12/30/2008 - Pizza Delivery Fail

I go out to eat a lot because, frankly, I don't cook. I know I'm paying more than I would if I bought the ingredients myself and made the meal, but you can't beat the convenience of drive-thru. The only thing I have to put out of my mind, though, is what goes on behind the scenes of a restaurant. I just don't want to know if someone back there has a cold or if someone didn't wear gloves while handling the food. That's why footage like this scares me:



Well, at least it was on the floor for less than 5 seconds.

12/28/2008 - 100 Movie Spoilers in 5 Minutes

I always tell myself not to look at the spoilers on the internet for shows or movies that I am watching or going to watch, but I just can't help myself. I can't say whether or not it really takes away from the overall enjoyment I have while watching a movie that I already know a lot about, but certain things are meant to be surprises and I guess it's better not knowing them beforehand. For example, I read about "deaths" in X-Men 3, but as I was reading them, they seemed incredulous and I sort of brushed them off. But sure enough, the spoilers were true and nothing in the film gave me any surprise... just the opposite, actually. But then you have a movie like the original Planet of the Apes where I knew of the famous ending long before I watched the whole movie, and it still felt powerful to me. That's the difference between a good movie and a mediocre movie, regardless of surprising plot developments.

So if you're a spoiler-hound like me, you may appreciate this video:

12/27/2008 - Sadie's Gaming Infection (2 Videos)

OK, if you happen to know a video game voice actor, you could probably get them to do their famous voice for you and have it be put on YouTube. But getting four famous video game voices? Now THAT'S an accomplishment:



And how is it that "UltraNeko" got four voice actors to leave voice messages? She's actually the star of a series of YouTube gaming videos called "Sadie's Gaming Infection", and I have to say that it ROCKS. I haven't been this addicted to a series of gaming videos since the Angry Video Game Nerd series started, and that's saying a lot. UltraNeko/Sadie reviews games of all kinds (not just the bad ones) in a weekly show that gives her live first impressions of a game.

What's amazing about these reviews is that they are not scripted. James Rolfe does the best scripted reviews of games, but Sadie responds spontaneously to what is on the screen while still playing through the game. It's also refreshing to see a true girl gamer (don't call her a gamer chick) have a level of success in the industry of game reviews. She knows her stuff and has connections that, as they say in the MasterCard commercials, are priceless. Here's one review that exemplifies the series:



Yes, the second movie F@(K1NG RULES!

12/25/2008 - Santa's helpers disable naughty cameras in Tempe

Merry Christmas everybody! I'm not exactly a speeder when it comes to driving, but I do get paranoid by the red light cameras on the road that takes pictures of your license plate if you go speed through a red light and mails you a ticket. I always wonder what would happen if the cameras malfunctioned and got the wrong car ticketed. How exactly would you fight that in court? Anyway, it looks like some enterprising gentlemen in Tempe took it upon themselves to fight the oppressive local government there. They did so, however, in some very festive costumes:

12/23/2008 - Tourettesguy Tank soundpack - L4D

With the huge price discrepancies between gaming consoles and gaming PC's, I've always wondered why anyone would pay north of $2000 for an overclocked PC to play games when a console at a fraction of the price would suffice. But then I remembered that you can't hack a console game as easily as you can a PC game. Even replacing the sound effects for a game can be a profound experience. I remember back in high school we played an unofficial Star Trek game called NetTrek, and we would replace the phaser and torpedo sounds with sounds from the Monty Python shows. Needless to say, the "SPAM" sound still is ingrained into my subconscious to this day.

While that was fun and sort of amateurish, this sound replacement pack for the new game Left 4 Dead really takes the cake. Apparently, you can play as a large monster called Tank and you can go and hunt the protagonists in the game in some sort of deathmatch mode. Someone had enough sense to dub in sounds from the Tourettes Guy videos for Tank and it seems pretty appropriate (language warning):

12/21/2008 - Star Wars Vs. Star Trek - DMP Edition HQ

These Star Wars/Star Trek videos never get old. This one is actually more in a humorous vein and addresses the technological divide between the two universes. While Star Wars tech is decidedly less advanced than that of Star Trek, Star Wars has a little trick up its sleeve:

12/20/2008 - Ice Sculpture Fail

I spent two and a half hours the other day installing new servers into our server rack at work only to discover that the servers did not have the operating system installed in them. It was a lot of work for basically no reward. And yet, it wasn't nearly as bad as what happens to the sculpture artist in this video:



And this is why there is a need for math and physics classes.

12/18/2008 - SlashBot: The Guitar Hero Robot

How hard is a Guitar Hero song on Expert? Not even a robot can get 100%:



Seriously though, that is one cool invention. It already tops the Wii bowling robot I blogged about a while ago. I'm not sure if the robot actually "sees" the screen and the notes that it's supposed to be playing or if it's pre-programmed somehow. I would assume it is the former, otherwise it wouldn't be worth it as a game-playing robot if was just programmed with the song already in memory.

12/16/2008 - Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade gets Rickrolled

Ha, ha, ha, ha!! Were they serious with this? Did the organizers of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade honestly think that Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" was a legitimate internet phenomenon? Well, actually it is, but not in a flattering way for the song. It's been used as a practical joke on YouTube for those dumb enough to click on something that looked enticing. If you fell for the joke, you have been "Rickrolled". I bet one of the organizers was thinking, "Hmmm... let's find the latest internet/YouTube craze and put them in the parade." And after looking at all the "hits" the Rickroll song has received, they thought they found their star. It's either that, or someone played a practical joke on them, and on us all. We were all Rickrolled Thanksgiving Day 2008:

12/14/2008 - Wii Theremin (2 videos)

Not much can be said about the Wii as a hardcore gaming console. Besides Nintendo's first-party offerings, Wii games have largely been mediocre party games. You're certainly not going to see any Wii games being nominated for Game of the Year at tonight's Video Game Awards. It's a big mystery to me as to how the systems are still selling out to this day. While the Wii has lost my interest as a gaming system, it's still interesting to see how people are utilizing the technologies in the Wiimote controller. For example, here's a guy who turned the Wiimote into a virtual theremin. Yes, that's the instrument you can play without touching it.

12/13/2008 - Bruce Lee plays ping pong with nunchuck

There have been many famous actors who died before they could reach their pinnacle of success: James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and most recently Heath Ledger. If I could choose one actor to have dodged his untimely fate, it would have to be Bruce Lee. Really, there is no one better at practicing and displaying the martial arts other than the Little Dragon himself. His movies may not have been the greatest in terms of acting and story, but when Bruce Lee was fighting onscreen, you simply could not take your eyes off it. And in Way of the Dragon/Return of the Dragon, it was indeed Bruce Lee who kicked Chuck Norris' ass. What I would give to see the completed Game of Death movie and the many movies that would have followed if he didn't die so prematurely. It makes me curse the fates every time I think about it.

