5/30/2009 - Rap Chop (500th post)

Holy crap! I can't believe this is my 500th post! And what better way to celebrate than with one of the coolest videos on YouTube? One that takes one of my favorite infomercials and edits it into a music video! A software program called Auto-Tune was used to control the pitch of Vince's voice so that it appears he's actually harmonizing with the background tunes. I'm sure it's not as automatic as it sounds, but with a lot of editing, the end result really is a full music video:



I think that if this version of the infomercial hit the air, even more people would by the Slap Chop.

5/28/2009 - Snakes on a Plane - The TV Edit - The famous line

It's weird to me how stuff on TV gets more and more violent (or they show more blood and guts in the medical shows), and more and more racy, and yet when it comes to language, profanity is still a no-no. Kiefer Sutherland himself says that when Jack Bauer says "Dammit", he's really saying it place of an expletive. So what happens when a movie's most famous quote has to pass the television censors? Well, here's the original quote in question, from the movie Snake's on a Plane:



Samuel L. Jackson even said that they didn't fight the R rating mainly to keep that quote in. Now that's standing for artistic principle! I just wonder what he thinks of how the TV edit butchered the line:

5/26/2009 - We Didn't Start the Flame War

This video really encapsulates the state of the Internet today in it's "Web 2.0" state where everybody can many any comment on anything, good or bad. As you can imagine, message boards and comment sections are perhaps the least civilized stomping grounds in today's society:

5/23/2009 - Real-life Mega Man

The guys at Mega 64 are great, but I don't think they could top this cosplayer from Japan dressed as none other than Mega Man. I think he truly understands the character and how he would behave in our world. Free from Dr. Light and missing his friends Rush and Roll, Mega Man would have a difficult time adjusting to a life devoid of enemies and boss fights. It seems like only E-Tanks can drown his sorrows:

5/21/2009 - Jack in the Box - Mini Sirloin Burgers

I like the White Castle burgers occasionally, but I don't really get the mini-burger phenomenon. I like my burgers big... with multiple beef patties and grease oozing from every pore. But these days, fast food places seem to be downsizing with items like snack wraps and mini burgers. One would think that the restaurant cooks would protest such a trend since it would probably mean more work to them (flipping three patties at a time instead of one).

While I generally don't care for the concept of mini burgers, I really like the Jack in the Box commercial for their version:



Everything from the song, to the midgets (or should i say dwarfs?), to the mini cattle is hilarious. I especially like the expression on the gopher's face.

5/19/2009 - Super Mario Kart : Death Race Double Dash

It seems like making a good video game movie is an impossible task. The last one I saw, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, was so bad that I think there should no longer be live-action movies based on video games. The only video game movies that I thought were decent were DOA and Mortal Kombat. They do have the greatest acting or plots, but at least they were fun and didn't take themselves too seriously. Trust me, I'd love to see a good Legend of Zelda movie, or a good Metroid movie. But I just don't think it's ever going to happen.

I can kind of see what studio execs are thinking with video game movies though. They see an audience with a pre-established brand, and that audience paid up to $60 for a game with that brand, much more than the price of a movie ticket. If they could make a quick movie of that video game, even if a sixth of those who bought the game watched the movie, they would be making the same amount as that video game publisher. The more successful the game, the more successful the movie should be, right? Wrong.

I mean it's surprising to me that there haven't been movies of some of Nintendo's biggest franchises like Zelda and Metroid. What would really be daring would be to make a movie out of Super Mario Kart. I mean, it's a huge seller for Nintendo, right? And here's what it could look like:

5/16/2009 - Rose Ball

It's rare in a fighting game to have a character that has a fireball move and and move that reflects fireballs. But when you do have a character like that, you can play a mirror match and have a mini-game reminiscent of Pong where you reflect a fireball back and forth until one player gets hit. In Street Fighter, Rose has both a fireball and a reflect move, so this game is naturally called "Rose Ball":

5/12/2009 - Engadget's wild ride in the P.U.M.A.

I'm a fan of the compact concept cars. In fact, I bought my New Beetle not too long after when they first came out in 1998. I was actually put on the wait list for six months before it arrived. I was also really interested in the Smart Car that was used in those Nintendo Wii commercials. I think the Beetle and a Smart Car would both fit under my carport. However, after witnessing the frightening car crash tests of the Smart Car, I've had second thoughts. Even though I think these cars are great, I think the concept has gone too far with the P.U.M.A.:



It actually looks like a two-person Segway. I don't think anyone would dare ride that on a real road.

5/10/2009 - Opera Face Gestures

This was originally an April Fools joke by Opera, the alternative browser to IE and Firefox. In actuality, however, something like this could be quite useful, especially to the handicapped. Of course, the user will still look somewhat ridiculous...

5/7/2009 - Christian Bale Freak Out

In light of today's news about the arrest of Kiefer Sutherland for his alleged head-butt of a fashion designer, I wanted to give my take on another celebrity freak out: the now infamous audio of Christian Bale yelling at the director of photography on the set of Terminator: Salvation. These two incidents have much in common with each other in that the two actors are known to play badasses on the screen and are in some way bringing their on-screen personas to real life. Headbutting an annoying fashion designer is something Jack Bauer would really do (if you caught him in a good mood). Kiefer should really be cheered instead of being put in handcuffs.

