Aliens and Spaceships and MIB Oh My!

Oregon… an Intergalactic meeting place?

Yes that’s right, the 11^th annual UFO Festival took place in McMinnville, Oregon May 14^th and the 15^th and attracted quite a crowd of attendees. Everyone came to Earth those two days for their own reasons, some just to stop and hang out with us Oregonians. From the Purple People Eaters, to the odd alien Troubadour, and even Darth Vader with a retinue of Storm Troopers stopped in to see if we had the droids they were looking for. Many Jedi were also there, probably as a deterrent to make sure the Dark Side didn’t take a strong hold here. Even the Na'vi of Pandora came to visit and show off their skills in the alien parade.

Among the crowds of humans and extraterrestrials alike there were some less recognizable, though highly extravagant and flamboyantly dressed beings who stuck out, possibly promoting tourism to their home systems.

Beings the second largest alien festival in the country after the one held in Roswell, McMinnville’s UFO festival has been being held annually since 1999 in honor of the Trent Sightings, which occurred in May of 1950. The event was a quick one as most UFO sighting are, but while out feeding her rabbits Mrs. Trent saw some strange objects and called her husband out with their camera to photograph the things. Several photos were taken all from about the same position and were later sent in and studied under heavy scrutiny by William K. Hartmann, an astronomer from University of Arizona.

To this day these photos are some of the most highly debated for the existence of extraterrestrials as they could not be denied as being evidence of there being a UFO that day, but no one was readily willing to admit that something had visited this small Oregon town before zooming off into the morning sky either. Since then however people have gone back and forth with skeptics calling them frauds and crying hoax while pro-E.T. enthusiasts have been examining the photos attempting to prove through lighting, size, and distance scales that the images are genuine.

Regardless of fact or fiction, hundreds of people showed up to McMinnville to celebrate the sighting. An android called 28 along with his friend Myriad, who was an eccentric being with two heads, traveled together from The Four Dip and have been traveling the universe for a great deal of time. They had been out so long that they had a bit of trouble remembering where they were from. The two stopped on Earth to get their spaceship repaired and were on their way to Lafayette, which apparently has an excellent repair service for vehicles used in space travel.

Also there was a couple from our very own planet who were wandering the crowd; looking for abductees to interview for a video project they were calling ‘Abduction Stories For Youtube.’ “I have known about aliens since I was five years old,” said Bill Koonts “Were trying to get this into the mainstream and let people know that UFO’s are real.” They had interviewed three people and were looking for genuine stories of abduction and human contact with the other worldly visitors. Koonts and his wife Tracy, who was interviewing abductees, have been long time enthusiasts of the alien phenomenon and have come to the UFO festival for the last three years attempting to compile sightings and experiences.

All in all, the UFO festival was well worth the trip. The parade followed by the Alien Pet Show was fantastic and amusing and it was a lot of fun to see so many people dressed up for the event. Both evenings they have guest speakers who are experts in the field. This year James Clarkson, Colin Andrews, and Travis Walton spoke on government involvement in the UFO cover-ups and crop circles and their frequency in both the United States and United Kingdom. The final event takes place on Saturday and is an Alien Costume Ball with live music. The McMinnville UFO Festival is a fun must see event for all ages.

Four Limbs Way Up!

Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are. For fans of the original Dead Space those words no longer hold meaning of childhood and innocence, but instead are merely the creepy reminder of a time spent aboard a derelict starship filled with death and fear at every turn.

Opening with a bang we find Isaac Clarke, Engineer and sole survivor of the disastrous events upon the Planet Cracker, the USG Ishimura, which claimed the lives of every crew member aboard, imprisoned in a straight jacket and drugged into delirium while a stranger brings him to consciousness. As this man speaks to a stranger at the other end of his com link a scythe is thrust through his abdomen and he is transformed into one of the horrors our protagonist had escaped only a short time before.

Isaac is then guided by only the voice of a woman named Daina, as well as an escaped mental patient by the name of Norman Stross. He struggles to find out how he has come to be on the space station, The Sprawl, which orbits Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, with no memory of the last three years or why he has ended up in this place. His ultimate goal however is to discover how the necromorphs have come to this station after he destroyed both the Hive Mind and the Red Marker on Aegis VII. Through this he struggles with a deteriorating mental state and constant reminders of the loss he faced during his first encounter.