So when I saw this video, I had to smile. It may be a fake, but Bruce was such an incredible martial artist that it wouldn't surprise me if it was really him in a display of his nunchuck skills:

12/11/2008 - Sack to the Future (3 videos)

It seems like most of the people creating levels for the PS3 game, Little Big Planet, are creating levels based on other video games. There are plenty of Super Mario Bros. levels and Mega Man levels. That's to be expected since those were side-scrollers just as Little Big Planet is. Games of other genres, such as Mortal Kombat and Shadow of the Colossus are represented too. These levels based on games can be problematic because they could be yanked from Sony's servers at any time for violating copyright laws. There has been much controversy over this, and in my view, I would hope that the various game companies out there would be lenient in their intellectual property protection. After all, most of these levels are tributes to great games, and I would think that they would be flattered by the hours taken to create such intricate stages.

If all levels based on games were to disappear, however, I fear that levels based on movies would be next. Here's a series of levels based on one of my favorite trilogies of all time: Back to the Future. The great thing about these levels is that they are surprisingly accurate in telling the story of the three movies:







I only wish they could have included the musical score from the movie!

12/9/2008 - How to Break a 360

One of the main reasons I did not get an XBox 360 was because of all the news last year about the high system failure rate. I'm sure I read somewhere that 1 in 4 Xboxes suffered from the "Red Ring of Death". Yes, I know it's ironic that my PS3 failed and I had to get it fixed, but I'm still happy with my choice. My new PS3 is working just fine and I'm sure it has a better chance of lasting than a random 360 out there.

The XBox failures was so bad that Microsoft extended its warranty from 1 year to 3 years. Well, the XBox made its debut in November 22, 2005, so the warranties on those XBoxes have expired. If by chance you bought it at that time and your system gets the Red Ring of Death, you're pretty much S.O.L. If you bought it at a later date and your warranty is still in place, you'd want it to fail so that you can get a replacement XBox with the newer chipset that is less prone to failure. That's the dilemma the folks at IGN want to help you with by showing you exactly how to break the XBox 360:

12/7/2008 - Street Fighter remix (piano)

So after playing Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for almost two weeks, I can give my take on it. I had hyped it up so much in my mind that you'd think there might be some disappointment when it finally came out. That is not the case with this game, however. I bought the Playstation 3 specifically for this game and I can honestly say it was worth it. Regular readers of this blog know of my love for the Street Fighter franchise, and that has it pretty much dominated my gaming life since it first came out in 1991. Sure, I've had mini-obsessions with other games over the years, but I have always come back to the Capcom fighters.

When I first saw the artwork that was going to go into this game, I was amazed already. I have always appreciated the art style that went into the Street Fighter series and I knew that the HD visuals would be in good hands with the manga artists at UDON. You can tell that they care about the characters, and there is no single character in the game that looks out of place. I was quite pleased that they beefed up characters like Sagat, Dhalsim, and M. Bison to look more like their anime counterparts. What I really appreciate, though, is that everything looks consistent now. Back when Super Street Fighter II Turbo was introduced, the sprites of the characters looked pretty much as they did in the first Street Fighter II. And yet, when some of the new moves were introduced, they were more stylized in the anime form and it looked jarringly out of place (see Honda's Ochio Throw, for example). Now that all of the sprites have been redrawn in the anime style, those moves no longer look like add-ons.

Much has been made about the "rebalancing" of the characters in the game. I've always thought that what made Street Fighter uniquely better than most other fighter games is that the characters were so different from one another (besides Ken and Ryu, of course). Take the Mortal Kombat games, for example. They pretty much all have the same moveset except for the special moves and the combos. By and large, though, the number of special moves are the same for the characters, and their combos are just different button combinations from each other. My point is that Mortal Kombat is "pre-balanced" in a way that offers little incentive to pick certain characters because they might have an advantage over others.

In Street Fighter, however, the characters are not just different in movesets alone. Some move faster than others. Some jump higher than others. They have different throwing ranges. With all these differences, it's natural that some characters are going to be be mismatched against others. For example, I can usually fight fairly well as Guile versus someone at my skill level. However, if they choose Chun-Li, I have a much harder time because of her higher jumps. Guile has no effective way to trap Chun-Li as he does against most of the other fighters. That's why I had to learn to use other fighters like Blanka who are better to use against Chun-Li. But I can't solely use Blanka because he's weak against Bison. This kind of rock-paper-scissors element to Street Fighter is one of its strengths, in my opinion and I'm glad to see that the "rebalancing" of the game was a lot more subtle that I thought it would be. Sure, it might have changed the competitive scene forever, but since I'm not at the pro level where I can count frames and remember hitboxes, the rebalancing did not affect my gameplay too much, and certainly not for the worse.

What really excited me about HD remix was that for the first time, I would have the ability to play online against other Street Fighter fans. Sure, I've played in the arcades here in Tucson and back in Las Vegas when I was living there, but that has been the extent of my experience. Believe it or not, there are different Street Fighter "fighting styles" in different regions of the world. For example, a Los Angeles player first introduced me and to the Tucson arcades a way of playing as Guile offensively that was almost invincible (this was before they toned him down in the later games). This changed everything for me as I had long since been a Ryu player, thinking that Guile was only a defensive player.

What I found interesting was that not everybody in the rest of the country knew of this style of Guile playing, even years later when I was at this years Iron Man of Gaming in Dallas. They had a Street Fighter II Turbo console there and I was having quite an easy time as Guile because nobody expected that kind of gameplay. With the ability to play online now, there is no more "regional" style of playing, since you're playing against the whole world. I have been watching many YouTube videos of high ranking players, trying to see how others outside of the Southwest USA are playing, and boy, were my eyes widened. I'm constantly amazed to see the gameplay of folks like Daigo and the other EVO competitors. I know that I would lose to players like that, but at least I wouldn't have to travel to California to do so. With Street Fighter online, it's fun to beat newbies, but it's equally fun losing to pros.

I can't say that the online experience is perfect, however. There are lag issues, especially with those who have slow broadband connections. And there are definitely bugs which lead to disconnects and issues with the HUD. All these issues, I hope, will be fixed by a patch. That's something I'm really looking forward to, because when it works, it works beautifully. It actually amazes me, since Street Fighter has always been about precise timing and complicated controller motions for the special moves and the combos. It bodes well for the upcoming Street Fighter 4 in February.

And finally, we come to the music of the game. When I first heard that they were going to remix the music, I was apprehensive. The Street Fighter soundtrack is probably my second favorite video game soundtrack after Mega Man 2 and it something I could listen to daily without getting tired of it. Remixes are rarely better than the original and I hoped that it would not sound too radically different. I was quite pleased to learn that the remixed soundtrack would be an option for the game and that you could go back to the original arranged soundtrack. In fact, the game has tremendous value in that the non-balanced game remains and you can even turn on those old non-HD sprites if you want! While I prefer the original soundtrack, the remixes are too bad at all, and I'll turn it on if I'm in the mood for it.

