Best Manga Dub Evar

Can I just say that it’s great to see Andy Richter back with Conan?

I’m Not a Keith Urban Fan…

Note to self: I don’t want to live.

A Positive Review of Transformers 2 [How to Let Go and Let Bay]

This is really a post that give you a few pointers for enjoying Transformers 2, or as I like to put it, “how to let go and let Bay.”

I’ve been looking forward to watching Transformers 2 since Transformers 1 ended, mostly because they didn’t seriously screw with the premise, and it’s cool to see huge robots on the screen do cool stuff.  The special effects are awesome, and I’ve always loved Transformers.

I had a discussion with Sean P. Aune just before I went to go see the film this weekend about it.

Sean: btw, I may hate Michael Bay, but you have GOT to see how Optimus Prime arrives in the new movie, watch to the end of this clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaXIPBn24fs&feature=player_embedded. Pirated from a Japanese theater, btw
me: k.
 me: heh. not shabby. Iris and i have decided to watch it in the IMAX.
Sean: I KNOW Transformers will suck, but I think I am better prepared for it... and driving a semi out of a plane oddly helped lol
me: if you let go and let bay, it helps. Michael Bay = explosions. I know what I'm getting when I buy the ticket.
Sean: It will be... BAY-TASTIC.
me: BaySPLOSIOns!
me: ba ba ba bay boom!
me: And as a guy, Megan Whatsername helps the picture a lot.
Sean: lol Megan Fox
me: whatever. All I know is that she was hot when she was looking under Bumblebee's hood.
Sean: lol
me: one or two of those scenes in the sequel, big robots exploding, and i'll call it a win.

Sean: Dude, the final scene of that movie is SOOOOOOOOOOO disturbing.
Sean: Megan and Shia making out... ON TOP OF THEIR ROBOT FRIEND!
me: haha – robophilia
Sean: and to top it off... the other robots are sitting there with their headlights on watching them!
me: and you wonder why the movie does well in Japan? That's worth at least two tentacle rape scenes right there.
Sean: I sat in the theater going, "Does no one else get how fucking creepy this is?!?"

That really sums up my thoughts on the movie pretty well, though.  It’s not that Michael Bay is a bad filmmaker – maybe he is, maybe he’s not.  I don’t follow his work that closely, and really only know him from Transformers and that other asteroid movie.  I do know the reputation he has from Robot Chicken pretty much bears out from the small sampling of Bay films I’ve seen.

Here’s the thing, though: my expectations for a Transformers film aren’t that high to begin with – Baysplosions or not.

  
If you’re around my age, you probably have romanticized memories about the Transformers series.  How awesome it was, and what a cool storyline it has.

Go back and watch the original series, though.  I have.  My eldest son AJ just before the original came out made us go out and buy a ton of the original series because he suddenly had an urge to watch it.  If you go through it as many times as I have, you’ll realize that the series really sucked.

Sure, there was a storyline, and as an overplot, it made sense.  The dialogue and the episode storylines were barely strung together and made one cringe more often than not.  It’s easy to see why the cheaper cousins of the Transformers, the Go-Bots, were as popular as the original series – the apple didn’t need to fall farm from the tree.

 
Taking a crappy storyline, making it look pretty with million dollar CG, hot babes and explosions? Marketing genius. It takes the original turd and bronzes it, puts it in a Neiman-Marcus bag, and gives it back to us.

You really expect this thing to compare to the Godfather, Ebert?  The original concept has as much legs as the Asteroid remake they’re working on.

*** Spoiler Alert – Here Comes the Actual Review ***

So I saw the movie.  And I liked what I saw.

Here’s the plot synopsis in gross over-simplification:

Sam goes to college, and accidentally downloads the Matrix to his brain.

Optimus gets killed.

Humans march into battle.

Humans do some ass-kicking.

But lose.

Sam goes on a vision quest and brings Optimus back to life. He bolts on parts from an SR-71.

Optimus goes apeshit and kills all but a few of the bad guys.

The heroes (literally) ride off into the sunset.

The End.

(... or is it!?! … duh duh ddduunnnn).

How can you not like that?  It’s formulaic Transformers, not Shakespeare, Roger.

New Music: Wordpress as a CMS [#wcdfw09]

One of the many highlights of the WordCamp Dallas 2009 weekend was the WordPress song.

The song was by Scott Kingsley Clark, a developer and songwriter, lead a discussion on Wordpress as a CMS as opposed to just a blog platform.  He kicked it off with a song.

You can get more with his “error folk” music project titled Soft Charisma.

Persepolis: The Iranian Revolution Explained

As you know, my head’s been wrapped up in what’s now being called the New Iranian Revolution. You can read my extended coverage of it around the blogosphere here.

On the weekends, I try to unplug, and one of the ways my wife and I pass the time is to catch up on our movies.  This week, one of her picks was Persepolis, which is available, amongst other places, on AT&T UVerse’s Video on Demand service.

The movie is a French independent film that was critically acclaimed and took home several honors from the Cannes Film Festival, and follows the life of Marjane Satrapi as she comes of age during the original Iranian Revolution (see the Wikipedia plot summary here – contains spoilers, but gives a good overview of the film).

