The Man Who Wasn't There

You know, every time I begin to think, "Hmm...there's a game on the PSP I really would like. Maybe I'll shell out the money to get it" said game ends up being ported to the Playstation 2. This seems to be a trend that might continue as publishers/developers realize they can't recoup their money based solely on the PSP market.

First, it was Ratchet and Clank Size Matters which is likely to come to the PS2. Now, Silent Hill Origins is confirmed to be coming to PS2. I'm wondering if the same fate will befall the PSP God of War game.

I'd really like to play the God of War game, but I don't want to purchase a PSP.

This is the best thing I've heard. Ever. And will probably bring a smile to the majority of my friendlist who enjoys all things Half Life.

There's a show on the AM radio called Coast to Coast AM that I used to listen to on occasion because it was just so much fun. At the time, it was hosted by Art Bell, who coincidentally can be heard at times in the game Prey in a kind of wink-wink/nudge-nudge fashion. Now it's being hosted by a guy named George Noory. Basically, it's a talk show where people call in about conspiracy theories, aliens, flashing lights, etc.

On the 18th, they received a call from "Gordon Freeman" who said he is a theoretical physicist and spins a story about being stalked by a pale man whom he calls "G-man." Additionally, he finally admits to working on "portal technology." It is awesome.

This should be a good link to the video. Hilarious stuff here, especially since it sounds like Noory totally buys what's being fed to him.

Let me know if the image of a new vacuum cleaner below the cut reminds you of a certain savior of the universe who enjoys blowing aliens up...

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Seems like Cloverfield is just the start of a new wave of cinema verite fiction. I had linked earlier to the Diary of the Dead, George Romero's next zombie film that is about a filmmaker who ends up catching on film the living dead.

Then there's The Poughkeepsie Tapes which doesn't look very good, I don't think. But again, same style.

Then there's the Spanish movie [REC] which I think looks awesome and from what I've gathered from reviewers and people who've watched it, it will be pretty damn amazing.

With the success of Cloverfield already sparking discussions about the sequel, I'm wondering if filmmakers will try to cash in on this style of filmmaking.

Saw Cloverfield Friday night. I'll write about it soon. But I wanted to post a link to this bloody disgusting.com article as it is very interesting. The origin of the Cloverfield monster is revealed...IN THE FILM!

I totally missed this key scene; and if you stay until after the credits, there's an audio portion with some additional news. All of that is in the linked article. VERY interesting!!

I had posted previously that the PS3 is the only future-proof Blu-Ray player on the market and as the profile moves toward 2.0, all of the launch Blu-ray Players basically become obsolete. This is one area in which the Blu-Ray camp sucks and should have followed suit with HD-DVD. This is an area where HD-DVD wins in a no-contest sort of way.

This article is probably the best I've seen breaking down the profiles, what's to expect and further emphasizes my point that if you want to watch Blu-Ray movies, the best way is via your Playstation 3.

I thought the numbers were interesting, as well. According to the article, 3.5 million Blu-Ray players have been sold to date. Of that number, 3 million of those purchases were Playstation 3s. So, we have 500,000 people who might be pretty upset come profile 2.0, but that's a lot less than 3 million people being upset.

Crazy French law that forbids booksellers from discounting books more than 5% off list price is costing Amazon.com €1,000 a day due to Amazon's free shipping.

Interesting announcements from Macworld. Nothing as spectacular as last year's iPhone announcement. But the new firmware update for iPhone is awesome.

Current Pope has reportedly said, when he was a cardinal, that the Galileo heresy trial (the one where he said the Earth revolved around the Sun) was "fair and just."

So far, the PS3 is the only future-proof Blu-Ray player, meaning that early adopters who didn't buy a PS3 are being screwed as the profile moves from 1.1 to profile 2 later this year.

The WGA announced nominees in game writing. Very curious, indeed. And not very good. The fact that it includes Dead Head Fred, Crash of the Titans (...a Crash Bandicoot game...has a meaningful story?) and completely ignores some of the tops of last year (Uncharted, Portal, Bioshock, Half Life 2 Episode 2 all come directly to mind...) makes this list less than satisfactory in my opinion.

My favorite bad ass is going to be in Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I kicked ass as Sheik and glad to see her...him......it(?) return.

Do Not Call Registry is open again. Make sure you register if you're annoyed with telemarketers calling you at 9 PM on Sunday. I know I am -_-

Not a link, but I'm really excited that this time, it doesn't look like Age of Conan is going to be pushed back further. Funcom released a press announcement detailing the contents of the Age of Conan Collector's Edition, the March 25th day is still holding and things look to be chugging forward. I've been waiting four years, give or take, to play this game. The wait is soon going to be over.

This might be Uwe Boll's last high budget movie. Yay for flops.

Myspace has the exclusive trailer for Romero's new zombie series. Haven't watched it yet; excited to, when I get home.

Final Harry Potter film could be a two-parter.

