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NASA Finds Different Atoms than Our Own

NASA in its tireless effort to advance the human race has found on its newly launched IBEX satellite (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) that atoms outside our solar system are actually different than atoms within it.

"We've directly measured four separate types of atoms from interstellar space and the composition just doesn't match up with what we see in our solar system" - Eric Christian IBEX Mission Scientist

Atoms, the smallest thing that makes up us are fundementally different outside our solar system; my mind is blown.

Hit the link to read a full article complete with videos.

#NASA #Space #IBEX #Atoms

•18+ Adults Only

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Danny's Meaty Content - A Crutch or Occasionally a Tripod

By: Dan Tommie

A little while ago when reviewing a TV show for my ViTV column I mentioned in passing m occasional chagrin over the sex and nudity in programming on premium cable channels. My opinion then was a little mixed and I found that the more I thought about it the more mixed I saw them to be. Turns out it’s not really straight forward since it’s not coming from any moralistic standpoint, it’s all subjective. Much the same reason why I may find the gore in Saw or it’s torture porn brethren distasteful and unnecessary while the gruesome deaths in a zombie film are exquisite. But I’m getting ahead of myself. There is of course no nudity or sex on network television. It’s obvious, but important to take into consideration. At times I find this annoying, from a logistical and artistic point of view. In reality people do get naked and they do have sex. Again, obvious, I know. The problem is the lengths that TV will go to imply these things without breaking any rules is often laughable. There is the old stereotype of seeing a couple in bed post coitus with the sheet at his waist but pulled up to her chin. There is even the whole aspect of having sex under the covers. I’m at least 90 percent certain that this was wholly invented as a way to show sex without showing it. Unless it’s the dead of winter I don’t know that anyone ever actually does this. But at the same time I think everyone assumes this is a common act. As far as network TV goes, I know that this decision is out of their hands. Most TV producers would probably love to show some skin. Really it’s not even the absence of the nudity that pulls me out of the reality of the situation. It’s the lazy way in which they do it. In the reality of most network TV shows people hide under sheets, have very large towels, sleep fully clothed, don’t even really get undressed for sex. And that’s just lazy. Well written and produced television shows don’t have to hide behind these cliches. You’re characters can get naked without you having to show nudity. You just have to be a little more clever to pull it off. Often times, however, I feel that shows on cable fall to the other side of that extreme. They can show whatever they want, and frequently do to varying effect. The reasons for this are many. They can, it sets them apart from the networks, and lets face it people like seeing people naked. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a single program on premium cable that hasn’t shown an amount of nudity which would push them well beyond PG-13. But I’d not say all of them were pandering for a cheap thrill. Don’t get me wrong, I know on some level each and every one of them are going for A thrill. It’s just not always a cheap one. And that’s where things start getting a little tricky. Much like their network cousins on the other side of the coin I think it all comes down to whether or not it feels like they’re being lazy. And to confuse the issue for me further, sometimes it varies from episode to episode. Take True Blood, for example. It may be the best example of the mercurial nature of my ire. I haven’t had cause to write about it for ViTV yet, but it’s a little bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. If you’re not familiar, you can think of it as a more adult and less intellectually crippling version of Twilight. Sex is kind of a cornerstone of this show. It’s probably hard to find an episode where someone isn’t taking their gear off and getting down. Usually with some sort of monster. For the most part the sex and nudity doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t feel out of place. When the show is good, that is. Which it isn’t always. Things have been known to get... weird in Bon Temps, and sometimes I just want to shake the characters, or, for lack of not being able to do that them being fictional and all, the writers, and shout “Stop screwing each other long enough to deal with the demon taking over your town! Coming is not the most pressing matter right now!” Or look at Hou$e of Lie$, the program which most recently elicited my displeasure. Granted there has only been two episodes, but in those episodes I ‘m not sure if there was any nudity which I felt wasn’t shoe horned in. I never was able to buy into any of it, which I think is largely because I don’t think that show delivered on any of it’s promises. Everything seemed to fall flat in that show. But hey, here’s some tits, maybe that’ll bring you back. It feels like a trick. A shameless scam. Unfortunately I don’t watch Shameless. That would’ve been a great segue. It’s interesting to note that I don’t hate Californication. Interesting because I think in a lot of ways Hou$e of Lie$ was trying to build off of it’s smart sex style. But it failed. Californication is so over sexed at times it is barely a step away from soft core porn. But it’s never bothered me. It’s well made. And maybe most importantly, the characters are likable. I want things to work out for Hank. A feel bad for Charlie and the endless amounts of crazy situations he falls into. As thin a premise as it may be, the stream of women in the show are part of the shows journey, rather than an afterthought. Tangentially I’d like to talk for a second about male nudity. It doesn’t really surprise me but this is something which you rarely see. I’d say the biggest reason for this has got to be homophobia, but what I take for the second reason I find much more interesting. I’ve heard it presumed that women don’t want to see penises, however in my experience in the women who’ve been comfortable enough to talk about the subject I don’t know if that’s the case. I have a theory. I think (most) women range from not minding at all to enjoying seeing a nude man, however, I think they all presume they are in the minority of women. It’s kind of like how I once had a theory that no one actually Liked Ryan Seacrest, but instead assumed that everyone else liked him. Also on the topic of the rare occasion of male full frontal nudity. I hadn’t really realized this until I was writing and it stand to not that while female nudity is common, and male nudity much less so, even less than that is female nudity where you can make out vulva. I’m not saying we need more vagina in our programming, just food for thought.

#Meaty Content #House of Lies #Californication #True Blood #ViTV #Nudity #Sex

Ten Man Heroic Morchok Reviewed

By: John Perna

My guild in World of Warcraft (Bomb Squad Ysera – Horde) just dropped our first heroic boss for this tier. It was a jubilant time for us as that we had already spent three hours bashing our heads against him the previous weekend.

The boss mechanics for this fight are identical to the normal version with the boss' damage and boss' health being buffed, however there is one glaring difference; there’s two Morchoks.

At 90% Morchok splits into two, revealing his evil twin Kohcrom; that’s right its Morchok spelled backwards, you don’t know Blizzard, they do what they want! At this point, your raid will have to split into two equally viable teams and down each boss on their own, as that each puts its own debuff on the party and if they are too close, the others massive AOE damage will kill the other team and vice versa.

I am not writing here a guide on how to beat the boss, but a review of the boss fight itself. Something I think should be a norm in the MMO world, but appears to be completely untouched soil. So if you want a guide for it, Google that shit, though some helpful hints may pop out here.

Its hard to review the heroic version of this fight with out touching on the basics of the normal version. The mechanics are rock simple, as any good first boss in an instance should be. It forces the raid to coordinate and communicate and has what amount to 'gear checks' for all three roles in your raid.

For healers Morchoks stomp does a good amount of AOE damage (Stomps) spread around the group followed quickly by another mechanic (Resonating Crystals) that will further damage a few members more if not out right kill them if they are not spot healed up after the stomp. This forces your raid to accept if they have not only the throughput to heal in later parts of this instance, but also the triage ability to see what needs to be healed and bring it up to sustainable fast.

For tanks, Morchok forces them to coordinate between each other else a stacking debuff (Crushed Armor) will allow him to one shot them. Furthermore he hits like a freight train and the tanks have to maintain a certain distance from him to make sure his damage on his stomps is split among themselves equally before the remaining damage is then split equally to everyone with in twenty five yards.

For the DPS, he just has a shit ton of health, and to beat his enrage timer you have to be able to push out a good amount of damage, furthermore this fight makes you swivel around and change positions pretty regularly so it makes sure you can do good DPS while on the move.