As for Christian Bale... well, he IS Batman, after all. He's somebody who is badass enough to play both the Dark Knight AND John Connor, the savior of mankind against the Terminators. I haven't seen American Psycho, but I've heard that character makes Bruce Wayne look tame. As you can imagine, he is not somebody to be messed with. So when the DP was walking into Christian's shot, I can't say that he deserved to be berated with excessive profanity, but he should have known what was coming. When you hear the audio, it's actually kind of scary to hear, especially when you can imagine Christian at his most disturbed state.

What totally turns the perception of the audio, however, is some video of a fan recreation of the event. The audio is intact, and even the context may be the same, but for some reason, what may have been scary before is hilarious now:

5/5/2009 - Laptop Hunters

There is much we can derive from those new "I'm a PC" ads from Microsoft where "laptop hunters" go out to do comparison shopping for laptops that are $1000. These ads are probably the most direct attack on Apple and relies on just one argument: price. Of course in this economy, that aspect is nothing to sneeze at. Yet, nobody ever talks about the difference in the Total Cost of Ownership between a typical PC and Mac laptop. Sure, the initial price of a PC laptop may be less, but that doesn't take into account all the antivirus and antimalware applications you have to buy just to keep the PC healthy. Those programs have yearly subscription fees, which can add up over time. With all that added bloatware on top of a resource intensive operating system, you're going to need more memory as well, just to keep things humming. There's also the notion that you get what you pay for. I'm sure Microsoft has some kind of gag order on the release of all those customer satisfaction surveys.

And you have to love the controversy that surrounded this particular commercial:



It turns out that "Lauren" is not a real "laptop hunter" after all. She's an actress hired by Microsoft's ad people to attempt to relate to the average consumer. Yes, Lauren, you're not cool enough to be a Mac person.

5/2/2009 - SF4 Simultaneous Supers/Ultras

Probably what makes fighting games somewhat difficult to develop for balance must be move priority. You have dozens of different fighters and dozens of regular and special moves each fighter, and a one-one-one fighting structure where all those conflicting matchups come into play. And I'm not just talking about a certain character fighting another character. I'm including the possibilities involved when certain fighting moves are matched up against others. That's where move priority takes into account. In

Street Fighter, for example, Guile's flash kick beats Ryu's hurricane kick, but the hurricane kick goes through Guile's sonic boom. And that's just an example of two characters' special moves against each other. There are also the normal moves to consider. Some moves have higher priority than others, and many moves will just trade damage with each other. Then there are the super or ultra moves found in the latest Street Fighter games. The programmers must have debates and all-out fights when it comes to determining move priority!

As for the mirror matches, you'd think that all the moves would just cancel each other. For the most part, they do and that's why most mirror matches are a snore to watch. On the other hand, seeing what happens when the supers and ultra moves play out simultaneously during mirror matches is pretty awesome:

4/30/2009 - Miniatur Wunderland

I never understood the appeal of model railroads, but then again, I grew up in the age of video games. Nonetheless, I can appreciate what was accomplished here. The amount of work that was required to build this model railroad must have been massive. My favorite touch: a miniature crime scene with a dead body.

4/28/2009 - Super Mario Bros. 1 Drag & Drop

I will say this for the Wii: some of the titles have been pretty innovative in their approach to using limited technology and a unique control scheme. I mentioned Super Paper Mario last time for its 2.5-D gameplay. Super Mario Galaxy has a rather unique 2-player mode, or I should say 1.5-player mode since the 2nd player doesn't control a character like Mario or even Luigi. Instead, he or she uses the Wiimote to collect and use star bits to help out the first player. It's not exactly hardcore competitive or even cooperative gameplay, but it is an accessible feature that can be fun for non-gamers or newbie gamers.

This next mod may have taken some inspiration from that feature in Super Mario Galaxy. It's actually a pretty cool concept that surprisingly hasn't made it into an actual game. Imagine being able to have a second player have the ability to manipulate live gameplay by having an all-powerful drag-and-drop cursor. I guess it's similar to the Little Big Planet level designer, but I predict that it will make it into some game as part of its main gameplay.

4/25/2009 - Mega Man 2.5D

One of the neatest concept games for the Wii was Super Paper Mario. Even though Super Mario 64 and Mario Galaxy perfected 3-D platforming, Mario's roots were in 2-D sidescrolling. It would be hard to come out with a game these days that was strictly 2-D sidescrolling and have it not be considered outdated or merely a nostalgia game. For example, Mega Man 9 was a wildly successful game, but it was geared almost exclusively to nostalgic gamers. Super Paper Mario, on the other hand, added the third dimension to it's 2-D gameplay in a very clever way. It merely allowed you to switch your perspective to the back of Mario so that you could see what was previously behind or in front of him as now being to the left and right of him. It's hard to describe with words, but if you watch any gameplay video of it, you'd understand.

