Well, back to the show…

WWOOF, short for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, is more or less a directory of organic farms available for individuals to volunteer on.  Non-registered users are allowed to search the Web site for registered organic farms, browsing by area until eventually coming to a list of farms organized by region and state.

The site caters to a global market, listing farms in all corners and continents of the planet.

The part that I really got a kick out of though was the ability to be hosted at these farms for long periods of time.  Provided you pitch in your fair share of the work, there are great many farms listed on the site that allow workers to stay with them, providing them with a place to sleep and sustaining meals.

The site isn’t that greatly designed, making it a little difficult to navigate through, but even for people who aren’t super tech-savvy should be able to get the hang of it within a few minutes.  After trying a couple methods of searching the site I eventually was able to  navigate to the listing for Michigan, which has 13 farms in the central area of the state.

I always get a spark of excitement seeing real world experiences aided through the vast online community.  The WWOOF isn’t the only site that I’ve seen place a solid effort into this.  Similar activities that I’ve watched flourish and been a part of over the years on the Internet are Book Crossing, Geocaching and Couch Surfing.  I’d recommend taking a look at all of them if you want to find a new way to vacation, or just a fun activity for the weekend.

While inundated with a growing To-Do list currently, the WWOOF seems too good to pass up in a post-graduation world with slim responsibilities, limitless possibilities, and with the shaky economy, few opportunities.

Those who want to visit the site can find it here.

-Andrew Struska

Recap: what have we been doing?
Question of the Week:Black Friday, what is everyone hoping they can get?
Windows 7 is now out, what are our thoughts
Movies: What movies have we seen since we last met
TV shows: what have we been watching, what have we stopped watching
Old Republic Beta Sign-up

Netflix streaming coming to PS3… via Blu-ray disc

Shoppers To Spend $400 Million On eBay This Year … Using Its iPhone App

The Scott Pilgrim series follows the series’ namesake as he slacks through a life mediocre in everything he does. His living situation, his love life, his band, and his non-existant job are all testaments to his just-get-by attitude towards life, until he meets Ramona Flowers.  Falling head over heels for her, Scott must defeat her 7 evil ex-boyfriends in order to earn the right to date her.

I’m pretty pumped for the film adaptation, though extremely skeptical. The Scott Pilgrim character, despite being something of a loser, is extremely confident and outgoing, the polar opposite of the typecast characters Michael Cera, who will be playing Pilgrim in the big-screen adaptation, usually portrays.

I seem to be fairly optimistic however, towards the video game adaptation, which seems to be in direct conflict with the rest of the Internet community’s reaction.  The casting of Michael Cera doesn’t seem to be bothering many folks a lot of people are crying ‘Flop’ towards the video game adaptation, which really makes little sense to me.  The comics are set up in classic serial fashion with references to classic video gaming built right into the story lines with elements like ‘dropped items’ and learning ‘broadsword proficiency’ in 5th grade.  Even the natural progression of the story is built for a video game, progressing from more difficult bosses to the next. Hell, there’s even in-game sprites on the back of some of the graphic novels for what a video game port would have looke like.  It just translates all around better into a video game then a movie.

The basic buzz on he gameplay style is it being a side-scrolling beat-em’ up available on XBLA and/or PSN. This seems like a solid choice considering the success of Behemoth’s Castle Crashers, a game we’ve made no small talk up of here at MGW.

To be optimistic though, the fact that Edgar Wright, director of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, is directing and co-writing the adaptation is something worth being more than slightly giddy about.  His slapstick and indeed impressive action scenes from his previous films fall right into line with the style of the Scott Pilgrim series.  The speculated release date for both the final installment in the comic series and the film Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is somewhere in early summer of 2010

The full story can be found here at IGN.

Please checkout all of the other TPN Weekly shows over at Tech Podcast Network.

There was some slight issues with Mike’s mic at times but it fades away later in the show, so bare with him on that one.

This week’s podcast is sponsored by GoToMeeting.com

Try out this outstanding online meeting service absolutely free for 30 days at gotomeeting.com/techpodcasts NO CREDIT CARD REQUIRED!

Show Notes:

PC VR Gun

Gamestop is ignorant

Municipal networks greenlighted?

EGM replaced by Maxim

Question: Who is your favorite geek of all time?

Thanks from our whole crew: Andrew, Ken, Mike and Myself.

This was before I knew that Megaman Volnutt will be a contender in the game. The Volnutt incarnation of Megaman being the one used in the Megaman Legends series, a 3D action-adventure game which I use as a comparison for the vast majority of other titles I play.   To say I’m ecstatic about this would be an understatement, especially considering the horrible disappointment I felt at E3 when the two secret announcements Capcom had prepared pertained in no way to a new Megaman Legends installment.  I thought this would be the year too:  the hushed secrecy associated with a new project and a loved character, the hype surrounding Lost Planet 2, a series whose engine was originally designed FOR a new Megaman Legends.

It seems the only extra life the Legends series is having breathed into it is through the fighting genre.  The last time a character from the series was spotted was in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 with Tron Bonne,  pirate mech genius.  Though, whatever exposure the series gets I’ll take.  A re-release on the PSP or for download on a major console wouldn’t hurt either though.

Once I saw Megaman was a playable character I started exploring a little further into Tatsunoko vs Capcom and saw Viewtiful Joe was also on the roster.  I stopped here.

That’s two awesome characters right there in what appears to be a solidly designed fighter comparable to Capcom’s usual fighting standards and I simply didn’t want to know any more.  I could find out the standard length of a match, the full character lineup, all the arenas and a slew of other details about the game with minimal effort on my part just by using Google, but I simply miss the surprise. It’s the same thing I experience with the Kingdom Hearts games, I’d rather savor the surprise of my encounters with beloved characters, like unwrapping a present or pulling the skin off a wheel of cheese. Granted, I know nothing about Tatsnuoko’s characters, so there’s a definite limit on what can be ruined for me.

So, I’ll wait, never mind the fact that I own not a single modern console, I’m the patient type, hell, the anticipation is half the fun as far as I’m concerned.