There are a lot more intellectual ways to catch up on the historical backdrop against which the current events are unfolding in Tehran right now, but this makes for a far more personal and engaging perspective.  I definitely recomend it. 

I wasn’t able to find it on Joost, Hulu, or any of the other usual (legal) suspects, so my best suggestion is to go the old fashioned route and rent it if you can’t find it on your DVR service.

Helen Hunt in a Mind Blowing Performance with Hall & Oates

Accompanied by Keyboard Cat.

This thing blows my mind. Completely.  Watch to the end.

Dark Side of the Taco

“I hear that if you play this album in sync with Dr. Doolittle, Greg Luganus will fall through your ceiling and tell you a bedtime story.”

- Brad Williamson via Friendfeed

Regarding #CNNFail [No Sympathy Here]

A lot has been said recently about moderation with regard to how badly we knock about the Heritage Media. Many are saying that we should cut it out.

Pete Cashmore:

The screenshots tell a tale more nuanced than the provocative “new media beats old media” narrative. Rather, they show that while Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and other social media sites are both a source of unfiltered information and a venue for public discussion, we still look to CNN, the BBC and their ilk to add context and meaning to this flood of data. And when they fail us, we demand more of them.

Louis Gray:

So help me understand… Many of us are flat-out refusing to be consumers of the world’s news media, from newspapers like the New York Times and news channels like CNN, chewing away at their ad revenue. Some exult in the bad news as it streams forth – as newspapers close and journalists are sent packing. Others revel when old media makes stupid mistakes in the new world, like the AP demanding you not excerpt their stories, or other sites threatening to sue when linked to. But when a real newsworthy event hits, we hold them accountable for not being there, first to respond.

Journalism is not a charity event. Its reporters cost money, as do papers and stations’ branch offices, travel expenses, and equipment, yet many of us on the bleeding edge are all too excited to mention how we’re not paying them a dime.

That CNN did not lead the way in covering the Iran conflict this week, after decades of our relying on them to be there, as they were in Desert Storm, Operation: Iraqi Freedom, Somalia, Bosnia and others, is not up for debate. But the question is – did we really not want them to fail, or are you happy that they did?

Even Steven Hodson mentioned something along these lines:

Instead of spending so much time knocking old media or making fun of the new social media tools we should be working on ways to get them to work together. Each serves a purpose and in this changing world they can both help effect social and political change.

You won’t, however, hear me saying anything along these lines.  If anything has been shown by the dozens of local New Media ongoing coverage efforts as well as watershed events like the Iran situation and Rathergate, the New Media is infinitely superior to Heritage Media.

Heritage Media has two choices – adapt to the new model, or die.

I refuse to and will never cut them slack for claiming to be superior to our form of emergent media and then continuing along their very long track record of business and journalistic failure.

I absolutely and abjectly refuse to cut them slack. They have the tools to change.  It will be a painful change.  It will mean swallowing their pride. But it’s a necessary change if they want to survive – and those that refuse to even try to work towards their own survival will never get pity me.

Protesting Iranians are in a hopeless situation.  For them to voice dissention is patently illegal. For them to ask to be properly represented can result in persecution and death. Not figurative death, or the death of their business – actual gruesome and bloody death. Yet still they fight for their liberty and survival.

I think that’s the meta-lesson to be learned here. If Heritage Media can’t perform their duties any longer while New Media excels at doing all of that and more, why is there any sympathy for them at all?

E3

 

A few gems came out of last week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo and I figured I would touch on a few of them and offer some thoughts.

One of the biggest announcements of E3 was Project Natal, A motion sensing camera that uses your body as a controller instead of actually providing one for you.

See this chick? She is flailing around trying to hit flying balls down a long corridor. The video of this was absolutely priceless. The only reason why you don’t see said video is I cant find one that completely omits Kudo Tsunoda. His presence onstage during this event reminded me of a wedding singer trying desperately to get the crowd in on his act. And Failing.

Project Natal looks beautiful from an interface standpoint. A small bit of pre-recorded ad-style footage showed off Natal’s ability to recognize players immediately through facial recognition technology and immediately bring their Xbox User Account up. The voice recognition tech allowed for a fairly interesting online Game Show style presentation. All in all it doesn't seem like something that would be incorporated into every title in the Xbox Library, but it does seem interesting for individual applications and interesting new tech.

Nintendo came out of the gate with a stunner. A title in their ever-popular Metroid franchise is being developed by Team Ninja, the development house responsible for Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden. Metroid: Other M looks to be something of a 2D/3D hybrid platformer-shooter with a interesting emphasis on storyline.

 

And Finally Sony made a push to introduce quite a few new things to the crowd at their press conference. Sony actually managed to introduce a new Final Fantasy title before the currently developed one is even on Shelves. Final Fantasy XIV Online is a follow up of sorts to Final Fantasy XI Online. The current main Final Fantasy due out next year is Final Fantasy XIII – which also has another two spinoff games. Certainly Square-Enix faces no shortage of titles to work on in this tough economic climate. There is another new Metal Gear title, because the last one is never the last one. God of War 3 looks impressive, and so does White Knight Chronicles. There is still that ever present price barrier to contend with. Most of the PS3 content looks great, but when people are looking to save money more now than ever, having a $400 Console on the market just doesn't pull consumers into the fold. I expected a price drop from Sony during this event, especially after hearing their recent finance numbers.

