Let's not beat around the bush. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals rank up there with Heaven's Gate and the Manson Family in terms of sheer, batsh*t lunacy. We've been hearing a fair bit of them in gaming-related news lately, such as their desire for Majesco to turn Cooking Mama into a vegan fantasy land.

Usually I can ignore PETA but a link to their website was sent my way today and it's just too strange to be cast aside. You see, PETA has decided to campaign to change the term "fish" to "sea kitten." I'm not talking about Abe Vigoda here, as that might make a bit of sense (he's such a cuddly-muffin after all) but, like, fish. I wish this were a joke but their track record suggests otherwise. The mind reels.

Hey, how about some gaming news? Let's enjoy these stories that Destructoid didn't write about today. Don't forget to hit the jump and see some great content from our friends in the blogosphere or to comment on how tasty sea kittens are.

• For the first time in fourteen years and only the second time ever, Sony is expected to post an operating loss in their annual report. It could be as much as $2.2 billion, which is coincidentally how much they expected to profit. [Reuters]
• According to Guitar Center, sales of guitars were up 27% in 2007 and they're attributing that success to music games. Activision is more than happy to claim all the credit. [CVG]
• A pair of Google engineers have made a mod for Google Earth that allows users of the Wii Balance Board to "surf" across the entire planet on a hovering milk truck. [Escapist]
• The Electronic Entertainment Design and Research analyst group has released their December sales preview. Based on their research, Nintendo is still dominating and 360 is also in the black, but both Sony consoles are expected to take a significant hit. [Edge]

Hey, look at that! There's a whole bunch of really cool stuff on the internets! Who knew?

• Steve Streeting has a rather good list of mechanics that he hates in videogames. The nice thing about this one is that (despite several walls of text) he offers a good perspective on why these concepts are simply outdated in gaming.
• Gamasutra has conducted interviews with former employees of studios which have experienced recent layoffs to get a more human perspective than we see from the press and bigwigs who justify these things on numbers alone. If you weren't already depressed by this sort of stuff, this may do the trick.
• Our own Reverend Anthony has already weighed in on the shortcomings of Ubisoft's latest entry in the Prince of Persia franchise. While I hate to point out failings of a game that I greatly enjoyed, Jeff Buckland does make some good points in his similar post.
• When I'm a parent, you can bet your ass that that I'm going to be properly educating my child in the ways of 8-Bit games. The Resigned Gamer has been attempting the same thing with a much younger sibling with some mixed results.
• Mister Raroo brings yet another awesome column at GameSetWatch. This time, he offers some suggestions for those of us who find ourselves falling in love with non-gamers to maintain a relationship without sacrificing our passion for gaming.