my.bicycle

Since the game is PlayStation 2 exclusive, it will obviously not be on Xbox Live.

“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?’ Meanwhile they’re debating whether [Kerry’s war] wounds drew blood or were they superficial, or occurred in the same day, or whether he shot a guy wearing a toga. . . . How is that possible?” (washingtonpost.com)

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

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.

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.

Labels: music

• 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 country or region.
On the question of UMD movies, Reeves said that the company was hoping to offer significant incentives to get people buying the format. "I think they will come up with quite a few surprises", he said, "so that you'd want to buy a movie on UMD as well as having it on DVD. Maybe."

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?

• 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 able to tell it to force a guide-check on user request, because I'm completely baffled as to Samurai Champloo's current broadcast time. (Can anyone sport me a clue on this one?)

Labels: music

• Airport extreme base station
• iLife
• Keynote
• .mac
• bluetooth keyboard
• bluetooth mouse
• bluetooth adapter (the 3rd party product)
• 10% off Apple card
• silver ipod mini

Labels: music

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 players. And that's dumb. Those people are dumb, and I don't like them.
--Tim Schaefer

Labels: sf, video

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.