Marek

Errrm, that might be a bit too cynical (at least if you're not just talking about the US). What about the BBC news service? Aren't they a super independent organization? I don't think it's in their charter to just entertainment people and make them buy shit. Same goes for a lot of other media but above is a convenient example.

Whoa that's some good shit. 'Just a montage', sure, but it works brilliantly. I saw a few episodes of The Wire season 1 and never really got into it. I know I should try again.

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/the_worst_band_names_of_07 This is amusing.

Just remembered another one. Say what you will (YES, IT'S VERY CHEESY!!) but it really fits the series: I'm sorry for liking it but I can't help it. The West Wing gives you this sort of fantasy world where there's a Great President who Does The Right Thing and has people working for him who want to Change The World etc. etc. and that intro totally suits that.

Heh yes, they do a good job. It recently occured that about 95% of the TV stuff I download or buy on DVD was commissioned as original cable programming, almost all of it from Showtime or HBO, with also a little bit of FX (The Riches) and USA Network (Burn Notice). The only shows not originating from a subscription channel that I'm watching are NBC's The Office and 30 Rock.

Arrested Development has a pretty good one I guess. Nothing high-concept, just well done. OOH! Weeds! Holy crap, Weeds has such a good intro. And I love the fact they got different artists to perform the title song each time starting in season 2. Here's the intro with the original version of the title song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa6fSkTwMPA

I haven't seen Mad Men yet, just heard good things about it.

Any more dangerous than pumping CO2 into the atmosphere for two centuries? While all that you say is technically true, it is extremely poor logic. Who said anything about applying new 'force' to the environment? Cutting carbon emissions is taking force away, not adding new force. It's trying to undo a force we started applying around the industrial revolution. The fact that climate is complex or always changes somewhat anyway without human involvement are total non-arguments in this. They're technically true but they don't serve as arguments. Actually, because you are wrong. I'm not someone who often makes trollish statements like that but you really bring out the worst in me. The idea that human CO2 emissions have an influence, and are causing a greenhouse effect, has been around since the 60ies. That means there's been almost 50 years to disprove the theory. Claiming to know better than the world's experts is at this point merely arrogant and ignorant. Anyone who says the greenhouse effect is an uncertainty really has no business discussing the issue. (You could point that certain people believe there to be no greenhouse effect -- there are a few -- therefore it's not a certainty. Sure, it's not a certainty in the way gravity is, which is clearly demonstrated in reality all the time, but it is a certainty in the way, say, evolution is... everyone with a right mind agrees it's how things have to be because the mountain of data supporting it is just too huge. That there's a few nutters who say they don't "believe" in evolution doesn't make it an uncertainty. Same for greenhouse effect. It's a certainty.) If there's one topic that can get me really riled up it's this one.

What? Have you actually thought this through or are you just crapping out some words here? You're basically saying this: because the state of the environment is constantly changing anyway, it would be UNnatural for us to try and minimize the changes that WE have caused (changes that are much greater than what would happen under normal natural circumstances, not to mention changes that could be extremely harmful to us). WTF? That doesn't many any sense at all. Uhhh. Here's some news: the polar ice cap is melting and it's melting fast. If you have any idea as to why that's happening, let me know. I think there's already a few scientists on the case with some kind of "wild theory" but, hey, it could be due to anything right? Let's wait until "the facts are in", because surely we don't have any meaningful data on this one. Please never write anything about this topic again.

Wait, what? I'm sorry but whatever you think of GreenPeace or any other environmental group, that's just bullshit and I'm sick of people saying it. Sorry. Are environmentalists only allowed to speak up when they live in a shed in the woods and wipe their ass with tree leaves? Come on, you can't change anything in the system without being part of the system. Similarly when the most common criticism of Al Gore is "well, he uses airplanes a lot and has a large Apple cinema display so he's a hypocrite!!!!!!" then it's clear how much the world misses the point. Oh, and I don't know what to think of that movie yet as I don't have audio on this computer at the moment...

I've actually got a whole console in my backlog. A while ago I actually bought a PS2 and a copy of God Hand but I've barely even touched the system. Sometime next year though after I've been able to process the xmas releases, I'll go back to God Hand, and maybe replay ICO and Shadow of the Colossus (only ever killed the first 4 colossi).

So, what do you guys think of the latest Xbox Dashboard update? I'm glad they cleaned up the Marketplace and I'm happy with all the new features. There's a free Psychonauts gamerpic and theme pack if you look in the Xbox Originals section. I saw it first though and get first dibs.

Is a facialblonde someone who is blonde in their face?

Sweet, a show in which people orate about sex! Kind of like the Vagina Monologues, amirite?

Who is Madeleine McCann and what is her case?

I just looked through the PDF of the Blizzovision presentation slides and on page 17 it has these bullets: Improve operating performance at Sierra Realize synergies Sigh. Realize synergies? That's... two words. They're not even trying with the business babble these days.

Blizzard is part of Vivendi Games. Vivendi is doing the merger with Activision. Your phrasing implies that Blizzard initiated this merger for their benefit, but they didn't. It's called Activision Blizzard and not Activision Vivendi probably because Vivendi does not have the same level of name recognition.

Jade's second opinion here. June 2004... Thumb was ahead of its time in everything.

Ouch, that does sound bad. I have a downstairs neighbour who will occasionally put on hardcore techno in the middle of a night, extremely loud, for like 10 minutes. Also when I first moved in I kept hearing these desperate sounding moans, like MOooaaahahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?!?! Turned out there was a mentally impaired kid in my neighborhood. Before I had that information, those moans were really disturbing and weird.

She certainly is awkward in front of the camera and I don't know if she has a clue about producing, but she does know her stuff about games and programming. A lot of people assume she randomly came out of nowhere just because she's good looking, but as far as I know that is not the case. So I don't think what she says has to be taken differently than if anyone else from the industry says it. Also she did a second opinion on Thumb so I think that establishes massive quantities of street cred right there. Sorry, have to jump to her defense a little. I often feel sorry for the position she is in right now.

Oh man!!! Z trigger for stun! Also... nunchuck is your tricorder, use the joystick to scan all around you!!!

VGChartz is a turd. Banned in many places (including even GAF) for good reason. GAF in turn gets 90% of its sales info from NPD, which is a poor source also. It tracks only a certain number of US retailers, doesn't track any online retailers and only publicly offers a top 10 sellers list each month. It's impossible to get total sales numbers from NPD. There is no sharing of sales information by publishers, unless the information is something like "OMFG HALO 3 SOLD 9 MILLION COPIES ON THE FIRST DAY!!! MEDIA EVENT OF TEH CENTURY".

The household stuff didn't bother me in the slightest. Most of the adjusting for me was more along the lines of figuring out where to put things in the house and also losing things constantly, or going "WTF WAS THAT SOUND OMFG?!" in the middle of the night because you're not used to have upstairs and downstairs neighbors.

The first few weeks suck, but you're happy to at least have your freedom. After the first few weeks, it becomes truly incredible.

Good data is impossible to get. Don't even try.