At the moment, I am hopelessly addicted to Mario Kart for the Nintendo DS so this article by the Daily Telegraph was quite interesting. It asks who the greatest ever gaming sidekicks are and offers ten candidates.
I vote for Yoshi!
Quite often, as I am finding with Mario Kart, the sidekicks tend to eventually take over the game. Yoshi is my favourite character in SM while Mario doesn’t even get a look-in.
Is that the same with you? Do you have a favourite gaming sidekick? If so, who is it? Did they make the Daily Telegraph list? Why do you like them?
To me, the question is ridiculous. South Park ALWAYS goes too far – that’s what makes the programme so popular. It intentionally sets out to shock. But what I think has shocked the LA Times is the sight of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas raping Harrison Ford and then raping a stormtrooper.
“We all saw it happen,” says Jimmy, “Do you remember that scene with Indiana in the refrigerator? It didn’t make any sense, Stan.”
But this is ADULT humor! I think sometimes people forget that. In the midst of people crying out “what about the children?!”, people forget that this is not actually a children’s programme.
Raping Harrison Ford aside, the episode tries to make the point that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull sucks big time (or “sucks donkey balls” as Cartman would say), and the whole raping thing is that Lucas and Spielberg have “raped” the franchise for their own ends. So there is a serious point in there – somewhere, sort of.
Elsewhere, Cartman and Butters dress up disguised as Chinese people and infiltrate a Chinese restaurant. This is all part of Cartman’s plan to talk to other Chinese people so they can discover the plans for the Chinese invasion of the United States. But the police soon surround the restaurant and Butters starts shooting everyone in the balls.
To me, the episode was hilarious but what about you? Was the whole raping thing totally out of control? DID they go too far?
Quantum Of Solace, the 22nd James Bond movie and the second to feature Daniel Craig, following his highly-acclaimed turn as 007 in 2006’s Casino Royale, opens in the UK on October 31, 2008, and the USA a week later.
Casino Royale distinguished itself in many ways from previous films in the Bond canon, being far more faithful to author Ian Fleming’s description of Bond (hair colour aside), certainly when it came to issues of character and, unlikely many previous instalments the series (certainly the Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore films), disregarding special effects and comedy in favour of credibility and a gritty realism. James Bond – at least, the Bond in Flemings’ original texts – is not a very nice person. As Craig’s Bond says in Casino Royale when asked why killing people does not bother him, “Well I wouldn’t be very good at my job if it did.”
On Tuesday, October 14 at 10AM, Apple will be having a keynote to show off some new innovations for their notebook line. The question is: what will those innovations be?
If the internet can be believed, the keynote will debut Apple’s next big bomb, a notebook that ranges from between 800 and 1000 dollars. With the economy crashing, the tech industry has been feeling the slow-down as much as any other sector. One of the possible life preservers for Apple and other PC manufacturers is the “sub-notebook” computer. These are typically smaller notebooks good for checking email, word processing, and surfing the web. Apple’s “Air” notebook is sort of a sub-notebook, but it’s far too expensive and too light on actual features.
There has also been a rumor going around about something called the “Brick,” which may or may not be a metaphore for what they hope to do to “Windows.” Supposedly it’s a computer that has been machined out of a single block of Aluminum. While this sounds trendy and chic, I’m not sure how something like this would really fit into Apple’s game-plan. The Brick would probably look fantastic, but the costs of production would be very high initially and there is no reason to believe it will boost otherwise flagging sales.
Overall, I hope that something comes out of this keynote, for all of the rumors online in the last few days. I’m adopting a personal wait-and-see policy until Tuesday.
I was just reading an article in PC World about “geek cuisine,” which apparently means caffeinated drinks/candy. I’m not sure why geeks are the only ones who have trouble staying awake; I know just as many law students as programmers who are chugging red bulls at 2am.
In any case, I am a big supporter of, in particular, caffeinated mints. Every few months I put in an order at Chemical Evolution and it’ll last me for quite a while. There’s just nothing quite as convenient as a cup of coffee the size of a dime that tastes like an altoid (though for some reason caffeine sometimes scares people in this form… I’ve had a co-worker berate me that I may as well just be doing speed as she drank her third cup of coffee).