While not all classic 2-D sidescrollers could benefit from such an enhancement, I think the makeover would be ideal for the Mega Man franchise. As shown by Mega Man 9, the Blue Bomber belongs in the 8-bit world. But for future installments, I would hope that Capcom could think a little out of the box and adapt some of the Super Paper Mario innovations. A game modder has done just that with a Mega Man 2 stage and it looks absolutely terrific:

4/23/2009 - THE LEGEND of Hamster on a piano and pop corn

So let's get this straight... if you can videotape a hamster being extremely lazy, you can get over 5 million views on YouTube. I'm sure that if I was to videotape myself being that lazy, I'd be lucky to get 100 views. It's just not fair:

4/18/2009 - Mr. T on the Flavorwave Oven Infomercial

You know me to be an infomercial junkie, and I've probably seen them all. I don't know how this one escaped me. I've seen some infomercials of the Flavorwave Oven before, including it's competition, the Nu-Wave oven. This one is new to me though. It has the special privilege of including none other than Mr. T himself. Now, you might think that it would be an unbeatable combination. After all, George Foreman touted his Foreman Grill and made it into an overnight success. Mr. T was also known to be a (fictional) bruiser in the 80's, and he's much more flamboyant than George Foreman ever was. For some reason, however, it just doesn't work:



Maybe it's just me, but I just can't see Mr. T dressed in khaki's.

4/15/2009 - Man Survives After Getting Hit by Truck & Train

Being a geek, my first thought after watching this video was how Mr. Glass engineered this accident:



Yes, that was an "Unbreakable" reference.

4/13/2009 - R2D2 in Episode 1

I'm sure there are those out there who have watched the Star Wars movies so many times that they could swear they know what R2D2 is saying. They might think they know, and they might even have some confirmation from George Lucas himself. But I'd like to think that this series of videos has the true subtitled translation of R2D2. Caution... vulgarities lie ahead:

4/11/2009 - Mugen - The Super Mario Bros. vs. RonaldMcDonald

Because of Super Smash Bros., it's not unusual anymore to see Mario and Luigi in a fighting game. But Ronald McDonald? Yeah, that's pretty strange:



Boy, these MUGEN programmers can be really strange. I mean, I don't know where anybody would even get the idea to put Ronald in a fighting, much less giving him a Japanese voice... at least I think it's Japanese. And you have to love Grimace and the Hamburglar surrounding Ronald's fallen body when he's defeated. Sometimes I think the MUGEN people put the strangest characters they can just to make a YouTube video out of it and get more viewers. And you know what? It works.

4/7/2009 - Wii Breakfast

I'm not sure it's fair to say that the Nintendo has become the laughingstock of the hardcore gaming community, but since the release of Wii Music, it's hard to find any first-party properties Nintendo is rolling out specifically geared to the hardcore gamers. Punch Out is probably the only game I'd look forward to, but I'm a retro gamer. Sega's Mad World looks to be a decent effort, but such games on the Wii are few and far between. Go to any Gamestop and just look at the Wii section of games. I guarantee you'll find a dozen titles that will make you go "What the f---?" With such a sad state of gaming on the Wii, it makes videos like this seem plausible:

4/5/2009 - MacHeist 3

With only two days left for this offer, I wanted to get the news out about MacHeist 3, the software bundle that aggregates hundreds of dollars worth of Macintosh applications for only $39. Too good to be true? Fear not, because this is actually an opportunity for software vendors to get their brand noticed in the Mac community, and it's a donation of sorts since 25% of the sales go to charity! That's right, get a bunch of quality apps for a rock-bottom price and donate to charity... how can you lose? Here was the unveiling of MacHeist 3 a couple of weeks ago:



Would you ever see this kind of promotion for Windows software? I don't think so.

4/2/2009 - Terminator 2 3D

There are two episodes of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles left this season, and if rumors are true, it may be the last we see of the series. It would be sad to see another great science fiction series fall prey to low ratings. I knew the show could never reach the level in terms of special effects and action that the movies did, but it certainly had great drama and it really paid great homage to the movies. Even for someone like me who watched Terminator 2 seven times in the theater, the show had to remind me how Sarah got the scar on her shoulder.

Anyway, even if the show does get canceled, that does not mean the end of the Terminator. Terminator: Salvation hits the theaters in May and it's looking awesome, especially with the casting of Christian (Batman) Bale in the lead role of John Connor. If it somehow becomes one of the summer's blockbuster hits, I would dare say that it might give the Fox or Warner execs second thoughts about the TV series. At the very least, the sequel will be greenlit without hesitation.