All in all it was a decent E3, not a blockbuster, but enough to wet the appetites of the hardcore and casual gamer alike. As i find more things to push around ill post, because trailers for the games announced are starting to find their way online.

I Got a Free Plug on 30 Rock

Apparently Tina Fey found out from me that Tracy Jordan would act out.

It took about ten minutes of research, but I found out she’s saying “‘Grizz’ and ‘Dot Com,’” not “rizzn.com.” Still, that may account for some of my increased traffic this month.

Elijah Wood – Yo! Numa Numa!

I’ve probably shown most of you this already, but darn it, it always makes me laugh.

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: yo gabba gabba,elijah wood,numa numa

Lest we forget…

In a day and age where 1/4th of the US Population actually does not know what Memorial Day is about, we here at Recomedia and across the entire Rizzn network would like to say thank you to the Brave Men and Women of the United States Armed Forces for all they do to keep our country safe and free.

And to those we have lost. You are not forgotten.

Attack of The Lens Flare…

So a week without posts, bet you are wondering what I've been doing(no you don't). I've been sitting on my ass! But in between those counter-productive spurts of laziness, i took the time to check out Star Trek.

As you can tell, my week was sort of tame…

First on my list of things to talk about. Star Trek. Now admittedly I’m not a Trekkie, so if you are overwhelming retarded for the canon, don't expect me to be your guiding light. I have fond yet somewhat subtle memories of my father getting whatever he could done in time for The Next Generation, watching it gleefully like it was his final frontier friend. But me, I was a Star Wars kid. I like Star Trek however, its just not a lasting imprint.

So when i caught wind that J.J. “cloverfield” Abrams was pulling down a reboot of the franchise, my interest was peaked. Cloverfield was somewhat decent. It had a feeling of Suspense and Crazy Shit that I expected, But alot of the melodrama could have been spared. And a ton of useless dialog. So JJ takes the reigns and drags her in pretty smoothly. If not for Epic Lens Flare…

(SPOILERS LURK BEYOND THIS POINT! BEWARE!)

So the Movie is set pre-Enterprise completion. Apparently that gets built on earth. Iowa is full of alien rednecks and massive towering spires that loom in the distance, and Pre-Teen Kirk is a hotshot snot nose with a penchant for pissing off his Step-Father. We the audience know its a Step-Parent because the opening sequence of the movie shows Kirk’s Bio-Dad getting all sorts of dead at the massive weaponry of movie antagonist Nero.

Nero is a Romulan who fell through a time hole with Old Spock, and then waited for Spock 25 years at the hole in space, so he could steal his time hole stuff and destroy every planet in the federation…..taking his revenge for a serious indiscretion committed against his kind far into the future. It sounds convoluted for a bad guy backstory. But it just sort of works.

That's the thing about this movie, it just sort of works. I keep on trying to focus on rational and plot holes and trying to understand how any of the actual story information works……and i just stop being concerned. It’s Science Fiction, one of those things that doesn't have to rely on factoids and information. It breathes the essence of creativity. You can think and imagine anything and make it come to life. That’s why it works, because its the only medium in which it can work.

Its a fun and action packed romp through the possibilities of imagination. I have no qualms about the progression of story elements, the introductions of characters, or any other random nuance that might leave a hardcore-trek fan teaming with rage. I enjoyed the meet-up between Young Kirk and Old Spock, I enjoyed the random green babe who rooms with Uhura at the Academy, i enjoyed the random paratrooper jump onto a mining platform laser that hung like a ladder from miles in space way down to the atmosphere of a planet. It didn't have to make sense to me. And that's probably what ill take away from it when I'm years older and i recall the films of my youth. I enjoyed it, and i have a sneaking suspicion you will too.

Small outgoing deviation; The kid who plays Chekov, Anton Yelchin, is freaking outstanding and every thing I've seen him in thus far, is cinema gold. If this franchise is reinvigorated by this new Trek, i want him and every other character from the movie back for the second go-around. They are all stand outs, and I'm glad that Karl Urban actually proved me wrong and didn't lose all credibility after being in the Doom movie fighting Zombie Soldier Rock….

Real-Time Environmental Movie Recreations [Freakin’ Pretty]

I happened to be surfing through my gadgets RSS category today, and caught this post over at DVICE:

A site called Game Artist just announced the winners from their "Scene from a Movie" real-time environment competition. Participants used the Crysis and Unreal engines to recreate a moment from a movie. The results are nothing short of impressive. The winner was a scene from Blade Runner (pictured), which has the added advantage of being a really flashy movie. That's going to be a tough one to beat when you're doing a basement from X-Men 2 (the fourth place winner). Still, you can't argue with the amazing amount of work that obviously went into recreating Blade Runner's dystopian Los Angeles. Click on the image below for a better look.

