This is just so damn cute. And geeky. And awesome.

I can't decide if the magic is what she can do on a pole, or what she does to my pole.



Girl has talent. And way too much clothing.

This looks like it will be a funny one.

It is a good thing they know where Egypt goes. Right in the middle of where they want to drop the bomb I suppose.

       "Glitchtastic"
            -- Admiral Bob

"Great sound creations, cool groove."
                                  -- Speck


    "well produced weaving of soft and harsh sounds..."
                  -- scottaltham

And this one is just too damn cute!

Bollywood style!

You have to admire someone for having the balls to actually make meat flavored water. From this fine company you can get protein enriched water in over 50 flavors such as: Beef Jerky, BBQ Wings, Liverwurst Sandwich, Haggis, Sashimi, Hungarian Gulash and many other, uh, intriguing flavors. 

 

You know what sucks about 3D? The damn glasses, that's what! I mean, who in their right mind wants to wear glorified sunglasses to watch a movie? Well, as it turns out some strange bearded Frenchman has discovered a revolutionary way to enjoy 3D without glasses. Prepare for the future my friends!

For God's sake people,  use some birth control!!

Holy shit, am I digging MoH (the new one on all Hi-Def platforms).  The Modern Warfare games are great too, but this game was clearly focused on delivering a very cleanly executed single player campaign.  I'm not sure how it is for length, yet, but I'll soon report back with a full review.

Apparently people have been making comparisons between Fight Club and Calvin & Hobbes for years. News to me, but let's enjoy the Fight Club trailer as done through the art of Calivn & Hobbes together, shall we!

I don't think any car has gone through as many revisions as the infamous Batmobile (Warning heinously large graphic). I counted 111 versions and I know of a couple off hand that I think are missing. Its amazing the production of these alone didn't run Wayne Enterprises into bankruptcy. Lets not forget all his other various bikes, planes, boats, submarines and other gadgets.

So this is my first post. I will have to make it a good one.

Especially when they are trying to identify tech from the last 30 years. The little boy at around 2:36 is just for you, Kyro! (I don't mean that in the creepy way it appears...)

Does this make things easier for us to prove the worth of games as an art and entertainment medium? And with the casual gamers flocking to the motion control systems does it even matter anymore?



Nph, i used to love you, now I'm not so sure. For every step forward their is someone more than willing to long jump backwards. Fuck. Meh, at least by the time games are completely banned, I'll own enough to just replay them with impunity. Hell, I'll probably even pull out the PS2 again.

I don't have cable anymore, so I frequently miss out on shows like Batman: The Brave & The Bold. You'll pardon me for thinking it was a kiddie show. Songs like the one featured below make me think otherwise...



Just as an extra FYI this is from an episode where Batman gets amnesia and decides to take over Gotham. That's him in the sleazy mustache and smoking cape.

This is an older track, but I'm just toying with SoundCloud+Blogger integration for my coffee break, and thought I would see how it works. If you've never checked out this track, take a listen, I like this one almost as much as "Semjase". Kyro - Deep-Sixing by kyro

God Bless Harlan Ellison....
(NSFW for bad language)

Gotta love Lego™

I'm so in love with this public servant, i pray to God that she has the guts and backing to run for Prime Minister.  Here's a lady that can get shit done.

I love what she's up to right now fixing the office for protecting whistle-blowers.  She rocks.  God bless.

Imagine if some of your favourite sci-fi was re-imagined as kids books...

 

You guys hear about this new drug yet?



Love the side effects!

It seems just an empty desk
But really it's a wound
The open floor plan waits for no man
Yet women and men both feel the absence

Soon a different mind will mind that space
And meet the team and smile and learn
And we'll turn the page and build something new
But time takes its due

We eat and play and work and win
Together
We push and pull and learn from one
Another
Collaborate, commiserate, celebrate
The team

And when we lose a mate, the cut is deep
And though we thrive on change
It's always strange
When we see that vacant seat

The following article was copied from www.wired.com/geekdad for our amusement purposes only. I recommend this site for any parents in the group, and here's just one good reason why...