It's ironic to me how Terminator "purists" will say that the Terminator storyline should have ended with Terminator 2 since that was the last feature film to be directed by creator James Cameron and that it the ending seemed made it look like it was the end of Skynet. What they forget is that the storyline did continue in the Terminator 2 3D experience for the Universal Studios theme park, and that it was indeed directed by James Cameron. It had a lot of the great elements of Terminator 2, but toned down to PG audiences and enhanced with 3D effects. The experience can't be adequately shown on YouTube, but here's the feature footage minus the 3D:

3/31/2009 - LittleBig Contra: GAF collab preview

If you have a game like Little Big Planet that has a level designer, you can pretty much expect levels to be designed like those from video games of other franchises. There are plenty of levels that mimic those of the Super Mario Bros. and Mega Man games for example. But it wasn't until the Metal Gear expansion pack that gave Sackboy the ability to shoot a gun (albeit a paintball gun). This paved the way for what is perhaps one of the coolest collaborations of the gaming community ever. Yes, that would be the recreation of the original Contra game:



Each level of the game was handled by a different designer or team of designers. What amazes me is how they recreated the pseudo-3D parts of the game where you're going down the corridor. Stuff like this really shows the creativeness of the gaming community.

3/25/2009 - Giant Multi-Touch Air Hockey

Something like this might be fine for the iPhone, but turning a 60-inch plasma or LCD TV into a giant touchscreen to play air hockey is simply a waste of money. How can you watch a video like this and still say that the economy is bad?

3/19/2009 - A woman missed her flight at the boarding gate HKIA

Wow, over 5 million people watched this next video. And I'm sure most of them have the same impression: that the woman has lost her mind. Well, being Chinese, I have a somewhat unique perspective of this. The woman may be overreacting to a somewhat trivial matter of missing a flight, but her reaction is pretty characteristic of that of a middle-aged Asian woman. Trust me, I've seen this kind of behavior happen when rice is overcooked. I don't know what it is about Asian adults that take things so seriously. I mean, it's like that "parody" video of an Asian mom who berates her son for getting a B+ (and I put parody in quotation marks because I think it holds more truth than fiction). Yeah, and you thought you had crazy parents.

3/15/2009 - Some people are not meant to do game reviews.

The title says it all:



It's rare to see a review of a review, but in this case, it's definitely needed. For those who don't know the Street Fighter franchise, the mistakes the reviewer makes probably seem trivial. But for those like myself who are Street Fighter fanatics, the review is atrocious. I don't have complete hate for the first Street Fighter movie, but I agree that it should NEVER be referenced in a Street Fighter game review... unless it's a bad Street Fighter game.

3/14/2009 - GoldenEye: Source

Capcom is really hitting the nail on the head with their remakes of classic games, like Street Fighter and Bionic Commando. In one case, they've completely hand redrawn sprites frame by frame to bump them up to HD quality. And in the other, 3-D models were used to replace the 8-bit sprites. In both cases, however, the classic gameplay was intact, and that's all that really matters to retro gamers like myself. But Capcom also added an extra element that transcended the original gaming platform: online play. And of course, that's so essential now that any game without it is dismissed as being incomplete.

When you think about it, though, there are so many games out there that could benefit from the same kind of upgrades Capcom instilled in their classic franchises. There is one remake that nearly every gamer would love to see, though: GoldenEye of the Nintendo 64. If Nintendo had any sense, they would just plow through all the legal red tape that is preventing the remake, because that would undoubtedly be the game that would have disaffected gamers turning on their Wiis again.

Of course, this has not been lost on the many homebrew game developers and modders out there. The potential threat of lawsuits by Nintendo and Rare are no deterrent to these folks, and that alone should tell you how great an online high-resolution remake of GoldenEye would be. They've presented a trailer of their ongoing work, and it almost brought a tear to this retro gamer's eye:

3/12/2009 - Bill Gates/mosquitoes @ TED

It's allergy season and I see my friends and co-workers fall victim to it one after the other. I find myself fortunate enough to only have a couple of allergies. The first being a certain type of berry (which one in particular, I don't know... it was a mixed berry pie). And the second allergy I have is of mosquito bites. The bite area will swell up like a balloon and turn purple the next day. Yeah, it's not very pretty. And they itch like hell, too. One time I had three mosquito bites on one hand. It looked like a baby's hand the next day... a purple baby's hand. If I didn't keep it elevated above my heart, it would have probably exploded.

Ever since, I have developed a fear of mosquitoes. When one flies into my house, I drop anything I'm doing and go on the hunt until it is dead. So when I saw this video, it confirmed to me that Bill Gates is an evil man:

3/10/2009 - D-Pad Hero

Except for the "controller" and the CD-quality music, there's nothing about Guitar Hero's gameplay that prevents it from being a game that could be played on retro systems like the NES. It's just a rhythm-based game that tests how well you can follow the button presses and strumming directions on the screen. This fact is not lost on modders who can make custom games that can run on NES emulators and potentially on the console itself. And thus the game "D-Pad Hero" was born, and it actually looks hard:



I mean, it seems difficult to me to separate the directional nature of the left-B button and the right-A button from the directions you have to press on the D-Pad. Even trying to follow the motions in my head is giving me a headache.

3/8/2009 - Spoiled Girl

If you're not from Arizona, I couldn't possibly relay how disappointed I was with the last Superbowl. If it wasn't for that interception before halftime, this world would be a different place. And for those who were watching just for the commercials, there wasn't much entertainment to be had either. The only commercial that stood out to me was this one for Cheeto's:



There's just something about the laid-back evilness of Chester the Cat in this commercial that tickles me. I think he should be the next James Bond villain.

