Sunday, July 27, 2008

Shia LaBeouf arrested for drunk driving this morning. Does being a Disney kid equate to being a loady?


Indiana Jones co-star Shia LaBeouf (la buff la boof?) was arrested this morning in Hollywood for drunk driving after getting in a three car accident, one in which he was the driver. Despite his claims that Bumblebee was doing the driving for him he was charged with drunk driving (just kidding about this part). Formerly a Disney star, on the show 'Even Stevens', this is not the first time he's gotten in trouble for hitting the bottle a little too hard, LaBeouf was arrested after running around drunk in a Chicago Walgreen's. Just the latest in a string of the drunken misadventures of former Disney child stars (ie Lindsay Lohan). Maybe there is a sense of entitlement when you become a Disney kid where you think it's OK to drive around drunk. Who knows? Well they say there's no such thing as bad publicity. Maybe he'll get a shot at Celebrity Rehab or something. On a personal note I was in Hollywood yesterday, but came home around one. Shoulda stuck around a while longer, I wouldn't mind getting hit by a celebrity, I could use the money.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Fashion or cruelty? Live fish are being used in jewelry.


I have run across a couple articles (first one I saw was on Ananova, click here to see it) in the last few days, and there seems to be a new fashion trend out there. No, it's not paying an extra 20 dollars for a shirt that looks "used" (distressed I believe is the term). No, it's wearing fish. Not just any fish. Live goldfish. Many have condemned it as cruel, but that's not stopping it from being all the rage in China. Basically they are necklaces with fish encapsulated within them. Inside there is fish food, and oxygen balls to keep them alive. They can supposedly survive for three weeks inside the necklaces. The companies selling them say you can break them open and release the fish before they meet their demise. Personally, I find this a bit cruel. I mean, who wants to live in a little 2 inch bubble anyways? Reminds me of the wonderful craze of fish inside platform shoes ala the 70s. I mean what's next? Kitten belts with live kittens taped to you?

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Man sues Subway for knife baked into his bread.


A New York man is seeking $1 million dollars from the Subway corporation. He claims he found a knife baked into his bread on his cold cut trio sandwich. This is not the first claim of its kind. In recent months a boy claims to have found a rusty bolt baked into his bread. Spokesmen for Subway say that food safety is of the upmost importance to them. The lawyer of the man who is suing says she's looking into whether this may have been an intentional act. On a personal note I've been craving Subway since I see those five dollar foot-long ads on television. Maybe it is my body's way of telling me I need more iron in my diet.

Nobody is safe from graffiti! Not even snails.


Street artist slinkachu http://slinkachu.blogspot.com has been tagging up snails with non toxic paint. Just thought it was a neat little art project and wanted to toss up the picture.

Flagship Studios takes a "hiatus".


Well, one of the games I was going to post about was Mythos. Truly one of my favorite games lately, I've been on the beta test for it about 4 or 5 months. It was a fun game, pseudo diablo style. I dug it. Today when I tried to log in though, I discovered that Mythos servers were down. Flagship studios who also made Hellgate: London has severely cut staff and shut down their operations to take a "hiatus". Which is unfortunate, because they just completely retooled Mythos and I was really getting into it. Here is a letter from Max Schaffer over at Flagship Studios:
They say it's not so much the destination as it is the journey that's important. We're really hoping that's the case around here these days. I can't really believe I'm writing a post like this, but here we are faced with the unpleasant task of taking a hiatus from this crazy project. Unlike most games, Mythos has been running with our testing community for almost its whole life. I really feel like we've all done this together. And despite this bump in the road, I think we've succeeded wildly. This is undoubtedly the best game community I've ever seen. This is the best game development team in the world, in both Seattle and San Francisco. The things we've learned here, and with you all, will be with us forever.

PC gaming is changing, and I believe we've had a sneak preview with Mythos. With any luck, this will not be a long hiatus, and Mythos will be back. But even if it's not, and even if we all move on, we've taken a lot of important steps forward. Game development is in many ways a continuum, and we all build on what came before. I know neither Travis, the great Mythos dev team, nor myself are planning on doing anything but make games into the future. So no matter what, we'll pick up where we left off and you'll be hearing from us shortly. We may not be the best business people on the planet , but we know how to make games. And once the dust settles here, that's what we hope to get right back to doing as soon as possible. So until then, aux revoir Mythos community! It's truly been a privilege to have experienced this with you.

Max Schaefer, your humble executive producer

I hope they bring back mythos eventually. It was fun, it was free, it was an mmorpg, as their tagline says.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Belated War Gifts - Killer Trash


Osaka in western Japan is the scene of an evacuation. Floods? Fires? What would cause authorities to evacuate 5,400 residents? A six foot long, one ton bomb is what. An old World War II bomb left in the ground, unexploded more than 60 years ago. Just as in 1974, one of the last Japanese soldiers, Hiroo Onodo surrendered, having not accepted the war as being over, these bombs definitely don't know when the war is over. This is actually a common thing in Japan, a bomb was found back in March in the outskirts of Tokyo. It is also not an uncommon thing in the world at all. A Virginia man in May was killed trying to restore a still active cannonball from the Civil War. People still discover active mines left over from the Civil War. War leaves us little presents everywhere. Although standards of using mines have altered over the years, Afghanistan is still dealing with the over million mines left over from their conflict with Russia. On a regular basis in Afghanistan people lose life and limb, so it's no wonder Kabul has one of the most advanced prosthetics programs in the world. Unexploded bombs and mines are found throughout the world. Aftermath from war, devices that have no loyalties and don't pick sides. Our legacy and gift to the next generation.

