wed. night tv

I have never been a big Monday night TV watcher with the Dan and Sam crew but I am now a big Wednesday night watcher. Ok, maybe big is the wrong word, lets put it this way. Up until The OC started a couple years back I hadn't had a TV show that I watched week to week in I don't know how long. Then Thursday nights became a night to watch the OC, mostly by myself or draging along some roommates to watch with me. Then I found out that Sam and Dan here started to watch it, they quickly got caught up on what they had missed and it became our Thursday night get together...if you are wondering, the Bowling league came later, but worked out pretty damn nice with our Thursday night thing. Anyway, last year I was introduced to a new show, Project Runway, and it is now part of my Wednesday night watching. This season is almost over, but I will have a good three weeks of getting to watch Project Runway and my new show Lost together. For those of you who aren't into Lost, you need to start. And I don't mean you need to start watching season 3 right away...in fact don't let that thought cross your mind. Do my new favorite thing to do, go buy the first 2 seasons, wait for season 3 to come out on DVD, watch all of it before 4th season starts (if there will be a 4th season) and just like that you are all caught up. Now that everyone knows where we are, on to the kind-of-reviews.

PR - For the first time ever there will be four finalist showing at Fashion Week, normally its only three. Its a pretty cool twist, and should make for a good show. But I have never talked about PR here before and my goal isn't really to start, so lets move on.

LOST - This show is F-U-C-K fucked up. I just finished watching season two last week, which made season 1 look like a walk in the park. But one episode into season 3 and I have no clue what the hell is going on. No idea at all. Normally you can at least follow along with someone or something, but this new story is just crazy. I have a feeling that I personally won't like how all this stuff plays out, but none the less I have to know. Is everyone following along? No? Good. Because you really shouldn't be reading this any more. You should be out there picking up the first two seasons, sending me an E-mail to DVR all season 3 for you and finding yourself lots of time to get caught up in a hurry. Have fun. As a side note, there was a special on earlier this week to recap everything that has happened so far on Lost and our DVR auto recorded it for us, just incase we watch the show or wanted to start. I thought that was kind of niffty.

Blogwha?

Apparently people are slower than I thought they were. I really hope this is confined to England, and that people elsewhere are slightly more aware, more tech savvy, but I doubt it. It turns out that "According to research from Nielsen/NetRatings, people are buying cutting-edge technology but often don't understand the terms that describe what their device actually does." I expected the "jargon" in this article to be esoteric to some degree, if not full-out geek speak. But, no, the terms people don't understand are:

• IM
• Blogging
• Wiki
• Podcasting
• RSS

If the terms weren't on every single goddamn webpage on the all of the Internets, I would have been okay with it. But what really kills me is this: "Millions of people keep in touch via instant messaging but some 57% of online Brits said they did not know that the acronym for it was IM." Wow, where have people been? Apparently living in pre-AOL times. Seriously people, welcome to 1999.

And while, sure, I didn't know that RSS stood for "Really Simple Syndication," I use them all the time and know what they're supposed to do. And at least I have a blog, whatever the hell that is.

Post Script: They did this research with people that are already users of the Internets, not people that still haven't figured out how to turn on their computers. And if you even try to argue generational gap, let me inform you that even my mother knows how to send a text message, and she still sends forwards to people thinking that something magical will happen once she does so.

Monday TV

Deal or No Deal: I hate this show. I can't stop watching it. I want to; I really do. But it's always the only thing on in that time slot and I can't help but to throw away dollar after dollar attempting to win the stupid home game challenge. Damn you Howie Mandel, damn you.

Heroes: Albeit predictable and melodramatic, this show is fun, fun, fun. I'm genuinely excited to see how all these people get pulled together, how they utilize their powers, and why there is a villain at all. I suppose there's always some megalomaniac in the world who wishes to destroy everything for his own pleasure.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: Despite the fact that I've lambasted the show as being too dramatic for its own good, I'm still watching it. If nothing else, there are fantastic nuggets of witty dialogue strewn into the otherwise drab plot.

B[ow]log: The Reunion

Bowling: It's been at least forever since we've gone bowling. Sam's in Seattle and the rest of us are too lazy to stay out late when we have to work in the morning. So, when we started, we started with rather low expectations for ourselves. Ciggy began the night proving those expectations wrong, waiting until he was half-way through the evening to even begin hitting below a 150, ultimately climaxing at a 205 before plummeting to the depths of 120s. Sam, who now works at a bowling alley and thinks he's awesome at bowling, capped the night off with a 224 by nailing 5 strikes in a row in the last 3 frames of the game. Craig bowled wildly and inconsistently, but did, in fact, bowl well for the majority of the night. I started out very slowly, but finally built up my momentum into a 195.

BBH: The gun still didn't work very well, but we had already plugged $12 into the machine. It mostly consisted of holding the gun really close to the screen and shooting it machine gun style. Doug had showed up and was taking turns by substituting for us, but liked YSACing whenever it was my turn. And he had chosen Canada. Lame. I'm only bitter because I lost...or got third place...either way, I didn't win.

Highlights: Sam picked up a 5-7 split. We all found out that Craig still bowled by aiming at the pins. What a n00b.

This is not a list

Begin List:

• America's Next Top Model (ANTM) starts tonight
• Boston Legal (BL) started last night and wasn't as awesome as expected, but still fantastic
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is already overrated (too much melodrama)
• The Thursday TV lineup is fantastic (My Name is Earl, then The Office, then The O.C.)
• Future iterations of Guitar Hero might be going to other platforms (another reason not to feel bad about not buying a PS3)
• FoxFaith now exists
• The Venezuelan President confirms what we all we thinking
• And, finally, the biggest surprise of all: Willie Nelson is a stoner and a hippie

End List.

Trailers

Princess is a Danish animated film about a missionary priest, August, who has to take care of his niece, Mia, after his porn star sister dies. Needless to say 5 year old Mia is pretty fucked up from living with a porn star mother and August feels the best thing he can do is destroy all the porn her mom ever did. What follows is a lot of blood and violence.

Everyone knows what Eragon is and here is the trailer. I haven't read the book, but the movie looks like it might be pretty cool. I am a sucker for dragons and there aren't nearly enough good dragon movies.

This is the IMDB plot outline for Renaissance "In 2054, Paris is a labyrinth where all movement is monitored and recorded. Casting a shadow over everything is the city's largest company, Avalon, which insinuates itself into every aspect of contemporary life to sell its primary export -- youth and beauty. In this world of stark contrasts and rigid laws the populace is kept in line and accounted for." This looks like it will kick ass. Everyone is says its part Sin City and Pary A Scanner Darkly visually. The story is getting mixed reviews.

Here is a little teaser trailer for Saw 3. Who knows about this one. Hope its better than 2.

Severance doesn't look like its going to be as good as Shawn of the Dead, but it might be worth seeing. Its not really a RomZomCom its more of a ComHorThril (?) about an office outing gone bad.

