Saturday, December 30, 2006

Amazing Screw-on Head

The Amazing Screw-on Head is the title of a one shot comic book written and drawn by Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame. The comic was published by Dark Horse Comics in 2002, and an animated pilot was made by the Sci-Fi Channel in 2006. It may yet become a series, based on the feedback from a now closed viewer survey.While similar in tone and theme to Hellboy, The Amazing Screw-On Head is a steampunk comedy.

The voice cast is great with Paul Giamatti as Screw-on head, and David Hyde Pierce as Emperor Zombie, the highly intelligent and articulate power mad zombie villain. Aided by Mr. Groin (a butler) and Mr. Dog (a stuffed dog) Screw-on head fights the occult and supernatural threats as an agent of Abraham Lincoln.

Let's watch!



Wikipedia Article: Amazing Screw-On Head

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Guitar Hero 2 Review


Guitar Hero 2
Originally uploaded by coderkind.
With the blessings of the season upon everyone, and another day yet until I return to work, I see fit to review a PlayStation 2 game that I recently acquired in the flurry of festivities.

I got hooked on Guitar Hero 2 during an excursion to Best Buy with veritate and defender75. I got stuck playing "War Pigs" and "John the Fisherman" for about half and hour and vowed to get myself a copy of the game at some point, though I gushed enough about the game over the last week to ensure a copy was under the tree this year.


Guitar Hero 2 is one of the latest releases in the "rhythm video game" genre similar to the Konami arcade game "Guitar Freaks." A 3/4 scale Gibson SG guitar is your controller, or rather your "axe" as you will be shredding fairly hard after a few tries.

The song set list is impressive, with song like "Institutionalized" by Suicidal Tendencies and "Sweet Child O' Mine" it feels as if the developers looked into my mix tape collection from high school and based their choices on that. The inclusion of Spinal Tap's "Tonight I'm going to rock you Tonight" and Strong Bad's "Trogdor!!!" really puts the rock quotient over the edge. The only thing missing is a Tenacious D song.

On the topic of "rock quotient," part of the scoring system of the game includes a "Rock Meter" to show how accurate your performance is i.e. How well you "rock" as it were. I think one of these should be installed at every rock concert in the world, and the results would be illuminating.

I really hope one of my PS2 using friends will pick this game up soon so we can have some dual-guitar rock-jamming action.




From XKCD comics

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Slashboing On Vacation

I will be on Vacation from the end of this post until the end of December. I hope to post again before the new year.

Until then, I present the following image for pondering possibilities. The image is from US patent 6,500,041 for "Animated headsets." This is proof that just because an idea is patentable, it is not necessarily useful.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Johnny Johnny makes Lunch

The Sunday Flickr Favourites team delivers this picture from the photostream of Gio Corsi, the gentleman who portrayed "Mr. Ambassador" in the smash video podcast, "Tiki Bar Tv."


sandwich_wide
Originally uploaded by CORSIWORLD.


As he is close friends of the creators of the podcast, he has many candid shots of them. Here is Kevin Gamble, better known in my circles as "Johnny Johnny" the cocktologist of the tiki bar, serving up a smoked meat sandwich for lunch.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Learn comptuing at home

William Shatner can do no wrong. In the 1980's he was an advocate for computer literacy.
Let's watch!

Friday, December 15, 2006

Funny Wikipedia Category

I found a great collection of Fictional Balls on Wikipedia. If you can read that with no giggling, you are more mature than I.

Bigger, funnier and better conceived posts are in the works, so hang on.

"Some balls are held for charity, and some for fancy dress, but when they're held for pleasure they're the balls that I like best." - AC/DC "Big Balls"

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Christmas gifts from Flickr

Flickr just posted to their blog today that they have increased the limits on uploading bandwidth. Those with paid accounts now have unlimited uploads, and those with free accounts (like me) got a 5x boost from 20MB per month up to 100MB. That means I can start uploading higher resolution images, however my maximum viewing limit is still 200 pictures, which I just reached this week

Flickr also added a cool easter egg (xmas egg?) to the note feature. Adding a note "ho ho ho hat" draws a Santaman hat while "ho ho ho beard" give the picture whiskers.


I think it may disappear in the new year so I document it with this picture. The original is found here.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Touching review of Empire Strikes Back

As part of a community building exercise, some of the Star Wars fan groups are sending a Luke Skywalker figurine from club to club around the world, taking pictures along the way. A document of his travels can be found here: Luke's Blog

Doing a Google search to find any discussion this project, I found this touching review of "Empire Strikes Back" by Infoquake author David Louis Edelman. He recounts seeing it for the first time in 1980 with his brothers and sisters and a mother's purse full of smuggled-in candy. He writes:
Harrison Ford [...] by cavalierly dodging the Empire through fancy maneuver after fancy maneuver, has clearly demonstrated that he is the coolest dude in the history of the universe, ever ever ever. The chase through the asteroid field makes the Imperial Walkers seem like old news, especially now that the candy's gone and the sugar high has kicked in [...]

I'm scared, I'm elated, I want to go home, I never want to leave.
It makes we wish I could un-learn what I know, and re-watch the Star Wars films with the fresh eyes of a child. Failing that, I gather with my friends periodically and talk about these 30 year old films with a youthful vigour. We ask each other the same questions that have been raised for years:
  • "Do we have freewill or are we guided by fate/destiny?"
  • "How much government is too much, how much it too little?"
  • "Do the ends justify the means?"
  • "It it our intentions or actions that make us good or villainous?"
The love of gadgets, droids and space travel definitely shaped my career decisions, as I know it did others. The belief in Jedi peace and justice, and the Buddhists teachings they are based on, have guided my behaviour on more than one occasion.

Not bad for a merely escapist popcorn serial.

[Link]

Friday, December 08, 2006

Drinkbot Symposium


RoboExotica 2006
Originally uploaded by ioerror.


On November 14th, I blogged about Robot Bartenders, both real and fanciful. Seems that the serving of cocktails by a robot is significant enough to warrent a symposium.

Roboexotica is an event that runs December 5th-10th in Vienna, Austria in an attempt to:

"publicly discuss the role of cocktail robotics as an index for the integration of technological innovations into the human Lebenswelt, or to document the increasing occurrence of radical hedonism in man-machine communication."
The official sub-title of the event is "Cybernetics and Robotics as an Interdisciplinary Universal Science."

To me that sounds like an excuse to build funky robots and drink lots.

"If you turn your back on science, science will take you from behind" - Dr Tiki.

[Link] (via BoingBoing )

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Fooling all the wrong people

Sure enough, the picture I posted yesterday, and submitted to the 365 Days project was indeed my right elbow joint. I don't think I fooled anyone, as it would seem that Slashboing readers and Drhaggis fans in general are too smart to be fooled by a simple"elbow-as-fake-butt" ruse.

I did however score big hits on my Flickr account by using suggestive tags such as "," "," "," and "." I garnered over 200 hits on that image of my elbow, while my typical project pictures are in the 20-30 hit range.I bet people searching for those kind of images were a might disappointed to see what I offered them, or more accurately, what I didn't offer them. <insert convention runners joke here>

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Name that body part


Day 68 - Name that body part
Originally uploaded by Drhaggis.

Here is picture of my naked skin taken for Day 68 in my participation in the 365Days Project on Flickr. Can you guess which part it is? How brave do you think I am? I will post the answer tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Monday, December 04, 2006

Kilgore Trout for President

The Sunday Flickr Favourites Team brings this one in a little late. Have no fear, they will be dealt with accordingly.



105_0517 copy
Originally uploaded by dizznan.

Seen here is a lovely combination of two of my favourite things. A Kurt Vonnegut reference, and smarmy graffiti. The phrase from Krakow reads "Kilgore Trout for president." The man seen with the slogan, my indeed be Mr. Trout himself.

Sunday, December 03, 2006

December Events Calender

IFWA Christmas Book Festival
When: Saturday December 9 th from 12 PM - 4 PM
Where: Centre building of Richmond Meadows Co-op, 4940 - 39 Ave. SW. Map
Cost: $10

All-You-Can-Eat food and drink including turkey, chili, brisket, potato salad, coleslaw, homemade bread, and homemade ice cream.

Bring along your orphaned books for trade with other avid readers at Honest Ivan's Book Exchange!

Special Events:
At 1 PM Special Guest Hugo Award winning author Robert J. Sawyer will be on hand to lead a discussion on how near-future technology will save Mankind.
At 2 PM Cliff Samuels will moderate a Book Discussion on new and old books worth reading.
At 3 PM we'll hold our Enormous Book Raffle! We have a mountain of SF&f hard covers, trades, and paperbacks. And even a few non-book items.
Raffle Tickets available throughout the afternoon: $1 each; 6 for $5; 15 for $10.

FanForce Book Club meeting
:
When: Sunday December 10 th starting at 7:30 PM
Where: Boomtown Restaurant, at the Delta Hotel (formerly the Best Western) on the corner of Southland Dr and Macleod Trail S

We will be discussing "Ender's Game"

Come on out!