And it has a 'check' for your whole raid when he does Earthen Vortex, which sucks the whole raid in the ground, brings them to him, then throws up pillars for you to hide behind which you must run to as fast as possible to avoid the ground effect he drops called Blood of the Earth. This also sees if you are able to see ways to take advantage of mechanics since if your ranged DPS does it right they can still give him the beans while behind these walls.

All in and hes a great starting boss for normal Dragon Soul, showing any raid leader worth his salt where his raid needs to improve for later fights. However, this boss falls flat as a raid check in Heroic settings.

Again the difference here is that you have two Morchoks and that is it. So all the above mechanics get split in two, and forces your raid to also split in two. Seems legit, all the checks above but twice as hard since you have half the people to do them in. This seems logical, but its wrong.

This fight, with out insanely geared DPS is impossible to two heal, its mechanics; especially the Resonating Crystal and Stomp combo mechanic of spreading damage around equally means you can not three heal it, as one group will be with out a member to help soak. Which means you four heal it.

Each five man group is a tank, two DPS and two healers. This throws the whole see if we are ready for heroics thing out the window as that each group is rolling with far more heals per capita than you would have in ANY other boss encounter in this instance. Is this what Blizzard wanted or is it just raids like mine being impatient and gaming the system? I do not know, however seeing as that with only four DPS in your raid you can still make the berserk timer I have to assume Blizzard very much felt this was the strat to run.

It is because of this ass backwards design that while over thirty percent of raids that go into Dragon Soul drop Heroic Morchok, that number nose dives to around 14% for the second most accepted progression boss (Yor'sahj) and less than 10% on the next. Raids just are not actually ready to be dropping bosses in here at heroic levels in the majority of cases and this boss is the reason for that.

This all could be made better if Blizzard loaded this guy with weapons or chests or legs, things that when upgraded make a huge difference to a characters ability to perform, making this guy the one you farm to raise your raids ilvl up to a point of being able to tackle the later bosses, but they did not.

Our raid is not terrible, its not uncoordinated, our healers and tanks are some of the best on our server and our DPS are all competent, like I said less than five hours of time was spent dropping this guy, and three hours of that was us trying to not have to four heal him. Once we switched to four healers it was around an hour of time to drop him. However once we moved to the next boss we spent two straight hours of showing no progress. The entire raid when it was felt defeated and we all said, we just don’t have the gear for this fight, period.

The first boss of any raid instance should be one that tests the limits of a raid, showing it the weaknesses it has to overcome, this one does not, it simply forces you to use a raid composition that is completely useless in all other circumstances to faceroll the encounter. Whereas the normal version of this fight does its job perfectly. I simply do not understand why Blizzard did what they did, usually their tactic is to force a raid to run less healers, which is something many fights have you do, not run more healers, which is something no fights have you do.

The flip side of this whole review though is this fight is really fun! You are running around, using all your abilities and constantly; as a healer, my shaman was the number four brought in leaving my Warlock behind, bringing people back from the brink of death and being the hero, which I have a feeling all three roles get a feeling of during this fight. Its just too bad that all this fun is ruined the first time you realize that the next boss is too much to handle for your recently victorious group.

I give this Boss 2 out of 5 stars, and only because of how fun it is to do.

Here's the video of my guild dropping the boss, enjoy!

Bomb Squad Vs Heroic Morchok

#WoW #Steel and Tears #Morchok #Dragon Soul #4.3 #World of Warcraft

ViTV- Sophomoric Offerings

By: Dan Tommie

Whenever someone does something well for the first time, there is always an overwhelming interest to see if they can pull it off again. The expectation is usually to watch them fail. It’s the sophomore curse. Write a best selling novel? I hope you’ve held something back for your next time in front of a keyboard. Wow the world with your fresh voice with that little movie you wrote and directed? Good for you, now don’t screw it up when you’ve got a budget. No matter what the medium is, if you do something well once people will have equal expectation for you to be able to surpass it as well as to be a one hit wonder. I wonder if when you produce something mediocre you face the same sorts of pressure. This is of course assuming you have the presence to know that your creation is not a work of art. Sometimes your creation is just work. You’re not an artist so much as a technician. More Ford than Ferrari. Perhaps there’s a freedom to the mundane, even when you work in entertainment. You don’t always have to enthrall and entrance your audience, sometimes perhaps it’s just good enough to entertain them for a bit. Maybe that’s why the second episode of Hou$e of Lie$ was just terribly uninspired. Mere hours before watching this week’s offering I was commenting on how a half hour comedy doesn’t really have to be terribly good for me to watch it. 30 minutes takes no real commitment. I could happily throw a comedy on TV as I go to bed at night,. It feels much much easier to follow than an hour long program. I think maybe the TV gods heard my challenge and took me up on it. Well played, TV gods. The episode opens on Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle) telling the viewer how awesome he is at his job. He’s a closer. He can talk anyone into anything. The following scene, intended to back this claim, did nothing to give me that impression. His sales pitch, in summary: “If you don’t say yes, your shit is going to be seriously fucked. Say yes. Yes. Yes. Say yes. Say it. Say it you stupid sweating piece of shit.” Not only is the dialogue unconvincing, Cheadle doesn’t back it up with the level of charisma he just told us he has. The mentioned stupid sweating piece of shit of course said yes. Marty celebrates by having very rough sex with his ex wife in the restaurant bathroom. She happened to be there. She’s just showing up everywhere. That scene did get a touch rape-y, but don’t worry they have a safe word and she isn’t using it. The other members of his team are fairly forgettable except for their arch-types. There’s the smart pretty girl (Kristen Bell), The nerdy guy (Josh Lawson), and the “smooth”(?) guy (Ben Schwartz). Cat Deeley made an appearance in this episode as herself. I’ve never heard of her before, but either I’m living under some sort of a rock or the show decided to stroke her ego by insinuating I’ve been living under a rock for not having heard of her. Nerdy Guy is all sorts of crushing on her, being a sexy TV personality (I guess), and predictably strikes out, largely because of his crippling inability to follow up on her apparent interest. This sets up a scene later where “Smooth”(?) Guy details the insane line of bull shit that would have been his pick up line. I really don’t know what the objective of that scene was. There was some sort of wagering going on, but it wasn’t entirely clear on how a winner was to be determined, nor even what was to be won since everyone seemed to pick back up their wagers in the scene’s conclusion. Did I mention that his pick up was an insane line of bullshit? Presumably Nerdy Guy would have picked up on her by just talking with a little bit of confidence and charisma. “Smooth”(?) Guy’s method included strings of ridiculous lies that I’m hoping no woman would fall for. If the intention of this scene is character development, what we’ve learned is that “Smooth”(?) Guy is a colossal tool and everyone else is enamored by colossal tools. But that’s the C plot. The A plot is a NBA team owner is getting divorced and the team has to find a way for the divorce not to ruin the franchise. The team’s brilliant plan is for the owner and wife to continue in a public sham marriage while being separate in their personal lives. This is the masterful advice you buy for a few hundred thousand. The B plot was Smart Pretty Girl thought she was going on a date when she was really being head hunted. This is the bad communication based comedy sitcoms have been delivering since the inception of sitcoms. Not only do I expect more in general, I expect far more from the programming on a premium cable channel. The glimpses into Kaan’s home life with his son and father was a glimmer of light in this otherwise dark period in my life. All in all I’d probably had rather watched Two and a Half Men. Sure the writing would have been bad and my intelligence would be insulted, but I would know all that going in. Maybe this was an extraordinarily bad episode of what would otherwise have been a good show. But I highly doubt I'll be back next week to find out. 2 out of 5 spilled coffees. And I think that 2 is pretty generous.

