When I found out that NASA was going to release some news today "that will impact the search for extraterrestrial life." I was interested, but wary, mainly because I didn't want to jump to ridiculous conclusions. And it turned out that they discovered a kind of microbe can build itself using arsenic, which is pretty cool, but c'mon now. It was even found on earth.
"The definition of life has just expanded," said Ed Weiler, NASA's associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "As we pursue our efforts to seek signs of life in the solar system, we have to think more broadly, more diversely and consider life as we do not know it."
Well... duh. I can't believe they spent time and effort to come up with that. Shit, there's crazy as hell things living on Earth.
Not today, Randy. Not today.
One of my friends sent me a text about how NASA found a life form that's radically different from us, as in Earth wide. My first thought was, is it edible? My second thought, what does it taste like? Reading about it later on I felt kind of disappointed by the whole thing. But then again my mind is warped by 2 decades of science fiction and relatively access to science news through a variety of media has exposed me to all sorts of cool things.
I actually just read a really good story in The Mammoth Book Of Extreme Science Fiction anthology about first contact with extraterrestrial life. The Story is Wang's Carpets by Greg Egan. At first they think that it's a kind of plant, but then they figure out that the thing is a single gargantuan cell, and then things get interesting. The whole anthology is pretty cool, as in every collection of stories there are some I couldn't get into but there's a bunch more stories I really liked in different flavors of sci fi. The first story that jumps to mind is Death In The Promise Land by Pat Cadigan, it features virtual realities, murder, and good old fashioned gumshoeing; however, looking at the contents it's hard to pick out one story I liked above the rest. Good times. I still think that The Mammoth Book Of Mammoths would be a hit.
Also science fiction-esque is the deployment of the XM25, cool! I can't wait for this thing to start popping up in ridiculous action movies.
Most of my weekend was spent hanging around the house playing Call of Duty: Black Ops. I was initially expecting another foray in the bleak world of USA black ops set in the present day, but COD:BO is actually set during the Vietnam War and the Cold War eras. Pretty sweet. Like the last few games in the COD series you end up playing as a few different characters throughout the game and jump around the world a bunch, but in the end you are basically blowing everything up while howling triumphantly.
My experience with the Cold War is very limited, what with being born in 1985 and whatnot. So of course most of my knowledge of the Cold War has come from movies made in the 80s, ludicrous action movies. Black Ops' campaign mode is a great homage to commie killing movies of yore. The single player mode is chock full of great set pieces that involving a prison escape from a brutal Gulag, stealing a helicopter that is made out of guns, running from a cloud of weaponized neurotoxin on the roofs and through the alleys of Hong Kong, infiltrating a mysterious bio-weapons lab, and a really cool boat ride in Vietnam. One of my favorite parts (scenes?) is when after rappelling down a mountain, you and your team swing through the windows of a control room spraying glass and bullets everywhere. It's just as badass as it sounds. Alas the campaign mode is rather short and, despite the fact that you are never on your own, there is no co-op. I played it on medium difficulty which provided a good challenge, but nothing that made me want to yell at the TV or throw things. There are a few points where enemies just keep on spawning and spawning and spawning, but fuck it, you have grenades and you did pick up that RPG a while back ago. The AI on your side is kind of dumb and will sometimes just stand around while you are being shot at by a dozen dudes.
One of my favorite features of Black Ops is the sheer amount of guns that you can use. There are 36 straight up guns in the game, not even counting a few rocket launchers and the crossbow (equipped with explosive bolts!). Oh man, I forgot to mention the tomahawk and the ballistic knife, which is a knife that shoots out the blade. Ludicrous. Okay, lots of guns, big deal, everyone who is alive now knows what an AK47 is, even babies. But what the hell is a G11? It's an assault rifle that can fire 2000 rounds per minute in addition to looking like something from the future. The various attachements add another level of depth and insanity, such as the masterkey attachment, which is a shotgun that attaches to your gun. Unfortunately you can't use the masterkey on a shotgun because it would be silly. What's the point of having so many goddamn guns anyway? Pft, to shoot complete strangers over the internet with, everyone knows that.
The bullets have adorable whiskers on them.
One of the wonders of living in this bleak horrible future is being able to play army through a series of tubes and Black Ops does it in style. You get a variety of multiplayer modes, from your standard deathmatch to various objective based matches such as capture the flag, demolition (blow up their thing before they blow up your thing), and a few more modes. One of the best things about this reiteration of multiplayer is the ability to pick and choose what weapons and perks you want. It's so customizable that you can even pick the color and look of your laser reticle. There's a wide variety of perks that you can pick for your custom class and play style. My philosophy to playing online is easy, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, riddle them with bullets." As a result my favorite class involves an M60 with a scope, the lightweight perk allows me to run fast with this monstrosity, the warlord perk lets me put a grip on the M60 to keep it stable as I shoot 100 bullets into the general direction of my foes, and the ninja perk completely silences my foot steps. Also I have a rocket launcher. The multiplayer is deep and there is plenty for everyone who enjoys blowing shit up. It can be a little overwhelming for, as the kids say, noobs, mainly because some people are just so damn good at the game. Most of the irritation comes from other players, whether it be their incessant chatter or camping, truly hell is other people, but this is all solved through being able to mute people and shooting the hell out of them. My favorite game mode is team death match. I consider it the most pure mode of reaching out and killing someone. Multiplayer in barebones streamlines TDM and a few other modes to the most basics, which means no perks, no weapon attachments, and no kill streaks and it is still a blast to play. The coolest part of multiplayer mode is that you can play it splitscreen with someone else in the room! That's fucking dope!
There's also zombie mode, but that terrifying and I hardly played it. Basically you kill zombies. What more do you want?
While I was looking through Morbid Anatomy I found this awesome picture: YES. Of course this led to Crappy Taxidermy and that's just another can of worms, or in this case hilariously posed mice. (i want to see that band.)
Or is it Mouse Pope? WHO KNOWS
They finally got around to building a better mouse trap! It was at work when I got there today and I proceeded to be intrigued. This thing is great/horrible! It's about the size of a 40 oz, maybe a little bigger. You put the thing where the rats/mice are and then flip the switch to on and let the magic happen. Since you baited the back of the thing (before turning it on!) the rascally rodents walk right on in, stepping on two metal plates of the bottom of the device and completing the circuit. That's right, it electrocutes the fuzzy little bastards! One of my coworkers brought a good point, wouldn't there be parts stuck to the metal plates after a while? The solution is elegant in its simplicity, just spray some Pam in there before activating it. Anyway, you don't even have to touch the vermin, just shake out the crispy corpse into a garbage can/stroller/mailbox. Someone got paid to make that thing.
