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Sunday, October 29

Tiki Bar TV Sunday Mixer #12

They startle the Mountain Fish who kicks up a right fuss.

This week's episode: Volcano
This week's drink: Volcano



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Wednesday, October 25

Website Wednesday #3
Download-Tv-Now

This week's webiste is quite a gem, and frankly I'm surprised it is still online.

Download-Tv-Now is a compiled list of episodes that are hosted at Dailymotion.com.

Download-Tv-Now offers good quality streaming flash videos of your favorite shows. Not just some of the episodes either. It offers every single episode ever aired. Just select your show, select your season, select your episode and hit play. A new browser window opens, and the video fills it. Then just hit play. It's that simple.

This site stays up to date as well. It has the latest episode of The Office already online.

The only problem I've run into so far is with the latest seasons of Family Guy. They've been removed due to said content transgressing their policy. Perhaps Dailymotion dropped them for some reason. idk.

Here's a full list of shows offered at DTN...
The Simpsons
American Dad
Family Guy
Futurama
South Park
Lost
King of the Hill
My Name Is Earl
The Office (US)
Scrubs
Prison Break
They are constantly adding new shows as well.

So, if you're bored at the office and want to catch up on some episodes of The Simpsons or Lost that you missed head on over to Download-Tv-Now and get to watchin'.
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He Was A Dragonman!

TROGDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!

Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system. I discovered some pretty exciting news today concerning a much anticipated game title here at E204, Guitar Hero II. Guitar Hero II will have Trogdor The Burninator as an unlockable song. Don't believe me? Then check out the screen shot below.


Trogdor The Burninator was featured on episode "Dragon" of Strong Bad's E-mails, found at Homestarrunner, in which Strong Bad teaches Kaizer how to draw a dragon. If you haven't seen it...

More...
Trogdor burninates his way into Guitar Hero II's bonus tracks @ Destructoid
Guitar Hero
Homestarruner
Strong Bad E-mails
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Tuesday, October 24

Lynchnation

Liam "Whatever" Lynch has teamed up with Alex "Diggnation" Albrecht for a music video about crap, drinking, podcasts, and... bison? This music video for "When We Sing" was featured in episode #6 of Liam Lynch's podcast, Lynchland, and was mentioned on Diggnation #41.

When We Sing




More...
Liam Lynch.net
Diggnation @ Revision3
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A Hand Drawn Wiivolution

Here's a hand drawn animated commercial for the Wii. This video was for a contest to win a Wii. I don't know who made this, but I do know that the featured song is.... (brace yourself) Revolution by Jars of Clay *twitter*

It's drawn entirely on lined notebook paper, and took close to 80 hours to complete after editing. Enjoy!





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A Hand Drawn Revolution (official site)
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I Am Stamos Hear Me Roar

An up-and-coming short film has caught the attention of many a film festival. Allow me to regurgitate the synopsis of said film, and then you can crap yourself with excitement.
"When character actor Andy Shrub makes a wish to be a leading man, he magically begins to photograph as John Stamos ... provoking the unholy wrath of Stamos. (18 mins)"
Unholy wrath of Stamos? You read correctly. Now grab a seat, sit down, buckle up, strap in, hold on, sit back, sit on the edge of your seat, hunker down, cozy up, settle down, jump and jive, listen carefully, assume the position, and get ready for the airplane that is...

I AM STAMOS


More...
I Am Stamos (official site)
I Am Stamos @ blip.tv (downloads available here)
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Sunday, October 22

Tiki Bar TV Sunday Mixer #11

That monkey is a slut!

This week's episode: Drinkbot
This week's drink: Love in the South Pacific




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Thursday, October 19

Lights Action Simpsons

Film Threat posted this video of one of the two The Simpsons movie animatics shown at the San Diego Comic Con this year. This one involves a mob after Homer.





More...
The Simpsons movie animatic .mov download (right click and save)
Film Threat
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Caffeinated Death

Hey there X-tremist! Are you doing the Dew with a wide-mouth slam can? How many is that for you this hour? 18? Wow, you really are out of control. Keep it up and you'll die.

