3/31/2008 - Star Wars according to a 3 year old.

I ranted a while back about why the Star Wars prequels pale in comparison to the original trilogy. I neglected to mention one of the other reason: the extra complexity Lucas added to the storyline drove many to confusion about the storyline. In Episode I you have the whole "trade dispute" and political maneuvering... I have to say that any movie with political maneuvering involved disqualifies itself to being a blockbuster summer movie. Then you have the mystery of the creation of the clones and the whole separatist movement in Episode II. Episode III was a bit better, but what was with that whole midichlorian thing? Anyway, what was an almost throwaway few lines in Episode IV about the Clone Wars was enough to explain the entire prequel trilogy. The simplicity of the original movies may have been a key ingredient in what made them so great. Episode IV was so simple, in fact, that a 3 year old could explain it:

3/30/2008 - Impressive car move

When you see a car chase on TV, you probably think "what kind of idiot thinks they can outrun the cops?" After all, the helicopter is there following the car as well and filming everything. The thing you might be forgetting is that the perpetrator in question got caught with whatever crime he/she committed in the first place. Any "advanced" criminal mind would have avoided such a predicament in the first place, I would think. Anyway, if you're going to be stupid enough to get in a car chase, you'd better be a damn good driver. It so happens there is one out there whose footage is on YouTube:



I have to admit... that's pretty impressive. If the felon ever gets out of jail, I think there's a career as a stunt driver waiting. And the use of the "Dukes of Hazzard" theme song? Perfect.

3/29/2008 - Revo the Rainbow

I received my first e-mail earlier this week as the YouTube Addict for a user submission into my blog. It's flattering to actually have feedback for this tiny little blog I started nearly a year ago. Here is the video and it's another take on the "singing backwards while doing something that looks impossible when played in reverse" thing (I think that should be a new category in YouTube):



Thanks to user "tarabusch" and maybe this will be the first of the user submissions to this blog. If you'd like to submit one of your favorite videos, send a link to my e-mail address jkwong111@gmail.com and if I like it too, it will be featured here on a weekend edition. It's getting harder to find good videos, so I'd like al the help I can get!

3/27/2008 - Watch iPhone's clock "spring ahead"

The only thing this video proves is that the fanfare music in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey makes any anticipated moment cool:

3/26/2008 - Brawl Tourney Rules Make Me ANGRY

"Vloggers" on YouTube take all forms and shapes and sizes. You have the fake vloggers like lonelygirl15, the fake rednecks, angry gamers, technology pundits, etc. Most show their true face on camera, but some do not. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some people will actually act more naturally in front of a camera if they hide behind some mask or costume. I certainly couldn't fault them for doing so... I would probably do the same. It does lend some entertainment value to the videos. Take this one, for example:



I think most Super Smash Bros. players would agree with what YTwatchdog has to say. If you've played a fighting game a certain way for a very long time, you definitely wouldn't want to be forced to switch to another control scheme, especially for a competition. When Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix comes out with it's online mode, I sort of wish I had the ability to use my old Super Nintendo controller with it because that's how I played all the original games. The PS3 controller is not bad, but nothing beats Old Faithful, even if it did give me callouses.

3/25/2008 - Newton Virus

It's kind of rare to see an actual computer virus these days. I think most people have got the point not to open executable attachments from strangers and most e-mail software will prevent you from doing such a thing. In fact, many people use online e-mail services such as Yahoo or Google which scan your e-mail long before it gets into your inbox. Besides, most malware these days are limited to adware or spyware which, while annoying, can't really be considered viruses in the traditional sense. In fact, the programmers of these particular forms of malware don't want to break your computer because they want to be able to hack into your computer with spyware installed, or they want you to be able to view all the pop-up ads with aware installed. It's only due to poor programming or the interference with legitimate software that makes malware a destructive force on computers.