Finally, the following poster is amazingly cool:

A couple funny new items (if semi-tragically so in the case of the twins).

The first is that apparently the FBI Wiretaps have been cancelled due to non-payment. source.

So this is kind of funny, but not really when you get down into the weeds about it: "In five of the bureau's 56 field offices, an audit by the Justice Department's Office of the Inspector General found hundreds of delinquent invoices, potentially threatening the integrity of undercover investigations and resulting in an undisclosed amount of lost evidence."

Or how about the twins who got married...not knowing they were twins. Source. Oh man, that'd suck. "I feel attracted to you; you remind me so much of someone...."

Finally, because this is too good to pass up, Mass Effect is pr0n. Amusing.

**

My plans for the weekend are stellar:

Tonight: Watch Sunshine and play DDO.
Tomorrow: Go to the Karaoke club with Nikki.
Sunday: Parents are taking me out to Cheesecake Factory for my bday. Hopefully catch the Orphanage, as well.

EDIT: One final thing, an interview with Trent Reznor post-sales figure blog concerning Saul's album.

As a counter-point to it, Saul's interview about the exact same thing. Very cool and interesting.

Man, ANOTHER EDIT: But because this article spoke to me about my generation, politics and a so-called "youthquake." Very interesting. Great read.

Things I'm looking forward to in Jan/Feb:

Stephen King's new novel

The Bedlam in Goliath by The Mars Volta

Finally seeing The Nines and Sunshine.

Trying to ignore the hype (not to mention supposed shots of the monster) and then actually seeing Cloverfield.

My brother's next fight in which he's headlining.

Lost Odyssey and Devil May Cry 4.

THE Concert of the Year which also happens to be the same day as ...another guilty musical pleasure.

So, now that New Line is moving to Blu Ray and they are starting to ramp up their HD releases (and doing a damn fine job of it, by the way), chances are we can expect to see The Lord of the Rings HD soon. I found these comparison shots from gizmodo of the DVD scans of scenes versus the HD scans of the same scenes.

Take a look:

Scenic Beauty

DVD scan / HD scan.

Hiding

DVD scan / HD scan

Very interesting. In a very nerdy addendum, fricknfrackfan, littlekfru and I have already determined that when they come out, we'll be having a very long Blu Ray marathon.

This entry is partly for dj_jonny_flash because I know he loves the tentacle. This guy in Norway created a wall mural from the hilarious game, Day of the Tentacle. And it's badass. I'm incredibly jealous.

Additionally, the pics at the end of the rest of his home make me feel both incredibly geeky, but also incredibly jealous. His collections rock. It looks like we have the same TV, though!

I can't actually get to youtube from here, so I'm not 100% positive this is a good link, but the new Mars Volta song is hot. Like, I want to have its sonic-babies hot. Which...doesn't make much sense, I know. But it's the damn truth.

Listen to it. Almost three minutes of pulsing music at its finest.

Man, I should have bought Call of Duty 4 on the Xbox 360 yesterday. It was on sale for $37 and I didn't realize it was a one day sale. So, after being told by callmesteam that I should purchase it without thinking, I went today to look at it again. And it's no longer $37. It's $54. Argh.

I received Hatchet last night from Amazon Vine. I'm pretty excited to see it. I'd been following the movie for awhile since it is a complete throwback to the 80s slasher films. Additionally, it stars some great iconic slasher fiends like Robert England, Tony Todd and Kane Hodder. It's supposed to be gory and funny. It never came near here in the theatres so this is the first chance I'll have to watch it.

Hopefully it'll be along the same lines as Feast and Slither, two terrific send-ups of horror movies that were a lot of fun.

In other news R.I.P. Ali G & Borat.

Bruckheimer promises a unique Prince of Persia and Neil Gaiman's website has a sneak peak of Coraline.

My brother had another match last night for the Omaha Fight Club (OFC) as he's working, I guess, to fight for the UFC. I went, along with fricknfrackfan, littlekfru, garnitas13 and a few other non-LJ friends. He was the 8th fight out of 10. I'd been really nervous/anxious about this fight because it was his second fight and the first one was over so quickly that it could have been a fluke.

So, we went to support him. He was amazing. The fight lasted longer than the first one and was pretty cool...I guess he dropped 10 pounds for weigh in because there was this guy that was talking smack to him so he dropped the weight to fight him. Chris, my brother, is a nice guy who never really talks bad about anyone, but he's also cocky and has a sometimes inflated sense of bravado. So, when the challenge was issued, he took it.

The video is in the LJ-cut below. There's a point that's probably a little confusing. Apparently, the ref stopped the fight because he thought he saw the other guy tap-out, for one, and for two, according to my brother, was afraid Chris was going to break his arm. Whether that last part is true or not is up to you. ;) But, that's why the fight stops briefly.

My brother's 2-0 now.

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gnaritas13 took a much better clip of the finishing kick from our vantage point and I'll try and get it posted once I have it.

