If only there had been some sort of authority to look over the boy. Perhaps someone with the wisdom of age from whose loins he could have sprung, then raised him for 15 years, bought the computer, and paid for his WoW account every month.

I recently had a conversation with a recently retired friend of mine. He barely uses the net- I think he has an email address with his ISP and that's about it. He was complaining about how everything was so expensive and how he's had to pay for some antivirus software after their old computer got infected with something. etc.

I ask: "Why didn't you just get some free one?"

His response: "There's so such thing as a free lunch! Either it's stolen or they'll be cheating you somehow."

I then tried to explain about linux and FOSS but he had grown up with the solid idea that nothing worth having is ever free unless you're being scammed in some way. He could not be convinced that FOSS was legal and genuinely free. There had to be a catch. There had to be a law being broken.

This attitude is common with the older generation who aren't used to the net. "Free" rings alarm bells and this is an issue I rarely hear mention of when people talk about the problems linux has spreading.

I had a Networking teacher confiscate my laptop, which was running ubuntu, cause he thought I was running some hacked version of XP. A friggin computer teacher. Had to explain to the dean of students what linux was, provided several wiki pages, and pleaded my case before two department heads. Two weeks later, I get my laptop back and the teacher still thinks I'm doing illegal stuff on there. Classic quote from my interrogation.... "What is this Gimp? Is it some hacked Photoshop?"

By the way, it was just an eee 901.

Classic quote #2...."Theres no way a computer could be that small, unless you're some sort of hacker or spy".

Besides the eys strain of reading those electronic books, what about the market? Are people that play video games going to read Shakespeare?

In an age when the internet gives everyone an opportunity to put their own spin on art, music and literature, it’s a pity more people aren’t as generous with their work - just imagine some of the fantastic creativity we could be enjoying.

So Jen picked up a DS for what us po' folk like to call Second Christmas, and she also picked up Zelda: the Phantom Hourglass for me, even though I don't own a DS. But I am a manly man and so I play it using her pink DS, secure in my masculinity.

Ok, I'm lying: I whine about it like a bitch. I mean, it's PINK. Fuck. The bedroom sheets are pink, the pillow cases are pink, and now the DS is pink? COME ON!

Regardless, I have spent the last week or so playing Zelda and completely neglecting my Xbox 360 and Assassin's Creed. In fact, I played it so long one night that I was physically sore, mentally exhausted, and beginning to hate the game, yet I couldn't put the damn thing down.

Honestly, it was a bit like eating too much cake: you can never have enough cake, until you've had too much and the very thought of more cake makes you want to gag, until the following morning when you think, "Ummmm, cake," and lick your lips expectantly, like a zombie about to bite down into some fine, fresh, irresistible brains. Ummmm, braiiiinssss...I mean cake.

Also, Jen has out-written me. Over twenty-five thousand words and a complete short story in a week. I would shake my fist at her but what's the point? I would only be shaking my fist at myself. And sleeping on the couch...which is occasionally more comfortable than the bed...hrm...

Ok, so I won't because I'd only be shaking my fist at myself.

But I am very happy for her, and grumbly (...wish I could write twenty-five thousand words in a week...mumble, mumble, grr...) The rest of us un-gifted peons should commiserate now. I'll buy the alcohol.

Help requested!

Before I forget to ask about it again, I'm trying to remember the name of a video game I saw previewed on X-Play, possibly early last year or the year before.

Here's what I recall: it was a mix of military sci-fi and ancient Norse mythology. I think you play a somewhat-futuristic soldier in a world where the Norse gods and myths are tangibly real. I don't know that for certain, though. I do distinctly recall a cut-scene from the game where a sort-of techno-valkyrie descends from Valhalla, appearing to silver-armored marines with headsets and laserguns(?) who are in service to the Aesir.

What is the name of this game? Was it ever released? What platform is it for? Am I the only one who knows what I'm talking about because Google sure doesn't? ( Help me, Obi-wan Jason! You are my only hope! ;P )

My son's new care assistant brought his PS3 over the other day to show off, and brought with Assassin's Creed.

I'd had some very limited interest in the game beforehand, but I wasn't excited about it -- of course, I hadn't seen anything except a television ad for it. My thought was, "Oh, a sneak-around-and-kill-people game. Eh." But I guess I should have been more excited or looked more deeply into it.

I only played through a couple opening levels to get a feel for the game, but I was highly impressed with what I saw, from the story, to the controls, to the environment.

Don't let the medieval-Arabia look in the advertising fool you, this is a sci-fi mystery game with a grabby plot and some very intriguing possibilities for development lain out before the player in the opening sequences, though I have no idea how the developers follow those up or if they fall down on the job and fail to grab the opportunities.

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Five days and around 10-15 hours, and I finally did it. I managed to skrag every Brute dropped by the Wraith on the highway area by the big concrete pipes, on Legendary mode. There's around two dozen, including two heavily armored bastards with Plasma Cannons, three with Brute Shots, and six of the flying jet-pack monkeys with Carbides, and the rest have Spikers. INTENSE.

It's a running firefight, where you have to stay in cover and peck at them, strategically using grenades and any mines you can set, grabbing fallen weapons (because you WILL run out of ammo at least twice), or be taken down with one or two hits. Like I said: INTENSE.

And I did this even though I could sneak past the whole lot of them. Yeah, I'm crazy. Call it a rite of passage -- I friggin' DID IT, finally. And setting personal goals like this lets me get more game out of my game (Gears of War burned me in that respect: awesome game, but ridiculously short for the price).

Dynasty Warriors Empires. That's all I'm saying. I've got bags under my eyes, and it hurts to see.

So I come home last night and my wife wails at me, "I'm a bad person!"

Now, I'm wondering why this is, and she fills me in. You see, she's heard that in the game Oblivion you can use your horse to store objects. The weird thing is that you have to beat it unconscious first, before you can put objects onto it.

Also, it apparently looks like you are inserting objects into the horse's ass when you put inventory onto the horse (it seems the people of the world of Oblivion never conceived of the idea of saddlebags).

Now, she's never tried this because she just doesn't think it's right to beat animals, even in a game. But last night she decided she would try it as she was sick and tired of not being able to carry all the treasures she was obtaining in the various dungeons. So, she beat the horse and -- she wails -- "It didn't get back up! I'm a bad person!"

I'm like, "You killed it?" She replies she must have beat it too hard. She put stuff on it before she realized it wasn't getting back up, thought maybe it was carrying too much and took the stuff off...but it still didn't get back up.

So I ask the obvious question, "How will killing your horse and anally raping it with various objects help you carry more treasure?"

She protests that is not what she did, that I'm supposed to comfort her because she was a bad person for beating her horse to death, and she feels awful about it.

So, of course I had to tease her about it for the rest of the night, "Is there even a term for what you did? That was like, I don't know sadism or masochism or something, and you killed the horse, and then you anally raped it with objects! That's sick! That's like...it's like sadonecrobeastiality with some kind of anal sex thing thrown in. Ewww. I don't even know what to call that!"

I'm such a bastard.

Lately, I have been lamenting the lack of decent games on the 360, particularly with Halo 3 rumored to be still a year away from release. Ok, yes, I have Prey, which you should totally pick up and which I will review another time, but Prey doesn't let me play alongside my lady.

And then Gears of War came out. Now, I bought Gears on a lark, because I do not usually spend full price for games -- too big a chance of getting burned (and oh was I burned with Ninety-Nine Nights...steam rises from my head).

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