-Andrew

I agree with both. 400 bucks for a minimal upgrade? Cmon, that’s ridiculous. But, AT&T does have to make up for their subsidized pricing. I understand that. But why are they taking this route? If you really want a new iPhone, they should offer another way to do it. A way that makes a hell of a lot of sense. It would save the consumers money, and probably end up making more for AT&T depending on the demand but the potential is definitely there for more money. Heres what I propose:

Allow current users to trade in their phone. Refurbish it, and sell it unlocked for $200+ dollars. People will pay that. People are paying much more than that even right now for unlocked phones even with the impending launch of the new iPhone. Search on eBay. The cheapest you will find is about $400 bucks, and AT&T still is selling the unsubsidized non-contract versions for about $600. Now you are probably thinking, “why would anybody pay $200+ for an iPhone thats refurbished and slightly out of date?” The fact that it is unlocked and allowing you to go to any carrier at all is what makes it worth it. There are tons of people that would pay that to have an iPhone even used and slightly outdated. Hell, a few months ago before I had mine I probably would have done the same thing to get out of having to pay for the outrageously expensive data plan and I would still be with AT&T anyways.

Too bad AT&T is probably not smart enough to come up with this themselves….

Show Notes:

Sherlock Holmes Trailer

Star Wars:  Old Republic E3

New Golden Sun DS

Beatles Rock Band

Super Mario Galaxy 2

Final Fantasy XIV

Wii Vitality

Team Ico’s Last Guardian

PSP Go

New Metroid

Red Steel 2

Sega Cart Racing

Metal Gear Solid: Rising

Real life Mecha

Starcraft 2 in 09

Sony Motion Controller

Question: If you had to come up with a new property for Lego to make a game out of, which would it be and why?

Question: If you were to buy an iPhone right now, would you get the 3G 8GB for $99, or the 3GS 16GB for $199 and why?

Question: What will the next OS be called for Mac?

At 4:30 my Digsby Gmail notifier let me know that ‘my PayPal password had been changed,  so I immediately went onto PayPal and got my password reset, then changed it to a super secure password. Instantly after I changed it to that, my PayPal password was changed again, and then my Gmail. I called paypal and found that someone had sent $90 out of my account, so I talked to an agent and had the account restricted and the charge claimed as a fraudulent charge. I then worked on retrieving my GMail account. And I had my alternative email set to an old Hotmail account,  I went through the recovery steps on Gmail, and went to check my Hotmail, no email yet. So I waited about 2 minutes, still no email, I then realized that my Hotmail account password had been changed. Note: All 3 passwords were different. I then went back to Gmail and had to fill out a much more extensive form to more formally recover my account. I then did the same with PayPal and Hotmail. Once I had control of my Gmail account back, I noticed that the person had deleted my other 3 accounts that were setup on my Gmail account. They had also made their own account on it to send emails to appear as me. As well as they setup a filter to forward every email to themselves as well. So I deleted all of those, set back up my other 3 accounts. Went back and redid my security question. So hopefull I am in the clear again. I have regained control of all 3 accounts, I also have gotten my money back from PayPal. So everything is cool. I reformatted immediately, and long story short had to reformat about 5 times because windows update kept restart looping my Vista. So Yeah, was a very fun day.

SOURCE: TechCrunch

The end is no where in sight with only the final weeks of May approaching and a good solid three months of releases with titles like Terminator Salvation and Bruno ahead for film aficianados.

With such a strong lineup, it would be easy for the summers smaller titles to slip through the cracks.  Here’s a list of flicks to keep your eyes peeled for in between blockbuster attacks.

1. Tetro

A testament to what a heavy hitting blockbuster summer this is, Francis Ford Coppola’s latest release, and there seems to be slim to no buzz around it. We’re talking about the man who gave us The Godfather.  Granted, tehre are no big headlining performers, with the only cast member I recognize being Maribel Verdu, the female lead from  Y tu mamá también and the mother from Pan’s Labyrinth. What’s more shocking is the movie seems to take ona sort of Magical Realism vibe based on the trailer, something closer in the vein of Big Fish more likely than Pan’s Labyrinth.

Release Date:  June 11

2. Adam

The typical cutesy story you’d expect from a summer indie flick, a man living alone with Asperger syndrome and an obsession with the cosmos has a lovely young lady move next door, romantic zaniness ensues, etc.   Despite a plot that sounds straight out of Michel Gondry movie and the visuals to go with it, the trailer actually looks like there’s a much deeper movie below than what the preview would have you believe.

Release Date:   July 29

3. I Love You Beth Cooper

Based on the novel by Larry Doyle, I Love You Beth Cooper follows a typical high school loser and his best friend on the run from the girl of his dreams’ boyfriend after professing his love for at graduation.  That being said, it doesn’t look good. I’m extremely apprehensive about it, but hope at the very least it will get people to read the book, which was phenomenal and hilarious. Knowing first hand for what it’s like to not experience high school until after graduation day, this book hits that right on the head. The movie however comes across as a cheezy imitation with none of the leading roles looking well filled.  Then again, it does have Larry Doyle behind it, someone with far more experience as a writer for performing mediums than text ones, and besides, what’s a summer movie season without a cheesy graduation movie?

4. The Boat that Rocked

This may be the film I’m most excited for, and sadly it looks like I’m stuck waiting until the tailend of the summer for it.  During the early years of radio broadcasting, the BBC apparently had a monopoly on broadcasting in the United Kingdom forcing individuals to do off-shore radio shows, one of the more notable ones being Radio Caroline, which served as one of the main inspirations for the story behind The Boat that Rocked. While there was no real all Rock N’ Roll station, it should make for a hell of a movie, especially considering the crew behind it. For those guys who were a bit sheepish about seeing movies like Love Actually are going to get a chance to see some of Richard Curtis’ work outside of romantic comedies.

Release Date: August 28

5. The Girlfriend Experience

This one may be a bit of a stretch in terms of not being heard considering Steven Soderbergh’s at the helm of this one, but I don’t forsee a lot of publicity for The Girlfriend Experience.  Based on the life of a callgirl balancing her career, boyfriend and a reporter chronicling her life, Sasha Grey stars in the lead role and her first mainstream film.  At this time I think I should be given kudos for not putting in a link to some of Ms. Grey’s other fine performances. There’s not much more I can say about this movie other than it’s a personal philosophy of mine that beauty and sex is the ultimate power in this world, money, position and everything else is simply authority that we all imagine power in and can just as easily be taken away with a change of the times.  Sex, however, will have a boot heel pressed lightly to the throat of every person.

Well, there you have it.  Hopefully this will give you some new insight for what to see at the summer.  I’m also realizing that this list could also be title “5 Movies About Guys Who are Bad with Women,” but that really wouldn’t probably be the best way to break stereotypes for a Web site with “Geek” in its title.

-Andrew

-Jake

Show Notes:

Dr. Horrible Movie?

FXIII demo

Blizzard – got cash?

