my.bicycle

I wish it could all be solved like in The Year of the Rat . I'm pretty good at hugs. (via ffwd )

The Slashdot Games editor has resigned to work as an editor at Gamasutra , where he has previously contributed. Here is his blog . He has contributed to a number of sites, including the Game Videos Archive portion of the Internet Archive, which hosts this “ Making of The Neverhood .” ( waxy )

David Hasselhoff's performance in a pop-musical version of Jeckyll and Hyde is now available on DVD . I wish I could make this text scroll out the way it does his site, but then you'd probably all quit visiting this blog.

An excellent trailer is now up for Farscape: Peacekeeper Wars miniseries. Looks like I will have to catch up on the entire series before I can understand what's going on though... I lost track of the series sometime during Season Two, because of the move to Japan.

“FINALLY,” the WWE Smackdown vs. RAW game's online feature has been announced . Choice, ace-reportage quote, that will likely still not be heeded in the fora: Since the game is PlayStation 2 exclusive, it will obviously not be on Xbox Live.

Gmail Helper β Task-Tray notification. My life is complete. (via littlefuckingrayofsunshine )

“All of us [on The Daily Show ] are just blown away by the turn the campaign has taken,” Karlin said. “We cannot believe that this is what is being talked about at this juncture. It’s so astounding to us. We are trying to work through our amazement and to conduct a meaningful conversation absent of incredulity, because [the interview] is not going to go anywhere if you just say, ‘What the [expletive] is going on?’” Karlin said he will nonetheless suggest that that be the first question Stewart puts to Kerry tonight. “If you just want to pinpoint the success of the Republican Party and Bush, this is a perfect case study,” Karlin continued, “because George W. Bush has put a moratorium on talk about his behavior under the age of 40 and everyone [in the press] is abiding by it. ‘Were you or were you not an alcoholic or did you just have a drinking problem?,’ ‘Were you or were you not a drug abuser?’ Me...

Færie tales, annotated with anchored-link notes, as well as the public domain Project Gutenberg texts at SurLaLune . (via slinka ) This came as the result of JP pointing out to me that I don’t know the difference between Fates , Furies , and the Triple Goddess . I can’t recall offhand if Gaiman had the same mixed up problem, if it was another author who combined them, if it was my own muddled mind, or god help me, it might have been Clash of the Titans . I had several of the action figures for that, you know...

Three movie bits of interest: Planet of the Apes , re-cut as a Twilight Zone episode Leaked ComicCon trailer of the upcoming Elektra: Assassin movie. Screaming sissies playing Doom3

Trailer for Natural City ( .asf ). Updates to follow. (via Cyberpunk Tribe ) Update: IMDB lists it as having been made in 2003 , and the comments state that it can be found on special-edition DVD for US$25, and is an homage to Blade Runner . I’m going to try and find it at Tsutaya Video next time I’m there.

The trailer for Spy Fiction is pretty damned funny.

Japan has been on fire with a fever for iPods. They are everywhere, enjoying huge popularity everywhere I look: planes, trains, and (with the third-party FM-broadcast attachment) automobiles. But the iTunes Music Store has yet to open in Japan , because the largest record companies are concerned about the ease of use of CD-R burning of the content. ( Japanese / English ) This is a fine Japanese cultural example of trend vs. business. While the public has embraced a new technology, and has provided an automatic market for the service, sluggish businesses whose luddite policies must always be conservative and “safe,” will sit on their hands as long as possible. [chosaq]

As much as I’ve professed to skepticism of the excessive number of remakes from the 70’s and 80’s, it may seem strange that I’m excited to hear that Ellen DeGeneres may be taking the George Burns slot in Oh, God . It's a pretty daring choice to cast a lesbian comedian as God, in this neo-conservative climate, and I look forward to the controversy, as well a humor, that will certainly emerge. From the same site, but a different movie , I caught this bit of malafeasapropriation of words: CS!: You have been playing a lot of academic parts recently. Do you have a strong academic background or scientific background? Eckhart: I know what a school is. I know what colleges are. I know what a book is. I went to college and graduated in theater and film. I wouldn't call myself an academic or intellectual but I do read vociforously . Hoo boy.

