Here’s a neat map detailing the current swine flu outbreak(s). Not sure just how accurate the information is, but I thought it was worth at least mentioning.

I’m very glad there’s no marks in Nevada yet – I’m not one for wearing masks.

In short: It looks like a school in China has quarantined everyone due to an outbreak of cholera. So far this hasn’t hit the major news networks - despite the quarantine having gone on for over three days now.

Reports were getting out via blogs and social networks – such as lack of food, water, medical treatment, information going either direction – and, as of yesterday (I think), their net access and water were both suspended.

I’m not entirely sure just how real this situation is – As with all things, it could be a massive hoax – but if real, it’s chilling, and a damn fine example of how easy it is to manipulate and suppress information despite the speed at with it can be disseminated.

So, I moved a few things around, and by the time I’m done this will be a pretty kick-ass pad. I’d offer up some pictures, but since it’s a major work-in-progress I’m going to have to say no. Maybe tomorrow.

Other news… Other news…

I think I mentioned it a time or two before, but I recently bought a new Mac mini, and I’m really enjoying it. It has taken me a while to get it setup correctly, but I think that I’ve got the majority of the kinks worked out. It’s been dubbed Gibson, and has been playing well with Dystopia since it’s inception a week ago. It’s a bit fun having two computers again, if a bit overkill in some respects. Hopefully having some of the workload removed will encourage Dystopia to last a bit longer – I can’t afford a new Macbook yet.

I think, at some point, I’m going to attempt to get Gibson facing the outside world: OS X ships with Apache, and it seems a horrible waste not to use it. Maybe something simple, we’ll see.

I saw Indiana Jones and the Encounters of the Third Kind, and I have to say it was good. I enjoyed the shit out of it – the reviewers are wrong. It is campy, but the old movies were too. It doesn’t mesh with the average modern movie, no – but it’s not a modern movie. It is made in the same damn style as the old ones, with the same damn writing and the same damn stunts and the same damn plot. It’s an Indiana Jones movie all the way, and if you think that the previous ones were somehow better movies then you’re thinking about them through a thick helping of nostalgia, nothing more.

Why do I say this? Because although I didn’t think it was the single most awesome movie of all time, the way I did about Raiders or Temple, the kids behind me were totally fucking stoked the entire god damn movie, and were acting out their favorite scenes as they left.

They are who the movie was made for, not us. More to the point, they reacted in the same damn way I did years ago when I first saw the movies, so that just shows I’ve changed, not the writing. If kids go batshit for it the way I did, then it’s probably a fitting sign that the movie was right on target.

Doctor Who Premiere @ Dunnys!

Bring snaky-snaks and drinky-drinks!
Sunday, April 6th 12:00PM PDT

So, if you’re in the neighborhood, drop on by.

Allow me to explain. I read quite a few gaming blogs. Hell, it could be argued that I spend more time reading about games than I do actually playing them, which now that I think about it in such stark terms is horribly depressing. Life, don’t talk to me about life.

But, yes, I read my fair share of things on the internets. Lately, I’ve been having an odd sense of deja vous when it comes to certain stories, like Microsoft and Blu-Ray or other such sideline stuff that pops up once in a great while.

One such thing that caught my eye today – and that I actually followed up on – was how Smash Bros doesn’t work in “some” Wiis, according to Nintendo. Hmm, I thought, why could this be? And why would they be offering a cleaning service as the fix? And where, oh where, did I hear this before?

Oh, that’s right: just over a month ago, when the game came out in Japan! What the hell, people? This isn’t news! We already know it’s not going to work in dirty consoles – Japan already proved that!

Makes me wonder, though, why Nintendo of America is playing this off as if it were some sort of defect on their end, instead of coming right out and saying “Look, you made your stuff dirty, that’s why it’s not working. We’ll clean it for you, but please try and be more careful, huh?” No, the way it is now they are getting some negative feedback from people who assume it’s Nintendo’s fault that this is going on, and not the slobs whose system is coated in nicotine and/or dust.

It also makes me wonder if we’ll be hearing about this a third damn time when the game launches in Europe.

Any bets?