NerdCentral

Soul Caliber IV Trailer

Chronodin — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 02:49:00 +0000

The game is definitely looking impressive:

And with Yoda and Darth Vader, I'm about as giddy as a little girl for this game. The end also got me thinking... about how perfect the Darth Vader breathing sound is for the end of a trailer like that, and about how pretty much NO other single sound can carry with it the meaning and the weight that that one does.

Could Darth Vader be THE greatest villain of all time? I submit that he might.

And if you don't believe me, search your feelings. You know it to be true.

-Chronodin

Final Fantasy IV DS news

Chronodin — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:53:00 +0000

I've been searching around for any information about the Final Fantasy IV remake for the DS coming to North America for a while now, without much luck. Finally, the May issue of Nintendo Power sheds some light on the subject, showing English screenshots which pretty much guarantee its localization. It's been reported as well that, more specifically, the release date is July '08.

And if that's not enough, there is also an interview with the game's director, who says that if the demand is there, he'd like to see a Chrono Trigger remake.

Are you kidding me?

Just try googling Chrono Trigger remake -- see what comes up, then tell me if there's demand. Sweet mother of Robo, what I wouldn't give for a Chrono Trigger remake.

If there's demand... psshhhh.

-Chronodin

Baby who can read at 17 months

Chronodin — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 21:01:00 +0000

I gotta say, I'm very impressed at this little year-and-a-half old girl. 17 months old, and sounds like 17 months, but she can read many words that are put in front of her. It's just amazing.

-Chronodin

Punch, punch, Falcon punch!

Chronodin — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:35:00 +0000

Great, this is gonna be stuck in my head for DAYS...

-Chronodin

Big Dog

Chronodin — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 21:03:00 +0000

This is a little bit creepy, but pretty neat anyway. A quadrupedal robot that can actually, you know, walk.

AT-AT's, anyone?

-Chronodin

Absense and Overhaul

Chronodin — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:04:00 +0000

Hey all, I know I've been absent. I'd like to blame that all on Lost Odyssey, but the truth is, I've only been playing that the past few days. No, there are a few other sources for my distraction prior to that.

Not to say that I haven't been thinking about NerdCentral! I have, and I have things planned. How many will come to fruition, I don't know. First and foremost, I feel the site needs a complete overhaul. New site design, somewhat different focus, but more importantly, a new name. That's where you all come in.

If you have any suggestions for a new name for NerdCentral... something that still conveys the tech/video game focus of the site, but isn't quite so embarrassing when you tell relatives the name of your website. Also, something for which the .com address is available would be nice (feel free to check when thinking of ideas). I'm tossing around a few ideas, but I'll wait to hear what any of you suggest (IF any of you suggest anything... ahem!) before throwing some of my own ideas out there.

I'm only a little bit into Lost Odyssey, so it may be a bit early even for first impressions... well, I can give you the short version thus far, which is that I'm really enjoying it. Battle system is fun, if you like JRPGs, despite what many reviews said -- but a lot of those reviewers really enjoy those action RPGs which I tend to suck at, so that could be part of it -- storyline is interesting so far, and the music is some of Uematsu's best work in a long time. I'll go more into detail in a later post.

Other first impressions/reviews to tide you until then:

Halo 3 -- By now, you probably know if you love it or hate it. I picked it up, haven't played as much as I'd like, but I like it so far. Seems to be more cinematic than previous iterations, which is good in my book.
Super Smash Bros. Brawl -- If you liked any other Smash Bros. games, you'll love this one. If not, then you won't. But it delivers what it promises, which is a LOT more Smash Bros. Subspace Emissary is deeper than I expected, and almost feels like a standalone game, which is good.
Mass Effect -- Just awesome overall. Don't listen to the haters, just get this game. Period.

-Chronodin

Champions Online debut trailer

Chronodin — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:28:00 +0000

Ok, me want this now.