I think Apocalypto is going to be lame, but I could be wrong.

Curse of the Golden Flower is going to kick ass. People are saying its going to be better than Hero and House of Flying Daggers.

The Invisible could be pretty cool. Someone kills this high school kid and his ghost comes back and tries to find out who killed him.

You want to hear the theme song for the Pick of Destiny by the D, and you can do it here...it will fuckin rock your socks off.

11.17.06

Here it is. The Wii release details.

November 17, 2006

$250

I'm there.

b[ow]log: Take lane 18

A few days ago I decided to take a break from my daily job hunt, which was getting pretty frustrating, and go bowling. I looked online and found an alley about 2 miles away. When I got there I started to shoot the shit with the people behind the counter, and after a few minutes the manager offered me a job. Now normally I wouldn't really want to work at a bowling alley especially after going to college and being educated and all the shit (ha), but I have been looking for a job for abouta month and haven't found anything so I was getting pretty desperate. I had told myself that if I didn't get a job by Friday (today) I was going to work at the grocery store. Now I love food, but I love bowling more so this job might be slightly more interesting. It will probably end up being pretty short term (or not), but for now it should be fun/interesting, and its a hell of a lot better than nothing. I start tonight. Just call me Steve.
As far as bowling goes I didn't do to bad- 182, 155, 170, 169. I could tell it had been a while. I was all over the place. I also think I found a league to be on.
I miss bowling with you guys (dan, ciggy, craig). Should I bring the balls when I come back for Moss's wedding? I'm going to be back from Sept. 27- Oct. 3.

Shatner Shatner Shatner

I can never get enough Shatner. While this interview with Wired is not particularly interesting, it does exist, and it does have Shatner answering this question in classic Shatner awesomeness.

WN: I'm glad to hear that. So speaking hypothetically, how do you feel about the possibility of someone else taking on Kirk's gold shirt in the upcoming movie?

Shatner: Well as long as he's good-looking, talented, slim and ... rich, I guess. Lacking any of those elements I would feel very bad.

I sense something; a presence I've not felt since...

Next week Star Wars episodes IV, V and VI will be released individually on DVD for the first time ever. The awesome thing about this is that each will include the original theatrical version. I have held out on buying the Star Wars box set for this. I don't know about you but I like the originals so much more. So what if there were a few mistakes here and there. That just added to the "dirty universe" feel, and I don't want that cleaned up. Of course there are the bigger changes in there too, such as; the new CG Jabba the Hut talking to Solo, the Mos Eisley Cantina scene, the big crowds cheering at the end, and of course Han shoots first...just to name a few. Over at www.starwars.com they have set up a shot by shot guide to the differences between the 1977 original and the 2004 DVD. There are a lot of things I didn't really notice before, but will now.

Don't Hassel the Hoff

Banksy messed with a bunch of Paris Hilton cds. "He replaced Hilton's CD with his own remixes and given them titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For? He has also changed pictures of her on the CD sleeve to show the US socialite topless and with a dog's head." He would sneak into stores and change the cd, but leave the barcode so people could still purchase them. Pretty damn awesome. read here...
There is a great essay over on Metaphilm about Calvin and Hobbes and Fight Club. It talks about how "Jack" in fight club is really just grown up Calvin and his imaginary friend has matured from a stuffed tiger into Tyler Durden. It's a fun read if you are a fan of both, which I am.

In my jobless internet surfing I stubbled across a website called Twitch Guru. It has some great shit such as:
Complete history in insight into the cult films The Warriors and Tron.
A really cool look at the worst GCI in the last 20 years with sections like Bad CGI Orgies, Giant Leaps Backward, Why Didn't They Just Use Real Animals?, The Effects Were Great, Except..., and The Showstoppers.
Most of the stuff is actually video game oriented, which is cool, but it's on a level that I will never reach.

There is a awesome new trailer for Pan's Labyrinth here. I can not wait for this movie.

Here are the two Enchantment Under the Sea Dance" scenes from both Back to the Future I and II synced up. Its fun to watch and see how well maintained continuity.

The new Bruce Campbell movie My Name is Bruce sounds awesome. "Bruce Campbell (playing himself) is mistaken for his EVIL DEAD character, Ash, by the members of small Oregon town and is forced to fight a real monsters terrorizing the town's inhabitants." read more here...
sidenote--that small Oregon town is where I'm from.

Ok I'll stop now. I have way to much (clap, clap) time on my hands. I need a job. I will leave you with this...enjoy.

Ricky Gervais + Microsoft = Hilarious?

Somebody else watch these two videos and tell me if they're worth sitting through the 20 minutes (each). It's Ricky Gervais playing his character from The Office in a faux-training video for Microsoft. I don't have the time. For proof, I'm only linking to these videos and not embedding them...yeah, I'm that lazy.

I would have just sent you to YouTube, but they took them down due to "copyright infringement."

Dear Diary, BRAINS...

Romero just can't get enough of the zombies. They've had a night, a dawn, a day, and a land, and now we welcome the Diary of the Dead. Yes, that's right...the dead now have a diary. Scary, isn't it? There's no news on how the title actually plays into the movie, but I trust that Romero can get his shit together and make yet another fantastic movie about the flesh craving undead. But, seriously, I can just imagine some fantastic zombie voiceovers as the diaries are read:

Dear Diary,
UUuuuuunnnghhhhh...braaaaaains...

strippers in black

Remember that last funeral you went to? Which stripper do you think was the best? Personally I liked Angel's poll work the best, but Porsche had nice eyes. What, strippers at funeral you must think I'm crazy. No, I'm not, but again the Chinese are (remember when they killed all their dogs?). Apparently in China the more people you have attend your funeral the more you are honored, so grieving relatives believed the best way to bring in a crowd was to hire strippers. According to this article "Wealthy families often employed two troupes of performers to attract a crowd". Five strippers have been attested and there is now a hotline where you can report "funeral misdeeds". One question...do you have to tip funeral strippers?

Who?... Us?... Drunk?... No way!

Forbes recently posted a report on the top 35 drunkest cities in the US, and wouldn't you know it, the Midwest has 5 cities in the top 7. Within the last couple of years Mpls/St. Paul has been racking up #1 awards for things like Most Fun City and Most Technologically Advanced but this time around we have to ride shoot-gun to the great city of Milwaukee. But that’s not all that surprising, after all this is about drinking, and Milwaukee is in Wisconsin. What is surprising to me is that Mpls/St. Paul took second. I mean we beat out places like Chitown(6), Seattle(12) and Vegas(14). The other surprise was that cities like New Orleans(24), NY(32) and Miami(33) all ranked pretty low.

To save you the trouble of trying to figure out how all this works, and the hassle of flipping through the shitty slide show, below is a brief explanation of the criteria used to rank the cities and the order in which they ranked.

