First-Person Shooter

My dad forwarded me an email about this. At first I thought LIVE-SHOT(tm) was one of those hunting computer games. I don't understand the appeal of computer games about hunting or fishing. I have never hunted and rarely fished, but I would think that most of the appeal of either activity would be to smell and see things around you, to be out-of-doors, talk to friends, etc.; but no matter: LIVE-SHOT(tm) is far weirder than this.

When you subscribe to LIVE-SHOT(tm), you are able to schedule target-shooting sessions on a real shooting range somewhere in Texas (of course). An actual rifle is pointed at an actual target down range. The real-life rifle is mounted on a servo-controlled platform, which you, the customer, control with your computer mouse. For about half-a-dollar per shot, you hear the sounds and see the results of your shooting by webcam. Whatever.

By far the most demented part of this scheme, however, is the LIVE-SHOT(tm) company's plans to introduce hunting-by-webcam. In the near future, captive animals will be brought within view of one of these webcam-controlled rifles, whereupon a customer can shoot the animal by clicking a mouse button. LIVE-SHOT(tm) touts this as a way for disabled or handicapped people to hunt, but it reminds me of those pictures of an Egyptian Pharaoh smashing a line of captives with his mace, one-by-one. "Hunting" corralled animals for entertainment is tasteless enough, but to do it remotely, from one's home office? How freaking stupid.

As an aside, the technology used to control and aim the rifle should appear in the next season of 24, Alias, or some other appropriate work of fiction. A character could set one of these devices up in a hotel-room window, and conduct an assassination from an internet cafe several time-zones away. You read it here first.