5 Ideas To Get Cthulhu into Your Christmas

Hang a tree ornament

Invite a Cthulu Elf into your home:

Google has nothing on this place. By far the coolest place I have seen in a long time. It is a Data Storage facility in Stockholm.

For those of you that love Christmas and Space I bring you the Hubble Advent Calendar, thanks to those great guy's at boston.com

Here is your pic for the first of December... click the link to go right to the site and there is a write up for each of the pics as they are released.

This one is making me wonder how a movie will ever impress me in the future. I think this combined with the potential of the up and coming Hack(slash)Slash movie will fill my movie requirements for a long while.



And then there's Green Lantern, Captain America, SkyLine (maybe, Kyro say bad things and from the preview it looks like it's the acting), Battle:Los Angeles (which looks like SkyLine done right or maybe a killzone movie), and maybe Four Lions. It never ends, but at least it's goodness that never ends.

2 lvls away from 100%ing Halo:Reach. Better game that I had hoped.

I think it's like Red Dead Redemption meets war of the worlds, starring Han Solo and James Bond.



I haven't figured out whether I'm excited about it being good or excited that I'm going to watch it anyways and either love it or have a great time laughing at it :)

Track entitled: "A Wave of Reason"



I believe in science. I also believe, in the words of the bard, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are drempt of in your philosophy." But we can't start explaining the unexplained until we open our minds and look at the world in a new way, tempered with deductive reasoning and desire to simply understand.

So I hear that Microsoft is banning Xbox Live users who have customized their Black Ops logo to include a swastika. Now, I don't disagree first of all, I just have a point to make. Players can play multiplayer as nazis. This has been possible for a long time in the call of duty franchise. MS seal of approval. Bam. So why is customization of an in-game icon considered a ban worthy offense? I'm not trying to say that those who proudly sport the swastika should have smiles and joy rained upon them but what of ignorance. A younger person may not be as educated as they could be on the topics of wars in the past and they play this game and in multiplayer, they enjoy the weapons of the nazi side better. They always play the german side. He sees the armband and recognizes it as the symbol of his preferred class. He puts it on his logo. Banned.

Now, lets get the other side. I laughed my ass off thinking of all the entitled examples of the greater internet dickwad theory. Those people who think their online selves can do what they want without consequence. The douche who put a swastika on his logo because he thought it was funny. That's the kind of person I love thinking about getting the ban hammer. I agree it's offensive to most people and I don't think an informed and intelligent individual would do this but anonymity plays it's hand and wins.

I see good and bad in this but most of all I find myself wondering whether MS is using the hammer liberally but they aren't taking the time to make it so games containing these symbols and issues are not brought to their console. And consider for me what a more offensive thing to do is. Pretending to be a nazi and killing americans in a game or adding a swastika to your logo in the same game. Maybe it's hypocrisy and maybe I'm just crazy. Both are highly likely.

Spent the last 3 days 100%ing free... getting the shakes.

Yes, I know what it sounds like, but there is nothing sexual about this post. At all.
Instead, watch this neat video about how what we see affects what we hear. Then feel free to draw your own conclusions about how this relates to your relationships...

I'm on a fence. It's a fence that some didn't take the time to look at before they jumped over and I'm one of those people. I've since then slunk back to it and perched atop it hoping that no one has noticed that I was already on the other side. This particular fence is that oh so controversial topic of piracy. Most pointedly piracy in software, music and other digital media.

I've thought through some points for both sides that make a lot of sense when they deal with particular circumstances but I'd prefer some thoughts first. No need to divulge any info on whether you do or do not participate. I'm just looking for some solid arguments both for and against. Particularly with respect to consumer financial state, company profits, financial support for the medium, artistic appreciation, creator success, etc...

1 comment due by next week. Have a good week class.

Finished 100%ing Mass Effect on Insane. Easier than I thought it would be. And yes the picture is just to stir the pot a bit.

Now I'm starting to see potential in use of Kinect hardware in the development of future tech like 3d holograms. Quite a cool video. Not earth shattering but the potential is what is getting me interested. Too bad it's not potential in gaming... :( I'd still love to see a program handle and process a multi-angle case of this situation and consolidate into an actual true to life 3d video with moving camera. Imagine the movie tech you could make with that 8-) Just geekgasmed a little.