Obama’s crazy ambitious high speed rail plan

Pirate Bay Trial Verdict – Guilty

Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 for XBLA

New Robert Langdon Film and Book Announced

Show Notes:

Raleigh, North Carolina buses get on-board DTV

Prototype Sanyo projector throws up 1080p at near point-blank range

Typing “Prompt Commands” Sufficient to Seize Your Property

Procaster

pirate hunting!

Digg Search: Now With 99.987% Less Suck

Show Notes:

Mutant Chronicles Trailer

Bruno trailer

MIB 3 and Ghostbusters 3

Another example of why US internet providers are stupid

GM and Segway announce two-wheeled urban transport vehicle

Old Republic Classes Faction Exclusive

Ars cracks TV Fringe code

TV Shows Maybe On The Outs

Random Stranger Chat Room

Build your own multitouch surface

The first question seemed obvious, not a chance AT&T was going allow the app to function over 3G.  The second question as echoed by many others in articles and on forums: “will it work on an iPod Touch?” however has been affirmed.   Having tested the app on both the iPhone 3G as well as an iPod Touch 2g, it has become apparent that not only does the Skype app work well on both devices, but in my opinion it has the potential to revolution how the iPod Touch is used.  Reluctant as I am to pay for the service and data fees attatched to the iPhone or other smart phones, I was more than happy to pay a one time fee of  $260 for an iPod Touch with an Apple headset and $30 or so for a year of skype out/in service.  There have been skype phones before, but none of them as sleek and feature packed as the iPod Touch.  Now, while I would like to give the SkypePodTouch an entirely positive review, there are certain obvious drawbacks:

1. There is no built-in microphone in the iPod Touch, this forces you to purchase and iPhone headset in order to be able to talk.  this also prohibits the device from being used like a normal phone (held by one’s face)
2. iPod Touches don’t support background applications, so you have to have the skype application open in order to recieve calls.
3. Obviously you have to be in range of and connected to a wifi hotspot in order to use the skype app, but this is also true of the other skype phones available

I am personally exited about this new functionality, even given the drawbacks and who knows, maybe one day Apple will allow background applications too.  If you use skype frequently and have an iPod Touch, I highly recommend you give the skype app a try, you really can’t go wrong with a free app.

Show Notes:

*UPDATE* iPhone sales 17 million (30 million with touch included)

New Service Aims To Replace Consoles With Cloud Gaming

Zeebo Console Gets Impressive Support

Cold Fusion breakthrough

Bounty Hunter Class Revealed

Bios Rootkit

New Microsoft DRM

Stephen Colbert has more stuff named after him

PC reliability ratings

Max Payne 3 announced

Scammer gets 9000 ipods

Show Notes:

Sixth Sense Technology

Iphone 3.0

What Makes the Five Smart Phones Different

Dell adamo

Impact of 64bit on gaming

17 Million people stopped buying CD’s in 08′

Behemoth’s Upcoming Game

Project Sora Mass Hiring

*REVIEW* Watchmen

*REVIEW* Resident Evil 5

Show Notes:

Ghost Busters 3

Terminator Salvation trailer

End of pirate bay trial

Halo 3 – 1 billion served

*REVIEW* – Late Night with Jimmy Fallon

iPhone controls 66% of mobile web usage

Tap Tap Revenge 2

Apple Updates Just About Everything

First Touch-Screen, Bendable E-Paper Developed

Worldwide Cellphone use hits 60%

Show Notes:

Miss March

Dead Space:  Extraction

Kirby Creator’s New Thang

Xbox Live DOS

Square Enix & Eidos

Quake Live Open Beta

Adam Corolla Podcast

iPhone service costs dropping? – “yes”: “no”

Sinfest at Darkhorse

Apple Announces Safari 4 – The World’s Fastest & Most Innovative Browser
*REVIEW* – Street Fighter IV

*REVIEW* – Role Models

*REVIEW* – Choke

• The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy
• Catch Me if You Can
• Agent Zigzag
• I Love You Beth Cooper
• The Master and Margarita
• Cryptonomicon
• The Gunslinger
• Quicksilver

Some of the titles seem to make sense for already being available. I can’t imagine Neal Stephenson not being at the forefront of an emerging technology in books, so it only makes sense that all his books would be available for download (Though you really needn’t go any further beyond Cryptonomicon and the Baroque Cycle as far as I’m concerned). Other titles, however, I was kind of shocked to see actually had Kindle Editions, “I Love You Beth Cooper” for example, or “Agent Zigzag.” Even more taking aback were books that did not make the cut for Kindle. At the tiptop of that list has to be the Harry Potter series. There’s no way those books simply got skipped over or left out. I did a little rummaging about the Internet and came across this story. Apparently J.K. Rowling is one for the aesthetics of literature.

I also somewhat made a fool of myself when I thought that “The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy” and other books in the series were not available for download. Apparently it’s just certain editions of the book, which brings up an interesting point; be certain you’re searching in Amazon’s Kindle Store for your books, so as to avoid discouragement at the lack of available stories.

One thing I do think is interesting is the link on every book’s page now to request it in Kindle format. I’ve already gone through more or less and requested my top favorites, such as:

• The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
• The Chess Machine
• Love is a Mixtape
• Yes Man

So there you have it. And of course, as always, we’d love to hear from any reader and viewer thoughts for what Kindle titles that need to be made available.

-Andrew

Show Notes:

charter bandwidth cap – 100gb upto 10mb speed, 250gb for 20-30mb, no cap for 60mb speed

blizzard drops out of E3

Average user only run two apps

Microsoft Opening Retail Stores

Half The Charges Against The Pirate Bay Dropped, But The Circus Ain’t Over Yet

Justin.tv Is Redirecting Porn Queries Into Cash

NBC Direct Offers Free HD Downloads

command line fu

Facebook’s New Terms of Service

*REVIEW* – Tales of Vesperia

*REVIEW* – How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

Show Notes:

Ruckus No More

Gaming Gambling

XM and Sirius going bankrupt

Kindle 2

Oregon Trail on iPhone

Show Notes

*REVIEW* Taken

Flash on iPhone seems likely

4th Resident Evil

*REVIEW* Chuck in 3D

*REVIEW* New Heroes

*REVIEW* Super bowl ads

Windows 7 editions

Fanboys this week

Nvidia Ion

New Iphone in June?

IBM Sequoia

New google earth

Apple Tablet

Sniffing and Cloning RFID’s

Korea still king of internet speeds

Show Notes:

Economy benefits from file sharing

Amazon Launching Kindle 2?

