I am the Lord of Death

Dr. Binford, one my bosses here in the lab, is taking a trip to South Africa to catch spiders for about two weeks, and since the majority of her research students are gone for the rest of the summer, it leaves it on my shoulders to take care of the entire spider room. She came down on friday and had a chat with me, and I got to ask her some questions about the spiders here and it's really cool the work that's being done, if you're into that sort of the thing. For instance, the sicarius spiders (a relative of the brown recluse that is found in and around Argentina) is so rare and little studied that for a variety of the specimens, myself and a few of the other research students are the only people in the world to observe them hunting and feeding, which I personally think is really cool. But for the next few weeks I'm spending double shifts in that tiny, hot, spider-filled room, which despite my previous post on the subject, I have come to enjoy working in anyway.

Also, Brian- the individual I'm living with- and I have been playing this old, old rpg/rts game called "Warlord: Battlecry II" and despite having very dated gameplay and graphics (we're talking WarCraft II/Age of Empries quality here) it's a really fun game. It's probably the only successful merging of rts and rpg I've played, since WarCraft III deceptively masqueardes itself as one thing, but is really just a strategy game. This is the kind of game that is in your local EB bargain bin for $3 and is worth $30. I have probably spent more time playing this old, overlooked game that won no awards than both Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords and Halo 2 combined, which is saying something about the quality of both those games and the quality of the product in question.

It's like playing something made by Looking Glass Studios all over again. If you're interested, you should be able to find information about in on the Ubisoft page (yes, the people who made Splinter Cell). Check it out.