Phobophilia

I know that everyone is afraid of something (well maybe not Ben Affleck). I also know that as a species we have to have a name for everything. Thankfully we have the Greek language to fall back on to categorize things, and with that in mind I present the Phobia List, a very impressive list of the different phobias out there.

My favorites include:

• Coulrophobia - Fear of clowns, in honor of a close friend.
• Alliumphobia - fear of garlic, I'm surprised there are non-undead that are truly afraid of garlic.
• Atomosophobia & Lepraphobia - Fear of atomic explosions and leprosy, respectively. Isn't this all of us?
• Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia - Fear of the number 666, that's just a frakking awesome word right there.
• Phobophobia - Fear of fears. Isn't that ironic?
• Proctophobia - Fear of rectums. No comment (I'll leave comments on this to the Jackal).
• Zemmiphobia - Fear of the great mole rat. Holy specific fear batman!

My favorite fake phobia has to be Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (fear of long words), there's no way this is accurate. Actually I wonder about the accuracies of a lot of them. The website claims that all phobias on the list are from some reference (not sure what that means). Real or not, though, the list is entertaining. Another interesting part of this, if you Google any of these phobias, more often than not a link to ABC or NBC news pops up. A little proof that the medias job is to keep us scared.

I am a tad scared of it's counterpart, a list of "-philias"...

Get Your Game on - Go play!

This weekend was the NHL All Star break. Saturday was the Skills competition (My favorite part of the All Star Weekend) and Young Star game. Last night was the All Star game, which unfortunately ended with the East winning 8-7. Eric Staal won the MVP, despite Nash's record setting hat trick (He scored the first goal only 12 seconds after the puck drop). It was a great game, no fights, no unnecessary hits, no biased refs - just fast paced, skilled hockey.

While it would have been amazing to be at the game, I think watching it on TV was more fun. During the game they had the goalies on a headset during the game. The announcers were joking and talking to the various goalies during play. Mannie Legace was a crack up. He would joke with the announcers even when the puck was right in front of him (and still did well I might add). It's really too bad normal hockey isn't like this, the players were obviously having fun. At one point Legace made a lucky save and laid on his back in relief - leaving the net wide open for another shot. Fortunately the shooter (can't remember who) hit him in the side instead of the net. You could see smiles and jokes all over the ice. All examples of the fun they were having, which made it entertaining for the fans too.

So I'm sad to see the All Star game over, but also glad to be back to the regular season, Go Avs!

Oh, and Coach Q, can you please put Budaj in occasionally?

BeWitcher-ing

I have lately been playing The Witcher, a game i picked up with a number of others recently. It's a role playing game that's apparently based on a book series. You play as a character named Geralt. He's a witcher, a diminishing group of monster hunters possessed of minor magical abilities.

The game is pretty standard for an RPG, lots of quests and tasks. On average most RPGs are simply animated shopping lists, "collect 5 of this flower", "I need the tongues of 10 zombies", etc. With that in mind, you may ask me why I play them, the best answer I can give is that the storyline must be engaging to be worthwhile. Without a decent storyline RPGs can be a very tedious experience, which is why I no longer play Hellgate: London. The storyline (so far) in Witcher seems decent enough that it's still playable. The theme is very adult orientated, which in a lot of ways is gimmicky without being over the top. The sexual content is an obvious ploy to hook the adolescent gamers, but fortunately these can be skipped and aren't necessary for the storyline to progress. I just wish the voice acting didn't range from decent to "dear god shut up." Again, fortunately the dialogue can be skipped without missing too much thanks to the subtitles.

Gameplay is simple point-and-click, much like Diablo or Dungeon Siege. You click where you want to go, and the monsters/enemies you wish to attack. There are combos, but it's extremely simplistic. To execute a combo attack you must click, wait, then click at the correct time to further your attack. It's not always as easy as it sounds though, a slightly mistimed click can lead to defeat surprisingly fast. Gaining and spending experience is pretty standard, though the interface screen is intuitive and works fairly well.

Bottom line, it's an average RPG with a decent storyline (again, so far). Plus, it's not often you can kill a cockatrice and cock-a-tramp all in the same game...

