Geek’s Eye View: Uncharted 3

Friends don't let friends fly drunk, Nathan.

There are very few franchises out there that can take a somewhat abrasive, selfish, neurotic lead character and turn him into a cultural phenomenon. Still, Naughty Dog has capitalized on what I like to call the ‘Indiana Jones Effect’ with the Uncharted series. Since it’s inception in late 2007, Uncharted has been one of the top selling PS3 games of all time.
Well into 2011, almost four years to the day from the release of the Original, Naughty Dog studios, most famously known for [aside from the uncharted games] the Jak and Daxter games, have produced the world spanning, thought invoking, soul touching piece that is Uncharted 3: Drake’s deception. . . well maybe not soul touching or thought invoking…

WARNING: Slight spoiler-ish things after the jump

Geek’s Eye View: Paranormal Activity 3

So, Three Years after the initial buzz, people are still rushing out to see Paranormal Activity movies. There’s no doubt that the original was an absolute blockbuster smash. Made for only Fifteen Thousand dollars, the movie to date has grossed somewhere in the range of about Two hundred Million and counting. This has lead to a somewhat bizzare sequel which takes place before, during and after the first film, and left too many questions unanswered.

However, as the time honored response in Hollywood goes, They’ve made yet another sequel, but a prequel, which Is supposed to answer all of our questions as to why poor Katie was possessed, and even better, why the crazy bitch stole her sister’s kid in the second movie. Unfortunately for you die-hard Paranormal Activity Fans out there, It leaves more head scratching to be done than ever before.

WARNING: Spoiler’s follow after the jump.

Nerds, Unite!

So, once again, another year goes by and another convention that yours truly didn’t have the pleasure of attending.

New York Comic Con kicked off this Thursday at the Javits Center in NYC, kicking off with a day of informational panels, including discussions on how comics and Video Games can be used as effective outreach tools.

The other three days will include a wide range of topics including: Star Wars Collectibles, a DC talent search, as well as  a Bevy of Celebrities including Felicia Day, Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes and the cast of the Syfy Series Haven.

Saturday night plays host to the masquerade, but the Cosplaying will be going on all weekend long no doubt. They’ll also be hosting a speed dating session during the convention:

Speed Dating at New York Comic Con – brought to you by Lightning Fast Speed Dating – will be the subject for a pilot for a new unscripted, reality television series.  A camera crew from a major cable network will be on-site at NYCC filming the sessions to produce a possitive show about pop culture fans looking for love.

More Cosplay Photos after the Jump

In Memoriam

I’m not going to waste a bunch of people’s time going over the list of accomplishments that Steve Jobs managed to run through in his life. Instead, I want to focus on the fact that one of the Forefathers of Technology as we know it has left this earth.

It’s so strange now how mortality becomes such a stark reality. Ever since I was a little kid I knew who Steve Jobs was. Growing up in Silicon Valley, you had to know who he was, or else you weren’t one of the cool  kids. I watched Apple grow from a company that provided me with the best way to play ‘Where in the world is Carmen San Diego’ to the megalithic Giant it is today.

I know I’ve talked some harsh game about Apple in the past, but I’m going to, in the wake of such overwhelming  sadness, overlook them. Like it or not, Steve changed the world we live in. Whether it’s for better or for worse, no one can really tell, but one thing is for certain, a great spark has gone out in the universe.

To you, Steve, in the words of the Buddha:

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

This seems legit..

What Now, Einstein?

 

Scientists at CERN Say they have observed a neutrino traveling at 60 Nanoseconds faster than the speed of light.. something that completely throws the theory of relativity into question. Stephen Parke, Head physicist at Fermilab, near Batavia, Ill. noted that “It’s a shock. It’s going to cause us problems, no doubt about that — if it’s true.”

 

So.. when do i sign up for one of these bad boys?

!

So, apparently the guys over at Risk got together with Kojima-san and created a sweet, limited edition run of Metal Gear themed Risk.

They’re only putting out 2,014 of these bad boys, so if you want one, you better get your ass over there to preorder it. If you order in September or October, the game will ship in November.

 

Oh, and by the way, box art was done by Yoji Shinkawa, The art designer on the games, and it comes with more than 290 custom game pieces.

 

 

I guess the ways we write are becoming obsolete, too.

Well, we all knew it was just a matter of time. The guys over at SourceFed.com posted a rather startling article. Apparently, starting in the fall, the state of Indiana will be able to completely phase out cursive writing in school districts. The change is one that has already been started by school districts across the country, and in most, cursive isn’t mandatory anymore. In fact, in Indiana, at least, the other option instead of cursive will be ‘Keyboard Proficiency’. God knows the youth of today need to learn how to work every fucking key on the board. I understand it’s convenient to type ‘u’ instead of ‘you’, but it makes you look like you grabbed mama’s kitchen knife and tried to carve out your own cerebellum.

I have to agree with SourceFed; It’s just the way that technology is progressing. Cursive is essentially obsolete, considering the only thing most people use it for anyway is signatures, which, really, you could just close your eyes and pretend that your hand is being posessed, and it would still be an acceptable signature. Now, I’ve never been too much for cursive writing, myself. Being the offspring of late cro-magnon man and an interplanetary howler monkey, all of my writing looks like that of a mental patient, anyway. It’s just sad to see that kids won’t get yelled at for fucking up the dotted line on the ‘e’ in the notebook. Instead, I guess you’ll have teachers responding to kids misspelling words like February, Wednesday and Chrysanthemum by sending P.O.D. packets and force-crashing their hard drives..

At least i still have my runes..

LOTR+LEGO= Awesome.

My fondest memories of Legos include seeing how high i could build a tower, only to watch it fall over, constructing a lightsaber out of all red colored bricks and shattering it over my friend’s back, and pissing my mom off by leaving them out so she would step on them in the middle of the night.

But I’m more than willing to admit that i am outclassed in whatever retarded rendition of  the castle from Monty Python I ever made. The guys over at MOCpages.com decided they were going to make ALL of middle earth out of Lego bricks, and they presented it at Brickworld in Chicago. I don’t even have to tell you that they won a metric crap-ton of awards.  To be honest, I have to give them a huge round of applause. As a Lord of the Rings fan, and a fan of Lego, they’ve combined two of my biggest loves into something that can only most definitely be described as  kick ass on a whole new level.

I’ll post a few of the pictures here, but you have to check out their website to see just how awesome these guys are.