When I heard that Robert was leaving atom.com to further some alleged career, I was as shocked as the other 8 people who read his blog.   He was like the father-figure of our little family, a role he took so earnestly that he slept with my mother on multiple occasions.  I’m going to miss you here, Mathematically Improbable Dad.

I can think of no finer way to honor his legacy here than to take his beloved Disturbing Animal series and plunder it for my own present an encore.  This will be a very special edition as it will indeed be the very last time you see this feature, barring the possibility I stumble over more animals or am just feeling unmotivated next week.

Atom recently got a chance to catch up with The Shaman at the world famous Standard Hotel on the Sunset Strip. We found him Twittering (twitter.com/lightmyshaman) by the pool with only a towel over his genitals, sipping a hot mug of something.

Shaman: Hello, my Anxious Messenger, would you like a hot cocoa with Kahlua?

Atom: Uh Shaman, it’s 100 degrees and the dead of summer.

Shaman: Oh yes, I only drink warm beverages when it’s hot. Takes the toxins out of your body.

Atom: But you’re drinking Kahlua?

Shaman: I don’t understand.

Atom: What is a shaman, Shaman? Is it different from a wizard or witch doctor?

Dude, Olivia Munn’s autograph and photo appearance this morning at Atom’s Comic-Con booth (3445) was downright bedlam! Absolute chaos. The line ran clear around the corner. In fact, Comic-Con (aka The Man) had to shut it all down as the aisles were just at a deadlock. A pure flash mob of drooling, ogling nerdom — as their queen was in the house. Playboy mags (Olivia dons this month’s cover) were being signed. Photos were being taken. Dreams fulfilled. Check the scene out…

Volume 1 here

My interest in these games isn’t simply part of my well documented love of the perverse.  I see these for what they truly are – warning signs.

When you catch a child tormenting animals or repeating lyrics from a Jonas Brothers song, you are rightfully terrified.  Time and again serial muderers later demonstrated these juvenile behaviors might further devolve.  You know you’re responsible to be vigilant of them or at least drug them into a well-behaved stupor.  Now imagine that child is actually 127 million Japanese people.

If you were going to shit your pants in abject terror, this would be the time to do it.

When a society promotes an arcade game that simulates playful sodomy, they are sending an important message that you ignore at your own peril.  Here’s 4 more warnings to carefully heed.

Muscle March

This game actually has a premise, but I’d prefer to let the crazy flow freely over you before explaining it:

A couple of weeks back I took an interest in writing about bizarre Japanese video games.  They are the perfect fodder for blogging.  Their manic imagery naturally inspires pithy commentary and they provide ample latitude to indulge my racism.   However, rather than just taking swipes at cheap jokes, I also saw an opportunity to tackle the subject more academically.

I approached numerous experts in Japanese culture, seeking a rosetta stone that would contextualize the madness that passed for entertainment.  I compiled the results of their survey responses and interview comments for brevity’s sake:

I think that pretty much sums it up.

Nature is the Stephen King of anthropomorphized abstract concepts: It’s the undisputed master of horror. But unlike Stephen King, nature didn’t run out of good ideas twenty years ago. It’s been going strong for millenia, crafting subtle and intricate masterpieces of terror to unsettle, disturb, or outright kill you. Here’s a few more of it’s finer works:

Cymothoa exigua

Cymothoa Exigua, an ocean-dwelling parasite in the pacific ocean, primarily feeds on the Rose Snapper. And that’s not a picture of it being eaten up there. See, Cymothoa Exigua feeds by attching itself to the base of the tongue and draining the blood until it eventually atrophies and falls off. At which point the parasite replaces the tongue – actually functioning as the appendage – thus ensuring that the fish cannot get rid of it without starving to death.

It’s the only parasite that actually replaces a body part in its host, and apart from making fishing trips rather disturbing when one finds themselves trying to remove a hook from the mouth of the monster from Aliens, it also sets a terrifying bar for all the other parasites out there. I’m not saying that this trend will continue, or that you can expect to find your penis replaced by segmented translucent millipede in the near future, I’m just saying that if that does happen, you should probably run to the doctor immediately, provided that your legs have not been replaced by tapeworms in the interim.

Vampire Moth

This is the Vampire Moth, and it doesn’t need a lot of explaining. It is a moth that sucks your blood. And that is terrible. You worry about bloodsucking from mosquitoes, leeches, and lawyers, and now you have to worry about it from moths too? No longer can you say “don’t worry, honey, it’s just a moth!” and be the brave soldier for your loved ones. No, now you’re the one screaming “vampire!” and then hiding under your bed with a cross everytime you see a butterfly.

They’re a recently discovered species, and the blood-sucking mechanism is considered a “logical evolution” from the fruit piercing mechanism present in many other moths. Take note: Everything that eats fruit is going to “logically evolve” into a vampire. I didn’t fucking say that; that’s science. Take it up with them.

Hatchet Fish

This is the Deep Sea Hatchetfish, so named for the hatchet-like body shape. It grows to about four inches in size, and like most deep sea creatures, it is bioluminescent. Unlike other deep sea dwellers, however, the hatchet fish has the unique ability to deeply unsettle you for the rest of your years by simply turning to face you:

Whereupon it ceases to be a fish and instead becomes a phantom escaped from the Room of Lost Souls, here to haunt the living out of jealousy for their flesh., While objectively I know that the Deep Sea Hatchetfish makes no particular sound, I swear to god that I can hear that thing screaming right now, and I’m pretty sure I only have 7 days to live because of it.

