Jon Arbuckle has always creeped me out


But wait, isn't Garfield supposed to be in that comic strip? you might ask.

Yes, he is, but take out the fat lub of orange fur and you get Jon. Alone. And talking to himself.

The website Garfield minus Garfield decided to do just that with quite a few strips by photochopping the cat out and leaving Jon and his wacky dialog.

Here's the site's tagline:

"Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?
Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb."

Also, this site managed to bring in some of the original strips for comparison.

Awesome.

Smash Lab - Worst show on the Discovery Channel?

Growing tired of all the Smash Lab commercials on the Discovery Channel, and knowing you can pretty much find anything on the internet, I googled "Smash Lab sucks" and found this site. I also checked the boards on IMBD, much hate in there too.

Smash Lab is all about blowing things up and crashing things into other things under the guise of science. I guess the hosts are supposed to be the Gen X or the "Xtreeeeme" kind of scientists that the suits in DC think the kids will like these days. Sadly, they feel they need to ram it down our throats by playing the ads on every commercial break during MythBusters and Dirty Jobs, two shows that helped make DC the network I most find myself watching.

Unfortunately, Smash Lab is a sad imitation of what makes MythBusters so cool. While the very likable folks at MB actually have a reason to blow and smash things, SL has the reject cast of Friends trying to explain why they need to build a house and make it shake while they are in it screaming like little girls.

Of course network can't have a perfect lineup of shows, and every one of them has to have a bad apple in there somewhere. I just hope Discovery comes to their senses and puts the brakes on this train wreck.

EDIT: also found that there is a petition to cancel the show on Discovery's message boards! Awesome.

Finally...


HD-DVD is dead. Now we can all go Blu-ray and move on.

Time to save up for that PS3.

Analyze That.

Last night I had 3 of the craziest dreams I've ever had (as far as I remember that is). I'll try my best to describe them here.

OK, first dream. It's night. My dad and I are in a supermarket, nothing specific, maybe Albertson's or Von's. I don't know why we are in there, but I find myself walking toward the fish, but this section looks more like one of the those seafood sections at an Asian market, with rows of frozen fish meat, and giant tanks full of various other live ocean denizens. But one thing is prominent here in this particular market, crabs. Lots of crab. Everywhere there are crabs, spilling out of the tables, little ones to huge ones, like 6 feet in diameter. I am walking around dazed, and a feeling of dread creeps into me, though I'm not sure why I am scared of all these crustaceans, I like crab.

Not much else after that, but I sense it is time to leave and head outside. Cars fill the parking lot, people walking in and out of the market, something about me driving a car to the far side of the lot, but also waiting for my dad to find our old maroon-colored Toyota Camry. He does end up finding it, parked closest to the market, and me thinking we were lucky to find a good parking spot. But things shift to bad as we find out that are car was broken into. Windows broken, doors open. My dad talks to a police officer about the break-in. Then things fade away after that.

Which leads to my second dream. Has the government started the "Adopt-a-Felon" program yet? Because that was what this dream was about.

I am at home (my parents house) and the doorbell must've rang, because either my dad or my mom answer it, and guess what? It's our new adopted felon, escorted by San Diego's finest! What the hell, right? Anyways, I think it's a guy this time, though it gets a bit jumbled here, I remember three total crooks coming into the house throughout what seemed like days, and one of them was female, all dressed in the orange jumpsuits in handcuffs. Things get fuzzy, but the feeling that this was completely normal and people do these things in this dreamworld all the time. But the frequency of these adoptions are what makes us a bit concerned, not the safety, or the complete idiocy of this "program". My mom voices her concern about maybe telling the officers to change the schedule of the adopted perps to once a month, instead of once every two days or so, like this was Netflix or something. Very weird indeed, as for some reason I believe I've had this dream for the past couple days in real life, though it might be that in the dream I believed this was a recurring theme.

I'll see if this happens again tonight.