Please, feel free to contact me about this, or what you may consider to be ViTV.

#House of Lies #Don Cheadle #Kristen Bell #Josh Lawson #Ben Schwartz #Cat Deeley #ViTV

Tron: Legacy an Instant Queue Movie Review

By: Dan Tommie

Tron: Legacy dazzled audiences with fancy 3D when it hit theaters in December 2010, and thanks to the miracle of streaming video I got around to watching it thirteen months later. Without the 3D, of course, which I kind of regret since I heard the 3D was really good. Tron: Legacy really doesn’t feel like a film that came out in December, it’s got summer written all over it. I felt it skimped on story in exchange for big visually exciting scenes. There are deep themes running throughout the movie but I never felt they explored them as much as they could have, and instead focused on creating this virtual world. Legacy follows Sam (Garrett Hedlund), the grown son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges, reprising his role), as he discovers the truth of his father’s disappearance 21 years earlier. So that you can follow along the events of Tron were in 1981, Legacy opens briefly in 1989 showing briefly before Flynn disappeared and then brings us into 2010 where the majority of Legacy resides. In 1981 Encom was a big evil computer company which Flynn gained control of in the end of Tron but has largely resumed it’s evil ways by 2010. Sam, though the largest shareholder, takes no real part in the running of the company except for an annual prank of sorts. 2010’s annual prank seems to have been the release of it’s newly completed OS for free on the internet. I’ve got to say I don’t see this as quite an altruistic act that I think I’m supposed to. Sam doesn’t strike me as Robin Hood as much as a spoiled brat who doesn’t understand the business he was meant to be running. He says that the OS was always supposed to be free but doesn’t feel the need to back that up anyhow. I was given the impression that this new OS represented the bulk of Encom’s resources and probably was to be meant to keep the company in the black for at least a few years. You could argue that Encom could offer up the OS for free and charge for it’s technical support, but that’s only viable if the entire business model was built around it, without such a system in place Sam’s squandered likely billions of dollars with no way of recouping these losses. The Sheriff of Nottingham was not a multi-national company employing thousands of people who may lose their jobs because you gave to the poor. Good job, Sam, these people are going to be fired right before Christmas because of you. Following Sam’s stunt, Allan (Bruce Boxleitner, also returning) informs him of a mysterious page he received from his father’s old office. Sam investigates Flynn’s Arcade and discovers his father’s secret lab and shortly of course finds himself in the computer world. Before I continue, I have to say a word about Flynn’s secret lab. For one thing I don’t know why he really needed a secret lab. As the head of Encom he could have had a private lab built for him anywhere with normal locks on the door, he didn’t have to have one built in his old arcade with a secret entrance behind a Tron arcade cabinet. And why the need for secrecy anyway? For all accounts it seems his research was being done for the betterment of mankind and was going to have been freely shared. A secret lab with a secret entrance makes him look like a Bond Villain. But it’s really that secret entrance that bothers me the most. If for whatever reason you’ve decided you need a secret lab with a secret entrance, why would you put said entrance in the middle of an arcade? You’d have to limit your access to your lab to before and after business hours, or else negate the whole idea of a secret lab with a secret entrance. Once Sam’s in the computer Legacy progresses in a very similar fashion as Tron. Sam is captured, forced to play in gladiatorial games, drives a light cycle, etc, etc. If you hear me talk about movies (or really any fiction) enough you may notice I take odd leaps of faith with the suspension of disbelief while at the same time harping over errors in logic and such. This is because I will gladly buy in to whatever the reality of a story is, but will not forgive going against the established reality. There are some rare exceptions to this when, for example, the audience is led to believe in one reality which is later shown to have been false. Legacy however seems to make a multitude in errors in holding up the truth of the world, this is of course exacerbated due to the nature of this being a sequel and building on an established world. I was never super in to Tron, and don’t hold it up as any sci-fi paragon of movie making, but it is the established canon of this movie, so I’d expect anything true in Tron to be true in Legacy. For example, and yes keeping in mind I’m fully on board with the whole premise of being zapped inside of a computer, in Tron when Flynn is teleported into the MCP mainframe he appears as any other program, memory disc and all. When Sam enters the Grid he is wearing exactly what he was wearing in the real world. He doesn’t get any glowing clothing until he goes through some very strange stripping and outfitting ritual. Why does that strange S&M room even exist? My logical complaints of Legacy are legion. For my next points I want you to try to remember that this is happening in a mostly normal (if very advanced by 1989 standards) computer system. The programs are programs, same as you having running in your computer. With the exception of CLU and the ISOs. The entire world is meant to be a visual representation of software and hardware. As such the Users follow the same rules. They did in Tron and the should in Legacy. So why would Sam bleed when hit? He is not physically there. He is really a program as much as any other program, he just has SuperUser access. With that in mind there is also no reason Flynn should have aged, and if he ages why at the rate of the real world? Time passes in Tron like it does in Narnia. Also why do they eat? And why the hell is there a night club? Why does software need to drink and dance to Daft Punk? Why does it appear that light cycles have mechanical engines? How the hell can the tail gun on a bomberesque light vehicle jam? HOW!? Another note on that night club scene. There really is a lot of ridiculous things going on in there, and I’ve heard people really gripe about a lot of it, as I have done to some extent myself. Regardless, it was one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Daft Punk is mixing up a sound track live, there’s a crazy proprietor that just seems to evoke ‘wtf?’ more every time you see him. I could see how just about everything I loved about this scene could cause someone else to check out. But I decided to go along for this ride. My next complaint is really nit-picky and I know it. This is the way it is because this is a movie made in 2010 intended to make money rather than make sense in a canonical way. The computer world the movie takes place in was designed by Flynn in and before 1989. As such I think Legacy SHOULD look very much as Tron did. The light cycles are very much analog as opposed to their digital nature in Tron. If the system Legacy takes place in were designed in 2010 rather than pre-1989 a lot of these things would make sense, but not only is the system old, it exists on a mainframe which is not connected to the internet so there is no way for things to have been updated that way. I have to talk about the young Jeff Bridges (and to a lesser extent Bruce Boxleitner) for a moment. It’s really pretty impressive, but holds up best when you don’t get to see him for very long or clearly. It does still have some uncanny valley issues, though not nearly as frightening as, say, the abominations inhabiting The Polar Express. I suppose it was never truly unsettling as much as it just felt a bit off. Sometimes it did kind of strike me as looking more like a young version of current Jeff Bridges rather than looking as Kevin Flynn did in Tron. I’m about to get into some spoiler territory so before I do I’d like to sum things up for anyone who may want to avoid them. I’m going to be giving Tron: Legacy three stars, spoiler alert. Jeff Bridges was great, the film looked very good, and what story there was was interesting. I feel this movie had the potential to do a lot more if it had given the story a little bit more fleshing out instead of relying on the flashy visuals to keep people entertained. Pretty much every beat in Legacy is predictable. Flynn sacrificing himself to make good Sam’s escape. Quorra (Oliva Wilde) escaping out into the real world, and I have further issues with this that will become more apparent in a moment. Building towards the climax Legacy commits a ridiculous act of deus ex machina. This really irked me. It’s just plain lazy. Allow me to explain. Fairly early on it’s made readily apparent that CLU’s dual wielding henchman is Tron. I really think they should have explored that more, as it ends up being one of the only plot points in Legacy with any amount of subtlety. But since subtlety isn’t this film’s strong suit it could be that it’s just poorly executed. Fast forward to near the end, our heroes are making good their escape, and Tron is situated to deliver a finishing blow. But instead in that moment decides “I fight for the Users” and instead acts as a road block in CLUs pursuit. This is poor and sloppy story telling for many reasons. First and foremost this is just silly deus ex machina. Second, the viewer has very little reason to believe in this change. If we’re to believe CLU can rewrite a program to do his bidding, how could this happen? Third, his act is largely inefectual. Were that scene to be removed from the movie it would change nothing. There is another major plot point that doesn’t sit right with me. This has been debated, but I stand by my guns, this is a leap I’m unwilling to take. I do want to point out, that this is possible that it’s not a fault (in my perception) of the movie logic, but rather an error made by a character. There may be no way to know this, but I believe we’re to believe the character is not in error. In the last act it’s revealed that CLU’s evil master plan is to use Flynn’s identity disc to not only leave into the real world himself, but take an army with him. I don’t buy into how this is remotely possible. Recall that the process in which the Flynn’s enter the computer world makes use of a device that was being created to develop quantum teleportation of physical objects. An object is scanned into the computer, if you will, and reassembled in another place. It sounds like it works rather identically to teleporters in Star Trek, but I’m not a huge trekkie, so I could be wrong. The Flynn’s never bothered with that last step as they were always scanned into the computer and hung out there. Their physical bodies don’t exist in the computer, their existence in the computer is all the data in how to put them back together again. Also their consciousness continues to exist, apparently. The programs making up CLU’s army however don’t have all that mountain of data on how to build a perfect fully functioning human body. So were they to access and pass through the portal I can’t tell you exactly what would be constructed, but it wouldn’t be human, and would likely be very inconsequential in size as the amount of information in a program is minuscule when compared to the amount of information that would be required to build a person. It also seems to me, that even were this plan to work, CLU would only have an army of guys with sticks. This would still be a bad thing, but I don’t see them conquering the world. They’d be lucky to take Detroit. It is a stretch, but I would be able to buy into CLU being able to exit using Flynn’s identity disc. Despite all these issues I had with it, it is still a fun movie. It visually engaging, Bridges is great, and generally just good fun to watch, but I can’t say the movie as a whole is great. It had the potential for greatness, and unfortunately fell short of that mark. 3 out of 5 identity discs

