Venture Bros. Season 4 Trailer

Hitler, Dinosaurs, Sousaphones, oh my! The new season of Venture Bros. starts, well, I don't know exactly when. I've been trying to find a start date, and, so far, I've got nothing. The trailer, though, rocks pretty hard. It's a show that seems to get better, action-ier, and sillier all at the same time, which is a very difficult feat to pull off. Usually when shows go down a stranger road, they get more interesting but not necessarily any better. The opposite seems to be true for Venture Bros.

MIT Open Course Ware

If you've ever wondered what it would be like to go to MIT, well, here's your chance. MIT is now offering tons of its lectures, notes, exams, and videos online for free, so that you can learn by inclination without paying, which is good, because I didn't need to pay to flunk out of that school. I can just find out how stupid I am for free. Yay.

Go to the About page, and you'll see this warning, however:

MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. OCW is open and available to the world and is a permanent MIT activity.

What is MIT OpenCourseWare?
MIT OpenCourseWare is a free publication of MIT course materials that reflects almost all the undergraduate and graduate subjects taught at MIT.

OCW is not an MIT education.
OCW does not grant degrees or certificates.
OCW does not provide access to MIT faculty.
Materials may not reflect entire content of the course.

What they're basically telling you is, DON'T SEND IN A RESUME SAYING YOU ATTENDED MIT, BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T, IDIOT! At least they're very, very astutely clear about it.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Trailer

Video Games | Castlevania: Lords of Shadow | GC 09: Extended Trailer

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

Why is it that video games never get voice acting right? Okay, so that's a pretty shallow complaint about what otherwise looks like a solid-to-fairly-solid E3 trailer for the new Castlevania game.

Some things you might not know about it:
* Hideo Kojima is heading up the newest entry in the franchise. Go ahead and prepare yourself for extended cinematic sequences by installing a kegerator by your gaming station. Maybe stock up on Doritos as well, because I"m sure there will be plenty to sit through.

* Kojima (basically) credits his entire career to the Castlevania series. In an interview with IGN, he said (referring to which Castlevania was his favorite): "I probably would say the very first one – the reason is that when I joined the company, the division that was next door to me was creating that game at that time. Also the fact that when I was very young I had the concept of creating an action horror game that was never released, unfortunately. Capcom released Ghouls n' Goblins – I saw that released from Capcom, so I thought there was nothing to explore in the genre anymore so I gave up on it. Those two combined mean that the original is my most remembered title.

If Castlevania wasn't created next to me, and Capcom didn't release Ghouls n' Goblins, then maybe there wouldn't be any Metal Gear, and I would have created a horror action game, because I really like that genre."

Avatar Teaser Trailer

The trailer for James Cameron's new film, Avatar, has been eerily hard to find on the internet, but here's the link ot it on Apple's site.

My first impressions: It looks...meh. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's something intriguing about it just because James Cameron did it, but that alone doesn't make me want to make out with it. I mean, they are marketing it with the 'from the director of TITANIC' thing, which, to me, seems weird. I know it's the most popular film in the history of forever, but for science-fiction's sake, shouldn't it be saying 'from the director of T2: Judgment Day' or 'from the director of Aliens' or, at the very least, 'from the writer of First Blood: Part II'? I mean, if we want people to go see the movie and everything.

54.2 Percent Failure Rate on the 360, Says Game Informer

The XBox, well, it's having some problems, and if you've seen the strange red illumination pictured above, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's called the red ring of death in the gaming community, and apparently it's happening even more frequently than first suspected.

Consumerist.com, citing an article from Game Informer Magazine, found that the console has a 54.2 percent failure rate, over five times that of the PS3, which is at 10.6 percent.

The magazine surveyed nearly 5,000 readers to get the data. And while the 360's rate is alarmingly higher than the others, it's still bafflingly low because it blows the mind to imagine that 45.8 percent of the consoles have not broken.

Source: Consumerist.com
and Game Informer

Zelda Theme Played on Tesla Coils

You may not know the diff. between Nikola Tesla and the 80s hair metal band, but you probably recognize the song in the video above. According to YouTube user Megavolt Master, the "music that you hear is coming from the sparks that these two identical high power solid state Tesla coils are generating. There are no speakers involved." Wow, shocking. Ba-dump.

Super Mario Bros. Tests Modern A.I.

According to MSNBC, researches in Copenhagen have begun using NES games to test the constraints of artificial intelligence.