And on a lighter note. This is for all you Mega Man 2 fans. I heart Overclocked Remix!

So, after some muddling in photoshop...

Yesterday was a frustrating day for me. Work was not going as planned and once things got straightened out enough for me to take my lunch break, I was disappointed further during my downtime. It began when I watched this last weeks Extra Credit on the Escapist and realized how right he is. And how spineless everyone in our the gaming industry is when it comes to facing adversity and worse, controversy.

Since I have difficulty just letting things go when they bother me, I did some more research on the topic. Around 7pm last night I was well into searching for videos on how the media deals with video games and the surrounding issues with violence, sexuality, mature situations and the desensitization of all these. Now, you've likely all played Mass Effect and remember the sideboob, ass, ok it's over sex scene from it. This video is pretty much how the media handles video games. Watch it first then read on.

Let's set the stage. You're a video game reporter named Jeff Keely. You're sitting there waiting to be introduced and you realize that not only have they chosen the ditzy blonde anchor to do the interview but they've also brought in a female psychologist. Then the intros start. The blonde introduces the psychologist first, names her full formal title, her accomplishments and her new book (with 'Perfection' in the title). She then introduces you second as a game expert on Spike TV. You say to yourself "at least she said expert". (pause the video at 1:22 and you can see he knows he's about to lose face).

Now you wish you could see the title of the story below your face as you say hello. Because the title reading " Se-Xbox - New Video Game Shows Full Digital Nudity and Sex" would never be there if you had been consulted before being brought on the show. And it only gets worse from there. The anchor and psychologist start tearing things apart instantly. You immediately think to yourself "well, these two never bothered to play the game or even watch the sex scene at all. You just sensationalized the story and are now ACTUALLY PICKING SIDES." And you still haven't spoken yet.

The psychologist ignores the fact that the games are rated by a board completely separate from the video game creators. Her primary arguments are that the games rated for 18+ will still be played by younger ones as if parents aren't responsible for their own kids. She quotes from research papers and studies that say generic things about desensitization and objectification.

And you're so unfocused about everything that's said that you lose composure for an instant. But you say it. "Well, that's completely incorrect". You say it again. You explain using facts and reason and most importantly experience Actually Playing The Game. And as this occurs to you, you decide to ask the psychologist if she's ever played the game. She laughs. That fucking bitch laughs as if you're a retarded monkey and you actually watch as your credibility with non-gamers is thrown off a building by a tiny pink shirted demon. "Right well, ...." and you continue to point out facts.

After cutting you off, the anchor tries to recover some professional credibility lost by her other guest while laughing in your face by stating how much research she put into this story by looking at videos, on the website. And her big point she hits on is that there is nothing graphic online and that the site is easy to access..... "WTF? Is there a question in there I have to answer.... No. Ok, back to my original line of thought. Thanks for the useless interruption bimbo" More facts and reasoning... Openly mocked by the pink demon. Factual arguments. "She called me darlin' ". Shut down by the anchor. Go to panel of useless twats.

"Luke Skywalker meets Debbie Does Dallas"
Fuck you!

"Play my Dad's Video Game!!!"
Fuck you, that's the parents fault. Hide your mature games or better, play them WITH your kid

"Bad stuff coming through the internet and video games. Can't be censored by the government. So it's up to the parents to deal with this."
Only intelligent thing said in the entire interview.

Jeff mentions many times during the interview that for those who have "played the game" the experience is not so dramatic or incredible. I respect the Jeff Keely. He is one to honor and to follow. Stand up for our favorite pastime and better yet, stand up for the factual representation of our media. Anyways, I could write about this one for hours so I hope this was enough therapy for now.

Will I travel space, yes. Will I meet new and interesting life, yes. Will I kill them, yes. Will I see sideboob and ass one more time, probably. So suck it blonde Fox News anchor and pink psycho demon. Objectification is up to the objectifier.

In honor of this video I started Mass Effect again and am currently 100%ing it on INSANE!

I submit to you that there is a living doppelganger running around hollywood.  While watching The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension this morning, I noticed one of Banzai's lieutenants... white hair... helter skelter expression... yep, definitely Guy Pearce.