Two things before I deluge you with images:

• The work is absolutely great – I never knew a real time game engine could produce such beautiful results.
• You should page through the forums, yourself.  There were tons of teams working on their entries, and each one did a great job – looking at their output threads on the forums shows you the progress from concept to completion, and gives you a sense of what went into making this.

Now – the images…

Bladerunner:

Hook:

Wolverine:

I Am Legend:

Aliens:

Fifth Element:

Back to the Future (unfinished):

Clerks:

Wolvie proves piracy works

“I make piracy more lucrative! SNICKT!!”

So while i sat here in this chair figuring out new ways to turn cheese into a lucrative biofuel, X-Men Origins: Wolverine made 87 million dollars at the box office this weekend. That’s right, the movie that was released to much fanfare over a month ago on the internet as a leaked workprint copy which was then downloaded by MILLIONS of people……made almost a hundred million in three days.

Never mind that the movie blew chunks, (its currently running a 36% Rotten rating on rottentomatoes.com, being panned and beaten all over the site), the movie itself is proof positive that no piracy in the internet is not about stealing or ripping people off, its about sharing content with people who enjoy something, knowing full well that they will most likely pay for what they are given if they have an option.

I’m starting to think that downloading these days is exactly as it was when i was doing it. Its a passion to grab something new and have an archived copy of it more than it is to steal and never pay for it. I’ve paid for countless cd’s from the bands that i love over the years, bought movies that i love twice or more depending on condition and other standards. I think that pirates these days are more content with having the newest thing more than they are content with stealing and never paying for something. We have giant TV’s, thundering sound systems, and the ability to watch almost anything with the click of a mouse button. Its just a question of when and how…

Let this serve as a reminder. Movies, regardless of their quality, will always make money, no matter how many people download a copy.

Star Trek Official Canon [Too Much Time]

I’ve been watching Star Trek: Voyager as it’s being replayed on Spike. I vaguely remember a few of the final episodes, but I missed most of the last few seasons due to probably many of the same reasons most of you missed it: I just didn’t care at the time.

But earlier this year, I made my way through a thorough re-watching of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space 9.

So when I realized that the re-runs I was watching were only Season Five, and I’d have to wait until Season Seven to see the whole ending, I cheated and looked for some spoilers on the net.  I turned to Memory Alpha, the official canon wiki of all things Star Trek.

I started by looking at the final episode of Star Trek Voyager – and of course like millions of Star Trek fans, was sorely disappointed by the contrived ending.

Of course, I ended up spending a lot of time clicking from here to there on the official Star Trek Canon Timeline, at which point, I had to start sharing my discoveries with co-cynic, Sean P. Aune.

Then this chat conversation happened.

---

rizzn: I've been watching voyager reruns as they come on Spike every week… as it turns out, there's a buttload of them I've missed.
sean: do you hate yourself?
rizzn: well, I want to finally get the full story - i never saw how it ended.
i'm looking at the episode guide - apparently, i'm only in the middle of season 5. I apparently missed the last four seasons entirely.
sean: good point for you to notice how Chakotay became set dressing
rizzn: hehe
sean: I kept expecting an ensign to walk by and dust him
rizzn: did he have a drug problem or something?
couldn't rely on him to show up for shooting?
sean: no, they just really had no clue what to do with his character
rizzn: well, in terms of superpowers relative to star trek's universe, the only thing he has going for him is that tattoo and his meditation. not that stellar.
sean: exactly
rizzn: "hey, I'm chakotay. wanna smoke some electronic peyote?"

[editor’s note: for other related reading, see Chakotay, the walking plot hole.]

sean: they really did think out his limitation. kind of the same with Kim.

"Hello, I'm Lt. Kim, you'll be torturing me this week"

rizzn: well, Kim was an ensign. that was his job.
sean: was he an ensign?
rizzn: just like wil wheaton
sean: I thought he was a Lt, oh well
rizzn: his job was to barely avoid dying. he may have been promoted at some point. but for the majority of it, he was an ensign.
sean: it was an okay series, it just could have been a lot more
sean: I -really- wanted Voyager to look more and more messed up as the series went on. like, pipes sticking out of the walls where they had to rig fixes.
rizzn: I'm reading the summary of the finale. is it just me, or is this BS.
sean:  oh it was total BS.
rizzn: did they get cancelled out of the blue or something? seems like a patchwork ending
sean: nope, they knew it was coming?
rizzn: really.
wow.
And they couldn't magically find out how to fix up the warp core to do transwarp in the middle of season 7? I mean seriously. That's shite.
sean: yeppers

---

32 minutes later..

