Time Off For Christmas

HAPPY HOLIDAYS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
HAPPY HANUKKAH
HAPPY KWANZAA
SEASONS GREETINGS
HAPPY NEW YEAR
etc...

See you next year!

Your Watch Roids Pong

You know those times when you're sitting at the train platform or in the movies just wishing you had an old 1970s video game to play? Yeah, neither do I but apparently these guys misinterpreted Nintendo's old "Game & Watch" systems and thought it'd be a great idea to whack Asteroids (or 'roids to the cool kids) into a watch.

Now, that's no ordinary watch there as it doesn't actually display the time but it does have a tilt sensor so the little triangular spaceship points downwards to aid in targeting. There's also a Pong version in case blowing up polygonal asteroids isn't "your bag, baby". Check the video out below and thanks to Engadget for the tip.

Top Gear Does Tesla

Time for my weekly Tesla Roadster post (not quite). This time it's about a story run by the whacky guys on the original (and best) Top Gear. The shows wordsmith Jeremy Clarkson got his hands on not one, but two of these zippy zappers from the valley of silicon and thrashed the crap out of them (as he does).

I don't want to ruin the surprise ending for you but let's just say that he's finally found a car that runs on electrons he'd consider buying thus making him a "volt head" instead of a "petrol head". The Tesla manages to do quite an impressive run around the test track with The Stig at the wheel but the driving range of the car was markedly different to the official Tesla figures.

Click onwards for the video and thanks to AutoBlogGreen for the tip.

eSATA Flash Drives Go Fast

I'm sure everyone has at least one USB key/flash drive sitting around or at least knows someone with a USB key well throw them all out, now. Actually you might want to wait a little while until these new fancy eSATA flash drives actually hit the streets.

While not as cheap as their USB grandparents these guys will kick it up a notch in the transfer speed stakes with eSATA almost doubling the speed of USB 2.0.

Engadget says there was no price announcement but Register Hardware estimates it'll be $32 for the 8GB model, $56 for 16GB and $160 for 32GB. That's USD.

It's Friday, I'm In Love With My New T-Shirt

After months of salivating over all the wikkid t-shirts over at Threadless Tees I finally bit the bullet today and bought myself this beauty printed on a black tee.

It may seem a little cryptic to those of you unfamiliar with the works of The Cure so maybe this might help. Clever and cryptic, just how I like 'em.

Designed by Loy Valera and printed by the folks at Threadless I hope this to be the first of many cool shirts from their store. If you want one too you'd better be quick as Threadless tees seem to sell out really fast.

For those of you who are more into Michael Jackson there is a cool dancing zombie shirt titled "Eating Brains, Throwing Shapes" by Aled Lewis.

Hopefully when the shirt arrives (in 1-3 weeks :( ) I'll get an action shot of me wearing it and post it up here. JOY!

Recycled car and bike bits = scary fire breathing robot dog

Take 1-part crazy guy with welding equipment and 2-parts totally recycled Citroen cars and other bits and you get this amazing (and quite scary) machine. Like a bit player from Wall-E this character which has galloping horse-like legs at the front and a couple of wheels at the back is named LRRY-1, that's pronounced "Larry" with a 1 on the end (I assume that means there will be more).

Not only does it gallop androll it also breathes fire out of its freaky head which officially makes it scarier that the lame motorbike terminators in the upcoming film. Make sure you check out the video below to really get an idea of what this thing is capable of. Oh, did I mention it's made from no new materials at all, i.e. all recycled bits and pieces.

Reminds me a bit of "Dog" from the Half-Life series... oh, and thanks for the heads up Engadget!

Angsty Teen To Play Teen Aang

If you watched Nickelodeon's faux-Japanese anime "Avatar: The Last Airbender" like I did then you're probably already aware that M. Night "Sixth Sense" Shyamalan is writing and directing the feature film live action adaptation.

What you may not be aware of is that the three lead protagonists have just been cast. An unknown karate kid from Texas who goes by the name of Noah Ringer will be playing the bald, arrow-tattooed Aang (center in the image) who is the Avatar and the last airbender in the series. Jackson Rathbone from the recent teen vampire flick Twilight will be playing the clumsy (and often hilarious) Sokka while Nicole Peltz will take the role of Katara, Sokka's moody sister and bossy waterbender.

It was also announced that Jesse McCartney is in negotiations for the role of Prince Zuko, Aang's chief antagonist who was banished from the Fire Kindom by his father until he regains his honor. No mention of who will be playing Toph the earthbender, or if she will even be in the film. Same goes for Zuko's wise tea-loving uncle Iroh and his super evil sister Azula.

Also unannounced is who will play the roles of Aang's Sky Bison, Appa and his little flying monkey thing Momo. Knowing Hollywood's casting directors they'll probably go with the obvious choices, Michael Clark Duncan as Appa and Brad Pitt as Momo.