3/7/2009 - Prison Escape Fail

Like Jay Leno, I like hearing stories of stupid criminals. It seems like there are more criminals that are stupid than not. Of course, one could argue that being a criminal is stupid in the first place. Then there are those cases that make you scratch your head and make you wonder what they were thinking. This attempted prison escape is one of those cases:



Yes, they were escaping with handcuffs and tried to go on opposite sides of a light pole. Brilliant. It is such slapstick nonsense that you wouldn't even expect to see that in a Pink Panther movie. Then again, the new Pink Panther movies are pretty bad.

3/5/2009 - Tiny Clip-On TV

There are two possible captions for this video:

1) Lawsuit waiting to happen.
2) Resistance is futile.



Seriously, I'm a TV junkie myself, but this would be taking it too far.

3/3/2009 - Through the Fire and Flames 100%

I'm not sure what happened to Conrad the Great's video of him passing the Guitar Hero 3 song Through the Fire and Flames, but as "Great" as Conrad is, he wasn't perfect with the song. It's hard to imagine, though, that anyone could perform it perfectly. But you know that if anyone could, that they would put it on YouTube. Indeed, the aptly named "GuitarHeroPhenom" has done the unthinkable and conquered the song with a 100% result. And to prove his achievement, he records himself playing so he can present a picture-in-picture performance to the world:

3/1/2009 - CubeCheater iPhone app

I'm constantly amazed by the creativeness of some of these apps for the iPhone. There seems to be no limit in what you can do with a handheld computer with a built-in camera and an internet connection. I'm pretty sure programs existed that let you solve a Rubik's Cube before, but I'm sure they were tedious to use since you would have to enter in the colors on each face of the cube manually. That's where the iPhone's camera comes in:



I never understood the method in solving a Rubik's Cube. But with this app, I would never have to. :)

2/28/2009 - Steve Jobs demos Apple Macintosh, 1984

It's really too bad that Steve Jobs has had to take leave from running Apple day-to-day because of his mysterious illness. Everybody hopes he'll make his scheduled comeback this summer (maybe except Steve Ballmer). The innovation of the original Macintosh cannot be understated. The computer you're reading this blog on is not much different in terms of the GUI from the 1984 Mac. It's hard to imagine what kind of a seismic wave was produced when the Mac was introduced, but it was probably quite substantial. What everybody was working on before were computers with ugly screens and text-based input. Remember how big the hype was when the iPhone was introduced? I would argue that the iPhone wasn't as much of a revolutionary product than the Mac was. After all, there were smartphones with GUIs prior to the iPhone. The Mac was really something different. You may have to be over 40 to appreciate this video introduction of the Mac, or you may just have to be a computer enthusiast:

2/26/2009 - Vince with Slap Chop

I'm an infomercial addict and it's been a while since I've seen a really good one. I think the last good one I've seen until recently was the Ronco knives. Even though they were a direct copy of the Ginzu knives, Ron Popeil can still sell them as if they were his own product. Ever since that last infomercial by Ron, all we have seen are "mini-infomercials" (ones that don't go for a whole half hour) that mostly feature Billy Mays, a loud-mouth third-rate salesman in my opinion.

Then came Vince with the ShamWow. Even though it's still a mini-infomercial, and absorbent shammies aren't new, Vince is what makes it a great infomercial. He speaks with such speed, he sounds like an auctioneer. And it sounds like he isn't going from a script: a lot of it sounds ad-libbed. Take for example, "It's made in Germany... you know the Germans make good stuff." I also love his little dig at Ron Popeil when he says near the end "we can't do this all day". Ron is famous for giving an initially large price for the product only to lower the price five or six times to its final cost.

It was Vince's first infomercial and already he seemed like a natural. His instant popularity would seen lead to selling another product: the Slap Chop. He has the same delivery style and the same unnecessary headset microphone. This product is also nothing new, but the infomercial is already one of my favorites:



Reasons why I love this infomercial:

1) "I love pizza too, but once in a while get the veggies in."
2) "Stop having a boring tuna, stop having a boring life."
3) The sparkle effects.
4) The perfect backwards toss into the sink.
5) "Life's hard as it is, you don't want to cry anymore."
6) The unnecessary arrow pointing to the onion skin.
7) "Fettuccine, linguine, martini, bikini."
8) The "Beware of imitators" disclaimer when the Slap Chop itself is an imitator.

and of course

9) "You're gonna love my nuts."

2/24/2009 - Diane Sawyer Drunk

Alcohol is another thing that has little logical appeal for me. Yes, I see it as some kind of relaxant for social inhibitions, and bars that serve alcohol are places of adult congregation, but for something that has so many negative consequences for health and for safety, it's a phenomenon that can only be explained by man's imperfections. Plus, I just think it tastes bad.