That brings me to today's video (finally). Like I said, I could listen to the Street Fighter soundtrack forever and I like to listen to some of the renditions of it on YouTube. There are remixes done on guitar, and some even done on the Mario Paint composer! I never thought there would be a great remix done on the paino, though, and that's what we have here:



I've always thought of the Street Fighter soundtrack as being so universal that anybody would appreciate it (they are World Warriors, after all). I am intensely curious to know whether or not the entire audience knew that this was from a video game... and if they didn't, what was their reaction when they learned that it was.

12/6/2008 - Every Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe Fatality

When they said that the next Mortal Kombat game would be T-Rated, I knew that it would not be a good sign for the series. They had to make it T-Rated because of the inclusion of the DC superheroes. In a bid to outdo Marvel vs. Capcom, all Midway did was to water down their flagship fighting series and to include licensed characters that seem oddly out of place. I suppose as long as the fighting engine is solid, neutered fatalities shouldn't be an issue, but it still seems wrong:



Batman's finishing move being a swarm of bats is just lame. Shang Tsung having to morph into the opponent in order to suck his/her soul? I thought he sucked people's souls so that he could morph into them. They actually had to censor Deathstroke and The Joker's fatalities in the final version of the game as well! I guess a point blank gunshot to the head is more intense than the Jax's machine gun fatality which wasn't censored. Ugh.

12/4/2008 - Windows 7 "Aero Shake" Demo

It seems like Microsoft is trying to put out the next version of Windows as fast as they can. Who can blame them, really? They're putting out these "Mojave" ads that try to trick users of Vista that the operating system is actually good. It's the same thing that happened with Windows ME. It turned out to be such a turkey that even Microsoft would acknowledge it as their ugly stepchild. While Vista isn't ALL bad, it's just not that much of an improvement over Windows XP, which has turned out to be pretty solid.

From what I've seen of the next Windows version (called Windows 7), I can probably predict that it won't be as bad as Vista. Although they copied Apple again with the new taskbar complete with big program icons, the "Peek" feature actually does look to be somewhat helpful. The interface won't change much from Windows Vista (in fact, if you didn't know better, you'd think it was Vista), but at least it won't be the jarring change from XP to Vista. There is one feature that I had to laugh at when I saw it demonstrated, though. It's called "Aero Shake", and I'll let it speak for itself:

12/2/2008 - quantum of bonds

I was quite skeptical when Daniel Craig was named as the new James Bond. I was silently rooting for either Hugh Jackman or Julian McMahon for the role. Actually, I would have preferred to see Pierce Brosnan in at least one more outing. He made some pretty good Bond movies and I didn't want to see him go out on the lame Die Another Day. But when they said that they were rebooting the franchise, that meant that they had to choose a new actor.

The only other movie I saw Daniel Craig in was the first Tomb Raider movie and I was not impressed (ironically, he had to fake an American accent for his role while Angelina Jolie faked a British accent). Lots of other bond fans weren't pleased either as "Craig is not Bond" websites started showing up. I didn't even watch Casino Royale in the theaters and it took me a while to watch it on DVD. While I still prefer Brosnan as Bond, I can see why the producers chose Craig. In an era where Jack Bauer of 24 could eat James Bond for breakfast, a new Bond has to be every bit as rough around the edges as Jack Bauer is, but still be a natural in a tuxedo. Craig does fit the bill, and Casino Royale was a pretty good movie, but I can't say that it was a classic Bond movie.

I'll tell you what I do want to see, though. I'd like to see the two Bonds duke it out in some way, maybe in another movie or venue. It doesn't seem like that would ever happen, though. In fact, I don't think there's ever been a movie with two Bond actors in it. Even the GoldenEye Nintendo 64 game was supposed to include the old Bonds as playable characters in the multiplayer, but the feature was scrapped before release. Is there some law of nature that prevents two Bond actors to appear on the screen at once? I guess this video breaks that law then:

11/30/2008 - I'm a YouTube Junkie

Here's a recommendation/request from a fellow YouTube addict who has put the whole obsession into song. Having it be in a country/blues motif may seem like an odd choice, but it works. Actually, my YouTube addiction has somewhat subsided as gaming has taken over my life once again, but I still cruise the Popular Videos section for videos for me to blog about. But I do take suggestions, too! So e-mail or message me through YouTube or this blog.

11/29/2008 - SSF2THDR ROUND 1 Trailer

Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix finally arrived on Tuesday and it was worth the wait! I'll give my review of the game in a later blog post, but I wanted to highlight the trailer Capcom released just prior to the game's release. As we all know, Capcom enlisted the artists at Udon to redraw the sprites and backgrounds of the game in the style of their popular anime-inspired comic book series. That art is on full display in this trailer, and as a fan of the anime movie, I can say that it is gorgeous. But we knew that would be the case with this HD version of SF2. Besides showing off the gameplay in a well-choreographed tournament style presentation, Capcom did something very special in this trailer that would prompt me to write this blog entry about it.

Yes, that would be the music in the trailer. The use of "You're the Best Around" by Joe Esposito is truly inspired. Before I knew of it's actual history from the Karate Kid movie, I heard it in a ScrewAttack Top 10 video that played it as a tribute to their fans who submitted their favorite video gaming music. Whoever made that video is probably a fan of cheesy 80's music and this song in particular is really cheesy, but really good! It wasn't until I found my King of Kong DVD that I learned that they had included the song in the classic gaming documentary as well. In fact, this is where ScrewAttack probably got the idea to feature the song, as it was included in the King of Kong soundtrack. So would this cheesy 80's song be some kind of anthem for classic videogames?

The answer would be cemented in this trailer for SSF2THDR. When I first heard it in the trailer, I said "No Way", and then I laughed with glee. I'm not sure if Capcom themselves knew of the links to videogaming this song has recently had, or if they just wanted to feature a retro song from a movie about martial arts, but everything just works in context. So much so that I had to download the MP3 to this song and am seriously considering renting the Karate Kid movie even though it looks so bad. I just have to say that Capcom "is the best arooouuuund!"

11/27/2008 - SMule: Ocarina for iPhone

One of the annoying things about owning an iPod Touch instead of an iPhone is that I can't use any of the applications that require a microphone for input. For example, the latest version of the Google application uses voice recognition to decipher what you are searching for but just speaking your query. Also, I would love to try out those apps that recognize any song you're feeding into the microphone. But this app might just trump them all.

The ocarina may not be the most popular wind instrument in the world, but it has gained fame amongst gamers for being the title instrument in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. In the game, Link uses the Ocarina to cast spells that range from teleportation to changing the weather to time travel. As the game exploded in popularity, so did the ocarina. I remember them selling ocarinas within the pages of Nintendo Power.

