What did we learn this week? week 6

Well here we are another week of 2012 in the books, so what did we learn?

Apparently you can sue yourself…..kinda.

In an ongoing saga for the great Stan Lee, he is now being sued by himself….kinda.  He is actually being sued by a company he started…..then left…..which actually bears his name.  I wonder in the courtroom if there will be Stan Lee then an evil Stan Lee? That would be wicked….the full confusing story can be found here http://www.movieline.com/2012/03/07/stan-lee-vs-stan-lee-the-epic-legal-follies-of-a-comics-mastermind/ for those of you interested.

 

What the?! I thought I had the new iPad?!

Well, not me, I never would be able to afford one, but for millions of Apple users and fans the iPad 3 was released this week to….well…I’m not really sure.  There are some improvements over the iPad 2, but not to the extent most had hoped.  Most of my Apple friends say they’ll wait for the 4^th one.  I mean it’s nice and the new display is awesome, although calling it a retina display is a bit confusing, I thought it had to do with retinal scanning for security.  I’m sure it’s going to sell, I mean for 10 years Apple could’ve sold a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves in the desert, but the latest iPad just doesn’t seem to be a huge jump.  While the new feature set is nice, better rear camera, better and faster graphics, better display etc, I think the biggest feature is that it caused a price drop for the iPad 2’s.  Which means more people will probably be giving them a look.  For the full specs take a look here http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/the-new-ipad-3-everything-you-should-know/

 

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a Bat!

Batman Year One Deluxe edition is being released on March 14^th.  For those that don’t know, year one is critically acclaimed and is one of the most important in the Batman saga.  It’s obviously about the crime fighters first year, one thing that makes this issue special is that it’s written by Frank Miller, with artwork by David Mazzucchelli.  So if you’re a Batman fan, this is a must have.  For more info check out http://firewireblog.com/2012/03/08/batman-year-one-deluxe-edition-new-printing-due-on-march-14th/

 

They do exist! Well maybe.

So, in Peru a mummy was found, nothing new there, except that it has an elongated skull.  Yup, this things skull is almost the size of its small body and as usual everyone is baffled.  Did I mention the larger than normal eyes also?

An anthropologist believes it to be a child of under 2 with an enormous head which possibly a human sacrifice.  Let’s be real for a minute, chances are it’s just a deformed human, but I’m sure that crazy greek dude, Giorgio A. Tsoukalos from Ancients Aliens (I love that show) will be talking about it soon enough!

Check out the full article at http://reinep.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/mummy-with-giant-head-discovered-in-peru/

 

I just bought the game! What do you mean there’s already DLC that I have to pay for!?

So the hotly anticipated ending to the Mass Effect trilogy, Mass Effect 3, was released this week…..along with the first DLC (downloadable content)  Some people see this as just another way to get more money from the already popular game by offering the DLC at launch.  We as gamers are always surprised to see a patch needs to be installed for a game that just came out, but to have DLC on launch day just makes it seem like we bought an incomplete game, jeese, give us a month to think that our 60 bucks bought a full game before you release the DLC! Anyway that’s just my thought on it.  As long as it’s not important to the finale I guess no one’s twisting your arm to buy it.

“What do you mean there’s already DLC?”

 

Glad you’re back from the injury, now if you would look at this pink piece of paper…….

It was announced this week that after 14 years the Indianapolis Colts decided to release Peyton Manning.  I guess the main concern was the amount of surgeries he had, but in 2011 they signed him to a 5 year deal, worth 90 million dollars.  I guess the prospect of another injury was too great for a team that went 2-14 last year.  With Peyton gone and their Superbowl winning coach, I guess it’s time for rebuilding.  I’m sure Manning isn’t retiring anytime soon and plenty of mediocre clubs would pay millions more for him.  For more about it check out http://anomicofficedrone.com/2012/03/07/peyton-and-the-colts-part-ways/ and http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d82777827/article/peyton-manning-colts-part-ways-in-most-appropriate-fashion

“Seriously, I always thought you’d get cut before me!”

