At “long” last, the trailer for Star Trek: The Next Generation: A XXX Parody is finally here!

Check out your favourite TNG characters “engaging” in adventures of both the science-fiction and sexual varieties. The plot fits in with the actual show, and the writing doesn’t seem much worse than some of its poorer episodes.

The special effects, in particular, are something to behold. They look better than the actual show. The actors look reasonably well cast as well, although Riker seems to have shaved down to just the goatee (maybe it’s really Thomas Riker).

The film will be “released” May 5th.

Image: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Warner Bros.

The third movie of the Harry Potter series, Prisoner of Azkaban, has received the award Movie of the Decade at the First Light Awards. The First Light Awards are held annually and are largely to celebrate short films made by youth under 19.

The film was up against other box office heavy-hitters such as Shrek and Up, along with Happy Feet.

Combined with Peanut Turner’s supporting testimony on one of ShufflingDead’s Questions of the Week, this seems enough like conclusive evidence to me.

Source: BBC

Image: The Hobbit: 70th Anniversary Edition cover art.

Filming of The Hobbit has finally begun. After numerous production problems, strike threats, talk of location change, and director Peter Jackson’s ulcer surgery, word has reached my ears that the two-part movie has started production.

Martin Freeman will star as Bilbo in this one, and fans of the LotR movie trilogy will see several familiar faces, including Sir Ian McKellen as Gandalf and Elijah Wood as Frodo. Also returning will be Andy Serkis as the Precious-chasing Gollum.

The first movie of The Hobbit is expected to be seen on the big screen sometime late in 2012.

Source: BBC

Big shout out to Rebecca Black for making this day possible. The 13 year-old YouTube sensation is variously telling us like it is, supplying the beats to help us get down, and reminding us what days make up the week.

Black’s song about the important life decisions 13 year-olds have to make such as what seat to take in a car was produced and written by Ark Music, who was paid $2000 for the honour. Her 13 million views can likely be ascribed to the very relatable struggle we all face of having to eat cereal out of a bowl.

Image: Homefront boxart. THQ.

It seems internet detectives are not the only ones who care about review scores.

THQ, the video game developer and publisher that no one can believe is still in business, took a stock market beating on Tuesday as reviews of its upcoming FPS, Homefront, turned negative.

The lower scores came out on Tuesday, while earlier (read: fanboy make-believe) reviews praised the game.

Homefront takes place in a fictional future and appears to be yet another derivative clone of Modern Warfare, judging by the 30 seconds of research I bothered to do for this piece.

Source: Gamasutra

Image: Dragon Age II boxart. EA/BioWare.

Remember when you were a child and nothing mattered more than your favourite game being better than someone else’s favourite game? Well, the nerdlingers who used to have those fights have grown up to make games of their own, and are now brawling online to ensure their work is counted as the best.

Internet detective GatoFiasco has discovered that an engineer at BioWare actually bothered to give Dragon Age II a perfect 10 on Metacritic’s user reviews. The numerical praise was accompanied with some flowery text, including:

Anything negative you’ll see about this game is an overreaction of personal preference. For what it is, it is flawlessly executed and endlessly entertaining.

A rogue employee getting a little too excited about his or her work is understandable, but EA has remarkably defended the review. The company likened the act to Obama voting for himself in an election. That comparison doesn’t quite stand up to FTC guidelines, which note that user reviews of this nature are likely to be influenced by employment and should include disclosure of the relationship to the product’s maker in order for readers to determine the credibility of the review.

Source: Kotaku

Come on, 3DS!

The NPD Group has once again given us an anorexic view of video game sales in the United States, this time for February 2011.

The three consoles all sold similarly, with the 360 kinecting with 535,000 purchasers. The Wii waggled 454,000, while the PS3 moved 403,000. In other news, my jokes are pathetic.

An absence of handheld numbers for another month probably indicates that the DS’s sales have slowed to “middling” ahead of the 3DS launch, and the PSP is languishing in defeat. Nintendo will presumably be proud enough of 3DS’s sales that we’ll get those in the months ahead.

On the software side, Call of Duty: Black Ops took top spot. The title has now moved 13.7 million units across all of its various console iterations. That’s good enough to give it the title of best selling game in the United States ever, sort of. The numbers only work if you don’t include pack-ins (Nintendo has sold 35 million Wiis in the US, and therefore 35 million copies of Wii Sports) and insist on counting the sometimes vary different versions of the game for different systems as the same thing.

Source: NeoGAF

Image: Quaker.

Authority figure for generations Cap’n Crunch will no longer order children to do his nautical bidding, maybe. Word recently broke that Quaker was pulling away from marketing the crunchy stuff to kids.

Soon afterward, the world was greeted with news that the Cap’n was alive and well, sailing the high seas of the internet on Facebook and Twitter.

It’s not clear if Quaker really is easing marketing, or if this was all a hoax to promote the more internet-savvy Cap’n. Word is that the great roof-of-mouth cutter isn’t selling as well as it used to thanks to a bad reputation for containing grossly too much sugar.

Quaker may be trying to switch direction, keeping adult fans happy while not pursuing the children’s market.

Source: Life Inc., twice

Image: BioWare

With yesterday’s launch of Bioware’s Dragon Age II in mind, I thought I would bring up something I’ve been meaning to report on. Felicia Day, the internet’s second hottest redhead, has put together a live-action webseries based on the Dragon Age universe titled Dragon Age: Redemption. She’s well known for her roles in the popular webseries The Guild and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. The trailer for Dragon Age: Redemption can be viewed here.

Felicia Day stars as Tallis, an elven assassin, on a quest to capture a renegade wizard, gathering companions as she goes. This six-part webseries is set to launch in Summer 2011, and promises to turn Dragon Age and fantasy nerds everywhere into drooling messes. I think I’ll preemptively start drooling all over myself about now. Might as well get it out of the way, right?

Source: USA Today

Skyward Sword isn’t the only Zelda title Nintendo will be providing us with this year. The Ocarina of Time remake for 3DS is also well on its way, as these screenshots reveal.

Nintendo’s revamped eShop that will eventually be coming to 3DS will include titles from the Game Gear and TurboGrafx-16 libraries. Game Gear doesn’t come as much of a surprise, but this is the first indication we’ve had that the 3DS’s shop won’ tbe limited to previously handheld games.

Rumour has it that The Hobbit‘s two parts have two names, those being The Hobbit: There and Back Again, and The Hobbit: The/An Unexpected Journey.

Resident Evil 5 (the movie) is bound for theatres September 14, 2012. Everything between now and then is a waiting game for the cinematic treasure.

Nathan Fillion makes an offhand remark about wanting to restart Firefly if only he had the money, and crazy people start sending him cash until he asks them to stop. I wish I had that problem.

Blade Runner, the movie that gets good once you’ve seen it about six times, is getting a sequel and/or prequel. This likely ends my enjoyment of quoting the original.

Image: apple.com

As I was too lazy to report on yesterday, Apple’s own Steve “I work even when I’m dying” Jobs has announced the iPad 2.

Changes from the original design include it being thinner and lighter. It also has a faster processor and a rear-facing camera.

All features of the original iPad remain, including awkward typing, blatant inferiority to laptops, lack of Flash support, and exorbitant price (up to $829).

Get yourself another credit card quick, the iPad 2 launches March 11.

Source: arstechnica

The announcement of a new Mario game for 3DS wasn’t all Iwata had up his proverbial sleeve at GDC yesterday. The Nintendo president also showed off a new trailer for the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, viewable above.

The new footage gives stronger hints at what gameplay will be like compared with previous media. Use of Motion+ is evident in things like a block rotation puzzle and traps which require precise sword swings.

There is a “shield” gage which appears under Link’s health, a first for the Zelda series. Link’s sometimes female companion/sometimes sword shows up as a usable item in the HUD as well. What that implies is unclear.

A number of larger non-boss enemies also showed up in the trailer, which has me excited. I’ve always liked the bigger battles in Zelda games that were more about sword skills than obvious “boss gimmicks.”

One weird jester-looking character made an appearance. The white-hair-having, purple-eyeliner-wearing mystery many may be important to the story.

While he was chatting about Zelda, Iwata also mentioned the 25th anniversary of the series and showed off a corresponding logo. Wild speculation indicates something collectible is on its way as part of the celebration.

Image: NeoGAF

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata held his keynote at GDC today, and he did not disappoint.

He confirmed a new 3D Mario game for 3DS is on its way (that is to say, a game with polygonal graphics with stereoscopic effects and with Mario 64/Mario Galaxy style 3D gameplay). The game is being developed by the same team that made Galaxy and Galaxy 2, so odds of face-breaking quality are high.

Only a few screens were shown, but they betray two important facts: Mario can lose his hat and the graphics are spectacular. The game’s logo was also shown, and it includes a “tail,” which indicates that either the “Super Leaf” or “Tanooki Suit” upgrades from Mario 3 are back. I have to wager on the Super Leaf.

“Some” say the 3D effects allowed by the 3DS allow for more precise jumping in 3D space.

Source: NeoGAF

Image: Adapted from pcroom by JoopDorresteijn under a CC-BY license.

Maybe Vietnam, with its anti-online gaming stance, is on to something.

A Chinese man who spent three days straight gaming at an internet cafe outside Beijing has died. The death was preceded by the man not sleeping, barely eating or moving, and slipping into a coma.

I’m not a doctor, but I don’t think treating your body like shit generally leads to comas, unless “treating your body like shit” involves bashing your head in with rocks, so I suspect other factors were at work here in addition to the gamer lifestyle.

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this entire ordeal is the mystery man’s tab: he had spent about $1,500 over the previous month on gaming at cafes. Why he didn’t just buy a computer for himself, I have no idea.