Anyway, as I said it's actually uncommon to find a computer virus nowadays, and even more uncommon to find one for a Macintosh. This has been true for sometime because virus writers don't bother with the Mac platform because of its low market share. Virus writers want their product the "spread" after all. Things may have changed recently, especially with the remarkable growth of Mac OS X and the backlash against Windows Vista. Have the virus writers found a new target with the Mac platform? Well, here's a "virus" specifically for the Mac, and I must say, if this is a virus, I might want to catch it... looks like fun:

3/24/2008 - "Magneto Man"

During my young career as a PC tech, I've already seen it all. Frozen startup screens, blue screens galore, computers not being able to shut down, bad hard drives, bad memory, and even bad capacitors! It's never the same thing twice and it's always a bit of a challenge. While it's never the same problem twice, some people are more "problematic" than others. It seems inexplicable sometimes how computer problems can crop up for particular individuals at a higher frequency than the rest of the population. It's nothing in particular that they're doing wrong (although some pet owners forget that fur gets caught in the fan intakes of power supplies)... some people just aren't meant to be around a keyboard and mouse, and they'll be the first to admit it. What's funny is that when I try to reproduce the problem on their computer, a lot of times the problem disappears. I know it's not because I'm some super-guru with computers, so is there something with them being a sort of jinx with electronics? Or maybe there is some other explanation, as this video shows:



Now, I don't know whether or not such people with high electrostatic discharges exist (although it would make a good comic book plot). And this video doesn't really convince me that this kid is anything out of the ordinary. The explanation as to how the computers he uses always produce all-caps text without the caps lock button activated? StickyKeys. Google it.

3/23/2008 - Carrot Ocarina - The Legend of Zelda: Song of Time

So I didn't know there was this phenomenon with making musical instruments out of vegetables. I don't know if this is strictly a Japanese thing, but a Japanese vlogger on YouTube by the handle "heita3" has taken it upon himself to catalog all the instruments he has made out of various vegetables. The one instrument that interested me the most is his ocarina made out of a very fat carrot. Why? Well, if you're going to make any kind of ocarina and demonstrate it, you absolutely HAVE TO play an ocarina tune from The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.

3/22/2008 - Trism : Upcoming iPhone Game

One of the most exciting prospects of the iPhone/iPod Touch SDK is that games will soon be available for the platform and you know I'm all about games. I haven't had a portable system since the original Gameboy and I'm really looking forward to see what I'll be able to download for my iPod Touch. Now you may ask how can you have any games on a system without buttons? Well, the games themselves won't be traditional games that you'd see on the PSP or even the Nintendo DS. These would have to be unique games that takes advantage of the unique features of the iPhone/iPod Touch: the touchscreen and the accelerometer. One such game would be Trism, demonstrated in this video:



Boy, does that look cool. Oh, and remember, future developers... the iPhone/iPod Touch has WiFi!

3/21/2008 - Internet Party

I got my first real taste of the internet back when I started college in 1994. Boy those were much simpler times back then. Webpages weren't the multimedia showcases they are today, and for good reason: almost everybody relied on 28K modems to get online back then! There were only a few "go to" websites out there back then that I can remember. Yahoo! was probably the most used internet portal out there and I used AltaVista for a search engine. You would rely on newsgroups to download high-resolution images and multimedia files. Online shopping was nearly non-existent without the likes of Amazon and eBay.

A couple of years later, streaming video was popularized with RealPlayer and then the MP3 revolution changed everything in terms of digital media. Once people figured out how you could make money off the internet, everything became commercialized and the DotCom boom took hold. The bubble eventually burst along with obviously illegal ways of distributing media like Napster.

The rise of Google would herald in the era of Web 2.0, which we are still in right now. Webpages have to be interactive AND elegant now and most of the popular sites out there reflect this. Social networking is now the "in" thing now with sites like Facebook, MySpace, and even YouTube and Blogger (both owned by Google, of course). It's been a wild ride and I really can't predict what is next. But here is a cool little skit about the 2.0 sites that servers as a nice time capsule for this period:

3/19/2008 - Royksopp - Remind Me

When I first heard that they were going to make a TV sitcom out of those Cavemen in the Geico commercials, I thought that it would be an instant bomb. I mean 30 seconds is quite enough for some lame attempt at using actors with prosthetics to illustrate how "easy" Geico is, so somebody thought it was a good idea to expand it to 30 minutes? Needless to say it was canceled after just a few airings. I never got the appeal of the Cavemen anyway... the only commercial of theirs I thought was mildly amusing was the one where one of the Cavemen walks along a people-mover and spots a Geico advertisement that offends him. And the only reason I like that commercial is because of the cheesy elevator music playing in the background. It's one of those songs that gets stuck in your head after listening to it, and I had to find out what what it was. Enter YouTube and its fantastic search function... turns out I wasn't the only one who was curious about what the music was in the commercial and someone in the comments identified it as being a song by a Norwegian duo who call themselves Royksopp. The song is "Remind Me" and after a little more digging, I found their music video which is actually quite good:

3/18/2008 - evolution of dance tribute

What's the most popular YouTube video so far? That would be the "evolution of dance" video posted two years ago. Why haven't I featured that video on this blog? It just doesn't meet my oh so stringent standards of quality. Just kidding... it just doesn't float my boat. However, if you replace Judson Laipply with none other than the leader of the Autobots... well, now you have a video I can appreciate!

3/17/2008 - Pikachuuuu!!!

From the "Why didn't I think of that?" category... Using an electrostatic generator, we can see what a real-life Pikachu's Thunder Jolt attack would look like:



Cute, but deadly.

3/16/2008 - Elephant Eats Poop

Oh dear... um, here's another YouTube Moment caught on video:



Man, look at that elephant go to town on that other elephant. I would have said that it was some kind of mating routine until I saw what it did at the end of the video. Ugh! How on Earth is that a "natural" act? Yeah, there are dung beetles and flies are attracted to feces, but this is from another animal of the same species! I gotta say this... the food at the zoo must be pretty bad if they have to resort to this.

3/15/2008 - iPhone Stopwatch hits 1,000 hours

You know the phrase "Kodak moment"... it's that rare, one time moment that is captured by a picture or should have been captured by a picture. Well, I think there should be a new phrase: the "YouTube moment". It's not just a snapshot that makes for a good scrapbook entry. It's something that needs video to demonstrate its awesomeness or uniqueness. It may be one of those things that has to be seen to be believed. What makes for a good "YouTube moment"? I think this video is a perfect example of it:



For those who can't do the math, it took almost 42 days to come up with the result of this video. And again it shows you that Apple has thought of everything.

3/14/2008 - Introducing Nanoscope

When first asked about the possibility of video on an iPod Steve Jobs famously asked, "Who'd want to watch videos on a tiny screen?" At that point, there were several iPod competitors out there that did include video playback while the iPod could only display color photographs. Either by public demand or the need for new features, the iPod did get video playback in its next product rollout. Soon, Apple would pave the way for legal movie and TV show downloads through the iTunes Music Store. And yet, Steve Jobs' question still lingered... is it really practical to watch movies on a screen so small? In fact, with the latest release of the iPod Nano, they had to fatten the design of the previous generation Nano just so that movies could at least be watchable. Nonetheless, some enterprising chaps from across the pond have come up with the solution:



Well, doesn't this defeat the purpose of the iPod being a portable device. Secondly, you really have to alter your movie to make it upside down before you attach the iPod to this "Nanoscope"? I do appreciate the effort with the built in speakers, though.

3/13/2008 - Doom Rickroller

One of the things that defines a first-person shooter is the weapons it employs. GoldenEye had the laser wristwatch, a weapon that was used in the movie on which it was based. Perfect Dark had the Farsight XR-20, a weapon that not only honed in to an enemy's heat signature, but could fire through walls. Turok 2 had the infamous Cerebral Bore which could drill into a dinosaur's skull and extract its brain matter. Needless to say, it was a messy weapon. I think the signature weapon of Quake would be the rocket launcher. Now you may say, "rocket launchers are in every FPS game". That may be true, but in Quake, you can actually use a rocket launcher to propel yourself to large heights and distances by a technique called "rocket jumping".