Wanna know just how many Dingus Dews it'll take to kill you, or any caffienated beverage for that matter? Then head on over to Energy Fiend, pick your poison, enter in your weight and click the "kill me" button.

It'll take 241.98 cans of Mountain Dew to do me in. 166.36 cans of Red Bull will send me to the caffiene coffin.

How much caffienated goodness will kill you?
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Wednesday, October 18

Now You're Playing... With Power!

Twenty years ago today, Nintendo came onto the scene to popularize home video game consoles.

The home console market was on a downward spiral and copyright infringement was causing Atari, to hire Nintendo of America to "take care of" Donkey Kong rights that Coleco had stepped on, in exchange for distributing their Famicon system. Nintendo of America stepped out of dealings with Atari, and after many revisions, mainly cosmetic in order to make it more appealing to kids, the Famicon system was ready to be introduced the world as the Nintendo Entertainment System.

During the christmas season of 1986, Nintendo of America, offered toystores in New York with an unprecedented offer. In exhange for shelf space in their stores NOA offered to buy back any units that didn't sell. The toystores agreed, and one manager was even quoted saying, "It's your funeral." To everyone's surpise the console sold, and sold, and sold. By the end of the christmas season NOA tallied 90,000+ units sold, and toystores were calling in with requests for more.

That, my children, is how Nintendo (in America) was born. *wipes a tear*

More...
Nintendo Entertainment System 20th Anniversary @ ClassicGaming
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Website Wednesday #2
MySpleen



MySpleen is a .torrent site.... (wait for it) The best .torrent site out there!!! (there it is) Why? Why is MySpleen the best torrent site out there when BTJunkie quite obviously has more seeders and files than any.torrent sit around? Well, it all comes down to content. MySpleen offers what many sites don't have, rare shows from Comedy Central, MTV, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and older comedic shows such as Get A Life, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, and old cartoons such as The Pirates of Dark Water. This is strictly a video/audio .torrent site, but it's filled with all the tv shows you could ever want.

When I came across this site my heart skipped a beat. It has all of the current [adult swim] shows that I track, and they are up faster than anywhere else, plus it's filled with all of the old shows of my past that you just can't find anywhere. I.E. Parker Lewis Can't Lose. Does anyone else remember this show? It's like Scrubs meets Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Oh man, I feel this post has gone awry and I'm just gushing about the site. Hell, fuck it! Yeah, I'm gushing, becuase it's awesome. I'm tired, and I'm hungry and I just want everyone to check out MySpleen. MySpleen also boasts a community of 50,000+ strong. A community that actually leaves feedback. If you want to start downloading then you have to register, but don't worry it is free. Also, once you're registered send me a message. My MySpleen username is 3kalb.

MySpleen also keeps stats under their Top 10 category. You can check out the Top 10 sharing users, or the Top 10 popular .torrents at the time, or even check out the Top 10 countries with registered users to the site.

Go now, and register with MySpleen and check out Parker Lewis Can't Lose, or the short-lived hilarity of Matt Stone & Trey Parker's That's My Bush.

What rarities have you found on MySpleen?

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MySpleen
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WoW. Just WoW.

This could be the end of the World.... of Warcraft. N'ah, I'm just shittin' with ya. I've got a few things to say about WoW though. One, did anyone see South Park a couple weeks ago? If not you missed one of the greatest montages ever. Oh man, you should have seen it. Wait, I'll just show to it you.



Yeah. Matt Stone & Trey Parker are the montage masters. *bows before them* I also think that their musical talents have come a long way since the first South Park aired.

In other World of Warcraft news "Andy" makes a guest blog @ Soul Kerfuffle explaining to the world how WoW can and did destroy his life, and how it can happen to you. This is a very personal tale, and a very touching story. "Andy" really does a great job of showing those of us who don't play what it is like, socially, inside the game.


More...
World of Warcraft wiki
South Park wiki
Soul Kerfuffle
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Tuesday, October 17

Rockahero Guitar

It's time to rock.


Now, if anyone has talked to me since last christmas you'll know that I've become utterly addicted to Guitar Hero. My rockalicious brother bought the game for me for christmas, and I've been playing it ever since. I was quite surprised that he got it because the game flew off the shelves, and 2nd shipments didn't appear until a month or two later after launch. Gabe and I spent practically every night for 3 months drinking and playing Guitar Hero till at least 3 in the morning if not longer. There were also breaks for The Office in there if I remember correctly.

