Before VFX

If you didn't watch the Oscars this year I don't blame you. I also don't blame you if you didn't read up on all the post Oscar buzz I don't blame you either. However you might have missed a story involving a visual effects studio (VFX for short) named Rhythm and Hues. They're the studio that won the effects Oscar for Life of Pi. Their studio just went bankrupt and right before they were about to say something regarding the state of the VFX industry in Hollywood they were shoooed off the stage. People in the VFX business kinda lost their shiz.

How does this effect you? It probably doesn't but some guy that works in the industry started a tumblr called Before VFX that highlights scenes from movies before the visual effects have been added. It's really cool and you should check it out.

Wonder Woman 1, Nazi's 0

I have mentioned this before but there are 3 Wonder Woman porn parody movies and 0 actual Wonder Woman movies. I'm starting to think that Warner Brothers is allergic to money.

The Last 20 Years of FPS

A french gaming site NoFrag put together this video highlighting the graphical evolution of the first person shooter. The first PC I ever bought came with the shareware version of Wolfenstein 3d, so this really takes me back. I still remember where I was when I played Doom the first time. Holy crap it scared the bejeezees out of me. That gun sway and the darkness of everything, it was amazing.

That's it, fire up the Emulator!

Here's a crap load of Links

The Norwegian prison where inmates are treated like people. I'll admit I'm one of those dirty peace and love Jesus hippies who believes in redemption and forgiveness, so this article was right up my alley. US Prisons do a great job of preparing you for one thing, more prison. In our desire to see justice in the form of punishment we're only ensuring that people who have made mistakes are put in a situation where they keep making mistakes. Which would you rather have? More "luxurious, club-med" prisons or more crack heads on the street stealing your hubcaps?


From Dream To Disaster: The Story Of Aliens: Colonial Marines. This is a tremendous read. I've always wondered how a game that's been in the works for 6+ years can still end up a rushed piece of garbage. Now I know.

About 500 Gamestop Stores are Going out of Business. I know most people hate Gamestop but I've never had a bad experience there. The couple I go to on a semi-regular basis have real friendly staff and have always been helpful answering questions. I mean I never trade in games there because that's a total rip off and I'm kind of a hoarder when it comes to old games anyway. Still, the writing is on the wall for their business model. More digital distribution = less used games = no more Gamestops.

Sorry, Neil deGrasse Tyson, but you’re wrong about Thor’s hammer. In your face Neil deGrasse Tyson. I've always been more of a Brian Greene guy anyway. Seriously, how does Tyson have like a billion twitter followers and Greene have 7? There is no justice in quantum mechanics.


Inside the Battle of Hoth. You have no idea how happy I am that I picked up the "Special edition" DVDs of the original trilogy that included the unedited versions of all three films. I know it's not the best transfer quality but who cares? It's Star Wars the way it was meant to be seen, without Hayden Christiensen.

Sorry to say it, but keyboard and mouse are losing the FPS market. No big surprise here. One of the first things I did when I put together my new "gaming" pc is plug in a spare xbox 360 controller. Keyboard and mouse are unparalleled as far as control goes, but the overall gaming experience isn't just control, it's comfort as well.

Mouse & Keyboard Still A Major Player In FPS Market. Wait, but the article above said....

Jetpack Solves Everything

Game of Thrones Season 3 Trailer.. for reals

Finally HBO has decided to bless us with a trailer for Season 3 of Game of Thrones. It looks very Game of Throney. Highlights for me included the guy climbing the Wall (Jarl, Mance?) and Tyrion giving Tywin the stink eye.

I've got to say one of the downsides of reading all Song of Ice and Fire books in a row is that they've kind of all blended together in my brain. I know how a Storm of Swords ends, and I remember the real big "oh shit" moment in the middle but I do not remember anything else. Hopefully that means surprises all season long.

Katsucon 2013 - Epic Cosplay

Some nice person who works for/with Katsucon must have stumbled upon one of my cosplay posts because they e-mailed me a link to this video highlighting some fantastic cosplay a couple days ago. These guys aren't playing around. There's some serious work that went into these costumes.

