Category: Geek Culture (Page 4 of 5)

Friday Fun: Katamari Insurance

September 29, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Kotaku found this wonderful ad which should warm the hearts of Damacy fans everywhere.

South Park to Skewer World of Warcraft?

September 29, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Just wanted to mention that the rumor has it the season premiere of South Park next week is rumored to skewer World of Warcraft. Repeat: this is a fairly unsubstantiated rumor.

Edit: got this from a friend who works at Blizzard:

Confirmed.

Worldofwarcraft.com just put up a preview.

Excelsior!

July 27, 2006 / Damion Schubert

My Fiancee on Who Wants To Be A Superhero: “This is, like, 100 times worse than the Rock Paper Scissors tournament.”

Hyenas on an SUV

July 1, 2006 / Damion Schubert

One of the true pleasures of living in Austin is the Alamo Drafthouse, a movie house in Austin that shows off-beat films, all served with food and drink (I prefer the ‘Godfather’ pizza with a sangria). The reason why Alamo is so successful is that it is run by a man who truly loves and embraces film – not from a pretentious art-film vantagepoint as much as from the view that film is a wonderful social event.

The Alamo runs Mr. Sinus Theater, which is basically Mystery Science Theater 3000 done by live comedians. The primary difference is that, instead of mocking obscure ’50s sci-fi films, they aim both barrels at the movies that our generation is ashamed to admit we loved as kids: movies like Top Gun, Xanadu and Red Dawn. Their send-up of the Karate Kid is one of the most hilarious things I’ve ever seen in my life. Continue reading

Make Your Own Guitar Hero!

May 18, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Forgive yet another Guitar Hero story: A Friend of Zen sent in this link to me: Freetar, a freeware (open-source?) Guitar Hero project in development, complete with an editor allowing you to mark up your own songs.

So, is this the coolest open-source app ever or is it stealing bread from the mouths of Harmonix? I got a ton of email from my last Guitar Hero update, most complaining that they too had to buy second controllers because the original controller becomes defective in a stiff breeze. That being the case, I suspect that most people will feel it makes things about even.

Original comments thread is here.

GoogleTrends – Google’s Shiny New Toy

May 10, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Google’s Trend Tracker is the coolest thing ever (kudos to the fiancee for pointing it out). Compare, for example, this graph seeing how the smaller MMOs compete for attention.

Even more interesting is looking at the World of Warcraft vs EQ2 graph. Shortly before launch, the two weren’t that far apart in terms of attention and buzz, but the gap widened once they went live. Sure, there are undoubtedly other reasons for it, but one wonders if there is some sort of tipping point in between the two lines on the graph, which resulted in one game hitting critical mass and the other not doing so. Continue reading

Touchscreen, Tabletop RTS Control

April 5, 2006 / Damion Schubert

I want one of these so bad.

Snakes In A Plane Update

March 26, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Also, CNN came out with an update about Snakes In A Plane while we were gone. Behold the power of the internet:

The Samuel L. Jackson thriller “Snakes on a Plane,” which wrapped last September in Vancouver, went back before the cameras this month for five days of additional shooting in Los Angeles.

In this case, it wasn’t the usual reshoot, hastily assembled to fix a nagging story problem. Instead, distributor New Line Cinema decided to create new scenes that would take the movie from PG-13 into R-rated territory [to respond to the movie’s Internet fanaticism].
…
The audio bit [from a fan-made trailer] uses a Jackson sound-alike shouting, “I want these mother——- snakes off the mother——- plane!” Soon, the growing legion of fans added their voices as they demanded that that phrase also appear in the movie… [In the reshoot] they shot a scene where Jackson does utter the line that fans have demanded.

You genuinely have no idea how much better this makes me feel about the world.

Religion of Comic Book Characters

March 7, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Metafilter links to this site detailing the religious faith of all your favorite comic book heroes (with neat-o collages).

Of note: almost no heroes are atheist, but many villains are. 1 mention of a Mormon character, despite that it is the fastest growing faith in America. And unsurprisingly, no comic book writer has yet had the guts to label either a hero or villian as a scientologist (although one transparent analog exists).

Guitar Hero Makes Newsweek

December 14, 2005 / Damion Schubert

I pop open Newsweek to find an article about Game Of The Year Guitar Hero. And it’s a nice-sized 3/4 page article near the front of the magazine, not a tiny text capsule lost in some lame Gift Guide. Congrats again, Harmonix, on your success and recognition.

The writer mentions how he was so pumped when he beat Killer Queen that he almost put his guitar through his TV in a fit of pure rockaholic adrenaline. I can’t wait to see his reaction when he finally beats Cowboys From Hell.