 

From the “What the hell?!” department…..

Conservative Christian Pat Robertson wants Marijuana legalized.  Yeah I know of all people right?  His arguments actually make sense on this one though.  He talks about the cost of the war on drugs and even thinks the US has gone too far when it comes to drugs.  Pointing out how many juveniles are being locked up for years over a joint, unless you’re rich of course (he points that out)  He also says that he believes it should be treated like Alcohol.  He even points out that since 2006 47,515 lives have been claimed in Central and South America (granted not all are related to Marijuana)  Any way, if you’d like to read more, and I’m sure some of you would like too, here’s the full story http://20poorandfabulous.com/2012/03/08/pat-robertson-wants-marijuana-legalized/

“Is it 4:20 yet?”

 

What’s it take to be an internet star?

Well apparently not doing an informative beer show on Youtube, blogging about beer or this blog either.  Apparently you need to be a rebel leader for 20 years in Africa kidnapping and terrorizing villages oh and keeping them as slaves, normal and for sex.  In an effort to catch him a video about Joesph Kony was released on Youtube.  The 30 minute video shows his atrocities and had 32 million views by Thursday.  For more on Kony check out http://www.freep.com/article/20120309/NEWS07/203090359/Hunt-for-jungle-militia-leader-Kony-goes-viral-aiming-to-get-him-arrested?odyssey=nav%7Chead   or Wikipedia him.  If you want to check out the video of this scumbag for yourself, take a look here http://youtu.be/Y4MnpzG5Sqc

“Joseph Kony, putting the infant back in infantry since 1986”

 

Take him down Red 1!

12 years ago a little game called Counter-Strike was released, well, to be fair it was a Half-Life mod.  It quickly became one of the most played PC online tactical shooters ever, in fact many still play the original today.  Then a few years later Counter-strike Source was released, bringing a new level to the genre of tactical shooters.  Not only were the graphics better, but using the Source engine made the physics way better as well.  Even though the Call of Duty and Battlefield series have kind of taken the lime light, both Counter-Strikes are still played today.  Now, 12 years after the original, Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment are releasing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.  One of the coolest features? Cross platform play across all supported systems! Yup, whether you have a Mac, Windows machine, Xbox 360 or PS3, you’ll be able to blast your friends full of holes.  I for one can’t wait.  For more info and a trailer check out http://store.steampowered.com/app/1800/

“Here Kony, Kony, Kony.”

 

It really is bigger on the inside.

So apparently the babies room, formely my computer room/office/catch all is a T.A.R.D.I.S (Time and Relative Dimension In Space for you non Doctor Who fans) because it seemed to bigger on the inside.  For the last for weeks I have been sorting through 15 to 20 year old crap and throwing out countless garbage can loads.  I then moved the rest into a much bigger space in the basement….which apparently couldn’t hold everything, so I went through again and finally the basement is about 90 percent done.  How an 11×11 room wouldn’t fit in a 40×20 space is beyond me.  How I accumulated that much junk is also beyond me, I guess old John is less tolerant of crap and throw more away then young John did.

“Yup, there is 25 years of crap in here, including a Sony sports cassette walkman and a socket 3 486 motherboard! Old Skool bitches!”

So yeah, that’s it for this week, it’s actually kind of a lot isn’t it?  So I hope you learned something and enjoyed it.  Thanks for reading!

John

RIP Davy Jones

So about an hour ago I saw a tweet about Davy Jones being dead, I have to say I was pretty surprised by it.  For those of you who don’t know who Davy Jones was, I’ll give a short explanation.  Jones was a member of a pop rock band that was put together for a TV show named the Monkees, I believe they were the first completely fabricated band, many have appeared since then.  The thing with the Monkees was that originally only one could play an instrument or write, Davy wasn’t that one, hey usually played the tambourine or sang.  By the end of the show, they were all playing their own instruments.  Funny, in today’s world of pop music, no one seems to play their own music, but back then it was kind of a big deal.  So, in tribute to him (I always liked some of his music) I thought I would do a little tribute.