In semi-related news I once again am going to miss this years Emerald City Comic-Con. It's just too expensive these days. $35 per person for Saturday and my kid's old enough now that he'd be an extra $10. Which is total garbage by the way. Kids under 4 should always be free to everything. That's $80 for the whole family just to go. Once we got there I'd probably blow another $100 easy.

Of course now that I say that I'm looking at their website and noticing tickets for Friday are only $25 per person and still available... hmmm, what to do. what to do.

First Person Mario: Endgame

Ever wondered what Mario would look like as a first person shooter? Really? Really? You're crazy, cause I've been watching this for all of 40 seconds and I feel like I need to take a dramamine.

Your Move Microsoft

Sony fired the first shot in Console Wars v5.0 last night with a press conference where they announced the PS4 would hit shelves this year in time for Christmas. The press conference was long but a lot of the details were vague. Here are a couple of the things that stood out to me.

- My prediction from last year that the next generation of consoles would be under-powered was pretty much right on. Oh sure the PS4 is a big step up from where the PS3 is now, for example the PlayStation 4 will have 8 gigs of ram compared to the PS3's 512 MB. But it's not the groundbreaking jump forward in technology the cell processor was (or at least was supposed to be). Technically it's a mid level gaming PC, which again is nice, it's just not revolutionary.

- Sony really wants you to share everything. Seriously, there's a big ol share button right on the face of the controller. I personally have zero interest watching my friends play video games in their living room from my living room but I'm sure someone out there will like this.

- Backwards compatibility is stupid and Sony finally realizes that. You know how many PS1 games I ever played on my PS2? Or Xbox games on my 360? Zero. If you're that worried about playing your old games go ahead and keep your old system, ok?

- Have you heard about this Cloud thing yet? While you might not be able to pop in your disc of Uncharted 2 into your new PS4 you will be able to play it streaming from the Sony cloud. At least that's the idea. Sony has invested a ton of cash into the ability to play server based games without any downloading (personally I think that's the future of "console" gaming anyway). If they can pioneer the technology it could provide them with the same kind of edge Microsoft had with Xbox Live.

- Nothing on used games and required on-line connectivity. With so many rumors flying around about these two subjects and the new Xbox their lack of mention says more than if they had been mentioned. Sony probably could have sold an extra million units just by saying "used games for everyone" and moved on to the next topic.

That's about it for my quick thoughts on the topic. There were a I have no real brand loyalty in the console wars, I'll probably just pick up whichever one is the cheapest so I don't know...

The 12 I's in Team

Google Glass makes you Tony Stark Robocop

This video of Google Glass in action popped up on my facebook page several times this morning, with good reason. It's a fantastic commercial. Of course that means I have to hate it, right?

Ok, maybe hate is a strong word but I'm not %100 sure this is a product that most people want or need. Every feature they show off seems either impractical, dangerous or redundant if you already have a smart phone or HD Go Pro. For example, the GPS while riding a bike seems like a horrible accident waiting to happen. Also looking up jellyfish on google to learn more about them even though you are at an aquarium where I suspect there is plenty of available material on the subject of jellyfish feels like the most Apple thing of all time (I mean that in the worst way possible of course). Plus as everyone knows, glasses are for nerds. NERDS!

I'm not poo-pooing the idea of google glass completely. I imagine it would be really useful while say I was working on my car, or maybe while doing touristy things on vacation. It's just hard for me to imagine a scenario where people are going to pony up $1,000 en masse so they can look up pictures of lol cats at work.

another new Bioshock: Infinite trailer

So apparently all I do now is post preview videos for upcoming games. I'm like gametrailers.com except without all effort and success.

2K Games needs to put a stop to this, I want to buy your game stop rubbing it in my face. It already looks awesome you don't need to make it awesomer. All your doing now is making me sad that I'm not playing Bioshock Infinite right now.

oh hi there Crysis 3

If you have 60 dollars burning a hole in your pocket and have a boat load of free time, Crysis 3 is available for purchase, like right now. I read a couple reviews for it this morning and it seems the consensus is good, not great. Still, this launch trailer looks pretty awesome.