It's very early, certainly, but it looks promising and I'm hoping that it can capitalize on some of City of Heroes' faults, or at least the ones that caused me to quit playing it -- namely, how repetitive it gets, the fact that it's pretty much a necessity for you to be on a team to actually accomplish anything, and the fact that for all the freedom it gives you, you're still fairly limited in other aspects. I dunno, I guess I wanted more action in a game about superheroes.

-Chronodin

A Nintendo DS, a PSP and an iPhone walk into a bar...

Chronodin — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 01:31:00 +0000

Well, ok, maybe not... and I'm not even sure if that's a PSP or not, it's hard to tell, but this is really cool either way.

-Chronodin

New Machinae Supremacy music

Chronodin — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:53:00 +0000

And the new album, it seems, was released! Got mine ordered already, of course.

It's available on some torrent websites already, too, but I just can't bring myself to download it. Waiting for the real thing to come in.

-Chronodin

New Indiana Jones trailer!

Chronodin — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 21:49:00 +0000

There are no words to show how excited I am. The only thing that could make me happier is information about one of the new Star Wars TV shows. I think I would just die.

OH CRAP

*thud*

-Chronodin

My nerdery, on the other hand, is apparent

Chronodin — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 19:54:00 +0000

And I'll prove it! Behold -- uh... what appears to be a fan-made Smash Bros.-ish game with all the characters we've been wanting in Smash Bros.!

I believe it is made with Mugen, which is a do-it-yourself fighting game engine, but the game still looks pretty sweet. I hope they continue work on it... if they release a demo, or anything of the sorts, I'll send word along.

And to go along with that, I present the 6 cutest animals that can destroy you.

And they'll do it, too.

-Chronodin

At last, I can tie my sports posting to nerds!

Tank — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:13:00 +0000

So, amongst my past, rare postings is one referencing Fire Joe Morgan, a sports-commentary-commentary website.

Well, the nerdery has now come around. The authors of this website recently revealed themselves, and they are all television writers. One of them is named Michael Schur, whom you may know better as
MOSE SCHRUTE!!!!!

At last, a hero to thousands is also a hero to millions! All hail Mose!

More uses for Legos

Chronodin — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:48:00 +0000

I think Rick put it best when he said that, "Someone spent entirely too much work on that, but it's wicked neat." So true.

There are others like this on YouTube, if, you know, you really wanna see more Mario levels in Legos.

-Chronodin

Sprout and... stuff

Chronodin — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 04:14:00 +0000

Sprout is an interesting little game that shouldn't take too much time for you to get through... it's not super hard like some other similar games I've seen, but it does take a bit of cleverness. The object, not immediately clear, is to make it from your starting position all the way to the right side of the stage, which scrolls as you make your way towards it. Your sprout can learn new abilities by observing other plants do their thing. Doesn't make much sense yet, I know, but once you try the game, you'll understand.

Also, this page contains a list and videos of 10 people with incredible abilities, and they live up to it. Like "The Brain" who (when not trying to take over the WORLD!!) can do mathematical calculations in his head the likes of which you've probably never even seen before, or the kid who can see with sonar... the only person in the world who is able to do so.

And finally... here's a page that is supposed to make navigating phone trees easier by doing the hard work for you. I haven't used it yet, but if you do, let me know if it does what it preaches.

Ok, post-finally... I give you... the evil eye!!

Quick -- watch now before ABC pulls it because it's off of America's Funniest Home Videos!

-Chronodin

Inner-nerd overload

Chronodin — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 22:16:00 +0000

As suggested by the title, my inner nerd is SCREAMING right now from a multitude (shouldn't we use that word more often?) of things going on. First of all, I got a super-awesome (another phrase that should be used more often!) ipod Touch for my birthday! It's absolutely phenominal, and though I haven't spent a ton of time with it yet, I certainly plan to!