State Laws: Cities were ranked on a scale of 1 to 8, based on the state laws affecting alcohol sales and consumption in the area, where a city ranked #1 has the least restrictive policies.

Drinkers: Cities were ranked 1 to 35, based on the number of adults who reported having had at least one drink of alcohol within the past 30 days.

Heavy Drinkers: Cities were ranked 1 to 35, based on the number of adult men who reported having had more than two drinks per day, and adult women having had more than one drink per day.

Binge Drinkers: Cities were ranked 1 to 35, based on the number of adults who reported having had five or more drinks on one occasion.

Alcoholism: Cities were ranked based on the number of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings held in the area, as a proportion of the number of residents over the legal drinking age. Higher-ranking cities reported more meetings per capita.

Cities of Note:
Milwaukee – SL: 4, D: 1, HD: 3, BD: 1, A: 3
Minneapolis- SL: 7, D: 2, HD: 12, BD: 3, A: 4
Boston – had a low score of 1 for State Laws.
San Antonio – ranked number 1 in Heavy Drinkers.
Kansas City – ranked number 1 in Alcoholism.
Seattle – SL: 6, D: 5, HD: 18, BD: 21, A: 11
Complete list:
1. Milwaukee, WI
2. Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN
3. Columbus, OH
4. Boston, MA
5. Austin, TX
6. Chicago, IL
7. Cleveland, OH
8. Pittsburgh, PA
9. Philadelphia, PA
10. Providence, RI
11. St. Louis, MO
12. San Antonio, TX
12. Seattle, WA
14. Las Vegas, NV
15. Denver/Boulder, CO
16. Cincinnati, OH
16. Kansas City, MO
18. Houston, TX
19. Portland, OR
20. San Francisco/Oakland, CA
21. Washington/Baltimore, MD
22. Phoenix, AZ
23. Los Angeles, CA
24. New Orleans, LA
24. Tampa, FL
26. Norfolk, VA
27. Dallas/Fort Worth, TX
28. Atlanta, GA
28. Detroit, MI
30. Indianapolis, IN
31. Orlando, FL
32. New York, NY
33. Miami, FL
34. Charlotte, NC
35. Nashville, TN

Kill 'em all

You know how 90% of historical movies are complete bullshit. Well finally someone grew a pair a took responsibility for their actions. David Ayer, who wrote the 2000 movie U-571, apologized for being a bitch. He said "It was a distortion... a mercenary decision to create this parallel history in order to drive the movie for an American audience". Turns out he had the Americans do something the British really did or whatever, I couldn't care less. The point is we should make everybody who has distorted history to sell something apologize and be publicly humiliated- unless whatever they made was better than the actually history, such as History of the World Part 1, Life of Brian, or the upcoming Frank Miller film 300- Anyway go watch the trailer for Bug.

scream

Do you remember when the Stormtrooper falls in A New Hope and screams? Of course you do. If you are like me that scream has reminded you of tons of other screams in other movies. Well I found out today that it is actually the exact same scream. It seams that the scream was recorded in 1951 for the movie Distant Drums. It became known as the "Wilhelm Scream". It became a sound-man inside joke and has been used in some 150ish movies including, but not limited to: Swiss Family Robinson, Mad Max, Star Wars, all 3 Lord of the Rings, all 3 Indiana Jones, Willow, Swamp Thing, Aladdin, Batman Returns, Broken Arrow, The Fifth Element, A Goofy Movie, Reservoir Dogs, Family Guy(TV), Hellboy, Kill Bill 1, Anchorman, Sin City and many many more. See full list and read more here...

I thought this was pretty cool. Make sure to watch VotW.

Speaking of screaming here is the ad for the new supersoaker. What "comes" to mind?

Dumbass makes Illinois pay

Taxpayers in the state of Illinois are now fronting the bill ($510,528.64 to be exact) for a dumbass (Gov. Rod Blagojevich) who wanted to regulate the sale of "violent" videogames. The bill, rightfully so, was turned down and deemed unconstitutional. Ign explains the bill thusly:

The Safe Games Illinois Act would have required retailers to use warning labels in addition to the existing Entertainment Software Ratings Board labels. It also would have forced retailers to post signs within stores explaining the ESRB rating system.

When will these people learn that violent society existed before videogames? I mean, sure, the Inquisition can be blamed on Grand Theft Auto, but the Crusades? Seriously, that was all because of violent movies.

P.K.Dick

Wow, Philip K Dick is everywhere these days...or it seems that way. A Scanner Darkly and Southland Tales are both Dick based. I also, on my way out west, had Paul Giamatti read A Scanner Darkly to me (which was awesome) and I also just read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (I liked it...thanks Dan.), which Blade Runner was based on. Now it looks like the next Gilliam film is going to be "blending a biopic of Phillip K. Dick with an adaptation of his last, unfinished work". It is going to be called The Owl in the Daylight.

Film Ick aslo says this about his future work "As for all of the other next Terry Gilliam films, it seems that funding for both Good Omens and Anything For Billy is provisional, and that circumstances, sadly cannot provide the necessary; The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is at arm's length, though likely to go into production for Jeremy Thomas later in 2007; The Defective Detective is getting a rewrite, to distance it from Tideland, by Fisher King writer Richard LaGravenese." more here...

Thats all I know for now...

Must see trailers

If you're like me, then you probably sit at home on the Internets, watching every film trailer that has been released to the public. If you're not like me, here's a list of trailers you need to watch:

The Departed: New flick by our pal Martin Scorsese. I was apprehensive about what crazy Scorsese was up to now, but after viewing this, I think that he may be officially "back." (Not to mention that Jack Nicholson is just so damn cool.)

The Fountain: Darren Aronofsky hasn't done anything since Requiem for a Dream, and this certainly looks more epic than his previous two films, but dear god, it just...looks...well, go watch the trailer.

The Science of Sleep: Judging from this trailer, it's apparent to me that Michel Gondry doesn't actually need Charlie Kaufman to make a bizarre, fascinating movie. This is definitely on my "most excited to see" list.

The Prestige: Christopher Nolan's idea of dueling magicians, not to be confused with The Illusionist, which looks like the same thing but worse.

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles: Zhang Yimou returning to his roots (i.e., not Hero or House of Flying Daggers) for a slowly paced drama. Definitely not to everybody's liking, but definitely to mine.

Children of Men: Sam mentioned this the comments not too long ago, but I thought I'd put it up on the front page. As he said, "It looks like it might be cool...fun idea anyway." I actually couldn't think of a better way to describe it.

Babel: From the director of Amores Perros and 21 Grams. It seems that he's up to the same old "one thing affects everything" theories, but that never stopped Tom Tykwer, so why should it stop him?

Hollywoodland:From first time silver screen director Allen Coulter. His previous work has included HBO hits Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Sex and the City and Rome. This could work out well for him seeing that it is a movie based on the death of TV Superman star George Reeves.