#Tron #Meaty Content #reviews #movies #Legacy #Tron: Legacy #Jeff Bridges #Olivia Wilde #Garrett Hedlund #Flynn

•18+ Adults Only

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2012 Video Game Releases

By: John Perna

Hey everyone! I know that finding a list of games coming out can end up being a pretty hard thing to do in reality. Most websites I go to pull from some mysterious place in the dark net that you never see and lists Pimp My Ride as coming out every month on the month*. So I will create a list here on our site and keep it as up to date as I can. Bookmark this page since it won’t stay on the front forever and visit it frequently!

There are a few caveats to this list, first these are games that are coming out on the big three consoles, the 3DS, PSP and the Vita or PC and are not “shovelware”, I won’t say AAA titles only, but I will not track Ice Road Truckers: The Minigame Collection here. Second there may be errors or wrong release dates and I’ll try to fix them as soon as I see them, give me time.

Lastly for the first couple days if not first week this list will be under construction as I pour over various lists on the net adding things to it.

*This list could also have Pimp My Ride on it monthly.

January

4th

NFL Blitz –PSN, XBLA

24th

Silent Hill HD Collection – PS3, 360

31st

Final Fantasy XIII-2 – PS3, 360

NeverDead – PS3, 360

Soul Calibur V – PS3, 360

February

7th

The Darkness II – PS3, 360, PC

Inversion – PS3, 360, PC

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning – PS3, 360, PC

Resident Evil Revelations – 3DS

14th

Tales of the Abyss – 3DS

Twisted Metal – PS3

UFC Undisputed 3 – PS3, 360

15th

Uncharted: Golden Abyss – Vita

21st

Syndicate – PS3, 360, PC

28th

SSX – PS3, 360

Binary Domain – PS3, 360

March

6th

Mass Effect 3 – PS3, 360, PC

MLB 12: The Show – PS3, Vita

11th

Mario Party 9 – Wii

20th

Ninja Gaiden 3 – PS3, 360

April

24th

Prototype 2 – PS3, 360, PC

May

June

July

3rd

Anarchy Reigns – PS3, 360

August

September

October

November

December

That’s all that has had release dates announced so far, as the year progresses the games below will get their release dates announced and I will update the list as needed!

Games Announced for 2012 with TBA dates

Aliens: Colonial Marines - PS3, 360, Wii, PC, DS

Armored Core V – PS3, 360

Assassin's Creed III - PS3, 360, PC

Atelier Meruru: The Apprentice of Arland - PS3

Bioshock Infinite - PS3, 360, PC

Borderlands 2 - PS3, 360, PC

Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 - PS3, 360, PC

Call of Duty 9th installment - PS3, 360, PC

Counter- Strike: Global Offensive - PS3, 360, PC, Mac

Cross of the Dutchman - PS3, 360, PC

Darksiders II - PS3, 360, WiiU, PC

Diablo III - PC, Mac

DOTA 2 - PC, Mac

Dust 514 - PS3, Vita

Fable the Journey - 360

Far Cry 3 - PS3, 360, PC

Guild Wars 2 - PC

Halo 4 - 360

Hitman: Absolution - PS3, 360, PC

Journey - PSN

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance - PS3, 360, PC

Metro: Last Night - PS3, 360

Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm Generations – PS3, 360

Oddworld: Munch's Oddyse HD Remake - PSN, Vita, PC

Paper Mario 3DS - 3DS

Planetside 2 - PC

Prey 2 - PS3, 360, PC

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City – PS3, 360

Ridge Racer Unbounded – PS3, 360, PC

Silent Hill: Downpour - PS3, 360

Sly Cooper: Theives in Time - PS3

Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 – PS3, 360, PC

South Park: The Game - PS3, 360, PC

Spec Ops: The Line - PS3, 360, PC

Starhawk – PS3

Street Fighter X Tekken – PS3, 360, Vita, PC

The Last Gaurdian - PS3

The Last of Us - PS3

Tomb Raider - PS3, 360

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD - PSN, XBLA

Torchlight II - PC, Mac

True Crime: Hong Kong - PS3, 360, PC

X Rebirth - PC

#Video Game List #2012 Releases #Game Release

ViTV - The Sexy Adventures of the 1%, Or: Occupy Wall Street's Wife

By: Dan Tommie

House of Lies (pardon me, Hou$e of Lie$) premiered Sunday on Showtime, just before the season premier of Califonication, and in many ways it seems to follow the same format. A damaged middle aged man has a slew of sexual deviancies and no lack of means to fulfill them. I liked it. But not because of that. Although I don’t anticipate getting tired of seeing attractive people get naked any time soon, sometimes it does seem to be a little bit of a crutch. I’ll muse more about that in length on a week I don’t have a TV show to talk about. I bet in the pitch for this show they claimed it would be something like a modern day Robin Hood. It felt to me that they were going for that a little bit. But of course they forgot that Robin Hood gave to the poor. This would be like Robin Hood if Hood stole from the rich and lived a marvelous life of riches and extravagances. And also if Robin Hood didn’t really steal, but instead helped the sheriff subjugate the people of Nottingham for a cut of the taxes. This is a pretty shitty Robin Hood. But I may be getting ahead of myself. Hou$e of Lie$ focuses on a crack team of management consultants. Very nearly con men, really. They go in to some big corporation and trick them into thinking they need to be paid a very large sum of money or else said business will surely be dashed upon the rocks of economic recession. In the case of the first episode (and it appears continuing through the season) the corporation in question is like a fictionalized Goldman-Sachs whose executives are trying to figure out how to get their bonuses. It’s this aspect of the show that intrigues me. The con men thing, that is. I’ve always loved watching a battle of wits. And confidence scams are very much like a battle of wits except often one side isn’t exactly aware they’re battling. I suppose that’s not very fair, but we are dealing with a Robin Hood who is only marginally better than the sheriff. Hou$e of Lie$ also uses some fairly slick visuals that, along with the breaking of the fourth wall, I think I’ll like so long as it’s a device not overused. I’m predicting the season will give us more of that, but again hopefully not too much. Along with some hopeful character development, crooks manipulating the crooked and more attractive naked people. Again, hopefully not too much. This first episode was fairly written (though there were a couple scenes I think I’d have made some changes to, the outburst at the business dinner comes to mind), well enough performed by a cast of familiar faces and all in all a reasonable way to spend 30 minutes. They haven’t yet convinced me I need to keep them around, but neither are they yet “counseled-out”. 3 out of 5 high class hookers

Please, feel free to contact me about this, or what you may consider to be ViTV.