It took some real ingenuity to design an application for the iPhone that mimics the functionality of the ocarina. This can only be done because the microphone can pick up sounds such as blowing, and because the screen is multitouch. Of course if you are going to demonstrate an ocarina application, you must play a Legend of Zelda song:

11/26/2008 - Resident Evil 4 - Playing As Link

What happens when you combine two of the most successful games on the GameCube (Resident Evil 4 and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)? You have Link wielding a gun:

11/24/2008 - Gears of War 2 Executions Montage

After Mortal Kombat, I didn't think that video games could get more violent. Boy was I wrong. With high-definition graphics in all the new games, blood splatter would of course get a lot more realistic than the now cartoony gore found in the 2-D Mortal Kombat games. Perhaps no game is a better example of this than Gears of War and its sequel on the XBox 360. When you have a chainsaw attached to your gun, you know you're in for some alien blood letting -- and lots of it! There are videos of Mortal Kombat fatalities, so there has to be a video of a montage of executions from Gears of War 2:



Watch in high quality for the full effect!

11/22/2008 - Mario vs. Air Man

Having a working Super Mario Bros./Mega Man 2 mashup is impressive enough, but there are a couple of things that makes this one so impressive. First, the play mechanics did not change from Super Mario Bros. The programmers could have easily just put a Mario sprite in place of Mega Man and people wouldn't think the less of them. But Mario is all about stomping, and unless you have the Fire Flower, that's the only way to kill the enemies; thus making this game particularly difficult compared to a Mega Man game where you have an arm cannon. But what tickles my fancy about this video is that it has an 8-bit rendition of the song from one of my previous Mega Man favorite videos (http://youtubeaddict.blogspot.com/2007/07/7152007.html), the one where Air Man is supposedly impossible to beat. I hope the programmers continue to make more levels, or maybe even other mashups.

11/20/2008 - Spittin' Narcissism

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is finally coming out next week and I couldn't be more excited. No, seriously, I have been looking forward to this for over a year now and it was my primary reason for getting a Playstation 3. To celebrate, we have a music video staring Street Fighter's most conceited fighter, Vega (or Balrog in Japan). The sprite animation in this video is simply amazing, and the music isn't half bad either. This should herald a new genre of music: Street Fighter Rap!

11/17/2008 - Take On Me: Literal Video Version

I think I've made my point before about MTV never showing any music videos so I won't belabor the point again (although they did recently cancel Total Request Live, just to add insult to injury). I'm not sure there is a point to having music videos anyway, except to showcase how telegenic the singer is (which SHOULDN'T matter in terms of musical quality). It's not like the lyrics of the song matches exactly with what is shown in the video. For example, here is the video for the popular 80's song "Take on Me". It sounds the same as the original, but the lyrics have been changed so that it actually tells what is happening in the video. Like I said, it is an exercise in silliness:

11/16/2008 - Stan Lee Cameos (updated)

Two more Marvel movies in the summer, two more Stan Lee cameos! I'm talking about the ones in Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, of course. Stan's cameos are getting better every time and I hope he continues to do them for the sequels and for the upcoming Captain America, Thor, and Avengers movies!

11/13/2008 - Apple Macbook Sucks

When Apple announced the new aluminum MacBooks, I thought for sure I would get them. My previous laptop was the titanium 13" PowerBook and it would seem that the new Macbook is its spiritual successor. I was looking forward to the new LED screens, new trackpad, and faster graphics. Then came the sticker shock. $1300 for a laptop? I know there's the traditional "Apple tax" that pays for the luxury of using a stable and elegant operating system, but I'm not sure that argument holds water, especially in today's economy.

Then there's the new Display Port. The new display adapters that you can only get from Apple would cost $30 instead of $20 or less than the display adapters for the Mini-DVI ports of the previous generation MacBook. Also, there is no Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapters yet. So to connect the aluminum MacBook to my TVs, I would need to buy two different adapters that total $60 instead of a single Mini-DVI to HDMI adapter for $20. $40 may not seem like much when compared to the cost of the computer, but that can be 8 lunches.

Then there was the last straw. No FireWire. FireWire is an interface that Apple pioneered and promoted, but when USB 2.0 became the standard for PCs, Apple all but gave up hope on FireWire. I should have realized when they switched the interface for iPods from FireWire to USB that they would eventually do the same with their computers. But I was a chump, and I bought a FireWire drive as my backup drive. To me, FireWire is the better technology in that it carries enough power to the device so that I don't need to plug in an extra AC adapter for the portable hard drive. Also, the Migration Assistant works so much faster between two computers with a FireWire cable.

So after evaluating all of this, I went ahead and bought the last generation MacBook. I saved over $300, migrated from my old PowerBook in under 2 hours, and am hooked into both my HDTVs. Although I have some regrets (this MacBook's trackpad kinda blows), I'm happy that I took the time to consider everything before the purchase. I could have easily ended up like this guy:

11/11/2008 - The Incredible Hulk: Alternate Opening (With Captain America)

Being the Incredible Hulk fan that I am, it's no surprise that I got the Blu-Ray on the release day, and I was not disappointed. Over 40 minutes of deleted scenes? That's like a whole new movie right there. There were rumors of the many cuts Marvel made to the movie to make it more fast-paced, and that these cut scenes were largely the creative contribution made by star Edward Norton. All I can say is I can see why Norton was reportedly displeased with the editing decisions made because most of these cut scenes were gold. I especially liked the stuff with Doc Samson... those scenes could have come from Peter David himself (my favorite Incredible Hulk comic writer).

If you had paid attention to all the trailers, you see that there was supposed to be a scene in the arctic. However, in the theatrical release, no such scene was shown. Everybody who read the novelization of the movie can attest that this was supposed to be the opening of the movie, where Bruce Banner goes to the desolate arctic to kill himself, only to be stopped by the Hulk. Now, I can understand why studio execs would be nervous by a scene where the main character tries to commit suicide, and looking at the movie as a whole, I find it would have been difficult to fit it in. As it stands, the theatrical opening works better.

However, with all the production that went into it, such a scene would not be lost forever and they included it on the DVD and Blu-Ray. What else is fascinating about this alternate opening is that there was a rumor of a cameo of Captain America, another Marvel superhero who would be the leader of the Avengers. For those who don't know the story about Captain America, you just need to know that he was a soldier in World War II who was given superhuman ability with a "Super Soldier" serum and was thought to have perished at the end of the war. In reality, he was frozen in the icy waters but still alive in a state of suspended animation.

The Incredible Hulk already had the cameo of Iron Man's Tony Stark in the movie, a reference to Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., and the Super Soldier serum that created Captain America. In this alternate opening, though, you'll actually see the frozen body of Captain America himself... if you look carefully. It's a "blink and you miss it" moment, but it really brings everything together in preparation for that Avengers movie.

11/9/2008 - Bacon Salt recent press montage

I just realized that one of the great things about having a blog is that I can promote products that I really like and sort of advertise these products to an audience that may not be aware of them. Such is the case with Bacon Salt. I heard about Bacon Salt through an "As Seen on TV" news segment even though it doesn't have its own infomercial.

