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 Were they suddenly outdated?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...