So, I biked to work today. I do this rather often as it is my standard way of getting to work. On my way out to head back home, I noticed that it was very dark out given the time of day and that the winds were a bit strong. As I was biking, I quickly found that there were strong southernly winds blowing dust/loose dirt off of the mountains (remember that little Station Fire that burned down everything that keeps dirt in place?). I made it through the first eastern leg and through the southern leg, but when attempting to turn north again, found the high winds coupled with the continuous onslaught of dirt and dust too much to bear. I was unable to keep my eyes open for long enough to bike safely, so I began walking. About a minute after I began walking, a stranger (but another JPL employee named Curtis) stopped and offered to give me a ride. I was happy to accept his offer and he had a pickup truck into which my bike went nicely. I suspect (though he said nothing about it) that the only reason that he recognized me as a fellow employee was due to the labcoat. Once again, the labcoat proves its utility.

Upon arriving home and after thanking my benefactor appropriate, I went inside and looking at my labcoat, saw that it had shifted in color somewhat to the "brown" shade of the spectrum. I decided that this probably meant that all of my clothes are completely dirty and the brown color that my washcloth turned after cleaning my face leaned further credence to this theory.

I suppose I can at least say that I've been in a dust storm now. It is too bad that I was going to try to do laundry tonight. I do not think my clothing would remain clean if moving through conditions like this.

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Earlier tonight, I finished up may playthrough of Red Faction: Guerrilla. I have to say that I mostly enjoyed the game. The basic premise here is that you are a miner who goes to Mars to make use of his demolitions expertise. The oppressive government kills your brother off about 10 minutes into the game, so you become a freedom fighter (read: terrorist) and procceed to harrass them until you've liberated the planet.

Seems like a pretty standard affair with that. The game itself is a third-person sandbox game with a physics engine finally put to realizing the promise of the first Red Faction game: destructable terrain. In RF:G, nearly everything can be destroyed spectacularly. Buildings, people, vehicles: all of these are vulnerable to your heavy explosives. About the only thing you can't destroy is the actual "earth". I suspect this is to prevent you from destroying a building by digging a hole under one side of it and letting it fall over.

To me, the main draw of the game was finding fun ways to destroy buildings. My personal favorite was blowing up one side of a large smokestack such that it fell onto a nearby guard shack, destroying that as well.

The game has shown up several times on GoGamer at various price points. I ended up getting it for about $32 (minus $25 from a BillMeLater statement credit) in the PC variety. I would recommend it at about the $25-30 range.

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