I have no idea what the Texan karate kid looks like but I guess if he's skinny, bald, has blue arrows painted all over his body and can fly around on a kite then he'll suit the role to a tee. Jackson Rathbone looks like he could fit into Sokka's blue robes after a quick shave but going by Nicole's IMDb profile shot she looks a little too young for Katara. Maybe when she gets the loopy things in her hair she'll look the part.

Regardless of what happens I'll be keeping a close eye on this one. The series was great fun and was something I could watch with the kids yet still get something out of it for myself. Let's hope M. Night pulls out his Stuart Little hat and not his The Happening hat when writing the script.

Zero Punctuation Does Left 4 Dead

It seems when Yahtzee doesn't have anything negative or cutting to say about a game his reviews can be a little dry. This one seems to go for ages but I think that just shows how good a game Left 4 Dead is. What do you reckon?

I do agree though that it'd be nice to do SOMETHING while waiting to respawn as an Infected.

100th Telsa Roadster Being Delivered Today

The Tesla Roadster, the poster child of clean and fun driving, has reached another milestone in its young life as today the 100th model is being delivered to a "special customer".

The fully electric sports car made by US-based Telsa Motors from a Lotus-built body continues to be the number one reason to get away from burning old dinosaurs for propulsion, if you have the cash, but it has some hot competition biting at its heels.

No idea who is getting the 100th Roadster but Autoblog Green has a few ideas.

Satriani Says Coldplay Copied Him

Word on the street today is that multiple Grammy nominee guitarist Joe Satriani has filed a copyright infringement suit against pommy Enviro-Pop Rock band Coldplay.

The man famous for teaching some of music's most influential guitarists such as Steve Vai and Kirk Hammett says the British downer's hit single Viva La Vida incorporates "substantial original portions" of his 2004 tune If I Could Fly.

I had a listen to both tracks repeatedly and I can see where he's coming from as the basic chord structure of both tracks is very similar. Unfortunately I don't think he's going to get far as it's not uncommon for popular music these days to use the same structures. Also, if he succeeds it'll open the doors for hundreds of other artists to take up similar suits.

You may know "Electric Joe Satriani" from his huge hit single Always With Me, Always With You but see if you can hear the similarities between his 2004 track and Coldplay's 2007 track:

Viva La Vida by Coldplay:


If I Could Fly by Joe Satriani:


A mashup of the two tracks:

I'm Calling The World Tour Off

To celebrate my recent birthday and the upcoming birthday of some religious guy born a few thousand years ago I did the right thing in this world of consumerism and bought myself Guitar Hero: World Tour for the Xbox 360.

To help the transition to the new Guitar Hero I sold our Wii copy of Guitar Hero III with its two guitars. Why not just upgrade? Well, mainly because the Wii's audio output is utter crap, not to mention the lack of downloadable content for Guitar Hero on Wii and the laughable video capabilities of the rebadged GameCube.

So with fresh eBay cash in hand I spent most of my Sunday (Nov 30) searching for an Xbox 360 version of the game. I eventually found one at JB Hi Fi in Preston and proceded to grab the complete band super duper box set of World Tour which includes the new guitar, microphone and the ground-breaking fake drumkit (see above/left).

After rocking out to a few tracks, starting a band with my wife and daughter and making it out of rehab I found that the red pad on the drumkit (that would be the "snare") had started ignoring my hits. I tried to go through the drum training initially but couldn't complete the velocity sensing bit where you can hit the drums harder to get louder notes, it just wasn't working. Then, around Wednesday the snare packed it in altogether and nothing could be done.

So being the good user I am I read the manual and found I was to contact Activision directly for any support issues with the hardware. I perused their online support and discovered I had to order their free USB-to-MIDI cable to adjust the sensitivity of the drumkit.

Said cable arrived yesterday (8th of Dec.) and after miraculously getting the drumkit, which was attached to my PC, to talk to my Xbox 360 down the other end of the house I found that even after setting the snare's sensitivity to 20 (the highest value) I still did not respond. The other drum pads when set to this level would trigger if a sparrow farted in the next room.

So it was back to the Activision website for more help. They said that if the issue wasn't with the sensitivity of the pad then I needed to send the offending part back to Activision in Sydney. Of course the problem I have is with the snare on the largest part of the kit so it got bundled back into the enormous box it came in and came to the Post Office with me this morning.

Activision, while offering a Reply Paid address for sending warranty requests back, were sneaky enough in that to use Registered Mail the sender (that's me!) is required to pay the full amount upfront. I refused Registered Mail initially until the post office clerk said I should probably wrap the box differently incase it went walkabout. I ended up paying $16 to ship the drumkit back to Activision via Registered Mail.

So now I have to wait "up to 2 weeks" for the kit to be looked at and assessed by the techs at the other end. *fingers crossed* I get the drumkit back in working order in time for my Christmas break but until then I'll have to be happy with the guitar and microphone.

Tekken 6 Trailer Is Awesome

I know the word "awesome" is thrown around a lot these days, especially in the same sentence as my name (usually with a negator in between) and remember, that without me it's just "aweso".