Now, Guy Pearce is one of my favorite actors of all time.  There is a serious shortage of feature films staring him in the main role.  So, seeing him here in Banzai was really no surprise.  He shows up in tons of my absolute top sleeper movies (Memento, Count of Monte Cristo, Ravenous, The Hurt Locker, need I go on?).  But I was fishing on IMDB.com for the rest of the cast, trying to confirm the identity of the actress playing the floozie, when I noticed that his name was missing.

Must be an honest mistake yeah?
NO!  It's a godam doppelgänger!  EVIDENCE?

In each of these photos - which are Guy Pearce and which are NOT?

Enjoy my friends, I did!

This a brilliant little piece of PR. Expensive to plan and produce, but since they're leveraging YouTube the broadcast cost can be folded into the rest of the budget.

I hate to admit it, but I may have got a wee bit emotional at the end. Nice stuff.

The music link is irrelevant, the real meat of this post has to do with the meat.  Or more specifically lack of it.  This week I'm eating mostly according to The Game On Diet or "#tgodi" for short.  Small frequent meals with a reduction in portion sizes is the plan.

Day 1 - Meals 1 & 2
* half a turkey dog, thick slice of fresh pineapple, laughing cow cheese

Day 1 - Meals 3 & 4 (each)
* hot pot veggies with thinly sliced pork

Day 1 - Meals 5
* 4 meatballs, fresh spinach salad and olives

Day 2 - Meal 1
* 3 strips of Bacon, a whole banana and some nuts

Day 2 - Meal 2
* 2 chicken drumsticks, pineapple and some more nuts

Day 2 - Meals 3 & 4 (each)
* 4 meatballs, fresh spinach and mushrooms, olives / avocado

Day 2 - Meal 5
* I'm breaking down and microwaving some Clam Chowder here, definitely off the diet... but as you can see these tiny frequent meals are enough to kill a normal man.

I'm definitely eating some pizza on Thursday night and plan to go out for sushi at lunch on Friday.  As for the weekend, not sure if I'll make it.  The true game, and point scoring, starts on Monday.  Some stats:

CURRENT

• 229 lbs
• 0 -> 5 minutes of activity per day
• around 9 hours of sleep per night

I've agreed with Yahtzee Croshaw about many things he's said and one of the biggest ones I've noticed him being right about is big name voice acting in video games. I first noticed it in Oblivion where I loaded up the game and couldn't help but think "Tea, Earl Grey hot mother ****ers" when Patrick Stewart starting doing the opening narration. Since then there have been a few notable examples that got me a bit excited. Liam Neeson playing as your father in Fallout 3 was a big one for me as well as Nathan Fillion and some of the other Firefly cast in ODST. The problem with these examples for me has been, with the exception of ODST, the characters use has been extremely limited. Of course, both Oblivion and Fallout 3 are Bethesda games so maybe the fault is theirs. Either way, I'm happy to see that this trend is 'falling out'.

In fact, ODST can probably be used in the second part of this post as examples of games that are using the talent well. Hearing Fillion's voice, I've heard, set some people off as breaking the immersion of the game. The same has been suggested of Martin Sheen voicing "The Illusive Man". Some people suggest that they can't get into the game when they are thinking "Hey, that's Martin Sheen! So excited!". Well, personally, I never had that problem. I heard the voices, recognized them and at the same time, incorporated them into the story as if I were watching a movie with them as an actor. Not that hard people. But to move on, I'd like to say that I'm excited about the upcoming potential of Call of Duty : Black Ops in particular.

Adding professionals from the movie industry can't hurt your product. I understand that their time is likely more expensive than a lot of game companies would like, but the quality shows where they have left their mark. Black Ops is having it's script consulted on by David Goyer and there are going to be NPCs voiced by Gary Oldman and Ed Harris. Also, as a franchise first, they are going to enrich the single player experience by giving the player character a name and a voice. And a plus for all you Avatar fans out there (and the lesser quantity of Terminator:Salvation fans) the role will be voiced by Sam Worthington.