Jones was born in Manchester England in 1945.  His first acting gig was on Coronation Street, a very popular and long running soap opera, when he was 11.  Sadly, when he was 14, his mother passed away.  He soon left acting and due to his short stature, 5’3″, he started training as a jockey.

Eventually he returned to acting and played The Artful Dodger in Oliver!  After the London run of Oliver! he also starred in the Broadway version in the states, this led to him being on Ed Sullivan.  Lucky for him, it was the same show The Beatles were on, and as a young lad standing on the side of the stage watching The Beatles and seeing the girls go crazy, he decided that he wanted that.  Because of the Sullivan appearance he was noticed by Columbia Pictures who then signed him to a contract, also, at the same time he recorded an album for Colpix Records, while Davy couldn’t play instruments (well at least not well) he could sing.

Shortly after the record and signing with Columbia, in 1965, he joined the cast of the Monkees.  his popularity sky rocketed and girls everywhere loved him, giving him his wish from that day on the Ed Sullivan show.  The TV show that Monkees ran for 3 years and went off the air in 1968, but by this time the group including Davy could all play there own instruments and continued to record.  They even had there own movie, Head.  The movie was no where near successful, I’ve never scene it and I really don’t have plans to but apparently it has become a cult hit.

Davy continued to tour and record throughout most of his life, putting on a great show and playing a mix of classics from the Monkees catalog as well as from his own records.  I believe he even had a stint in Vegas.  There were multiple Monkees reunions also, some with others without the full line up.  There was even a new album in 1996.  The band reunited, all of the members, for the first time in along time, in 2011 for a North American tour and UK tour that was successful.  Sadly some dates were to be rescheduled for 2012, but with the death of Davy Jones, from a heart attack today, those shows may never occur.

So there it is, the short version.  Davy Jones accomplished quite a lot in his time, and both he and the Monkees influenced many current and past bands.  If you don’t know who The Monkees or Davy Jones are, why not give them a listen.  The most notable tracks would probably be, Last Train to Clarksville (one of my favs), I’m a believer (which was remade for one of the shrek movies by Smashomouth), (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone (another of my favs) and A Little bit Me, A Little bit You.

Well, I hope you’ve read enough to be a little interested in The Monkees and Davy Jones.  RIP Davy and I’d like to thank everyone for reading.

John

What did we learn this week? week 4

So a whole lot happened this week and its been really hard for me to narrow it down, plus I got a bit distracted working on my new blog The Beer Show companion blog http://thebeershow.wordpress.com/ the companion to my youtube show, cleaning out my soon to be babies room, blogging about what it feels like to be an expectant father and to be honest, I just forgot, so here goes….so…..What did we learn this week?

If you paint it, they’ll be afraid…….

So in Southside Shopping Centre in Wandsworth, London a painter by the name of Andrew Walker, did such a good job of painting a 3D image inside an elevator that people were afraid to walk in.  He painted a 3d image that made it look like the floor was missing.  Yup, a pretty kick ass image indeed, check it out over at the fire wire blog http://firewireblog.com/2012/02/20/elevator-illusion-shocks-unsuspecting-london-shoppers/

Ladies and Gentlemen, Ike and Tina…..er……Chris and Rhianna?

So this week we heard that Chris Brown and Rhianna would be working together again.  Really? I mean I’m all for forgiveness but this just has bad idea written all over it.  The good folks at 20 poor and fabulous have put together a pretty good article, asking if they are indeed the new Ike and Tina, so head over there and check it out.  http://20poorandfabulous.com/2012/02/20/are-rihanna-and-chris-brown-the-new-ike-and-tina-turner/

Major Tom are you there?

So this week, 50 years ago, John Glenn made a historic space flight.  John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth.  he discusses it in a video that the 1000 year old man posted here http://toodamnez.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/50-years-later-astronaut-john-glenn-recounts-his-historic-mission-in-space/  enjoy!

Good news everybody!!!