WD releases 2TB drive

Iphone Killer?

Hands-on with projector phone

Apple gets multi-touch patent

REVIEW – Tales of Vesperia

REVIEW -  Skate 2

PSP2 stuff

Digital tv conversion pushed back 4 months

Teleportation?

Thriller musical

Gmail can be used offline

Starcraft Class at UC Berkeley

There has always been a phobia for many major content providers on YouTube that they wouldn’t get any kickback from all of their masses of content, well YouTube had some extra friendly thoughts lately and is allowing them to use some of their own ads.

Posted using ShareThis

Facebook had huge plans for today when they teamed up with CNN to cover the presidential inauguration, and it looked like it played out. Check out the story over at TechCrunch.

Posted using ShareThis

If you are looking for a way to integrate youtube videos into your presentations seamlessly here is your solution. It also allows you to play audio while doing a presentation, which is tricky at best in Powerpoint.

Show Notes:

Vista SP2 Coming Soon

No More Dollar Doublecheese.

Adobe’s Interactive Video-Object Manipulation

New user questions: pros/cons of copying a game to the hard drive in new xbox dash? What is a dongle?

Super big BluRAY!

Google Chrome Comes Out of Beta

Student uses xbox wireless controller to find stolen xbox

Sea Dragon

Metal Gear Solid, DDR on Iphone

Google Earth update

Most likely no new narnia or golden compass movies

Apple unveils all-new 17-inch MacBook Pro

Frankyln Trailer

Sony lost over a billion

WATCHMEN IS OK!

Street Fighter Movie

New Sonic

Netflix steaming comparison

Prototype 2 CheapTablet

From all of us here at MGW we hope you enjoy our longest episode ever and continue to visit our site for great shows and blogs that are constantly being released.

World of Goo is a game based on a simple concept of building structures with balls of “goo” but the actual games usage of such a simple mechanic are genius. World of Goo is a single-player puzzle game. The concept is basic and easy to grasp and is one of the easiest games to pickup and play, there is no tutorial, it’s that easy.

Game: World of Goo
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: 2D Boy

PC, Mac, WiiWare, Linux(beta)

The Game is split into 5 different chapters, each one has its own graphical and musical theme which makes it very easy to get immersed into the different environment and atmosphere. There is also a mini game which you take all of your excess “goo balls” from your chapters and go to a place called the World of Goo Corporation and compete against players around the world to make the highest tower possible with everyone’s respective excess goo balls.


Minimum:
OS: XP or Vista
Processor: 1GHz or faster
Memory: 512+MB RAM
Video: Any 3d graphics accelerator less than 5 years old
DirectX: 9.0c
Hard Drive Space: 100MB


Mac OS X 10.1 or later

The graphic style of World of Goo is an awe-inspiring 2D style which is sort of like a cell shaded look, but it has its own flavor to it. The graphics are not super-awesome-3d-slowyourcomputerdown. They are simple and get the point across. World of Goo is a great example of how clean and simple graphics can make just as good of a game as amazing 3d graphics in a game like Crysis.

World of Goo is not a game which you would expect to have good music, and that is exactly what they knew people would think so they came out with one of the best soundtracks for a game I have ever heard. Again, simplicity is the key to the sound in this game, it is an awesome sounding score, that jumps all over the place with simple orchestral music with nice harp sounds, to much more modern sounding rock.

World of Goo is one huge physics sandbox, with different types of Goo and different environments to play in. The different types of goo can range from balloons which allow you to be able to raise certain sections, go green goo which can be reused and replaced. There is red goo which can catch on fire, and white goo which cannot. The black goo is the main type of goo, it can only be placed once and cannot be moved after that. There are a ton of different aspect to the gameplay in World of Goo. There is no puzzle that is like another, it is constant entertainment. This game is also unlike any other game, this whole new unique style of structure forming and puzzle solving could lead to a bright future for puzzle games.

Graphics:
Sound:
Replay Value:
Gameplay Value:
Overall Value:

World of Goo is a game everyone should play, it won’t be the longest game you play, but will definitely be in your top 10 best games of all time. It is so much fun to just sit down for 10 minutes and play a level. The enjoyment of this game is unlike many other single player games. The simple nature of this game is its shining characteristic, I love this game, and I think you will too.

First thing I noticed about this “app” is that it doesn’t run inside of Facebook like I would consider a normal app would. What this does is use your login info to form an adress book essentially. This program does not use real phones like voicetag which I review previously. It uses only your computer to do the voice features. It requires Java, it will open up essentially a normal conputer program, which you then login to your Facebook account. It looks at your contacts on Facebook, and allows you to voice chat with them or leave a “voicemail”. It has a similar fuction to voicetag, but is delievered completely differently. If I had to go with one or the other I feel like I would lean towards voicetag because it is a simple application which is built into Facebook and doesn’t require all the other steps to make it work.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) helped moved this proposed wind farm forward by approving the undersea cable that would transmit the generated power from 130 turbines to land.

In a letter notifying Cape Wind of their decision, a DEP official wrote, “the Department determines that the proposed project serves a proper public interest which provides greater public benefit than detriment to the public’s rights in said tidelands”.

SOURCE: Triplepundit

This is the basic interface of Voicetag

• The ability to not only record but also deliver voice messages to phones, in addition to the online voice Inbox we have today.
• The ability for the message recipient to interact with the message via touch tone when they hear the message on the phone (imagine that you can send out a voice poll on “where do we want to eat tonight? punch 1 for XYZ; punch 2 for ABC”, and get the votes back in text message!)
• The ability to start ad hoc group / conference calls among facebook friends.
• The ability to call your Facebook friend on the phone no matter where she is in the world, and no matter how many times she has changed her phone number since you last talked.

This is what the inbox looks like

SOURCE: TechCrunch

- 8 gb iPod Shuffle (Red)

- Record/CD/DVD/MP3 player

- Sleeper Sofa

- Freshwater Surfboard

- Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (PS2)

- GPS USB Cable

-Carousel Gumball Stand

Xigmatek Heat Sink

Arctic Silver Ceramique Thermal compound

Dakine Titan Mittens ( black plaid)

Oakley Beanie (black)

iPhone 8gb black (which I recently got due to AT&T requiring in store activiation. Took the surprise away much to the dismay of my mother)

Money

Micro-Max 19-in-1 Multi-tool

Under Armour Ninja Hood

Twilight book 3

Twilight book 4

8800 GT video card (its currently no longer available but i asked a while ago so i may get it regardless)

I put a fair amount of stuff on it this year, but, as I already have the thing I want the most for Xmas and since it is one of the more expensive things, it will definately be interesting to see what else i get.