Third dream: I am one of a handful of people who have chosen to be part of some secret super team. What are mission is I can't tell you (cuz I don't know), but we're super. Well, come to think of it, we are more like followers of some mad man/serial killer turned good who uses a gun that shoots hypodermic needles at his victims, filled with some kind of poison derived from the rain forest. Yeah that's it. And we all fit into this futuristic silver-colored vehicle that is impossibly flat, and rolls over anything in it's way. I just remember wondering why I am there, who are all these people, why I was given the needle-gun, and why am I shooting it at people who are forcing their way into our super-secret hideout. The gun itself kept changing shape in the dream, from something that looks a like a gun, to more of a needle thing the nurses use to inject stuff into you. The mechanics of the gun was complicated, having to use a special tool, shape like one of those hexagonal screwdriver things you get from IKEA. Why we were following this bad-guy-turned-good I can only guess at, but in dreams, things feel often like they are what you are supposed to be doing, not why.

I am also sure this particular dream was nothing more then watching No Country For Old Men, and commercials for the new Macbook Air.

As for the others, still mysteries.

Analyze This,

First off, some gaming news:

NFL extends exclusive rights to EA for football license. Not a big surprise but still disappointing, especially with the news of the then Lead Producer David Ortiz (not Big Papi) leaving EA because of "family issues". Family issues- meaning EA Sports family issues.

EA plans to extend Mass Effect franchise. Staying true to the EA etiquette, and fresh off the news of a PC port, 1up reports that EA may make Bioware prolong the storyline past the original trilogy. Here's to hoping EA won't run a series off to a good start into the ground.

My first impressions of Devil May Cry 4 (2 hours into it):

I'm not all that impressed. Admittedly, I've only played the first DMC on the PS2 and liked it a lot, so I was looking forward to the fourth installment of the franchise, hoping for more of the same. And I got it. Exactly the same.

Well to the developers credit, they did add a new character named Nero, who is Dante-the original white-haired demon slayer, with shorter hair, and a cool devil arm thingie that extends and grabs bad guys for some more pummeling.

That is where the differences end for me. The same pre-rendered backgrounds. The same super linear designed levels. The arbitrary glowing things that only open doors and paths to new levels by continually hitting them. The weird way that the animators still make Nero and Dante jump- a strange super quick "up" into the air, then awkwardly flipping forward or backward, making me land a few paces short of where I want to, making me do it all over again. Then of course the frustrating camera, that shifts in all different directions when entering a new section of the map, making me confused of which direction I was going.

I guess that is the nature of the beast though. This is what makes the Devil May Cry series what it is. I was just hoping for advancement in the series, especially for its first next/current gen debut. What really got to me was the pre-rendered backgrounds, giving the nature of it's protagonist, it felt I was a caged animal, restricted and held by electric fences. By today's gaming standards, I expect to go wherever I want to go, not held by invisible walls. This is exacerbated by how beautiful the backgrounds are, it begs me to go explore, to see what lies around the corner, instead of the realization that it just a 2-d plane with a nice painting of a wall.

One can argue that many games still do this, Gears and God of War comes to mind, but those games also do a much better job keeping you looking forward, keeping you on your toes with plenty of cannon fodder to shoot or slash at. Now, I don't expect to have some giant GTA or Crackdown-like city to run around in, but if I am a bad-ass demon hunter, I would certainly expect it.

Speaking of cannon fodder, who the hell are these demons I keep killing anyway? A little information to who and what I'm fighting would be nice.

Oh well, like I wrote above, I'm only 2 hours into it, there's still time to change my mind.

Just sit back and be amazed



Dolphin Play Bubble Rings - video powered by Metacafe





For more info:
http://www.earthtrust.org/delrings.html

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Xin Hae Kuai Le!
Sae Hae Bok Man Ee Baud Eu Sae Yo!
Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu!
Chúc Mừng Năm Mới !


And all that stuff.


Edit: My bad. The Japanese used to celebrate Chinese New Year until 1873. Oh well.
Also added the Vietnamese saying.

More to be pissed off about



US has blocked off important research about the impact of oil drilling and the sale of land in the Chukchi Sea region.

The Bush Administration wishes to sell off land to fossil fuel companies before Congress can add the polar bear to the endangered species act, which in turn make it more difficult to drill for oil and natural gas, before their time in office is done.

The sell off date is February 6.

Read more about it here: The Independent via LVHRD.org

Help stop these greedy fucks.


World Wildlife Fund