Hell Baby is a thing I'm blogging about now

I have a big ol soft spot in my heart for the cast members of the State so when I saw the trailer for the movie Hell Baby I figured that out of respect to one of the best sketch comedy shows every on basic cable I'd spend the 2 minutes it takes to put it on my blog. Yes, those 2 minutes include that fantastically long run on sentence. So here you are, Hell Baby. It doesn't really look good enough to pay 12 bucks for but maybe if it hits the dollar theater but maybe I;ll catch it on a HBO free preview weekend.

We're gonna need a bigger 'bot

Honestly my tag line is better, but this movie poster is still pretty rad.

Former Fat Boys: It's Morphin' Time

I've very excited that this video by the Former Fat Boys has gotten a bit of net buzz lately. Their last album The Legend of Hard Corey is one of my favorite albums of the last couple years. The video is pretty rad, it's got awful looking ninja fights, cheezy special effects and the white ranger may or may not motorboat the pink ranger at one point. I'm not 100% sure why it had to be nine minutes long, but whatever. What was I going to do with those minutes anyway?

Tonight We're All Canceling the Apocalypse

An "extended tv spot" for Pacific Rim hit the interwebs yesterday. Just in case you were wondering, yes it still looks incrediballs.

Someone in my office who will remain nameless actually thought this movie looked like it was "too much". It's not like I was friends with the guy before he said that, but after he said it he definitely made my enemies list. He's lower than Steve Jobs but he's above the cast of Glee.

Saturday Night's Right for Links

5 Things Every Game Company Gets Wrong About Gamers. I don't remember anything about this because I bookmarked it for my next links post about a week ago. It's written by David Wong and I just read his first book John Dies at the End. It was pretty fantastic. Also Loren, I let Kinion borrow that. I figured at least this way it's closer to you now.

Used Games and "AAA" Games are Incompatible? Good. This article I remember a bit more than the last one. Essentially Cliffy B of Gears of War fame said that big blockbuster games are incompatible with the used game market because so much money goes into them they can't afford all the lost sales. Which as I've always said is complete BS. Someone that buys a used game is doing so because he's trying to save some coin on a new game. I've bought all kinds of cheap used games that I never would have bought new. Also all there are a lot of gamers that pre-order games knowing that they can sell them after playing them for a couple days. Take that away from them and how much do your pre-orders suffer? Anyway this is moot because this was all in relation to the extreme DRM of the Xbone and that cow is out of the barn now. Of course how long do we have to wait for the return of season passes?

A Quick Note on Savage Steve Holland's Better Off Dead. Better off Dead is a fantastic movie. I mean I like One Crazy Summer a bit better simply because it's more polished (and the ferrari boat!) Still if somehow you've missed this gem from the 80s go check it out.

A Few Words About Ferris Bueller in the Internet Age. Ferris Bueller's Day Off turned like 20 or 25 or 30 years old the other day. Here are a few words about how it relates to that generation and this one. Good stuff.

The LEGO Movie is a real thing

When I first heard there was a Lego movie coming out I just assumed it would be a CG horror show like the Lego Star Wars special or that terrible Ninjago cartoon my son thankfully doesn't like. BUT NO! It's an honest to Odin stop-motion movie made with Legos. I mean I'm sure there's some digital effects in there somewhere but for the most part this looks 100% youtube certified stop-motion. That's pretty cool.

Microsoft is all ears fellas...

So this afternoon Microsoft pulled a 180 on it's post 360 Xbox DRM plans. If you want to read it go ahead, it's kinda funny in that you rarely see a big tech company cave on a big issue like this so quickly. I guess the internet wins this round?

New Anchorman 2 trailer

Anchorman is probably my second favorite Will Ferrell right behind Talledega Nights. Oh some people will try and tell you Old School is his best movie but those people are wrong. Or drunk. Or drunk and wrong.

So here's the trailer for Anchorman 2. It looks pretty fantastic, Cable News from the 80s is probably just as ripe for parody as Network News from the 70s was. I'm not super excited for female Brick, but accidental racist Ron Burgundy in reverse Guess Who's Coming to Dinner looks like comedy gold.

Vanilla Ice selfie with ICP in the background

no context needed.

Disney Infinity = A Poor Kevin

Here's the big E3 trailer for Disney's latest scheme to fleece parents, Disney Infinity! I'll be honest, it looks pretty good. I know my son likes it because he watched it seven (SEVEN!) times last night. By the seventh time he was saying all the toys lines with them.

Like I said, it looks like a pretty cool game, right? Well it's not just a game it's a whole freaking toy system. I don't know if you're familiar with Skylanders but if you are you know they're a license to print money. They're basically toys that you buy that unlock/interact with more levels for the Skylanders video game. Meaning you buy the game then to keep playing you have to keep buying toys. It's such a great scam I'm surprised EA didn't think of it first. Well this Disney Infinity game is going to be just like that. You buy a starter kit for $79.99 and it comes with a couple toys and then to keep unlocking levels and characters you have to keep buying more toys.

When I have to declare bankruptcy Michael Scott style, you'll now know why.