---

rizzn: are there any future star trek series in planning you know of?
sean: none
rizzn: or did Enterprise pretty much kill that idea.
sean: blame Archer
rizzn: heh
sean: but no, they're waiting to see how the movie does before they try anything.
rizzn: hrm. hopefully it isn't all remakes from here out.
sean: agreed
rizzn: i will say this, surfing "Memory Alpha" is fun.
sean: heh, yeah, been there a few times

---

14 minutes later…

---

rizzn: hah! never knew there was a "memory beta" that included non-canon stuff. wonder if that includes all the porno fanfic
sean: oh good lord.
rizzn: or is that reserved for memory gamma

---

7 minutes later …

---

rizzn: btw, yes, it includes fanfic, but only published fanfic, i think.
sean: oh good god
rizzn: i.e. http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Strange_New_Worlds_VII
sean: -shakes head- That's just insane
rizzn: you think that's bad - imagine how bad it's going to be when UGC powered immersive worlds are feasible.
sean: eek!
rizzn: you know that every contributor to those wikia's dreams for that day.
sean: oh yeah
rizzn: the irony is, they'll spend most of their time creating holodeck simulations.
sean: more than likely, and I am sure 99.8% of them will involve sex
rizzn: haha, indeed. probably ‘7 of 9’ fantasies, or stuff involving alt.sexy.bald.captains
sean: hehehehe

---

18 minutes later …

---

rizzn: ok, i've got to quit
sean: lol
rizzn: i'm reading so far into the future, they're discussing timeline discrepancies in the 31st century
sean: ROFL .. damn those 31st century problems
rizzn: well - the thing is i knew what they were talking about when it was mentioned in the article. What does that say about me?
sean: lol i know the feeling
rizzn: hrm - apparently the timeline stops at the 31st century.

Oh good grief.

Non-canon stuff goes to the year 1,012,260

---

15 minutes later …

---

no no.. one more thing, you gotta hear this synopsis.

“In the year 1012260, the crew of the Mega-Federation starship USS UberEnterprise (NCC-1701-∞), under joint command of James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard, after nearly a million years of exploring most of the universe, at long last encounters the Milky Way Galaxy in the Bootes Void, millions of light-years from where it should exist in this time. Most of the crew is happy at this, but Data, who has not left his quarters in five thousand years, has become something of a crazy hermit, and acting as if their mission is useless.”

sean: WTF?
rizzn: haha
sean: the UberEnterprise... god bless geeks. I am going to write a fic that features the MegaNiftySuperDuperEnterprise. 

(NCC-1701-∞X2)

rizzn: bwahaha. this is so going into a blog post.
sean: lol

Time to make someone famous….

I have no words….

 

This is truly the most epic thing I've seen, since lunchtime.

The Neil Patrick Harris Card Trick

Here is NPH mystifying Jimmy Fallon with a card trick.

 

I don't know if there are many more ways i can love this man with out moving to a state that's made it legal…

Guillermo Del Toro Saves Vampires!!!

If there was ever a reason to love this man anymore, saving Vampires from the wussification that they have endured from crap like the Twilight series is definitely at the top of the list.

Apparently Del Toro, creator of such amazing films as Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphanage is working on a Vampire book series that sounds like Dawn of the Dead Meets I Am Legend Meets Dracula. The first of which is called The Strain and is due in book stores on June 2nd

I really hope this takes off, because if its one thing i cant stand….

 

….its vampires who “sparkle” when they encounter sunlight….

Here is Del Toro commenting on his inspiration for the series

Comedian Spotlight – John Caparulo

First off, before i go into this post, let me just point out the Brilliant Youtube Symphony post below this one. Yes its 59 minutes long and yes normally most folks wont sit and watch a youtube video for that long…..but its worth it, seriously. Check it out.

The video above is from a 2006 Montreal Just for Laughs performance from John Caparulo. If you happened to catch Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show, you already know who John Caparulo is. But I figured I’d indulge with the performance above because i believe that this man will reach phenomenal levels of success in the coming years.

Proof Positive that comedy doesn't have to rely on shoddy one-pump bits to stay relevant in this day in age. Enjoy!

YouTube Symphony Orchestra: Tons Cooler Than It Sounds

Last week, several reviewers both from the tech and the music world gave their opinions of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.  I must admit, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the whole event while it was going on, nor during the ramp up period.

I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why, but both Liz Gannes from NewTeeVee and Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times both called the performance and concept gimmicky.  I think that’s what the concept struck me as – gimmicky.

Still, something compelled me to hit the play button on the video this afternoon, and I’m glad I did.  It isn’t a gimmicky symphony at all.  Typically, with an online video, my trigger finger gets a little itchy a couple of minutes in. 

Such was not the case with this performance.  With musical selections ranging from the utterly esoteric to the emotionally touching, I was enraptured with the whole performance.

You will be to.  Give it a listen.

Queen’s Bohemiam Rhapsody [8Core]

Gizmodo had this earlier in the weekend, so chances are you’ve seen it already – if you haven’t, you deserve to take a six minute break and revel in the pure geekery here.

Before you even say anything about the slightly out of tune nature of some of the segments, heed the “conductor’s” warning:

the scanner and floppy drive are not musical instruments. These are mechancial devices whose frequencies tend to drift and can cause some notes to be out of tune.

Likely, if you’re anything like me, you’ll forget by the end of the clip that these are things not designed to be instruments… just sounds coming out in pretty decent harmony.

