Chronicles of Narnia Supertrailer

Narnia Supertrailer

- 9 minute whopper of a trailer for the Narnia movie coming out next week. Lots of scenes, good music and oddly all in english even though this supertrailer seems to be for German audiences. Note will need Windows Media Player.

Linkies

Blogpoly - Blog themed Monopoly with online play.

MPAA and Sneak Peaks - Proof that its no longer worth it to go to a free screening of next piece of crap coming to a theatre near you.

Links of note

Is O'Reilly losing his mind or is he the next coming of Karl Rove in the fact spin department? Read about his latest dodge on his San Fran can get blown up by terrorists spin.

The Chronicles of Narnia, coming soon to thousands of theatres, has just released some of the bits from the soon to be released soundtrack. Preview em here.

November 22, the XBox 360 is being released. We know under the hood is a ton of computing power and excellent graphics, but click here to find out what is literally under the hood of the XBox.

One Dead At School Shooting

One Dead in Tennessee School Shooting

Sigh.

iPod Buyers Guide

iLounge was nice enough to compile a ton of iPod accessories (both real and imagined) in time for the holidays. So if a iPod fiend go here for the PDF of more crap then you really need for your iPod.

Michael Piller Dead

Who you ask? Well Michael Piller help shaped the modern age of Star Trek, taking the reigns of Gene Roddenberry and exec producing Star Trek: TNG, the wonderful Deep Space Nine and Voyager. He was also producer of The Dead Zone.

He died at age 57 due to cancer. Info and excellent writeup of his work here.

Libby in Trouble, Rove Safe?

Amazingly enough, at the 11th hour, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald handed down some indictments against Lewis Libby, VP Cheney's chief of staff. Like most I was hoping for Karl Rove would get some indictments but alas he didn't. However that condition could be temporary. Still of the two the bigger fish was caught. Maybe with some hope that will lead to biggest fish of all but I seriously doubt it. If jail time really looks like a possiblily, which is highly unlikely, then I am betting he will take one for the team. I say this on the assumption that the VP at least was involved but most likely the Bush was to. I just don't see how something this high level as revealing info about the CIA in revenge, that directly effected Presidential mandate on Iraq wasn't done with their knowledge. I just don't see it. I recognize its possible, but for it to be true means either our leaders breaking the law for petty reasons or they had a rogue employee doing whatever he wanted. Niether sounds good in my opinion and just further reflects the ongoing incompency that is the Bush administration. Shows what happens when you surround yourself with "yes-men" and cronies rather then experiences and capable people. Hopefully this will bite everyone in the ass enough to have future leaders give seconds thoughts to such behavior but its probably wishful thinking on my part.

Record Profits in Oil

"Net income up 75% to $9.92 billion."

Yep that is a b for billion and 75% increase in profit. This is despite supposed oil shortages, natural disasters and other things that was supposed to damage the oil industry requiring billion dollar tax breaks from Congress and record breaking oil costs. Can anyone else say "bullshit"? You would think after 9/11 and insurance premiums increasing sharply leading to record breaking profits for insurance companies would be enough but I guess not. If this isn't evidence of Bush and republicans being in the pocket of oil I don't know what is. This country is hurting in many ways, the citizens are hurting, many facing an inability to pay for heating costs and trying to cut expenses just to afford to go to work. I am sick of the citizens of this country not seeing it. 10 billion in PROFIT. Thats not earnings, that is PROFIT!! Money made after expensives. How can they claim to be hurting when making that kind of money. Why are we shouldering costs that clearing don't exist? Why are we giving them tax cuts they don't need? Why do we allow this to continue?

Miers down, Rodriguez to go

Miers has officially withdrawn her nomiation to the Supreme Court and Bush gladly took it. The cause was a desire by the Senate Jidiciary Committe to see some of the documents she worked on. Bush balked, claiming executive privilage. The fact that Miers freaked out the religious nuts on capital hill was enough for me to like her but now I am concerned about the evidence that Bush is blocking. He actually took a blow to his ego with Miers to prevent those documents from coming to light. There is clearly some very nasty mo-jo in those files that he and his cabel don't want to come to light. Hmm nope checked the calender, its 2005, not 1970 Nixon era but damn if it doesn't smell like it.

Experimental Gameplay

Experimental Gameplay, a fantastic site where in one semester a group of students created 50 web based games. Most are pretty decent to. Even better they have started semester 2 with a goal of 4 new games every Wednesday. Go, have fun, be less productive worker bee. Also, if want to know how they do it, read this.