In no particular order:

• Dynex DX-LCD42HD-09 42″ 1080p LCD TV – for the price ($597) offers great picture quality and features. AVS Forum Discussion, Best Buy (at the time of this article the price was $597, but has now gone back up to $699)
• Intel Core I7 920 Nehalem Quad Core Desktop Cpu – Intel’s newest line of desktop cpu’s featuring an integrated memory controller and stellar overclocking potential. Newegg
• EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 X58 Chipset Motherboard – EVGA’s newest motherboard, featuring the Intel X58 chipset. EVGA
• Patriot PVT36G1600ELK  6GB (3x2GB) PC3-12800 / 1600MHz DDR3 RAM. Newegg
• 3x EK 8800GTX/ULTRA Full Cover Waterblocks – I’ve been wanting to put my 8800gtx sli setup under water for awhile now. EK Waterblocks
• HighPoint RocketRAID 2320 PCI Express x4 SATA II RAID Card – featuring 8 SATAII ports and support for RAID 0/1/5/10/50 JBOD. Newegg
• Xbox 360 Multimedia Remote – for use with netflix streaming on the 360. Newegg

Apparently I’m impossible to buy gifts for as I’ve already picked up all of those things for myself except the Raid Controller.  Keep an eye out for my complete build log of my new I7 rig.

I am very excited about The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which is directed by David Fincher. He has directed movies such as Fight Club, Zodiac, and Panic Room. All 3 great movies in their own right.

I am also anticipating a good showing by Tom Cruise in Valkyrie, which is directed by Bryan Singer who did the X-men movie series as well as some work on House M.D.

My 3rd and final anticipated flick on Christmas is The Spirit. It has a star-studded cast featuring: Gabriel Macht, Scarlett Johanssen, Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes, and Jaime King. This movie is setup to feed to pre-Watchmen nerves of all graphic novel enthusiasts.

Twitter is simple, and that is nice, but it simply does not offer anything unique in my opinion. The ability to text in and microblog as you toast some bread and let all of your fanboys know what you are doing is just something that doesn’t interest me in the least. If all of you out there have reasons as to why anyone should still use Twitter please leave some comments about what is so great because I just don’t see it. Twitter will slowly fade away if their keep their current feature set. Facebook could easily with a UI change make the status feed a feature, which is basically all that Twitter has to offer anymore.  For those of you that use Twitter as your IM client, I am even further confused as to why you would do that.  The term microblog is a dumb term anyway, why do creepers need to know what I am doing ever minute of my life. It will be interesting to watch Twitter fade away into oblivion in the near future if their keep their current model.

• Lobster Winter Gloves
• North Face Winter Hat – Winter Green
• Dual Layer DVD’s for data backups
• Garmin nuvi 255w
• Cities of the Underworld
• Board Games
• Room Decorations – Posters, Rope Lights
• Shower Sandals
• Gift Cards for basically anywhere

And there is my list, if any of our listeners would like to buy me anything that would be great and I can’t wait for them to show up at my door.

For those of you using Itunes, you can get the latest podcast and all of the past ones via our iTunes feed.

Show Notes:

Retro Game Challenge (DS)

Jinni

YouTube Live

Review – Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe

Gmail Themes

Review – Left 4 Dead

Pushing Daisies cancled

WotLK sells 2.8 million copies in first 24 hours

Review – Everglide DKT Aluminum Gamer Keyboard

Star Trek Trailers

Adventureland

Question: Thanksgiving traditions question courtesy of William Piker

iPhone/touch 2.2 update / jailbroken

For those of you using Itunes, you can get the latest podcast and all of the past ones via our iTunes feed.

Review – Wrath of the Lich King

Review – Quantum of Solace

Review- Mirror’s Edge

Killers 3-Pack on Rock Band and Guitar Hero

USB 3.0

12 Reasons PC gaming > Console gaming

BlackBerry Storm:

Google Launches Video Chat

Google voice search for iPhone

Best First Levels

360 best bet for 3rd party games

Question: What sites do we go to for our information?  -Thanks Jon Doherty

Through my great powers of divination and prognostication, I intend to accurately predict the song selection of each album/setlist for the new game, assuming they used studio albums for each.  If I’m wrong, well, I’ll blame it on alternate timelines, or whatever John Titor’s excuse was.  Anyways, here they are…The Beatles!

• Please Please Me/With the Beatles

1. “I Saw Her Standing There”
2. “All My Loving”
3. “Love Me Do”
4. “Money (That’s What I Want)”
5. “Twist and Shout”

• A Hard Day’s Night

1. “A Hard Day’s Night”
2. “I Should’ve Known Better”
3. “If I Fell”
4. “Can’t Buy Me Love”
5. “Things We Said Today”

• Beatles for Sale

1. “Eight Days a Week”
2. “No Reply”
3. “Rock and Roll Music”
4. “I’ll Follow the Sun”
5. “I’m a Loser”

• Help!

1. “Help!”
2. “Yesterday”
3. “Act Naturally”
4. “I’ve Just Seen a Face”
5. “You’ve Got to Hide You’re Love Away”

• Rubber Soul

1. “Drive My Car”
2. “In My Life”
3. “You Won’t See Me”
4. “Nowhere Man”
5. “The Word”

• Revolver

1. “Yellow Submarine”
2. “Got to Get You Into My Life”
3. “Good Day Sunshine”
4. “And Your Bird Can Sing”
5. “Dr. Roberts”

• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

1. “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help From My Friends”
2. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
3. “Getting Better”
4. “Lovely Rita”
5. “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)/A Day in the Life”

• The White Album

1. “Back in the U.S.S.R.”
2. “Happiness is a Warm Gun”
3. “Helter Skelter”
4. “Revolution 1″
5. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”

• Abbey Road

1. “Come Together”
2. “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”
3. “Here Comes the Sun”
4. “Something”
5. “Octopus’s Garden”

• Let It Be

1. “Let It Be”
2. “Across the Universe”
3. “Get Back”
4. “I Me Mine”
5. “Maggie Mae”

So, there’s my prediction, per album, of what the final game could like.  In all honesty though, despite the description almost sounding as if the game progresses album by album, I really doubt it’ll be that close to the Guitar Hero style. I’m predicting a far more fluid game almost.  The press release also mentioned some sort of visualization aspect to the game, which to me almost sounds like this is going to be a totally different progression style than has been shown in rhythm games. If it does turn out the way I’m picturing, I expect it to start off combining a lot of the earlier albums, (Please Please Me to Help!), a sort of middle ground stage (Rubber Soul and Revolver), a drawn out psychedelic stage (Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, Sgt. Pepper’s) followed by The Beatles final years (The White Album to Let It Be).