Revealed: four finalist designs for the previously mentioned , fascinating, elevated park. (via coolhunting )

Space Alc ( ark? alchemy? ...alcohol? ), though indecipherable in its own name, knows the names of all the dev-related (and non) terms in Japanese. Vertex , for one. This and babelfish and POPjisyo (pop dictionary) are soopahcool tools. (via tokyopia )

If anyone is vaguely curious why their RSS feed appears to be randomly popping up old posts, it’s because I’m an anal-retentive Virgo, and have begun going through my old posts and manually replacing the double-prime-quote (") with context-specific “curly quotes” (achieved with “ to open and ” to close). I beg your patience while I get my amateur Webmonkey on . I will probably resist going back and correcting all the contractions though. That’d be crazy.

(I've had this in Drafts for a while, and want to post it before it completely loses relevance in the western hemisphere) If you are jonesing for a great game, and enjoy 3D platform games in the Mario or Banjo-Kazooie vein, Pitfall: the Lost Expedition is a blast. The controls are smooth and intuitive, and are matched in tone and execution by the superb animations. A lot of cartoonish exaggeration in the movement, and Jak-and-Daxter style animation cuing to cover stopping or other sudden changes in velocity/direction -- transitions are always smooth. During the course of the game players are able to earn new moves, after which they can revisit previous areas to reach previously inaccessible areas. For some reason this annoyed me a lot less than when Banjo-Kazooie did it. Maybe that has something to do with the inane “pick up 100 of these things, O! and a hundred of this other thing” mechanic from that game. Pitfalls goals are distinct, clear, and singular, not busywo...

Spinning rims and neon-tube running lights ... for bicycles. (via engadget )

Good grief graphics are improving rapidly. This rooftop shot from Halflife 2 is entirely believable. Are they using deformation maps to get the crunchy edges on the chimney? What about that hazy effect that reads like interference artifacting from an off-camera sun? Just staring at a number of shots in the slideshow are making me feel woefully out of the loop. (via boingboing )

Usability Flash from hell . Scary and entertaining at the same time. Various warnings might include: Disturbing imagery, foul language, sound, and poor usability. (via boingboing )

America doesn't need a President to lead them; America needs a President who projects leadership. America doesn't need a President who's honest with his country; America needs a President who's honest with his wife. America doesn't need a President with a firm grasp of policy and a commitment to serving his country; America needs a President with the appearance of irrepressible optimism and Wholesome Heartland Values. America doesn't need a capable wartime President; America needs a President who makes himself look like war .

Just finished watching Battle Royale . It was engaging and thought provoking and well paced. Most of the movie deserved the massive amount of hype it has received. The end didn't do much for me, though I imagine I will be thinking about it for weeks to come.

If I ever make a band, or write a book of poetry, I'm likely to name it The Ubiquitous Mister Donuts . In every town, on corners of shopping arcades, or standing alone in the middle of a retail quad, Mister Donuts is, well, ubiquitous in Japan. Most Japanese people assume that it's an American chainstore operation, but I think the name was licensed from an American shop that is either gone, or at least entirely failed to flourish in the way the Japanese component has. As fresh, but not nearly as sweet as Krispy Kreme donuts, “MisDo’s” fried bread product is uniquely addictive and satisfying. I'll be kind, and not review their “American Coffee.” From their website, you can grab cute wallpaper , and check out the recent TV commercials . (links via waxy , which I obviously love, but it galls me when I am caught this unaware of web-presence on a topic that I thought myself expert. I am the MisDo King. )

For the upcoming DVD release, it appears the jedi-ghost of Hayden Christianson appears in the Ewok celebration at the end of Return of the Jedi . How is it that the star wars movies have bad stuff added in, and good stuff left out ? (via DrikoLand , which may be written by my evil twin)

Real life vs. the internet, explained Red vs. Blue style. ( .mov ) (via waxy )

Psyop CG treatments are impressive; their site marries CG austerity and competence with street-level cool. (via coolhunting )