Source: My Fox DC

Image: Public domain, just like my pants.

Thanks to the noble efforts of LG, the PS3′s march across Europe has been stymied. A copyright claim by LG arguing that Sony’s Blu-ray players violate their patents has resulted in PS3s entering Europe to be seized by customs.

Reports indicate stores have two or three weeks’ worth of supply in the pipeline before Europe is free of the four year tyrannical ordeal known as the PlayStation 3.

At present, the blockade is only set to last for ten days, but LG may be working to extend that count, or even aim to have the systems put out of their miseries permanently.

Somewhere, Geohot is laughing.

Source: MCV UK

Image: Adapted from PICT0035 by goodsurfers2011 under a CC-BY license.

Nintendo’s inevitable march toward global domination took an important step forward today with the launch of 3DS in Japan.

The system’s initial shipment of 400,000 units sold out almost immediately. That includes units preordered, and those that actually made it to store shelves before quickly being snatched up by same-day customers.

Word is that stores will actually be receiving a fresh shipment of the multi-screened, multi-awesomed devices Sunday.

So there you have it, the long awaited 3DS is finally out there in the wild, and 400K lucky residents of Japan are playing with them right now, probably in varying states of rapture.

Source: andriasang

Hint: select parental code “6969″ at the end of the above video to see evidence of a video game leading to a gang bang.

Ubisoft has yet another mini-game fest in the works for the Wii, but this isn’t your typical Wii Sports knock-off. As you can see in the ad embedded above, the mini-games in We Dare encourage adult behaviour such as flirtatiously whacking another person on the lower back. Oh yeah, and doubling up on a Wiimote.

Unfortunately for North Americans looking to get laid (the ads make it abundantly clear that this game directly leads to boning), the title will not be heading to that continent.

Handhelds, where are you?

NPD’s monthly video game sales stats for January are here, such as they are. We’ve gone several months without PSP numbers, but we already knew that system was selling at such a low level as to be fairly meaningless in the breakdown of the monthly pie-chart. This month, however, we have been robbed of the DS number as well, which makes it look like Nintendo only occupies a third of the market, instead of the half or so that they actually do.

Anyway, the Wii sold 319K, the 360 sold 381K, and the PS3 sold 267K.

In software, Call of Duty: Black Ops was on top again, but we don’t know exactly how many were sold, or for what systems. Just Dance 2 for Wii took second and Dead Space 2 took third with 452K sold across 360, PS3, and PC.

Source: NeoGAF

Image: Nintendo.

Hi folks, Newbs here. I’m back from my extended journey through the woods of event organization and prepared to tell you about two day old news once again.

Easily the most important thing to occur during my absence, and pretty much the most important thing that will happen between the 3DS’s announcement and its release next month, is that February 21, 2011 was the 25th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda.

Link’s first outing was released in Japan on that date.

To celebrate, 1up put together a piece entitled “25 Things You Didn’t Know About The Legend of Zelda,” which you can read here. Note: that title is misleading, I knew pretty much everything they listed already. Your mileage may vary depending on how cool you are.

Someone also threw together this amazing piece of artwork to remind us all of the characters which have graced the series. Credit goes to this guy.

Of course, for a series as packed with greatness at Zelda, the celebration should really last all year. Two titles in the franchise should be releasing in 2011, so I think Nintendo’s got things covered from their end, but what will you be doing?

Image: Nintendo

The launch of the 3DS in North America is only a little over a month away, but the day-one line-up for that region wasn’t announced until just today. Let’s find out what Nintendo has chosen to bless us with this time (from the press release):

On March 27, new Nintendo 3DS owners will be able to choose from the following Nintendo-published games, each available at a suggested retail price of $39.99:

• Pilotwings Resort™, an aerial adventure featuring airplanes, hang gliders and rocket belts. Players soar above tropical Wuhu Island in 3D as they complete missions or snap pictures.
• Steel Diver™, a submarine game that involves strategy and combat. The 3D visuals give players the sensation that they are looking into a miniature aquarium as they control the sub’s speed, depth and pitch, and fire torpedoes.
• nintendogs™ + cats, a game that lets players interact with realistic puppies – and kittens – in a variety of fun ways. There are three versions of the software, each with different starting breeds: French bulldog, toy poodle and golden retriever. But in each version players can unlock and enjoy more than 20 different breeds.
• Other Nintendo 3DS games in the works for 2011 from Nintendo include The Legend of Zelda™: Ocarina of Time™ 3D, Star Fox 64™ 3D, Kid Icarus™: Uprising and new installments in the Mario Kart™ series.

Whoah. It could be worse! The most intriguing news comes in that final point. Apparently, new Mario Kart “installments” are coming out in 2011. Confirmation that the game known to be in development will be ready for 2011 is spectacular, but endless speculation on whether that’s a typo or a legitimate declaration of plural Mario Kart games is even better!

Oh right, third party stuff is coming out too:

• Super Street Fighter® IV 3D Edition from CAPCOM
• The Sims™ 3 from EA
• Madden NFL Football from EA SPORTS
• Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D from Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc.
• LEGO® Star Wars® III: The Clone Wars™ from LucasArts™
• RIDGE RACER® 3D from NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.
• Super Monkey Ball™ 3D from SEGA
• BUST-A-MOVE UNIVERSE™ from Square-Enix, Inc.
• SAMURAI WARRIORS®: Chronicles from TECMO KOEI AMERICA Corp.
• Asphalt™ 3D from UBISOFT
• Combat of Giants™: Dinosaurs 3D from UBISOFT
• Rayman® 3D from UBISOFT
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon® Shadow Wars from UBISOFT

Newbs is in the midst of an arts and crafts project in which he is finger painting a slogan from a children’s TV program on a large sheet of paper. It would appear he needs my help now more than ever, but I’m feeling lazy.

Grimace in horror at the video embedded above. If you’ve ever wanted to find out who the 10 hottest female furry abominations from Sonic the Hedgehog are, you’re in luck. The top rated YouTube comment on this one is “Looks like its suicide again? for me.” Sounds about right.

Hey kids, Jiffy here. Last time I checked, Newbs was busy placing stickers on spray-painted piping. I take that to mean the madness continues and I need to fill in again.

Some guy named Aaron Barr worked really hard to infiltrate Anonymous and take down WikiLeaks on behalf of corporate and government interests.

A video game has won a Grammy. The prize went to Christopher Tin’s “Baba Yetu” from Civilization IV.

The newest and greatest blog of user-submitted content is Fat, Ugly or Slutty. The site is dedicated to revealing the ignorance women encounter online. The latest entry as I write this: “bake me a cake cankles.”

The X-Men: First Class trailer is actually pretty cool. We’ll see if the movie will turn out as well June 3, 2011.

Metacritic has compiled a list of the worst games of 2010 by major publishers. Nintendo’s worst was AquaSpace, a WiiWare game I’ve never heard of. Also available are a number of graphs illustrating which “pubs” bring the most “lish” to gaming.

Image: Guitar Hero World Tour box art. Activision.

Following Activision’s announcement that the Guitar Hero brand is over, Industry Gamers spoke to a number of business analysts to discuss the issue. They wanted to find out if Call of Duty might be the next victim of milking.

Billy Pidgeon of M2 Research praised Activision for the way they handled the Guitar Hero franchise, saying “strip-mining franchises is a successful, risk-averse strategy.” He also gave mad props for Activision’s “hit it and quit it model” which he described as “carpet-bombing the market with sequels.”

Just a reminder folks: games are not art, and customers are not worthy of respect.

Other analysts gave more reasoned, less grotesque answers, which you can read by clicking the link below. Internet sensation Michael Pachter, for example, explained that the difference between the franchises is that Guitar Hero was a game people bought once with their console, whereas Call of Duty has a strong and well developed community that keeps momentum for the series going.

Source: Industry Gamers

Image: CityVille. Zynga.

CityVille is Facebook’s latest game craze. It comes from Zynga, makers of the infamous FarmVille.

But what IS the game? Judging by this video, it’s Sim City for four year-olds. Presumably with a bunch of micro-transactions available to keep you paying. In other words: terrible, at least until Launch Arcologies are introduced.

Beyond the massive player count, the game boasts a wealth of other disturbing stats. 100 million players = 1/5 of Facebook’s entirety of users. It’s players make up 1/3 of the mighty Zynga’s player base. Zynga’s second place competitor (for money-sucking, information stealing casual shit) wields a collected player base of half that of CityVille‘s alone.

I once feared Madden players. Forum trolls have long bashed the Wii. All the while, gaming’s true enemy was breeding an army hidden in plain sight.

Source: Social Game Central

The internet is hard work, and Newbs is worn out. That’s why I, your friend Jiffy the Intern, is here to blast your face with some links while our intrepid hero takes a mental break. I have to; stupid shit waits for no man.

David O. Russell continues to waste his time developing the Uncharted movie. He’s talking about cramming Wahlberg and De Niro into some kind of treasure-hunting crime family story. We’ll see if the Oscar nominated director can finally make the world’s first 50%+ rated video game movie.

Mascot and fake Sony executive Kevin Butler, or whoever operates his Twitter account, was Twitter-bated into sending out the PS3′s security key. You know, the one Sony thinks they can wholly yank from the internet.

The critical consensus is in for Broadway show “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”: it blows like Peter Parker’s web shooters after catching a glimpse of shirtless Mary Jane through her bedroom window.

Body modder Alex Finch has gotten six Pokéballs tattooed on his arm, and six subdermal implants to go with them. They almost look real.

The X-Box makes people do terrible things. For 11 year-old Brendan Jordan, it made him burden his working class mom with a £1000+ X-Box Live bill. While we’re here, I should point out that Gawker media, which includes the linked-to Kotaku, recently introduced the world to an unnavigable design for their websites.