The other is this video right here, which is a tech demo of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and explanations of the three -- yes, three -- physics engines the game utilizes. Simplest explanation I can give is that one dictates physics of objects -- such as an object's size, weight and velocity when moving -- and how they interact with other objects and the environment depending on that weight and velocity and so forth. The second is behavioral and determines how a living person or creature would react in certain situations... basically, it's a form of self-preservation, such as if you're flinging them around in the air using the Force, they might try to grab something or someone else to save themselves. The video shows that, and it looks fantastic. The third basically deals with what materials objects are made from... wood splinters like wood when it breaks, metal bends like metal, etc. If it sounds kinda boring, just watch this video and you'll be amazed at the potential this game has.

Oh yeah, and here is a jet getting struck by lightning. Enjoy!

-Chronodin

Your word means NOTHING to me!

Chronodin — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 04:23:00 +0000

Yeah, I know, just what you expected. No link dump. But hey, they're still waiting to be posted, and you'll get 'em. For real!

The culprit for this tragedy is the mischievous (that word isn't spelled like it sounds) Chrono Trigger. Yes, I've downloaded an SNES Mac emulator, as I've been spending infinitely more time on my MacBook rather than my Windows desktop, and am once again plowing through the very game that provided me with my online identity... can you guess where the rest of Chronodin comes from?

If you never got a chance to play Chrono Trigger, then you owe it to yourself to spend some time on this. It's just that good of a game, and definitely one of my top games of ALL time. Nothing else even compares, and still hasn't compared to this day. So... yeah. I've gotten into old-school mode, and nothing good can come from that.

You don't need another thorough review on a game that's been reviewed lord knows how many times before, so I won't give you one. Do a search for one if you don't believe me! In the meantime, while I play this, I'm also trying to get a Mac PSX emulator to work so that I can play another of my all-time favorite games, Xenogears. This game is right up there with Chrono Trigger... ok, I guess this one kinda compares... but they did so much RIGHT with this game. The battle system is an absolute blast (the mech battles are meh, but they're okay... the on-foot battles more than make up for it), graphics are just great for the time, music is amazing and the storyline is unbelievable. Another one you owe it to yourself to spend some time on.

Another one... on which you owe it to yourself to spend time? I hate grammer.

Grammar.

Dang it.

-Chronodin

I'm back!

Chronodin — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 16:28:00 +0000

Where'd you go, you might ask?

Unfortunately, nowhere. :/

I've been a very bad webmaster, I know. I find that I just don't have much time to do link-searching, and I almost felt guilty for posting practically non-stop videos all the time. I also find that I have a little more desire to treat the page more as a blog than simply "Hey! Here are a few links for ya!", and so, I'm going to treat it as such. Don't worry, blog posts will still be on-topic or at least entertaining. Just maybe not quite as many link dumps.

Speaking of which! I do have a handful of links that I will (I promise I promise I promise) post later on today! And from here on out, there will be more posts... whether they have links or not, or simply my take on something going on, you'll get 'em. I'm also going to encourage some other posters to post more as well, even if it is only a small post here and there or commentary on what's going on in the world of tech/of games/of politics/in general.

And as a sneak preview of the links I swear I have to post, I'll give you a teaser... that being, of course, the best Guitar Hero III review ever.

-Chronodin

CHRISTMAS STRIKES

Another Click in the Hall — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 03:34:00 +0000

By RICK CUMMINGS, Associated Priss Writer

BANGOR, MAINE - After weeks of shopping, holiday well-wishing, fighting over hot gift items such as Guitar Hero 3 and Nintendo's Wii console, and fistfights at the local mall, Christmas finally struck on December 25th - and not everyone was filled with holiday cheer.

"My son, after he opened all of his presents, started jumping around and screaming," concerned father Dick Johnson told us. "We couldn't find him some game called Rock Band. He even kicked over the tree!" he added. As it turns out, his plight was a common one.

"My daughter wanted some pet thing that you could hook up to the Internet," one mother said, who wished to remain anonymous. "She still hasn't come out of her room."

Holiday shoppers took to the extreme on Christmas Eve, combing any and every store for hot items like global positioning systems, game consoles, and even remote control helicopters. Tensions ran high amongst consumers as retail outlets sold out of stock, and even turned ugly in some cases.