Tweaker , music project by ex-NIN member Chris Vrenna, has downloads . There are some sassy remixes for Rob Zombie tracks, as well as work done for American McGee's Alice , Eidos' Mad Dash -- though I can't find the tracks for Doom3 , which were supposedly available through their MySpace page . (via music for robots )

Offensive, blaspheming, and mean-spirited, but well executed and snarkily funny: Combustible Orange! comics.

kogal ( wiki.def ), yamanba ( wiki.def ), elegant gothic lolita , Harajuku Kids , zentai , double-zentai , inuyasha pretty-boy cosplay ( MasaMania ) OPP: Other People's PuriKura

A Trans-Am vs. a heavily modified kickboard scooter ( .mov ). What makes me think that this will end in tears, or at least a very long, red skidmark? (via JP )

Spamusement is a collection of “Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines!” It is the low-key, sarcastic acknowledgment of cheese and incompetence that had me moving from smirks, to grins, to unfortunately-timed chuckling.

California has passed the bill requiring game retailers to post signs defining meanings of the various ESRB ratings . It has happily lost most of its teeth en route to being passed: previously it was to require Mature-rated games to be kept separated from other games, as though they were pornographic. It has yet to be signed into law by the Governator. WarioWare (Made in Wario) will have movement-tracking as part of its control scheme . Sony may integrate EyeToy cameras into PlayStation 3 . I will weep if they include a camera, but fail to up the standard number of controller ports to four, as Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Gamecube and Nintendo64 all have. There may be no region encoding on the PSP choice quote: Although Sony has enforced region locking on its consoles in the past, the practice makes little sense on a handheld device, since people are expected to carry their systems with them on trips abroad and must therefore be able to purchase software outside their native coun...

This week Warren Ellis is moblogging from the set of Global Frequency, the television adaptation of his eponymous comicbook: In the script, Rogers has combined the Russian sleeper agent with the rotting implant in his head with the guy from my PLANETARY/THE BATMAN: NIGHT ON EARTH book who's causing his immediate environment to shift in and out of the laws of physics. He takes me down a narrow alleyway. “The camera approaches down here and so should you, for the full effect,” he says. There's a guy slumped at the end of the alley, his arm sticking out. I step over the guy at the end, mumbling something. “Now turn around,” says Rogers. It's a dummy. Of a guy. Who has the left side of his body missing. Sheared away. Cut in half. And you can see the complete cross-section of his internal organs, bone, muscle, everything. It is uniquely disgusting and very beautiful. ( diepunyhumans.com : start on August 11)

Sumner Redstone has bought a majority stake in Midway Games. Sumner Redstone owns Viacom, and Viacom owns Paramount Studios. In 2003 Activision sued Paramount for poor handling of the Star Trek license, and canceled the 1998 contract If Viacom owns Midway and the Trek license, will Midway be making Trek games? Update: Hm. That didn't take long. “ In this regard, Midway could be considered as a potential licensee of Viacom intellectual property, or as an acquisition candidate ,” said Redstone. I feel like the bonehead who just figures out who the killer is one scene before the movie announces it clearly.

I'm not quite sure what is employed to make this contest so close, but drag race between a Trans-Am drag and a powered kickboard ( .mov ) is insane. (thanks, JP)

Just to let you all in on the weirdness that is Japan: Chronicles of Riddick just opened in theaters here last weekend. I quite liked it, because it was an epic fantasy cast in the trappings of goffick science fiction, like the Warhammer 40k universe, but it felt like there were huge gaps in the movie's script. My googling efforts to find out why turned up several interesting bits of information. Apparently Twohy had to cut 50 minutes of footage from the film (a- ha ). Compared to the US theatrical release, the Region 1 "Director's Cut" of the DVD will have 7 minutes of additional footage; which leaves me scratching my head about the other 43 minutes that might have been added back in. As the director's cut of Aliens proved, it's not the amount of time, but the editing that can make a world of difference. The added shots of the xenomorph critters charging in, the near-overrun on the autogun, the little exposition at the beginning where Ripley finds out t...

Big list of free games in this forum . There are a lot more of them out there than I expected. (via joystiq )

If anyone was curious just how unpopular the XBox is in Japan, here is a chart . Of the current-generation home consoles, Sony has 80% of the market, Nintendo 18.6%, and Microsoft 1.4% -- meaning my estimates that only five people in Japan own an XBox are a little off. There may be as many as fourteen. The downtown game shops carry used XBoxes for $yen;8000 next to PC Engine Duo for ¥12,000.