"

Human players might have defeated Bowser decades ago in the original "Super MarioBrothers" video game, but a new competition is pitting computers against Koopa Troopas to save Princess Toadstool.

The specific levels, however, will be new to human and computer players alike. Togelius has developed a random level generator that will create dozens of new, never-before-seen levels. To the possible chagrin of frustrated human players, the original "Super Mario Brothers" levels would likely be too easy for a computer, said Togelius."

Apparently, the choices afforded players in video games are exactly the kinds of challenges that A.I. models need to be able to traverse to be considered actual A.I., and the researchers say the A.I. has made some progress. "Without programming, the A.I. learned to grab the shells from defeated enemies and use them to destroy other enemies."

Kind of Bloop - An 8-Bit Tribute to Miles Davis

If you've ever wondered what an NES game would sound like if scored by Miles Davis, well now's your chance. The result is 'Kind of Bloop', an 8-bit tribute to the jazz king's seminal album. So far, you can only preview the album over at Kind of Bloop.com, but it should be available for purchase (for a modest $5) on August 20. Count me in!

With that in mind, I just launched a project I've been dreaming about for years. The idea is Kind of Bloop, an 8-bit tribute to Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, one of my favorite albums of all-time. I've always wondered what chiptune jazz covers would sound like. What would the jazz masters sound like on a Nintendo Entertainment System? Coltrane on a C-64? Mingus on Amiga?

Source: Waxy.org
and OffWorld

'Where the Wild Things Are' Fuzzy Novelization

Generation-X (and beyond) author Dave Eggers -
who is most well-known for the memoir of his MTV-courting days A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - co-wrote the screenplay to Spike Jonze's adaptation of the children's book Where the Wild Things Are.

In addition, Entertainment Weekly says, "Eggers’ McSweeney’s imprint also announced plans to publish the novelization, titled The Wild Things, in a special $28 faux-fur-covered edition in October."

Hmm. Novelization. At least it's of a screenplay by the actual author of said screenplay. Usually novelizations are tantamount to having a second grader take notes during a screening of the film and then publishing it for gullible fanboys desperate enough to read it and children who don't know better.

Inglorious Basterds Poll

 How Good Will Inglorious Basterds Be?

• 
  
  Awesome! Tarantino's Still the Man!


• 
  
  Pretty Good. It Plays to QT's Strengths.


• 
  
  Meh.


• 
  
  Not good. QT Might Now be Over-the-Hill.


• 
  
  Just Plain Bad. Besides, WTF is up with Brad Pitt's Accent?

view results
Free vote poll

Robert Novak Passes Away at 78

I do try to keep an eye on politics, and my obsession with it didn't start until college. One show I watched religiously was Crossfire, starring Novak alongside James Carville, and I remember the "walking out" incident quite vividly (which you can find here). While still in the fire of my politically-charged learning phase, I hated him, gladly called him "The Prince of Darkness," and couldn't have been happier to see him embarrassed and ridiculed on network news. I thought that he'd slink off after that incident on "Crossfire" and then return to his post as the conservative counterpoint to J.C. (James Carville, not Jesus Christ), because he was the only person who could handle the Ragin' Cajun with any adroitness.

The fire in my belly cooled, I became (somewhat) more moderate, and still no Novak. That single incident couldn't have stopped such a pro, could it? It did. It was, sadly, basically his exit from the public eye, as he was found to have a brain tumor some time later and never returned to television or his newspaper column at the Chicago Sun-Times, for which he was probably most well-known. He was 78.

There is, to note, a much longer article over at The Huffington Post.

David Cross - I Drink for a Reason

Since David Cross hasn't released a stand-up album since 2004's It's Not Funny, so it's been hard to get Cross'd, my man (People who've listened to the album will get that, sorry). His book is the closest thing to a new album we've got, so just go out and buy it.

Here is the blurb for it:

Now, for the first time, Cross is weaving his media mockery, celebrity denunciation, religious commentary and sheer madness into book form, revealing the true story behind his almost existential distaste of Jim Belushi ("The Belush"), disclosing the up-to-now unpublished minutes to a meeting of Fox television network executives, and offering up a brutally grotesque run-in with Bill O'Reilly. And as if this wasn't enough for your laughing pleasure in these troubled times, some of the pieces splinter off with additional material being created online in exclusive video and animated web content created solely for the book-a historical first (presumably)!