Being drunk, however, is a sensation that under controlled conditions I wouldn't mind experiencing. And when I say "under controlled conditions", that means no video cameras. Otherwise I'd look like this clearly toasted Diane Sawyer:

2/17/2009 - Electronic Cigarettes

I don't get the appeal of cigarettes. I think my grandfather let me take a puff once and I nearly puked. If nicotine is the drug that is the addictive agent, what makes smoking a cigarette the ideal delivery method for the drug? Gums and patches just don't do the job for some people and so they fall back to the carcinogenic smoking. But like everything else, there may be an electronic solution. There is now something called "electronic cigarettes" or e-Cigarettes, which look like the real thing and you can actually "smoke" the cigarette that releases a nicotine-laced vapor that you inhale to get your fix. They have these in Europe apparently and you are allowed to use them in the workplace! Will it take off as a true smoking alternative? I don't know, but I think it's a very creative solution. Here's video of e-Cigarettes in action:

2/5/2009 - EVO moment 2k7

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 may not be the most balanced fighting game out there, but it may be the most fun fighting game, with only the Super Smash Bros. series being a possible exception. I mean, I'm a Marvel fan and a Capcom fan, so this game was tailor-made for someone like me. Imagine playing with characters like the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Wolverine against Ryu, Chun-Li, and Guile... all with that Capcom polish. To top it all off, you create tag-teams of three with 56 characters to choose from!

With so many characters and so many possibilities of team match-ups, I found it hard to believe that Marvel vs. Capcom 2 could be used in competition, especially for the formal Evolution tournament. Well, I'm glad they included it because it gave us one of the best comebacks put on tape that wasn't performed by Daigo. In fact, it's none other than Justin Wong, who you may know from the Evo Moment #37 video as being the victim of the greatest clutch performance by Daigo. Justin could have been known solely for that video if it wasn't for this one:



Being down 2 characters in a 3 on 3 match must seem like a hopeless situation... but as the video says, NEVER GIVE UP.

2/3/2009 - Youtube Street Fighter

YouTube has grown so much after it was taken over by Google. Not just in terms of viewers, members, and storage capacity, but in technology as well. YouTube can handle widescreen video now, HD video, and embeddable annotations. The last feature allows you to embed comments within the video as speech bubbles and even hyperlinks pointing you to a website or even another video. The most creative use of that feature would have to be the interactive Street Fighter game. Yes, you can play Street Fighter within a YouTube video:



It's like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book, but with Street Fighter action figures in a stop motion video. Seriously, this must have taken ages to create. You can see that each successive video in the series is just a branch in the tree hierarchy with all the possible moves planned out. I'm not sure if embedding this will allow you to play the game, so here is the direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPQ1XrllZmA

2/1/2009 - Zelda Ocarina of Time on Halo Custom Edition

Even though they are fun and can be very well done, I feel that first-person shooters are overdone in today's gaming landscape. It's even worse than it was in the 90's when fighting games were overdone. Almost every other game on the XBox 360 is an FPS, and that's probably not an exaggeration! I suppose what makes them popular now is because they lend themselves so well to online play. Gamers who are hungry for violence let out their frustrations by "killing" others live on the internet. I keep waiting for the next big genre to break through, but I fear that the FPS will stay for quite some time. It's gotten so bad that people are converting games of other genres into first-person shooters. You wouldn't think that the Nintendo 64 classic The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time could be modded into an FPS, but if there's a will, there's a way:

1/31/2009 - UStream on iPhone/iPod Touch

The Truman Show is one of my favorite movies and is probably Jim Carrey's best acting performance (I still love him as Ace Ventura more, though). The "Show" itself is actually a live uninterrupted broadcast of Truman Burbank (Carrey) and his life as it happens. It's a fascinating concept and the movie came out just as the reality-TV show craze started.

I bet the creators of The Truman Show didn't anticipate, however, that in just a few short years websites like UStream and Justin.tv would allow anybody with a webcam and an internet connection to broadcast their lives voluntarily. I guess these websites take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of voyeurs online.

Plus, it's just a great demonstration of technology. Just take YouTube, make it live, and fulfill your dreams of becoming an internet celebrity. I remember when portable TV's were a luxury item 15 years ago. Now with internet connected portable devices like cell phones, watching internet streams on the go will soon be a reality:

1/29/2009 - Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it)

I never watch the entire Star Wars (original) Trilogy until it was re-released in theaters in 1997. Until then, I never "got" why it was so popular. I had always believed it to be a showcase of special effects and puppetry. Although it's more fantasy than science fiction, the original trilogy was imaginative and it spurred imagination at the same time. It set itself up as a timeless mythology with archetypal characters. Above all that, it was just fun. It's ironic then, that the prequel trilogy would largely devolve into a mere showcase of special effects and (computer) puppetry.

But if you were to ask me before 1997 what the original Star Wars trilogy was about, I'd probably have the same kind of explanation as in this video:

1/27/2009 - Watch boiling water turn to snow!