Blade Trinity: new clip online featuring some fighting and interesting weapons. It looks like it will be cut in the kung-fu, comic style of Blade 2. The movie was shown to test audiences , and the reaction was good from people who like the series (like me), and one scathing criticism from a would-be film expert. Oops, my bias is showing. (via super hero hype )

I've only just started watching Stargate: SG-1, so I'm unclear on the level of fan-craziness there might be to support this prop bomb on eBay , where almost US$1500 didn't make the bid reserve. This lack of comprehension is why I'm primarily enjoying it for the humor in the write-up it got at Gizmodo . Lord only knows why fans can't just macgyver their own together out of shoeboxes, gold paint, and candyfloss.

A couple more observations about the PSX Powering up takes some time: I can change the channel fairly immediately, but it gives no UI response when trying to joystick over to the Video column (to view a DVD or recorded programming). It's annoying, because you can't tell when it will respond. DVD-R: Backup DVD movies that play fine on my first-run US PS2 do not play on the PSX. Powering down takes time: Currently this is only important because I don't want to move the unit while it's powering down, even though I want to get at the cabling beneath it. Net access: G-Guide access times seem weird. The LAN telltale on my wireless/ethernet bridge stays dark until the unit is powered up, though the same bridge on my PC (yeah, I've only got the one) keeps all telltales lit, regardless of the PC's power status. No big deal, but I've not been able to see the telltale come on when it's supposedly updating the G-Guide information. In fact, I'd like to be ab...

London Booted , the Clash mashup album, is available for download. As the site says, don't forget to visit a donation site, especially one of Joe Strummer's favorites, Future Forests . (thanks, The Other Michæl , who thinks you should listen it to an iPod in a Post-Cool case .)

It looks like I'll get an Apple Store in my neck of the woods on August 28 . I'll not be there for opening day, since the Ginza Apple Store opening generated a line of completely stupendous length, and the odds of me getting in for the first 250 people, all of whom presumably want the ¥300,000 fuku-bukuro ("lucky bag") with three-times' that worth in merchandise, are practically nil. What's in those bags, anyway? From a forum post, the Ginza bag was: Airport extreme base station iLife Keynote .mac bluetooth keyboard bluetooth mouse bluetooth adapter (the 3rd party product) 10% off Apple card silver ipod mini That's actually pretty great for that amount of money. Hrm.

While I'm still unwilling to call videogame players "athletes," this play-by-play and footage of a Streetfighter 3 Third Strike face-off is truly thrilling. The skill level described makes me realize that in comparison even my substantial Tobal skills only make me a rank amateur. Read the text before you view the footage.

Pretty flash . Stumbled onto while googling the phrase "cute graphics toy" in a futurismic blurb i just posted.

Chuji 's game is in the topmost front-page slot at Gamespot today, with a hands-on preview and an interview . It looks like a blast!

What the hell does " her flesh was fused to the material of the couch " mean? (via boingboing )

I've seen Katsuya Terada art at Wandaarando (Wonderland) manga shops, and am always stopped just short of buying one of the big books . Next time, I think I'll not hesitate. He so neatly summarizes the dichotomy between fetishistic and naïveté that can be found in Japanese culture. (via wiley wiggins )

I sometimes post as "Mr. Chronovore" at The Other Michæls' String Can Phone . There were several backburnered posts waiting to go up, all of which I've now completed. Have a looksee.

In Japan, sales of PCs with TV tuners built in account for 84%+ of the sales right now. The units with built-in LCD screens are also gaining in popularity (presumably because the upgrade market in Japan seems lifeless -- most people seem to want to buy a whole new machine rather than upgrading part-by-part). Of course, this makes a lot of sense when one considers that LCD televisions, even itty-bitty 17" ones are about ¥80,000 and a standalone HDD recorder is another ¥5-to-70,000. Why spend on those two elements when you can get a PC for less, and also use it to browse the web and do email? It can't hurt sales that apartments are small enough that even when sitting on the opposite side of the room from a 17" monitor, it looks like a 60" screen. Why are those LCD TV's so expensive? The TV tuners in the PCs are apparently throwaway-level inexpensive, so it can't just be the tuner adding cost. What's up with that?