Regardless of this drivel, the following Tekken 6 trailer is, well, awesome. Plenty of OTT explosions and action that would make Michael Bay blush. Of course it's all pre-rendered goodness, as with most Tekken cutscenes/trailers etc. but there are a few in-game shots thrown in, especially near the end. Make sure you watch out for the portly pork farmer "Bob" bringing the smackdown as Japan's stereotype of US citizens (about time!).

The new trailer is to celebrate the arcade favourite making its way on to the PS3 and Xbox 360 consoles. I just hope there's a demo coming out, that's about all I can manage with my l33t button mashing skillz.

Thanks for the heads up Kotaku.

I'm Lost For Words

Japanese TV ad for Saints Row 2... ahhhh... ummmm... errrr...

There's another one over at Kotaku and for comparison here's a US TV ad for the same game.

Zero Punctuation Double Dose

Seems none of my news feeds tell me about Zero Punctuation reviews so when I finally remember to go and check them out I'm a few weeks behind. Anyway, following are "Yahtzee's" reviews of Guitar Hero: World Tour and Mirror's Edge.

I have the full blown edition of World Tour (and am loving it) but I've just replayed the Mirror's Edge demo a few times seeing as that's about all I wanted out of it.

Mirror's Edge:




Guitar Hero: World Tour:

View Code Without Right Clicking

Here's a little Visual Studio 2008 tip for you. I find myself right-clicking ASCX/ASPX files and selecting "View Code" frequently during the day and today I just had enough of it. So I went a hunting on the Googley internet and didn't find much of anything useful (mostly just hints on using F7 and Shift-F7 to switch between Code View and Design View, i.e. not what I was after).

Using the search box in the Visual Studio Keyboard options to narrow down the list I found this little gem (click the image to see the full size version). Just select "OtherContextMenus.SchemaExplorer.ViewCode" and assigned it to your hotkey of choice. I used F12 F1 but I may change this later on if I find it too cumbersome. Don't forget to hit the "Assign" button or nothing will happen.

So now when I'm editing the front-end code and want to get to the back end code I just whack the old F12 F1 key and voila!

EDIT: Dammit, I just realised that F12 is the hot key to go to a method's definition so I'm now giving F1 a go seeing as I never use the inbuilt help. You can get your answer via a Google search before the inbuilt MSDN help has even loaded.

EDIT: If you accidentally assigned F12 to View Code you can set it back to its original setting by assigning it back to Edit.GoToDefinition in the Keyboard settings.

Mike Patton Scores

Mike Patton, the man, the voice, the legend behind bands such as Mr Bungle, Faith No More, Fantomas, Tomahawk, Peeping Tom etc. will be writing his first feature film score for the upcoming sequel to the mindless Jason Statham action film Crank.

Movieweb says Mike Patton's pal Danny DeVito "didn't quite know how to describe the score, but did hint that there may be a song track that contains actual lyrics and singing by Patton."

Mike Patton's music spans multiple genres from good ol' rock to hip hop to almost-too-painful-to-listen-to experimental works (have a listen to Adult Themes For Voice if you're game). Such a range means it'll be interesting to see what he comes up with for the score to a popcorn flick like Crank 2: High Voltage.

Michelin Man Goes Green

Michelin, the French company famous for its rubber donuts and an over inflated mummy, has teamed up with a Chinese tech company to produce this amazing bit of gadgety gizmo that you could very well be riding on in a year or two.

Dubbed "Active Wheel" this seemingly unassuming piece of tech-in-a-wheel actually contains motors for propulsion and suspension which means you can whack a few of these babies onto almost any vehicle frame and you've got yourself an EV.

According to AutoblogGreen, Michelin and CITIC Guoan Mengguli Corp. in China have a working prototype built atop a Lifan 520 sedan that can reach 87 mph (140 kph) and go for up to 81 miles (130 km) before needing a recharge of its lithium ion batteries.

The partners have announced that the wheels will be available to OEMs by the end of the year but didn't say which year.

Black Mesa: So Close I Can Smell It

Black Mesa, the total remake and modernization of the original Half-Life game seems to be getting closer and closer to completion but if previous fan remakes are anything to go by we'll never see it.

Well, OK, maybe we'll never *play* it as you can actually see it right here in glorious internet widescreen! I was mildly interested after seeing screenshots from previous iterations but this trailer really gets my blood running hot... oooh baby.

*fingers crossed* they make their 2009 projected release date (if you can call an entire year a release date).

Consoles Put Differences Aside To Mourn Lost Comrade

It's always a sad day when someone we've spent a lot of time with, whether we like them or not, passes away and according to tiggerboy's blog, consoles are no different.

His fourth Xbox 360 RROD'd recently so some of it's fellow consoles and gaming peripherals attended a farewell where Master Chief read a moving eulogy to a sombre but respectful crowd.

Check out the photographic story on tiggerboy's blog which, in true soapy fashion, has a shock ending as an unexpected guest arrives as everyone else is leaving.

You might have to be a bit of a console gaming geek to understand half the references in the post.