Fun fact of the day

PETA has approximately two million members.

PETA's ludicrous "sea kitten" campaign has attracted ... wait for it ... 6250 signatures.

That's a fraction over 0.3% of their own membership.

EPIC FAIL.

(Note:  This screencap is actually from seakittens.org, which PETA doesn't actually own.  Someone else registered it first, put the PETA "sea-kitten" site in a frame, and proceeded to have fun with it.  The Omaha Steaks banner ad, for instance.)

(Screencap courtesy of elegantelbow)

Gamers

So, background:  cymrullewes gave me a copy of Splinter Cell for our PS2 for Christmas.  I've just gotten to the mission after the CIA HQ, in which they swap out your suppressed FN Five Seven pistol for a suppressed FN F2000 rifle (which Splinter Cell calls the SC20K).  The problem is, not only does this rifle have (in the game) roughly the firepower of a .22 Short (you can shoot someone in the head with it at 20 meters — if you get really lucky; see just below — and they don't drop), but it comes with what I like to call an "artificial incompetence" algorithm:  You can't hold it steady enough to actually HIT anything with it beyond about twice arms' length except by sheer luck.

(Come on, Ubisoft — you're supposed to be playing Sam Fisher, highly trained NSA elite covert operative, but the game won't let you hold the sights of a rifle on a stationary man-sized target at twenty meters, kneeling?  Hello?  I'd be prepared to bet I could hold the rifle steadier than that at arm's length with one hand.)

So, anyway, I went looking online to see if I could find any tips on how to actually hit anything with the "SC20K".

Instead, I found gamers.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I know plenty of intelligent gamers who know what they're talking about and have a solid grasp on reality.  And you run into a lot who can tell you every in and out and hidden feature of the game, but scarcely know which end of a real weapon the bullet comes out of.  But read this thread, and scroll down to the sixth post.  "What does ambidextrous mean?"  OK, maybe that's forgivable, if you were raised in a cave.  "I wonder if some of the energy used to fire the bullets can also be used to recharge the batteries on some of these guns."  Um ... hello?  The real world isn't HALO, you know.

But the real medal-winner is the magnificent eloquence of "Sniper 25" in this thread.  The OP puts some pretty reasonable thought into trying to figure out what kind of sense, if any, the "sniper attachment" in Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory makes.  (Short answer:  None discernable.)

Entire content of Sniper 25's reply:

"You are a D-bag"

I'm speechless.  Couldn't think of anything more to add to the discussion than that, but still felt it was important enough to post for the world to see?

There are some really depressingly stupid people out there.  But at least they're good at outing themselves.

QOTD

<bikergeek> "Red meat isn't bad for you.  Fuzzy blue-green meat is bad for you."

Pop quiz

Q:  What do unixronin's nose and docwebster's Internet-radio show have in common?

( A: )