Beerfest: From the guys that brought us Super Troopers comes a movie about drinking lots of beer and acting like idiots. In other words, its the perfect movie for us guys that run this blog. Also I am really hoping that they were actually drunk for most of the shooting of this film.

Renaissance: I don't really know what to say about this one. It looks really well done, and could easily be a great movie. At the same time it could easily be a re-working of a bunch of other films that have come out lately.

And if you haven't seen trailers for The Transformers, TMNT, Marie Antoinette, Fearless, or Spider-Man III you're probably dead or don't care as much as I do, which means you may as well be dead.

Dieter needs to fly

This year at the Toronto International Film Festival they will be featuring Herzog's Rescue Dawn (which I can't wait for) and Hal Hartley's Fay Grim-the follow up to Henry Fool (which I'm sure Dan can't wait for). Now how long is it going to be till us average folk get to see these movies? I hope soon. Read here...

You're a non-restrictive clause

Neil Gaiman linked to this article, but I feel the need to reiterate it here. This is for all of you (*cough*...*cough*...Sam) that make fun of me for actually knowing how to use the English language. A misused comma is forcing Rogers Communications Inc. to pay $2.13 million more than the company had expected. It all comes from this sentence:

The agreement “shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.”

If you haven't figured it out, the second comma turns the phrase, "and thereafter for successive five year terms" into a non-restrictive clause, thus rendering it a non-essential part of the sentence. In grammatical rules, the phrase could be eliminated without change to the sentence, essentially making it read:

The agreement “shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.”

Whoops. The company with whom Rogers had a contract (Aliant Inc.) discovered this grammatical blunder and is working to exploit it to bail on the contract earlier than Rogers thought they had agreed upon.

And while I almost feel bad for Rogers, kudos to the lawyer of Aliant that discovered the mistake and pursued its exploitation. It really can pay to be a geek.

YOU need this

Have you ever drank a little to much (I personally don't believe there is such a thing) and drunk dialed someone you shouldn't have...maybe an ex, or parent or friend at bar close on a tuesday when you are unemployed and they are not and didn't remember there was a time change? Have you ever driven just over the limit...say a .10 and thought you were fine, but ended up getting busted? Don't you wish there was something to stop all this? Well now there is. LG has created the LP4100- a phone with a built in breathalyzer. You can use it as just a plain old breathalyzer or you can program it to not let you call certain numbers in your phone book after you have reached a predetermined level of intoxication. This is an advancement in phone technology I did not see coming, but I like it. I never drunk dial or drive after drinking or anything like that, but it might be fun to be out and see who could blow the highest. What will they think of next? Article here...

668

It looks like the next movie Gilliam is going to make will be Good Omens. I hope this time things work out I would bet on something going wrong. Read here.
It might start filming this winter which means that Depp wont be able to be in it (he's busy I guess), which would be to bad. Robin Williams and Johnny Depp as Aziraphale and Crowley would kick ass. Read here.

Here are little sections from Neils last few posts on his blog.
8-1 "...and I'm off working with a friend on a project we've tried to get off the ground since 1998, and he's busy and I'm busy, but this week it's happening, or at least starting. And I'm being much too secretive about it right now, but one day, or at least when it's a bit further along, I won't be. (And I'm pretty sure I've talked about it somewhere on this blog already.)"

8-2 "The Mystery Project is going just fine, thank you."

8-4 "The work goes well. I'm enjoying it. At the end of yesterday we realised that after three days of reading and scribbling we had actually done some work, and that this was good. Now comes the hard bit of writing together and seeing what happens. Wish me luck."

...Good Omens II?

why isn't it americas past time?

Chinese county clubs to death 50,000 dogs.
"Dogs being walked were seized from their owners and beaten to death on the spot."
"Owners were offered 63 cents per animal to kill their own dogs before the teams were sent in"
"killing teams entered villages at night creating noise to get dogs barking, then beat the animals to death"

Pictures and rest of article here.

why is it americas past time?

I think this might be why...

E3 to be "intimate"

Rumors that E3 (the big, annual videogame expo) would be no more were flying around the internets all day today. And, now, it's been confirmed that E3 is being put to sleep. Well...put to sleep as a giant money-devouring lights & laser show. It will be revived next year as a more "intimate" affair, "hosting press events and small meetings with media, retailers, and developers."

So, who cares? Well, not me. I'll still get the same videogame information and news out of E3 (or whatever they'll call it) next year as I did this year. So, who loses? People who weren't actual journalists or industry insiders that managed to score passes to the show only to play the videogames and never actually write anything about them or contribute to the overall buzz that press conferences are meant to create.

Geek out.

New GH2 tracks

Ign's got the scoop on the 11 official tracks to be featured in Guitar Hero II. Of course, there will be many, many more, but here's what we're looking at right now:

• Reverend Horton Heat: "Psychobilly Freakout"
• KISS: "Strutter"
• Black Sabbath: "War Pigs"
• Butthole Surfers: "Who Was in My Room Last Night?"
• Van Halen: "You Really Got Me"
• Rush: "YYZ"
• Primus: "John the Fisherman"
• Drist: "Arterial Black"
• Stone Temple Pilots: "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart"
• Anthrax: "Madhouse"
• Motley Crue: "Shout at the Devil"

There was a rumor that "The New Black" by Every Time I Die would be included in GH2, but nothing official has confirmed that. We can only hope.

You've got the touch...

Ken Jennings makes fun of Jeopardy and Alex on his blog. Here is the story. Pretty funny.

Looks like the did get Peter Cullen to be the voice of Optimus Prime in the new Transformers. He was Prime's voice in the TV show and old movie (which I just watched this morning).

Tarantino's part of Grind House is called Death Proof and the villain will be Kurt Russell. more...

lots of stuff going down at the comic-con.

Against the Day

Thomas Pynchon has a new novel coming out December 5 of this year. Despite the fact that amazon.com lists it as untitled, The Modern Word has said it is titled Against the Day. He wrote his own book description, and here it is:

Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.

With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.

As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.

Meanwhile, the author is up to his usual business. Characters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur. If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction.

Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck.

Gaiman's offspring

Over at Ain't It Cool there is part one of two of a walkthrough of the Stardust set. From everything I have read about this movie it is going to kick ass.

Also Gaimans son Mike has created a site where you ask the internet questions...well you ask the people on the internet questions anyway. It's a pretty cool idea and could be big if people start using it. Right now its just in the beta version. deatinter.net

The Neil Gaiman tribute cd came out this week. Where's Neil When You Need Him? has 17 songs by various artists singing about Neil's work. I haven't found it yet but have heard a few of the songs. Most of the songs are about Sandman so you bitches that have yet to read it need to get on the ball.

The San Diego Comic Con is going on now and I'm sure we'll get a bunch a great comic/movie news from it...like maybe the Stardust clip they are going to show. If anyone finds it let me know. IGN keeps up on stuff here.