Activision is officially done with Guitar Hero. The franchise, which kicked off the wildly succesful music game craze just a few years ago, rapidly faded after being milked for all the plastic accesory dollars it could give. Personnel who previously worked on the franchise are either being let go or transferred to other projects. This is what happens when you “exploit” your franchises, Bobby.

Image: Ironically public domain.

It only does what Sony wants it to do. Or else.

Remember when hackers figured out the “public private keys” of the PS3, allowing them to run code on the system at will? Sony does, and they’re still trying to ensure no one is ever able to follow their instructions.

In addition to suing anyone distribution the code necessary to jailbreak the black monolith, the company is kindly requesting Google give up the IP addresses of people who watched a private informational video regarding the hack on YouTube posted by hack-spectacular George “Geohot” Hotz. They also want names to go with the Twitter accounts of fail0verflow members, also associated with the hack.

Oh yeah, Sony is also hoping to get ahold of Hotz’s computer, presumably so they can check it for evidence of pro-Linux, anti-corporate bias.

Source: Wired

Image: Zombies Ate My Neighbors box art. Konami.

Remember the classic SNES and Genesis run-and-gun tribute to horror movies, Zombies Ate My Neighbors? I do, I named it the 37th best Super Nintendo game ever. The few hundred people who watched that video probably remember too.

That’s not to say anyone else does, however, but a film is in the works none the less. I wonder where it will fit in the canon of the franchise. More importantly, I wonder if soda-pop grenades and water guns will be the best weapons the main characters can scrape together.

Zeke and Julie, along with teenage angst, romance, and zombies are in the mix, but not much else is known.

Source: SlashFilm

Image: Adapted from Bell Headquarters by Sweet One under a CC-BY-SA license.

The corporatist war on the Canadian public isn’t over yet. In fact, it’s just beginning. The telecoms and their government supporters are hoping to talking-point you into forgetting what this whole anti usage-based billing thing is all about.

Konrad von Finckenstein, head of the CRTC, tried to appear affable Thursday, speaking to the House of Commons.

The corporate equivalent of Santa Claus joked that he wishes to “find economic ways to discipline the use of the Internet.” No, wait, that wasn’t the joke part. The joke was “we don’t have a monopoly on wisdom,” which preceded the supposedly serious comment about trying to prevent Canadians from using the broadband internet services which they already pay for, and which ISPs have found plenty profitable (yes, telecoms grew rich even without UBB).

Of course, von Finckenstein managed to throw in Bell/Telus/Shaw/Rogers’ favourite talking point about metered internet being equivalent to charging for usage when it comes to electricity. Remember, bandwidth doesn’t need to be created like power, it’s already sitting in the lines whether you use it or not.

Don’t let this issue get talked to death. If you, as Canadians, want legitimate and fairly priced internet usage now and for the rest of your lives, the corporations must be fiercely regulated. As always, fight the power.

Source: ars technica

Image: Adapted from Gameboy Original by PseudoGil under a CC-BY license.

GameBoys are precious things. We already knew they were worth stealing from dead people for some, and now it turns out others consider them worth murdering for.

John Rosa has been sentenced to 5 and 1/2 years after he stabbed and killed Devone McCrary over a GameBoy Rosa had stolen from him. The light sentence comes as a result of Rosa’s guilty plea of “passion-provocation manslaughter” which came in December.

Personally, I consider my GameBoy to be worthy of the noble shrine I have given it in my closet. We have a lot of memories together, but then again, it lacked backlighting.

Source: NorthJersey.com

Image: Star Trek: The Next Generation: A XXX Parody. Via io9.

My fantasy has come to life. Star Trek: The Next Generation: A XXX Parody is in development. It features porn versions of everyone you’d expect: Troi, Data, Beverly Crusher, and of course, Will Riker himself. Geordi’s holographic fantasy Leah Brahms shows up, as well as Tasha Yar.

Also in the mix is a man who io9 describes as “a renowned Patrick Stewart impersonator from London” to play the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. The guy is spectacular.

How is all of this possible? Director Sam Hain is serious about Star Trek. He wrote the film to fit with TNG canon and only added the sex bits after. The parody’s events take place just before season six episode “True Q.”

Unfortunately, no trailer is available yet. Rest assured, ShufflingDead will follow this story with Vulcan-like intensity and bring it to you as soon as possible.

Source: io9

Image: Adapted from Stephen Harper - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting Davos 2010 by World Economic Forum under a CC-BY-SA license.

The Canadian meltdown over the CRTC’s ruling that network owners could punish smaller ISPs with usage-based billing has met with mild political progress.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, or as I like to call him “fuck you,” declared on Tuesday that there would be a review of the finding with a decision coming March 1.

My biased, angry, but no less accurate prediction? Since everyone has agreed an election is coming, the Conservatives will likely strike down the decision for political points. They will use the issue to further demonize and weaken the CRTC, thus removing the chances of Canada ever getting robust regulation of internet providers, and ultimately furthering the corporatist agenda. In the end, we’ll get slightly better service than the current rampage-of-greed, such that we can live with it, but not more.

Once again, Fight the power.

Image: Nintendo.

In a new installment of the ever-amusing “Iwata Asks” series that Nintendo runs on its official site, Lord Miyamoto declared:

Yes. So, in the interests of adopting new technology for the Super Mario Bros. tradition, I am now making a new Super Mario Bros. game for the Nintendo 3DS system.

…

Yes. (laughs) I want to show everyone as soon as possible what the new Super Mario Bros. will be like on the Nintendo 3DS.

I feel it necessary at this point to recycle my own material and state in the most dignified fashion possible: augh augh augh, give me Mario, augh augh augh. Let’s hope the laughing genius behind plumbing’s most famous practitioner is serious about this latest promise.

Don’t be too hasty in assuming Shigeru is planning a new installment in the “New” series of Mario games, either. Only a couple of months ago, he was talking about making games of both the 3D play-style and 2D play-style that have diverged for the 3DS.

Source: Gamespot

Image: Nintendo.

When in unholy fuck is the world getting its next Zelda game?

Back in December, Shigeru Miyamoto claimed that Skyward Sword was an ominous “over half complete,” but now Iwata is saying “[Miyamoto's] team is now entering into the final completion stage of the game.” So that’s something. He also says:

Talking about The Legend of Zelda franchise, what people called a masterpiece in the days of Nintendo 64, “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” has been in the process of being remade for Nintendo 3DS, and this Nintendo 3DS version is expected to hit the market earlier.

Seriously people, I need this shit to live. As crushingly painful as it may be that we have to wait until the end of March for the 3DS, and then somewhere between then and June for the Ocarina of Time remake, it is even harder to come to terms with the idea that we have to wait until after that for a truly new Zelda game.

It’s been five, FIVE, years since Twilight Princess came out. Two since Spirit Tracks, and that was boring and hardly lived up to what I need in a Zelda fix! Come on!

Back when Twilight Princess was announced, I made a decent effort to play through the previous games in the series in anticipation. Anyone doing anything similar for this?

Source: GoNintendo

Image: Nintendo Power.

February’s issue of Nintendo Power includes a listing of the three worst moments in sonic history. They are:

• Kissing a human.
• Turning into a Werehog.
• Big the Cat.

There are just so many to choose from. What about “existence” or “slippery physics”?

Nintendo was never as invested in the 16-bit rivalry as SEGA was. Sad and Pathetic Blue needed so badly to best and out bad-ass the Big N in every way, so they repeatedly trashed their opposition in advertisements.

With Nintendo Power no longer being published by Nintendo, it would seem the magazine is a little freer to mix it up with the company’s old rival. Even though Nintendo won, it would seem there is lingering bitterness.

Source: Aeropause

Image: Adapted from Anonymous: DC by lewisfrancis under a CC-BY license.

Members of Anonymous are quickly discovering that fucking with corporations online can get you in trouble with real world governments interested in keeping those companies happy.

You may remember that companies like Amazon, MasterCard, and VISA were severing their ties with profoundly awesome secret-spilling site WikiLeaks back in December. Members of Anonymous made an effort to have their voices heard by launching DDoS attacks against those sites.

Rather than accepting these efforts as a round of online protest, those companies, along with the FBI decided they were actually “cyber attacks.” Thursday saw the FBI “executed” over 40 search warrants in their investigation of these events. British police arrested five fellows the same day.

Reports of the crackdown include agents kicking in doors, pointing guns, and confiscating computer equipment.

Image: Pandora's Tower, Nintendo.

During an investors meeting, Nintendo stealth announced a couple of new Wii games: yet another Kirby 2D platformer (this time developed by Kirby’s old friends at HAL, and something called Pandora’s Tower.

The Kirby game appears to be the eternally under development GameCube game. The trailer can be seen here. It looks a lot like what was shown in 2005. Why this had to be delayed all the way until immediately after the release of Kirby’s Epic Yarn remains a mystery.

The other title, Pandora’s Tower is even less comprehensible. There’s a teaser site, which includes the art above and a Biblical quote. It’s supposedly coming to Japan this spring. Developer and genre are unknown. Expect an overwrought JRPG that will never be brought to the west.

Image: Nintend/Comics Alliance

The post-re-post blog-o-”sphere” has churned up a spectacular 493-drawing strong image of every Pokémon re-imagined as a sexy anime lady. Let’s all amuse ourselves by staring at it. This isn’t a furry thing, right?

This being the internet, the original source has already been lost and I cannot credit the creative genius behind this masterwork of 21st-century pop culture fetishism.

What I can tell you, however, is that Comics Alliance has already helpfully placed Miltank and her human counterpart side-by-side (see above), so my work as fetish pointer/laugher/admirer is already done.

Image: Sony.