Stephen King Revisits the Dark Tower

Its been confirmed, Stephen King is joining the increasing rank of novelists turned comic writers. He is revisting the his Dark Tower series in 2006 for a limited series drawn by Jae Lee. For those not in the know, the Dark Tower series was a 7 part book series that spans Stephen King's entire career and often many of the "universes" he created (fan site). Its follows the gunslinger Roland as he tries to reach the Dark Tower to save everything. Not just a world, but all worlds. Basically creation is at stake. joing him are several characters including some recognizable from other King books. Its a great series and I highly recommend it. Hopefully the comic series will be just as good.

Update: Joe Quesade, EIC of Marvel, give some info on how the deal came to be and what the frist story arc will focus on, which is during Dark Tower IV, Rolands' childhood and growth to the Gunslinger.

2000

Sadly as of 10/25/2005, 2000 soldiers have died for Iraq while on the same day, the results of the vote for their Constititution passed with 78% of the voters for it.. 2000 dead US. Historically, not so high, for a modern war, its pretty high. This number doesn't include the unknown number of allied dead. Nor does it include injuries and the pain of families of those 2000. I have yet to see how the US benefits from this now or in the future. As is the American Way, we tend to forget history, even our own.

Wasn't it not even 20 years ago we where defending or helping countries stop the spread of communism? Before that, from WWI, WWII, Korean, Vietnam, Iraq I, and every fight in between was about us preventing "them" from forcing their definition of the ideal government on others? Wasn't the creation of Saddamn and Osama in part an effort to prevent an act we called evil? Sure they where trying to spread dictatorships or communism but is still one group forcing their government view on others. Hell, we even teach the forcing of democracy on others as being bad. Britain and India? Ireland? Pakistan?

Americans as a whole have always looks at forcing one viewpoint or government on another without the citizens permission as being a great evil. Until we do it. Because its our view on the ideal government its suddenly ok. Its suddenly acceptable. Before we provided help either because a great evil was being done or the citizens wanted the help. Now we do it because we thinks its best. Its Manifest Destiny all over again. Our version of "right" supercedes everyone else's.

No one has explained why the US forcing democracy on others is not as wrong as someone trying to force communism. No one has explained why the US benefits from the current situation. No one has explained why we no longer demand the citizens to fight for their own freedom. The US shouldn't be the world's police. The republicans use to agree with the type of thinking. They also used to beleive that big brother shouldn't be watching. I miss the republicans of yesteryears. Hopefully history will prove Bush a prophet for it means the 2000 dead where not wasted.

Read-worthy links

Jack Thompson v Penny Arcade - A nice little write up over Florida Attorney and anti-video game crusade against Penny Arcade for alleged allegations of harassment. Basically the guy is making an ass of himself and no one has the balls to tell him to his face.

Best iPod Video Review - This review pretty much covers everything you thought you needed to know about the 5th generation iPod and some things you didn't know to ask. Thanks to this review I went and spent more money buying the cable to hook my iPod to my TV. Not because I need it, but because it just seem to damn cool not to use that ability.

Jon Stewart Washington highlights - Jon Stewart did an event in Washington, D.C and there where some amusing comments, especially one making fun of CNN's Situation Room while host Wolf Blitzer was in the audience.

Daily Scans - Website about today's and yesteryears comic books with actually pages scans of the comic being discussed. Interesting read and good for those "I read/own that issue" moments.

Marvel Anti-Semitism? - Paty Cockrum is either losing her mind or has some good points. Personally based on what I have read she is losing it but you can decide. Lying in the Gutters gives a good summary and excellent write-up on this person's opinion or you can read some of her rantings your self here and here.

DeLay Arrested

Well, it happened. Hell has frozen over or at least the teflon shield surrounding some of the more slimey bags of republicans has weaken considerably. Tom DeLay was arrested for his possible role in conspiracy and money laundering charges. Now an arrest should be a surprise. If one gets charged, arrest usually follows with a court appearance shortly thereafter. Most others go through that. But DeLay? I have to admit I just assumed he would get a pass on that part of the process and its good to see he didn't. Also: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

The Colbert Report

The Co-bear Re-Poor (the "t" is not pronounced in either) is pretty hilarious. The first episode moved at a good click, in some cases seeming almost crowded with all the stuff they where throwing at the screen. If anything they may be trying to hard. Can't complain about that though cause the end result is a hilarious show that does an excellent job of making fun of all the news talk shows that plague the cable news channels. Clearly though its satire is aimed squarely at Bill O'Reilly whose self-aggrandizement and oblivious to irony is mirrored on the show. The last segment of the show, the "gravitas" showdown between Stone Phillips and Colbert was absolutely freaking hilarious. Props to Phillips for having a sense of humor but the whole thing. Crooks and Liars has some links and video for those that want a taste of the show.

iPod Video Unpacking photos

Two sites have some shots of them unpacking the new iPod video. I have already ordered mine, a black 60bg, figure I will get it some time next week. My understanding is that the retail should have the iPod for sale on the 20th but good luck on getting one.