B[ow]log-Medford, OR

I took the old man bowling this after noon. It has been a month and 3 days since I last rolled so needless to say I was going through withdrawals. I thought I was be rusty but I ended up doing fairly well...180,183 and a weak 166. Still was a 176 average. 3 turkeys and a quad. I need to get on a league out here.

Have any of the other Bitches been bowling?

eye of the tiger

I just found the new Rocky trailer here.

The new Butch Walker came out today. I havn't got it yet but I will write up a short review when I do.

I did get the new Cash and I have only listened to it once, but so far its awesome...of course.

Heres a short review of the new Pirates- It sucked. I was disappointed. It did have some awesome parts, but as a whole it just felt like nobody put much effort into it because they new that they could just live off the success of the first one. I would say rent it or go see it in the cheep theater.

It may be a little early to start thinking about the next election, but Doug Stanhope has my vote. Website here.
"Stanhope in 08 - Drunk with Power"

I am going down to see my Dad in Oregon tomorrow, so I will have a lot more time to sit on my ass and post...till then bitches.

A night of food and comedy

Last night marked my first of many times that I will be going to the Acme Comedy Club. They have this deal where if it's your birthday month, you can get free tickets for a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday show. Being that it was Kate's birthday in June, we surveyed their calendar and thought, hey, we've seen this Bil Dwyer guy on Last Comic Standing, he's decently funny. If nothing else, we're not losing any cash and we can see if it's worth going to in the future.

Before the show, we hit up Sticks, the restaurant connected (and within) Acme. A bit pricey ($15-$25 for an entree or pasta dish), but well worth it. We then headed into the venue. The seating is assigned, but there isn't a bad seat in the joint. They've got tables set up and waiters that wander throughout the night, bringing you more beer (no alcohol is probably one of the biggest downfalls of all the larger shows I've been to at the Fitzgerald or the Orpheum).

I'd delve into the entire show, but I don't remember the opener/MC's name despite the fact that he had some great bits. They're having an amateur comedy competition in which three people do three minutes of comedy to see if they can progress to the next round. One was incredibly not funny, and two were trying to be Dane Cook and were sort of funny. But they don't really matter.

Jackie Kashian did the next set. At first, I didn't think she was that funny, but I was proved wrong as the night went on and became increasingly more angry and geeky. It's hard for me to review her (or any comedian for that matter), so I'll just say that it was pretty damn hilarious and worth checking out.

Bil Dwyer was great. I've seen him only on Last Comic Standing, and he's a lot more tame on TV than he is in real life. No, it wasn't revolutionary comedy like Hedberg, Hicks, etc., but it was funny, really funny. He did a lot of quick bits with unexpected/clever endings, but more than one-liners. The show was congruent and flowed really well from one subject to the next. His stage presence is great, and his set was simply a good time overall.

In future comedy news: both Josh Blue and Doug Benson will be coming to Acme (in August and September, respectively). We already bought the dinner & a show package to Blue's show, and anyone interested in comedy at all probably should as well. (He's the extremely funny one on Last Comic Standing with cerebral palsy, by the way.)

Superman Returns

Any one besides me seen this yet? I realize that it just came out today (unless you are a geek like me and went and saw the 10:00 show last night). Anyway, go see this movie. But before you do that you need to go through Brians check list of needs for seeing Superman Returns.

1. See Superman I
2. See Superman II
3. DO NOT see Superman III or IV (Superman Returns is the new III).
3. Don't be one of those douches that thinks superman isn't interesting.

Ok now that you have done those 4 things you are all set to see Superman Returns.

Some things to look for:
- Brandon Routh - ok, he looks a little young but he does a great job at taking over both Clark and Superman.
- Kevin Spacey - Amazing. Up there in top bad guy area. Has a little more of a new era evil to him, but still has some of that great 70's silliness.
- Parker Posey - not only can she keep up with Spacey and Superman, she just might steal a scene or two.
- And don't forget to catch the return of Marlon Brando as Jor-El, fantastic.
- Little things giving a shout out to I & II during the movie.
- The opening credits, Original John Williams opening music, with slightly updated credit text.
- And for the lucky ones you get to see the new Spiderman III trailer, and you will crap your pants with excitement.

For a great review of this movie go to IGN

true guitar heros

So I could wait for next week to put this up as the V of the W but I just can't wait that long.
Enjoy.



DragonForce - Through the Wire

R.I.P. Eddie

The dog that played Eddie on the show Frasier has died. The dog, Moose, was 16 years old. Apparently, he retired from acting when he was 10 and his son, Enzo, took over for him. He wrote an autobiography, co-written by Brian Hargrove. All I can think is, wow, that is one talented dog...he can act and he can manage to get a ghost-writer for his autobiography. Truly Hollywood.

In this corner...Uwe Boll...

I had read about this a while ago on IGN, but I'm too damn lazy to find the link again. Apparently, Uwe Boll is challenging critics of his movie to a fight...literally. He wants them to get into the boxing ring with him and duke it out. He's going to film it and then insert it into his new movie, Postal. It makes sense to me. Seeing as the guy can't use his brain or articulate anything clearly, he resorts to violence, which I find to be strange, fantastic, and horrifying all at the same time.

Say cheese for your statue, Gromit

The iconic stop-motion animated Wallace & Gromit are getting a statue in their birthplace, Bristol. I think this is a fantastic idea. I love walking around St. Paul and seeing all the different Peanut characters immortilized throughout the city. For some reason, I find the idea of lovable and familiar cartoon characters on the same level as Joyce, Wilde, and others carved into form oddly comforting. I do, however, think it would be amusing if, say, 1000 years from now, when humanity has been destroyed and some other species of life roams the earth, they think our heroes were a flaming Irishman, a bald-, spherical-headed young boy with a wisp of hair, a beagle, a cheese-loving Englishman, and a silent, but brilliant, dog.

Seven Samurai Heaven

This is why I waited to buy Seven Samurai. I realize some may think I'm lying when I say that Kurosawa is my favorite director, and that I actually enjoy sitting through 3 and a half hour long epics about samurai and feudal Japan, but I love, love, love it. I'm just hoping they do something to the Kurosawa samurai box set so that I can buy the others in one spot.

So, the big news? Criterion is now releasing a 3-disc special edition of Seven Samurai on September 5. Here's the details:

• All-new, restored high-definition digital transfer
• Two audio commentaries: one by film scholars David Desser, Joan Mellen, Stephen Prince, Tony Rayns, and Donald Richie; the other by Japanese-film expert Michael Jeck
• A 50-minute documentary on the making of Seven Samurai, part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create
• My Life in Cinema, a two-hour video conversation between Akira Kurosawa and Nagisa Oshima produced by the Directors Guild of Japan
• Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences, a new documentary looking at the samurai traditions and films that impacted Kurosawa's masterpiece
• Theatrical trailers and teaser
• Gallery of rare posters and behind-the scenes and production stills
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Peter Cowie, Philip Kemp, Peggy Chiao, Alain Silver, Kenneth Turan, Stuart Galbraith, Arthur Penn, and Sidney Lumet and an interview with Toshiro Mifune
• More!

