With today/yesterday/apparently over a week ago for some guy in Canada. The Adventurer’s Vault was released, hopefully providing a nice supplement to the lack of magical items and various adventuring gear that 4th Edition so desperately needs.

This is the second video I’ve seen pop up from Daniel Floyd, which has now lead me to track down other videos he has done. Daniel tends to talk about video games, the industry in it’s current state, and ways to make it better… for the better? You know? This video mentions ways that learning is brought into video games, or could be used by more developers to help give something to the players.

So when you walk away from hours of murdering people virtually, you might also walk away with a bit of knowledge. Floyd makes some very good examples of way it could be done, and ways that I’m sure most of us have been affected by, and may not have even know.

As per the norm at GenCon, Magic the Gathering seemed to be the dominate card game, although not by much. It seems that they now have half of the tournament hall, while Upper Deck had the other half. It’s kind of a weird setup, because Wizard no longer runs the Magic event, instead a company called Past Time Games runs all the magic events at GenCon. Been that way for a few years now I’ve noticed.

A web show based on a hilarious premise – a normal guy sucked into Zelda! Well… he was beating off to the fairy while playing Zelda on the NES… and choaking himself with the controller cord. But it makes for a great origin story!

I highly suggest checking it out – funny shit: Legend of Neil

Why Video Games

The Spring Of Your Life Is Here

We Heart You For Ever

So, with the blockbuster movie pulling in obscene ammounts of cash, and everyone talking about the Dark Knight, I’ve had the question of Batman vs. Ironman come up more than once. I think Marvel hit a home run with Ironman, and DC/Nolan with Batman as well. I’ve made my peace with what I perceved as ‘cheese’ in Dark Knight (bat-sonar!? Gordan’s speach to his 8 year old?!). For me, when it comes down to it, these movies are SO different that comparison is difficult. SO… let it boil down to personal preference! Im going to make some polls listed below to turn this arguement into a democracy and see who turns out on top!

Coming the start of the summer, Mike K. and I were in a discussion about books, video games, ideas for the web site and, well just about anything else that can come up while you’re sitting on a couch killing people in Warhawk. Upon this came the question he asked, “Have you read Ender’s Game yet?” I won’t lie to you people, my fellow gamers, nerds, geeks… my peepz. I felt ashamed that I told him no after he explained to me what the book was, then I was promptly told. “If you don’t read that book my the end of the summer, I am going to punch you in the face, that’s right, that’s how good that book is.”

With no strong desire to be punched in the face, but already currently in the middle of the second A Game of Thrones novel, A Song of Ice and Fire. What was I to do? Another friend recommended I get the Audio Book and try it out. So I did, I had a 9 hour drive coming up in a week, so I picked up the audio book to check it out.

So Blizzard finally did it, it’s been a long time since we jumped into the world of Diablo 2, and even longer for Diablo 1. As of this morning, Diablo 3 has been officially announced. Currently there is no release date (at least none that I found, if anyone knows of one, let me know!) as well as zero information on beta spots.  If you go to their website, you can watch the teaser video (The one thing Blizzard can still manage to do right in my eye, make one hell of a hot looking video) and a game play video that shows off some of the new controls.

They have added some new ways to switch your attacks and new ways to make doing attacks easier. You can now use the mouse wheel to roll between different melee attacks and at the bottom where the potion bar use to be, now you can place your skills for easier use. (Now where have I seen that done before…)

It’s not really like me to just post news or anything else non-illustrated here, but I do find cool tidbits on the interblag as well. For fans of Portal, fans of music, or the people who decided to download that one really weird song for Rock Band, here’s this link. Good luck on the vocals.

You know what really grinds my gears? Being a geek all of the sudden having something to do with being cool. Sure, Bill Gates is a filthy rich geek, but we are only considered geeks (dorks/nerds/etc) because we weren’t really comfortable with many things considered ‘cool’ by mainstream society. We were usually smarter than the average person – whether that translated into good grades in math, building computers, reading tons of books, or some other outlet. We might not have been given swirlies or shoved in lockers, but the things we really liked doing were not meant for the world to know.

Myspace apparently is making changes! New interface skins… new API’s for developers. My imediate response to hearing this was ‘I dont give a flying fuck!’

You want to know what might make using myspace more enjoyable? Maybe if every other day I didn’t have my email inbox half full of fake user profiles named ‘candy’, ‘bambi’, ‘hotTamalile47′, and ‘looking for love’ spamming me to check out their nude pics. You know what… Im already on the god damn internet. If I want to look at nude pics, here is a better way than surfing myspace – PORN! It already comprises more than 3/4ths of the internet, do I really need LoveToSuck31’s help to find these naughty pics? Do I really want to install malware on my comp to view a few boob shots I could have easily found on google image search?

Firefox 3 is officially released! All rejoice! No… seriously, you should rejoice. They took something great, and made it great-er!

I’ve been a big fan of firefox for a long while. I run it on any platform I use… be Linux, XP, Vista. It runs better, was ahead of the curve on tabs, and has an amazing community full of add-ons that makes Firefox whatever you need it to be. Hyperwords, Web Developer, Firebug, etc etc etc. I could go on, but I digress.