Bacon Salt is exactly what it sounds like: it's a seasoning that tastes like bacon. Bacon is probably universally liked by everyone, including myself. The concept of Bacon Salt is that it makes things taste like bacon... brilliant, no? Well, it was so appealing to me that I made it a mission to try to find it in stores. In Tucson, Arizona it's not an easy thing to find these niche items, but I was able to find it after a few tries. So I gave it a try and I really, really like it! I've been putting it on everything to hamburgers (why pay more for bacon?), corn, popcorn, mashed potatoes, and green beans. It doesn't taste EXACTLY like bacon, but it's really close and it's pretty darned good.

Even though I think this product will take off and eventually be found in every store's spice isle, I'm not taking anything to chance and will do my part to promote it on this blog. Here's a montage of press segments about Bacon Salt:

11/8/2008 - Gameshow Fail

One of the guiltiest of guilty pleasures on TV is probably MXC or Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, the American translation of the Japanese gameshow Takeshi's Castle. It's one of those "extreme" gameshows where contestants traverse ridiculous obstacle courses and usually fail by falling in muddy water. It's popularity on the Spike TV cable channel was probably not lost on the ABC network, so they created the show Wipeout. The shows are very similar, down to the choice of contestants who weren't picked for their ability for critical thinking. This is probably best illustrated by the following clip:

11/6/2008 - Fastest text message

Anyone who has an old style cell phone without a full keyboard knows how much of a pain it is to type out a message. Granted, the iPhone's virtual keyboard isn't a peach either, but if you can get used to it, you'll be light years ahead of having to press the 7 key four times to get the letter "S". And yet, the expert old-fashioned texter in this next video could probably beat me even if I used an iPhone:

11/5/2008 - Spider-Man Web of Shadows-Launch Trailer

Have you ever watched an awesome movie trailer, only to be disappointed with the actual movie? I'm sure we all have. Apparently, the same phenomenon applies to videogame trailers as well. Check out this trailer for Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, for example:



It is really one of the best videogame trailers I have ever seen, and would definitely be my pick for Trailer of the Year. The Beethoven music really fits and gives it a whole new level of epicness. The premise of a Venom symbiote infected city seems really interesting, and I wouldn't be surprised if we saw that as a future storyline in the comic book.

From all the reviews, however, it sounds like the game is on the mediocre side. Which is really a disappointment to me because I was looking forward to at least renting it.

11/2/2008 - Slide Fail

This next video really boggles my mind. I know what it looks like, and I think I know what the maker of the slide was thinking. What I don't know is why the park officials would approve it on their land. What I also don't know is why the kids seem to be having so much fun in it. It's like they're living their pre-embryonic stage or something:

11/1/2008 - Mega Man 9 Time Attack (2 Videos)

One of my favorite features of Mega Man 9 is the Time Attack mode. I wish they could build this feature into every Mega Man game re-released for the Virtual Console or on a compilation disc. Mega Man games are famous for inspiring speed-runs of the game: completing the game in the shortest amount of time possible. While some people are content on just finishing a game, speed-runners are in a class of their own and are in constant competition against themselves. For example, not too long ago, Andrew Gardikis submitted a 5-minute time for completing the original Super Mario Bros. If you watch the video of the run, it looks impossible to go any faster, and yet I'm sure speed-runners are trying everyday to beat that time.

But what is brilliant about the Time Attack mode in Mega Man 9 is that is officially posts your completion time to Capcom's servers so that you can compare your time against others in the Leaderboard. You no longer have to tape yourself playing and submitting that to the Speed Demos Archive site, and unless there are glitches (I haven't heard of any), it's considered legit. It's pretty intense not just to compete against others, but yourself as you try to improve your own time. I am quite proud to be on the front page of Leaderboard for Dr. Wily Stage 1, but I'm constantly trying to improve my time.

What's also great about the Time Attack Mode is that it encourages others to become speed-runners and you can see a lot of speed-runs posted on YouTube. These videos show the techniques you can use to improve your own time and are awesome displays of skill from the most hardcore of gamers. For example, the last and hardest stage of the game (if you have no E-Tanks) is so difficult that there are only a few pages of the Leaderboard. The gamer in these videos taped himself so that he could watch his own performance to see what he could do better and to compare against past speed-runs. It's really cool to see two speed-runs side by side and even though the differences are small, they make a big difference when every second counts. Beware hardcore gamer language, however:

10/30/2008 - Stan Lee reads The Raven

Here's a really cool video just in time for Halloween... As I've mentioned before, I have the greatest respect in the world for Stan Lee, the renaissance comic book genius. Not only did he create the most famous superheroes, he did voice-over for many of the cartoons of those superheroes. He was the perfect narrator... and to me, if there is a God, he will have Stan Lee's voice. It's hard to describe, actually. I mean, it's not a radio talk show host type of voice, or even a sports announcers voice. It's unique to Stan and nobody does it better. So it's a real treat to hear him read his famous poem, "The Raven":

10/29/2008 - The Dark Knight Trailer Recut - Toy Story 2

Here's another video that has the audio of The Dark Knight trailer dubbed in. Instead of Legos, though, we have footage of Toy Story 2. Not only is it well-synced, it's surprisingly coherent as a trailer:

10/27/2008 - Mario Paint - Through the Fire and Flames

Here's another Mario Paint composition video, except it's not on the actual Mario Paint. A Mario Paint emulator has been programmed for the PC so that people don't have to use the actual Mario Paint to make music compositions. Even though the emulation of the SNES cartridge would probably be fine, this separate emulation does add new features that make it possible to save and share compositions to other people, which is something Nintendo should definitely consider if they ever made another Mario Paint (which they should have done instead of the atrocious Wii Music).

Normally, I'd prefer a song played through the real version of Mario Paint as I consider it to be more authentic with no possibility of enhancements or alteration. That is, if you can create a great composition using the original Mario Paint with all its limitations, then you are a great composer in my view. However, I will give a pass to this musician because it's a pretty good rendition of what has to be one of the most complex songs to translate to this medium:

10/26/2008 - The Definition of "Choke"

The term "hardcore gaming" can be applied to pretty much any game out there. For the challenging old school games like Mega Man, Castlevania, and Ninja Gaiden, people had to replay levels over and over again just to beat those games. Others would replay those levels ten times over just to memorize every part of them so they know where enemies spawn, where the traps are, and what the best way to avoid them. Why? So that they can do speedruns of the games and compete against others. Even games like Guitar Hero have a hardcore gamer element to them. You'd think that for songs that have hundreds of notes that missing a few or getting over 95% of them right would be enough for most. Well, it is for most people, but not for the hardcore. You'll see what happens when one of those hardcore gamers gets 654 out of 657 notes in one of the most demanding solos of the game:

10/23/2008 - Batman & Robin Cursing

In the realm of comics, I prefer Marvel over DC, but back in the early-80's, I did enjoy watching the Super-Friends. After all, how could you go wrong with all the superheroes in one show? Marvel did have Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, and although I really loved the show, I always felt that Firestar and Iceman were sort of thrown in just to form a superhero team. DC had all the heavyweights in the Super-Friends cartoons: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman were almost always present. They'd bring in the second tier as well: Flash, Green Lantern, Robin, and others.

