Archive for "Web"
Heroes Season 3 Now Available on Instant Watch
Posted on September 24, 2008 by Ching under News, Web.
This is a most exciting turn of events! Heroes, our most favorite TV series, has only been back on air a couple of days and already the episodes are available on Netflix. How awesome is that? I have to tell my friend Jan right away because she decided to forgo the season premier of Heroes in order to watch the season premier of Dancing With the Stars. I know Brian and I were both very disappointed in her. Just kidding, Jan!
Well, the good news is that she can catch up by watching the episodes on Netflix! Now if you don’t already have a Netflix
membership, I can’t think of any better reason. I would sign up just for this. =P
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Charter High-Speed Internet for Life
Posted on March 17, 2008 by Ching under Sponsored Post, Web.
Bidding started at a meager $10, but when I checked just a moment ago they were pushing $25K already. Isherring is really persistent! Go check it out.
I’d love to have high-speed internet for life, except I don’t have $25K. That’s probably not the max price that the offer will go for — I suspect that it will go for much, much more than that. The winning bidder gets: the fastest internet speed in their service area FOR LIFE, a cable modem and wireless router, and professional installation.
Plus registered bidders get a chance to win a Nintendo Wii! The sweepstakes winner will get a Nintendo Wii console, Wii stand, five sports games (boxing, baseball, tennis, golf, and bowling), one remote controller, one nunchuk controller, one sensor bar, one Wii AC adapter, one Wii AV cable. Everything you need to make the most of your new Wii!
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The Seperation of Church and Gamers!
Posted on January 16, 2008 by Brian under Games, Life, News, Web.
For those of you that are not up to date on issues in the gaming world, there is a war on for gamer’s rights. That’s correct, a war! Currently there are several religious factions that feel that they need to have a hand in the business of everyone else in the world, and since the government is not doing the things they want, they are just going to try to take over the government.
Currently Kevin McCullough, an uber religious zealot in my opinion, is leading a political campaign to BAN all video games that HE feels is inappropriate for ANYONE. In an article on Town Hall.com he attacks a very popular video game called Mass Effect created by the company Bioware. In this game you are a character of your own creation that works their way through a 40+ hour long story line. In this story there are a few events that you have the ability to have sexual relations with another character. Kevin McCullough states in his interview with Town Hall and directed apparently to the Presidential Candidates.
“I know that they all probably assume they have better, much more important, urgent, timely, things to campaign on, but I sure would like to get their individual takes on the new video game that one company is marketing to fifteen year old boys.
It’s called “Mass Effect” and it allows its players – universally male no doubt – to engage in the most realistic sex acts ever conceived. One can custom design the shape, form, bodies, race, hair style, breast size of the images they wish to “engage” and then watch in crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity as the video game “persons” hump in every form, format, multiple, gender-oriented possibility they can think of.”
First I would like to address the issue of the game being targeted to 15 year old boys. I want to know where his research came from for this claim. If you look at the package and on the website itself as well as anyplace that sells games online, you can clearly see that the game holds an ESRB rating of M for MATURE. That means that no one under the age of 17 is allowed to buy this game. So unless the parents ignore the rating on the package (or just don’t care) and buy the game without doing the research to find out what the content is like (this is not a surprise, we read stories of this every day) then a 15 year old child should not be purchasing this game at all. All of the stores that I have been to card even me a 30+ year old gamer before purchasing a mature rated game. If you are a parent and you did purchase the game without doing the research first, shame on you and don’t bitch. It’s your own fault that you didn’t do the research before buying the game for your kid.
Second, where is the statistics showing that all gamers are Male? He makes the comment ” universally male no doubt “. When did religion become so sexist? I play a lot of different games ranging from Console to PC games and if you look online the numbers are about even when it comes to Male/Female players. He should really get out more often and get some new statistics; I think he is still using reports from the “Super Mario” days of gaming.