I might have to pick this one up in a couple months on the used game market, while it still exists.

Preview of Bungie's Destiny

One of the more anticipated releases of 2013 is Bungie's (Halo, Marathon) Destiny. Up to this point I'm pretty sure the only thing we've seen from the game is some concept art. This 4 minute preview doesn't show much in game footage but it does paint a pretty picture of what the Destiny universe is going to be like.

It's supposed to ship later this year for the PS3 and 360 but I'll be snookered if this doesn't look like one of those "next generation" games everyone is talking about. If Bungie really sees this as a 10 year project it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to bother with systems that are going to be rendered obsolete this Christmas.

I don't think Round 2 is going to happen

MMA is a bit out of my google+ circle but this video of a ring girl doing her job super poorly is too good not to post. My favorite part is at the end when she realizes she's screwed up and she's like "pffff whatevs"

Who killed the electric Links?

Beercade replaces arcade coin slots with beer taps. This is a fabulous idea. I hate the fact that it uses some stupid original fighting game set in a bar and not something like Street Fighter II or King of Fighters 98. Still and arcade cabinet that give the victor beer? Put your quarters up!


How Well Do You Know Ferris Bueller's Day Off? This was actually a fun quiz. I got 20 out of 25. I can't believe I blew it on Cameron's last name. I got Alan Ruck's real last name confused with Cameron's last name.


German liquor company pours its alcohol down models’ bare breasts before bottling. That is disgusting. Now allow me to rant off tangent. Blogger/Google in their infinite wisdom has changed the way you upload pictures. It's great for suckers that are uploading from picasa or just accept whatever default sizes blogger thinks you need but for people with a pretty unique skin like mine it's a giant pain in the ass. Seriously google get your act together, don't make me move all this nonsense to wordpress.

The Tesla Model S has terrible battery range. No it doesn't the writer manipulated the test drive. No he didn't the battery range really is as bad as he said. Sorry that's a lot of links, but this story is really interesting. There are a lot of people out there that think Tesla is the future of automobiles. Mostly they're the same people that think GM killed the electric car due to pressure from the oil companies, not because the car itself was kinda awful and super expensive. One day Tesla might actually be the future but they have to make sure that their cars won't die when it's cold out before that happens.

Double Dragon Kombat

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I went to an arcade/bar last weekend where I was able to relive the years 1984-1993 through video games (and some pinball). Not surprisingly Street Fighter II: Championship Edition still holds up incredibly well. Also not surprising Mortal Kombat, along with all the other games use similar looking digitized characters, is kinda sucky. I don't remember seeing Double Dragon there but I'm definitely going to look for it when I go back. Man that game was hella fun.

Watch Paperman online for free, like right here

If you saw Wreck it Ralph in theaters you've probably already seen Paperman. Pretty much everyone I follow on twitfacetumblr said that the animated short was the best part of Wreck it Ralph. I think I even ran a little youtube clip on the making of Paperman when it was in theaters. It's a pretty fantastic short, fantastic enough to get nominated for an academy award.

Over the last few years I've had a pretty good run of actually having seen the Animated short that wins the academy award. Amazing when you consider I've almost never seen any of the movies nominated for best picture. So here you go, watch Paperman before it wins the Oscar over all those other animated shorts I've never seen.

Toddler Trick Shots

This kids got some game, but can he drive with his left? Yeah I didn't think so, stay in school kid!

Happy Early Valentines Day!

..the Blurst of Times: King of the Nerds

On it's surface King of the Nerds is a less of a reality competition and more of a place holder for TBS's endless barrage of Big Bang Theory reruns. Now it's only fair to start of by saying that this is a show I really wanted to hate. While I still watch and enjoy Big Bang Theory, I get how some people feel like it's just making fun of these outlandish nerdy stereotypes. Judging from the trailers TBS was running it looked like King of the Nerds was going to embrace that idea and turn it up to 11.