I'm going to Washington, D.C. in a couple of weeks and my only trepidation about the trip is of the potential of some very cold weather. Living in the Southwest USA for most of my life, I have yet to experience truly sub-freezing temperatures. I mean, it snows in Tucson once every two or three years, and when it does, it makes the top of the news. I see tomorrow it will be 40 degrees Fahrenheit there and I would actually accept that for my trip. But I fear that the law of averages will play into the early February time period and below 30 degree temperatures will be awaiting me. If that's the case, I might try some experiments with freezing water or licking a metal pole or something. Watching this next video inspires me:

1/25/2009 - Legend of Zelda medley - A Capella Voices and Violin

This is one of the only YouTube videos where I would recommend watching with the browser window minimized. It's music from the Legend of Zelda series sung in A Capella with violin by one person. While the artist is undeniably talented, and the music is some of the greatest in videogaming, the performance looks... I don't know... it just looks strange when you have four unblinking singers stare at you for the entire performance:

1/24/2009 - Palm Pre and webOS CES DEMO

So the biggest product at the Consumer Electronics Show this year in terms of buzz was the Palm Pre (yes, that's the name). It's yet another touch screen smart phone, but this one actually has a chance to compete with the iPhone in terms of features and interface. iPhone users have been clamoring for features like a physical keyboard, multitasking, and copy/paste, and the Palm Pre actually delivers those features out of the box. And unlike recent smartphones like the Blackberry Storm, the interface is smooth and responsive, even when handling multiple applications at once.

Even though I think Steve Jobs' introduction of the iPhone is the best tech demo ever, the product should speak for itself, and that's the case with this introduction of the Palm Pre. The presenter is not a showman like Jobs, but that's not necessary when the product is so slick. It's almost as if Palm expected everybody to be 100% familiar with the iPhone interface, and they wanted to show how the Pre is different or better. I used to have a Palm PDA and I'm glad to see that they are back as a player in the consumer electronics industry.

1/22/2009 - How to Piss off a Geek

Yes, there's nothing more annoying to a geek than talking to someone who thinks they know tech stuff, but really don't. What else annoys us? Being told to restrict our bandwidth usage. Put both elements into a recorded phone message, and you have one pissed-off geek:



Oh, and his last name is pronounced pi-ri-loh.

1/20/2009 - Theremin Hero

Rock Band and Guitar Hero World Tour have the element of karaoke in it where you can sing along to the song and be judged on your timing and pitch. So, is it possible to cheat in the vocal gameplay? I guess if you were to play the recorded song back to the microphone, you could. But what's the fun in that? Take an instrument that produces a human-like voice sound like the theremin, pipe that to the microphone and you get "Theremin Hero":

1/18/2009 - ZY2K (2 videos)

Ah, Microsoft... It seems like every one of your products has some kind of flaw that inspires ridicule or scorn. Red rings of death on the XBox, anyone? How about the system requirements of Vista? Microsoft's Zune may not be competitive with Apple's iPod, but it can be said that it is more feature complete than the iPod (if you discount the iPod Touch, of course). Its style might be lacking, but it wasn't considered to be a "broken" product that made it a non-viable choice of an MP3 player. Well, that was the perception of the Zune before December 31, 2008. That was the date when all 30gb Zunes suddenly stopped working. Why? Because 2008 was a leap year. That's right: the programmers for the Zune's software handled programming for a leap year incorrectly, and the result was dubbed ZY2K:

1/17/2009 - PS3 + xbox 360 = PS360

As a person in the Playstation 3 camp, I'm not sure how to feel about this video. It's a demonstration of a Playstation 3 console whose guts has been replaced with the core components of an XBox 360. Essentially, it's an XBox 360 with a Playstation 3 faceplate. It's an impressive mod to be sure, it's just that it seems to be a waste of a perfectly good Playstation 3.

1/15/2009 - Thundercats Movie trailer (fanmade)

The biggest cartoons for boys when I was growing up were the Transformers and G.I. Joe, and it's a wonder they took so long in coming to the big screen. We'll see the Transformers sequel this year, as well as the G.I. Joe movie. Even though the first Transformers movie was not entirely accurate to its source material, it was a fun summer movie with great special effects that didn't take itself too seriously. I hope that they use the same kind of approach to G.I. Joe, because looking back on the cartoon, it's clear that it was more of a vehicle to sell action figures.

Another movie that I would like to see made is one for the Thundercats. Even though it ripped off Star Wars in a lot of ways, it was a very cool cartoon for the tweens and it was a little more mature than G.I. Joe and Tranformers. I still remember being scared by Mum-Ra, being sad at the death of Jaga (in the very first episode!), and the excitement of the trials of Lion-O. This next video would indicate that I'm not the only fan of the series who wants to see it as a movie. It is a fan-made movie trailer that uses footage of various movies that have been Photoshopped FRAME-BY-FRAME!



While it is quite impressive, I have to disagree with the casting of Brad Pitt as Lion-O. My pick would be Tom Welling of Smallville.

1/13/2009 - Gaming Expert

Forget about being smarter than a fifth grader, try your gaming knowledge against this ONE YEAR OLD GIRL:



Seriously, if your heart doesn't melt from hearing her recite what Pikachu says, you're not human. There is a little debate going on as to if this is healthy learning for the child, but I would say that if this makes learning fun, then roll with it.