Last night I got the demo for Guitar Hero 2, that was included with the latest issue of OPM, and spent most of last night rocking out to it. Then I got to thinking, "Blake." "Yeah?" "You should make a Guitar Hero post... A big one." "Ehhhh... but I'm so lazy.... so very lazy." "Off your dump, sir and do this now." "Eeeesh, fine."

So, here I am. This post is going to include some nuggets of info about the up and coming Guitar Hero 2, and an old unabridged review I wrote for Guitar Hero many many months ago, and a bit about the constantly growing Guitar Hero community. So, first things first I'm going to transcribe this chicken scratch I call my writing and post the Guitar Hero review..... 3...2...1...ROCK!

Guitar Hero
Developer: Harmonix Publisher: Red Octane

Time to rock out with your Guitar Hero SG Controller out. Guitar Hero is the next game in Harmonix's line of music/rhythm games. Guitar Hero , like Othello, is easy to learn and may take a lifetime to master. Na'ah, I'm just shittin' with ya, but if you've never played guitar before there is a bit of a learning curve. Hoever, aftera little practice and some determination you'll be expereincing more than a feeling from this Harmonix title.

Before we get to the game I must discuss the heart & soul of this experience, the SG Guitar Controller. The controller is, simpy put, a little guitar. No joke. It's modelled after the Gibson SG series of guitars, hence the name. It features five freat buttons at the top of th eneck, a strum bar (that works borth up and down), a functional whammy bar (for bending thos long notes), and start & select buttons, cleverly disguised as volume knobs. So essentially it's a one string guitar with five frets and a whammy bar. The greatest and funnest feature of this controller is one you can't see. A tilt sensor resides inside the guitar. The tilt sensor is used for cranking the guitar vertically (i.e. rocking out) to activate Star Power that you gather from playing strings of notes perfectly.


The game is fairly simple to anyone who has played any rhythm game in the past. (Parappa the Rapper, Gitaroo Man, Amplitude) There's a never-ending, oncoming, on-screen fret board in the middle of the screen, with your selected rocker putting on a show for a venue in the background. On the fretboard, color coded fret buttons that coincide with their placement on the neck constantly descend towards the bottom of the screen like so many aliens in Space Invaders. When the notes reach the bottom of the fretboard, where your virtual fret buttons are, just hold down the coinciding fret button and strum the strum bar. Easy enough. However, as the game progresses the notes come faster, chords become prevelaint, and the use of hammer-ons and pull-offs will determine whether can shred or just suck.

The game uses a whole slew of songs too. Songs ranging from Hendrix, Blue Oyster Cult, Boston, to Franz Ferdinand, Queens of the Stone Age, and The Ramones. There is quite literally a song for everyone in the game.

They've added a list of unlockables too. Money earned from melting faces at shows can be spent on new guitars (Gibsons of course) with your choice of guitar skins so your guitar hero can rock out with that Flying V or the massive 12-stringer. Making-of videos are also available for sale, along with 2 hidden characters, and a slew of songs by unsigned bands. Other than the songs, the unlockables don't really add anything to the game, because while unlockables may add to the driving force to keep playing, the real driving force in this game, and any game for that matter, is how fun it is. Simplicity of controllers also helps, and this game is all over that.

Guitar Hero makes you feel like just that. The better you perform the louder and rowdier the crowd gets. The venues will literally start rocking out. Water heaters start bopping back & forth to your shredding, large fans spin faster to your hot licks, and chandaliers will swing back & forth to your cool rhythm. However, the game isn't one to let you off easy if you screw up. For every wrong note you hit the game assaults your ears with a variety of midget clown horns as wrong notes, and the crowd will immediately stop chanting your name. Now you may think this would add a lot of pressure to perform better, but it comes off as just a slap on the wrist. The game's negative reinforcement for missing a note is surpassed by it's positive reinforcement for playing well.

However, like almost every game, Guitar Hero is not without its faults. Fortunately, the list is short, and more are wishes and aspirations of features that should have been featured in the game as opposed to cracks in the final build.