What about one of the granddaddy's of the genre, Doom? Most people would say the signature weapon is the B.F.G., a weapon probably best known for what the acronym stands for (and no, it's not Bio Force Gun). Yeah, it's a powerful gun, alright. But a Doom modder has invented something far more powerful. Something far more deadly. It's so horrifying, words can't describe it. Luckily there's a video:

3/11/2008 - Telemarketing: Comcast's Traffic Shaping Feature

One of the things on the 'net I've been watching recently is Chris Pirillo's 24-hour/day live feed. Chris is a former Tech TV personality who did a tech-support show for that channel. He is now the "star" of a live internet show where you can see him working on his computer, taking live tech-support questions, and talking about technology in general. It's very Truman Show-esque, and sometimes you can witness him doing mundane things like unboxing gadgets and, in this video, taking a call from a telemarketer. Well, the joke's on the Comcast guy calling, because Chris knows his tech stuff and he's not about to let a clueless telemarketer off the hook:

3/10/2008 - TSB: Eli Manning to Tyree and Burress

It has been argued that a 1991 football game, Tecmo Super Bowl for the old Nintendo Entertainment System is the greatest football videogame of all time. I'm not a sports videogame fan, so I can't render a judgment. But I find it funny that after all these years, and all these releases of Madden football games by EA later, that people still play a 17-year old game that is so technically inferior to anything available today. Being a retro gamer, however, I can understand that mentality. Games today are so overloaded with complicated control schemes and production values that often overshadow gameplay that these games of the past still captivate a wide audience because of they're easy to pick up and play and are just plain fun.

The following for Tecmo Super Bowl is so large that modders have actually hacked the game so that the current roster can be represented. In fact, here's footage from an updated version of the game that actually recreates the two winning passes from this past Superbowl between the Patriots and the Giants:



Now this brings up another point... why, with the online functionality available today, must they release version after version of the same sports games with updated rosters and only minor changes to the gameplay? If they could just release patches for sports games that include the current roster and statistics, then you wouldn't have to buy a new disc year after year. I mean, if they can do it for a 17-year old NES game, surely they can they can figure it out for X-Box Live.

3/9/2008 - Youtube Hates Anime

This is another YouTube complaint video and it raises some good points about the increased enforcement of "copyright infringement" rules. A while ago, I posted a trailer for EA's Marvel fighting game and it got flagged for copyright infringement. Now, how stupid is that? I mean, if EA wanted to make people aware of the game they are selling, why would they get rid of their own trailer on YouTube? Does that make any sense at all? The ironic thing is that they canceled the game not too long ago. Now would I be allowed to re-post that video? I mean it's a non-existent game now... could they possibly claim copyright infringement for something like that?

This video talks about the removal of a lot of "AMV" videos which are anime music videos that users have created with anime footage and appropriate music. I know YouTube wants to emphasize "user-created" content, but I think AMV's would qualify as being works of art that's definitely user-created. If you've seen some of the better AMV's out there, you can appreciate the editing skills of the creator as well as their creativity in choosing the particular clips to match the lyrics. YouTube has to learn that they are not the only video distribution site on the 'net.

3/8/2008 - Music using ONLY sounds from Windows XP and 98!

You know what stood out to me about this video? Not that you can actually make pretty good music with the beeps and chimes of Windows (although the composition here is quite impressive). It's that when the sound of an incoming e-mail appeared, I actually checked my Outlook window to see what had come in. After so many years of working on Windows, checking my e-mail after hearing that distinctive sound, I guess it's just instinct now. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you the reader had the same reaction. It's definitely like Pavlov's dog salivating to the sound of a ringing bell because it was conditioned to believe that food would appear after hearing the sound.

3/6/2008 - Star Trek XI The Wrath Of Kirk

All genre mediums have their fictional rivalries: Superman vs. Hulk, Robocop vs. Terminator, Alien vs. Predator, Jackie Chan vs. Bruce Lee, etc. Perhaps one of the most famous rivalries though has to be of the two most prominent Star Trek captains of the Enterprise: James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard. It would seem that their character traits would put them at odds right away: Kirk being the gung-ho adventurist, with his emotions on his sleeve; Picard being the classical strategist, playing with the Marquess of Queensbury rules. Now, that may be oversimplifying them quite a bit, but it was obvious that the creators of Star Trek: The Next Generation wanted to have a figurehead that was markedly different than Capt. Kirk.