Stickman Exodus

Stickman Exodus, Ep. 1: Hangman

Atom.com: Funny Videos | Atom Originals | Stickman Exodus

This was in the Online Film category for the webby ballot that i featured yesterday. Aside from The Website is Down, it was the only thing that i found remotely entertaining enough to feature here.

Currently there are six episodes in the series, and I’m showcasing the first so you can get an idea of the irreverent  humor involved.

Video is NSFW due to language, you’ve been warned.

The Webby’s short list….Website Category!

The Webby Awards, the Oscars for the internet, are coming up soon and Mark took the time to send me a heads up regarding the event.

Today the nominees were announced and I've been piling through some of them trying to find some standouts for all of you to check out.

A personal favorite of mine is in the Weird category on the Website ballot. Failblog.org is a website specializing in “Fails”, or pictures of hilariously stupid things with quick two word captions to convey resonance. I have wasted countless hours rolling through pictures and video offered by this site. I encourage everyone to check it out

Another decent catch is Flock.com in the Social Networking category on the Website Ballot. According to the website, Flock touts itself as a variant of Firefox that effortlessly connects you to all your favorite social networking sites via the browsers GUI. Built in publishers for sites like Twitter and Blogger are the draw here.

On the Entertainment side, Destructoid and The Escapist are nominated in the Games-Related category. Destructoid is full of witty banter and unique and engaging feature articles, and the sheer amount of specialized content coming from The Escapist is definitely worth applauding. If I spent anymore time watching Zero Punctuation, I’d be maniacal, cynical, and I’d never get anything done.

 

Tomorrow ill try and get some stuff up from the Online Video and Film Category of the Webby Ballot.

And Now For Something Completely Different [Investigative Journalism]

This is a recommended media blog, and that includes journalism.  One of the ideas we had when we started this blog was to do media criticisms, calling out motards in the press that get it consistently wrong.

But somehow, and this surprises me as much as anyone, a blog that I’m supposedly in charge of is taking on a mostly positive tone. 

This post is no exception – what is exceptional is that I’m pointing to the best bit of investigative journalism I’ve seen in some time – and it’s coming from a fairly unknown blog entitled “Music Machinery,” by Paul Lamere.

The post, entitled “Inside the precision hack,” looks delves into great detail via first hand reports how 4chan rigged Time’s poll to decide the most influential people in “government, science, technology and the arts.”

 

It’s definitely worth reading.

Go check it out.

Recomedia…The First Album you will purchase this year.

Manchester Orchestra – “The Only One”

This is the first video of an 11 part series of video’s by a band called Manchester Orchestra. And quite frankly it sounds amazing.

Mean Everything to Nothing is the title of the album to be released by the band on April 21st.

When i heard this just a few moments ago, i knew i had to post it to Recomedia. This is definitely something you want to check out.

Xbox 360….The Errors Continue!

Not content with frustrating customers over the RRoD, or Red Ring of Death, a common problem found when general hardware failures brick an Xbox 360 gaming console. Now Microsoft have expanded the warranty on so called E 47 Errors. Apparently the console has “general hardware failure that is associated with three flashing red lights error on the console.”

I had a similar problem and i actually looked up various technical manuals and ripped open my 360 to repair it. Realizing that it was nothing more than thermal expansion and a fault in the securing of screws in and around the GPU of the device, i fixed the issue within a day or two. The only problem i had was that i bought it used, so the offending company and Microsoft didnt see a reason to cover my console under warranty….leaving me to do the dirty work myself.

You would think after thousands of hardware issues that someone would have fixed these specifications on the production side. Apparently consoles are shipping out with more advanced chips than those at launch, making the errors less frequent, but in this day and age it would seem to be a more viable option to just fix the issue all together.

If you are experiencing an E47 error, please visit the Microsoft Xbox 360 support site for more details on what you can do to correct this issue.

We Didn’t Start the Flamewar [Your a Fag]

John and I were chatting about the finer points of URL shorteners this afternoon, and he asked me if I had seen this yet.

I hadn’t.  I have now. And now you need to see it.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Lucian from Underworld movies goes Vamp again for Twilight Sequel?

What. The. Hell.

Apparently Michael Sheen has signed on to play “Aro” in the next Twilight Movie….

Now ill give the guy credit for busting ass and making the Underworld movies a slight bit more enjoyable (a difficult task when you are given cutoff dialog and short Mad-Science scenes), but isnt this the definition of typecasting?

According to the Twilight Wiki, which i actually had to visit to research this post, Aro is a vampire who leads “The Volturi”, and his sister, after being turned into a vampire by him, gains the ability to make people happy…

Wow, not only is this movie gonna suck, its gonna suck and ruin a decent actor’s career. Its like some sort of bizzaro-universe need to ruin Vampire mythos as a whole.

In related news, Stephanie Meyer apparently single-handedly kept the book industry afloat last quarter. Her four twilight books were the four best selling books of Fiscal First Quarter 2009, with her Sci-Fi body snatcher book The Host placing 14th on the list.

Normally id take the stance that its good that people are actually reading, but when what they are reading is tainting the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre with shit like how vampires Sparkle in the Sun….i loose what little faith i have.