Looking back at it now, the show really didn't have much depth... especially in the early years. Aside from their powers, you couldn't really tell the heroes apart. They all pretty much had the same personality. There was no conflict between the characters, and it was always clear that the bad guys were doing evil and the heroes had to stop them. Even though the comics at the time had more weight and appealed to an older audience, the Saturday morning cartoons were really geared toward kids. Contrast that to the recent Justice League commercials and you'll see a world of difference. Batman actually has a rock of Kryptonite to use against Superman in case he ever went rogue!

One can only enjoy the old Super-Friends cartoons with a nostalgic eye... or you could laugh at how simplistic and light it was. Especially if you dub in bleep sounds like in this video:

10/21/2008 - Little Big Computer

What better use of my 400th blog post than to feature a truly incredible video. Little Big Planet is a game coming out for the PlayStation 3 that will rely on user-created content to drive its replayability. Users can create their own side-scrolling levels for others to play, and as you can imagine, there will be plenty of mediocre levels out there, some vulgar levels, but there will be some very creative levels as well. It will actually be a lot like YouTube where only the best stuff will be promoted to the front page and favorited by the most people. I think Little Big Planet and YouTube will go hand-in-hand where we see videos like this that show off cool levels. I don't know how someone will be able to top this however:



Yes, that is a fully functioning calculator built with the level designer in Little Big Planet. As listed in the description, the creator used 610 magnetic switches, 500 wires, 430 pistons, and 70 emitters in creating the "level". Now that's pretty hardcore. If I were this kid's math or science teacher, I'd give him/her an A for the year.

10/19/2008 - The Dark Bailout

It's curious... the Dark Knight has yet to come out on DVD, and yet someone was still able to have a copy of the movie in order to do this mashup of the mob meeting scene:



I know I'm a bit naive when it comes to the underbelly of the video pirating aspects of the internet, but this doesn't look like somebody just taking their video camera to the movie theater to record the movie. I gotta say that they did a seamless job of putting in the President's speech into the scene... especially when it's downscaled for the Joker's entrance. And I think I prefer the Joker's bailout plan...

10/18/2008 - Mega Man 9 Death Gameplay

When I first heard that Capcom was making a Mega Man 9 game based in the old 8-bit style, I thought it was some kind of April Fool's joke. But when it turned out to be real, I couldn't contain my joy. My favorite 8-bit game happens to be Mega Man 2 for the NES... it was a simple platforming sidescroller whose greatest innovation was taken from the original Mega Man: your character would gain the weapon of the enemy boss you defeat. That weapon would help you in clearing other levels and defeating other bosses. As I've said before, Mega Man 2 perfected the design with its colorful and creative environments, refined control, and the best video game soundtrack of all time (in my opinion).

Mega Man would have 5 sequels on the NES that relied on the same basic design, and 2 sequels on other systems. There were a myriad of spin-offs, however, each straying away more and more from the original (I still don't know what Battle Network is all about). The original Mega Man would have a remake on the PSP with 3-D graphics, and while it was a nice nostalgic tribute, something didn't seem right about it. Capcom was definitely on the right track, however... and old school gamers like me really rejoiced when Mega Man 9 came out last month.

Mega Man really belongs in the 8-bit world. The graphics, the sound... nothing was enhanced in Mega Man 9 and it's just as well. Everything was made in the same way, even the difficulty. Now, a lot of current-generation gamers may say Mega Man 9 is a hard game, and some of them may get too frustrated with it and not finish the game. I say they are spoiled by the current games that have multiple difficulty settings and mid-level save points. Mega Man 9 is undoubtedly difficult and will require you to go through stages multiple times, dying a lot in the process. But that's what old-school gaming is all about. Because the control scheme is so simple (move, jump, shoot), the way to make it difficult is to test your reflexes, your memory, and your patience. Except for one part of the game which I think has the hardest jump in any Mega Man game (Jewel Man stage, you'll know it well), no death is ever cheap, and most of the time it's your fault. When you first start the game, however, you wll see this a lot:

10/15/2008 - T-Mobile G1 Android - Hands on vid

If you have any doubt as to how far ahead of the game Apple was in January 2007 when they first announced the iPhone to the world, then this video should convince you otherwise. It took almost two years after that announcement, but the most anticipated iPhone competitor will arrive next week in the form of an HTC phone with Google's Android operating system. There's no doubt that the folks at Google are code gurus, but it looks like not even their genius could reverse-engineer what Apple did with the iPhone so many moons ago. The best way to show this is with a side-by-side comparison:



Nice try, Google... but by the time you get something that matches the iPhone, Apple will just release an upgrade.

10/13/2008 - Biological Fail

Wow, if what this reporter claims is actually true, then Barack Obama really is a "once-in-a-lifetime" politician:

10/12/2008 - Video Game Typos, Misspellings, and Bad Grammar

A lot of the older video games in the 8-bit generation were originally developed in Japan, and inevitably when they were translated to American audiences, just like the Bill Murray movie, stuff got lost in translation. Either they did not pay the translators enough, or they didn't care. Well, even if they did care, they probably didn't know better, otherwise they wouldn't have hired translators in the first place. To be honest, most gamers probably didn't care about grammatical and spelling errors and worried more about bugs in the game. But for those interested, here is a compilation of some of the more egregious ones:

10/9/2008 - IT guy v.s dumb employees

At work, my computer is probably one of the oldest computers at the site, but it still runs like a champ and its faster than a lot of the computers that were bought years later. It's not because I've upgraded the processor or anything... it's because unlike most people, I don't load it with a bunch of unnecessary software that will bog it down. Having experience as a programmer, I know what kinds of things out there will slow down a computer and what kind of maintenance is necessary to keep things running smooth. It pains me to see computers at my workplace abused to the point where they act like computers with Pentium II processors and 128 MB of RAM. What's sad is that good computer practice is something that is easily learned, but is almost never put into use because there are so many "utilities" and programs out there that people want to experiment or play with. Non-computer people see little consequence in loading their computers up with these unnecessary programs, but people like me cringe. Oh well... the disparity of experience that keeps me employed. And it's why this video gives me such a good laugh:

10/7/2008 - Cute Puppy

Because of some early childhood "incidents", I don't really have an affection for dogs. But if every dog was like this one, I might reconsider:



And I'd find a way to put diapers on them.

10/5/2008 - Meet "Emily" - Image Metrics Tech Demo

I still haven't seen a movie where a "digital" actor gives a performance where I could not tell that it was computer-generated. The first Final Fantasy movie was supposed to be a breakthrough in photo-realistic CGI human characters, and while it was impressive, I could always tell they weren't real. Interestingly enough, the most "real" looking character was the old guy. It's the imperfections they put into the character model that made it seem less artificial.