#ViTV #House of Lies #Don Cheadle #Kristen Bell #Naked People #Califonication #Showtime

Gameboy Color in your Browser

By: John Perna

Posted up on the net, now you can play a selection of GBC games from this sites drop down list, or drag and drop your own GBC roms onto it. There's little chance this will stay up long, so have fun with your classics while you can! Hit the source to play.

#GBC #Pokemon #News #Gameboy Color #ROM

Diablo III Sooner than Expected?

By: John Perna

Earlier this week a Best Buy retail chain in Minnesota started putting up end caps with a “Feburary(sic) 1st” release date for Diablo III, complete with a digital timer with countdown to the day. Only a short time later some UK retailers listed Diablo III with a release date of February 3rd. The internet that revolves around Diablo III caught fire.

Well yesterday Blizzard came out and said that Diablo III does not have a release date and any dates listed by retailers are speculation. He then said that any release date for the game would be announced via press release before any retailer gets the information.

Seems like an open and shut case right?

Not so fast.

Ever since Blizzard was merged with Activision what was once an Apple-esque ability to keep information secret has turned into a leaky ship. Blizzard’s decisions go through a company whose upper echelon is filled with men concerned with stockholders and profits.

With their stock prices sagging due to WoW subscription losses and the release of what Wall St seems to think is a legit competitor in Star Wars: The Old Republic, I could very well see an Activision executive telling some wary board members who would then tell some high profile stockholders ‘don’t tell anyone this, but their next cash cow is coming out February’. Once that kind of information is leaked, you don’t get it back.

Second, and playing back into my first point, Mists of Pandaria; WoW’s next big expansion, was leaked months before its official announcement at Blizzcon. Do any of you remember what Blizzard did then? That’s right; they said there were no official announcements for the expansion, and our next expansion certainly wasn’t related to this ‘Mists of Pandaria’ name the press is throwing around. Some short time later, Mists was announced at Blizzcon.

Finally, I can see this being the release date; or something very close, because it just fits. Blizzard doesn’t want to step on its own toes, and with Heart of the Swarm and Mists of Pandaria coming out this year they have to find a slot to fit Diablo III into.

We can reasonably assume that Star Craft II: Heart of the Swarm will be released around the same time Wings of Liberty was released, July. There really is no reason to move that date around, it fits into a nice lull of gaming and it’s equally distant from its predecessor.

If Mists of Pandaria were to be released this Quarter the beta invites would have started to go out, so that moves it out into the rest of the year, again Blizzard doesn’t want to step on its own toes, so you can move it out of 3rd quarter also, so it’s either 2nd quarter or 4th quarter. Now besides their first expansion coming out in January every World of Warcraft Expansion since then has been released in the 4th Quarter, October through December.

This leaves Diablo III the front half of the year, speaking from a business perspective, putting it out in February, Heart of the Swarm end of July and Mists out in November gives them a great string of games as equally spaced through the year as can be.

My prediction? I am going to go out on a limb and say that this game comes out before the end of February; however the sure money will be on it coming out before the end of March. So get ready to slay some prime evils.

#Diablo III #Diablo 3 #D3 #News #Nerditorial

Danny's Meaty Content - It's Time to Raise the Curtain

By: Dan Tommie

There is a wide spread misunderstanding on what a family film is. Most people don’t know, and unfortunately it seems most movie studios don’t know. A family film is not a kid movie. A kid movie is almost literally a poor man’s family film. A kid movie only sets out to entertain children, and that doesn’t take much. Bright colors and upbeat music is enough to make kids happy most times. As movies go, kid movies are a pretty safe bet. They’re usually cheap, quick and easy to make and usually make money. Someone may be able to prove me wrong, but I don’t think there is a such things as a good kid movie. Throw a rock at a movie marquee and you’ll hit about three kid movies. A family film is a completely different animal. They are meant for the entire family, and not just trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. They supply things that the intelligent movie goer expect to find. Characters with depth and progression. A story with a beginning, middle and end. A mediocre family film will have moments come and go which are recognizable as peddling to certain demographics. A good family film will feel as if every moment is for everyone. The Muppets is such a movie. I expected to enjoy this movie. I did not expect to love it. Oh man, was this movie good. I don’t really know how to start. Well, I guess the beginning is a good a place as any. There’s a few things you could say The Muppets is about. It’s a little bit of a coming of age story, a little bit of a movie about the relationship between brothers and a little bit about the relationship between a man and a woman. Or occasionally a frog and a pig. In the first case the movie is about Walter [Peter Linz (puppeteer and voice)], a newly introduced… well… Muppet, but that’s not entirely correct in the mythology of this film, as Muppet refers solely to the performers of The Muppet Show, kind of like despite popular belief every Englishman is not in Monty Python. Here’s what we’ll do: muppet (small ‘m’) will refer to the Henson created puppet, while Muppet (big ‘M’) will refer to a member of The Muppets. Starting over. In the first case the movie is about Walter [Peter Linz (puppeteer and voice)], a newly introduced muppet who grew up watching The Muppet Show. Being the only muppet in his idyllic Real America small town, The Muppet Show gave him something to relate to. In that regard I suppose The Muppet Show is kind of like muppexploitation. As such Walter leaps at the chance to join his brother Gary [Jason Segel] and his girlfriend Mary [Amy Adams] on their big trip to LA. For Walter it is very much a pilgrimage to… Mupecca. The relationship between Walter and Gary (not a muppet, by the way) is charming. Also a little cutesy as the two seem to live in a bit of a state of arrested development. This is for three reasons, I’d say. Gary’s devotion to his muppet brother, their existence in this town plucked straight from Leave it to Beaver and lastly because I think they’re both kind of man-boys. Or occasionally muppet-boy. In that regard the movie is as much of a coming of age story for Gary as it is for Walter. Interestingly the relationship between Gary and Mary feels flatter than the one between Kermit and Miss Piggy. But that’s more praise for the ability of the muppets to come across as real characters with real emotion than it is an indictment of the human performance. The human romance is given a sense of reality by the difficulty it’s faced to overcome, but the muppet equivalent has very parallel themes while also being performed by hands in felt. The Muppets does just about everything right. The cameos are just good fun. The musical numbers are generally great, one or two of them struck me as falling just below the mark, but not enough to really take me out of it. The level of nostalgia felt just about right. It plucked the right heart strings without seeming like it was excluding the younger crowd for who wouldn’t understand the history. I really enjoyed Jack Black in this movie. That’s the first time I’ve been able to say that for years. I was constantly impressed with how much character and emotion could be delivered from a puppet which so often you just don’t get from computer animated characters. Hear that Lucas? There are very many places in this movie where it could have gone horribly wrong. I think the movie is protected by that it knows what it is and knows what it isn’t. It has no problem poking a little fun at itself or light heartedly breaking the fourth wall. For example, the antagonist is a very stereotypical evil rich guy. But instead of playing it straight and being a glaring fault the film has fun with it. The dude’s name is Mr Richman. He doesn’t maniacally laugh. He says “Maniacal laugh.” The movie is also very aware, and in some cases about, that The Muppets have largely been out of the public eye for a long time and that people might not care about them. I don’t know how much of that was an actual concern in the making of the movie, but it seems that people have responded by saying “Yes we do.” 5 out of 5 hands in felt.

