Being on the road a majority of March has made it difficult to do the little things - you know, think about something other than work, have a social life, spend time with my wife when I’m not asleep or unconscious, etc.

Well, things are very slowly returning to normal (although the next two weeks will continue to be dicey), and an important part of normalcy involves making time for some rest and relaxation. This past weekend I tried to do just that with a bevvy of new games.

First up - Unreal Tournament 2004. Anything you didn’t like about UT2003 is fixed or gone. For old school (think cartoon physics and “gibbing”) first-person shooters, it just doesn’t get any better. The graphics are great - clean and vivid - and the damn thing plays like a mongoose on crack. With ADD. Beautiful visuals, mass carnage, high speed, incredible polish. The new game modes, Assault (from the original UT) and and Onslaught (which is suspiciously like a non-persistent Planetside, complete with vehicles) are fabulous. I still haven’t played with the voice control for the bots, but I’m sure that’ll be more icing on an already rich cake. Highly recommended.

Next was Battlefield: Vietnam. If UT2004 was the high watermark for speed and mayhem among the three new games, then this is squarely in the middle. To be perfectly honest, this plays a lot like the BF:1942 mod Desert Combat, with a much better soundtrack and much more interesting/challenging terrain. The huge amount of available cover makes stealth a very viable strategy and slows the game slightly over its predecessor, but not as much as you might think - the update from WWII-era weapons to Vietnam-era weapons means it’s much easier to kill and be killed. The game balance is a bit off - I’m still trying to figure out a reason why you would play with anything other than the M60/LAW rocket kit - but all-in-all, BF:1942 with new weapons and an entirely different style of maps is still a well above average game.

Finally, I couldn’t resist the lure of Athena Sword, the expansion pack for Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield. This is more of the same - and I mean that in a good way. Athena Sword has several great-looking new maps which pose some unique tactical challenges for slow-burning, tense gameplay punctuated by some dazzling firefights. This pack does what it sets out to do - it extends the useful life of Raven Shield for me (and anyone else who agrees it’s the best tactical shooter ever made) by many hours. Raven Shield still gets the lion’s share of time at the semi-regular LAN gaming sessions I attend, and with Athena Sword, that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

In case you had any doubt that I played a lot of videogames this weekend, I also checked out the demo of Far Cry. While it’s graphically impressive and I love the AI on the bots, I can’t see myself getting into this game without the ability to play cooperatively with other people. Between the three games above as well as the potential for Doom3, Half-Life 2, and Halo 2 before the end of the year, my dance card’s too full for any game that prevents me from teaming up with my wife or my friends.

Dan…get those tickets ordered for England…

Ahhh…the antidote.

A couple of additional cast members have been signed up for Batman Begins, according to this Sci-Fi Wire re-report of a Hollywood Reporter news item.

While I like the casting that’s been announced thus far, any script with characters as far-ranging as Ducard, Falcone, Fox, and Ra’s Al Ghul sounds like it could be spreading itself a bit too thin… but there’s nothing to be done about it except to wait and see.

…has been chosen. He’s Christopher Eccleston, who appears to be a wise and exciting choice.

Apparently other fans agree as well. One of the comments stated: “I must agree he is an excellent choice to play the Doctor, the last thing I wanted was another Peter Davison!”

And how!!

I’m not sure what the problem has been but many bloggers, very much including ourselves, have been in blogging hibernation.

I just haven’t had the time nor desire to gather news and have an opinion about much of anything…hopefully that’s about to change.

Besides, my one little Angel post has totally goofed up the layout.

This is beyond cool.

Once again, to support the cause, go here.

First a disclaimer: this blog has been careful not to discuss certain topics in the past, namely work, politics, and (to a lesser extent) our private lives. Public posting about any of those topics tends to lead to professional or personal disaster - or both. This is why, by and large, we stick to posting about information of general interest or news that directly relates to our hobbies and preferred methods of recreation.

However, I was so dumbfounded after reading an essay about gay marriage by Orson Scott Card, an author of literature I enjoy and whose intellectual and political views I typically agree with, that I have to make an exception. Read more to see my (long) response to Card’s arguments.
(more…)

This is why anthropologists don’t like sociologists…

From No Doughnuts on Sunday:
A 1998 study by Purdue University sociologist Kenneth Ferraro concluded that church members were more likely to be overweight than other people.

Ferraro analyzed public records and surveys involving more than 3,600 people. Broken down by religious groups, Southern Baptists were heaviest, while Jews, Muslims and Buddhists were less likely to be overweight.

Soooo…..being a Southern Baptist, and therefore a church goer, means you’ll be heavier than people in other religions? Ok. So, we’re not going to bother factoring in the fact that Jews, Muslims and Buddhists go to temples on a regular basis? Oh, and we’re not going to consider the difference in the biological makeup of a southern American caucasian vs. asians or middle easterners? Or how southern American caucasians eat vs. asians or middle easterners?
Yes, I’m making generalizations that people who are Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim are mostly culturally different than your average Southern Baptist…but that’s certainly getting us closer to the truth than “you go to a Southern Baptist church, you’ll be fatter than someone who doesn’t.”

Ack! They call this a science?!

…let me count the ways.

1) Every movie you’ve ever been in (here’s an extra squeeze for Fifth Element and Dracula).
2) Every movie you’ll ever be in.

I bring this up because Gary was just cast as a young Lt. Gordon for Batman Begins…and also because he’ll be appearing as Sirius Black in the new Harry Potter movie.

And those are two very anticipated movies in this household…..made even more exciting by his participation.