For all you gaming Doctor Who fans, BBC has announced that The Eternity Clock, will using the Unreal 3 engine, which should be pretty awesome!  from what I’ve heard the game sounds pretty good, so we’ll have to see.  You can check out the full story at http://theunpaidgamers.com/2012/02/21/bbc-worldwide-and-supermassive-games-bring-doctor-who-the-eternity-clock-to-life-with-unreal-engine-3/

Waterworld? hopefully no Kevin Costner!

So Scientists have found a new planet.  A steamy waterworld that’s supposed to be larger than Earth.  The original designation for the planet was GJ 1214b and was first found in December 2009, It wasn’t until new Hubble Telescope images that they found that the water world was surrounded by a steamy atmosphere, for the complete story check out Bisarbeats blog http://bisarbeat.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/bisarbeat-new-type-of-alien-planet-is-a-steamy-waterworld/

Ever watch Star Trek The Next Generation and want Geordi’s visor?

well if you did then good news! Google is working on a pair of internet enabled glasses!  They’ll be Android powered, allow you to check your email, check in to your places and update your Facebook.  They’ll link to your smart phone and provide a heads up display.  It would be interesting to see how they would work with the monocle feature for the yelp app. for more info check it out Danny Carbons blog http://dannycarbon.com/2012/02/22/google-to-offer-terminator-style-smartphone-glasses-later-this-year/

Permafrost my A…….

So a group of Russian scientists found an Ice Age squirrels burrow, that contained fruit and seeds that had been buried in the Siberian permafrost for more than 30000 years.  From the tissue samples, they were able to resurrect a plant.  The plant, The Silene Stenophylla is the oldest plant that has ever been brought back and the scientists say its in full working order.  Personally, I would’ve been more impressed if they had resurrected the squirrel.  Anyway for the full story check out Contr237’s blog here http://videogamenews4you.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/russians-resurrect-30000-year-old-frozen-flower/

Don’t cross flooded rivers with no pants on….

So a man in Zimbabwe is in the hospital after a crocodile bit off his testicles and some of his penis as tried to cross a flooded river.  Did I mention he was carrying a box tomatoes on his head…..and had no pants on?  He had taken off his pants and put them in the tomato box to keep them dry, makes perfect sense.  For more of the story check out Anacristina79’s blog at http://anacristina79.wordpress.com/2012/02/23/crocodile-bites-mans-testicles-during-zimbabwe-river-crossing/

When IT says not to disable the firewall they mean it!

So there is a possibility that on March 8th the internet will be shutdown, by the FBI, apparently hundreds of computers in more than a hundred countries have been corrupted by the DNSChanger Trojan.  Whats its do?  Basically it sends unsuspecting users to fake sites of that look just like the real ones to steal info.  For the full story follow the link here http://atomiclotusbox.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/will-the-fbi-shut-down-the-internet-on-march-8-because-of-computer-virus-concerns/

So I think thats about it, I’m heading to Las Vegas for a little bit this weekend, hopefully I’ll get some blogs in for you but if not I’ll see you all when I get back, so thanks for reading!

John

What did we learn this week?

So, what did we learn this week?  Let’s recap some of my favorite things.

Turns out the FBI had a file on Steve Jobs, that mentioned drug use.  What FBI profile doesn’t have drug use involved, anyway to read the whole story check out my good friends over at Danny Carbon.

http://dannycarbon.com/2012/02/09/steve-jobs-fbi-file-notes-drug-use/

Want to get out of violating copyrights on your illegal porn download stash? Just say you didn’t do it, then claim that porn can’t be copyrighted! Duh! Thanks to my good friend over at Pkrf1end’s Blog for bringing it to our attention!  Read the full story at

https://torrentfreak.com/you-cant-copyright-porn-bittorrent-defendant-insists-120206/

Once again showing the US customers that they don’t give a shit, Sony has announced that even though they have a discount program in Europe that is sort of a transfer program for UMD to Vita games. Sony this week gave US customers the finger and said nope you can buy some at a discounted price, but there will be no such program.  Thanks Sony!  For the details check out Contra237’s blog at