Now if you want to play 6 degrees you can see that David Goyer knows Gary Oldman from the Batman movies starring Christain Bale who played alongside Sam Worthington in Terminator:Salvation. So the only question here is did one of the game producers cry during Armageddon or were they one of the three people in the world who knows that Ed Harris worked on the visual effects in Lost In Space another film which Gary Oldman starred (and incidentally alongside Joey from friends -Matt LeBlanc). Yay sidetrack.

Anyways, do the names and voices behind the games produce any meaning for you? I've been excited every time I was able to pick out a voice or recognize it's familiarity. It always forces me to wait until the credits scroll to figure out who that sensual female voice is that has been gently tonguing my cochlea all game. Except in gears of war 2, cause Carolyn Seymour didn't really get me going in game or afterward. Although it was cool to learn how much she has contributed to the voices in video games thus far. Anyways, I 100%ed this topic so now I need some opinions. Go forth my minions!

Fuck you lady! Just fuck you! Hope you get shivved day one. There is no need to explain...

I'm going to take a crack at assembling a campaign map using photoshop, and thought I might seek out some advice from those who've tried.

Found a fella named Peter with some excellent advice for how to go about it:

Bumped into this while researching my reply to the Kinect thread (not quite ready to post that comment yet).

So I would like to try something a little bit different. We are all very imaginative people who read this blog, so I would like to put said imagination to the test. I would like for you to watch the below video (NSFWish) and in to comments write a story as to either the night before, or what he was thinking during the video.

Watch, and comment away.

I made this post on gametrailers.com in response to MilitiaMan trying to get people to buy Xbox Kinect. I thought it was worth throwing around to get an opinion or two.

MilitiaMan makes a point by saying that all launches are fairly weak due to the new tech being hard to develop for until people get the hang of it. I get that. I just can't agree with him/her that as time goes by that Kinect games will get any better.

One of my favorite things about games is that the control schemes are usually familiar from game to game. This makes them easy to pick up and play. Since the original Halo, left stick to move right stick to look has been a first person and third person staple. I personally have strong resistance to learning a new way to do the exact same things on the same console. That 'gimmick' should not sell anyone on the validity of this new peripheral. I will repeat what I've said many times already. Don't buy this for the gimmick or you'll use it as much as you do your Wii (casually I assume, so if you're a casual gamer ignore this post). Wait to see if they can actually pull off some new ideas for games or if the integration of the new 'controls', for lack of a better word, into existing game templates actually works.

Before the argument begins, I have a little homework for you. Assume all the voice and motion controls work perfectly ( and by perfectly, I mean better than any other voice system before it and much better motion capture than I've seen so far in the demos of Kinect.

1. How would you play a platformer? Actually jump every time you wanted to make a move and walk in place the rest of the time? If not this then think of what other actions could be used to do this. Keep this in mind.

2. How would you play an RTS using Kinect? How would you select a single unit or a group of individual units, pan the camera, select a unit type to build...

3. How would you play a FPS using Kinect? How would you aim your weapon or PAN THE CAMERA? (ok, if it worked perfectly, the camera would detect where a finger was pointing but....) How would you signal that you wanted to reload (would it be a different reload gesture for each type of weapon or the same one for all types), open a door, disarm a bomb, etc.... All these apply to 3rd person shooters as well.

4. How do you find the balance between the ease of pick up and play vs oversimplifying games? For example, the demos show driving games. Ok fine. That would probably be great, until your arms get tired but that's just nit picking. Now try to make a game one step up from that, like a Mario Kart style game. What do you do to throw and item forward, or backwards? Easy answer, just throwing a hand forward or backwards. Now step up one more level to a twisted metal style game. So many more controls are required that controls become too complex for people to actually want to learn unless they are hardcore gamers. So what does this mean for the platform?

I feel that this means everything Kinect is destined to be mini games and at best mario kart style games because that's the most complex controls their target audience are willing to learn to play. Yes, there will be some attempts at hardcore games and they will fail horribly like the original 'Red Steel' for Wii.

Bottom line, it doesn't make sense to argue that you should buy a Kinect because better games will come out for it later because you'll have to suffer through 4 years (Red Steel 2006 - Red Steel 2 2010) of crap before getting a sequel to a game that sucked that plays adequately. Don't buy a system that doesn't have any games you're dieing to play, it just encourages companies to make crap. Let the discourse begin...