Network "Solutions"

Lately I've been looking for a while to register a unique domain name for a personal site. I've done a lot of searching and trying random word combinations for something interesting. I've also done some shopping and research about who to register the site with, once I do make up my mind.

After everything, I can tell you whom I won't be registering with. Network Solutions seem to offer the same functions for searching for available domains, but with a devious twist. After you check if a site is available through their site, they put a hold on it for 5 days. This means that you have no choice but to register it through them during that period.

According to NSI, they are doing this to protect consumers from front running. A good story, but I find it hard to believe that it has nothing to do with forcing unknowing consumers to register through them. A shady practice to say the least. Let's say you want to go to a movie. You jump on Fandango.com and look up showtimes at the closest theater. Suddenly you find out that you can't go to any other theater to see the same movie AND you have to buy it through Fandango - unless you want to wait five days to see it. Does that seem wrong to anyone else?

IMHO, this is simple cybersquatting, albeit a low calorie version. Not only do they have these questionable practices, but NSI is more expensive than a lot of the other registrars out there. Of course, this makes sense when they have a captive audience.

Thanks to Webbalert for the links, and kudos to her for calling NSI on their cyber ethics, while at the same time taking their money for advertising on her site. No wonder I love her...

Motiva-tion

Discover Card is offering a new type of account. The Discover Motiva card is a credit card that rewards you for paying your bill. If you pay your bill on time for six months in a row, Discover will return two months of finance charges.

Are there that many people that have problems managing their bills that this makes a good marketing ploy for a credit card company? If so, kudos (and a little shame) to Discover for making money on these people.

A short call

A few weeks ago I picked up Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I haven't played many of the other games in the series, so I don't have a lot to compare it to. However, I can say that's it frelling intense. The game immerses you in combat enough that a few times I found my heart beating harder. Of course that could be simply being out of breath from going downstairs to for a drink.

The visuals in it are amazing, but in a subtle way. Sighting down some of the guns slightly blurs out the surrounding area, which makes for a unique experience.

The AI is the best part of the game. I've seen some of them draw my fire while others break off and try and flank me. They'll throw my grenades back at me (bastards), they've been wounded and will wait till I pass to shoot me from the ground, they've doubled back and caught me from behind. The game is frakking HARD. The story is captivating and keeps you up to play a little more. A few times I even found myself a disturbed by the what happens.

My biggest problem is that it's short, damn short. Single player took me less than 6 hours on the "Hard" setting. I was actually surprised it was over as I watched the credits roll. I kept thinking, "That can't be all." But it was.

However, as short as it is, I loved it. I can't wait to try it on the hardest setting. It's the first game that made me wonder how real soldiers handle actual combat. Don't get me wrong, I know that I'm just playing a video game, I also know that it's no comparison to real life. I can say that this is the closest I want to be to real combat, and my hat goes out to those that are the real thing.

Though it's entirely possible I'm just a pansy...

Wii-compression

Being a dive professional I'm always curious about SCUBA related books, movies and games. Turns out that a scuba game is coming out soon for the Wii. OK, maybe "game" is the wrong word, it's really more of a diving simulator.

It's called Endless Ocean, and frankly, it looks...different. From what I can tell players catalogue fish, take pictures of them, find treasure all the while exploring the fictional Manaurai Sea. I loved the clip of petting a great white, which is actually pretty realistic, they're just big puppy dogs. No really they are.

This "game" is worth checking out, but from what I've seen it seems, well, boring. Maybe I'm biased by actually diving regularly, it's possible that it's a decent "game" and I've unfairly prejudged it. It just seems there's not much worthy of a video "game". There are no terrorists, aliens, Nazis or zombie dolphins present. Not that these are required for a good game (this may appeal to the Sims folk), but having some task or goal is required to be entertaining. I'm all for giving non-divers a feel for diving, but this also may give them a boring view of diving as accurate as it may be (it's rare that someone has attempted to cut my hoses or shoot me with a spear gun).

Anyway, I'm curious enough to try it. Not buy it mind you, but try it. Should make for a good Yahtzee review though...