Firefox 3 says it runs faster, safer, and smarter… of which so far, I can say that is true. While running the ‘old’ firefox, you still beat the shit out of IE7. IE7 is like a Soccer mom van… and Firefox is your sports car. Well… get ready for your Indy 500 car in the form of Firefox 3.

FASTER: Gmail runs amazing… like, super amazing. Figures from Mozilla put it over 6 times faster than IE7. Major upgrades to Javascript speeds and support, memory leaks patched up, faster method for rendering web pages, and… get this… smaller memory footprint. WHA? But it’s 3.0, doesn’t that mean it should take up more of your precious RAM? Nope… sorry kiddies, Mozilla actualy knows how to develop software.

SAFER: Built in Malware and virus detection. Anti-phishing alerts you of fraud sites. Instant site ID shows website information, especially for secure sites like banks and paypal. You know what IE gives you? Jack, thats what. The big Microsoft got lazy, and stopped being innovative.

SMARTER: Add-ons Manager lets you install add-ons easier than ever, the smart location bar is awesome, you can reopen closed tabs (yay!), and a much improved interface. One-click bookmark (star to the right of the location bar), the skin looks great, the RSS feed manager is nice.

Now, thats not to say I am thrilled about every change made with the new release… but thats just because there are features I probably wont use. The new zoom feature, for example. Am I thrilled? No, not really… does it make Mozilla any less AWESOME for me? Nope… still the same awesome.

I give Mozilla Firefox 3 a 10/10. If a browser can get better, it will be a surprise to me!

I went to the midnight showing of the newest comic book inspired movie The Incredible Hulk. One thing I’ve been hearing all week is how bad the first movie was, and how nobody cared about this film – and this was reflected by the half empty midnight showing. Its regrettable, because the movie was pretty much what I wanted from a Hulk movie. What do I want? Smashing. Lots of things smashed.

They definitely are going with a movie continuity based more off The Ultimates comic series. I suspected as much when Nick Fury after the credits of Iron Man was portrayed as black. Also, Banner was working on the Super Soldier project while transformed and not a gamma bomb. Im sure many more nuances exist I didnt catch. It’s a good series – a great series even. Their take on Galactus as a hive mind species in Ultimate Galactus. The comic series is extensive enough to provide material for a ton of movies.

The obvious tie in to Iron Man, and the already announced Thor, Captain America, and Avengers movies really put pressure on this film to be really good. I feel like a weak link in these movies could drag down the amazing potential these movies have to be epic. Iron Man set the bar really high – I was reluctant to make a statement like ‘Best Comic Movie Ever’, but I can say pretty comfortably it was my favorite. The Hulk, however, holds its own, and might even be better the 2nd time around. I’ll have to make the call when both are out on Blu-ray… and I get a PS3. Until then, Im giving the Hulk 4 1/2 ripped purple pants out of five.

Bottom Line: FORGET the last Hulk movie… this is a whole new Hulk. Better villain, better CGI, better pacing, better action. Whether you hated the last Hulk movie, or just thought it was bad, this one will not put the same tast in your mouth. NO poorly done daddy story… no Hulk jumping across states in something looking out of an IMAX theater.

So I know I heard enough about WWDC… how about you? Apparently not, because you seem to be reading this. The new iPhone… to say the least, I love Apple’s ability to make an amazing interface. As far as the iPod dominating the PMP market, the interface does it for me. (Trends probably do it for most, however). I used to use Archos for my portable media, but alas… I was turned to the darkside by Apple’s ease of use products and those cute little white ear buds jetting from my head letting the world know that I too was a pod person and joining the masses. We iPod users also love Kool-Aid and white Nike tennis shoes.

I hate, however, that the early adopter gets punched in the face once again… if it wasn’t for early adopters, technology would grow stagnant. Those hordes of minions swarming the doors for the iPhone v1.0 got kicked in their face for the zeal shown for Apple and it’s products by a $100 price cut shortly after… and now a $200 iPhone that has 3G and GPS? What a way to make those shmucks holding their silver-backed inferior machine feel rewarded for their support. Hell, they will probably be the ones standing in line for the 3G iPhone, holding the cardboard sign pandering to pedestrians attempting to rid themselves of their shame.

Hey everybody, it’s Choose Your Own Adventure story time at Button-Smasher! Your cousin gives you some Mc Chris songs. You listen to the songs and they make you (vomit in your mouth a little; one happy geek). You check out more songs from his new album and decide that (Mc Chris really sucks; you want to purchase the new album because the shit is ill, yo). In making the purchase you (want the hard copy; don’t want a hard copy because all your music is digitally stored and you don’t need another CD occupying valuable space in your increasingly cramped living-quarters). However, you discover that the online album is six tracks shorter than the actual CD. You think (that’s okay, I likely won’t miss these really good songs; this is bullshit, I want the whole album). You want the instant satisfaction that comes with an online music purchase, but will settle on buying the CD and waiting. You find out the CD is $18. (That sounds reasonable, the price of a CD shouldn’t have dropped since the mid 90s anyways; This is bullshit). You (suck it up and purchase the limited online album or wait for the overpriced CD; grab a torrent and promise yourself to go see Mc Chris live and/or purchase the next album). I’ll let you decide the last one, but either way the story should end with you getting the new Mc Chris album, Mc Chris is Dead.