But then I read this article by noted tv critic Andy Dehnart, and I decided maybe I should give it a try. Guess what? It wasn't that bad. Now admittedly it was early Sunday morning and I had been up late the night before dominating the arm wrestling machine at Dorky's, but at no point did I feel like the show was setting any of its contestants up for ridicule, at least not for their nerdy tendencies. In any reality show you get a certain amount of highly confident individuals who are blissfully unaware they're being set up for a fall but if anything that confirmed that these contestants were being treated like any normal reality show contestants.

Sure the episode was plenty goofy. Robert Carradine and Curtis Armstrong (who is fantastic as a host btw) spent much of the episode dressed up like last minute extras in a Troma movie, and there were some questionable special effects on the last challenge but the challenges themselves were no joke. There was a debate judged by Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes (ok so kind of a joke) and a superhero trivia challenge and none of it seemed particularly easy. TBS's DC bias made it a bit more difficult for me but I only knew a couple of the questions at best and I know some pretty obscure comic trivia.

Anyhoo the point is I added King of the Nerds to my DVR and I don't think it makes me a bad nerd. It might make me a bad TV viewer because I DVR way to much reality TV, but I'm still a pretty kick ass nerd.*





*Ignoring my record on Street Fighter II this weekend. Woof, did E. Honda let me down.

Longborder with a death wish

Ok, so Longborder with a death wish isn't the official title of this video, it's just the subtitle. This guy is seriously crazy, and I hear he got himself arrested. Which makes total sense to me. I mean he's a menace. Did you see the way he turned left without using a hand signal?

In the Game of Thrones.. something about Chaos

A New teaser for Game of Thrones hit the web the other day. It's a lot better than that stupid CGI crow thing they did last month. At least with this one we get to hear some dialogue.

The Third Book in the Game of Thrones (ok, A Song of Fire and Ice), Storm of Swords, is easily the best book in the series. A lot of stuff happens, good stuff too, not just Daenerys wandering the dessert babbling about her dragons. If viewers that haven't read the series thought the Blackwater episode was amazeballs just wait until they see the red wedding.

Short links

Noted Soccer Expert Hulk Hogan Predicts This Weekend's Premier League Games.

Beat By Dre: The Exclusive Inside Story of How Monster Lost the World.

David Jaffe launches glorious verbal attack on CNN anchor.

Dual Core: All the Things

I'm not as familiar with Dual Core as I am other nerdcore rappers like Frontalot or Beefy but you have to love a chorus that says "drink all the booze, hack all the things".

I've got my eye on you Xbox 360.2

Big "news" yesterday for console watchers. It was reported that the Sony Playstation 4 would be priced around $420 (420 dude!) and that the Xbox 360 ver 2.0 is going to jerk you around when it comes to used games. Also it's going to require a constant internet connection so Microsoft can spy on you 24/7 through the integrated kinnect hardware.

Ok, maybe that last part was me reading a little too much between the lines.

I think the price point on the Playstation sounds about right. Hell, it kind of sounds like a deal. Sure it's way more expensive than a Playstation 3 is right now, but when it launched the PS3 was what $500-600 depending on the size of hard drive? $449.99 for early adopters and by Christmas 2014 when all the good games finally hit it will be $399.99 and my Vinyl windows will finally be paid off and I can pick one up. Because.....

This constant internet connection thing is bullshit. I understand the thinking in eliminating the used game market. Console's themselves don't make a ton of cash (Sega found this out the hardway, twice), licensing is where you really make bank. The more copies shipped the more cash Microsoft or Sony or Nintendo have to swim in in their giant Uncle Scrooge like vault. If you use gamefly or buy a lot of used games you're screwed, no two ways about it. Personally, I don't care because I don't have that issue. I'm good if I actually finish 6 games a year. When don't buy a whole lot of games paying retail vs the used game market isn't going to bust my budget. In fact it might encourage me to play newer games sooner rather than later (I swear I'll get around to Bioshock II someday).

But back to the constant internet connection. Yeah, my Xbox is hooked up to my wireless router but you know what? Sometimes my internet is down, or sometimes I'm hooking up 4 xBoxes for a super awesome Halo party at Loren's cabin where the internet still doesn't exist. I never had an original Xbox and I've been very happy with the Xbox 360 but if it comes down to buying a new console that requires an internet connection vs one that doesn't,I'm picking the one that doesn't. I don't even care if it's a WiiU.