MyRape

A 14-year old girl is suing MySpace for enabling sexual assault, claiming that it didn't do enough to protect her. The article says this:

The girl claims that 19-year-old Pete Solis falsely identified himself as a member of a local high school football team before she provided him with a phone number, according to the Chronicle.

She ought to sue her phone company for allowing the call to be made at all. Seriously, it's our right to give out our phone numbers to people on the internets who claim they are someone safe...or a player for the local high school football team. I think that it's the phone companies' responsibility to protect us from being fucking idiots.

No Mischa Barton...Ha

Askmen.com has its list of the top 99 women (there was an add on IGN and it caught my eye).
The noteworthy ones are-
Samaire Armstrong at 75
Rachel Bilson at 72 (should have been 1)
Scarlett Johansson at 28
and the top 3 are--
3-Angelina Jolie
2-Sienna Miller
1-Jessica Alba
There are a lot of other good ones, but most are bitches I hate or thought were dead.

And a happy Bloomsday to all!

In honor of Bloomsday, I leave you with two rather disparate quotes from Ulysses. The first is a quote about good old Ireland:

Vulcanic lake, the dead sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind would lift those waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's clutching a noggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world.

And this one is about...well, I think you'll see:

He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation.

And Nora, his eventual wife, summed it up best when she said this of Joyce:

I guess the man's a genius, but what a dirty mind he has, hasn't he?

1st post from the west

Find all the movie titles in this picture. Some are pretty cool.

Over on IGN they are having a 100 stars pick their favorite TV moments. This is day 2.

Good Tucker Max review of the "The Alphabet of Manliness."

Thats it for now...I have to go look for a place to live.

Awesome Knife Envy

I'm running with a theme today, and that theme is cooking. Via Wired, I found a slideshow of The Coolest Kitchen Accessories from Forbes.com. Some of them are, in fact, pretty damn cool. Others are just necessary. Despite the fact that we own the Kitchen Aid mixer, the list does make our kitchen feel a bit inadequate; it has "awesome knife" envy...or that's just me.

Note: The slide show does pass through some stuff rather quickly, so you may need to slow it down to read the descriptions. If you want a detailed reason for why you should be cooking, go to the Wired page first.

Hell's Kitchen 2.01–2.02

I don’t usually get into reality shows. The idea of watching people attempt to survive in a predetermined wilderness or coax a predetermined someone to love them while being videotaped and followed by a large camera crew isn’t my idea of reality nor is it good television. Competitions in which people are thrust into difficult situations wherein they must prove their specific abilities for an end goal without touting that the show is like watching people who aren’t aware of the cameras is much cooler. Take a few other things I enjoy—food, cooking, and an asshole—and you’ve got yourself, no not good old food porn, but Hell’s Kitchen.

I watched the majority of first season with trace amounts of obsession. Watching people who have varying amount of cooking skills suffer through what is essentially executive chef boot camp is somehow compelling. Chef Ramsey is a loud, obnoxious, perfectionist who enjoys screaming and swearing at his chefs to somehow drive them to the epitome of their abilities. They’re put through rigorous exercises and then forced to attempt to run the kitchen with customers who walk out on them, complain, etc. (and who wouldn’t if they waited two hours without receiving their food).

Overall, the characters just aren’t as interesting as they were last season (nobody has “head chef” tattooed on their knuckles, for one). Obviously, with only two episodes thus far, they’ve only been able to give a spattering of information about each one, and I’m sure they’ll become more interesting by the end. So far, we’ve had some basic background, one person has been kicked off for not being able to do anything, one left the show because his body was stressed out, and one was kicked off for not getting any of his entrées out. There has been one fire and one bad burn. Sounds fun to me.

Highlights: when someone is kicked off the show, instead of just impaling his or her chef’s coat on a coat rack, now the picture above bursts into flames. It’s just so amusing that I can’t help giggling every time it happens.

B[ow]log: Rolling (me: downhill)

A few weeks ago, Sam and I were at the top of our games. In one night, we both averaged over 180; the next night, Sam was still above 180 and I was in the 160s. That pattern has been holding relatively steadily. Sam's been holding strong around the 160s, and I keep dropping lower and lower. Last night, I started with a 165 and just kept on trucking downhill. I did connect 3 out of 5 team turkeys and picked up a 2-4-10 split. So that at least made me feel good about my life. Sam had a lot of turkeys and at least one quad. He bowled two 180 games and a lot of other solid games. Craig took second place by keeping a rather consistent 150-160 game.

Highlights: Turkeys (team and individual) galore, a split pick up, Craig Christ's insane holy pin action, and the fact that the lane almost never picked up the 8 pin (even if you throw it in the gutter on your first roll).

All Hail

Hello everyone and happy 666. The day that only comes once every thousand years and we are privileged enough to live through it. Go out of your way to do something that would make the dark lord happy.
"It's all for you Damien."

Tumble dried babies

Tip for the day: always check your girlfriend's baby's tag before attempting to dry the child. You may think that it needs a good tumble dry after spilling a drink on itself, but if you had just checked, you would have noticed that it said "hand dry only." This particular baby apparently suffered "serious burns to both feet and her left hand as well as bruising to her face and back." At least he didn't iron her afterward.

Stating the obvious

After Nintendo announced very little about the release date/price of the Wii (they said that it would come out in Q4 this year and be less expensive than the PS3), they've now decided to tell everybody that it will come out this Fall (Q4) and less than $250 (less than the PS3). Seeing as analysts and anyone with a brain have been saying that the Wii will most likely be priced between $150 and $250, we have gained absolutely no new information on the release date/price. What I would like to know is why there are 221 news threads about this waste of an "announcement."

Geek Art

I found this site via Clive Thompson's blog (one of the contributor's to Wired). Jeremiah Palecek does oil paintings of scenes in video games. The one to the left, here, is an 8 by 4 foot painting of a scene from Counterstrike. He's got some fun paintings of Joust and Super Mario Bros. as well. Call me a geek, but this is the sort of thing I just find so damn entertaining about the internets. His site doesn't display well on Explorer, but that only affects about 2 of you.

House: Season Finale

House usually follows a fairly predictable pattern: someone somewhere has a medical crisis. They are brought into the hospital wherein Dr. House and his associates diagnose this person. They're wrong for a while, House has a revelation, and then they're cured (with the few exceptions in which people die). This episode started with a case...then a former patient barges in and shoots House.