"I was at a local RadioShack and noticed that they had one TomTom GPS left," consumer Phil Collins said, who clarified that he was in no way related to the famed singer. "As I was grabbing it, a woman came into the store and tried to wrestle it out of my hands!" He threw his arms into the air and added: "It was nuts!"

When asked if he won the match, he asked: "Is this going to print before or after Christmas?"

"The thing with holiday shopping is that failure to procure a wanted gift for an individual elicits a feeling of disappointment in the receiver, which is then passed on to the giver," Dr. Thomas K. Whitman, Director of the National Center for Holiday Consumerism. "It's no good to think that you're no good, so it triggers a primal instinct to fight for the gift that you need to purchase."

To a certain extent, maybe.

"I found my son a Nintendo Wii by camping out at a Target store," consumer Rob Twick told us. "He'll probably appreciate that for about a week, and then go back to being a little bastard."

-RICK CUMMINGS is a writer for the Associated Priss, based out of Bangor, Maine. You may reach him via carrier pigeon.

Merry Christmas from Nerd Central. Hopefully you got that Wii/Guitar Hero 3/DS/whatever it was you were looking for.

Hulu? Who knew?

Chronodin — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:43:00 +0000

So, I was recently accepted into the Hulu beta.

When I first heard about the service, it was tied into the whole situation with NBC pulling their shows from iTunes over negotiating differences. The way I heard it, it sounded as if Hulu was just another name for NBC starting up their own video site to compete with iTunes. Upon playing around with it, though, I discovered that it was more than just NBC shows, but rather shows from NBC, Fox, Bravo, E!, USA, Sci-Fi and a number of other studios. There is actually a pretty hefty selections of shows that, at least for the time being, you can watch from their website for free. Granted, there are advertisements, but, I reiterate, it's free.

Not only can you view episodes of a lot of current television shows (missed the latest episode of Bionic Woman? It's there... along with Heroes, Life, The Simpsons, etc.) but there are a lot of shows that are no longer on television, such as, and this was a big one for me, Firefly. Every episode. Even though I have the box set and thus it doesn't do a lot for me, I think it's fantastic that the offering is there for people who missed out on this fantastic show.

Quality is pretty good. When you view a video full screen, it's not as good as what you'd get on iTunes or, definitely, from a DVD, but it's not bad, and the tradeoff is that the shows load extremely quickly -- or they have for me so far, and my connection is not always the best.

I know so far this has sounded like an advertisement for Hulu, but I'm not getting paid, I swear! I'm also a big fan of Apple and iTunes, so I was reluctant at first because it's sort of in opposition to iTunes, but I do agree that iTunes is a bit on the expensive side, and this is, so far at least, FREE, so I was impressed. The one big thing you can't do, that I'm aware of, is download them to load onto a portable device, but beggers can't always be choosers.

I'd like to reexamine my particularly scathing review of Guitar Hero 3 that I posted a few days ago. After spending more time with it and getting more used to it, I find that certain negative aspects don't bother me as much as they originally did. The hammer-on issue is, mostly, not as much of a problem now that I'm more used to it and am no longer expecting it to be like Guitar Hero 2. Going back and playing GH2 after spending time with GH3, I realize that the hammer-ons (notice I've stopped calling them hammer-ons/pull-offs, or HOPOs for short... it's just too long and rediculous-sounding) are noticeably easier in GH3, and actually had some trouble playing them in GH2, but I find that I like them being a little easier in 3. I don't particularly enjoy getting a note wrong not because I got it wrong, but because my timing was slightly off. It might take away some of the challenge, but the game makes up for it by making the charts themselves more difficult, as I've complained about previously. The difficulty is still TOO tough in spots -- that complaint remains, as some of those spots are just not fun to play, despite the hammer-ons being easier, but I do appreciate the game more than before. Besides... Pearl Jam's "Even Flow" and An Endless Sporadic's "Impulse" are two of the most fun Guitar Hero charts I've ever played. Those two alone nearly make the game worth it.