Infinite Crisis Newbie Guides

Sheesh four posts in one day, a personal record.

This Wednesday marked the release of the much hyped and talked about release of Infinite Crisis #1. After a buildup of 5 mini-series, multiple issues in comics, it has arrived. Does it disappoint? Eh, too soon to say. The potential fun is ungodly but its just to early to say, afterall, its only the first issue. The story is "What if the universe is coming to and end, but the Superheroes are unable to work together and Villians have learned to work together?". The story itself can be describes simply, but the buildup to it, the history its indicating, and all the characters involved are only known by the die hard comic fans. Luckily, for those not in the know, Infinite Crisis is still an easy read with great action and dialogue. However, there are panels that will cause some questions such as who is that person that was skewered and is that a different Superman?

Thankfully, the good folks at newsarama.com have created two great writeup to help. One is the background and lead-up to Infinite Crisis and the other is a page by page writeup on who all those strange faces and events are. Lost of reading to be done so sit back and enjoy.

Homegrown Portables

Apparently Ben Heckendorn has to much free time. He keeps creating portable game sytems for all the consoles that have existed in the last 20 years. For example, he just completed a portable version of the NES that is nearly the size of the new Gameboy Micro (if don't count cartridge). He has also done the same for many other consoles including the Nintendo 64 and the Playstation 2. Check out his home page for the what and the how.

In other news, Nintendo is slowly revealing more info about Mario Kart DS and online play. Its pretty sad that Nintendo can milk this for so much since Sony beat them to the punch by a year but this is what happens with the games don't support the hardware. Also, Nintendo, as of 10/27, gives retailers free reign to price the GameCube to whatever price they see fit. What does this mean for you? Probably not much. Maybe the occasional sale price of 5 or 10 dollars but not much else.

Other iPod Video News

In an addition to my greedy hollywood rant below, I stumbled across Sony grossly underestimating the potential damage the iPod video will have to the PSP. Since the PSP doesn't have enough games worth buying it has relied heavily on its multimedia functions. The problem with those functions is your limited by the size of the very expensive memory cards. Well, the iPod video basically makes everything the PSP does moot. Even worse, iTunes will likely do to video distribution what it did for music. If Sony has any brains the very first thing they will do if update the PSP to play all Apple formats stat. At least that way it can try to get some of the pie, even if only an itty bitty bite.

Also for those, like me, that are getting the iPod Video, here is a link that shows how to convert DVDs to a usable format. By the way, since iPod and PSP both play the .mp4 video format, whatever method people use for the PSP will work the same for the iPod.

Actor Greed Strikes Again

Once again the "creators" of Hollywood want a slice of pie they do not deserve. The actors, writers, and director guilds are demanding that they get a piece of the new source of revenue represented by the new video iPod.

Currently, iTunes is offering the episodes of 5 ABC television programs for $1.99. Clearly seeing the future where the other networks will join in along with movies studios, the guilds are prepping now to make sure as much of that money comes their way as possible.

Now I have no problem with people trying to get a slice of pie, but this expectation that they just automatically deservce it because they are actors, directors, and writers is a bunch of BS. That is like you demanding a percentage of the pie for every product your company sells because you had something to do with its creation. Now we would all love that, but reality doesn't work that way. Just because they where paid to create a product doesn't automatically make them part owner of said product which this new call for the pie basically claims. They get all the benefits but none of the risk. The studios take on the risk by hiring said actors, writers, and directors (hince forth called the Greedy), the studio pay for the movie, the distriubtion, the advertising, the DVD pressing and everything else. Until they put in their own risk, say some cash for the production of the movie, they simply do not deserve to have a claim on any of the profits that is generated.

The Greedy just cash the paychecks and do the work (like the rest of us in the world). Yet for some reason they claim their effort is more deserving of more reward. What about the other important people that get the movie made? The Greedy can't do it without the costumers, set designers, builders, location scouts, carpenters, special effects crews, stuntman, the list is endless. Why don't they deserve a piece? What makes their contribution less important? Could the Greedy step up and do those other jobs if they all refused? I highly doubt it.

Simply put, just because you are called an actor, writer, or director doesn't automatically mean you deserve more. Nor does it mean your contribution is greater. If you want a piece of the pie, its high time you put in a bit for the risk. Until then, do like everyone else in the world does, get paid to do the damn job and nothing else.