Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Filed under: Midweek Movie — Malcolm Owen @ 4:40 pm
There are very few films out there that can not only be viewed without thinking too hard about the content, but also be hugely entertaining by making you think. Yes, it’s a weird combination of thoughts, but that’s what sums up my view on Team America: World Police.
On the surface, it’s a Trey Parker and Matt Stone film, full of the usual things you would expect from the creators of South Park and Baseketball. Except this time, it’s neither live action, nor high quality animation. It’s puppets. Like watching Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet, but on cocaine. (”Drugs are bad, mmkay”)
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Filed under: Gaming — Malcolm Owen @ 12:14 pm
Ed Lau asked the question “How Much Does Guitar Hero Rock?“, before answering that yes, it does indeed rock.
My answer? Yes, it does indeed rock, what kept you?
Let me tell you a story (originally posted as a comment on the aforementioned blog, but I figure you might as well hear it too):
Christmas Eve, 2006. The usual routine is for one present each to be opened on that day to make the excitement die down a bit before the big day itself. My kid brother opens… Guitar Hero. It got played well into the night, and everyone loved it.
Christmas day itself, he gets a ton more PS2 games. Except that he doesn’t play them. He played Guitar Hero all day.
My birthday on the 26th arrived straight afterwards, so it was my turn to dominate the TV. What did I do? Play Guitar Hero all day, before going to a birthday supper at one of the many drinking establishments back in the city I call home. And each time I visit Mum, I immediately look for the guitar. It may not be plugged in but I still look at it longingly, hoping for someone to get a second guitar, so guitar battles can happen.
I’m tempted to get an old PS2 and a copy of GH or GH2, if only so I can play it without having to go to my mother’s house…
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Monday, May 28, 2007
Filed under: Apple, Tech, Video — Malcolm Owen @ 9:46 pm
Ladies and Gentlemen, we now have a productive excuse to hit our computers. The Macbook has a weird motion sensor inside it, supposedly for detecting a fall and bracing the moving parts for impact. VirtueDesktops uses and abuses this feature, allowing you to change the virtual desktop you’re using without having to select some tiny icon or by some archaic keyboard shortcut. Yes, you can smack your laptop, and it will change for you. Proof? Here’s a video I did…
Sadly, the VirtueDesktops software has had work stopped on it, so no newer updates on the already great software. No harm in downloading it, though.
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Saturday, May 19, 2007
Filed under: Gaming — Malcolm Owen @ 3:39 pm
You know, this isn’t really a gaming blog, but I figure if it’s big enough news, it should appear here in some form too…
Blizzard (World of Warcraft, etc) have announced that their next game release will be Starcraft 2. Not Starcraft Ghost. Not World of Starcraft (that would be amazing, though…). A proper sequel to the original Starcraft.
You can read more at your favourite gaming news source. Hopefully that’s Gametactics.com, where I write too.
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Filed under: Internet, Video — Malcolm Owen @ 3:03 pm
So, it’s been rumored in some places that The Pirate Bay, that famous torrent site, would launch some sort of video or music sharing site for some time now. Not much of a jump, going from torrenting to video/music sharing, really. However, the main question would be in what form this idea would take.
At last, someone’s had a clue about this. Zero Paid have been in contact with “The Bay”, and have found it will be like Youtube, except without the censorship. The name? The Video Bay, funnily enough, although at the time of writing it’s closed to everyone bar admin and beta testers.
The question has now changed to: How angry do you think the RI/MPAA et al will be once it goes live?
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Filed under: Other — Malcolm Owen @ 9:44 pm
Answer: A lot of scratches and that’s about it.
User sxenko decided to do so, and half expecting a page of light, I saw instead a lot of black and some scratches. The light of a scanner is offset from the reader, angled as well, to minimize direct reflections from the source material. Those scratches are either on the mirror or on the scanner’s glass surface, leaving a nice effect not too dissimilar to marble.
[Via Digg]
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Saturday, May 12, 2007
Filed under: TV — Malcolm Owen @ 11:52 pm
So, yet again, European television has been hijacked by a long-running international singing competition. The “Eurovision Song Contest” is a yearly event (sometimes noted as a cheese-fest, thanks to the usual quality of the singing/performances) where every country taking part sends a band to sing for 3 minutes, in a desperate attempt to garner the most votes from the other competing nations. Here’s the short version of events:
- This year it was hosted in Finland, since last year Lordi won, and the victors host the following year. Usually the set is done in the cheapest possible way. This year? Large arena, huge video screens, fantastic set. Heck, even the opening sequence was damn good for a TV show, with special effects of Lord of the Rings proportions. They should be congratulated for making such a mammoth effort.
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Friday, May 11, 2007
Filed under: Video — Malcolm Owen @ 10:32 am
Ever since some guys discovered Youtube, there’s always been some random idiots mouthing to some semi depressing or overtly pop/hip-hop song, in an attempt to become semi-famous in their peer group using a skill that doesn’t really require that much talent to do. Trying to become famous, the easy way. What many of these people don’t know is that it’s not the song you sing, it’s not how well you can mouth the words, it’s all about the execution, the final product.
Cue some people in an office somewhere, doing a “Lip Dub” of Flagpole Sitta by the user amandalynferri.
[Via One Digital Life, via Steve Garfield]
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Thursday, May 10, 2007
Filed under: Tech — Malcolm Owen @ 3:43 pm
if you are the owner of a new gadget, you usually end up doing the new gadget owner things, treating it like royalty, cleaning it after every speck of dust touches it. Your need to keep it pristine and as close to “just opened freshness” as possible makes it impossible to actually use the product in a meaningful way until it’s accepted as normal in your life. This could be weeks, or in some cases months. A little tip: Mark, dirty up, or just do something to it to make it marginally less “perfectly new”, and you won’t pussyfoot around it any more. It sounds weird, but it’s true.
Example - Justin Lee bought a PS3. He opened it on webcam to show off to random people online. Throughout this, he was careful not to smudge it because it was so shiny and perfect. He was even wearing plastic disposable gloves, so his finger grease won’t mark it. I told him he should rub a finger all over the top, defiling it. Afterwards, he used it a lot, and didn’t worry about getting it dirty, since he already had.
Remember, hardware is meant to be used. if you aren’t using it, you’re burning up the warrantee…
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