Bug pulled out of man's back, and other cool stuff.

Popsci.com has posted a gallery of Nature's Grossest Creatures, which includes the blobfish, medicinal maggots, a leech looking thing, and a bug that grows inside human skin (and gets removed in a video).

Not for the squeamish, or just about anyone else.

Wanna know where NOT to be?

NewScientist.com has an article that shows the Death map USA, a map which shows county-level hazard induced mortality. Basically, the counties in the country where natural disasters or hazards (like heat waves) kill the most people.

Fun stuff.

PODCAST - WAR Report for 12/11/08

Kris and Patrick are here to talk about some WAR!!!

...and how much it sucks. It's a long podcast, as we detail what we like, what we don't like and talk about some of our concerns for the game with the new 1.1a patch coming up. So click the links below and listen away!

Part 1 (~11 min)

Notable quote: "Ok, I'm just gonna stop bogging down the show because I don't think anyone cares what either of us has been up to."


Part 2 (~10 min)

Notable quote: "And I just want to say that I hope his legal issues sort themselves out so he can be back here with us soon."


Part 3 (~10 min)

Notable quote: "I hate zone locking. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. Words do describe how much I hate zone locking."


Part 4 (~5 min)

Notable quote: "God. We forward to God on that email address."

Big News! Science Geeks Have Less Sex!

In one of the more absurdly obvious findings of the last millenium, researchers in Australia found that science geeks were more likely to be virgins than anyone else on the planet.

Well, actually they just compared them to art students, but still, I feel pretty comfortable with the extrapolation made in my above statement.

Here's the original article from popsci.com.

Playstation Home Open Beta

The Playstation Home Open Beta begins tomorrow. Unforutantely, I don't have a PS3 so I can't test it or even compare it to the PS3's online service prior to Home. So I'll have to leave that to others.

Here's some info from TGDaily.com.

And here's some info from PCMag.com.

Rock Band/Guitar Hero sales peaking?

This article on Wired.com suggests that is in fact the case. Are we looking at the beginning of a slow decline in sales and popularity for rhythm games?

"You follow me, camera guy?"

Anyone who's watched Discovery Channel lately has probably seen the Shamwow commercial. There's nothing more mesmerizing than watching the sublimely-hyper, headset-wearing, nasal-voiced guy who reminds me of Steve Buscemi praise the merits of a piece of miracle cloth. It's so catchy that my daughter reminds me to buy it every time it comes on.

Thankfully, the Popular Mechanics website has a recurring feature that tests the As Seen on TV items that clog our brains and beg for our money. Does it do everything it claims to do? Find out here.

And as an additional treat, check out this sorta NSFW ad for the Shamwow.

SNIPPET - Russel's Phone Call

That's right, our favorite off-air personality is back with an unexpected phone call to Patrick's house while we were airing. Why is he calling? What's 22 inches long? And why won't he ever stay away from Patrick's house for an extended period of time?

Find out here.

PODCAST - Crysis Game Review

From the "games that should have been reviewed two years ago" file, comes our game review podcast on Crysis. Chris weighs in on why this game makes his graphics loving pants go crazy.

Get it here.

Notable quote: "Your grandpa would probably feel right at home playing this game."

So do you hate MMO gold farmers too?

There's a fascinating article on Wired.com about IGE - Internet Gaming Entertainment, a company that for a few years in the middle part of this decade controlled just about all of the MMO gold farming in the world - and it's founder, a former child actor and dot.com investor named Brock Pierce. It's amazing how much I never knew about gold farming and the shady business environment that surrounded it.

Some interesting quotes from the article:

"There were times I came outside," he says, "and the sun hurt."


In the real world Pierce was just a 19-year-old washed-up child actor living far from home and going slowly broke. But in Norrath he was none of that. In Norrath he was the dark-elf wizard Athrex, and he was a champion.


The source of those profits, ultimately, was operations like the one owned and operated by 26-year-old Liu Haibin in Jinhua, China, which I visited a few years ago. With about 30 workers on staff, Liu was able to keep a gold-farming setup running around the clock. While the night shift slept upstairs on plywood bunks, day-shift workers sat in the hot, dimly lit workshop, each tending three or four computers.