Sony finally cleared away the months of rumours and speculation, officially announcing the PSP2, or as the company is currently calling it, the “Next Generation Portable.”

Much of what was expected came true: touch screen on the front, touch pad on the back, “PS3 quality” graphics, and dual analog. Perhaps more surprisingly, Sony has decided to ditch the UMD format and is switching to DS-style flash-based carts. Also included are 3G support, GPS, and an OLED screen.

Sony is promising a holiday 2011 release date for Japan, but no price has been announced. Random internet forum speculation indicates the thing will be pricey, in the area of $300-400.

Hyperbolic industry fellatio has already begun for the system, with one EEDAR analyst claiming:

After seeing the specs today, if the NGP can’t succeed, it is clear that the portable gaming landscape has forever changed. The future of portable entertainment is in the hands of Sony.

It’s like we’re right back in the PSP vs. DS days of 2004. Let’s see if Sony can really lift us out of the “gaming ghetto” this time.

Image: Adapted from Mark Zuckerberg Facebook SXSWi 2008 Keynote by deneyterrio under a CC-BY license.

Poor Mark Zuckerberg. He’s TIME’s person of the year, is worth billions of dollars, 500 million people he may or may not think are “dumb fucks” use his website, and someone hacked his fan page.

A group or individual apparently excited about the idea of Facebook being run like a co-op rather than a for-profit enterprise had this to say in the voice of Marky-Z:

Let the hacking begin: If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn’t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a ‘social business’ the way Nobel Price winner Muhammad Yunus described it? http://bit.ly/fs6rT3 What do you think? #hackercup2011

The posting was quickly removed, but not before 1,800 people liked it. I wonder what Zuck’s password was. Love? Sex? Secret? God?

Source: TechCrunch

Image: Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series).

Ron Moore was a long time writer and producer for Star Trek, mostly Next Generation and DS9, before moving to Voyager, where he explodinated and left. He went on to help develop Battlestar Galactica, and this included writing the “series bible,” a guide for how the series should function.

That bible is now available for public viewing, and it turns out Moore took his time to slap his previous series around a little in it. The man who obsessively wrote Klingon-centric scripts immediately discards “bumpy-headed aliens,” as well as “techno-double talk” and “thespian histrionics.”

Moore even went so far as to announce his series would not include typical science fiction characters like “the cocky guy” or “the fast-talker.” Hey, I thought Gaius Baltar was both those things!

Source: io9

Image: Star Trek: The Next Generation. Copyright CBS Paramount Studios.

The overseer of Star Trek for many years (some would say co-ruiner), Brannon Braga, has confessed “it was a shame for a lot of us” that there were no gay characters in the series. I guess Dax’s fanboy-pandering kiss with Lenara doesn’t count.

Berman makes a good point. For a series that gave us the first inter-racial TV kiss, you would think they would have been further ahead on the issue.

My source expresses curiosity at what Data might have been looking to get up to in his quest for humanity. Geordi was very clearly into ladies, but maybe helping the android out could have staved off desperation a little.

For now, those looking to see some serious same-gender Star Trek action will have to do what they’ve been doing for 40 years, close their eyes and think really hard about Kirk and Spock.

Source: EW

Image: Cover art for Baby by Justin Bieber. Copyright Island Records.

Teen pop infestation Justin Bieber, or someone working on his upcoming theatrical holocaust Never Say Never, was hoping to use a 15 second clip of Super Mario Bros.‘s iconic music. Nintendo, unlike the wallets of so many unsuspecting parents, was able to turn him down.

John Chu, director of Bieber’s moving-image thing, recently complained on Twitter:

aw C’mon Nintendo! Y won’t u let us use the Mario theme for 15 secs in the @Justinbieber movie…talk about free advertising passed up. Oops.

I’d love to know Nintendo’s exact reasoning for the decision. In my mind, it involves Iwata politely laughing, followed by Reggie leaping out of nowhere to “escort” Bieber from Nintendo’s secret underground layer of quality.

Source: MTV

Image: Call of Duty Modern Warfare box art. Copyright Activision.

Activision is finally feeling the effect of trying to produce large annualized games with studios gutted of their top talent. It’s hardly terrible enough to call karmic revenge for Bobby Kotick’s years of shenanigans, but it’s a start.

The company has brought in Seldgehammer Games to collaborate with Infinity Ward to develop Modern Warfare 3‘s single player component. Meanwhile, Raven Software has been tasked to work on the game’s multi-player. This is all to get the shooter ready for an expected November release.

As a bonus to the clusterfuck Acivision is now dealing with, the Call of Duty spin-off Sledgehammer was supposed to be working on has been delayed thanks to their involvement in this other project.

Source: NeoGAF

Image: Duke Nukem Forever boxart. 2K Games

Duke Nukem Forever will launch May 3, 2011 in the United States. This is it folks, this game is real, it’s almost done, and it’s coming out.

In addition to the announcement of the release date, a new trailer was released. It shows off plenty of Duke gameplay, Duke one-liners, and Duke ladies.

Majestic awesome.

Mammoth cloning. It’s something I’ve been fantasizing about at length since I could first pop an erection. Japanese researchers are now claiming I have just five more years to wait before my giant-tusk related dreams are fulfilled.

The team is hoping to nab some DNA from a well preserved mammoth that Russian researchers have been holding in a laboratory, wastefully. The team thinks they’ve got the problems caused by freezing, which damages the genetic material needed, figured out. The heroes were able to clone a mouse from matter frozen for 16 Earth years.

The researchers plan to jab an elephant egg with mammoth nuclei and give the world back its precious arctic Elephantidae.

It is currently unknown if the cloned animal will be available for rides or exhibition, but membership in a super-hero team seems likely.

Source: Google/AFP

Image: Adapted from George Lucas cropped 2009 by LeeGer under a CC-BY-SA license.

I reported a couple days ago that Gorgeous George Lucas believes in the 2012 end-of-the-world. My source was the excitable comedian Seth Rogen, and it turns out it would have been wise to take his claims with a grain of space-salt.

George “I Ruin My Own Movies” Lucas was kidding. Wired.com was able to speak with a representative of Lucasfilm who confirmed the filmmaker was “not serious.”

As evidence of this sense of humour, the spokesperson did claim:

…but he is an adamant believer that the world is flat, that Stonehenge was built by aliens, and that the sun revolves around the Earth… These are among the many subjects he commonly discusses at length with Elvis, who he’s going to digitally insert into Indy 5 along with a roster of famous dead actors.

Oh Lucas, you old kidder. Now come on, where are you hiding the real prequels? You know, the good ones?

Image: Nintendo

As so many have long anticipated, Nintendo held their January 19th 3DS info-fest, and what was revealed turned out to be a somewhat mixed-question-mark-block.

First, the big stuff: in North America, the system will sell for $249 on March 27, 2011. There will be two colours at launch, aqua blue and obsidian black.

What the launch games will be is still unclear. Nintendo is claiming 30 “launch window” games, but that period extends all the way to E3 in the summer. I’m still hoping for Ocarina of Time to be fit in there somewhere, which, as IGN notes, is “looking better than ever.”

The system will come with augmented reality games, and a suite of software for things like Mii creation and 3D camera software. There will be a handheld Virtual Console with GameBoy and GameBoy Color games for sale.

The bad news is, no real surprise here, friend codes are back. They’re not quite as awful as before, as there is only one per system, rather than one per game. We also don’t have all the info when it comes to how online interactivity will work either, if it will be easier to communicate and set up games with your friends than on previous Nintendo systems, for example. Never the less, what is clear is that Nintendo’s online is still a decade or more behind the competition.

Source: Engadget

Image: Adapted from Anne Hathaway Deauville 2007 by Caspian blue under a CC-BY-SA license.

Anne Hathaway, alternatively known as one of the hottest women going, is officially playing the role of Selina “Catwoman” Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises.

Picking Hathaway to play Catwoman I get, but including the character at all in the dark and slightly-realistic Nolan Batman films is a little harder to imagine. It will be interesting to see how the character is used. I can only picture the cheesy Catwomans of the TV series, and the incomparably worse Halle Berry version.

It has also been announced that Tom Hardy will be taking on the role of Bane. Tom Hardy was apparently in Inception, which I recently saw, but I still can’t claim to know who the fuck he is. Kane is some kind of chemically enhanced villain from the 90s comics.

The Dark Knight rises, the third and final film in the Christopher Nolan trilogy of Batmans, will attack theaters with… uhh… bat-like tenacity July 20, 2012.

Source: LA Times

Image: Adapted from George Lucas cropped 2009 by LeeGer under a CC-BY-SA license.

Seth Rogen has revealed yet another major alarming flaw in the mind of George Lucas. Rogen recently had a chance to meet with Steven Spielberg and Lucas, which somehow led to a 25 minute actually-serious tirade by Lucas on the predicted end of the world in 2012. You know, that thing where the Mayan calendars sync up and the world explodes or something.

He thinks it. He’s going on about the tectonic plates and all the time Spielberg is, like, rolling his eyes…

Rogen went on to ask the Star Wars mastermind for a seat on the getaway spaceship he suspected Lucas of owning, but Lucas denied the existence of such a thing. Hint: check his neck pouch.

Source: /Film

Image: Final Fantasy XIII-2 logo. Square Enix.

No one can forget (although many would like to) Final Fantasy X‘s sequel, Final Fantasy X-2. That was done, presumably, to fill the gap between X and XII for those not interested in XI, which was an MMO.

SE is repeating the pattern described above for the current generation of Final Fantasies, with Final Fantasy XIII-2 now announced. Similar to the PS2 era, this is presumably being done to cover up that awkward gap between XIII and XV known as “Final Fantasy XIV;” or, “the shitty MMO Square just released.

