“In my dreams, I see the two of us alone in my golden submarine, while up above the waves my doomsday squad ignites the atmosphere.”
– Wil Wheaton on Scarlett Johansson
If you’ve seen the trailer, then you’ve already got a taste of it, but basically this is a live-action cartoon. The visual effects and the super-saturated colors aren’t just in the racing scenes - the whole movie looks like a photoshop layout. To be honest, it kind of bothered me at first. Thankfully, the story and acting is good enough that I quickly stopped caring. The movie is peppered with references to the cartoon, and it’s genuinely funny. The cast is excellent, and while they’re a bit one-dimensional, they’re pretty direct copies of their cartoon characters, so it’s to be expected. John Goodman especially stole the show for me - his character is great, always harrumphing and grunting around. As far as I’m concerned, this movie is excellent, and it almost redeems the Wachowski Brothers for the Matrix sequels.
- Video: Cup Of Brown Joy
“When I say Earl Gray, you say Yes Please”
Tags: tea, video, music, warrenellis, british - Marvel Announces Iron Man 2 and Avengers
Marvel announced that Iron Man 2 and Thor will be released in the summer of 2010, followed by Captain America: The First Avenger and The Avengers in summer 2011.
Tags: movies, marvel, captainamerica, thor, ironman, avengers, adaptations, comics, announcements - The day the music died
“The Microsoft music player will conclude… the files were downloaded illegally and that the victim is a filthy pirate, and it will refuse to play them. …The left hand knows exactly what the right hand is doing: they’re both giving you the finger.”
Tags: microsoft, playsforsure, msn, music, mp3, apple, itunes, drm, piracy - I’d Watch It.
“the idea of Captain Crusher and his Oberth class starship investigating murders, thefts, temporal discrepancies and bizarre engineering puzzles is very appealing.”
Tags: wilwheaton, wesleycrusher, startrek, tng, csi, television, starfleet, spinoff - Dooce on Writing About Children
“We are an army of educated mothers who have finally stood up and said pay attention, this is important work, this is hard, frustrating work and we’re not going to sit around… waiting for permission to [blog]. We have declared that our voices matter.”
Tags: blogs, dooce, children, parenting, privacy, writing, blogging - Lost Producers Grade Fan Theories
“USA Today has given the chance for Lost fans to submit their own plot theories to later be graded by executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. And the producers’ responses so far reveal some important hints about the show’s secrets.”
Tags: lost, television, theories, producers, carltoncuse, damonlindelof, secrets, plot - Video: Truth in Advertising
Wow. Uncomfortably close to the truth.
Tags: advertising, video, parody, agency, design, corporate, creative, marketing
In a nutshell, GTA4 keeps everything good about the previous games, while dramatically improving most of the annoyances. The driving is slightly more challenging — if only because it’s actually difficult to drive at a reasonable speed that won’t result in you flying through the windshield in a head-on collision — but when you pull it off, it succeeds in capturing the feel of speed in a way I haven’t seen since outside the Burnout series. The shooting and fighting engines have been completely redone, and actually work this time. The annoying micromanagement aspects of San Andreas, where you had to grind at the gym to keep in shape are gone, and the constant courting required to keep your girlfriends happy have been simplified, so that now your friends will call you every now and then to suggest going out to a variety of in-game entertainment, including magic shows, bowling, darts, and of course, strip clubs. More important than any of those, though, is the story. There’s a real narrative attached to the characters in this game. You have the sense that they existed before you came along, and they’ll still exist after you leave — well, the ones that are still alive, anyway. The story just feels better, and the world feels more alive. It’s compelling to the degree that I find myself thinking about it at odd moments during the day, in the same way that the story in a good book will capture me. Long story short: if you enjoyed the previous games at all, you’ll love it.
Jon Favreau directing Iron Man and starring Robert Downey Jr. was all I needed to hear to get excited about this movie. When the trailer came out, it just raised my hopes even higher. His portrayal of Tony Stark as a self-centered alcoholic billionaire looked pitch-perfect — And I’m happy to say that the movie doesn’t disappoint. First of all, the balance between humor and drama is well-done. (In particular, the scenes where he tests the armor in his garage with his robot assistants are priceless.) Secondly, they nailed the story arc for Tony - he starts out as completely irredeemable, and by the time he puts on the armor, you understand the transition he’s been through. It’s believable. Finally, Jeff “The Dude” Bridges as Obediah Stane was an unexpected but brilliant bit of casting. All in all, it was great. I can’t recommend it strongly enough. Oh, and be sure you stay through the credits!