No discounted UMD transfers to Vita for US

From the, “Did someone really need to pay for this study?” category comes news that at least a quarter of tweets are useless!  Shit, I could’ve told them that for free!  Check out the full article at

http://dannycarbon.com/2012/02/08/a-quarter-of-tweets-are-useless/

Whats the oldest living organism on Earth?  If you said Jerry Lewis, Dick Van Dyke, Cloris Leachman or Betty White, you were close but wrong.  Scientists recently found a 200,000 year old organism in the Mediterranean.  It’s a seagrass named Posidonia Oceanica, named after Posidon.  Apparently this grass has a leg up on all of humanity and can reproduce by cloning.  you can read more about it over at Bisarebeat’s blog

http://bisarbeat.blogspot.com/2012/02/oldest-living-organism-on-earth.html#.TzPmOADDwY4.wordpress

For all you movie buffs out there that want more useless knowledge (like me) I found the best website for you, it points out hundreds of errors in movies! So Geek Ahoy and enjoy!

http://www.moviemistakes.com

Spiderman…Spiderman……yup us comic book geeks (or nerds if you prefer) all know that Peter Parker became Spiderman when he was bit by a radioactive spider…Well good news!  A white cobweb substance has been found in a radioactive waste pool!  So if they are spider webs, and you’re bitten by one just maybe……anyway the full story can be found here

http://bisarbeat.blogspot.com/2012/02/white-cobwebs-found-in-nuclear-waste.html#.TzU-2C6Eshw.wordpress

From the “DUH!” department comes a report by the BBC that CEO pay may not be linked to performance….really? whats your first clue? the 20 million they make plus bonus’s they get while running a company into the ground?!  Glad the BBC wasted the money on this one and not the US government…shocking right?  Anyway if you want to read more about people that make more in a year then most entire families do over 2 generations then head over to the BBC….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16932043

What do you do when you find a note that daddies little girl wrote on Facebook?  Well if she swore like this guy’s daughter and insulted her parents, you take her laptop outside and give it the Old Yeller treatment!  Not sure if its true, but if it is, well then God bless rednecks and now enjoy!  Oh, and by the way there is a bit of swearing…..

Ever drop your phone?  Ever drop it into a pitcher of beer? into the toilet? or forget it in the pocket of your carpenter jeans then threw them in the wash? (yup that was me RIP Nokia 5100) Well then my friends the future is here for you! This company has developed a process that will waterproof your phone for 60 bucks!  So if you’ve ever dropped your phone into a hot tub full of call girls then go here….

http://www.liquipel.com/

So just to prove that they could still stick it to us after the failure of PIPA and SOPA Hollywood is raising ticket prices! Yup, granted it’s only 4 cents or so, but for 16 dollars for two tickets, plus drinks and maybe some popcorn, you might as well just buy the damned thing when it comes out.  At least at your house the floor isn’t sticky…..well most of you anyway!  Want to read all about it, check out 20POORANDFABULOUS’s blog over at

Infuriation: Movie ticket prices on the rise

If you think being married sucks and that your wife takes all your money, then be glad you don’t live in Indonesia.  Why you ask? Well, apparently the Gorontalo (wasn’t he the six armed guy in Mortal Kombat?) Provincial Government will now send the pay of married civil servants to their wives accounts, they think this will prevent infidelity, well at least the husband won’t be able to afford to cheat…..the wife on the other hand…..for the full story check out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16959455

Follow that Timelord! So if you’re a Doctor Who fan, then this might up your alley, there is a spinoff audio show called The Minister of Chance.  It’s based off a character in a 7th Doctor audio play about another Timelord, so if you cant wait until fall for Doctor Who then check out…

http://www.ministerofchance.com

Anyway, I think that’s everything I’ve learned this week, or at least a few of the things I found interesting and thought I would share.  So have a great weekend.  If you have some time check out my beer show on youtube at

when you’re done there, give my friends at so you have a girlfriend.com a watch at

http://www.soyouhaveagirlfriend.com

Have a great weekend!

john