Not much is known about the game at this point, except that head members from XIII‘s development will be back. “Lightning,” who was apparently the main character will also be down for XIII-2. No word on a work-around for pronouncing the ugly game title has been announced.

This still doesn’t explain what Final Fantasy Type-0 is.

Source: IGN

Image: Metroid Prime 3 box art. Nintendo.

Johnathan Ross won’t be hosting Nintendo’s 3DS mega event in Amsterdam until January 19th, but he’s already run afoul of Nintendo super-fans.

We already knew the press event/preview would be an extravaganza of explosive 3DS unveiling-ness, but one fan took it upon himself to express his excitement to “Wossy” personally over Twitter:

It’s absolutely fine, I don’t expect you to spill anything, it’s nice to have a surprise. I have my fingers crossed for Metroid..

To this, Ross replied:

I think you’re going to be pleased then…

Of course, since Nintendo fans are accustomed to being led around like starving dogs by their secretive Nintendo overlords, ready to bite at even the slightest hint of food (read: news), bloggers, forum rabble, and the like, immediately jumped on this “Tweet” as legitimate rumour material.

J-Ross was later prompted to clarify his earlier statement, with someone asking if he was replying to the general idea of surprises, or Metroid in particular. Ross explained:

yes. Why? Did he think I meant new Meteoid?

Meteoid being, of course, the Metroid-Meteos crossover game Ross just confirmed. And thus, the Metroid 3DS rumour was born, lived to maturity, and died, all in a matter of two days.

Image: Adapted from 86/365 Xbox Clones by Mike Poresky under a CC-BY license.

American psychologists who conducted a study of about 3,000 children in Singapore have concluded that for about 9%, gaming is a problem, indeed, an addiction.

The researchers found that members of this elite 9% are not simply turning to gaming as a means of escaping other problems, but that the gaming itself is part of the problem. Games for these kids were linked with anxiety, depression, and interference in “real life.” Grades and relationships were shown to be affected.

Meanwhile, in the realm of stock photos, CNN used a shot of a teenage boy gripping an N64 controller like it was on fire in their coverage of this story. The kid is also grinning like mad and drenched in a green glow. At first, I thought this moment might have taken place during a round of Perfect Dark while Joanna had her night vision goggles on, but he appears to be using the d-pad, so that can’t be it.

Image: Adapted from Steve Jobs Headshot 2010 by Matt Yohe under a CC-BY-SA license.

As a blogger with nothing better to do than whine about the asinine turns of the tech industry, I owe a great deal to Steve Jobs. I need him around so I can mock his turtle necks, success, easy-to-use products, and raging arrogance.

That’s why I’m severely disappointed in Steve for taking yet another medical leave from Apple. Sure, he’ll still be CEO, but this is indefinite, and considering his history of illness over the last 8 years, fairly concerning.

Meanwhile, big media is running around worrying about petty things like Apple’s continuing ability to create innovative products and maintain stock value during these troubling times. They don’t seem to grasp the wider implications of this ordeal.

In any case, here is to Steve Jobs. May he live forever as the imperial god of technology. That ass.

Source: arstechnica

This hardly seems final.

What deviousness is Square Enix up to? Trademarks for “Final Fantasy Type-0,” “Type-1,” “Type-2,” and “Type-3″ have popped up in Europe’s trademark database.

Another spin-off, further diluting the Final Fantasy brand, perhaps? Or maybe the company believes Final Fantasy XIV is far enough, and will be starting back at “Type-1″ now. I know, it’s got to be a hard-core reboot of the Final Fantasy series. Each one a blood, aliens, guns, and excessive use of the word “fuck” remake of its numerically corresponding original.

Yeah, I actually have no idea, and I probably never will, either. That is, until the company holds a press conference next month, presumably to explain this.

Sources: NeoGAF, GoNintendo

Image: Marvel.

Marvel icon Captain America stars in a free digital comic called “Captain America: A Little Help” as part of a suicide awareness campaign.

The comic uses no dialogue until the last frame, and tells the story of a young man struggling to cope with the difficulties in his life who stands on a rooftop ready to end it all. From his vantage point, he witnesses Captain America dealing with some of his own troubles.

The comic can be viewed here.

Image: Adapted from Pride and Prejudice_004 by sheksays under a CC-BY license.

Keira Knightley and her five-years-too-long boyfriend Rupert Friend called it quits sometime over the holidays.

Sources say something about strain on the relationship as a result of paparazzi photographing them made Friend more and more uncomfortable. Isn’t he an actor too?

Anyway, the good news is that this gives DMUSER the opening he has been waiting for to get back together with the Pirates of the Caribbean hottie, who he dated briefly in our SDGR videos. It also gives me the chance to jeopardize our friendship by stealing his hot girlfriend.

Taking this in light of Scarlett Johansson’s recent return to the realm of single, ShufflingDead’s staff’s time spent drooling over single celebrities is expected to multiply by twelve.

Source: SF Examiner

Image: Public domain, just like my pants.

I have a better grasp of liquid water than I do this subject, read at your peril.

In December of 2010, a team of hackers known as “fail0verflow” announced that they had figured out how to circumvent the entirety of Sony’s security on the PS3.

After George “Geohot” Hotz managed to discover a “memory line glitching exploit” they were able to jailbreak the system and even discover the “public private keys” for it, meaning they can now run code on the PS3 at will as though they were Sony themselves.

The group implied their actions were a result of Sony’s unjust removal of the “Other OS” feature of the PS3, which allowed owners to run Linux on their black monoliths.

Sony is displeased with this series of events, and is now taking slimy corporate action against the parties involved in the form of a rather unique lawsuit. In addition to monetary damages, the company wants the information necessary to hack PS3s ripped from the internet.

Sony looks a lot screwed on this one. Anti-establishment hackers and Lunix worshipers are probably none-too-interested in rolling over to corporate demands.

Source: NeoGAF

Owned.

December NPD sales numbers for US video game sales are here.

On the hardware side, Nintendo trounced the competition, with its DS selling 2.5 million units, and Wii moving 2.36 million. Microsoft sold 1.86 million 360s, and Sony sold 1.21 million PS3s. Once again, no PSP number has been made available, and so we are left to assume the number hovers around “irrelevant.”

The press has found a genius way to spin these numbers, claiming that the fact the DS and Wii were down from last year, while the 360 was up, means something.

Poor Sony, their Move isn’t living up to its name. Microsoft’s Kinect console bundles reportedly outsold similar Move bundles 5:1. Even more shocking, the top two Kinect games have outsold the top to Move games 13:1.

In software, multi-platform mega games took the top two spots, with Codblops “head-shotting” first, and Madden “tackling” second. Halo: Reach, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and Red Dead Redemption rounded out the top five for the month.

Source: NeoGAF

Image: Adapted from E3 2006 Namco's Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man costumes by popculturegeek.com under a CC-BY license.

Namco is teaming up with Merv Griffin Entertainment to turn Pac-Man into a reality/game show type TV series.

The new waste of time is being hyped as a “big, crazy Wipeout-type event with a lot of energy.” “Wipeout” in that sentence is apparently referring to an existing TV series similar to Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, without the good parts, not the futuristic racing video game franchise.

As for how the show will actually work, Merv Griffin’s Roy Bank claims it will “bring what is essentially the world’s biggest game of tag to television.” In other words, a bunch of morons will be running around in foam mazes trying to figuratively eat each other.

If the world truly needs a Pac-Man TV series, I’d have preferred a fictionalized neo-noir take on Billy Mitchell’s life, in which a mullet man in a yellow trench-coat battles evil spirits in the night, and tries to cope with his own demons by munching pills during the day.

Source: IGN

Image: A.F. Bradley, 1907.

It has been announced that two exceptional volumes from classic literature will be republished in February of 2011; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Both books are already available free as a part of Project Gutenberg, so you might ask why they are being reprinted. The publisher, New South Books, is re-releasing the books in order to make them more “classroom friendly.”

By that they mean they are removing racially or sexually discriminatory words from the novels to be replaced with less offensive words.  The editor of the novel is altering a classic piece of literature they hold the rights to publish in order to make it more sell-able to schools and libraries.

…teachers told him that they couldn’t use the original editions of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer because teachers said, “we can’t do it anymore. In the new classroom, it’s really not acceptable.” According to Publisher’s Weekly, “Gribben became determined to offer an alternative for grade school classrooms.”

- Suite101.com

I am all for making reading accessible and fun to people of all ages, but censorship is never the answer.  Most classic literature is rife with sexism, racism, and generally discriminatory behaviour.  If a novel isn’t acceptable for grade-schoolers to read any more, then maybe you should bump the book up to a higher reading level. What do people think?  Should we take a black marker to To Kill a Mockingbird next?

Image: Adapted from apple store fifth avenue black friday by jardenberg under a CC-BY license.

Verizon has announced that they will be carrying the iPhone in the US beginning in February. That means AT&T isn’t the only carrier of the Apple device any longer.

The tech world is ejaculatory over this announcement, or they were when I read about it two days ago. By now they have presumably moved on to something else, like whining about the absence of some minute and irrelevant feature in whatever $500 hunk of plastic they plan on picking up next.

Those currently with AT&T looking to switch to Verizon out of spite or something will have to buy new phones because Verizon runs a CDMA network, whatever that is. They will also have to pay out $325 in “early termination fees.”

This story makes evident two things: I don’t understand the tech world, and phone companies are fucking scammers.

Source: CNN

Image: Adapted from Solo Acoustic by jenniferlstoddart under a CC-BY license.

Jewel has no thematic link with ShufflingDead whatsoever, except breasts, I guess. That’s why I wrote her an open letter six years ago, and why I’m about to write a news story about her, anyway.

