First Day in the Can... Three to Go!

    Started the long (4 night week) Wednesday. Had a lovely drive up to Albany in the wee hours. I drove and watched the sunrise through the clouds; amazing splashes of reds and purples as the day broke. Saw something that made me wish I'd had a camera: A pond, its surface like glass, had tendrils of mist rising from its surface. It had an eerie beauty that was absolutely heart-breaking.

    Watched the GameSpot-hosted Call of Duty: Black Ops gameplay vid (embedded below). Some interesting items, especially the 'economy-based' perk system. Don't know whether I'll like it. Looks like Modern Warfare 2, mostly. Mostly. I'll be sampling the game on PC first, since I'm stymied on fixing the XIM360 gizmo. We'll see what happens. Moving on...

• BASHandSlash's Call of Duty: Black Ops GameSpot multiplayer runthru (video). Also, the GameSpot online chat summary on Call of Duty: Black Ops PC.

• Medal of Honor review: GameOver. (Thanks, Blues News.)
• Splitfish FragFX Shark (PS3 FPS controller) preview. Wish there was something like this for the Xbox 360.
• Microsoft increases Kinect holiday sales projections. O RLY?

• Microsoft explains why its Xbox Live price increase is good, and good for you. (There's a Federal law against two 'O RLY?' gags in a row, so we'll refrain here.)
• Halo: Reach level cap raised, new (purely cosmetic) armor available.
• First Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood DLC to be PS3 exclusive.
• The biggest problem facing the games industry. The Wrath of the Nerd.
• Ars Technica reports on the California violent video game law and the Supreme Court.

• Spectacular pictures of Earth from International Space Station.
• Dead quasar's light still illuminates gas cloud.
• Mars' missing magnetic field - was it obliterated by an asteroid impact?
• Impact Earth: Purdue University's asteroid impact damage calculator. Lucifer's Hammer!! 
• Op-ed: Why can't Google do social?
• Netflix to bring the internet apocalypse. The sky is falling!!
• Silent Hill: Revelations to be in 3D, follow Silent Hill 3 storyline.