Not exactly on top of my game right now. In fact, it feels more like my game is on top of me, along with several obese elephants and a small assortment of battleships.

The problem is that I am sleepy. Sleep has been kicking my ass today, and to be honest with you nice folks, I would much rather be asleep right now than writing another blog entry. And normally, this being Saturday, that would not be a problem. My usual Saturday is completely devoid of social engagement, and hence I would be free to sleep all day if I needed to do so.

But tonight, I might be hanging out with my friends, so I thought it best that I get my daily blog writing out of the way and free up my options for the evening.

Sounds good on paper, but right now my eyelids are heavy and my head keeps drooping a little and my brain feels like it is being pressed between the pages of a very large book.

But oh well. If I keep on long enough, perhaps I will awaken further. You just have to keep it up long enough so that your body is convinced that it is not going to convince you to go back to bed no matter what, so it had better just deal with it.

Kind of like dealing with a bratty child. Sure, the kid will try to make your life miserable for a while. But if you endure and persist, you can prevail.

Or at least, that is the theory.

Let’s see, what to write about. Oh, how about this cute little short animation about a wily dog stalking his natural enemy : crisps.

That is one very sneaky dog. Silly dog, those crisps (what we would call potato chips) are not even good for you. Dogs are more omnivorous than cats, but I am still pretty sure they would not get a lot of nutrition out of a potato chip. Neither do we, truth me told.

Oh well. Studies have shown that dogs always value what we humans value over anything else. They figure if we, their magical powerful alpha dogs, like it, it must be good. I imagine that is how dogs and other canids learn what is good to eat in the wild. They eat what the leader eats.

It’s just that we human beings are highly omnivorous, and we eat all kinds of things that are not good for doggies. So we have to keep them away from the human foods that are bad for them, like chocolate.

In fact, humans beings are the only animals known who can metabolize chocolate. Now I am not a religious man, but if I needed a proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy, that would be a good one.

Of course, I think the same thing about marijuana and sex, and I doubt that would align with the dominant religious orthodoxies of the world.

Over at Pop Sci they are talking about some game that has a hyper-realistic “KillCam” that shows you exactly what your killing shot is doing to the brains and other organs of your victim, CSI style.

And of course, they are blathering on about how this is the “most violent, gory game ever” and asking themselves and us “Are gamers ready for this level of violence?”

The media is so predictable. Sure they are ready. I remember a really great PC game that was very similar to this game called Soldier of Fortune. When it came out, its big ballyhoo was supposedly that your enemies reacted in different ways to being shot depending on where they had been shot. This included the much lauded “crotch shot”, which some considered the height of comedy.

This new game, called Sniper Elite V2, seems like it is made along the same lines. Like Soldier of Fortune, it is actually a highly detailed single person tactical commando type game, where you have to think in terms of strategy, steal, deception, and precision, not mindless Rambo style violence.

But also like Soldier of Fortune, it uses a fairly mindless advance in violence to draw people in.

So to answer the question “Will gamers accept this?”, the answer is “of course they will”. We gamers are not a squeamish lot. And at a certain age, more violent means better, especially for male gamers. Video games are a great way to work out all your male aggression in a harmless way. For teenagers and young men, the more violent and bloody the game, the better it is for this purpose.

But I am an old old gamer, and frankly, this KillCam bullshit does not impress me at all. I would likely watch a few KillCam shots out of curiosity, then turn that shit off because it slowed down the game, and for me, it is all about the flow.

Finally, in political news, this hot bit of schadenfreude fresh from the liberal grapevine : a top pollster for the Republicans says that the majority of Republicans favor a softer line on a lot of a gay issues.

Now the establishment Republicans (including Romney) have already made noises affirming that they are not going to make gay marriage a big issue in the upcoming election, instead focusing on “jobs and the economy”. both of which are improving under Obama and have been for a long time.

But still, this is a heck of a wake up call for the right wing machine. And for those of us on the side of truth, light, and justice, it is quite clear that the last walls of intolerance and hatred are tumbling down and people’s basic sense of fairness and equality is shining through.

The war is almost over, folks. The conservatives have never, despite all the noise and smoke they generate, succeeded in turning back the tide of social progress, and we get to watch as the times a-change right before our very eyes.

I can hardly wait.