In this last order, however, I decided to try something new and different: caffeinated chapstick. I think that I’ve seen at least one other brand at some point, but the kind I’ve tried is Spazzstick, apparently developed by an Alaskan police officer. It comes infused with caffeine and in a variety of flavors.
The problem is, I have no idea if it works. It’s sort of like that cold prevention stuff that you take when you feel the first signs of illness–does it really make your cold shorter or is that just how long it would have been anyway? It’s not as if I’m going to replace my morning coffee with lip balm, so I’m really not sure if it’s giving me an extra buzz or not.
So have any of you tried any unconventional forms of caffeination? I know that there’s soap as well, but I’ve never tried it. It seems like that might be even more effective than chapstick, given sheer surface area of coverage.
In the following clips, Australian photographer Keith Loutit used a tilt-shift camera lens to take pictures of people and objects and make them appear like miniature figurines. He then assembled the shots to build some pretty fantasic-looking time-lapse videos. Watch them right after the jump.
It’s amazing the amount of emails that I received after my GAS story on Geek Squad. It seemed that everyone thought that I had a direct personal intimate connection to the CEO of Geek Squad and they wanted me to pass on all their customer service complaints to him or her. The last one was only last week. It’s getting to the point where I am thinking of billing Geek Squad for secretarial services rendered.
But now we could have a Geek Squad number 3 to contend with, after GS and ConnecTech. It seems that Verizon wants to jump into the snakepit now with their own offering called Expert Care (nice name, gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling doesn’t it?). But it’s only for Verizon customers.
First off, we’ve got Verizon on deceptive advertising – I know for a FACT that they don’t have employees sitting there grinning like THAT ready and happy to take your call! Instead they’ll have minimum wage drones called Chuck or Cindy who won’t know the difference between a CPU and a mouse.
So let’s take a look at their pricing to see what Expert Care offers you :
Device Protection : This covers things such as the telephone, the television and the PC and costs between $4.99 a month and $19.99 a month, depending on what equipment you put under the agreement. I wonder if shouting down the phone at the Verizon rep and shattering the audio chip is covered? Worth asking?
Premium Technical Support – 10 month subscription plan at $14.99 per month, with a whopping $60 early termination fee, “help with computer related issues” – so that means they will help you empty your cache and delete your temporary internet files. Oh and turn your virus scanner on.
Premium Onsite Support – Here’s where they roll out the red carpet for you! Oh yes Sir! For up to 250 Americano dollars, your “in-home specialist” (does he move in?) will install, configure, restore, optimize, scan and transfer to your heart’s delight…..then he will empty your cache and delete your temporary internet files. Then turn your virus scanner on. Then ask for a cup of coffee.
So what do you think? Should Geek Squad quake in their boots? Is Expert Care a worthy rival? Or are they no different than anyone else? Your thoughts and opinions please Mr / Mrs / Miss Geek!
The more I read about the RealDVD lawsuit (which I blogged last week), the more I feel like I’m listening to a broken record. Haven’t we heard this all before?
Most recently, Wired pointed out how RealDVD is like a bong shop. After all, RealDVD clearly has a notice stating that users should only use the software to copy movies that they own, not rented movies–just like there are signs by all those pretty glass water pipes warning that they are not to be used with “illegal substances.”
If you happen to have a spare $60,000 lying around and you don’t know what to do with it (common problem, happens to us all), then here’s an idea on what to spend it on – a lifesize lego replica of yourself.
Imagine the reactions of friends and family as they come round to your place and standing in the hallway is your lego replica!
Nathan Sawaya is one of six certified Lego professionals in the world and using 16 photos and up to 25,000 bricks, he will do your lego model for you.
Is this something you would like done? Would you consider $60,000 a reasonable price? If you had a lifesize lego model of yourself, what would you do with it? What practical uses could it be used for (apart from showing off!)?
At the moment, I am hopelessly addicted to Mario Kart for the Nintendo DS so this article by the Daily Telegraph was quite interesting. It asks who the greatest ever gaming sidekicks are and offers ten candidates.
In this last order, however, I decided to try something new and different: caffeinated chapstick. I think that I’ve seen at least one other brand at some point, but the kind I’ve tried is 
The more I read about the RealDVD lawsuit (which I 