Next we have the claim that every 15 year old gamer has a big screen HD-LCD in their room. As he talks about the ability to create these characters he goes on to say that the kids can then watch these sex acts in “crystal clear, LCD, 54 inch screen, HD clarity”. Like every 15 year old gamer has a 54 in LCD in their room, for that matter he makes it sound like EVERY gamer has a 54 in LCD in their room. Well let me tell you that some of us are not so lucky to afford the nice 54 in LCD TV. Some of us still play on conventional TV’s. To assume that everyone can afford luxuries such as this is ridiculous. You should have chosen your words a little more carefully Kevin McCullough!
And let’s not forget the comment he makes in the very beginning when he starts out by stating “I know that they all probably assume they have better, much more important, urgent, timely, things to campaign on”. Sure, lets all drop our platforms of Medical Reform, Economics, Immigration Rights, School and Education Decline, and Tax Reform. Sure, let’s drop the topics that drive this nation, the topics that need to be addressed before they bring this nation to its knees. Let’s drop all of that and focus on this one man’s RELIGIOUS crusade to ban a video game because it has sex in it. Does he really wake up in the morning and look at himself in the mirror and say “today is going to be the day”. How disappointed he must be!
To me Kevin McCullough is a religious socialist. He is upset not just because there is sex in a video game but in the article he focuses on the fact that you can change your image. He states in the article “Starting with the disgusting idea that one can “create” their own versions of what people look like, removing warts, moles, and bald spots while enhancing – shall we say – the extended features of the game’s characters tends to objectify women, sex, and human relationships”. Has this man not seen late night TV? I can buy products that do the same thing. I mean, come on. Gamers have had the ability to create or modify themselves within a game for years; this is not a new concept.
What kind of a person, other than a socialist, gets upset because you have the ability to change your appearance? It’s not even a real life change, it’s a video game! It has no bearing on your real life, other than a few people may get really wrapped up in the game and forget to pee or something. McCullough makes it sound like the world is going to come to a screeching halt because these video games exist, like the gates of hell are going to open because these video games were created.
McCullough needs to brush up on his law a little before asking the Presidential candidates to take on a platform based on his religious beliefs. Anyone that knows the law knows that there is this thing called “The Separation of Church and State“. The first amendment to the US Constitution states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. So what this is simply trying to say, if you read the whole thing, is that no one can create a law based on their religious beliefs. This means, Kevin McCullough can not ask the Presidential campaigners to drop what they are doing and enforce this law. This is something that he is trying to enforce based solely on his religious beliefs. Using his religious presence to try it fight his case is clearly not wise if he wanted this game to be removed from the market.
He picks on several congress people and even says that he knows that they will tell him “Government has no business censoring freedom of expression.” This is correct and it just goes to show you that he is somewhat aware that he has no platform to stand on, The government recognizes that his argument to remove the game is not because its a danger to the social, economic, or moral development of the world. But instead, because of his own religious beliefs and is own fears of what he obviously does not understand. If you go on and read the whole article you will see that he even tries to tie video game sex and violence to the creation of serial killers and rapist. He evidently has so little faith in humanity that he feels he needs to take it upon him self to ban anything that he feels is a danger to us, like we are all children and he is the father of us all.
I could go on for days on how I despise this man and people like him and how I disagree with anything that comes out of his mouth. I would love to be on a debate panel with him and break him down on national TV. Not only would it be fun, but I think it would wake the world up to just how crazy this guy really is and how people like him can be an even greater danger to the world then a video game. You don’t see video games jumping off shelves and bombing churches or subways in the real world in the name of religion now do you!
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Fame and Fortune on the World Wide Web
Posted on January 14, 2008 by Ching under Sponsored Post, Web.
Okay, maybe just fame rather than fame and fortune. Many have gotten famous because of their videos, though. Like Chris Rocker for example. That “Leave Britney Alone” video has made it all around the world and back several times. Oh, and the clip is actually going to be used in one of this year’s spoof comedy films. I forget what the title is but I saw a preview of it when we went to see National Treasure 2. (Or was it when we went to see AVPR? I can’t remember.) Or even better yet, you could be the next Arnel Pineda.
The point is, more and more people are getting their kicks online rather than watching TV. Really, with videos on your computer more and more people are going this route for entertainment. The web can provide hours upon hours of entertainment and if you’re not careful then… Well, let’s just say nothing will ever get done. No housework, homework, work-work. No nothing. Such is the power of these viral videos.