Saying that though, that sounds like a huge leap and risk to take when you’ve got a franchise like The Beatles in your hands.  We’ll see, it’s really hard for me to call this because I just have no idea how much respect the developers are going to show to both The Beatles, but more importantly, to their own gameplay style.  Contrasting Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour, it’s pretty apparent that Harmonix has got a pretty good bead on how to make their games user-friendly, I just hope they don’t try something too experimental in the process.

-Andrew

For those of you using Itunes, you can get the latest podcast and all of the past ones via our iTunes feed.

Review – Left 4 Dead

Review – Spiderman Web of Shadows

Review – World At War

Review – Zach and Miri Make a Porno

Intel’s new Core i7 nehalem released and overclocking potential

WPA cracked

DOWNLOAD OF THE DAY:  Grid Move

Iphone 3g ovetakes RAZR for deomestic sales

MGM to post full length features on YouTube

Circuit City Going Down Maybe?

Black Friday Deals Starting To Roll in

Songbird Release Candidate

Question : Anti-virus Scanners, what have you used, why? and what do you use now?

Some very useful links:

• Google’s Voter Map to find where to vote. Just enter your home address on that page to find the location of your local voting place.
• Hours Voting is Open under the column “Election Day Polling Hours”.
• General Information About How to Vote

There are some false information flying around about Election Day, but here are some important tips to be aware of about voting:

• Voting must be done in-person at the voting place near your home, or with an official absentee ballot. Voting cannot be done on the Internet or by phone.
• Election day is today, November 4, no matter what else you may have heard. Your vote will not count unless you vote today.
• If you are a newly registered voter, you may be required to show identification to prove your name and home address, such as a driver’s license, passport, government check, or utility bill. For more information about what kind of identification to bring, go to CanIVote.org and click “Know What Kind of ID to Bring” in the middle of the page.
• Some states do not allow voting while wearing campaign paraphernalia, so they may ask you to remove your McCain or Obama button before entering the voting area.
• Everyone at least 18 years old can vote, even if you are in bankruptcy, have credit issues, legal problems, unpaid tickets, lost driver’s license, or a student. Most states do not allow convicted felons to vote. For answers to your questions about if, when, and how you can vote, see CanIVote.org.

Voting is easy when you are prepared with the above information, and in most cases, can be a pleasurable experience especially by knowing your vote will mean something.

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-a63f936b0a3fd52df68254d6082a075c}

Network Neutrality is a topic that will affect the future of the Internet and how fair of a system it truly is. The precedent has been set in the past for technological topics such as dial-up service. Just because someone is on EarthLink, and the other client is on another dial-up service doesn’t allow them to degrade the quality of service.  In fact service providers are required by law to not degrade the quality of service because of use of different providers.  “Barack Obama strongly supports protecting the openness of the Internet via the principle of network neutrality” (Wilson 2008). Barack Obama supports thoroughly the idea of network neutrality, he believes it will encourage creativity in the market. If someone wanted to start a new web-based business but knew they would have limited coverage on the Internet, the drive to actually start up that business would be severely lessened. “John McCain opposes mandated network neutrality. His position states, “McCain does not believe in prescriptive regulation like ‘net-neutrality,’ but rather he believes that an open marketplace with a variety of consumer choices is the best deterrent against unfair practices” (Wilson 2008). Allowing for such an “open” market would do nothing in the direction of actually making it a more open market. It would only increase cost for service, at the same time as lowering the quality of service. The ability for new businesses to spawn would barely exist in such a system. If big companies could pay a “premium fee” to have faster connections to clients then the basis of the Internet would no longer be expressed.

In terms of progression of innovation, this is yet another topic which the candidates have very differing viewpoints. There is really only one topic which they agree on, and that is permanently extending a research and development tax credit for companies.  With respect to renewable energy innovation, Barack Obama is light-years ahead in his plan to prepare our nation for the future. “He’s called for a government investment of $150 billion over the next decade to encourage development of biofuels, hybrid cars and solar and wind energy. He would double federal science and research funding for clean-energy projects and create a $10-billion-a-year clean-tech venture capital fund” (Gross 2008). The importance of renewable resources are going to impact the way our lives are forever. We cannot continue to use non-renewable resources of energy to run our lives, eventually the energy just won’t be there anymore. All that McCain has said on the topic is “renewable energy sources are a part of the solution needed for U.S. independence on foreign oil, but he’s largely focused on pushing for offshore oil drilling” (Gross 2008).  Continuing to spend money on expanding drilling is the wrong direction to go, the investment value just isn’t there with the obvious outcome of drilling becoming useless when there is no longer any oil for us to use.

“The United States created the Internet, but it’s the rest of the world that can really use it. People in Japan are twice as likely as Americans to have broadband connections, and their pipes are ten times as fast” (Thompson 2008). We once ruled the land, but lack of investment has cause us to fall behind, and if we do not catch back up, we are going to be left in the developmental dust.  Obama’s plan would ensure universal coverage for every family in America. We did it with telephone service in the past; the importance of broadband services are infinitely larger than simple telephone service, so the idea of universal broadband should be a no-brainer. McCain also supports the idea of universal broadband, but he goes about it in a slightly different manner. He would encourage private broadband providers to satisfy unserved or underserved areas through loan and bond incentives as well as private/public partnerships. There is a major difference in the two respective plans, and that is that one requires an actual mandate to provide service, while the other simply “encourages” the private institutions to provide service.  With the suggestive strategy there is large room for non-compliance where the companies will just save their own money and not put the investment into the unserved areas.

Technological policy is an area that isn’t covered all that much in mainstream media, yet they are decisions that will play extensive roles in our future. All three of these topics are hugely importance to our future and should be noticed by everyone as a such. Technological polices have an intrinsic lag to them, because once they are in place, their effect will not be noticed until years later.

References

Gross, G. (n.d.). Where the Candidates Stand on Five Technology Issues -  CIO.com – Business Technology Leadership. Retrieved October 30, 2008, from http://www.cio.com/article/451902/Where_the_Candidates_Stand_on_Five_Technology_Issues?page=2.

Thompson, N. (n.d.). The Stakes 2008. Retrieved October 30, 2008, from http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2008/0808.thompson.html.