Sydney Funnel Web Spider

The Sydney Funnel Web Spider hails from the land of the Plagued Mother Of Horrors – The Kingdom of the Queen of Monsters, The World of Ancient and Unspeakable Horror – where old and terrifying gods sleep eternally, breathing their noxious miasma of choking fear across this world:

The land of Australia.

It’s one of the deadliest spiders in the world, and unfortunately that old adage “it’s more afraid of you than you are of it,” does not apply to the Syndney Funnel Web Spider: It’s not fucking afraid of you at all. It’s infamous for being one of the most “notoriously aggressive” species, and it will attack immediately when provoked. So no, it’s not “more afraid of you than you are of it,” unless you’ve suffered head trauma that has rendered you functionally incapable of registering fear, or are Daredevil.

The venom of the Syndney Funnel Web Spider can kill you quite painfully within 40 minutes, and since you can find the males wandering incessantly during the summer months, frequently  living in garages, yards, and houses all around Sydney, it probably will. Smashing it is ill-advised, because it’s got little spider rage issues and if you miss, it will probably come after you like Mel Gibson in Payback. But drowning is also not a good idea: The Syndney Funnel Web Spider can survive a full day immersed in water, and are also frequently found in swimming pools.

So hey, vacation in Australia! If you’re too scared of sharks to go in the ocean, take a dip in the pool where you only have to risk the word’s most deadly, snorkeling, furious spider.

Giant Anteater

The Giant Anteater, as anybody with reading comprehension skills can tell you is both giant and an anteater. It’s found mostly in central and southern America, and it’s quite cute in a fucked-up-elongated-face kind of way, like Sarah Jessica Parker. Not so cute? These things:

That’s the claw of a giant anteater laid next to the claw of a Velociraptor. You remember Velociraptors, right? From Jurassic Park? There was that really scary speech about how they use these enormous claws to disembowel you, remember? Yeah, the giant anteater is just like that , except for one thing:

The top claw up there – the bigger one – that’s the anteater.

It uses these god damn gigantic claws to kill jungle cats, which are its only natural predator. It can swipe quite rapidly, using a sweeping scythe-like motion to slash at predators or, if cornered, will grab enemies in a “bear hug,” and squeeze the claws through their body. So is it still adorable now that you know it’s basically an Iron Maiden for jaguars?

Follow Robert on Twitter, on Facebook, or his own site, I Fight Robots. It’s been fun everybody! This is the last of my blogs here at Atom, and I hope you enjoyed them.

In the world of multiplayer first person shooters there are few more reviled than the “campers”.  These wretches are like an opportunistic infection, laying in wait for players at their most vulnerable before pouncing.  Typically this happens at locations where resurrected characters respawn, from largely unreachable sniping positions or shadowing the most emotionally unstable person in team chat.

And just like that, Maya knew she had a new bitch for the night

You’re not alone in your distaste for campers.  Nothing cheeses off the military more than combatants who insist on pussy strategies like not marching straight toward them.  It was a problem they struggled with for years until Obama found a pamplet that piqued his interest:

What Alliant Techsystems brought to the table is nothing short of a death knell for the camper scourge.  The XM25 rifle is sophisticated, powerful, and looks fantastic in earth tones.

I know you can’t see it, but I assure you the rifle is there.  And 15 ninjas.

The XM25 uses a laser to calculate the exact distance to whatever obstruction is housing the combatant.  Though the laser isn’t dangerous itself, the gun does provide an external speaker to make the “pew! pew!” sound while firing (it and can also be color-coded to red or blue, depending on whether you’re a good or bad-guy).  The rifle doesn’t just determine this information for score-keeping purposes – the distance is required so the gun can tell these 25 mm bullets how far to travel before they explode.

Think about the implications here. The typical options in this scenario have been a grenade launcher, which are limited in range and accuracy, or a $70k javelin missle.  With these bullets we can deliver pinpoint accurate fragging but still have budget left over to fund my Terminator Puppy initiative.

Admit it.  You’d never see it coming.

The bullets have their own microchip to store how far to travel before exploding.  Once fired, the bullet’s magnetic transducer creates an alternating current as it spins, which it uses to count rotations and calculate how far it has traveled.  We have officially entered an era where we are firing bullets better at math than we are.  Frankly, I thought it would come sooner.

It gets better.  As if having a rifle clip filled with tiny suicide bombers wasn’t enough, the operator can fine tune the point of explosion a couple of meters in front or behind the target.  This will defeat seeking cover behind a car, kneeling in a trench or even huddling inside a building.  This is a game-changer In terms of combat strategy, explaining the tone of the XM25′s new advertising campaign:

A weapon this sophisticated borders on the fantastic.  You can now pilot bullets with the type of control you’d only expect to get with some kind of telekenesis.  You’re firing MINDBULLETS.  Suck on that, Professor X.

No one could say that Michael Moore didn’t deserve what he got

Ian Chesman isn’t going to feel safe ever again, but with terminal cowardice that’s to be expected.  He often hides in his bunker at iancheesman.wordpress.com.

The Atom Original Series, “Stickman Exodus” recently took home the Webby for Online Film & Video: Animation and the People’s Voice Award to boot.

Check out “Stickman” creator Chris Ford’s shorter-than-short acceptance speech. With the five word minimum, it’s hard out there for an animator!