The rest of the show details House dealing with mental deterioration and the case at hand all whilst the shooter (shot by security) lays in a hospital bed next to him and challenges House to analyze his life and determine why he is the way he is (an asshole). His leg is fixed and yet his mind is falling apart. It soon becomes clear that not everything is real, and the show becomes a perplexing amalgamation of hallucinations until the audience is not entirely clear (as we say) what the fuck is going on. As House comes to terms with his prickishness, he becomes increasingly aware of how unreal his reality is. The show climaxes with a scene of House taking controls of a surgical robot and cutting a patient from belly button to chest, innards spilling and all. House then wakes just after the shooting, being wheeled into surgery.

This episode did something it very rarely does; it broke the mold and delved more into his character than the solving of a case (in this way it's rather similar to last year's season finale). I found it to be rather gripping, and for an audience member who has watched this show rather ritualistically who knows the characters very well, it was refreshing (and necessary) for the writers to give the most interesting part of the show (House) the main focus for a change. That's not to say that the patient's side story wasn't interesting; it was. Seriously, how can a guy whose tongue is expanding and have an eye and testicle explode with large sprays of blood not be interesting?

I watch the show for multiple reasons. I find the cases fascinating, the gore titillating, and the writing clever. But the primary reason (and the only reason that gives the show a point of difference) is House: his personality, his one-liners, and his history. To put it simply, the season finale rewarded all of us who watch the show regularly with an in depth look at what we care about the most. Without these, the show may as well be any other medical drama. This episode proved that it wasn't.

New-Car Smell Wombs

In honor of Sam & I now owning cars with mufflers, quiet engines, and CD players that work, I have decided to link to Lore Sjöberg's article about rental cars and why they are better than his car. Here are some highlights.

Comfort:

...my car has one bar to move the seat back and forth, and one to move the seat up and down. But they don't really move the seat, they just loosen it so that I can jerk around like three go-go dancers roped together, trying to get it into place. By comparison, my rental has an ingenious little knob that gently tucks my body into perfect ergonomic balance. It's like a womb with new-car smell. Actually, for all I know, wombs do have new-car smell. Maybe that's why we like new-car smell so much.

Buttons on the steering wheel:

Rental cars these days also have buttons all over the steering wheel, which makes me very happy. This is because like all rational, mature adults, I want to be Speed Racer. All I need is a child and his chimp in the trunk and I'm ready to rock. It's not precisely totally 100 percent the same, though, because Speed's buttons transformed the car into a boat and launched a robot homing pigeon, while my buttons engage cruise control. In all honesty, I'm about 400 times more likely to use cruise control as I am to need a robot pigeon, but it would be nice to have both.

Katamari.Success

A while ago, I posted about crazy people who were going to roll a giant Katamari through San Francisco. Well, they did it, and here are the stats:

• 0.25 miles: Distance rolled from truck to official start line
• 5.05 miles: Course distance from start line to Pioneer Mother statue
• 5.30 miles: Total
• 8 feet: Beginning height of Katamari
• 4 feet: Ending height of Katamari
• 1,476: Approximate number of times the Katamari ball rolled
• 1/32 inch: Average shrinkage in Katamari height per roll
• 200lbs: Estimated distributed starting weight of Katamari
• 31: number of people katamari rolled over
• 10: number of people who katamari-surfed
• 1: number of smurfs who katamari-surfed
• 500: number of times we were asked "what is that?"
• 6,203: number of times we were asked "is there somebody in there?"
• 100: % belief when we answered with "yes"

Chris Kohler over at Wired's Game|Life covered the action as well and sums it up well:

Oddly enough, as you might have noticed, this was actually Katamari Damacy in reverse: they began the day with a huge Katamari, which got progressively smaller and lost items as they rolled it. Still, though: a job well done. And, as so many Bay to Breakers spectators say after watching the race: next year, I'm gonna run it.

Supergaiman & Rogers

An article that Neil Gaiman and Adam Rogers (a senior editor for Wired) wrote about the myth of Superman is up on the Internets. It's short; it's fun; it's a bit like watching the end of Kill Bill vol. 2, but without having to insert a DVD and skip through scenes to find it. This really gets right down to it:

Other heroes are really only pretending: Peter Parker plays Spider-Man; Bruce Wayne plays Batman. For Superman, it’s mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent that’s the disguise – the thing he aspires to, the thing he can never be. He really is that hero, and he’ll never be one of us. But we love him for trying. We love him for wanting to protect us from everything, including his own transcendence. He plays the bumbling, lovelorn Kent so that we regular folks can feel, just for a moment, super.

For the oenophiles

Via Wired, I came across this site called Cork'd, which lets you catalogue the bottles of wine you own, write journals, reviews, become "drinking buddies" with other users, create wish lists, and pretty much makes a lot of things cool and handy. It's free and seems like it'd be a lot of fun if all of us wine snobbish people signed up. I'm going to go do it right now.

another one...

I started another blog. Bitches will still be my main one, but the new one is more casual. I have it set up so I can blog from my sidekick so I can post pics from my phone or random things I think of (the main motivation behind this is that I thought it would be fun drunk). I guess I'll see if it works out. Go to it here.

TV Alignment

Fox has just announced their fall lineup. To be honest, I don't really give a shit about most of it. The important thing is that The O.C. is staying in its spot and The Loop was renewed (at least a mildly funny show with potential, which is at least better than most of Fox's comedies). It seems that things in the world of television are being aligned correctly, as NBC announced not too long ago that it would be rearranging its Thursday night lineup, which ought to give me a chance to start watching The Office and My Name is Earl again (which will be playing an hour earlier). Now, if somebody would move around Tuesday night, my week of sitting on my ass and watching TV would be complete.

animated meat

Read about Jan Svankmajer's new movie here. "Described by Svankmajer himself in a prologue to the film as a ’philosophical horror film,” Lunacy combines live action and stop-motion, sex and violence, grand guignol terror and gallows humor, and a lot of animated meat." I can't wait.

Pretty cool Q and A with Herzog here.

Michel Gondry's new movie staring Jack Black sounds like it's going to kick ass. It's called Be Kind Rewind and is about Black becoming magnetized and erasing all the tapes at a friends video store.

bitch?

David Blaine is a bitch. After failing to hold his breath for just 9 minutes at the end of his 2 hour TV thing he is already trying to get back in the spotlight by announcing his next "act". Blaine says "I'm planning to live harmoniously among wild beasts. And I'd like to do it alone in the jungle." Ok Dave, whatever, you and the camera crew...

Great interview with Henry Rollins here. He is not a bitch. Great part with him talking about Herzog.
"...when Werner Herzog came in, a man I've never met, I didn't exactly gush… but I did go, "Damn! I am really honored to meet you." I said, "You mean so much to me. Thank you so much for coming." And he was a wonderful guest, but I was like, "Mr. Herzog…" "No, call me Werner!" I said, "Okay! Man, I don't know if I can fully express what this means to me." And I was being very honest. I really think that, as far as movies go, he's really for me a cornerstone for modern film. I said, "You know, you're kind of an outsider to Hollywood." He went, "No, Hollywood is an outsider to me."