Solos, Fetts and Yodas oh my!

It's being reported on many different websites, twitters and tumblrs that Disney is working on 3 solo Star Wars films. The characters involved are a young Han Solo and what has to be a pre-Empire Boba Fett and Yoda. I take that back, I guess a Boba Fett movie that took place between Empire and Jedi could work. Ghost Yoda probably wouldn't work.

Disney has yet to officially make any of this official (other than saying that they are working on spin off movies) but it took them forever to confirm the JJ Abrams hiring and actual reputable sources are reporting this as opposed to just AICN so I think the info is pretty solid.

I have pretty much zero interest in a Yoda movie. Episode II pretty much squashed my excitement to see him unleash his superball like Jedi bouncy powers. Also I'm a little curious why they would make a Han Solo movie and a separate Boba Fett movie. Smugglers and bounty hunters seem to go hand in hand, at the very least you're looking at two films that will have the same gritty underside of the universe tone. Where's my pre-teen Princess Leia babysitting comedy?

We all assume Channing Tatum will be cast as young Solo, right? Right.

F6sT & Furiou6, extended look

The highlight of the superbowl for me was the first commercial for 6 Fast 6 Furious or The Fast And The Furious VI. Turns out I can't enjoy a football game when I hate both teams (get bent Ray Lewis). It took a while to get the momentum but the Fast and the Furious franchise has slowly turned into the movie equivalent of Madden or Call of Duty. At a certain point they're just going to start naming them F&F 2016, FF 2017, etc.

BTW, I bet Michelle Rodriguez is a clone.

Make it Rain

I saw this on tumblr and it made me lol.

Ask Mr. T

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find him, maybe you can tweet Mr. T.

We fixed it!

Sorry for the lack of posts. The real world is really interfering with my internet life. Here's a funny cartoon while I try and catch up.

Star Trek: the Wrath of Cumberbatch

Just in case you blinked and missed it, here's the 30 second Superbowl spot for Star Trek Into Darkness. You know, the one with Benedict Cumberbatch playing a bad guy that's not Kahn but is totally Kahn. I'm still excited for the movie but a couple things give me pause. Where are the space ships? There's a lot of footage of people jumping off of buildings and not a whole lot of spacey looking stuff. Also they better not crash the Enterprise again. Once was plenty.

Eating Good in the Links

The 12 Best Mods For PC Games. I was waiting until the Black Mesa mod was completely finished, but maybe I'll go ahead and download it this weekend. It looks amazing. I'll also have to check out a couple of these other Mods. I've heard lots of good stuff about DayZ.

Kate Upton's Hidden Mario Cart Talent. I'm not sure I'd call any of Kate Upton's talents "hidden". Bazinga!

How Newegg crushed the “shopping cart” patent and saved online retail. Patent Trolls are the worst. Ok, maybe copyright tolls are worse because they target individuals over companies but that's like saying Stalin was worse than Pol Pot. They both suck eggs.

Applebee's Server Gets Stiffed By Pastor Who Gave Her Tip To God. Spoilers, Applebee's fired the server that posted this receipt on reddit. Sometimes people are the worst.

50 questions about the new Geico talking pig commercial. Yes, the bestiality commercial. Seriously, who at Geico was so high on coke that they didn't notice they had made a commercial about a girl wanting to do a pig. That's messed up Geico.

Battlefield 3 really wants my attention

This trailer for Battlefield 3: End Game is not to shabby. After watching it a couple time I'm having a hard time remembering why I quit playing the game. Something to do with the endless grind of acquiring new load-outs and the lack of good servers. Still.. MOTORBIKES!

The Weakerthans: Our Retired Explorer

This video by The Weakerthans combines two of my favorite things: post-punk rock from Canada and Ernest Shackleton and his ill fated trip to the south pole. If you haven't read the book Endurance you totally should. It's one of my favorite non-fiction reads.

Or I guess you could just watch this video, it's practically the same thing.