Definitely worth waiting for, Dead Space 2 provides an awesome new look into what it’s like to experience an outbreak first hand and how difficult it is to survive during one. The game wastes no time in throwing you into the thick of the enemy outbreak and makes it clear that it is not here to be your friend. It is looking to kill you and wants all the blood it can get as you arm yourself against old foes and new who will find you within the first hour of the game, all of them looking for a piece of you.

The overall game play mechanics are the same with a few added tweaks as well to keep you on your toes. While the controls are very much the same, Isaac has been given a voice and will tell you exactly how he feels about being hit by a necromorph or what joy it brings him to stomp the items from a fallen enemy. In addition he takes a very active part in the story and dictates just as much as he is told, despite how little he knows of his surroundings. No longer the gofer, Isaac is now looking to take charge of the action as he knows his enemy.

As interesting as it is dark DS2 leaves several surprises for the player and many twisted occurrences and background sounds and action that will leave you questioning the mental stability of the games creators. The moment that has stuck the most since playing this long awaited sequel was just this: Isaac is walking down a hallway of the living quarters when from inside one of them, the sounds of a screaming woman can be heard as she is dragged away by a vicious necromorph and slowly the sound fades into nothing. Suddenly, when all is quiet the sound of a whimper and the cry of a baby, as it was left alone to cry in the dark. The child’s fate, and that of those like it, is soon made clear as you progress through the game.

Shocking, suspenseful, bloody, and fun, Dead Space 2 takes everything that makes the original great and expands on it to drag you deeper into their reality, making the game everything a good sequel should be. Just remember the words of the long dead tram engineer, Benson, from the Ishimura:”Forget about shooting them in the body, you gotta cut off the limbs!”

Batman vs. Rorshach

Few times in our lives are we able to play witness to world changing events or titanic battles that are so destructive in their execution that we are stricken with an overwhelming sense of completeness for having witnessed such an event. I have witnessed three.

It was an average day at dear old LBCC and I arrived as I would any other day at a little after nine o’clock, just in time to be late for my first class. The weather, foggy, my homework, half done I was perusing the parking lot for a space I finally find one in the very last row and breathe a sigh of relief at finally arriving. But just then there arose such a clatter and I sprang from my car to see what was the matter. Backpack in hand I scanned the parking lot until I spotted the disturbance moving through the fog to my left.

Much to my surprise it was the Bat Mobile, its loud Bat Engine splitting the silence of the lot asunder as it rolled ever closer. It stopped in the middle of the lot, blocking the way for cars without regard as the door opened and out stepped the one and only Batman. Shocked, I was about to speak when a loud ‘k’chunk!’ sounded from my right and from within the fog itself the hook from a grappling gun shot through the air and collided with the chest of the Batman.

Not one to be caught off guard the Bat had already braced himself and took the shot to the chest with only a loud grunt, his mere human physique protected by the armor within his suit. From the fog to my right were a rustle and the sound of charging heavy charging footsteps as a tan overcoat and hat blurred by me. A fist extended from the coated man and was blocked by the arm of the Bat who returned the attack with an elbow to the assailants head, knocking the bowler to the ground and revealing a pale white head.

From beneath his mask Rorschach growled as I stood a silent witness to a battle between the world’s greatest detective and the world’s harshest vigilante.

Rorschach released a wild punch to the Bats stomach, followed quickly by another and another, though his opponent seemed to barely feel it. The scales already tipped in his favor, Batman head butted his shorter assailant. Receiving a further enraged growl for his efforts, Rorschach rewarded the Dark Knight by bringing both hands up and behind the temporarily disoriented Bat’s head and yanked down, his knee rising to meet his face twice in quick succession.

It was Batman’s turn to growl in frustration and he dropped to one knee leaving Kovacs’s hand in mid air as he threw a fist once hard into the man’s abdomen. Rorschach fell on his back gasping for breath as a smoke pellet was thrown from the Bat. A gray haze rose quickly, obscuring his target and blinding Rorschach as he felt the full weight of his opponent collide with him.

From my spot next to my car I could hear a series of grunts and growls issue forth from the smoke. A series of punches and thrown objects set off car alarms all around me and a thrown batarang came to a solid halt in the trunk of my car. At last Rorschach was thrown into the back of the vehicle nearest my own while Batman returned quickly to his Bat Mobile and hit the gas. My last glimpses of the epic battle were of Rorschach launching himself from the shattered window of the car he was in onto the roof of Batmans own as it sped off, over the grassy hill and into the road.