OK since it has been a slow week I will post this.

Earlier this week I picked up Team Fortress 2 for the PC. It is a wicked sweet class/team based shooter for the PC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_Fortress_2

Just curious if anyone else may have/plan on picking this up. Definitely one of those games that if you play as a cohesive group you can mop the floor with jerks online, so it would be sweet to do some teaming up.

Gabe

So BSG Razor premiered tonight. I won’t go into the content itself as I’m sure a few people still haven’t seen it (gabe, corey, etc), but I wanted to comment on some marketing. So Razor is also being released on DVD in 10 days. The DVD supposedly has more content and reveals some clues that weren’t in the TV version that just aired. The TV version however laid out some pretty big bombshell type clues already, which leaves the viewer craving the DVD. I have to wonder though how serious the clues are and whether they warrant getting the DVD. I know its sorta par for the course, but its frustrating, the upcoming season (march) which is supposed to be the final season, will be excruciating in terms of finding out what lies in store as the fate of humanity. Does Starbuck live or die, whats the connection between the fleet and the cylons, and what the heck is with the message that was given during Razor. Gah, the BSG writers are so good and so evil at the same time.

I was browsing the archive for Grateful Dead shows to listen to on Thanksgiving while my cousins competed against each other in a Ginger Bread House contest, to be judged by the only non-present cousin next month during Christmas.  Here is a quote I found on the archive page that me feel nostalgic for a time I never lived through…

“It was a Monster Show regardless who was alive or Dead! You had to of been there. We arrived late morning and the people were fantastic. The music started around 3pm and ended around 3am the next morning. The gates were knocked down around 5pm and final tally of concert goers were well over 100k people that day. The final set was made up of members of both featured artists [1973-06-10, Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers Band]. The just don’t do it like that anymore.”

Nope, they just don’t do it like that anymore.

For those who care, there is a series of videos being release leading up to this years throwdown (the first 2 eps are out). They talk a bit about what the band has been up to, why they took the break, and their prep for the shows. Seems like they are super excited for the shows, so should be a blast. I got lucky enough to land tickets for the first show, can’t wait.

http://www.mi145.com/

One of the guys here at work needs an intern and so somehow procured a list of resumes from a Boston university. In this packet he found a resume with the following:

“An enthusiastic movie watcher. Have seen over 750 Hollywood movies.”

and right below that:

“[...] player computer and console games. Have finished over 50 games in single player mode.”

The New York Times has a good review of the newly released DVD’s of original Sessame Street episodes. Apparently the original episodes had a definite edge to them compared to the modern incarnation; Ernie the grouch was actually miserable, and cookie monster slammed back treats like there was no tomorrow. No matter your take on the evolution of the show, the article has some interesting facts about the original focus of show and the huge percentages of kids in NYC that watched it.

Check it out here: NY Times

My company has a new mission statement.

It has really brought a silver lining to my monday and provided me with motivation to work harder.

Here’s come crap.

House Dems introduced a bill on Friday that would cut all Federal Student Aid to Universities that don’t implement anti-piracy measures (page 411). I’m sure that there are numerous criteria a school must meet for aid eligibility, but hopefully the MPAA plans on coughing up some dough to the colleges to cover the expenses instead of simply not making their aid disappear.

or Illinois schoolchildren may be picking up your slack soon. Illinois state just passed a law requiring a moment of silence at the beginning of each school day. While this certainly isn’t mandating prayer, those in the article mention that this has been spearheaded by those who would like to see such legislation. This article tells of one school district who refuses to neither prohibit nor enforce the new law.

Is there really anything wrong with a moment of silence? The proponent states that the moment of silence serves to “improve school discipline” and “reduce violence”. While I’m not so sure about that, I think a moments’ reflection can be appropriate when something terrible has happened but with daily routine such a thing can become trite.

Well, if you’re an elected official and you live in Georgia, then there’s only one thing to do:

 You pray your ass off

Researchers at Harvard came up with an ingenious genetic method to express fluorescent proteins in a rainbow of colors to label different neurons in mice brains. You can check out the paper below to read the details of the method, or just look at the amazing pictures at Wired. Best microscopy i’ve ever seen.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7166/full/nature06293.html

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2007/10/gallery_fluorescentneurons