The folk singer is pregnant. Now, you might think that would upset me, especially since it’s with her pro-rodeo husband, Ty Murray. Believe me, it does, but there are upsides to this news as well.

As CNN commenter afactchecker notes, “Looks like her b00bies will finally plump up. Oh wait….” Aww yeah.

Source: CNN

Image: Original MySpace logo. Copyright MySpace.

MySpace, the once and future shittiest website on the internet, is letting go of 47% of its staff. That works out to a 500-person strong army of unemployed techno-wizards who assisted in the operation of a site which once allowed users to customize the CSS of their pages.

In an ironic twist, the decision comes just days after an entirely make-believe rumour circled the internet surrounding rival Facebook’s supposed closure. Back in reality, Facebook has dominated MySpace, draining its members and embarrassing the social networking site by not utterly sucking for years.

MySpace continues to thrash around, claiming these cuts are related to “legacy business,” and that the company is on “a clear path for sustained growth and profitability.” Whether MySpace can figure out it should focus on indie band networking in time remains to be seen.

Source: CNN

Image: Twin Galaxies.

The battle for Donkey Kong world record holder continues its wild pace. Hank Chien, the 35-year-old plastic surgeon and relative newcomer to the world of classic arcade gaming, has taken back top spot.

Chien first achieved this rank in early 2010, before having it snatched back by Billy “God” Mitchell in August. The title then passed to nice guy Steve Weibe in September, but now rests with Chien once more.

Chien’s new world record stands at 1,068,000 points, well beyond Weibe’s previous score of 1,064,500. Chien and Weibe will be joined by Billy Mitchell in March when all three compete in a “Kong Off,” where they will play one another live. I’d say “it’s on like Donkey Kong,” but that phrase is now trademarked by Nintendo.

Source: Twin Galaxies

Image: Adapted from Mark Zuckerberg Facebook SXSWi 2008 Keynote by deneyterrio under a CC-BY license.

Time to pack it up, Mark Zuckerberg is done with Facebook and will be closing up shop on his $50 billion empire March 15, 2011. That is, if the insane rumours I’m hearing are true. Note: sadly, they’re not.

Weekly World News (yeah, Weekly “Bat Boy” World Fucking News), ran the story on Sunday, and some people actually bought it.

The publication claimed Zuckerberg uttered the words “I don’t care about the money” and “I just want my old life back.” If my in-depth character study of Zuckerberg performed while living on the internet has taught me anything, it is that Zuck pretty much feels the opposite of those things.

Source: Mashable

Image: Lord of the Rings, Return of the King. Copyright New Line Cinema.

Thank the Jesus (read: Peter Jackson), Andy Serkis, Cate Blanchett, and Ian McKellen are officially in The Hobbit, reprising their roles as Gollum, Galadriel, and Gandalf, respectively. Serkis and McKellen had been long expected to return, but it’s nice to get official word. This has been a bumpy road for these films, and I’m in a continuous state of nervousness that they will get screwed up somehow.

More surprisingly, Elijah Wood will be back as well, playing his Frodo role from Lord of the Rings. Frodo isn’t in The Hobbit novel (indeed, his character hasn’t even been born during the time of its events) but Jackson has found a way to sneak him in. Reportedly, Frodo will bookend the movie, with him being shown reading Bilbo’s The Hobbit, or There and Back Again.

Word is that deals are being worked on to get Christopher Lee back to play Saruman, and Ian Holm to play old Bilbo. Oh yeah, Hugo Weaving and Orlando Bloom might be returning as well. Oh man. Oh man. Oh man.

Image: Starcraft II box art. Copyright Blizzard.

The ridiculousness continues as the team of HuskyStarcraft and KurtHugoSchneider (who now identify their videos under the name of ‘Nerd Alert’) put out yet another Starcraft music video. This one is not a parody, however, but actually written and produced by the group. Terran players, enjoy.

Also, a quick trolling of the comments section has one couple, both avid Starcraft players, promising to play this song at their wedding. Neat.

Image: ebay.

Link may very well be the hero of time, and classic 80s Nintendo merch that you can eat off of is a rare treat indeed, but is it $100,000 good?

cagray_3 of ebay thinks so. The video game paraphernalia pusher is selling the stunning 1989 3-Piece Child Set Legend of Zelda Dinnerware in new condition. Included is the original box, a plate, a bowl, and a cup. All feature magnificent Zelda artwork.

The item’s starting bid is $15,000, and no one has even put up that much, but for the convenience of the discerning Nintendo enthusiast, the Buy It Now price is $100,000.

After picking this up, all you’ll need is another human being to share your joy with.

Image: Adapted from Wikileaks logo by Wikipedia under a CC-BY-SA license. Yes, you can similarly share alike!

Every new twist in the WikiLeaks saga is more what-the-fuck than the last. The US government has subpeoned Twitter itself in a bid to acquire info on everyone associated with the secret-leaking website.

The United States is looking for everything from user names to credit card info on not just Assange and Manning, but hacker Rop Gonggrijp of the Netherlands, and Icelandic member of parliament Birgitta Jónsdóttir.

Since Twitter is American based, with most of its servers living there, the US can get its hands on this kind of stuff without worrying about where these people are or were interneting.

Even more astounding, the subpoena may include every single follower of the WikiLeaks account on Twitter. American WikiLeaks Twitter followers can look forward to a life of paranoia, wondering when their names’ appearances on the list will affect their ability to fly or get government jobs. Unsubscribing now won’t save them.

Source: ZDNet

Image: Adapted from Crazy kitten upstairs by eva101 under a CC-BY license.

45 year-old Yuji Maekawa has been arrested after taking up-skirt videos of a couple store clerks using a camera designed to look like a car starter.

That’s not even the incredible part. Police also found cameras hidden in a pen, a watch, and a lighter in the man’s home. This guy was some kind of up-skirt spy who managed to score over 1000 videos in the course of his career.

What makes filming the underwear of women an alluring prospect remains a mystery to me. Can’t you just stare at their asses and/or look at porn? I guess there’s an extra thrill in nabbing the shots. It’s like Pokémon Snap for dirty old men.

Source: Japanator

Image: Nintendo

“Nintendo World” is on now. This is the Japanese leg of Nintendo’s get-to-know-the-3DS world tour, which will continue with an event held for the west January 19th.

The 3DS will come packaged with (at least in Japan) a 2GB SD card, 6 augmented reality cards, and include built-in software for the 3D cameras, Miis, and augmented reality games.

The most shocking news out of all this so far is the system’s battery life. 3-5 hours for 3DS games, although that may depend on where you’ve got the 3D slider positioned. The system will last 5-8 hours playing regular DS games, and take about 3 hours to charge.

Games set for the Japanese launch window include Winning Eleven 3DSoccer, Blazblue Continuum Shift II, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, Biohazard Mercenaries 3D, Dead or Alive Dimensions, Ocarina of Time 3D, nintendogs +cats, and Pilotwings Resort. Games to follow in the summer period include Project LovePlus, MGS Snake Eater, Kid Icarus, and StarFox 64 3D. Yet more games have less firm release dates, including Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney.

Screenshots of Ocarina of Time 3D show promise. The game looks distinctly cleaner from its original form. No word on added content, which is concerning.

Image: Adapted from Gameboy Original by PseudoGil under a CC-BY license.

The noble GameBoy was released some 21 years ago, and went on to sell 120 million units world wide on the backs of some of the finest games ever made (Tetris, Pokémon, Wario Land). We may be many generations removed from the little grey brick, but the things are still a must have for both retro gamers and desperate drug addicts willing to rob corpses alike.

Pennsylvanian Jody Lynn Bennett has been charged with not only theft after he nabbed a GameBoy, clip-on light device, and three games from the casket of a recently deceased teenager, but also abuse of a corpse and “intentional desecration of a venerated object” (that’s right, GameBoys are venerated).

Bennett had the audacity to commit his crime during the boy’s actual funeral. Worst of all, the man evidently took the dot-matrix displaying item not to game, but to sell for drug money.

The aged tech belonged to 17-year-old Bradley McCombs who died on Christmas Day 2010 in a car crash. The fact the kid was gaming on hardware older than himself suggests utter awesomeness.

Source: Games Radar

Image: Adapted from CES 2010 by PrimeImageMedia.com under a CC-BY license.

CES, or the Consumer Electronics Show, is an annual celebration of price gouging, unnecessary “innovations” targeted at grabbing headlines in tech publications, and the general dullness of the technology industry.

In essence, CES is the tech world’s version of E3. The heads of massive corporations get to pretend they haven’t fleeced consumers of all their spending power already, and show off countless devices that will “revolutionize” the way humanity functions. Oh yeah, and then bloggers get to evaluate who had the best shit, and brag about it if their team won.

CES 2011 will run from January 6-9, although keynote speeches occurring before those dates have already happened. Sony is still enamored with the kind of 3D you need glasses for, and they plan on sticking it in everything from camcorders to laptops (surprise, one of two themes this year is 3D!). Motorola has announced a tablet that will run Android 3.0 and be fueled by Verizon’s 4G wireless internet powers (surprise, the other theme this year is tablets!).

Source: Wikipedia, sort of

Image: Star Trek: The Next Generation. Copyright CBS Paramount Studios.

The former second in command of the USS Enterprise will be “relieved of his command” reports CNN. Video has now surfaced of the USS Enterprise’s number one “engaging” in inappropriate attempts at humour. Video highlights include swearing, homophobic language, mock-sex acts, and two female crew-persons engaging in shower-centric lesbian play.

The officer also used shoddy YouTube-style editing to make it appear as though multiple versions of himself were together in the same room. Apparently, these videos were shot without the aid of Q-granted abilities.

The former first officer took time out in his videos to explain his superiors were unaware of his party-boy antics and should not be held responsible. Why quiet nights with the ship’s councilor and trombone jam sessions weren’t enough to keep the Enterprise’s second in command satisfied is currently unclear.

Image: Mass Effect 2 box art. Copyright BioWare.

Cheesemeister over at NeoGAF has been tallying up various media outlets’ awards for Game of the Year. The results are as disheartening as expected.

As of writing this, Mass Effect 2 leads the pack with 40.5 “GOTY” awards, and Red Dead Redemption is in second with 32.5. Mario Galaxy 2 trails in a distant third place position, with 9.

Possible explanations for this injustice:

• The gaming media is incompetent.
• The gaming media is desperate to appear as “bro-sexual” as possible.
• The gaming media does not appreciate art.
• The gaming media’s corporate interests do not lie with promoting Nintendo.
• The gaming media hates me personally.
• The gaming media is out to get me.

Image: Adapted from Santa by Bart Fields under a CC-BY license.

Candy Cane Lane, an Edmonton neighbourhood which puts Tim Taylor like effort into Christmas decorations for the purpose of raising Food Bank donations, was targeted by a group of Santa haters.

One resident recieved a rubber thumb in her mailbox, another a fake skeleton wearing Santa’s red suit. Several residents received letters critical of Christmas. Alert the local conservative media to make up a controversy.

The letter contained the supposedly “anti-Christian” message that children should be told Santa is not real (sorry, Edmonton Sun, that’s more anti-Coca-Cola, try again) and directed readers to a website about the harmful effects of Christmas on children (sorry again Sun, that’s an explicitly Christian site).

Image: Adapted from Pete Postlethwaite - man, this guy's in EVERYTHING! by Daveybot under a CC-BY license.

There are only two things I remember about The Lost World: Jurassic Park. 1. Jeff Goldblum’s obnoxious gymnast daughter who didn’t look much like him. 2. Pete Postlethwaite saying “let’s get this moveable feast underway.” Postlethwaite also appeared in everything from Alien 3 to The Usual Suspects and Romeo + Juliet to Inception.

Postlethwaite was 64, he died of testicular cancer.

Source: CNN

Image: Star Wars Episode III poster. Copyright Lucasfilm.

Internet gods Red Letter Media and their star Mr. Plinkett, have finally come out with their review of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

You can see the entire 2 hour affair here. It’s bound to be a better use of your time than anything else on the internet (seriously).

Image: Pier Solar and the Great Architects box art. Copyright WaterMelon Co.

SEGA ended development for their own systems years ago, switching their efforts to systems made by former competitors. That hasn’t stopped a die-hard group of loyalists from continuing work on the company’s legacy systems.

Incredibly, December of 2010 saw the release of a brand new RPG for the Mega Drive called Pier Solar and the Great Architects, developed by WaterMelon Co. The game’s release approximately doubles the number of RPGs available for the system. The game is available on whopping 64 megabit cartridges, and is the largest game ever made for its system. Pier Solar also takes advantage of the Mega-CD add-on for audio enhancement.

Somewhat less incredibly, Duranik is currently developing a new shmup (shoot ‘em up) for the Dreamcast called Sturmwind. The Dreamcast has continued to receive small doses of support since its official discontinuation in 2001.

Image: SEGA.

SEGA is promising a number of “projects” for 2011 in celebration of their beloved tolerated mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog. Oh yeah, and Puyo Puyo as well.

It’s not clear what these projects specifically entail. I personally predict a compilation re-release of the beloved 2D Sonic games, followed by a re-re-release of that disc celebrating the previous disc’s lukewarm reception later in the year.

Then again, judging by the image put out by SEGA to the left, the company that gave us Cream the Rabbit may be planning to finally box up old-school Sonic. Look at scrawny green-eyed Sonic, he’s got old 90s Sonic trapped inside a monitor. And what’s he planning to do with that molesting finger of third-dimensionality?

Expect more on this irrelevant relic of your childhood as 2011 unfolds.

Source: andriasang

Image: Nintendo

The public will get its first taste of the 3DS January 8-10 in Japan at “Nintendo World 2011.” The event is analogous to the old SpaceWorld shows Nintendo used to put together that gave us magic like this. Aside: watching that video on loop is one of my earliest internet memories.

Playable games will include Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, Nintendogs + Cats, Kid Icarus, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D, and Pilot Wings Resort. An “auto demo” of Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D The Naked Sample will also be there, presumably to showcase Kojima’s hubris, judging by the length of the title.

One title that caught a lot of early attention was “3D Beauty Cock,” for which video was promised, but that turned out to be a misspelling of 3D Beauty Clock. That should come as a great disappointment to anyone wanting to see the 3DS pushed to its 3D limits.

None of this should be confused with the January 19th events being held in Amsterdam and New Amsterdam (New York), which should finally give the west some firm details on when to expect the 3DS, and for how much.

Source: NeoGAF

Image: Photography by Teresa Nasty.

Performance artist Nate Hill has taken to the streets in New York City to clean up attitudes. When he dons his possessed panda costume, he becomes impervious to pain. But with great power comes great responsibility.

Hill uses this power to let frustrated citizens vent on his poor panda persona (fursona). He bounces through the streets like a boxing champ, challenging everyday people like you and me to hit him as hard as they can.

“Hit me. Hit more hard,” he urged a passersby on a freezing afternoon at busy Union Square. “You know you’re angry, you were angry this morning.”

HillPanda is generously donating his time and body for about six months on this project, which I applaud. But this type of frustration therapy needs to be watched closely, because movies tell me this can only lead to creating secret mayhem societies,  having Brad Pitt as your imaginary friend, and kicking your own ass.

Source: Edmonton Journal

Image: Majora's Mask box art. Copyright Nintendo.

GameFAQs.com ran another one of their famous tournament vote-offs in which game characters and/or games are pitted against one another and voted on by children and man-children alike for the sake of determining superiority. These types of events were the inspiration for ShufflingDead’s parody, Cock Wars.

It’s not entirely clear if winners are scientifically and empirically better than losers, although it seems obvious that they should be regarded as such.

This time around, GameFAQs decided to elect Game of the Decade. Contenders came from all around: unique stand-outs like Okami and Portal went up against franchise heavyweights like Resident Evil 4 and Halo.

In the end, Super Smash Bros. Brawl took out Fallout 3, and Majora’s Mask tore up Final Fantasy X, to make for an all-Nintendo final. Since Zelda is never allowed to lose these things, Majora’s Mask eventually won.

Just to prove the obsessive fanboyism of the Zelda army, GameFAQs then decided to pit Link against Santa Claus in a final showdown. Link won that too.

Image: Super Meat Boy. Copyright Team Meat.

Team Meat of Super Meat Boy fame have announced via Twitter that the WiiWare version of their game is dead.

The Developer stated “ATTENTION: there will not be a Wiiware version of SMB. we are looking in to retail Wii, bit its also looking grim. still looking though.”

Internet dwellers are claiming the cancellation of the project comes as a result of the strict 40MB limit placed on WiiWare titles. If that is indeed the issue, I can’t help but blame Nintendo for their gross neglect of the online component of their console, and utter ignorance of the developing downloadable games market.

Image: New Super Mario Bros. Wii coin. Copyright Nintendo. From Super Mario Wiki.

There’s no denying the joy of collecting coins in Super Mario Bros. They look shiny and appealing, and that “ting” sound effect is just so satisfying.

Legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto made the conscious decision to go with coins over another collectable idea he had, fruit, because he feared the healthy snacks may cause players to become confused and run away. Miyamoto explains “we were thinking about something that anybody would look at and go ‘I definitely want that!,’ we thought, ‘Yep, it’s gotta be money.’”

Well said Miyamoto. I can’t even imagine the number of coins Mario has now collected all-time, world-wide.

Source: GoNintendo

Image: Dexter promotional image. Copyright Showtime.

Here’s something I meant to share with you all a while ago. Earlier this month, Michael C. Hall, star of the TV series Dexter, appeared on Jimmy Fallon’s late night show.

Fans of the show will have a Dextergasm over this little song, and non-fans will probably be just as creeped out. Enjoy the melodious tones of serial killer Dexter’s calming voice. They might be the last you hear…if you were bad this year.

Image: Adapted from Happy Halloween !-1 by Bob Jagendorf under a CC-BY license.

Everyone knows that during a Zombie Apocalypse, the undead are everywhere, all the time. So how can you possibly be expected to have yourself a merry little Christmas with walking corpses spreading holiday fear?

Finally, a video guide to surviving the holidays AND the Zombpocalypse. These tips could be the difference between terrible death and living to survive the Zombie Apocalypse New Years.

Image: Adapted from I can has nootral internets? by JasonWalton under a CC-BY license.

The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, has finally ruled on net neutrality. Americans can look forward to their ISPs not screwing them over entirely, just a lot.

The order bars ISPs from blocking content and requires transparency for both wired and wireless internet. Reasonableness (whatever that means) of network management and packet discrimination is required for wired internet, but service providers are free to be as unreasonable as they want with wireless internet in this regard.

Most frighteningly, so called “managed services” are allowed, but will be oh-so-reassuringly monitored for “anti-competitive behavior.” This means ISPs can tack on extra fees for extra and/or faster services. This might sound alright in theory, but ISPs have mandated virtual-monopolies, with citizens of many regions of the US having few, if any, ISP choices. In other words: get ready to pay for things you got for free before, and get ready for large internet companies muscling out small start-ups by arranging deals with ISPs.

The measure was passed three-to-two along party lines by a five person commission. Of course, Democrats were the majority, but opted to largely give in to the ranting corporatist lunacy of the right, even though Republicans were never going to be in favour of even the weakest measures anyway. Yet more evidence that Democrats don’t care about the good of the average citizen either, they just sometimes talk like they do.

Conservatives desperate to allow corporate control of every aspect of American’s lives are livid about the decision, with one commission member describing the net neutrality decision as “one of the darkest days in recent FCC history.” And I thought I was hyperbolic.

Source: arstechnica

Image: Adapted from Lunar Eclipse by tallpomlin under a CC-BY license.

If you’re finding the dingy walls of your nerd cave are getting a little too familiar, and your tentacle-related “films” a lot too repetitive, the outdoors is actually offering up some entertainment tonight.

The moon (you know, the thing the wolves on your shirts howl at) will be bereft of its typical sunlight the night of Monday December 20, 2010/the morning of Tuesday December 21, 2010 thanks to a total lunar eclipse. The best timing for viewing depends on where you live. Some are predicting that the moon may light-up in a reddish-orange colour as greedy Terra gets between Luna and Sol.

The last time such an eclipse occurred on a solstice (don’t forget the seasons are changing) was in 1638, 372 years ago.

Sources: CNN, Wikipedia

Image: Michael Pachter from Pach-Attack! episode 101.

Michael Pachter is my hero. In addition to having a high paying, high profile job as a research analyst, he also gets to troll the shit out of the internet on a regular basis. Following his awesome slam against the PSP2, we have another wild eyed claim from the Pach-man regarding online multiplayer. Pachter has been suggesting for some time that publishers need to start extorting their customers for more money to play their games online. DLC isn’t enough. Pach is now officially on the attack, he proclaims “considering that each of the publicly traded publishers exists to maximise shareholder value, we view their reticence to monetise multiplayer as a betrayal of shareholder trust.” That’s right, Bobby Kotick isn’t doing enough to milk the Call of Duty player base.

Image: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides poster. Copyright Disney.

So the Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides trailer has been out for a few days. Here it is. Let’s talk about that shit. Now, like so many people, I was a pretty massive fan of the first Pirates, but found the second and third installments to be, frankly, poorly paced overproduced ass. The filmmakers seemed beholden to maintaining and expanding the scope with each film, so that we ended up with far more characters than could possibly be cared about, and more plot twists than could possibly be followed. Worst of all, the almighty run-time of the first movie was continued. The new film has a lot going for it: pirates, zombies, Geoffrey Rush, and Jack Sparrow, but I won’t be sold until I hear this movie is 120 minutes long, with no post-credits tack-on.

Image: Adapted from IMG_0360bis by Luni's under a CC-BY license.

Winona “Spock’s Mom” Ryder doesn’t use the internet. That shocking revelation comes from an interview the actor did with Elle magazine. She told the publication “I have my e-mail on my BlackBerry and that’s about it.” The most offensive item to note in this story is that Shoppy McShoplifterson has, in her own words, “never read a blog, ever.” That’s right, Lydia Deetz has never read ShufflingDead, and probably never will. “Strange and unusual” indeed.

Image: Adapted from Hughes, Vincent Valentine, Tifa?, and Cloud? Cosplay by pockybum522 under a CC-BY license.

The company that once brought you quality entertainment like levitating triangular hair and Tifa’s bouncing breasts has fallen on hard times.

Following the delays of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIV, Square-Enix has been forced hack, slash, and maim its annual net profit forecast by over 90%. The company now expects to make a mere $11.9 million this year, compared with its previously predicted $142.8 million.

Those delays aren’t SE’s only problems this year. The company blames “weak sales performance of console game titles that have been newly released during the current fiscal year as well as harsh market feedback regarding a key title.” That key title being, of course, Final Fantasy XIV. The game’s PC version has seen repeated extensions of its free subscription period due to ongoing complaints from loyal Moogle worshipers.

The house that teen angst and overwrought cut-scenes built may still be able to redeem itself. Analysts such as those who frequent message boards and comment sections on the internet have been quick to point out that all the company needs to do is remake Final Fantasy VII for [insert most honourable choice for game console here].

Source: Gamasutra

Image: U.S. federal government.

Poor Ryan Reynolds, that headline writes itself.

Queen Hotness of the Universe Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds have ended their relationship. That means the star of two of my six favourite films (Lost in Translation and Ghost World) is available for wooing. The pair were married for two years.

A special message to Scarlett: If you’re looking for another Canadian, one with about 8 less chiseled abs to contend with, you let me know.

In vaguely related news that should help pad the word count of this post, Johansson’s Ghost World co-star Thora Birch has been fired from an off-Broadway production of Dracula. Her father/manager supposedly threatened one of the other actors in the play.

Image: Adapted from Mark Zuckerberg Facebook SXSWi 2008 Keynote by deneyterrio under a CC-BY license.

TIME Magazine fired-up its annual mechanism for staying relevant today by naming their Person of the Year. It’s the only “of the Year” that rivals ShufflingDead’s own Shameful Human title in sheer importance.

This “time” around, the magazine named internet mogul, billionaire, and Facebook founder, Mark “They Trust Me” Zuckerberg. Internet reaction to the decision has been strong, and it has been negative. Itching-neck typers the world over took to their keyboards to lament the decision, complaining that this was a sellout decision, as the true Person of the Year, so they argue, was clearly Julian Assange. Assange was named one of the title’s runners-up.

I was personally in favour of Assange myself, but to be perfectly honest, my opinion on the matter is shaded by (yeah) a little hero worship. There is no doubt that Assange and his site WikiLeaks mattered a hell of a lot this year. Of course, Zuckerberg and Facebook also mattered this year. Both men, and both websites, grabbed plenty of headlines in 2010.

TIME’s Person of the Year is not an award, it’s a title bestowed upon the person (or people, or thing) which the magazine claims “for better or for worse, …has done the most to influence the events of the year.” There seems little doubt, however, that matters of marketability in the United States shade the decision as well. It has nothing to do with who got the most votes on the magazine’s website, or who kicked the most ass.

In the end, one internet dude was Person of the Year, another internet dude was a runner-up Person of the Year. The geek have inherited the Earth, and I can’t help but be happy about that.

io9 has posted a spectacular story on the Japanese phenomenon known as “otagei.” Wikipedia tells me the term is sometimes Anglicized as “wotagei” This is a ritualistic geek dance performed by otaku while they bask in the glory of their favourite aspiring idols. Learn it yourself by viewing this video. The article focuses on Dear Stage, apparently the premier place for otaku flailing. io9 describes the trend as part of a nightlife scene that has sprung up from an nerdy urban neighborhood equivalent to “a New York Jewish neighborhood, or San Francisco’s queer neighborhood.”

Image: Adapted from IMG_4599 by CLF under a CC-BY license.

I can’t claim to agree with Michael Pachter’s typical video game prognostications, but here’s one my furious fanboy heart can get behind (at least half of). Pachter believes the handheld market is “in trouble” (that’s not the part I like) and has gone so far as to claim the long-rumoured PSP2 will be “dead on arrival” (now that’s funny). Something called “the big woody of the iPod Touch” is supposedly responsible for much of the trouble. Pach-attack claims the 3DS will keep the handheld market going for awhile, but Apple’s nefarious gadgets will eventually put the dedicated handhelds in trouble.

Image: Adapted from Pearl White PSP Go by MNgilen under a CC-BY license.

Some 1.3 million user accounts on the Gawker network of sites have been compromised. Email addresses and usernames are publicly available, and corresponding passwords are slowly being released as they are decrypted. Password databases are generally encrypted to ensure security even if those databases are accessed. Gawker reportedly used outdated encryption technology to store the passwords, allowing them to be more readily decrypted.

Gawker’s sites include Kotaku, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Gawker, Jezebel, io9, Jalopnik, Fleshbot and Deadspin. All well known blogs with active commenter communities. Slate has put together a helpful widget to determine if your email or username has appeared in the released material, and whether your password has been decoded yet or not.

I recommend testing any username or email address that you may have used on any of the above-listed sites. The reason this hack is so concerning is that users have a serious tendency to use the same password on multiple sites. You may not care about someone hijacking your Gawker account, but you probably care a lot more about the password you used there being used to access your email or Facebook account. If you have any doubt about the security of your information, you should change your passwords to every damn thing out there.

A group called Gnosis has claimed responsibility for the incident, citing Gawker’s arrogance as their motivation (Gawker founder Nick Denton is known for his knobbery). Gnosis reportedly had access to Gawker accounts and systems for some time, with Denton noticing strange activity a month ago.

Early reports falsely blamed Anonymous/4chan for the attacks, citing a DDoS attack the community put together targeting Gawker earlier in the year.

Early fallout from this event appears to be the widespread takeover of Twitter accounts. ABC is reporting that an awful lot of Twitter users have taken a sudden liking to acai berry drinks. Walgreen and McDonald’s customers have also reported being suddenly targeted by phishing scams.

Image: Gawker logo.

Here’s something from last month I never got around to posting. A casting director working on The Hobbit who was endeavoring to keep Middle Earth racially pure has been fired. He or she had placed an ad seeking “light skins tones” and rejected a Pakistani applicant based on her skin. Apparently, poor grammar alone isn’t enough to get you kicked from working on the project. Maybe this will inspire greater diversity in casting for the movies, getting away from Tolkien’s uncomfortable racial divisions of white = good, Southrons / Easterlings = bad.

Image: The Fellowship of the Ring poster. Copyright New Line Cinemas.

36-year-old Milan Marinkovic of Warminster, Pennsylvania has been sentenced to 8-20 years in prison after pleading guilty to the brutal beating of his roommate. Marinkovic had ingested enough pills and liquor to get in touch with his midichlorians and assume the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He told police that he was the bearded Jedi when they arrived, and explained that “he was on a mission to ‘kill all evil.’”

Image: Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. Copyright Lucasfilm.