Geek News Roundup for 11/22/09 -- Untitled

This week, the Geek News Roundup is being posted earlier, for I have something I need to post.  Skip ahead to the last four paragraphs if you're impatient.  But first, the news.

There is a fourth state of matter beyond that which is known to most men.  It is a state of matter as vast as space and as timeless as infinity.  It... okay, it just falls apart the further I get.  But anyway, plasma is being used to disinfect human skin and kill germs.  Personally, I feel cleaner if I use actual soap and water, but if this kind of thing takes off into personal use, then maybe it'll help stem the spread of stuff like the Swine Flu.  The Swine Flu is now the Swine Few.  There are a few distinct variations in the flu, and that is causing some people a great deal of worry.  Hey, if I get the piggy flu, I'll just stay in bed for a week with my video games.  And while scientists are having trouble with the flu, other scientists are making progress in fighting certain kinds of cancer.

In space this week, more evidence of life on Mars has been discovered, and it's looking more and more like a certain red planet was once full of life.  Small, microscopic life, but it still counts.  Also, if you're planning a trip to Saturn any time soon, you might be in time to see a spectacular light show.  What is called the aurora borealis to those living in Alaska can also be seen on everyone's favourite ringed planet.

Microsoft sucks this week.  It looks like they don't want anyone drinking the COFEE anymore, they've issued takedown notices to many sites hosting the software.  Silly Microsoft, people will find other ways to distribute it.  Sarah Palin sucks this week.  She claims that her family used to play Scrabble a lot.  Yeah... no.  Take it from a Scrabble fanatic: I don't know how you play Scrabble in Alaska, but in the rest of the English speaking world, you don't want to hoard the Q, you want to get rid of it and hoard the Ss.  RPGs suck this week, according to Pixel Poppers.  Apparently, as an RPG gamer, I automatically suck at hard puzzles.  Hey Angela, thanks for helping me acquire a copy of Picross for the DS.  I've been enjoying it quite a bit, especially the level 10 (hardest) puzzles.

How's this for interesting?  A book called "The CIA Manual Of Trickery And Deception" is available on Amazon.com.  But wait a minute, one of these authors has already written quite a bit about the CIA, and all of a sudden, he comes across an old spy manual and decides to sell it?  It's not like it just fell into his lap, he had to go digging for it.  But anyway, as for my own writing, Adventures in Canadian Gaming will resume in December, after the end of NaNoWriMo (I am currently at 48455 words, which means I have 1545 words left to go), provided I am still alive.

In an earlier column, I mentioned Canada's Worst Driver, and made flippant, almost self-mocking comments about my own death by motorist.  It was totally and completely a joke to me.  I even mentioned the corner I figured it would happen on.  Well, at approximately 5:13pm on November 5th, five days after I posted that entry, a motorist driving a dark truck didn't even look in my direction when he was stopped at a stop sign on the corner of Campbell and 1st in my home town of Revelstoke, Canada, exactly one block away from my predicted scene of death.  I was on foot, and I hesitated because not only did I not know what he was going to do and didn't have eye contact, but he also had stopped in the middle of the crosswalk.  I didn't have to stop for him.  It was my right of way to continue walking.  If I had, he would've plowed ahead and mowed me down.  I would most likely have died on the scene or on the way to the hospital.  I hope the extra five seconds he saved driving to the bar was worth it.

On last Monday's episode of Canada's Worst Driver (rerun Fridays, when I watch it), one of the bad driver nominees who was going through the driver rehab course got a phone call.  Crystal Farao's brother-in-law, Thomas Stagno, was killed when a bad driver failed to yield for him.  The driver, Tom Marion, was charged.  Failure to yield carries a $150 fine in Canada.  It might've been worse for the driver who almost struck me, but for Thomas Stagno, that's all his life was worth.  $150.

I had someone's life in my wallet earlier today.  Could've been mine.