#Meaty Content #The Muppets #Movies #Reviews #Jason Segel #Amy Adams

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ViTV - Homeland Security

By: Dan Tommie

Fear not, this review of the first season of Homeland is largely spoiler free.

I’m always weary of new programs on TV. Not that I’m afraid I won’t like it, stuff I think I won’t like I hardly spare a thought for, usually it’s the opposite. I watch a fair amount of TV, I generally don’t want to add more to that list as I sometimes find myself hard pressed to keep up with the shows I’ve already put a considerable time commitment into. Recently I’ve allowed two new shows into that stonemasonesque inner circle, and Homeland was the standout of the two. I never saw AMC’s Rubicon. It looked like it may have been interesting, but I heard bad things about it before I ever got into it, so I just let it go. Seems like it may have been one of AMC’s rare misses. That said, the spy thriller genre seems rarely represented in television. Could be that in order to write a compelling espionage story is hard to do. Seems that way anyhow. Especially in a weekly serial format. Homeland pulled it off admirably. It was well written and well acted. I was continually left guessing as to what would happen next, trying to sort through clues and red herrings. I always had suspicions but never knew for sure what the truth of Brody was. I was always oscillating between thoughts of if he was innocent or a bomb waiting to go off. Literally. In some ways I have to say the show was hurt by it’s marketing campaign building anticipation for the premier. If you never saw any of the promos they essentially boiled down to showing Claire Danes as the CIA agent and Damian Lewis as the soldier and told you that one of these people are a terrorist. That idea really intrigued me and I signed up for that theory, expecting to watch a show where we were presented with deliberately limited information as the viewer tries to determine who’s the hero and who’s the threat. Sounds interesting right? It would have been. Problem is that theory is only half true. It seemed pretty clear to me early on that Carrie [Danes] has some definite issues which may make her unstable and possibly delusional, but was no threat. That promise did hold fairly true to the Brody [Lewis] side of the equation however. You never really knew what to make of him. You knew something was up, you knew he was lying about some things, but you never really knew why. You were constantly being given clues and glimpses which would either hint to innocence or guilt. The inconsistencies of his actions could have been the actions of a terrorist covering his tracks, or just as easily a POW going through some serious shit as he tries to assimilate back into a country and family which have grown strange and foreign to him after 8 years of imprisonment and torture. One other aspect that sat a little odd with me is the continuing nature of the show. Through the entire season it seemed to me that things were building to an explosive finale, one that would make it very difficult, if not outright impossible, to continue the show into further seasons. That concept intrigued and excited me. That this may have been more of a mini-series than a continuing show is something that you don’t see often. In my water cooler talks of the show I consistently said that with the show progressing as it is, I can’t see it being able to have a second season. Well, minor spoiler, I was wrong. Things didn’t end quite as I’d expected. That’s not to say at all it ended poorly. There were moments in the season finale that were some of the most tense moments I’ve seen in a long time. The suspense was incredible. Suspense may be the hardest thing to cultivate in a television show. Homeland provided it in spades. 4 out of 5 surveillance vans.

Please, feel free to contact me about this, or what you consider to be ViTV.

#ViTV #Homeland #Claire Danes #Damian Lewis #Reviews

ZAGGfolio - Review

By: Alan Redden

As I write this, I’m sitting in front of my 13” MacBook Air, but missing my iPad. As a writing device, many articles have come out describing using the iPad as a writing tool so I won’t rehash how to go about it, but I will tell you a bit about the ZAGGfolio. The ZAGGfolio is a keyboard/case/stand for the iPad 2, and it is simply fantastic at turning the iPad into a writing station.

The ZAGGfolio is stylish. I used to carry a black leather bound notepad. It was classy and I took it to meetings and everyone was impressed. I would carry the ZAGGfolio in the same manner if I worked for something other than the government and our meetings actually mattered. It’s got a sturdy, cross stitch pattern on the outside, and soft lining on the inside to protect your valuable iPad 2. And only iPad 2. The case is specifically molded for the camera and the thinner edges. If you have an iPad 1, best of luck, see you in hell.

Functionally, the most important part of the ZAGGfolio is the keyboard. It’s not bad. It’s not a full keyboard that a laptop might have, but it’s not far from it. Most of the buttons and functions are there, just crammed into a smaller area. It’s comfortable, but right on the edge between comfortable and cramping. I have fairly large hands and if the keyboard was any smaller I wouldn’t be able to engage in any marathon writing sessions on it. But as it is, it’s perfectly fine. If you have normal hands it will be irrelevant. The keys along the top of the keyboard control things like brightness, music, screen sleep and home but I wish it had a page back and forward button for browsing on Safari. Other than that, I can’t see how any other buttons would be an improvement.

The keyboard works in tandem with the case to prop the iPad on it’s side, with a rubber protected groove at the top of the keyboard. It holds very firm and is big enough for work on a lap. Desk work is no problem. Moving it from one place to another is a bit risky since there’s no latch or anything holding it in place, just gravity and friction. The best way is to close the case then move it, or you risk a whole bunch of things going wrong. The case holds the iPad 2 in it’s landscape mode. You can remove the keyboard from the case and it will still function, and the groove will hold the iPad in the vertical orientation if you so desire. At that point it’s just the rubber groove holding the iPad and it’s much more unstable.

It’s built durable and sturdy out of quality materials. Along the edge of the case where fiber meets plastic, I get some fraying. I can’t tell if it’s just something that will happen or if it’s from me gnawing on it. Sometimes the clasp holding it shut doesn’t hold down, especially if the case shifts while in a bag. It doesn’t happen all the time, but enough to know to take care. Once fitted into the ZAGGfolio, the iPad doubles in thickness and weight. Still mobile enough for any small bag you would have normally been carrying your iPad in.

#Review #iPad #ZAGGfolio

Steel and Tears - Reality vs Perception

By: John Perna

I have been struggling with a question for a while now when I play WoW. With the latest patch Blizzard has added a new tier of raiding, allowing anyone with a 372 ilvl to jump in and do easier versions of the current end game content. I at first thought this would be great, I have a few max level characters now and they all need gear. If I don’t have to try and get guild groups or trade pick up groups together, all the better.

However I am starting to wonder if maybe Blizzard made it too easy, but I cannot actually test my theory. I am not exactly a hardcore player, I do not raid six days a week, nor does my guild strive to be first at anything, I am however very much not a casual player. I understand my classes and their mechanics, I learn all the boss fights for each role in the game; healing, tanking and dps, both melee and ranged and I spend hours after each new patch mapping out where I have to go to get the best gear I can for my characters.

My main character, a warlock was already very well geared due to our heroic Firelands progression, however my healing alt (Shaman) and my tanking alt (Paladin) both needed gear, and within one day of 4.3 being released my Shaman had gone from a gear level of 367 to a gear level of 379, my tank the next day went from 371 to 380. For those of you that are not as well versed in the gear level mechanic, just know that is a boost on the order of magnitudes. In another view, most our main raiders in our progression raid are hovering around the 383 range, meaning I went from not ready to raid to as good as a solid raid progression guild raid member in one day.