Anyway, YawpBox is going to start a new TV show consisting mainly of user-generated content. Here’s your chance to be famous like Chris Rocker because you can share your video with other users.
TV show hosts Lex and Terry will have challenges where users must create specific content. Then they will select the best ones and put them on the show. So now is your chance. The world wide web is calling.
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Reasons for Using Tumblr
Posted on January 9, 2008 by Ching under Blog, Web.
I think it’s interesting how blogging has evolved and regressed at the same time. I remember when Blogger was a lot like how Tumblr is now. Remember? Back in the day, you had to use a third party commenting thingie in order to allow comments on your blog. Blogs were so simple then. As time progressed new features were added, making blogs more and more complex. The nice thing about Tumblr is that it allows you to easily post pictures, music, and videos without having to do any messy HTML coding. It reminds me of the good, ol’ days when blogs were really, really simple.
Of course, my blogging platform of choice is WordPress. Obviously, this blog is still on WordPress. I like all the plug-ins. There’s plenty of room in my heart for bells and whistles. Besides, this blog makes money. Not a lot, but some. Enough for lunches, anyway. So we have to keep this blog as it is and not mess with it.
This blog isn’t well suited to short updates, though. That’s where Twitter comes in. I post short updates in Twitter. Some classify it as a micro-blogging tool, but it’s not quite. I mean, you can’t really say much in 140 characters. Tumblr bridges the gap between Twitter and WordPress. In my mind Twitter is on one end of the spectrum, WordPress is on the other end, and Tumblr is somewhere in between.
While it’s not likely that I’ll be moving Life After Marriage to Tumblr, it is growing on me. Here are just a few of the reasons why:
- Everyone’s doing it
I figured since all the cool kids had one, I should have one too. I’m a little behind, I know. I didn’t get in on the action until the other day. So I didn’t find out about it until release 3.0? That’s okay. This is the best release anyway. - Mobile browsing and mobile posting
Mobile browsing is great for those days in class when you are just bored out of your mind and you’ve checked your email several times already. Just kidding. Class is never boring and I always pay attention. Mobile posting through Tumblr is neat because there’s nothing to it. There’s no code thing that you have enter in order for it to get set up. You have an email address, and you simply start emailing. Not exactly the most secure way to do it, but the simplicity is worth it. - Feeds
You can integrate your WordPress, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook posts, Del.icio.us, Twitter (etc. etc. etc.) all into Tumblr so, theoretically, you don’t even have to do anything on Tumblr. Your Tumblr will update itself. I think this is a great feature, which I’m probably getting too carried away with. Currently, they only allow integration of up to five feeds. I really need a lot more than this because I want to integrate everything. It’s a start, though. Maybe I’ll get lucky and they’ll allow me to have more. - No comments = no comment spam
So yeah. I’m not really worried about not having comment functionality. If I want comments, I’ll post it on here. My Tumblr is more of a monologue. I speak, you listen. LOL. Sometimes, you need an outlet like that. - And the best reason to use Tumblr: It’s so simple that even your grandparents can use it!
Anyway, I’m really digging Tumblr except mine is kind of broken right now. I tweaked Bill Israel’s Easy Reader theme and now it won’t show up in IE. It works fine in Firefox, though. So either I messed up something pretty badly or IE is just really stupid. Probably the latter. It’s time to switch to Firefox, anyway. LOL. Get , it will make your life better.
UPDATE: Okay, so maybe IE isn’t stupid – I AM. Ugh. I was at least smart enough to track down the theme designer. He was nice enough to step me through troubleshooting via instant messenger. Apparently I am too stupid to troubleshoot on my own because as soon as he stepped me through it, everything started working just fine.
Brian always tells me that when I panic, I go blind. Like when I’m looking for something in the closet. It could be right there in front of me and I won’t see it.
My apologies to IE for blaming the problem on it. Obviously, this was a simple ID10t error. I just need to calm down a bit. But Firefox is still better. So get , anyway.
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