The fight was exciting, I'll admit, even though it's not really my thing. But I'm just glad it's over.

What the heck is up with Warner? Are they racing to get Blu Ray titles out before Christmas that they got sloppy? High Def Digest is a website I use to keep up to date on HD titles. They do a great job of staying informed and their reviews take into consideration the picture/audio quality so buyers can learn if it's worth purchasing or not.

Well, a week ago, there were reports that the Harry Potter Blu Ray Gift Set had some mix-ups and some of the gift sets actually had the HD-DVD discs instead of Blu Ray. This is a Warner title.

Then, yesterday, Blade Runner, another Warner title, had manufacturing problems on the Blu Ray side.

Today, Terminator 3 has been confirmed to have problems on the Blu Ray side. This is a third Warner title. What the heck?

I'm excited for Blade Runner, I have to admit. I am loathe to admit I've never seen Blade Runner before and now that it's out on Blu Ray and received an impeccable score for everything, I have no excuse. It's on my netflix list but I might just up and buy it for my collection.

Ah man, this Ruins trailer is sick and I was right; it spoils what happens. Not that I'm surprised. Again: Spoilers!!

Now the Hellboy 2 trailer looks pretty cool. I already knew I'd be there; I mean it's Guillermo del Toro!

So, the current internet fad Yahtzee's latest video apparently tackles Mass Effect and, from what I'm seeing in communities, Ctrl+Alt+Del (CAD). I guess I'll see it when I get home tonight and see what everyone's saying. I wish I could watch it here, but I cannot. Just seeing what's being said on the Escapist forums is enough:

"Oh wow that is great. I know a guy who loves CAD, and he definitely qualifies as a self-important retard."

Of course, some comments made me laugh:

"i just went and had a look at ctrl+alt+delete, and all i can say it is one of the most retarted comics ever."

If you're going to insult something, try spelling retarded correctly, yeah? Unless he/she was saying that CAD used to be a tart, stopped being so tart (maybe he added more sugar?) and now is re-tarted? I guess Tim responded, but, again, I can't access the link here.

Anyway, enough of that. There's a trailer online for The Ruins, apparently. I haven't watched it yet but I will when I get home tonight. If you haven't read the book and don't want to be assaulted by spoilers, I'd recommend staying clear of it. It probably contains major spoilers.

I want it to be the weekend. For one, I'm dreaming of the four day break. For two, I want to get rid of my possessed phone.

( ruminations of possession )

So, it's not necessarily a great interview or very informative...but it truly made my musical geek day today when I saw this interview at MSNBC.com with The Mars Volta. I love this band a lot and their last album, Amputechture sucker-punched me with its awesomeness. It's on my list of my favorite albums.

But, the thing is, they are a niche band. I think more people know about Coheed and Cambria than they do The Mars Volta. With the exception of one song that some hip radios probably played called The Widow and possibly a very truncated version of the 12 minute L'Via L'Viaquez (which featured John Frusciante), they don't get much radio time. One small thing I like about them is that you really feel like you're getting the most out of your money. Whereas some bands toss maybe 30 minutes of material on a CD that can hold 80, The Mars Volta CDs are jammed with good material and run around 76 minutes, usually. And the music is almost always sonically interesting. They do weird things and cool things, backed with melodies that get stuck in your head.

I was surprised to learn they have a new album coming out in January, thanks to this interview, called The Bedlam in Goliath and I'm super stoked now. I hope it's more in the same vein as Amputechture and not Francis The Mute.

I'd definitely recommend checking them out. Try The Widow, Viscera Eyes, Vermicide or L'Via L'Viaquez as possible downloads. I know Youtube has at least three of those songs. So, give them a listen and let me know what you think. :) I'd post actual links, but work prohibits me.

You can learn about the most interesting things by looking at candy packages. I need to preface this by saying that I'm a Marketer's Wet Dream since whenever I see new candy items in stores, I tend to gravitate to them and want to try them out. So it was, then, that I happened upon and quickly purchased Ice Breakers' PACS which is essentially a dissolvable packet with a mint powder inside (which, coincidentally, is problematic to police officers who think it looks like powdered drugs).

So, looking at the box that PACS come in, I saw "18 Xylitol pouches" on the bottom and thought that maybe Xylitol was the material they used that's dissolvable. Turns out it is the mint powder/sugar inside. And, in fact Xylitol is pretty damn cool when I wiki'd it. Take a look!

Apparently, Xylitol is a sweetener taken from natural products (corn fibres, birch, raspberries, etc.), has less calories than sugar, no carbs and has less impact on a person's blood sugar level, making it safe for diabetics.

But there's more. It's toothfriendly, is absorbed more slowly than sugar into the blood, can help prevent ear infections, control Candida yeast issues annnnd has the potential to be a treatment for Osteoporosis!

All of this because I looked at the bottom of a candy container.