Wilson, E. (n.d.). Annenberg Research Network on International Communication . Retrieved October 30, 2008, from http://arnic.info/policywatch.php.

So Long Good Sir

There he is standing is his ever-so confident debative stance. Florida judge Dava Tunis recommended permanent disbarment for the attention seeking lawyer on September 25th, a change reflected on the Florida Bar’s official web site, which notes that he is “not eligible to practice in Florida.” So Long Good Sir, you have only caused trouble and brought attention to a realm that didn’t need to be adressed, you overstepped your bounds with your wrecklessness and have payed the price. I think every video game player is happy to see you go. You aren’t so big and bad now are ya’. Everyone should take this news and hopefully it will make everyones day a little brighter.

SOURCES: Kotaku , Wikipedia

Mike, Kenny, Andrew and Jake are at it again! In their 5th installment of the world famous MyGeekWeek podcast. Let’s see what these kids are up to this time.

New Michigan ID

Homebrew Xbox Channel

Max Payne

New Macbooks

Little Big Planet Recall

Midway cancels two game licenses, nearly doubles projected Q3 loss

Digital Paintball

New games coming out tuesday – Fable II, Farcry II, Spiderman: Web of Shadows

Custom Cereal

XBLA arcade games must work on 14” crt

MGS4 on 360? ]]> http://mygeekweek.com/2008/10/20/show-episode-05-a-new-hope/feed/ 3 57:02 Mike, Kenny, Andrew and Jake are at it again! In their 5th installment of the world famous MyGeekWeek podcast. Let's see what these kids are ... Mike, Kenny, Andrew and Jake are at it again! In their 5th installment of the world famous MyGeekWeek podcast. Let's see what these kids are up to this time. New Michigan ID Homebrew Xbox Channel Max Payne New Macbooks Little Big Planet Recall Midway cancels two game licenses, nearly doubles projected Q3 loss Digital Paintball New games coming out tuesday – Fable II, Farcry II, Spiderman: Web of Shadows Custom Cereal XBLA arcade games must work on 14” crt MGS4 on 360? Show MyGeekWeek no no http://mygeekweek.com/2008/10/19/halloween-playlist/ http://mygeekweek.com/2008/10/19/halloween-playlist/#comments Mon, 20 Oct 2008 03:16:30 +0000 Andrew http://mygeekweek.com/?p=203 As a gift to our listeners and readers out there, here’s a little something to set the Halloween mood in the coming weeks when you’re lounging around:

Black Magic Show – Elefant
Bones – The Killers
(Ghost) Riders in the Sky – Johnny Cash
Love Potion no. 9 – the Searchers
Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival
Dracula’s Wedding – OutKast
Magic Man – Heart
Time Warp – Rocky Horror Picture Show OST
Monster Mash – Bobby “Boris” Pickett
Psycho – Puddle of Mudd
(Don’t) Fear the Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult
Witchy Woman – the Eagles
Witch Doctor – The Chipmunks
This is Halloween – Danny Elfman
Tribute – Tenacious D
Ghost Town – The Specials
Thriller – Michael Jackson
The Devil Went Down to Georgia – Charlie Daniels Band
Satan Said Dance – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
The Purple People Eater – Sheb Wooley
Chrissie Kiss the Corpse – Of Montreal
How Soon is Now? – The Smiths
Perhaps Vampires is a Bit Strong but… – Arctic Monkeys
Hell – Squirrel Nut Zippers
John Wayne Gacy Jr. – Sufjan Stevens
Psycho Killer – Talking Heads
Little Ghost – The White Stripes
Werewolves of London – Warren Zevon
Tuff Ghost – The Unicorns
I’m You’re Boogie Man – KC and the Sunshine Band
Superstition – Stevie Wonder
Break on Through – The Doors
Zombie Nation – Zombie Nation

So there you have it. You’ll have to excuse the lack of flow throughout the playlist, I’ve already spliced it with party music, so you’ll have to work with it to make it groove better. If you plan to play this at a party, I also advise using discretion and cutting out certain songs like “Witch Doctor.” Not really a dance floor filler.

Happy Haunting!

-Andrew

The first video on the page is a one of some of the new skills. Let me just say, disintegrate, slow time, and teleport are sweet. Electrocute will be awesome as well. The Wizard is basically a replacement for the Sorceress from Diablo II, which was by far my favorite class.

The next video on the page is a trailer for the class. Some of the skills featured in this video are without a doubt some of the coolest skills I have seen in any game. I strongly feel that this is going to be the best class in the game. Goodbye life. Hello Wizard.

For those of you using Itunes, you can get the latest podcast and all of the past ones via our iTunes feed.

Top 6 Wii – http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?type=top_rated&platform=1031&mode=top&sort=score&page_type=games&dlx_type=all&date_filter=all&sortdir=asc&official=all

Top 6 Xbox 360 – http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?type=top_rated&platform=1029&mode=top&sort=score&page_type=games&dlx_type=all&date_filter=all&sortdir=asc&official=all

Top 6 PS3 - http://www.gamespot.com/games.html?type=top_rated&platform=1028&mode=top&sort=score&page_type=games&dlx_type=all&date_filter=all&sortdir=asc&official=all

Parasite Eve: The 3rd Birthday – http://www.1up.com/do/gameOverview?cId=3168794

Starcraft 2 Trilogy – http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170574

Update on WAR

New Sonic – http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3170595

Dissidia: Final Fantasy – http://www.gamespot.com/psp/action/dissidiafinalfantasy/news.html?sid=6199097&mode=previews&tag=newslist;title;16

Laser HDTV – http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1848456,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

LittleBigPlanet Calculator – http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/10/07/littlebigplanet-used-to-create-1600-part-calculator-video

Top 28 games still to come this year – http://www.gamesradar.com/f/the-28-best-games-still-to-come-in-2008/a-20081006143228281085

Diablo 3 New Characters – http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=56564

“In what is perhaps the most shining example of obsession and geekiness I have ever seen, a fella by the name of Bradster has 36 World of WarCraft accounts that he plays on 11 computers simultaneously. He mainly seems to be doing it because he doesn’t like to rely on so many other people to get a raid going, which includes attacking the Alliance capital cities, and on that front I can totally see where he’s coming from.”

His setup is insane, this has got to be one of the most geeky/nerdy setups I have ever seen, especially for only one person to use at once.  He pays $5711 per year to keep his hobby going, which is a fair price for a hobby I guess, but that is still insane to do it with WoW.  He also said that he plans on going out when the new WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is launched and buying 36 copies, which will cost him around $1500. I admire the amount of dedication, I wish that he would have put him time into something productive to the world, but at least he had fun doing it.