My issue is, I don’t know if that’s because of the time I put into the game, and I already know the ins and outs of it and could home in and acquire the gear I needed, or has Blizzard really pushed the ‘anyone can raid’ line this hard?

If it’s the first, then I applaud Blizzard for giving people that only really want to do the end game content a quicker path to being able to actually start on it. Only three patches ago, at 4.0 my guild would go into the Bastion of Twilight raid and just kill the trash over and over again to get the world drops we desperately needed to get our gear levels up to be able to actually consider killing bosses. All told from time of us forming a raid to the time we dropped our first raid boss was almost two months.

However, if it’s the latter, part of me wants to fully support it, I am not one of the elitist saying that raiding should be for raiders and if a casual wants in they had better step up their game. I think everyone should get to experience raiding; it can be one of the most fun and rewarding experiences in your gaming career.

However, if everyone is getting their gear this fast and easily, then they are not actually learning the game. It would be akin of stepping into a RTS with a steep learning curve and using a cheat code to get infinite resources to beat the game. Sure maybe you won, but if you ever played with or against other people you will find yourself sorely lacking skills.

I have already seen Hunters sporting Tanking meta gems and dodge trinkets or Restoration Druids wearing agility leather in the looking for raid groups, showing a very basic and fundamental lack of knowledge on how to play their class or the game at all. Meaning that while they are getting to see the raid content finally they still aren’t learning to play their class, which would lead them to be able to dig deeper into the end game content, instead of dealing with 25 man pugs until they get bored and quitting.

Am I the only one experiencing this? Are more casual players taking longer to get geared up and is the challenge still enough to see their skill levels increase? Email me and let me know, or comment below!

#WoW #Steel and Tears #World of Warcraft #Nerditorial #LFR #Dragon Soul

Danny's Meaty Content - Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

By: Dan Tommie

If you’re of my generation, or even of the one which predates my own, I’d say most likely Calvin & Hobbes holds a special place in your heart. It may have been the perfect comic strip. And it may have resonated with you in many ways. Maybe you identified with Calvin the Outcast, or Calvin the Intellectual, or Calvin the Dreamer, or Calvin the Adventurer, or Hobbes the Philosopher, or Hobbes the Romantic. Maybe you identified it as something special among the largely mediocre realm of the newspaper comic strips. Or maybe you just thought it was funny. This comic really is something special. It’s become so much more than itself. I can think of no other strip, with the possible exception of the also great (if very different) The Far Side, which could be out of newsprint for so long and still be relevant. The Peanuts may also deserve mentioning here, but it’s still printed in rerun. Bill Watterson really did create art, something very few of his peers could claim. He also created characters which are loved still today, 16 years to the day of the last Calvin and Hobbes strip. Watterson never licensed Calvin and Hobbes for merchandise. If you bought one of those stickers with Calvin pissing on the Chevy emblem, you’re kind of pissing on Watterson. And you look like a total tool, too. It’s because of this that I’ve not headed this with an image of the iconic characters, and also why I won’t link to any of the art I’ll be talking about in a bit. There’s a problem with creating something beloved. People always want more. They can even get a little entitled about it. Some might have churned out Calvin & Hobbes ad infinitum. Maybe we could still be reading new strips today. And maybe the would still be great. Maybe I’d finally know what the noodle incident was. Or maybe they wouldn’t be. Maybe it turns out he stopped writing when he stopped having anything to write about. He’s said as much. I heard someone recently talking about a band they loved which only put out one album, after which the singer died. For a long time he regretted never being able to hear more from this band that he loved, until someone pointed out that he’d never have to suffer through listening to a bad album of theirs. Because the internet is what it is, there is no shortage of Calvin and Hobbes fan art. Some of it is rather unfortunate. But some of it is very special, and respectful of Watterson’s work. In particular I’m referring to the various strips and images created by various artists of Calvin with his Daughter. Most of them seem to infer he married Susie, and most of them depict Hobbes’s future adventures with his old friend’s progeny. Frankly it’s heartwarming. The idea of this can speak to you in as many ways as the original strips did. All the more so because many of the original readers are entering this stage of their life now. I also find it heartbreaking, because I don’t believe Calvin sees Hobbes anymore. That makes me sad. It should make you sad, too. Growing up can be rough. This is an idea I would love to see Watterson himself explore. But he won’t. I’d think going back to papers would be simply out of the question for him. Maybe even if he was given complete carte blanche. I’d think the most likely home would be here on the web. Webcomics make money, and I bet he’d be able to pull enough traffic to make it worthwhile even without merchandise. But, of course I seem to remember him speaking out negatively about web comics in the past. It’s just a shame. It seems such a missed opportunity. And I feel torn between my respect for Watterson as an artist, and my entitled urge to shake him and shout “DANCE MONKEY DANCE!” Not only do I not expect that would work, but it’s probably also illegal to shake a man and order him to dance.

#Meaty Content #Calvin #Hobbes #Watterson

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Too Far or Just Enough?

By: John Perna

Anyone that doesn’t know about the recent internet firestorm that started over at Penny Arcade should go on over there and read the email correspondence with ‘Ocean Marketing’. I will be writing this article as if you have read it and its recent update, so go ahead and take your time.

What I want to examine here is Mike’s, aka “Gabes” response to the matter was. To most people on his website; www.pennyarcade.com he is being touted as a white knight, a protector of the downtrodden and slayer of all that would make us feel bad. However the more I think about what happened and put it into context the more I feel that Mike of Penny Arcade stepped over a line and crossed into the territory of being worse than the asshole from Ocean Marketing was himself. More so, I feel that he might have actually pushed the line a little too hard and done something morally wrong.

The letters themselves are kind of moot before Mike steps in, the customer himself was understandably upset, and while everyone that has worked in retail would love to fly off the handle at a pissy customer from time to time we all know that as a representative of a company we are paid to take a pissy customer and turn them into happy customers, so there is no excuse for how Paul handled the situation.

Now when Mike steps in is when things get interesting, Since the contact information has all be removed from the emails I can only assume that everyone that received these letters as CC’s was on every response and either ignoring, didn’t see or not talking up to the point that Mike steps in and states; I think quite laudably that this guys booth was just cancelled at PAX. Good on him, it’s his trade show and he took a stand not allowing someone like that into it.

This is when the Ocean Marketing guy lashes out at Mike and PAX, and Mike seems to forget the second rule of the internet; with rule one being don’t fuck with 4chan, which is don’t feed the trolls. Mike has already at this point made his stance known, and even though Paul doesn’t believe him at that time, when he eventually gets the call that his booth is cancelled he’ll know it was true. So Mike engaging him further is basically just a waste of time and effort except to illicit more vitriol from Paul, which he gets in spades.

However, if this had been left at this, I would still say for the most part Mike has the upper hand, he has just made sure this guy was going to lose the Avenger Controller contract when he tells them the PAX booth was cancelled because of him, Paul maybe learns a lesson in PR and everyone else moves on.

Instead of that, Mike posts the email chain on his popular and highly trafficked website with Paul’s full contact information.

It’s at this point that I feel Mike has stepped across a line that he should not have. Sure it probably felt real good to do this, to not only have the last laugh at the bully but to get the immediate satisfaction of making him a target for everyone that cares to take aim. However this accomplishes nothing but turning Mike into an even bigger bully than Paul was.

Try to imagine this with a little empathy for the idiot in question, he has a minor god complex and decides that he doesn’t like the tone of a customer so he lashes out at him. He’s an asshole and gets his as soon as Mike cancels the PAX booth.