Leviathan Warships:The Jazzy Trailer

Leviathan Warships is a farly new free to play game for the PC and IOS. It's not some big giant next gen game or exclusive E3 release but that doesn't mean they had to skimp on the trailer. Is it the best video game trailer I've ever seen? Maybe not. Is it the best trailer I've ever seen about naval warships set to a smooth jazz soundtrack?

You boat your ass.

Microsoft to gamers: You don't know what you want

Ars Technica got a few minutes of Microsoft Xbox Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer Yusuf Mehdi's time and his response to some of the criticisms of the xbone are very interesting:

"We're trying to do something pretty big in terms of moving the industry forward for console gaming into the digital world. We believe the digital world is the future, and we believe digital is better."

I'll give him a pass here on the implication that blu-rays and DVDs are somehow not digital but analog. I mean I'll mention it, but I'm not going to make fun of him about it.

"We want to have our offering be differentiated relative to all others," he said. "It has value that is in so many areas that is not in competing systems. … That is a thing that each consumer will choose… and ultimately consumers will decide which is better. It's a big market"

I'll admit the article itself was interesting but it wasn't extremely quotable. Just go read it and then come back. Back? Good.

What a load of horseshit right? Pretty much everything you need to know about this guy is there when he mentions that no one goes to blockbuster anymore because of Netflix streaming. Completely ignoring the fact that Netflix still mails millions of physical DVDs and that Redbox is practically a license to print money. Is the future digital media? Sure why not? But that doesn't mean it's the present.

Lets briefly address the iTunes analogy. Yes, people love buying mp3s on iTunes... I mean not me.. but I've heard other people do. Here's the great thing about digital distribution that he seems to gloss right over. Let's say I buy 3 books, a couple albums and the newest issue of X-men on my kindle. Then I decide to go up to Loren's cabin where it's always 1963 and the internet still doesn't exist. I can still watch my movies and read my books, pretty much till the end of time, or until my son throws the kindle in the lake. Same with my phone or my mp3 player. Yes it's digital and just a bunch of ones and zeroes but I own that copy of whatever that media is. There's no requirement for me to check in with the Amazon servers to make sure my device hasn't been jailbroken of that I'm still drinking my Slurm like a good boy.

Even in the world of video games there's a big subset of gamers that are already used to the idea of "digital" distribution. They're called Steam users and they understand that when they buy a game that's it. There's no trading it to a friend or selling it for 1/10 it's value at Gamestop but they don't have to worry about their internet connection or Valve's servers going down. If they want to play offline they can.

If you want to know which way the wind is blowing on the subject of DRM and Xbox One, it's pretty telling that EA had to issue a press release this morning denying that they asked Microsoft to help eliminate the used game market.

Of course the funny thing here is this new DRM friendly machine might end up killing the PS4 not in spite of DRM but because of it. If you're EA or Activision who would you rather develop for? The company that puts out youtube clips showing how easy it is to give your games to your friends or the company that put a lockdown on that shiz? Poor developer support is what killed the Dreamcast and that machine was the bomb diggity. Who's to say it couldn't happen again with the PS4?

The Division

This new game from Tom Clancy, The Division, looks really cool. Maybe not two months worth of missed car payments for a new console cool but so far nothing I've seen at E3 has been that cool.

I was really impressed with how original it looked for a game that on paper doesn't seem original at all, a military style squad based shooter. I think it's the snazy map overlays, the menus and what looks like a smooth as butter 3rd person viewpoint. I haven't played a Tom Clancy game in probably a decade but The Division definitely seems like one to keep an eye on.

How to share a game on the PS4

Wow.. look at the big balls on Sony.

PS4 to Xbox: "you just got played out"

On the Price is Right showcase showdown you never want to go first, apparently that same strategy holds true at E3. Microsoft made hay earlier this morning with some extra details and game exclusives on the Xbone but late in the evening Sony stole the show by kneecapping Microsoft at every corner.

The PS4 is going to be $100 cheaper, it's going to allow used games and its not going to require an internet connection. To be fair there's a lot more going on with these consoles than price point and DRM but those are two very big issues. Sometime later this week I'll try and do a comparison of the two consoles (or maybe just link to one) but it's not looking good for Microsoft. All things being equal I would say that gamers would gravitate towards the console with the best games. Microsoft clearly won the day on games but Sony definitely did its best to show that the two consoles were not going to be equal.


Oh yeah, mini rant here for Battlefield 4 premiering it's new exclusive to Xbox live DLC pack 5 months BEFORE THE GAME IS EVEN OUT! Pretty soon all press conferences will be for DLC packs and people will be like "when is the game coming out" and they'll be like "shut up and just buy the DLC!".

Destiny E3 Trailer

One of the more anticipated games of E3 made it's "gameplay" debut during the PS4 show (more on that later). I still looks like a shameless ripoff of Halo but it looks like a good shameless rip off of Halo.

I thought that seeing some gameplay would answer a few questions about what the game was going to be like but it didn't really. Is this a straight linear FPS? Is it an open world FPS with RPG elements like Borderlands? Maybe it's just Call of Duty in space, I don't think anyone really knows right now. Still it looks pretty cool. Just the thing for all those defecting Xboxers looking for a Halo substitute?

