steadily fattening cheeks liken me to these animals on a physical level? This is me coming to grips with what appears to be my early-blooming mid-life crisis.

So I took Mass Effect out a couple times and she puts out well enough but the chick is slooooooooow. Is it legal to compare a sci-fi epic to a blond chick? How about a Downsy blond chick who’s into the Dramamine? There is a ton of reading and dialogue to get through and you can even complete missions without drawing your weapons. Outrageous! Even as I wrote that last sentence my monocle popped off! Some people will love this and I can appreciate it because at its heart I can see there is a good game here, but I need to wait until I’m terminally ill and on the couch for ten hours a day before I can even touch this. The game has two minor points that disappoint and both issues can be blamed on X-Box design parameters. All the game data has to sit on the disk and what this results in are brutal load times and sub-par frame rates. The 360 can’t completely handle this game and Microsoft has either got to let designers put stuff on the hard drive or this will be the shape of things to come.

Unreal Tournament 3 however is the opposite of Mass Effect; it’s no golden-haired drooler with a touch of the Downs but rather a crystal-snorting redhead who likes to burn stuff. Developed by Epic Games and published by Midway, the Unreal Tournament franchise enjoys high status in the world of on-line shooters. There have been many incarnations of the game and aside from providing a lightning-fast shooter experience it showcases Epic’s proprietary game engine which they lease out to other designers. To this end Unreal Technology has been used in hundreds of games. There are well over fifty games using Unreal in this generation alone and that number will soon exceed one hundred. Thus far this console war's only winner has been Epic Games.

The overall art design and story in Unreal Tournament 3 is amongst the most hilariously over-the-top I’ve ever seen. My first instinct was to simply dismiss it as obvious and adolescent, but in the end I kind of liked it because I guess it’s just so damn ridiculous. “So bad it’s good” might be aptly applied here but I’ll hold off until I secure the proper permit. The main characters wear this crazy space armour all covered in needless embellishment, but that’s not metal enough so they wear skirts or sarongs also made of armour, but THAT’S not metal enough so they sport facial tattoos as well. This unrelenting passion for testosterone blasts any sense of realism or connection you have with any of these cartoon characters. The best is the weapons though. It looks like they took the front end of Camaro's and Trans-Am's, quartered them, and then had weapon barrels sticking out the middle. If these weapons are in any way a form of phallic compensation then I would be the Ron Jeremy of Unreal Tournament. The story is stupid, and makes no sense, and is filled with clichés, and you don’t care, so that’s all I’ll say about that.

Nonetheless if you own a PC or a PS3 then you should get this game. What? Why? You see, the addition of a single player story mode is a kindness that Epic provided as a tutorial for players to become acquainted with the various aspects of this game. It allows you to play this game on your own against the computer thanks to some excellent A.I. programming. In the end however it’s really nothing more than value added to the multi-player which is the focus of the product. In this regard the game delivers! The fighting is amazing and this is achieved with blinding speed, gorgeous graphics, well-designed levels, and balanced mechanics.

There are around forty maps and they range from good to bloody excellent. One in particular played out like an epic story for me; it was a Capture the Flag game that had me coasting the open country on a hoverboard only to stop here and there in order to take part in some intense firefights. The game transcended from a contest into my own little adventure while war and havoc occurred around me. Vehicles play a huge roll and they come in all shapes and sizes including some alien walkers and flying demon squids. Such is the pacing of the game that you wind up jumping in and out of vehicles constantly, using their superior firepower to waste foes only to discard the wreck once it becomes severely damaged. The packaged vehicle segments you find in so many other games cannot hold a candle to this style of play.

If you want a gritty, realistic shooter then Call of Duty 4 is for you. If you prefer a gratuitous futuristic fantasy running at hyper-speed then give Unreal Tournament 3 a spin. Between the two there is simply too much good on-line multi-player action to give either title justice.

Game developers pressure the enthusiast media to no end...

Thanks to Marc for passing this article on to me and in doing so turning me on to the Gamasutra website. Sadly it seems the behaviour I singled Ubisoft out with is far more widespread than even I figured. I was surprised to see that a supposedly cool company like Rockstar (makers of Grand Theft Auto) were as corporate and Orwellian with their product message as the rest. It all appears so foolish really. It seems evident that the focus should be on making a game worthy of praise rather than jiggering the media.

Doughboy here loves his African art but he's a total fucking NOOB!!!

This spotlight on the C.E.O. of Activision, who upon merging with Vivendi will create a conglomerate to rival the giant Electronic Arts, is a good example of why I think video games and the media are in the state they are in today. Mr. Kotick is no doubt an excellent businessman but he’s not a game player and therefore has limited experience in making an actual product better. He can sell it better, he can promote it better, he might even be able to motivate actual game makers better, but in the end he is hawking a ware he doesn’t fully comprehend. Put in its simplest terms the purpose of a video game is to be fun. The fact remains that only devoted game players can tell you how that comes about. They can tell you how the product rates when put against its competitors in the marketplace and they do so with their purchases. Until the game industry matures to the point where game designers get old and experienced enough to secure executive level positions most big game companies will continue to fly blind and focus sales tactics off the product, where the current leadership feels comfortable and in control.

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!