To all Twilight Fans

For the love of god, go buy a William Gibson book.

Digg Dialogg with Trent Reznor

I make no secret of my unbridled love for the band Nine Inch Nails. I can remember the moment my friend Josh let me have The Fragile and how i would play it over and over in my truck on the way to high school. I can remember listening to The Downward Spiral and the Broken EP with friends while hanging out playing Goldeneye on the N64, and when Year Zero came out, i was constantly scouring blogs and forum posts looking for the latest clues in the ARG that accompanied it.

Diggnation is also a fun little diversion that i catch from time to time. Back in the early days of RantTV, i would watch the broken with friends who came over to my house and show them all the cool tech stuff you could do with just a few bucks and a little ingenuity.

So what happens when the two things meet? You get the above video, which is a collection of questions posed to the NIN mastermind from the digg community. Want to know what the most embarrassing thing Reznor keeps on his Ipod? Want to know how he feels about the current state of the music industry? And which classic arcade cabinet does Reznor own just to get away from the monotony of life, the universe, and everything?

Find out in the Digg Dialogg Interview with Trent Reznor.

Just dont tell John Malm….

Thanks to Revision 3 for the embed.

Twitter Founder Evan Williams on Tekzilla

Twitter, the social networking app that has taken the world by storm, is at the forefront of emerging tech news. Almost every day you can see a placement from a news channel or celeb on their latest thoughts and musings via the text-blogging phenomenon. Some companies have even seen an upturn in product advertisement via the service, making a simple app one of the most sought after marketing resources in recent years.

Evan Williams is the founder of Twitter and in the video above, he shares his thoughts on the future of Twitter with Revision 3’s Tekzilla vodcast correspondent Veronica Belmont. @Ev, as he is known on his website, talks about the monetization aspect of twitter and some of the companies, such as Twitpic and Exectwits, that are using the Twitter system to drive revenue higher and higher.

He also talks about future plans of twitter including incorporating image and video sharing as part of the system. It appears that Williams would rather let other companies focus their efforts on working with Twitter to develop the appropriate system for such services on their own, instead of letting Twitter absorb those services as a part of normal functions of the Twitter website.

Its a worthwhile interview to check out if you have a little bit of time. The video embed should seek direct to the appropriate time when Williams is interviewed during the program, but if it doesn't, check it out at about 13 minutes in.

-Jon

What’s Going On with Drama 2.0?

Drama 2.0 is was(?) one of my very favorite foils on the web. Now it seems that the mysteriously anonymous blogger that we only know lives overseas, is employed by eMarketer, and hates almost everyone in Web 2.0 punditry, has stopped blogging tech.

Does anyone know what’s going on with him?  I admit I haven’t done any deep digging on this yet, but the last thing even remotely tech related was posted April 4th, and was a video mostly centering around Twitter and the Hudson plane crash.

The last update from Drama 2.0.

The blog has been completely re-designed, now.  It’s named the same thing, but now with the tagline “Celebrity drama has never been this sexy.”

Most posts are about female celebs, with teaser photo galleries leading into a “premium membership area,” that promises uncensored photography.

The new site seems too well planned and thought out to be another one of his gags.  Are we to assume that Drama has hung up his hat in terms of poking fun at us?

Unfortunate, if true.

Dollhouse Isn’t Dead Yet [Twitter Trends]

Earlier this afternoon, I noticed that Dollhouse, one of my favorite shows on TV right now, was trending as the number one Twitter topic.

Rather than do any research myself on the hubbub, I told Sean about it, and he broke it down over at his personal blog.

- Fox Television Network ordered, produced and paid for 13 episodes.  This includes the pilot and 12 normal episodes.  The pilot was trashed, and parts of it reused.

- Fox Television Studio (different than the network) needs 13 episodes for the DVD release, so they commissioned a stand-alone episode entitled “Epitaph One”.  This brings the total number of episodes produced to 14.

- Fox Television Network has no interest in “Epitaph One” as it is stand alone and they did not commission it.  They are under no obligation to air the episode, although people would like to see them do so.

- Fox Television Studio will put “Epitaph One” on the DVD release for season one regardless if it airs on television or not.

So there you go.  Bottom line – the show’s not out of jeopardy yet, but it definitely hasn’t been openly cancelled yet.

Billy Bob Thornton is a musical genius….just kidding.

The above video details Q TV’s Jian Ghomeshi having a minor spat with one Billy Bob Thornton over mentioning his previous acting career during an interview for his “Boxmasters” music project. Apparently the boxmasters are a “rockabilly-meets-brit-invasion hybrid band” that are doing pretty well on the circuit.

Normally i would describe in detail what happened, but its easier and far more satisfying if you watch the video.

Meet Billy Bob Thornton, this month’s Joaquin Phoenix!

-Jon

View2Gether.com – Playstation Home for the web?

Mark took the time to send me a press release a day or so ago from the ABC Family marketing team regarding view2gether.com, an “Online Viewing Platform” for ABC Family shows. Apparently fans of a television show on the network called “Greek” (yes your guess is as good as mine) will be able to log on to the view2gether website and host online “Viewing Parties” where they can watch and discuss their favorite episodes through a synched up online streaming platform. Just like watching Television with a bunch of friends at your house, except not on your television, and no where near any of your friends.