Source: http://www.ripten.com/2008/10/10/wow-whore-has-36-accounts-raids-by-himself/

If Level-5 rings a bell, it may very well be because you have good taste in games. They’re the minds behind the ‘Dark Cloud’ series, as well as the recent RPG ‘Rogue Galaxy.’ They’re also the developers behind the PS3 title ‘White Knight Chronicles’ that’s recently been brought back to mind thanks to new info from the Tokyo Game Show.

I’ll try to stay away from Level-5′s impressive resume and focus on ‘True Fantasy Live’ for the most part. There’s really not much to say beyond speculation of what the game could’ve been had it not been given the ax. There was a limited amount of information on the game beyond some trailers and screen shots. It looked snazzy, with its cel-shaded, anime-esque graphics, it fit in with the Level-5′s usual fair of impressive, cartoonish visuals.

We talked about it in the show, but really it is extremely important to have good, replayable gameplay in an MMO, and I have a lot of faith Level-5 could’ve pulled it off. They’ve added some pretty impressive features to their single-player RPGs, ‘Dark Cloud’s’ town builder or the Insectron and Weapon Synthesizer in ‘Rogue Galaxy’ come to mind, to think what they could’ve offered to a massive online community is something I’m optimistic about.

‘True Fantasy Live’ would’ve been something cool to see, and while I say I’m optimistic about what it could’ve been, I don’t deny it may have been an unseemly blemish on an otherwise impressive Japanese developer’s resume. Hope is still not vanished though, the president of Level-5, Akihiro Hino, mentioned earlier this year he’d still be interested in doing something with the game, but has other things on his plate for the moment.

You can’t really say that it was any really huge blow to online gaming for the console. It was still only on the Xbox at the time, with the release of the Xbox 360 right around the corner. And as of right now, we’re seeing a whole emergence of online console potential beyond standard FPS titles like ‘Halo.’ with ‘Little Big Planet’ on the horizon, and SOE’s announcement of all MMO’s receiving a console release. But still, you can’t help but mull over the what-might’ve-beens. For your viewing pleasure, here’s a trailer of the game, just to admire its prettiness.

-Andrew

On today’s show we discussed

• Slashfilm’s “Top 500 Movies”
• Consoled Bound MMORPG’s for Sony
• Linux’s 17th Birthday
• Netbook’s Popularity
• Wii HD
• Nintendo’s DSi
• Fable II
• Bungie’s Teaser
• KOTOR MMORPG
• 300 Sequel
• Sega PMP
• Resident Evil Movie
• Max Payne Movie
• Swingers Sequel
• Economic Bailout

Topics we discussed were:

• Will Nintendo announce an Advanced DS?
• Pure
• Eagle Eye, and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
• Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
• Fancast.com
• Xbox Slim
• Dropbox
• Our Favorite Games
• Much Much More

-Andrew

Functionally, gOS offers some nice features.  Integration with Google gadgets allows you to embed a large variety of information into your desktop environment, accessable at a keypress.  Mozilla Prizm allows you to turn web apps such as YouTube into desktop applications available outside of the browser.  The new touchscreen functionality makes working with a touchscreen far more intuitive.  Additionally, gOS comes with Wine pre-installed allowing you to not only run your favorite Linux applications, but also a variety of Windows without too much hassle.  Also, because gOS is based off of ubuntu, it is easy to get help and support for any problems you may encounter.

I would highly recommend gOS to anyone who is looking to give Linux a try, or someone who is just looking to try something other than Ubuntu.  I will personally be installing gOS on a couple of older laptops I have laying around to give them some extra life.  gOS 3.0 is usable as a live bootable cd or installed for permenant use and is available for download from their website at http://thinkgos.com

-Ken

Starting in January, California drivers may not send, write or read messages on electronic devices.  Schwarzenegger signed legislation Wednesday that imposes a $20 fine for a first offense of texting while driving and a $50 fine for any subsequent violation. It seems to me that such a punishment isn’t even worth the hassle of pulling the offending motorist over and dealing with the problem.

It truly seems like more of a fundraiser to me than it does actually trying to keep the roads safer. It’s not like when someone is texting they hold their phone out of their window for anyone to see, I would venture to guess that this legislative movement will have very little impact on how people drive in all of the states involved. It is nice to see that government bodies are looking at things like this because I think most people agree that texting whilst driving isn’t the best of ideas, but I as well as most people am quite unsure if it will actually make the roads a safer place to drive.

More details on this story can be found via the LA Times

-Mike

The game it self, originally released in 2004, takes place in between the events of the original Kingdom Hearts and the second one, following Sora, Donald and Goofy and their first encounter with Organization XIII.

The game was originally released as a card-based strategy game, and I’ll be honest, that’s a big red flag for me. Nothing personal for CTS fans, I just lack anywhere near the patience for that kind of gameplay. Not to mention that the appeal of Kingdom Hearts was its blending of RPG and Action game elements, and it was really a mournful moment when I had to watch a piece of series with such a strong story more or less be unaccessible to me due to a short attention span. Judging by the new screens, this reinvention of the game looks like a brand spankin’ new interpretation of it.

The other glaring detail is its release on the PS2, but I honestly don’t see that being a huge issue. True, PS3 DOES NOT have backwards compatibility, but it’s not so late in the life of the PS2 that people have already chucked it to the curb as a relic, and seeing this game largely as fan service, most fans of the Kingdom Hearts series would already be owning a PS2.

So, that’s the bulk of background on the game, now for my hopeful and glorious aspirations. Like I said, the remake itself is old news by a year or so, it’s just the announcement of it coming stateside that’s exhilarating. And, should this be any example, I would be very hopeful for “Kingdom Hearts 2: Final Mix+” following suit and making the jump to our shores. A brief background on the game: Americans were spoiled with the original Kingdom Hearts release. We got Japan’s remix version, chock full of extra bosses and all sorts of other goodies. We weren’t so fortunate with the second installment, and “Final Mix+” would be KH2′s redux. While it does mean throwing down for a game that you’ve essentially played, it will probably be worth it all things considered. Also, the “Chain of Memories” remake is going for around $30, which isn’t as hefty a price tag as it could be.

You can catch the full press release from Square Enix here.

-Andrew

On todays show we covered

• Rock Band 2
• Our Favorite Consoles
• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
• Chuck
• Napster/Best Buy
• Comic Book Movies
• And much more