KD points out that Fensler Films' demented G.I. Joe remixed films are all collected in one (new) place, and have increased in number.

Now Warner Bros. is recruiting help from an MP3 blog in spreading the word about The Secret Machines , granting permission to distribute music. Weird. Good, but weird.

The Drag Race is a lot like the speederbike race on Endor, only there are no ewoks, the rocks are cars, the trees are people, and everything is moving, since it's happening in downtown New York City. (via waxy )

Jeremy is an artist , whose work "is often technologically grounded and fundamentally concerned with authorship and authenticity." He doesn't seem particularly strong , though.

Japanese cosplayers as Alice and other wonderland characters as viewed through the gothic-lolita template at Glass World . (via boingboing / waxy )

My new favoritest Fark photoshop contest: the alternate universe where Nintendo's games were originally created by Microsoft . Some of these are laugh-out-loud funny, especially if you are using Microsoft products and have an old-skool love of the Super Famicom/SNES era games. Of course, just the thought of Microsoft producing code that would handily fit on a cartridge, or run without patches is pretty funny.

Use iChat with any old USB Cam , instead of iSight.

Typography from the Parisian catacombs . (via waxy )

One of the good things about the state of the games industry right now is that it's incredibly easy to be original. I mean, if you released a game these days that didn't have any army guys in it people would freak out. "Omg. Where did they get the idea to not use army guys? Are they taking drugs?" I think game makers underestimate the public when they assume they want to play the same game over and over. But it gives us a really good opportunity to stand out to the audience. (...) The problem isn't in listening to trends and biz-dev. It comes from reacting to those things in a simplistic way. Like, "These two games set in the snow sold really well. So we need more snow games. I can't believe we are publishing games that aren't 90 percent snow! I've been yelling that we need to make more snow games for two years!" And so on. People often imitate the superficial aspects of a hit without really understanding why that game really resonated with...

The classic Halo Warthog Jump video -- with all the blame being cast at videogames for bad decision making , I wonder if these virtual jumps will eventually be blamed for real-life ill-advised jumping incidents .

Chris Sturgill's Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, Clone Bandits has won the first place award for Best Vehicle . Go, Chilibuns!

The Brothers Chaps have put their signature humor and quirk into the lively and engaging Peasant's Quest ! If you were a fan of Roberta Williams' King's Quest from two decades past, or if you are a fan of the neologistically effervescent "burnination" of Trogdor, you should consider investing some time with this charming diversion. (This should be crossposted to String Can Phone , but the site hangs when I'm posting...)

Mouse pad with wrist-support . (via tokyo damage report )

James Tiberius Kirk. In one word: Khan .

Rick James is dead , bitch ! Indeed, he became a hooked on crack and began a long descent into disgrace. In 1993, he was sentenced to five years in prison (serving three) for assault and false imprisonment stemming from two grisly incidents. In 1991, James and his then 21-year-old girlfriend, Tania Hijazi, beat up and tortured a masseuse. The woman was tied naked to a chair, burned with a hot knife and a lighter and forced to perform oral sex on Hijazi. In 1992, the couple beat up and held captive a female record label executive in a hotel on the Sunset Strip. James and Hijazi, who also went to prison, married upon his release in 1997.

In the interests of education, I will add that Roshambo is called "jan-ken-po" in Japan, and that the three iconic hand gestures are called "GU" (rock), "CHOKI" (scissors), and "PAA" (paper). With that in mind, watch this advertisement for chocolate "party" candy , and try to only watch her hands.

How did National Treasure escape my notice? I don't usually get worked up about Bruckheimer movies, but this one looks great!

webRemote lets you control iTunes with any device that will "deal with HTML." I begin to wonder if I should have got a Tungsten C rather than the T3 . So far I've not done a thing with BlueTooth (I've yet to buy an adaptor for any machine, so the T3 can only play with itself), and both my work and home are blanketed in wi-fi goodness, so 802.11 -anything would be getting me around smarter right now. (via engadget ) Update: Yay! Maybe I can have the best of both worlds with this new SD wifi adaptor , specifically for the T3

When I'm rich, and have my own loftspace in a barren warehouse, this will be one of my lamps .