-Chronodin

PS: The guy playing in that crappy YouTube video of Even Flow is none other than yours truly. The Impulse video is someone else, though I plan on recording this one at some point too. The latter isn't the best video in the world, but for some reason, most of the videos of this one are in hyper mode, which I think makes it a little easier, and we can't have that, can we? ;)

Guitar Hero 3 "review" and Speed Racer

Chronodin — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 05:59:00 +0000

EDIT: After writing this post and looking back over it, I do kind of go on a rant about Guitar Hero 3 for quite a long time. If you have no interest in it whatsoever, just skip to the very end for the Speed Racer part. You really don't want to miss that link.

A couple of things I wanted to talk about, as cleverly hidden by that title up there, I know, but here we go anyway.

First off, I had this review started for Guitar Hero 3, but never really got too far into it. Rather than try to type out a full, so-called "review" just for the sake of doing it -- because, after all, you probably know what Guitar Hero is by this point, and if not, there are plenty of other reviews out there that can give you that -- I'll stick to just my opinion, here, and even this might not be totally original. Were this the only Guitar Hero game with no previous GH's with which to compare, my opinion would probably be higher. As it is, though, it can't help but stand in comparison to its two predecessors. Can you discuss the significance and/or enjoyment value of Return of the Jedi while pretending A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back never happened? I think not, and if you can, then I shall immediately seek to have your nerd license revoked. Action will be taken.

But if I were, hypothetically, to review it totally isolated from GH1 and 2, I'd say the game is great. Lots of great moments, enjoyable, but tough. Alas, no game is an island, as they say -- or should, at least -- and the incredibility of Guitar Hero 2 insists on poking itself into my opinion on the third in the series. Guitar Hero 1 was good, but Guitar Hero 2 was great. An excellent song selection, great balance, tweaked controls that increased the game's playability several fold, yes, Neversoft had pretty large shoes to fill when they took over the franchise from the Harmonix team that did 1 and 2. Did they make a good Guitar Hero game?

In a word, yes.

It DOES feel like a Guitar Hero game, and a good one at that. However, just as if you tried to recreate grandma's secret recipe for green bean casserole, there are distinguishing features, some small and some large, that make it obvious that this was not the work of its original creators. I felt they made three mistakes in trying to recreate the magic, some slightly contradictory, but extant nonetheless.

1) They didn't change enough. Granted, GH2 looked almost identical to GH1, the changes it brought were in the form of extremely tighter controls and an even better song lineup than the first. Quality greatly outweighed innovation there. But in GH3, the quality jump wasn't there. It was still good, for the most part (see points 2 and 3), but if they really wanted to make it stand out as a great sequel, they should have changed some more. The tiered system, introduced in GH1, where you beat X number of songs to unlock the next difficulty level (slight variants introduced in 2 and 3, but basically the same), is a bit antiquated, and a different approach, or at least the option for a different approach, would have been nice. The graphics don't really look any better than GH2. Yes, I played it on a Playstation 2, and if I played on PS3 or 360, I'm sure they would look a lot better, but there are some places in the PS2 version that look worse than GH2's graphics. It's extremely obvious to see the pre-programmed movements in the audience, noticeable when you see literally half the crowd doing the exact same thing at the same time, or there are three or four audience members standing in a row waving their hands in perfect synchronization. Some of the cheesy "special effects", a fresh take on graphics in previous incarnations, now look lazy and old by today's standards. And good lord, the drummer is one of the more terribly animated characters I've seen in a video game in years. They could have replaced him with an animatronic gorilla from Chuck-E-Cheese and I would have been more impressed. Moving on...

2) What they did change appears to have been changed only for the sake of changing. Much like the phrase "status quo is standing still", many of the changes are parallel shifts (not any better, just different) or they're not improvements but are actually worse. Exhibit A: The star power meter, instead of being an obvious blue bar that fills up from left to right, is instead a series of lights that"turn on" as you get more star power. The problem is, it makes it very difficult unless staring right at it to see how much star power you have, and you CAN'T stare at it while playing, unless you've got your note chart memorized, and in which case you probably don't need to be checking out your star power meter. Unnecessary.