End of the season for Boston Legal tonight. If you don't watch your a bitch.

My point exactly

This is pretty much what I've been saying about the advantages of Nintendo's system over the others:

Miyamoto explained that the number of in homes is "really not that high, yet. Of course I think five years down the road it would be pretty much a given that would create an HD system, but right now the predominant television set in the world is a non-HD set." Miyamoto added: "We thought it would be better to create a system that allows you to interact with any set you have in your home in an entirely new, different way, and even kind of turn that into a toy for your TV that anyone can pick up, interact with and enjoy - rather than only the people who have a very high-tech, specific kind of TV set."

Age of Consent

This article really stabs at the heart of the issue: how old is the age of consent...for someone to eat your body? 43, apparently, is not the answer. 44 year old Armin Meiwes met with 43 year old Bernd Juergen Brandes to eat him, voluntarily. This is what happened:

The pair met at Meiwes's home in Rotenburg in March 2001, where they had sex before Meiwes cut off Brandes's penis, which the men then cooked and attempted to eat. Meiwes later stabbed and killed Brandes, before cutting him to pieces and freezing parts of his body, some of which he later ate.

Meiwes received an 8 and a half year sentence on a count of manslaughter. A judge seemed to think this was too lenient and ordered a retrial. I think this is good information for any of us thinking about logging on to the Internets, roaming chat rooms, and finding that one person that is not only okay with dying, but with being eaten. Please, people, wait until the age of consent: human meat doesn't taste good until your 50 anyway.

$499...worth it?

I saw on the news this morning that PS3 has an official release time of late November and it is going to be $499. By that time I will be out of school and making the big bucks...but anyway I was wondering if I should plan on getting one or not.
I went to IGN and watched the trailer for Final Fantasy XIII which convinced me on the spot that I will buy a PS3 for this game alone. If you (dan/ciggy) haven't seen this you need to watch it.

Here is a video about Guitar Hero 2. Looks awesome. I like the last shot.

This is kind of a half assed post, but I'm sure Dan and Ciggy will have much to add.

I am downloading the Metal Gear Solid 4:Guns of the Patriots trailer right now, which if it deals with the patriots it will kick ass

Once you start...

See the Snakes on a Plane poster here.

Ian McKellen talks about a Magneto spin-off movie that will take place in his early years.

IGN starts a TV page with a list of the 25 must watch shows. I agree with most but Veronica Mars, Survivor and Prison Break (First 5 episodes were great, but we all know what happens when you start rolling down hill...). What the hell guys.

David Blaine goes for a world record tonight. He is going to "Hold his breath for 9 minutes or die trying." You may ask your self how long a program about a guy holding his breath for 9 minutes would be. I think a 2 hour slot on ABC tonight should be about right.

And on Halloween this year we get Saw III. I think the down hill rule still applies here.

Original Unaltered Trilogy

It sounds like all the nerds have finally bitched enough, thank the lord, and Lucasfilm and Fox have decided to release the original theatrical edition of movies IV, V, and VI. So far I have only been able to find this reported at starwars.com and hollywoodreporter.com (registration), but it sounds like they will be released on Sept. 12th and will be available until Dec. 31st. The DVD's will be two discs with both the 2004 remastered version and the originals. I can't wait.

Vespa Mafia

My favorite part of this story is not that James Gandolfini (of The Sopranos) got hit by a taxi; it's that he was driving a Vespa. I don't know about anyone else, but I think a Vespa Mafia would be both awesome and completely non-threatening...and, if it doesn't already exist, he should consider founding it.

Also: if you go here, you will see a great number of fantastic headlines about this incident. Some of my favorites are: "James Gandolfini aka Tony Soprano Gets Whacked by Taxicab!," "Gandolfini bada-binged in Big Apple," and "Gandolfini Gets Bada-Binged While On Scooter." The fact that two sources used "bada-binged" is hilarious.

the 5th of may...

Some voices have been cast from Where the Wild Things Are. I think this Movie is going to be awesome. Directed by Spike Jonze and writen by Dave Eggers, and now staring the following; Benicio Del Toro, Michael Berry Jr., Paul Dano, Tom Noonan, Catherine O'Hara(,) and Forest Whitaker. More here...

You can watch some exclusive footage from the third installment of one of this generations great trilogies here. Just make sure the Tokyo Drift doesn't take you.

Wayne Brady will not choke a bitch for your amusement.

Katamari Live

This may be the only time that I wish I lived in San Francisco. A group of people are organizing a giant katamari roll, picking up stuff along as they roll the beast through the city. Made out of old refrigerator boxes and random stuff, this is what it looks like:

200th post

I figured there's no better way to celebrate our 200th post than with a slide show of Forbes.com's "coolest beers." Unfortunately (and it's probably because of my exposure to fantastic beers via the Muddy Pig), I was rather disappointed with their selection. I've had some of the beers on their list, and I've had much better ones. Where's the Skullsplitter, bitches?

Mitch Hedberg Tribute Show

Writing about a show like this is difficult. Besides the insanely huge lineup (12 comics total), it was simply a surreal experience. Before the show began, a slide show of pictures of Mitch ran with typical slow music in the background, making me feel like I had stepped into something more personal than I had anticipated. Family and friends were scattered in the audience (a large group of family was sitting behind us). Every performer that stood on the stage recounted funny/endearing moments they spent with Mitch. In one particularly awkward/touching/hilarious moment, Lynn Shawcroft (Mitch’s widow) got on stage with some of his old notebooks and read various jokes/notes that had never materialized into anything he did on stage.

Before I go any further, you ought to know that this was the lineup (in no particular order): Dave Attell, Nick Swardson, Patton Oswalt, Greg Behrendt, Mike Birbiglia, Doug Benson, Dave Mordal, Lynn Shawcroft, Todd Barry, Bonnie McFarlane, Rich Vos and Tim Slagle.

I had heard of a few. I knew Oswalt, Attell, and Behrendt were hilarious people. I played random bits from some of the other comics a few days prior to seeing the show. All I can say is that none of them disappointed (although I didn’t find Slagle that funny). Birbiglia, too me, was the funniest set there and a name I’ll remember (although mispronounce) when I’m checking the listings in the future. Although that’s a bit unfair, as all of these people are worth seeing again and a 10 minute set isn’t enough time to fully appreciate their talents.

The show ended with a clip of Mitch on Letterman (not the one that I have set for the VoW) and a standing ovation for the performers, Mitch’s parents, and, ultimately, Mitch. I’m really unsure of what else to say other than it was unbelievable and the best comedy show I’ve ever been to (and probably the best I’ll see in a long time). It was well worth the $95 we dropped on it to sit in the 3rd row of the pit. If I could translate how hard I laughed into a solid review, I would; instead, I’ll leave you with my ramblings.