The Perry Bible Fellowship . Begin clicking . (via joey " a softer world " comeau's journal )

The AirPort Express , with its ability to turn USB printers into wireless network printers, and streaming iTunes to a real stereo system, was right at the top of my To Buy List. Then Netgear came out with a wireless router that will allow me to share a USB drive (anything from hard drives to flashRAM keychain drives) with any machine on the network. Oh, Asus has one , too. Update: SMC makes this one , which acts as a wireless access point, wifi LAN repeater, and ethernet bridge.

I want to try a manga-kissa next time I've got a day to myself in Osaka, especially if I can find a no-smoking one. Though unfailingly providing no-smoking environment, Starbucks in Japan are way too busy to be relaxing; the social pressure to get up and leave because there is a long line of people waiting is overwhelming. There is a three-story sutaa-baa in Shinsaibashi that has a line that regularly fills the stairwell leading to each of its three floors. I find it hard to relax over coffee and a book when there is a human fire hazard glowering at me. (The subject is random Engrish from a beverage machine I saw when I first moved to Japan.)

I'm always forgetting where this site is, so I'm sticking it up here. My friend Kristen provided me with this page of Common Fallacies , even though she has never witnessed my arguments with Maddog .

Which blogger-template should I modify, Black Tiger or River City Ransom ? (via robot street gang )

The Kasumi-themed "hugging pillow" that will ship with DOA: Ultimate bundle for XBox has been changed from a revealing bikini outfit to her regular ninja garb , apparently at the behest of shocked "consumers." Something tells me that they're not the consumers who are planning on purchasing said bundle, but are in actuality the mothers of the otaku demographic.

I'm betting everyone except me has seen this already but: Heroes is Marvel-comics-meets-Clerks (Flash, and very well-executed at that).

I was going to make fun of Dragon and Phoenix , a role-playing game made by Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans to provide an alternate history for a pair of characters, but then I remembered that ten years ago I ran an RPG campaign to provide a more satisfying ending to Twin Peaks . So I'll just shut up. ( unisystem )

While visiting the Firefox site this morning to see if there are any updates, I noticed that it should do dictionary lookups right from the location (URI) field. Just type "dict word" where "word" is the term under investigation. Only it doesn't really work. Several different dictionary sites will be load, dependent on the word accessed. That's not bad per se, but some words returned non-dictionary pages. The first word worked, apparently coincidently: "fecund" lead to synonym results on die.net , which in turn has a sidebar link for Lies.com which is providing evidence for investigation for putting Bush away for a term. Which, really, would make all this worthwhile. Update: Mea culpa. It's not a "dictionary search," it's a " Keyword search ." Keywords look pretty cool.

Two tiny pictures of Ken Watanabe as Ra's Al Ghul in the upcoming movie, Batman Begins .

A see-through toilet. Kinda .

For over 40 years, Clubbo Records has featured a broad range of music styles from a number of bands. Well, they’re all fake , but the sampler is real. But observe this bit of fictional joy, regarding The Lazarus Project: Computer whiz Mark Lissitsky doesn’t mourn the loss of such musical icons as Hendrix, Joplin or Tiny Tim. His favorite artists may be long gone, but he spends little time replaying their old hits. Instead, he listens to their new material. Lissitsky has created the unthinkable: a computer program that resurrects the creative minds of the past with eerily convincing results. We don’t fully understand how his program works, but according to Lissitsky, it involves analyzing sufficient amounts of past data in order to predict the next logical step in an artist’s creative output. The page goes on to provide a link to a song that sounds much like a warped modern variant of Karen Carpenter. What is the point? Why do this? Because it can be done. Because the ...

It looks like Alien Hominid ; I want to play it, I really do. It just looks really hard though. (via penny-arcade ) Update: Oh. Hey. It is really hard . Update: Direct link to game , so you can save it, play full screen, and still die horribly.