Pugilism, fisticuffs, and castling. Chess boxing: the future?


We live in an age of mash ups. Everything from mixing songs together, to combining activities normally thought divergent, to putting pepsi in our cokes O.o ! I ran across an article on Time today that talks about the emerging sport of Chess Boxing, so I knew I had to look into it some more. You heard me right. Chess boxing. There are a couple of different leagues. In the United States there is the Hip Hop Chess Federation, in Europe they have the [World Chess Boxing Organisation]. One of Hip Hop Chess' (Chess's? Chessi? Chessoooo?) biggest fans is none other than RZA from wu-tang clan. The way chess boxing normally works is it runs in three minute boxing rounds followed by four minute speed chess rounds, with 1 minute breaks in between. Some have hailed this as a great program, an intellectualizing of martial arts and boxing. As described on the Hip Hop Chess Federations homepage "We recognize that chess, martial arts and hip-hop unify people from multiple cultural, religious and social backgrounds." I'm all for unity, so let's break out our gloves and our boards.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Stumbleupon goes down. People see the sun for the first time since 2006.

Stumbleupon goes down, freaks come out of hiding - puppies freebasing kittens
There are those of us that have pointer fingers that are rippling with raw power and muscle, all thanks to the web browser plug in Stumbleupon, or as we stumblers like to call it, just stumble, or stumbly joe, sometimes when I'm drunk, I call it sweety pie cutie stumble. But that's me, you know. Anyways, I got up today, checked my news feeds, and then set myself to do a little stumbling. Lo and behold! Sweety pie cutie stumble was down! There was a nifty little picture, advising me to go outside and play. I panicked. I began to hit my stumble button over and over again. Same thing, a maintenance page. How could they do this to me? Maintenance, baah! Give me my wonderful random pages. I envisioned a world where I stumbled not onto a page where I could rate whether I like it or not, send it along to people on my friends list on stumble, and where instead I stumbled into the sunlight. My pale skin burning under its gaze, while masses of stumblers poured onto the streets, like zombies, clueless, darkness bleached, staring in awe at things like other people, and flowers and clouds and things. Would their release from the evil clutches of mindless stumbling cause the roads to become clogged with people seeking real life entertainment? Would people be in libraries pulling random books off the shelves, flipping to random pages and saying 'I don't like it'? Would people be outside taking pictures of everything they saw, so they could come home and put phrases like 'I has a flavor?' on pictures of cats they found on the streets for their lol fixes? Luckily, about 30 seconds later it stumbled it's first page to me, a charming little flash animation about balancing [nine bowls of soup] on your head. For those of you unfamiliar with stumbleupon, it's really a great little application bar tool for your browser, and I have discovered some of my favorite sites on it. Click here - www.stumbleupon.com to check out the stumbleupon homepage.

LED webcam chat at its finest.


I don't know why I like this site so much, but I do. It offers you two lines on an LED sign that are on a periodic webcam capture. You can actually have strange short conversations on it. It's pretty fun. For a subscription fee you can change the bottom line of the sign, but I dunno, seems frivolous. Anyways, it's kinda neat, check it out. Sometimes though you have to hit refresh yourself. Click here to go to the LED sign page.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

12 Million Bees Released.....Local Children Take Advantage


New Brunswick Canada, A truck carrying over 12 million bees in 330 crates were released when the truck tipped over on one of Canada's busiest highways. It was raining at the time, and bees don't like rain, so the majority were flailing around aimlessly on the ground. Local authorities were reluctant to handle it themselves and called in some bee experts. However it is not likely that the bees will survive. [end of real story] Local children took advantage of the situation by bringing out their slip n slides. "It tingles!" local child Billy said. Even adults were taking advantage like Jean Tucows, a local cosmetologist, she says "it's cheaper and less detrimental than botox!"

Trading kittens for puppies.


Well this story fits in perfectly, since it involves a dog and a cat. In Greenacres, Florida an interesting story played out. A south florida woman Linda Urioste had lost her dog "Scooby" and it was put into doggy jail by the local Animal Care and Control unit. Five days later a new family the Jutta's had adopted the dog. They renamed the dog "Buddy" and a few days later Linda Urioste had inquired at the shelter about her dog. When the Jutta's found out that she was looking for her dog, they were more than willing to give the dog back, until they met Ms. Urioste, who screamed and yelled at them, treating them very unkindly. So the Jutta's decided not to give the dog back. However, Ms. Urioste decided the best course of action was to steal the Jutta's cat! Ms. Urioste left a message on the Jutta's answering machine "I was the used-to-be-owner, but I was wondering if you were missing a gray pussy cat. Because a pussy cat ran out in front of my car not far from your house and I saved its life. I almost ran him over. So, I was just wondering how you are enjoying Scooby, because I am enjoying your pussy cat while he is in his crate. You call it crate, I call it a cage. Have a nice day,". (source: http://www.wpbf.com/news/16758597/detail.html) She was keeping their cat as ransom for her old dog. Urioste was arrested and charged with theft and extortion. I can't help but feel somewhat sorry for Urioste for losing her dog, but she doesn't seem like she's sane enough or nice enough to give that dog a good home, so maybe Scooby/Buddy is better off? I dunno, anyone have any thoughts on it?