However Mike then pulls out the weapon that is his website to further crush this guy, allowing the faceless masses of the internet to tear him to shreds, basically unleashing something that Mike couldn’t stop if he wanted to against a man that claims to have a wife and a child who are now becoming targets of the internet for no better reason than he got pissy with Mike.

Customer gets pissy with Paul, Paul says some mean things, Mike cancels PAX booth. Paul gets pissy with Mike, Mike devastates Paul’s life.

Even further after realizing that not only is Mike who he says he is, but that Penny Arcade is much larger than he thought it was Paul did the only thing left to him, apologizing and begging Mike to please stop what he has unleashed. Mike posted these emails on his site and replied in so many words, “fuck off”.

Was it heartfelt or sincere in the way Mike would want it to be? No, of course not, however it was truthful, yet Mike feels that he has the right to take out his childhood issues on this man and even states so on his site, he even waxes poetic about how he thinks he has turned into the bully here while continuing to condone the activities of the people he unleashed on this guy.

As of this writing Paul’s company has been reported as going out of business, N-Control the makers of the Avenger Controller have fired him and distanced themselves as much as they can and a great product that could help disabled gamers play something I am very passionate about, video games, has been slammed with 1 star reviews on Amazon, dropping it from a 4 and a half star rated product to a half star product in a day, all because Mike needed to in the parlance of my ViTV editor friend, “Silence the Lambs” of his past or maybe it was to just get his rocks off, to finally be the bully instead of the bullied.

He's even gone as far as to post a new cartoon making light of the fiasco, including a blog post stating that he did, is and will enjoy watching Paul be ruined by his actions. Though some sort of half assed conscious pokes up as he says if the wife and kid are real he thinks "we all can agree they should be left alone." Nice try Mike, but its his actions that just left them with an unemployed husband/father with little chance at a job in his career path, so really he should have left them out of this to begin with by not actively trying to destroy him.

There are those of you out there that I’m sure have been over Mike and Tycho for years now, and the reasons why could fill an article all their own, however for me this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Mike had his chance to in the least try to look like the bigger man and maybe stop some of the less hardcore internet commandos, but instead he just continued to show that he is not only no better than Paul but worse than him in virtually every way.

If someone acting the fool on the internet was punishable by ruining the perpetrators life, virtually all of you reading this would be living out of cardboard boxes by now, including Mike of Penny Arcade.

#Penny Arcade #Avenger Controller #Ocean Marketing #Nerditorial

ViTV - Dexter Season 6, in review

By - Dan Tommie

I’ve given you a full couple weeks to be ready for this. I’m going to talk about the recently ended season of Dexter. There will be spoilers. Oh yes, there will be spoilers. As a primer, you may want to look at what I’ve already said of this season, here. As far as seasons of Dexter go, this the sixth season I feel was middling. But I think even a middling season of Dexter is still a strong contender for your TV viewing time. Thinking back on this season it feels a lot happened, but not a whole lot of much importance. The big bad was interesting, and there was some intriguing development going on outside of the main arc, but a lot of the rest of what happened either hasn’t come to fruition yet or is all sound and fury. So lets start by looking over some of the key B plots, then we can end big by looking at the big bad and the finale. LaGuerta, as always, is looking out for LaGuerta. She and Angel have divorced in between seasons, their marriage may have been as legitimate as a Kardashian’s, once it stopped paying off for her it was time to call it quits. In typical fashion, she was able to blackmail her way into a promotion to captain. Just as things seemed to be coming up all LaGuerta her maneuverings were stymied a touch as Deborah was promoted into her vacated position rather than Angel as she had planned. The only really important things to take away from this is Deb is now LT and LaGuerta is a hardcore manipulative bitch. Both of things will continue to effect the season and onward. Quinn and Deb are still a thing. For about an episode anyway. Then he has to ruin it all by doing something as silly as propose. They break up and she becomes his boss. Quinn being the rational adult he is handles it quite well as step by self destructive step he fills his life with booze and whores. Being the consummate professional these habits never effect his work life, except for every time we see him, all culminating to Angel nearly getting killed. Masuka continues to be your comic relief. And now he’s got college students. It’s a surprise to no one that he offers his intern position to the class sexpot. Neither should his advances on her be much of a surprise. What may have been surprising is her reciprocation. Also that she stole a key piece of old evidence, namely the mannequin hand from the Ice Truck Killer case. Sexpot is let go, and Masuka drafts Louis to fill her shoes, and cover up her theft, a task which he conveniently proves to be very adept at. That’s when the Louis thread slowly starts to get a little weird. He starts to date Angel’s sister Jamie the uber-sitter, good on ‘im, we learn he’s developing a Serial Killer video game, oh and he has the mannequin hand. Dexter berates him for wasting his life creating such a sick piece of software. Dexter’s words have something of an effect on Louis, but I’m not sure if I’ve decided what exactly he’s playing at. He shelves the game, devotes himself to working for the department, and anonymously mails the hand to Dexter, but not before drawing deliberate palm lines on it. This is actually one of the items I’m curious to see handled next season, as Dexter never has a chance to see the hand before the events of the finale. I don’t have much of a clue as to what it’s supposed to mean, and I am left to wonder if Louis’ change of heart stems from him being suspicious of Dexter. Dexter finds religion. Well, not in the way you’re thinking, but religion permeated this season in an odd way. Dexter decides he should enroll his son Harrison in a Catholic preschool. This plan hit a minor speed bump when the school finds Dexter is completely without faith, but our favorite vigilante is able to overcome such minor details. Dexter makes a new friend in reformed criminal turned man of god Brother Sam. Brother Sam was a brief source of light and hope to Dexter, who encouraged him to find the good in himself. What light he kindled was exterminated when Sam came to an untimely end. Things never end well for friends of Dexter. And of course there was the overtly old testament nature of the Doomsday Killer, our big bad, but we’re not quite there yet. Deborah, after involvement in a shootout, seeks some mandated counseling. She does her time, but discovers herself unraveling and issues pouring out of her into her therapist. May be that after all she’s been through she needs some therapy. Her big breakthrough might not be what you’d expect. Turns out she’s in love with her adoptive brother. Makes a sort of sense, really, everyone she’s ever been with has either been very much like Dexter or very much not Dexter. Also keep in mind he is her adopted brother. So it’s okay to think this is hot. The Doomsday Killer. As far as big bad’s go, this season’s was one of the more interesting. And likely the most insane, though not at first glance, and Doomsday evolved in unexpected ways. In the beginning we had a duo of religious zealots working to bring the end of the world by reenacting biblical passages in gruesome tableaux. Honestly, the dynamic between master and pupil was different at first as we’ve never been shown a team of killers but seemed a little uninspired. They seemed a little wooden. I can’t tell you if that was by design or not. Then we had the student questioning his master, and the righteousness of their cause. Things started getting a little more interesting here as you could see that Travis was losing faith in Gellar and it was only a matter of time before he defied his dark master. Dexter was more than willing to help. In Travis, Dexter saw a chance he never had in himself. If Dexter could kill Gellar while Travis was still innocent, he could rid Travis of his Dark Passenger in a way Dexter could never be rid of his. But, in one of this show’s greatest twists, we see Travis is a one-winged angel, and is quite insane. Gellar has been dead for some time, by Travis’ hand, and Travis has been single-handedly working to bring about the doomsday since day one. In the final moments of the season Travis ends, of course, on Dexter’s table as the show delivers on a promise made several times over several seasons. Deborah walks in on him in the midst of a kill, and as they see each other the season ends with us having to wait nine months to see what unfolds. As Dexter seasons go, I’d rate this the 3rd best, of 6. 3 out of 5 justifiable homicides Please, feel free to contact me with your thoughts on this, or what you consider ViTV.

#Dexter #ViTV #Reviews

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