Exhibit B: Battle Mode. Geez, did some guys sit around in a meeting, and one said, "Hey, what's the most annoying feature in a multiplayer game you can think of?" and another replied, "What about the power-ups from Mario Kart: Double Dash that can change the outcome of an entire race based on sheer luck, thus taking a large chunk out of the skill factor of the game?" "That's great! Let's put that into Guitar Hero 3." They very well might have. I appreciate that they were trying to do something different, but it's more annoying than enjoyable.

Exhibit C: Boss battles. First off, they're done in that battle mode I just made reference to, and secondly, the game is called "Legends of Rock", yet there are only TWO real guitarists in the game: Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine and Slash from Guns 'n Roses/Velvet Revolver. I honestly expected a good 4 or 5 of these "legends", but there are only three boss battles in the entire game, and the last one is supposed to be the devil, and goes by the name Lou. Not that I'm asking for more boss battles, but it was an over-hyped, under-utilized feature. Don't half-do it... do it right or don't do it at all.

3) Neversoft likes to see you squirm. This game is tough. I really got the feeling that Neversoft thought GH1 and 2 were too easy and made changes solely to make the game tougher.

Things like making you play longer phrases to get star power, thus increasing your chances of missing one note and losing that opportunity for star power.

Things like nerfing what precious star power you get. By that, I mean the star power doesn't last as long and doesn't help you as much when you're losing. Star power in GH2 was a lifesaver at times... in GH3, it really doesn't help you all that much.

Things like sacrificing note chart accuracy with the song for difficult-to-play patterns, particularly involving awkward chord patterns and an abundance of unnecessary three-note chords. Slipknot's "Before I Forget" is still one of the toughest songs for me in the game, solely because of one short section which involves playing, if you can understand this pattern, buttons 1/3, 2/4, 1/3, 2/4, 3/5, 2/4, 1/3... etc. That's referring to two buttons at once, with one being the green on your left and 5 being orange to the right. Maybe it's just me, but that is a VERY awkward thing to make my fingers do at all, let alone at the speed the chart asks you to perform. The song itself is awkward because it throws three-note chord after three-note chord at you, at times when the song doesn't sound like it needs them at all.

Things like taking a lick that in GH2 would be played totally with hammer-ons/pull-offs (HOPOs) and throwing a non-HOPOable note in there, forcing you to restrum out of nowhere. I realize this was done probably for a realistic aspect, as they likely didn't HOPO that part on a real guitar, except here's the problem: The reason they weren't done that way in many cases on real guitars is because they had to change strings to play the lick. Of COURSE they had to restrum, it was a different string. GH, however, don't got no strings, therefore there's no intuitive way to know if a note should be strummed again except watching intently for the slight difference in the note telling you what can and can't be HOPOed. It was a difficult and uncomfortable adjustment I had to make from GH2, and there are some songs that should be a lot of fun to play, like Killswitch Engage's "My Curse" but because they insisted on forcing you to strum over and over and over again, it saps the fun out of those songs like vampires at a blood bank. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, Neversoft. That's one you shouldn't have touched.

There are a few more minor nags I have here and there, such as song selection being done obviously based on what songs they liked and not what songs would make good Guitar Hero songs, but those three are the big'ns: Didn't change enough, what was changed was unnecessary or just bad, and the game is too difficult at spots and not in a good way, but in a cheap way. In reference to the last point, Gabe from Penny Arcade had a good quote the other day. He wasn't referring to Guitar Hero, but his sentiments ring true regardless. He said,

"Tycho talked about the different reasons people play games in his post and I thought it was pretty interesting. It's a conversation we've had before and I think it's something a lot of gamers probably don't think about. I remember it came up while we were both playing Metroid Prime: Corruption. I was talking to him about how I was getting frustrated because some of the boss battles were really giving me a hard time. I realised I don't play games for the challenge. I don't need or want to be punished by a game for making mistakes. I play games for what Ron Gilbert calls "new art". I play to see the next level or cool animation. I don't play games to beat them I play games to see them. Coming to that realisation was actually sort of important for me."

