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.