Thursday's child has far to go...

    Another work week has begun, a three-banger that I hope will be over mercifully quick. I spoke with Mom yesterday afternoon, and she sounded pretty chipper. But Mom, like most Moms, always tries to put the best face on so as not to cause worry. She did say that they took her for some physical therapy: They worked on her arms and they stood her up, with a lot of help, but that her knees still won't hold her weight. I'm still hopeful, but 2-3 weeks isn't a lot of time to recover one's strength from the savaging of the Crestor induced muscular myopathy. I'm praying hard every day.


    Since driving is the only time I actually have to smoke, I enjoyed one of the cigars from the 'Value Village' Mystery Sampler, found on the Holt's Sampler Catalog page. For $15, you get 8 premium cigars of their choice. The one I enjoyed this AM was a Miura, a shaped cigar over 60 ring gauge. (I think it was the shape called 'The Salomon' on the catalog page. Nice dark wrapper, perfect construction, and perfect draw. I'm fussy about the draw of my stogies. I like to get a good puff, but I don't want to feel like I'm smoking a glorified straw, either. It's definitely a medium smoke; I'm not going to pass myself off as an expert. To me, there are only three flavors of tobacco: mild, medium, and strong. I'm not one of those guys who gets 'notes of coffee' or 'hints of leather' when he smokes a stogie. Sometimes I get a bit of cedar flavor from the box or humidor, but that's it... The Miura cigars have a Nicaraguan wrapper, a Dominican binder, and a combination Peruvian/Panamanian filler. Again, no expert; I'm cribbing direct from the Holt's page. I don't know if I'd buy a whole box of these, but I ordered another 'Mystery' pack based on my good experience with the first one.  

     Today's featured Modern Warfare 2 vid is Gumby getting a 40 kill rampage with three emergency airdrops. The second vid is FuGrooHD getting a flawless sniper spree. I'd forgotten how movie-like World at War is, very Enemy at the Gates in flavor. It was a pleasure to see another W@W gameplay vid. Moving on...

• Call of Duty: Black Ops impressions: IGN.
• Now!Gamer reports on JD_2020's optimism about Black Ops: Call of Duty: Black Ops launch will outdo Modern Warfare 2. 
• Prestige Edition of Call of Duty: Black Ops to deliver 'big surprise'. Hopefully, the surprise isn't that buyers blew $149 bucks for nothing.

• Medal of Honor beta impressions: Albany Times-Union; The Flick Cast.
• Homefront PC version getting dedicated servers. 
• Portal 2 expected in February 2011.
• Lord of the Rings Online goes free next month. Frodo lives!
• Crysis 2 gets a release date:  25 March 2011.
• Crysis 2 'Nano Edition' is big, official, and for the ultimate Crysis fan.
• Crysis 2 multiplayer impressions: IGN GamesCom. 
• Crysis 2 Multiplayer modes detailed on Gamasutra.
• CVG has a nice GamesCom 2010 booth babe gallery up. 
• Cracked: What your gamertag says about you [chart].

• 'Dark Attractors' said to shape the universe.
• Black hole mystery solved by magnetic star discovery.
• Mars farming gets 'green thumbs up'.
• HBO not streaming on Netflix any time soon.
• Jewel Staite talks about Firefly fights, her dream role, and more.
• Ever wonder what kind of gun was used to make the prop gun in a movie or TV show? Well, wonder no more: Visit The Internet Movie Firearms Database. For the record, Malcolm Reynolds' sidearm in Firefly and Serenity was actually this: