We are good people zombies.

Left 4 dead is a great online, multi-player co-op, first-person shooter set in a zombie apocalypse. The tension from moment to moment is visceral; I have never been so immersed in the game world before. My (over)use of voice communication might be part of the reason for my fervent, often irate, involvement. Yelling at people online presents otherwise inaccessible insight into gamer psychology. My own included, of course.

But let's talk about other psyches. On the No Mercy campaign, which follows the survivors' escape from street-level start to helipad-atop-a-hospital finish, there is a sequence where you have to activate an event and fight off a horde of zombies. BUT, the ever-diligent crowd of gamers found that they could skip this event completely with a tempting exploit. In Versus mode, you take turns doing the same scenario. My team went first and we decided not to exploit and play it fair, fighting off the horde. Their turn. They started trying the exploit. I tried guilting them into playing it the same way we did. Surprisingly (or not?) it was easy to guilt them into doing the right thing and playing legitimately. ("How?" you might not be asking. I took the low road and called them "pussies" and more boorishly "VAGINAS." Sexist, but on the Internet it is ridiculously practical and effective to get the guilt stream going.) Their team shortly died after they started playing fair. Awesome.

I had to explain the basics of the game to make that story work. But that story didn't really work, since I came off sexist and glib, instead of profoundly observant and hopeful for humanity.

I aim high and shoot myself in the foot.

All the single ladies

Do I get a treat of some sort, noticing what I think are the awesome ironies and apropos silliness of things that happen now and then?

This lady deserves so much more in life: So my underappreciated coworker is enjoying "Single Ladies" on the radio. She sings along but instead of boldly leading the "call" of the call-and-response chorus ("All the singles ladies!/All the single ladies"), she sings the later "response" only, wistfully affirming her identity as a single female. Life can be frowny-face sometimes.

Truck drivers

Sparks has decaffeinated itself. What a concept, though: caffeine and energy drink chemicals in an alcoholic beverage. I wonder what effects on the liver binging on Sparks might have.

Energy drinks! You drink to keep your day in a stereoscopic focus. A patch for the mistakes you have made for the night before. Plan B for your sleeping habits. They're looking out for you, bro.

And this...

Thought you might want a little bit of this.

via MetaFilter

Sasha Grey Nude in American Apparel Ads

I disagree with the blog's point that the ads should not incite outrage from feminists. I think that's what she's saying. But yeah, it's a strange situation when you have a revolutionary like Sasha Grey posing for these American Apparel ads. She's pretty darn savvy when it comes to navigating the treacherous social, reputational, and legal realms of the porn industry. She takes control of her career and does everything on her own terms, people say. That's cool.

The ads themselves definitely give out a bad vibe, despite the tough chick at the center of them.

I think anyone visiting the store's site either gets the creeps or gets a hard on (which one did I get, dear readers? Ho ho!). Either way, the woman being positioned just rubs me the wrong way (or do I rub myself... the position.. the right way... Ho ho!). It's art, perhaps. Surrendering your curves and pelvic bones to a clothing company's marketing campaign. You draw attention to Ms. Grey's body and the consumer associates the feeling of arousal with the company name.

Just note that the ad campaign is limited to a few websites.

I think my incoherence is worsening. Night classes at the local community college, here I come. (Ho ho!)

Sasha Grey nude in AA ads (via fimoculous)

Show and tell

Emily Yoffe has a column with Slate called "Human Guinea Pig" where she goes around and does stuff that us normal folks probably wouldn't sign up for, if we had options. And everyone has options? Right? That is correct.

She became a standardized patient for a bit. Her duties were letting second-year med students give her their first physical exams. She held all of the aspiring doctors in high regard and had fun watching them fumble nervously.

Before standardized patients there was this:

I talked to a 50-ish physician friend about my experiences, and he said when he was in medical school and it was time for the first rectal/genital exam, the students were told to pair off and examine each other. "So, do you pick someone you like, or someone you don't like?" he recalled. "Either way, it's lose-lose."

None of the doctors I have ever been too have shown any hint of their human side. They go through the process with a perfunctory attitude, and rightfully so. I can see why it'd be even more awkward to chitchat and blithely think out loud for the sake of easing any supposed tension hanging over the room.

Sometimes it was hard for the student not to laugh. Shy and mousy Dr. B, after peering into my eyes and ears, said, "Now I have to look up your nose!" and let out an embarrassed snort.

Playing Doctor

I never offer any awesome insight from these blog posts. My blog is a vacuous show-and-tell. I promise I'll do something about it.

ENRICO FERMI

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe is a weekly podcast, each episode roughly one-hour long, that focuses on science news and the discussion, dissection, and ultimate ideological destruction of irrational nonsense. It's a fun romp with a handful of intelligent people who talk about things skeptics may find worth thinking about.

What gets me every time is the closing segment of each show is where Jay Novella reads a quote from a thinker of some sort and then pauses and shouts the name of the person being quoted. In #171 he accidentally shouted the name of the person who submitted the quote for consideration. He quickly corrected himself. It's hilarious. It's the little things that make me laugh. Little things happen all the time. I laugh way too much.

COST CORPORATION. COSTAS COMPANY.

What fun. The consumer wins when you buy big. Let them make you believe that!

Costco (via kottke)

The possibilities of the Internet... made possible!

The Internet is great. Computers are great. Connecting with other people is great. MS Paint Adventures takes suggestions from readers to drive the narrative. It simulates old-school text adventures. You are a detective or professional sleuth of some sort and you go on adventures. The first adventure is exploring the wacky office you start in. Warping spacetime and detaching fake windows and safes is all here. It's crayz. I'm sleepy, can't tyep.

MS Paint Adventures (from vgcats)

Random ridiculous thoughts that I think would make the world a better place

Here comes the hyper-meta, self-aware hypocrisy. These thoughts and ideas make me laugh for no good and insidious reasons. FULL FORCE

A liberating, empowering piece of advice to impart to your next girlfriend:
"fuck a lot of men. then let the world know that you fucked a lot of men."
or just tell the world that "you fucked a lot of men."

Christopher Moltisanti--while high--sat on Cossette, his fiancée Adriana's lap dog.The Sopranos.

Later, the gang organizes an intervention and they each go around saying a prepared statement. Christopher gets defensive and starts pointing out the flaws of each and every person in the room. The intervention ends with Christopher getting punched out of his chair and repeatedly kicked on the ground. I think he was beat with the chair he was sitting on, too. This is the worst intervention ever executed.

homo seat - slang for that empty seat left unoccupied between two men to avoid having to be so uncomfortably close to each other

This caught me off-guard; I did not expect this to happen in MOUTHFEEL

Max Bill created a sculpture in the shape of a Mobius strip called "Endless Ribbon"
He thought he created a new shape. But the Mobius strip was already discovered by someone else...
What a disappointment, thinking that you are the first, but really are not.

if a fire extinguisher exploded in a fire, would it put out the fire in that area of the explosion? make it worse? Will try it someday.

Watching films with cool characters to learn how to be cool.

CamelCase / camel caps / medial capitals
When you join separate words (by removing the spaces) and still capitalize all of the words

watching Oz one week and Battlestar the next week. my tendencies wavered between epic space battle / soap operatic drama adrenaline and emotional high and wanting to buttrape a felon

What if brian lehrer interviewed himself on his own show
it'll be confusing because it's radio! YES