The Ziggurat of Doom

Bags and Boards: “Iron” a precious metal for Marvel If you were curious about the end of the Iron Man movie, be curious no more.

ManBabies.com - DAD?

13 Year Old Steals Dad’s Credit Card to Buy Hookers

A 13 year old from Texas who stole his Dad’s credit card and ordered two hookers from an escort agency, has today been convicted of fraud and given a three year community order.

So, all of you are wrong. I just thought you would like to know that.

For one thing, Speed Racer the movie did *NOT* suck, but was instead awesome, and not even awesome in the awesome-bad-like-Space-Mutiny sense.

Read the review under the cut.

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was actually not bad.

My quick review: http://www.subversion.onceuponaninternet.com/2008/05/10/hes-a-demon-on-wheels/

I forgot to mention there that for some reason in the middle of the movie, about six gallons of water poured out of the theater ceiling over on one side. That…was pretty weird.

“Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” will feature Neil Patrick Harris alongside Nathan Fillion in Joss Whedon’s latest creation, which, if I understand the rumors correctly, is a serial musical about a would-be supervillain, expected to be webcast some time this year.

Because this thankfully never happened, I present the second in a series, now with 100% more Filipino.

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“The assembly was finished much faster than we expected, and by noon we were doing science,” Sounds like a transcription error. I think he probably said “…by noon we were doing Science!”

Quickies: Intelligent Sticky Notes

A newly-written Quickie is a simple Post-it note, which is scribed on a sensitive pad that allows the computer to capture and store the written information. This is done using commercially available digital-pen hardware, which translates the movement of the pen on the surface of the paper sticky note into digital information. The data can be viewed at any time through the Quickie software, which stores the sticky notes as images and converts the hand-written notes into computer-understandable text using available handwriting recognition algorithms.

The Quickie application not only allows users to browse their notes, but also lets users search for specific information or keywords. Using a freely available commonsense knowledge engine and computational AI techniques, the software processes the written text and determines the relevant context of the notes, categorizing them appropriately. “The system uses its understanding of the user’s intentions, content, and the context of the notes to provide the user with reminders, alerts, messages, and just-in-time information” – said the inventors. Additionally, each Quickie carries a unique RFID tag, so that it can be easily located around the house or office. Therefore, users can be sure never to lose a bookmarked book or any other object marked with a Quickie.

There’s no reason this has to be a sticky note. I can think of a few form factors that might work better, like a staple or paper clip, for example.

Magic trick costs teacher job - Tampa Bays Local News

Land ‘O Lakes, Florida — The stories in the news about inappropriate relationships between teachers and students have been overwhelming. There was even a substitute teacher in New Port Richey who got in trouble after investigators say she had a relationship with an underage student.

Well, another Pasco County substitute teacher’s job is on the line, but this time it’s because of a magic trick.

The charge from the school district — Wizardry!

I cannot think of anything to say here. Just watch.

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UK Office of Government Commerce cracks one off | The Register

Iron Man. Action/superhero movie. Gadget porn. Best watched with a bunch of engineers.

Pretty fun movie, and they could not possibly have cast Tony Stark better. He’s the arrogant, alcoholic womanizer that Robert Downey Jr. was born to play. The suit, of course, looks fantastic.

Really, the movie is a demonstration of two basic principles of sci-fi physics: “A reaction drive is a weapon in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive” and “anything will fly if you give it enough thrust”.

Do you like Girl Genius?

If you do, and you are not doing so already, I’d suggest you also read Buck Godot, which bares absolutely no similarity to Girl Genius, except for the following:

1. It’s done by the Foglios.
2. It’s really good.

Buck Godot is a lot more episodic than Girl Genius. Less of a giant ongoing conspiracy; more many tiny conspiracies. Also lots of aliens.

At this point, I think these people are basically the best Implicitly Built Universe writers I’ve ever seen.

Slightly late very short review: Super Smash Bros. Brawl is like SSB Melee. except with more stages, more characters, and more items. No more wavedashing, but I’m sure some equally finicky technique will replace it. Random tripping is annoying as hell, and if I ever find the developer who put that in, I’ll slap them. Most of the new stages are fun, most of the new items are pointless, but at least you can turn off exploding capsules now. It has more single-player modes (including a slightly entertaining but mostly annoying side-platformer mode; SSBB was never meant to be a platformer). Some things were taken out for no apparent reason - I particularly miss the different bonuses you could accrue in Melee for doing things like winning without items, but whatever. Also, the online play is balls, and you should probably just forget about it. You now know everything you need to know about Brawl.

Of the good: The Soul Calibur release for XBLA will be HD. Of the supremely stupid and bad: It will not have online multiplayer. C’mon, Namco, it’s the Century of the Fruitbat. Get with it.

My guess? Cheap shot to try to get people to buy SC4 for that feature. About which game I am reserving judgment. We shall see, Namco. We shall see.

Apparently some game about killing people and stealing cars is out this week. If it turns out it’s substantially more entertaining than the last several, someone let me know. Said entertainment must last for more than about 30 minutes if I’m going to shell out dollars for it.

Not to be all “Death of PC Gaming” - but what the hell’s coming out for the PC this year that I should look forward to? Someone toss me a bone here.

And that’s all the random video game thoughts I have for today. Or at least, for now.

After daring escape, monkeys on the lam

Their keepers never thought the patases would brave the dark waters of an 8-foot-deep, 60-foot-wide moat around their 1-acre island preserve north of Lakeland. But they did. Every last one of them went into the drink and over a wall.
[…]
The moat might work for captive-born monkeys, Wilson said, but wild ones don’t see water as a danger.

“They have their wild instincts intact,” Wilson said. “It probably never occurred to them not to swim out.”

Easy: You Have to Burn the Rope

Hard: The World’s Hardest Game

“Enter the Cracker”
“What These People Need is a Honkie. Wait, This Kid Sucks; Go Find Jackie Chan and Jet Li”
“Retirement Age Kung Fu Movie Stars Teach Pathetic Nerd Kid Flying Testicles Technique”
“Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Some White Kid Write a New Prologue to Journey to the West”

So this movie was pretty good actually, but every time the kid and the Sparrow girl made googly eyes at each other, all I could think of was Yellow Fever (i.e. “Your arms are sooo hairy”)

Soul Calibur coming to XBLA.

Nice. XBLA seems to be picking up a lot of DC ports lately, which I’m totally okay with. My wishlist: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 HD, Jet Grind Radio, and Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram. With dual analog controls as god intended.

So, Arcana Heart.

• System: Playstation 2
• Publisher: Atlas
• Genre: 2D Fighter

You will now learn everything you need to know about Arcana Heart: One, all of the characters are female, and moreso, represent various, often extremely specific moe fetish archetypes. Two, it plays a lot like Guilty Gear.
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