The only problem I have with Guitar Hero (and it's not even a big one) is the steep curve between difficulty settings. In Easy the notes move at a moderate speed, but for every song you only use the top three fret buttons. In Normal the notes move the same speed, but now four fret buttons are used. In Hard the notes move faster and now you use all five fret buttons. In Expert the notes move just as fast as they do as in Hard but now chord switches, hammer-ons, and pull-offs are required techniques to have at your disposal to pass songs.

My problem is that you play the whole game using three fret buttons in Easy. Now you move onto Medium and they integrate a new button that you're just expected to know. I would have liked to have seen the subtle incorporation of buttons and techniques that are mandatory for the next difficulty setting in the latter songs of the difficulty setting below it.

Suggestions to Harmonix:
After getting into the groove of the game you'll immediately start wishing you could combine Guitar Hero with Karaoke Revolution for a full blown party sensation. Let's not stop there though. Why not a Keyboard Hero or Drum Hero. Why isn't there a bass option for a 2 player co-op mode. Why not a full blown Virtual Band, huh? Record songs and put them online or even play online with other people.

I would like to see this on the Xbox. I want the game to include a level editor/maker. One that allows the player to import a song of their choice, and after choosing a difficulty setting as guidelines for editing the song (i.e. scroll speed, how many fret buttons are required to be used), allow the player to go through and place buttons on the fretboard. Then allow them to save their songs and levels and play them, even share them online with other players. That kind of modding community would keep the game alive for years to come.

One more thing, here's a list of all of the songs on Guitar Hero.

1. Opening Licks

2. Axe-Grinders

3. Thrash And Burn

4. Return of the Shred

5. Fret-Burners

6. Face-Melters

Bonus Tracks


That was it. That was my review for Guitar Hero. After reading over that I realize that my "beef" with the game is just me being over-critical and nitpicky, but hell someone has to right. I went into over-critical mode. I personally can deal, but it is a little improvement that could add to the game.

Now on to the Guitar Hero 2...

This game is scheduled for a release on November 7th. There is already a lot of buzz about this game so if you want a copy I highly suggest pre-ordering now. Guitar Hero 2 has answered the prayers of many a guitar hero, a new co-op mode that allows the users to choose from lead, rhythm, or bass parts to the songs. That is the biggest appeal and improvement that fans are anticipating in the sequel.

Unfortunately the demo I picked up doesn't include a multiplayer mode, but after playing the demo I will say this, it will rock. I had one quip with it though. The fretboard now turns black and shakes slightly if you screw up a note. The intensity of this changes depending on how far along you on a string of notes. It's immediately noticable, and a bit jarring. However, after a bit of playing you acclimate and don't notice it. I can tell that is added so the player can get a sense of just how far along they were on a string of notes when they screwed up without having to look away from the action of the game.

I've also read that Guitar Hero 2 will be making it to next-gen consoles, all three of them. Xbox 360 already has mock-ups of their design for the wireless controller.


One more thing, here's a track list of all of the songs in Guitar Hero 2.

1. Opening Licks

2. Amp-Warmers

3. String-Snappers

4. Thrash and Burn

5. Return of the Shred

6. Relentless Riffs

7. Furious Fretwork

8. Face-Melters

Bonus Tracks


That's the news about Guitar Hero 2. Now let us move along to the GH community that has gathered quite a following online. There are two websites out there that really show how many rabid fans of GH there are, Score Hero and Freetar Hero.

Score Hero is an online leaderboard for Guitar Hero. Players can register for free, and then after completing each song upload their results and compare how they are doing with people around the world. Freetar Hero is a program in development for the pc. It allows players import .mp3s and then create a Guitar Hero level out of them, and even share them online with other freetar heroes. So far the only problem seems to be that you have to have the exact same .mp3 that was used to create the level or else all the timing will be off.

These two communites that boast over 4000 members show that Guitar Hero is a smash hit, and will continue to rock out for quite some time.

What are you still doing here? Go get r4wk1n!

More...
Harmonix
Red Octane
Guitar Hero @ wikipedia
Guitar Hero 2 @ wikipedia
Score Hero
Freetar Hero
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