Though it's not always just to see something new, my reasons for playing games usually don't involve the challenge factor. To me, it's just, "Is this fun or not?" One of my favorite songs on the new Guitar Hero 3 is "Impulse" by An Endless Sporadic. I 5-starred it on my second play-through... or maybe even my first, I can't remember, but either way, wasn't too difficult for me. But I still play the song almost every time I boot up the game, because it's a blast to play. That's one where they hit the nail on the head... no, it's not EASY, but it doesn't have those cheap difficulty aspects I was referring to earlier, and when you do beat it, you really feel like you've done so having a certain level of skill, not just trying to get around something stupid. I feel like when the game is cheap, I have to play cheap to beat it, and that's not fun for me.

Now, with this all having been said, I do still really enjoy Guitar Hero 3 despite its flaws, but when I do so, I think how much better the game could have been had they avoided some of the aforementioned pitfalls.

This post is getting a great deal longer than I expected. I've only discussed half of my subject line so far, so I'll get to the second quickly and with due haste! The trailer for the upcoming Speed Racer movie has been released, and it looks absolutely incredible. It's a thrilling treat for the eyes, a style I've never quite seen before but I've fallen instantly in love with it. I have no idea if the story is going to hold any merit or if it'll be a total bust, but if the whole movie delivers on the visual feast the trailer promises, I'll probably be able to forgive a lackluster storyline. Time will tell. Until then, enjoy the trailer.

Do feel free to comment below and tell me what you thought of the trailer, or your thoughts on Guitar Hero 3 if you have any.

-Chronodin

Hardcore country singer

Chronodin — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:31:00 +0000

Now, more of this would get me to listen to more country music!

I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. From dvorak.org/blog.

-Chronodin

Want to get away?

Chronodin — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:07:00 +0000

I cringed at this commercial.

But I did find it funny. Post-cringing, of course.

-Chronodin

A park in Botswana!

Chronodin — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 03:11:00 +0000

I know, I know... neglect! But when I neglect you guys, you get rewarded when I return! With that, I give you the following videos!

Top 10 George W. Bush moments

Lightning strikes the Eiffel Tower (in Vegas)

World of Warcraft ads with Mr. T and William Shatner

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Chronodin

Video game marching band show

Chronodin — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:15:00 +0000

I've seen marching bands try to do video games before, but they're usually not very good. This one, however, is actually a pretty decent performance and really enjoyable. The arrangements lend themselves to the marching band really well, and let's be honest... is there any better way to end a halftime show than the way they did here?

Thanks to Jon for the link. The selections they used are:

1. Pong
2. Tetris
3. Mortal Kombat
4. Pokemon
5. Legend of Zelda Overworld Theme
6. Super Mario Bros. Main Theme
7. Super Mario Bros. Underworld Theme
8. Super Mario World Yoshi's Theme
9. Super Mario Bros. Underwater Theme
10. Super Mario Bros. Theme that plays when you only have 99 seconds left to complete the stage
11. Super Mario Bros. Stage Complete Theme

And if you're interested, I found a standstill performance of the same show here.

-Chronodin

Sign of the apocalypse or a sign of truthiness

Tank — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 22:27:00 +0000

From Sunday's "Meet the Press" on NBC, the latest Democratic President Primary poll results:

Hillary Clinton 40%
Barack Obama 19%
John Edwards 12%
Joe Biden 2.7%
Stephen Colbert 2.3%
Bill Richardson 2.1%
Dennis Kucinich 2.1%
Mike Gravel <1%
Christopher Dodd 0%

So, Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A. is ranking higher than a sitting governor, a sitting senator, a former senator, and a sitting congressman.