1/11/2008 - More Mega Man Madness (2 videos)

I'm sure you've seen some kung-fu movies and thought, "Why can't all the bad guys just gang up on the hero at once?" Well, if that happened, that would probably be a very short movie. The same kind of logic can apply to video games. You go through the various levels and encounter some kind of boss character at the end of each level. It's a staple, in fact, for all the Mega Man games. In Mega Man games, however, you do encounter them all again right before Dr. Wily himself. But you still only face them one at a time. Certainly the NES couldn't handle all the boss characters on one screen, but no such limitations apply to a hacked ROM:



Then of course there's Met, sometimes called Hard Hat for a very obvious reason. He is perhaps the most annoying Mega Man enemy and has been part of the series since the first game. Met is only vulnerable when he peeks out of the hard hat, only at that time he fires a spread shot at you. If you don't time your shot right, he just goes back to hiding under the hard hat. Of all the boss weapons in the Mega Man games, what is most effective in dealing with Met? This video attempts to find out:

1/10/2008 - Cruel Summer (2 videos)

I've been complaining how MTV and VH1 doesn't show music videos anymore, but I think I have an explanation as to why they aren't. I think that musical artists now are reluctant to do music videos even as promotional material for their albums (which was the primary reason for them in the first place). Why are they so reluctant now? Well, just watch this video:



Oh man, that is so incredibly retro... and not in a good way. The 80's where definitely a goofy time and it shows in that music video. After seeing something like that, I can understand why some artists would not want to do music videos for fear of looking stupid in the future. I mean, "Cruel Summer" is a great song and it's one of my favorites, but that video is breathtakingly bad. Ace of Base did a remix of the song only 10 years ago and even their video seems dated:



Still, I would prefer watching these music videos over the crap they're showing on MTV nowadays.

1/8/2008 - Astronaut demos drinking coffee in space

Being a science geek as a kid, I always thought that being an astronaut would be a dream job for me. But as I got older, I've been more and more apprehensive about even the idea of being in space. It's like I have some kind of phobia about it or something. Maybe it's the exact opposite of claustrophobia... an extreme form of agoraphobia perhaps. I don't know what it is, but the idea of being stranded out there and being far away from Earth gives me the night sweats.

Still, I would really like to experience weightlessness. I guess it would fulfill the dream of flying, being free of gravity, and just having fun with it. Imagine the "fun" you could have with a cup of water in a weightless environment. What's amazing is that scientists have found a way to make an open container that will work in space where the liquid doesn't fly everywhere:



I'd LOVE to try that with Tang.

1/6/2009 - Mactini

The last MacWorld keynote (with Apple's participation) was today and a lot of people expected an Apple "netbook" to be announced. Netbooks are the big trend in computing these days. People seem to like their ultraportability despite having underpowered processors. They're meant to be carried anywhere and everywhere, and they cost about half the price of a regular notebook computer. I'm actually skeptical of the longevity of netbooks because their underpowered processors can't handle the HD video that is becoming more prevalent. Still, I think Apple would have been well-served if they did come out with a smaller laptop but one that has a real processor in it. My previous laptop was a 12" PowerBook and I thought it was the perfect mix of portability and power. The smallest laptop Apple has now is 13" and my complaint of it is that it won't fit into those small safes you find in hotel rooms. Ugh.

Well, if Apple ever did make a netbook, I'm afraid it will look something like this:

1/4/2009 - Immersion

There has been much talk about the link between video gaming and childhood obesity. I'm not going to make a judgment about that except to say that I personally don't have such an issue, despite being a gamer for over 20 years. Genetics may be part of it, but I feel that I actually burn a lot of calories when I'm gaming. Maybe that's because I really get into the games... I take the life and death situations in the game seriously, and that translates into the physiological responses associated with flight or fight situations: heart rate increase, perspiration, etc. In other words, unless it's a boring game, I don't become a zombie when I play... unlike some of the kids in this video:



It's funny how a lot of the kids have an intense, yet sleepy stare when they are playing. It's as if they've been pulling an all-nighter on the game... which wouldn't surprise me.

1/3/2009 - The Price is Right, Showcase Showdown PERFECT BID!

Have you ever watched the movie "Rain Man"? You know, the one with Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman, where Dustin Hoffman plays the title character who is an autistic savant that can barely function in society, but has extraordinary recall abilities that allow him to count cards to win at blackjack and even count toothpicks. Well, I think this Price is Right clip features a real life Rain Man:



What's extraordinary is how close Terry's competitor was as well in her bid. But what will blow your mind is what you didn't see: that Terry had another perfect bid on the opening item that led to him being in the Showcase Showdown! Unless he cheated, he should go down in the Price is Right as their greatest contestant.

1/1/2009 - The Art of the Quincy

So Playstation Home is finally out and I must say that it's mostly useless. Trying to copy the success of Second Life, PS Home aims to provide a virtual environment where gamers can congregate in the form of avatars. The problem is that there's really not much to do in the virtual environments that Sony provides. The videos take forever to load, the minigames aren't much fun, and they limited the ability to voice chat. It kind of makes me angry to think that Sony has spent all this money to develop Playstation Home instead of using it to improve their network or to cut deals with game developers for exclusive games.

Really, the only thing to see in Home is how the mostly male population flock to the female avatars in the virtual environment. The problem is, there's no way to tell if the avatars truly represent their gender in the real world. Which is why a prank like this is possible: