I wanted to share with you pictures of my dog Sofie wearing what (I thought) was a useless reserve bonus from Gamestop. It fits her like a glove, and I think she likes wearing it (for a few minutes anyways). I took this picture (and video below) with my iPhone, but I also took some much more crisp shots with my Cannon Digital Rebel(ooo fancy!) I might upload some of them later :D
I'm using this post as an excuse to write more, and become a more prominent member in the Dtoid community. I've been reading/listening/posting at dtoid for almost 3 years now, because I'm sure none of you really know who I am. Hopefully I'll use all the downtime at work to become more active in the C-blogs and the forums! I don't know the reason I avoid updating my C-Blog, I think my last post was in January and that was only my 5th or 6th attempt at posting. I actually enjoy writing, I just don't find myself very creative, or particularly good at the written word in general. I do suppose that practice makes perfect, or at least practice makes (a tiny bit) better !
That being said, I do wish I had more to offer here at Destructoid. I look around in the forums, and the amount of talent (even you phallus knife fight) in some of the art, videos, and other forms of creative humor from the community, and I just feel depressed (but still impressed!) So instead of twiddling my thumbs, afraid to impose my writings upon a very talented community in fear of not being "up to par" with some of you, I've decided that I'd still like to be apart of you even if I'm not particularly funny/interesting/creative/talented :D
This is quickly becoming a emo-blog or some kind of pity party, so I'll stop here and bless you with my dog Sofie trying to get this Scribblenauts Rooster hat off her head (no help from me or my roommate mind you, it's just too cute to see her struggle with it being over her eyes). See you tomorrow!? Yes.
I can't get the embed code to work (I added the id code into the upload, but it doesnt work. :( Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Here's the link.
As you know the 360 got Netflix support a few months ago so now you can stream up your instant queue from your account to your TV. Well if you don't have a 360, or don't have live, or have a ps3 you can now stream Hulu, Youtube, and Netflix to your PS3 or 360 just like any other media server (like tversity). The only thing is it isn't free, it's a 30 dollar license fee for the software, but I started the trial today (on netflix and with playon) and with almost no setup I am streaming complete tv series, movies, etc to my ps3 in great quality.
30 bucks for a license (you don't have to renew or upgrade or anything, you get updates, etc like any other software).
Netflix is 8.99 a month if you don't already have it, this gets you 1 dvd rental, and unlimited streaming to your PC / TV. Up to 50 different items in 1 streaming queue. It's easy to use and through the PS3 it's 100% easy to navigate, shows or movies are separated by folders, and they include the thumbnail image for the dvd or box art.
ALSO, if you have a ps3 you can rent bluray movies for 1 dollar more a month as well as dvds.
So if you want to try it there is a month trial on netflix, and a 2 week trial for playon. I'd try it out first to make sure there isn't any compatibility problems with your network set up. I know some people have said they have had problems trying to stream hulu stuff so you might want to try it out before paying. If you follow the FAQ you can forward any ports or whatever for your router IF you have problem. Just try the 2 week trial with the month trial of Netflix before you pay for anything. I've been using it all night though and its very, very awesome.
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Alright guys I'll make this as sensitive and appropriate as possible. We've all read about LBP delay, caused by a Qu'ran reference in the song "Tapha Niang" from the 2006 album Boulevard de l'Independance by Grammy award-winning Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté". My first reaction was that the quote from the Qu'ran was offensive to English speaking territories and must be about God, or something specifically sensitive. This seems to not be the case as the 2 sentences specifically quote some apocalyptic type of material (that can be found in most holy books). Specifically:
"كل نفس ذائقة الموت" ("kollo nafsin tha'iqatol mawt", literally: 'Every soul shall have the taste of death').
"كل من عليها فان" ("kollo man alaiha fan", literally: 'All that is on earth will perish').
So we can take this whatever way we want, and the media seems to be focusing on the lyrics up above as the reason the game has been delayed, but this is misleading. Gamasutra reports the incident started on a Muslim gaming community message board. Saying,
"I asked many of my friends online and offline and they heard the exact same thing that I heard easily when I played that part of the track. Certain Arabic hardcore gaming forums are already discussing this, so we decided to take action by emailing you before this spreads to mainstream attention.
We Muslims consider the mixing of music and words from our Holy Quran deeply offending. We hope you would remove that track from the game immediately via an online patch, and make sure that all future shipments of the game disk do not contain it."
Basically, the offense is the use of the Qu'ran in music (being mixed, etc) is offensive to a small amount of Muslims who are considered by most other Muslims as a little extreme in what rules they follow.
Seeking to put this all together I spoke to a friend of mine, a Muslim woman who helped me make some sense of this all.
I linked her to several stories, and filled her in on all the details, she first responded "I don't understand, what's the problem". I explained that perhaps the lyrics were a bit sensitive to English territories (of course this is silly) and she said "i have no idea
there are tons of verses like that." Shortly after I found the article explaining the real reason, and asked her about the offense to Muslims, she said "yes
its not allowed. but, only extremist folks follow that rule but it only takes a few ignorant people to ruin everything." Obviously the very people who were offended have caused a new problem, media attention to the lyrics, and ignorant behavior from the internet community. Something they probably didn't want, which makes all of this the more pointless.
Now to the reason I sat down and took time to talk to everyone. Please, I'm begging the Destructoid Community, the gaming community, to have respect and maturity over this matter. I've already read a lot of offensive material on this site, and every other gaming site regarding Muslim people, and religion in general. I'm not a religious person, and I don't want to start a debate that leads into a quarrel about personal beliefs. I do want to plead for people to realize that a few extremist people do no smear an entire group of people. I beg everyone to be mindful of others, and to take the anger of disappointment and use it constructively instead of bashing groups of people who are on the same side as you.
While this is terribly disappointing, everyone should breath a sigh of relief! Why? Because this month is a gaming cluster bomb of enjoyment and this is one less game I have to worry about for a few weeks. This week alone so many exciting releases for us to play instead, here is a list of some exciting games coming out this week and next, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia, Rock Band 2 for PS3, Fallout 3 for PC, Dead Space, Bioshock for PS3, Star Ocean for PSP, Eternal Sonata for PS3, Fable II for 360, and FarCry 2 for PC.
So everyone calm down, be respectful, and go enjoy some of the great games we have to choose from just this upcoming week alone. We are lucky to have so many great choices this week, and just because the truly amazing Little Big Planet will not be in our hands doesn't mean we can't have some fun anyway.
Although it would be nice if Media Molecule released an open beta to calm the hordes of people who are disappointed by this announcement, just to tide us over :D
Please go out with respect, it's very easy to be offensive when we don't mean to, and please encourage mature behavior. We all represent the gaming community when we're posting on gaming sites, make us proud.
I just wanted to let everyone know that before you go to sleep the PS3 2.43 system update, and the Iphone 2.1 update are now available! The PS3 update apparently adds some video service functions for Japanese users, so it may not be that important. It is unknown if this update does much else, it's not a required update anyways. Those of you who have iPhones, a pretty significant update is now avilable that should make most users pretty happy. This beefy update includes:
* Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls
* Significantly better battery life for most users
* Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
* Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
* Faster installation of 3rd party applications
* Fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes for users with lots of third party applications
* Improved performance in text messaging
* Faster loading and searching of contacts
* Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
* Repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
* Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
* Genius playlist creation
Capcom might have created one of the best video game concept box art in the world. We've all seen the Mega Man 9 logo/cover for the to be soon released XBLA/PSN/WiiWare game, but have we seen it like this? Capcom has gone beyond expectations and have physically created the NES box / nes cartridge disc holder for their up and coming neo-classic. This deliciously retro homage is much appreciated by yours truly, but much more appreciated by the press who actually will be receiving it. Just in case this is TOO retro for you (jim!), just lift open the NES cart to reveal the "asset disc", media DVD. At least I assume this disc is packed with trailers and promotional material, and not the real game. Either way this is a must have for collectors, only if there was an easy way of getting my hands on this. How many old ladies would you push over for this? CHAD?
I actually just wrote up a big entry, then closed the Firefox window because I forgot I had this post in a tab. :( I'm going to try to recreate this the best I can..
Well I've finally set up my banner, and the side of my page the way I like it. I've got my little FFVI troupe over there cheering me on (hey guys!). I just wanted to say thanks for all the positive comments, it's great to be posting in the Cblog community!
Like I said yesterday I'm wanting to lean this blog over to the PC side of things, but often, like today, I'll do whatever I want. I have been playing a lot of PC recently though. Mostly Team Fortress 2 (it's hard to say no when you check your steam friends list and all your friends / roommates are playing), the newly released Spore (i'd like to write on this in a later post) which I'm really enjoying, and the not so new Mass Effect. Mass Effect is a nice addition to the PC library (I missed it on consoles, no 360), and works really well with the keyboard/mouse combo (pc gamer). I'll get to these things in due time though.. today, I'm feeling more of a Retro-Rant.
Today, I want everyone to think back to April, 1992. Legend of Zelda : A link to the past was released for the SNES. One of my favorite games for the console, and for all time. I could write a whole post about it's greatness very easily, but most of you know this already plus, it's been done before. Something that I don't think has been covered is what I'd like to talk about today, a very important matter.
Why the fuck is Link's hair purple?
Just look.
Okay done looking? Good. Can anyone explain this? Sure, maybe 'purple' isnt quite the right word, maybe PINK would be more fitting, or MAGENTA, or PLUM. I'm not a color expert, but the point is that it's not BLOND, or even BROWN. Link has had many forms since the dawn of the NES, but one thing has stayed consistent, beautiful sandy blond hair that varies from brown to blond. I'm not sure where PURPLE fits into there. Lets take a look at this very scientific chart.
From the collected data shown, it's clear to see (as long as the game is in color), that link starts off with brown hair, moves on to more brown hair, takes a freaky trip to purple land, then back to blond, lastly falling into a nice mixture of blond / brown in Twilight Princess. Now before everyone starts yelling in the comments, yes I am aware that each link is theoretically a different "person" in different "time lines" in the saga of Hyrule. Well I don't care about that! The character design is what we all look for, and obviously this purple hair didn't make the game any worse by any means, but obviously the design has always held the same feeling. I just want an explanation, the SNES didn't have a minimal color pallet, the game is full of rich vibrant colors that look FINE. Was there some kind of hardware limitation? Too many browns elsewhere? No room for brown, so they just throw in PURPLE?
Okay, I've calmed down. Anyways, does anyone have anything to add to this? Does anyone have a comment that might shed some light to my question? Does anyone really know? I guess all in all it doesn't really matter, I don't really care that much. I am curious though.
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