With a mix of personal essays, satirical fiction posing as truth, advice for rich people, information from America's least favorite Rabbi and a top-ten list of top-ten lists, I DRINK FOR A REASON is as unique as the comedian himself, and cannot be missed.

Source: Amazon.com

These Pictures Is...

A picture posted to reddit. I tend to get a bit up in arms about silly grammar stuff. Do they not have people working there who can fix this?

On a different note, and I may get a backlash from this, I think it's from Firefly. I know, I know. I never watched it, but I used context clues.



Original Source: http://imgur.com/u2vTq.jpg

Hubble Telescope Ultra Deep Field in 3D

I have become enamored with space, and it shows in the sorts of things I've been posting on the blog lately (other than the Poop Trap, of course). From what I understand, the director of the Hubble Telescope gets a certain percentage of time to point and shoot at whatever he/she likes, and such an experiment yielded one of the most beautiful images captured yet.

The Poop Trap - Disgusting

I apologize in advance for posting this video. The Poop Trap is ostensibly a time-saver. It saves you the time and trouble of having to clean up after your dog. Oh, wait, not really. Some things you see can't be unseen.

Angry Video Game Nerd Ghostbusters XBox 360 Review

James Rolfe created The Angry Video Game Nerd character in order to review terrible old NES games. He's since moved on to other v.g consoles. Here is his review of the new Ghostbusters game. I swear, it's a lot more tame than his AVGN material.



Check out the other videos at either Cinemassacre.com"

or Screw Attack

Quentin Tarantino's Top 20 Since '92

Quentin Tarantino, no doubt, is one of the most influential filmmakers of the last two decades. Here is a list of the twenty best movies, in his opinion, of the last seventeen years. Why the last seventeen years? Well, I'll tell ya. It's the period of time QT's officially been in the biz. Reservoir Dogs is seventeen years old.

Mario Legos

Carl Sagan Explains the Fourth Dimension

I am allergic to most science, but I've been trying to build up a tolerance to it over the last few months or so by reading people like Stephen Hawking and watching the Science Channel. I know that's ludicrous, but it takes baby steps to learn about topics like the one discussed in the video below. In it, Carl Sagan explains the fourth dimension, and if you have an explanation of the explanation, let me know!



BTW, I don't mean to lump ALL science together. Specifically, I'm trying to learn about Cosmology and Astronomy and the origin of the Universe. So, easy stuff, then.

Ghostbusters Trailer...from 1954?

Below is the trailer for what 'Ghostbusters' would have looked like, were it made in 1954. I found the link on Tor.Com (through this link, and here's what they have to say about it: "The casting is spot on (Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin), the technical aspects of the trailer are just right (witness the floating titles - Cat and Dogs living Together...); this is as near to perfect as you will find."

A Third Attempt for Lestat?

I just read over at io9: "According to Bloody Disgusting, Robert Downey Jr. is in negotiations with the studio to play Lestat Du Lioncort in this new incarnation of the franchise, following 1994's Interview With A Vampire and 2002's Queen Of The Damned."

William Golding - Rapist?

According to The Guardian UK, based on a recently-released private memoir by the author, is reporting that, in his teenage years, William Golding attempted to rape a young woman. A biography, ostensibly charting this and other indiscretions of the author, will be released later, and, as the article notes: "Golding's papers also described how he had experimented, while a teacher at a public school, with setting boys against one another in the manner of Lord of the Flies, which tells the story of young air crash survivors on a desert island during a nuclear war."

Best. Office. Prank. Ever.

Hats off to these guys. I just wonder how they got away with this without any repercussions. Or did they?

Basically, what they did was wall up an entire hallway in their office building. It also happened to be the hallway that contained several of the bosses' offices.

The Ballad of GI Joe

The Ballad of G.I. Joe from Olivia Wilde

Cast List:
Laz Alonso as Doc
Alexis Bledel as Lady Jaye
Billy Crudup as Zartan
Zach Galifiankais as Snow Job
Tony Hale as Dr. Mindbender
Vinnie Jones as Destro
Joey Kern as Tomax
Joey Kern as Xamot
Chuck Liddell as Gung Ho
Julianne Moore as Scarlett
Henry Rollins as Duke
Alan Tudyk as Shipwreck
Olivia Wilde as The Baroness
and Sgt. Slaughter as Himself

Super Mario 3 Guitar

.