Digital stand-ins are used in movies all the time now, but they're only doing stunts, not giving performances with dialogue. The best example of this is probably the opening action sequence in Spider-Man 3 with Peter Parker web-swinging out of costume. Aside from close-ups, Peter Parker was played by a digital Tobey McGuire. It was pretty seamless, though, and one of the best action sequences I've ever seen.

Another very cool demonstration of what CGI can do is in the beginning of X-Men 3: The Last Stand where they show a younger Magneto and Professor X. Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are still the actors, but they digitally airbrushed their faces to make them look years younger. It was so effective, that I can see them using it in the future to keep Tom Cruise looking like he's 35.

There is no doubt that the technology is improving, and this next video is an example of where we are headed. It is perhaps the first video where I was fooled into thinking that the actor is real:



Only after knowing that the face was computer generated that I could see some signs of artificiality, but they are only minute details. Watch the video in High Quality and you may see.

10/4/2008 - Adam & Jamie draw a MONA LISA in 80 milliseconds!

Two weeks from today, the Mythbusters will be in town for their campus tour show and I have my ticket. Everybody who watches their show will tell you that if they could have any other job in the world, it would be their job. Not only do they blow things up without remorse, but they get to play with and invent the coolest gadgets. I can only hope the show is as exciting as this demonstration at an NVIDIA conference:

10/1/2008 - Apple Lisa Demo

Yes, Xerox PARC may have invented the modern graphical user interface (GUI) with mouse-based input, but it was Steve Jobs' vision that brought it to the masses with the Macintosh computer. Before the Macintosh, though, there was Apple's first computer with the GUI called the Lisa. The Lisa was not really meant for the average consumer and, in fact, its $10,000 price tag was even too much for the business consumers that Apple was aiming for. Still, there's no doubt as to its impact in the world of computing. The concepts and innovations of the Lisa GUI are still being used to this day and it's hard to imagine anything replacing it any time soon. It's so ubiquitous that grade school children are more well-versed in using a mouse and keyboard than their parents and grandparents.

Using a mouse with a GUI may seem so commonplace and pedestrian now, but imagine back when computers were still using text-based input. It must have been like a toy or novelty to move a cursor around and clicking on icons. In some ways it's actually slower to use a mouse and GUI, but its ease-of-use comes from the fact that it's harder to make mistakes like you would with typos in a command-line-interface (CLI). Not having to memorize command keywords also helps immensely. Sure, people had to get used to it, and there were actually videos like this one that got people acclimated to this new concept:

9/28/2008 - Ninja cat comes closer while not moving!

Here's a very popular video making the rounds right now, and for good reason... you've probably watched an episode of Scooby-Doo where Shaggy and Scooby are walking along, minding their own business while a ghost or monster stalks them from behind. However, when they look behind them, the monster pauses and becomes part of the scenery. They continue on their way, but can sense that there is someone or something stalking them, and they look behind again, only to see that the monster has inched closer, but still part of the scenery. I can't tell exactly which episode this is, but I'm sure it has happened more than once, and in other cartoons. Well, this scenario has been recreated so perfectly in this video starring a cat:

9/26/2008 - Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates (2 videos)

I'm not sure if anybody reading this was able to see it, but Microsoft ran a couple of advertisements for Windows featuring the former TV star Jerry Seinfeld. The ads were soon replaced by the new "I'm a PC" ads which try to counter the PC/Mac commercials Apple is famous for. Why did they recall the initial commercials so quickly? Was it because they made false claims? Were they suddenly outdated? Did they offend some group? Actually, the answer to that last one may be yes. The truth is, the commercials were nonsensical. Now, Jerry Seinfeld may be famous for making the obscure and inane seem funny, but these commercials were neither funny or informative. I have to ask how exactly were they trying to lure people into buying Windows PCs with these ads? These are kind of like all those Superbowl commercials which try to draw attention by being funny or innovative. Sadly, these commercials are neither:

9/23/2008 - Grand Theft Auto 4 Most Cops/Greatest Explosion Ever

It is my contention that there is no such thing as a realistic game. By definition, a game is supposed to be fun to play. Life, on the other hand, is not always fun. That's why we play games: to escape. It's funny when I see games like Grand Theft Auto 4 that claims to be so realistic that you'll do double-takes while playing it. Sure you can put in photo-realistic graphics and an accurate physics engine, but in the end, it's still a game. For example, real life doesn't have cheat codes that allow you to change your wanted level. Using such a cheat can really make a "realistic" game like Grand Theft Auto look ridiculous:

9/21/2008 - Street Fighter 4 Classic Voiceover

If you wanted a good example of how important sound and music plays a part in video games, check out this video of the upcoming Street Fighter 4. It is played repeatedly but with different Street Fighter sound and music samples from the original Street Fighter to Capcom vs. SNK 2. The Street Fighter samples sound downright primitive, but the Street Fighter Alpha 2 dub is almost seamless. What's impressive about the dubbing of this video though is how well the sound effects match every action that goes on. Every "hadouken" is perfectly timed and well as all the other punches, kicks, and even whiffs. And you gotta love that Ryu theme...

9/20/2008 - Angel Matos Kicking The Referee In The Face

I didn't think I would get hooked into the Olympics which occurred last month, but I did and I spent all of my late nights watching taped replays and live coverage. I wish NBC/Universal wasn't so anal about people putting video highlights of the events on YouTube. Even now, one month later, I cannot find a good video replay of the amazing comeback by Jason Lezak in the 4x100 Men's Freestyle Relay. If I did, I would be posting it here. No, the only thing I can show is a video of the Cuban taekwondo athlete kicking the referee in the face:



He may be a jerk, but I gotta admit that it was a pretty good kick...

9/17/2008 - Superman (It's Not Easy)

I couldn't tell you exactly why my favorite DC superhero turned out to be Superman when I was a kid. I can say for sure that he remains my favorite superhero for a completely different reason than whatever it was back then. As he is depicted now, Superman is a hero whose motives are completely pure... and that's a rare thing in this era of anti-heroes like Batman and Wolverine. Superman is an alien whose powers make him one of the most powerful beings on Earth, and he could have used those powers for purely selfish reasons, even for evil if he wanted to. Yet, it was his upbringing by his adoptive human parents that led him to become a hero and protector for the rest of mankind. It's such a powerful statement if you think about it. Being a hero, of course, is not without its burdens either. You'll have enemies that you must protect the world from... enemies that you constantly fear could target your loved ones. Even though Superman has super-speed, there will be times that he cannot be at two places at once, and those situations make for some tough decision making. The 5 for Fighting song about him pretty much sums it up:



Indeed, it's not easy being Superman, but the world would be better if we could all be like Superman.