I love you all, this is only my opinion as someone who has gamed since his thumbs developed and who's mother broke her wedding ring in half playing Dr. Mario :)

After I made my post the thread was closed by MilitiaMan....

I am not worthy...

I may have to move to New York just to support this guy. I'd be this kind of politician, but with less coolness!

Coachelletta from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

If you've never witnessed the neat effect of tilt-shift photography, you're in for a treat!
Check out the above video for tilt-shift in action. Better yet, hit the HD button and go full screen.
It's so pretty! 

and I am not sure how I feel about them. Two things happened in the world of international politics over the past week that are leaving me unsettled.

The first is the new presidency of OPEC. Iran for the first time in 36 years is the new president of OPEC. OPEC nations account for two-thirds of the world's oil reserves, and, as of April 2009, 33.3% of the world's oil production. OPEC as an organization has huge control over oil prices and production globally. As an example when Brazil was asked to join OPEC in 2008, oil prices went to an all time high because of the amount of oil that Brazil produces. This joining would have given OPEC even more control over the oil. Brazil declined the offer to join however.

Normally a nation getting that seat wouldn't be a big deal, the problem is that it is Iran. More so it is that Iran's outward hostile view of other nations, such as Israel. Now the rest of this portion is speculation, but follow me down the rabbit hole if you will. Iran is now the leader of OPEC, single handedly the most powerful oil conglomerate in the world. The US doesn't like Iran to begin with, so if Iran who too doesn't like the US decided to play dirty with the US then I can see this going badly. The US is still and ever growingly dependent on oil, they drink that shit for breakfast. There is no proof that the war in Iraq (most resent) was because of oil, but it doesn't take much to see why they went there. The US is a major backer, still, to Israel, and again Iran doesn't like Israel. Iran having the seat just makes my stomach tingle, and not in the good way. I just hope that it stays business as usual.

The second thing that happened is that for the first time EVER in the history of the UN, Canada did not get a seat on the Security Council. Canada has had a seat on it since its inception 64 years ago, but this year lost out to Portugal. There is a slew of reasons that we didn't get it, and all of them have to do with our governments foreign affairs policies and how they represent us in the global community. I am embarrassed and enraged that this has happened. This is a black mark on our governments record that I hope that they do not walk away unscathed from. How can you fuck things up that bad? We were part of the origins of the UN and now we can't even hold our seat. We are a G8 country that the world no longer looks to for help and safety. It is going to be a long road ahead to regain the faith of the world, and I think it should start with the outing of the current government. Harper has always been weak on the international front, and this is the exclamation point on that. This, I am sure, will have far reaching consequences when it comes to future diplomacy and trade.

Thank you for your time.

I'll get this working over the weekend.
No, really.

Creationary Game (from LEGO)

Talisman (4th Edition from Fantasy Flight Game)

So here we have mankind again trying to meddle in shit that we just shouldn't. I present to you the National Ignition Facility in all of its glory. The idea here is they are going to take 192 really powerful lasers, and shoot all of them at a bit of hydrogen fuel ( or whatever gives them the biggest bang). The idea is that by doing so the nuclei of the atoms of the fuel inside the target capsule are made to fuse together releasing tremendous energy. Now, I am not a pessimist and am all for scientific discoveries, but I think that there is a limit on what we should be trying to stick together. Last I was taught was that fusion is what causes things like the sun.

Now, I admit that out friends over in Switzerland haven't created a black hole yet like everyone said that they would, so perhaps we won't have a small sun in our back yard too soon either.

I love innovation in science, and know that these types of experiments will lead to a better future. I am just not sure where the line is. Is there a line, who gets to decide. I do think that 3.5 BILLION DOLLARS is a bit much, granted it was over the past 13 years so really it is only 269 MILLION a year to develop a theoretical device to produce energy that may or may not be able to be tapped once it is created. I mean, really. 269 Million a year is a small price to pay for the advancement of... of... I am still having a hard time figuring out who is going to benefit from this.

I offer you no solutions to the problem of where to invest money, everyone has their hands out these days so perhaps this will pay off. Time will tell. But for now, FUCK ME 3.5 Billion...

Is suddenly waaaaaay cooler in my books.

Mansion of Madness