Seattle Public Library decimates the Book Domino Chain World Record

I have no idea what the Book Domino Chain World Record was before the Seattle Public Library decided to make it its bitch but I'm sure it wasn't anywhere near as impressive. It probably was just someone knocking over all the Harry Potter books. Stupid Snape, why couldn't you just tell Harry how much you loved his mother?

Xbone be trolling

Clearly Microsoft has been watching too many Haters Gonna Hate gifs. At this point they're almost daring people not to buy the Xbox One. I like it. A week or so ago I linked to an article that said Microsoft blew it by being so vague. The idea being that no news is almost worse than bad news. Well someone at Microsoft must have been listening because here came the bad news.

The console must connect to the internet once every 24 hours in order for you to play games. For many people, from military personnel to students, that's an inconvenience, maybe even an impossibility. Never mind what happens to everybody's console if Microsoft's servers ever come down.

The Xbox One will allow the sale of used games, at "participating retailers", but only if the publisher allows it. Publishers being the very people opposed most fiercely to used video game sales.

There are restrictions on how you can "give" and "loan" your games away. What's more, lending won't be available at launch, with Microsoft still "exploring the possibilities with our partners".

via kotaku

Ok, none of that is really that game shattering. It's just confirmation on what most people have been speculating. They also added that the Kinnect will have some sort of off switch (whether that's a mechanical switch is unknown) and that you will be able to add up to 10 people to your Xbox live family and share content between them. As long as those 10 people don't have to buy xbox live gold subscriptions that's pretty good news. It means you won't have to buy multiple copies of music or videos or games for each member of the family. Unless of course you have like 12 kids, but if you have 12 kids you probably believe the devil lives inside every gaming console and it's kind of a moot point.

Again I think this is good for Microsoft. Get the bad news out of the way and go try and dazzle people with new games at E3. I'm not gonna lie, console lan parties are awesome but I think I've only done it maybe 4 times with my 360. The 24 hour thing won't make or break my console decision, neither will the used game nonsense. I buy around 3-4 games a year. In fact the more that I talk about it the less likely I think I am to buy a new console at all. If I want to game I'll probably just do it on the PC. It'll be at least 4 or 5 more years until Logan starts asking for the same console all his friends have. There you go Microsoft. If you want my cash you better start working on my 3 year old. He makes all the decisions now.

The To Do List

Hey kids, remember the 90s? No? Well you didn't miss much. Kurt Cobain shot himself in the face and Michael Jordan won a bunch of NBA titles. That was pretty much it. Of course that doesn't mean that there's this giant wave of nostalgia for the decade that brought us the Gin Blossomss, or was it the Goo Goo Dolls? Anyhoo, here's a trailer for a movie staring Aubrey Plaza called The To Do List about a high school senior from 1993 that wants to have a bunch of sex... which is complete FICTION!

And as long as we're turning the dial on the wayback machine, here's NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams spitting some old school Snoop.

Earth's Weirdest Links

The World's most Bizarre Aircraft Graveyards. Maybe it's because I watched Can't Buy Me Love too much as a kid but I LOVE aircraft graveyards. At least I love the idea of them. I've never actually been to one or anything. I don't know why, I've spent tons of time in Arizona. Grandma and Grandpa couldn't have skipped one antique store?

The Last Sports Stars of Video Games' Cartridge Era. Boy this hits way too close to home. I never had a NES growing up so when I did finally save up cash for a SNES I played it nonstop for like 3 years. I put so much time into NBA Live 95 and NHL 95 if I close my eyes I can hear the soundtracks and see the rosters. The idea that most of those guys are retired makes me a tad wistful.

5 Scary Myths You Probably Believe about the Economy. Maybe you believe these myths about the economy, but I didn't. I spent like 3 years in community college so I'm what you would call an educated voter. Seriously though, this is pretty good article for a comedy website. They gloss over a few facts and details but the overall theme of the article is there. Don't even get me started with gas prices.

Earth's Weirdest Landscapes. I've said it before but damn nature, you scary. That pink lake in Australia is horrifying.

How Iron Man 3 should have ended

Here's how Iron Man 3 should have ended... I guess. Honestly I don't remember a thing about this but I put it in my queue last week so I might as well post it.

I liked Iron Man 3 but I understand a lot of my nerdy google+ circle didn't. I get that, it's not really a traditional superhero movie as much as it is a good old fashioned 1980s summer action flick. It just so happens that I LOVE 1980s summer action flicks. Maybe someone could get Shane Black to work on a Heroes for Hire movie, that would be the bees knees.

Kick-Ass 2: The International Trailer 2

This new trailer for Kick Ass 2 has subtitles so you know it's gonna be classy. At least as classy as a movie with the word Ass in the title can get.

I've mentioned this here before but I feel like Kick-Ass was the rare comic to movie adaption that actually improved tremendously on the source material. I guess there's something about a 12 year old girl on a swearing and killing spree that works better on the big screen.