Now don't get me wrong, viewing parties are fun and all. The Oscar viewing party was like being a part of an MST3k Episode when i went. But i much preferred the idea Sony put in motion with their Home software. See, supposedly at some point in the lifetime of Home, any media content you have saved to the PLAYSTATION 3 (yes, that is the way you write it) hard drive can be queued up and streamed to your friends via your personal space big screen. You and your friends’ avatars then can sit, press a button, and bring the movie up full screen for everyone in the party. Now thats a cool idea. It creates some sort of normality in a virtual world environment.

Now considering that this is ABC Family using the platform, i highly doubt any shenanigans on the level of say, AICN’s Talkbacks, but quite simply its a chat room with a video that plays at the same interval for all people in the room….which is not necessarily the coolest thing since sliced bread. Time will tell if this website ends up working out. Maybe if they get some more shows available other than “ABC Family’s Hit Show Greeks!” (their words, not mine), then this just might have a chance.

-Jon

Squatter Cities and Unequal Distribution of Wealth

Sean Kennedy today linked to a TED talk in his weekly shownotes for his NewsReal podcast. He rightly likened it to his very prescient vision of the future he described in his dark future audio drama series Tales from the Afternow.

If you haven’t set aside the twenty or thirty hours required to check out the drama, you definitely have been missing out.  I mentioned the series in one of my early posts to Mashable, where I talked about a concept explored in the series called the Listener License:

TFTAN portraying a post apocalyptic Earth ruled by roving gangs and mega-corporations. The concept he describes in the series, though, is based on what he sees as the growing grasps for control of media by the big nine media conglomerates in America, and their politicians in the various governments of the world. Listening to the series, it is clear that Sean is envisioning what may certainly be called a worst-case scenario, where your Listener’s License not only serves as the enabler to participate in creation and enjoyment of any type of media, but as your primary source of identification in the information (and post-information) age.

We’re inching towards the listener license, but we’re not just getting close to another reality described in the series, we’re there – the prevalence of squatter towns.

The talk embedded below is relatively short by comparison to most of the TED videos I’ve seen – a poignant fourteen minutes or so.  It’s done by a journalist, Robert Neuwirth, who seems to exclusively focus on the topic of squatter cities in his work, having travelled to Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul and Mumbai in research of his work.

The talk is told in the style of a journalistic piece. He isn’t advancing any particular agenda, it seems, so you can watch without feeling preached at.

TED Talks: Robert Neuwirth: The "shadow cities" of the future

The first instince for most of us watching the imagery of some of these squatter cities, or as they’re sometimes called, slums, is that we need to get Sally Stuthers on the job here and help these people out.

If the statistics and projections being presented in this talk are correct, though, these are going to be increasingly common in the future, and those that are there are there due to some degree of choice.  Certainly, if many of them had the chance, they would live in a billion dollar mansion, but the recurring theme mentioned as to why they live there as opposed to living on the grid or in more rural and serene setting has to do with the freedom afforded with making their own luck and destiny they have there.

It sounds like a bizarre concept, but makes sense, to a certain degree. One of the comments on the video put it succinctly:

These people value their freedom. They are running away from exactly what you want to impose on them. The don't need re-distribution of wealth. Who would be the one to decide who has to give up wealth and who receives the loot? Whoever that is is who these are running from. They want to earn their own wealth and not have it taken away from them.

They don't need protection from eviction. They know the date rent is due and they will do anything possible to make sure it is paid by then. The payment of their rent is all the eviction protection they need.

They don't need injury compensation for an accident, that's just your American (or Anti-American) sense of entitlement talking. While unfortunate, the accident is just one of the growing pains these people will go through. When they are allowed to achieve their potential you can be assured that they will design their streets and building so as to prevent such accidents.

Food for thought.

New Rule?

Here is a clip from the most recent episode of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” where he gets all whiney and complains about “The American Empire”

Now normally, im not a huge fan of the “IN YOUR FACE MOFO!” tactic he employs with his anti-religious crusade. (and yes the same goes for that loud mouth Dawkins…dude is a dick.) But the factual information presented in the clip is enough to throw it on Recomedia for a little piece of mind.

So lets recap. I am NOT subjecting you to bill maher clips for color commentary. I am subjecting you to bill maher clips for factual information.

 

…..Can you hear that? Its the sound of the world ending.

-Jon

Numa Numa Does it Again. [Better than Cavemen]

Chances are you’ve already seen this, but in the event you haven’t, you need to check out the new Numa Numa video that is apparently sponsored by Geico.

Numa Numa Guy with Gecko
by itsthegecko

 

It’s almost as good as the Pepsi video Tay Zonday made last year.

 

Spork of Genius

I can’t be the only guy in the world that when he looks at the frequent Mashable sponsored post logo for this..:

… thinks something like this:

 

Right?

I’m not insane, am I?

"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." – Albert Einstein