- Video: Wasted on the Young: Vlogging from the Past
What if you’d had a video blog in 1994?
Tags: menatrot, vlogging, video, 1994, nirvana, highschool, parody - Milliways: Infocom’s Unreleased Sequel to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Fascinating for two reasons: 1, the peek at how games were designed back in the day, and 2, the discussion thread, which starts out angry but proceeds to a wonderful conversation with lots of Infocom alumni participating.
Tags: infocom, video, games, history, interactivefiction, if, text, adventure, h2g2, milliways, sequel, douglasadams - Video: Facebook in Real Life
I’m using it more lately due to work, but I still kinda don’t get facebook.
Tags: facebook, socialnetworking, irl, video, parody, british - If I Were A Paid Political Consultant Person
"[the gas tax is] really simple. Which makes you wonder why Hillary Clinton and John McCain don’t think you can understand it. My name is Barack Obama, and I approve this message."
Tags: obama, politics, clinton, mccain, president, campaign, election, gas, fuel, oil, taxes - Video: Kittens Coca Cola Box
adorable.
Tags: kittens, coke, box, cats, cute, video - Is Battlestar Galactica Full Of Clues?
Interesting article about some possible clues in the most recent episodes of Galactica.
Tags: battlestar, galactica, bsg, scifi, starbuck, clues, eastereggs, hints - Spore Creature Creator
They’re going to sell a stand-alone version of the creature creator from Spore for $10 - this neatly parallels an idea Sean had to sell the hero designer from City of Heroes as a stand-alone package.
Tags: spore, willwright, creaturecreator, software, game, video
Is anyone else seeing a dramatic increase in spam in their gmail account? I typically get between 150-200 spams a day, but the last two days I’ve gotten around 550. The overwhelming majority of them are the postmaster bounce messages, which leads me to suspect someone is using my address in a massive spam campaign.
One of my coworkers is also seeing this on his account, so I was wondering if it was happening to anyone else. The one nice thing is that gmail’s fantastic spam filter isn’t having any trouble - I had three spams in my inbox this morning, and all the rest were properly filtered.
Due to a decent tax refund, we’ve finally decided to get around to all the home improvement and decorating we’ve been meaning to do since moving into this house two years ago. This past weekend, I did the following:
- Go to Ikea, purchase things
- Assemble the file cabinet that came in like eight boxes
- Assemble the new bookcase
- Move Zoe’s bookcase to the living room
- Rearrange all the bookcases in the living room
- Unclog the bathroom sink
- Hang coat hooks in Zoe’s room
- Sort through comic boxes before we donate the comics to a shelter
Add to this list the curtains and shelves we purchased and hung up last weekend, and I’m about sick of home improvement projects. Good thing this next week will bring Grand Theft Auto 4 for game night and Iron Man for the twins’ birthday over the weekend!
“…Not because I’m some patchouli-scented, fuzzy-headed, ‘information wants to be free’ info-hippie. I’m at it because I want to fill my bathtub with money and rub my hands and laugh and laugh and laugh.”
–Cory Doctorow, from the forward of Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town
I’ve mentioned before that Zoe loves reading, but it’s really become one of her favorite things recently. She will happily sit on the floor paging through one of her picture books for ten minutes, quietly turning the pages, and pointing at things she likes. (Based on how often she points to their photos, her favorite things right now are kittens, puppies, and little babies.) I like to refer to this as “reading for comprehension,” and it marks a big change from just a month or two ago when books existed mostly to be manipulated. She would chuckle at the photos sometimes, or chew on the spine, but what she really liked was turning the pages. If you tried to read with her, and you didn’t let her just turn the pages as fast as she could, you would end up with a cranky little girl. Now, though, she’s all about the content. She’ll open a book to a page and spend a minute or two admiring the subject matter, and then turn to the next page.
She even knows which way is up — the other night, I watched her grab one of her books, and when she realized it was upside down, she set it down, stared at it for a second like she was figuring out the best approach, and then crawled in a circle around to the other side of the book.
The best part is her reading voice. Like most one-year-olds, Zoe spends all day long babbling and chattering away. Since she just repeats the same baby syllables over and over, the only real meaning that gets expressed is in tone of voice. When she’s upset, she get shrill and loud. When she wants attention, she gives short, sharp cries. When she’s happy, she quietly burbles, and when she’s excited she tends to shriek with joy. But she has a whole different tone of voice that she only uses when she’s reading to herself. It’s kind of cheerful and sing-songy, and Annie got a nice video of it the other night.
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