9/15/2008 - The Wilhelm Scream Compilation

If you've ever watched a movie and noticed an awkward high-pitched scream that seemed out of place, chances are that it is the Wilhelm Scream, a recycled sound sample that's best explained in its Wikipedia article. Another thing that's great about YouTube is that something like this can be documented with a simple compilation video:

9/14/2008 - HALF BLOOD PRINCE DELAYED

I'm not a huge Harry Potter fan, but I did enjoy reading the last two books. J. K. Rowling is truly a creative genius and I'd put her up there with Stan Lee in that category. I'm not a huge fan of the movies too, but I would like to see how the last two books are going to translate to screen. The sixth book, "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince", was supposed to come out this November, just a couple of months away.

Even though the movie would have been finished by that time, Warner Bros. decided to piss off millions of fans and delayed the release date to next July! That's a full eight month delay! If I were a woman, I could gestate a baby in that time! Warner Bros. even admitted that they made this delay purely for financial reasons -- that the movie would do better during the summer as opposed to November. You may fault them for being greedy, but they do have some chutzpah in admitting it. The fan outcry to this move was pretty vocal, as you can imagine. Just hours after the announcement, videos like this one started to show up on YouTube:

9/13/2008 - Ode To Joy

I was perhaps too young to understand the social satire that was contained in The Muppet Show back in the 70's/80's. I thought it was just a mature version of Sesame Street. I did enjoy the slapstick comedy, though, and my favorite character was definitely Beaker, the hapless assistant of Dr. Bunsen. He can only say "Meep" with a high-pitched voice, and he's always getting into trouble:

9/10/2008 - Ikaruga - 1 Player - 2 Player game (2 videos)

The videogame Ikaruga was recently put on a Top 10 list of the most difficult videogames of all time. Ikaruga is one of those 2-D shooters that tests your skills in dodging onscreen bullets. Not just a small number of bullets like Neo dodged in the Matrix... no, you have to dodge hundreds if not thousands of bullets to get through the level. Playing as one player in the game is hard enough, but can you imagine if you had to play as two players by yourself? You'd almost need a split personality to independently control two joysticks at a time. I thought that the perfect round of "Through the Fire and Flames" of Guitar Hero was the most impressive feat of gaming I've seen. I was wrong:

9/8/2008 - "I Am Rich" Guided Tour

I admit it, I'm kind of a cheapskate when it comes to software. Nearly all my programs on my laptop are free and I haven't paid for any of the programs on my iPod touch. It would take a very special program that I really need in order for me to justify its purchase. Yeah, I'll probably end up getting a unit conversion program for 99-cents, but I doubt I would ever buy a game for $10. So I had to laugh when I heard about a program for the iPhone/iPod touch that was merely a statement of how wealthy the owner was. It's a $1000 program that is nothing more than a picture of a ruby. I've heard that there were actually 6 purchases of this program before Apple yanked it from the App Store. Of course, I was curious as to what this program actually looked like and the "secret message" contained within it... so I found it on YouTube:

9/6/2008 - Star Trek vs. Star Wars

Believe it or not, not all geeks are created equal. There is no clearer illustration of this expression than the dichotomy between Star Trek and Star Wars fans. Star Trek appeals more to the fan of traditional science fiction. With more talk and less action, it has always been more of a thinking man's show. Constrained by a TV budget, there was always a limit in the number of scope of action sequences show in an episode. On the other hand, the Star Wars movies would have unlimited budgets after the first one in 1977. Having more of an action/fantasy element, Star Wars has a wider appeal, although the more hardcore fans are more cultish in nature. Although George Lucas tried to shoehorn in a more scientific explanation for "The Force", longtime fans pretty much rejected it in favor of the previous magical or even religious connotation. The Star Trek/Wars camps are naturally at odds with each other and one side often treats the other with derision or disrespect. The two sides may never fully come together, but I'm sure fans of both will appreciate this next video:

9/5/2008 - Lame Video Game Endings

When you complete a video game, especially a hard one, you expect to be rewarded with a decent ending. You want a kind of ending that makes you say to yourself that it was all worth it -- the bottomless pits, the cheap deaths, the game-overs and the continues. Sometimes countless hours of playing result in nothing more than frustration. If you are able to overcome those obstacles only to get some congratulatory text that has misprints, then it makes you feel like your time has been wasted. Not all great games have great endings, however. Super Mario Bros. had a pretty lame ending compared to today's standards, but you forgive it because the game itself is so great and you understand the limits of the programming back then. Now with full-motion video CGI cutscenes and loads of disc space, there is no excuse. I wouldn't go overboard like the Metal Gear Solid games, but something around 10 minutes would probably be enough. And it has to be epic!

It's sort of gamble to get a game and not know whether or not it has a good ending. No video game magazine would publish game endings, after all. So it's a great public service that this series of videos feature notoriously lame video game endings. The fact that some of these games are very bad only makes you more glad you've already seen their endings first, instead of torturing yourself by playing through the games only to be disappointed.

9/3/2008 - Poor man's "Liquid Nitrogen"

Being a science nerd back in the day, I really wanted to get my hands on some liquid nitrogen. For something to be that cold and yet remain liquid is pretty awesome (I would have said "cool" but that would be a pretty bad pun). I would have so much fun doing the standard freezing of flowers and rubber balls and then shattering them on the floor. My fascination with liquid nitrogen was only heightened with the movie Terminator 2. Anybody who has seen the climax of that movie would know what I'm talking about ("Hasta la vista, baby!"). Sadly, liquid nitrogen would be out of the reach of my high school's budget and it was something we couldn't play, er, experiment with. It's too bad that we didn't have YouTube back then, otherwise we could learn from this video here:



This is something I'm actually tempted to try. Now all I have to do is find some dry ice...

8/31/2008 - The Shining (with robots)

One of my favorite horror movies has to be The Shining. One time I visited an off-season hotel similar to the one in the movie, and I couldn't help but be reminded of the creepy feeling of when I first watched The Shining. Needless to say, I couldn't wait to get out of the hotel. I'm not a big fan of director Stanley Kubrick's slow methodical style, but he did make it work in the context of the horror/suspense genre. Really, there is no other way to convey the sense of cabin fever turned to madness that develops within the characters other than to draw out every scene to a degree where the audience is also feeling unrest and dread.

Just take one of the most famous scenes in the movie where the kid Danny rides around the hotel in his tricycle and encounters twin girls that used to stay at the hotel. The image of the twins by itself is really unsettling. Then the way they talk in unison sends chills up the spine. But then, out of nowhere, there is a subliminal image of the twins' bodies after they were butchered by an axe. The first time you see it, you will jump out of your seat. I thought it was funny when this scene was shown in the movie "Twister" playing in the drive-in theater. I was actually more interested in seeing this short clip of The Shining than the entire movie of Twister.

I don't want to show the actual scene in question in all its gruesomeness, so here it is presented in a G-Rated form... with robots!