With two such iconic figures in a franchise with legions of fans... passionate fans... a meeting between the two seemed inevitable. And indeed they did meet, in the 1994 movie, Star Trek: Generations. Instead of a duel to the death between the two captains, though, all we got was a sort of lame team-up against Malcolm McDowell. Sure they butted heads a little on philosophy, but come on! The fans wanted more. They wanted to see who was the better captain. Of course it would be up to the fans to attempt to answer that question, and that's what this fan trailer is all about:

3/5/2008 - Wrecked Car Still Driving

I bought my Volkswagen New Beetle back in 1999 because at the time it was a real head-turner. I have to say that my car definitely can't compete in that area compared to this one:



Some people have no shame... and in a way, I respect that. After all, if the car still gets you from point A to B, why not continue to drive it?

3/4/2008 - New American Gladiators! Rejected Auditions!

Can't NBC think of anything original? First, they come out with the "new" Bionic Woman... that show was so incredibly horrible that I couldn't even watch it on mute while surfing the 'net. I'd rather pass a gall stone than watch that show again. Then there's the "new" Knight Rider. Yawn. I think there are cars out there in the real world that are more capable than the original K.I.T.T. I mean there are DVD season sets out there. Why would we want to watch these retreads when we can get the originals without the commercials?

And that brings us to American Gladiators. While not original, it's probably the most watchable of these shows. I mean if you can't wait until the Summer Olympics to see some "athletic" competition, it might as well be American Gladiators. It's just a good thing that they didn't use these Gladiator wannabes:

3/3/2008 - The Terminator Deleted Scene

I just got finished watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles "season finale" and I just hope that they renew it for another season. Because of the stupid writer's strike, the season came out to only 9 episodes and it ended on a cliffhanger! Because of a TV budget, the action on the show isn't like it is in the movies, but when they do turn on the special effects, it has been quality work all around. The show may be pigeon-holed into the science fiction category and it has concepts that are, dare I say, too sophisticated for the casual viewer. With all the brainless shows out there in primetime, shouldn't there be a smart show that rounds it out? Fox has a notorious history of not supporting sci-fi shows, so I'm not overly optimistic.

Anyway, I wanted this opportunity to bring out a very special video to any Terminator fans out there. This is on the DVD, so it's not exactly new, but I think it's one of the best deleted scenes of any movie out there. I can understand the reasoning behind James Cameron's decision to leave it behind, but I think it's essential to the Terminator lore:



This one scene sets up so many things... the entire second movie AND the TV series is based on Sarah Connor trying to prevent Judgment Day by destroying Cyberdyne and prevent Skynet from being built. If you thought all the pipe bombs Sarah and Kyle Reese were making was for the Terminator, you were wrong! And that line that John Connor repeated in Terminator 2 about "no fate but what we make for ourselves" was mysteriously absent from the theatrical cut of Terminator. Well, it can finally be revealed where it came from. This is why DVD was invented.

3/2/2008 - Street Fighter IV (NES pirate original)

Could it be? Could Capcom have created Street Fighter IV 15 years before it's set to hit the arcades this year? Of course not, but look at this "Street Fighter IV" game for the NES:



Of all, the pirated Street Fighter games I've seen, this one actually looks halfway decent. Yes, the music sucks and it's definitely a ripoff of SF2, but I think it's a bit of a step up from the other games. The character sprites are large, the speed and jumping distances look accurate, there's parallax scrolling (pretty much unheard of in a pirated game), and there's even a voice sample for the Shoryuken move! I think that if Capcom didn't want to make their own version of Street Fighter II for the NES, then they should have hired these guys to do it for them.

3/1/2008 - Dramatic Lemur

If you are a regular moviegoer, I'm sure you're familiar with those Dolby or THX intros. You know, it's right after the trailers and right before the movie where the sound system is demonstrated for all the theater to hear. I've seen some more creative variations of the intro where it references movies like Terminator 2 (where Arnie blows away the frozen T-1000) and Back to the Future ("1.21 gigawatts!!!"). I think, though, that they should really have another variation based on this video: