News Briefs - Because News Speedos Never Seem To Cover Enough

Today I'll use my post to cover some news items I found worthwhile. This is just me passing along useful information, and not in any way indicative of a lack of inspiration or creativity on my part. Really.

First, we have word that in Japan, a robot that is being programmed to "love" is behaving erratically. Essentially, they taught it to display concern and empathy, and then let it's learning code run on that for a while. This led to the thing falling for a visiting intern, going so far as to block the door when the intern attempted to leave, forcing her to call for help and have someone shut it down. The people involved refer to this as a "minor setback", but I'm not sure why. If loving someone means anything other than locking them in a room so you can have them all to yourself, I missed that memo. In other news, apparently the cyborg army that will eventually attempt to overthrow humanity will be plagued with needy, psycho girlfriends. I'd prefer to go mono e mono with the terminator myself.

In gaming news, there is another Resident Evil game coming. For those who don't know, Resident Evil is the series where you face hordes of bloodthirsty zombies and various other dangerous mutations. What better way to celebrate the release of such a game than with a Capcom sponsored blood drive in Hollywood, CA? Those who donate can win prizes, including the new, red XBox 360 bundled with Resident Evil 5. I've heard of similar, but less successful, promotions in the past. Hopefully this will go better than what they attempted with the release of Walter Scott: Emergency Proctologist.

I was going to talk about the Californian woman who did her best impression of a clown car by having eight babies at once, but the article I chose failed me. The headline reads "'Octo-mom' straddles the line in reproduction debate". When I read the story, however, the sentence did not end with "and six more babies fell out". Needless to say, I did not feel the need to continue.

Finally, to prepare for the coming Star Trek prequel, Genki Wear is releasing a series of Star Trek themed colognes. There's Tiberius cologne, named for the famed James Tiberius Kirk, which encourages one to "Boldly Go", presumably where no man has gone before, like the ladies room. There's Pon Farr perfume, named for a Vulcan mating ritual involving a man becoming infatuated, violent, and then dying if they fail to mate (I wonder if the robot from before got a sample of that one). Finally, they have Red Shirt, sporting the words "Because tomorrow might never come".

Honestly, I can't top that one.