Labels: youtube

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit corporation which manages domain names, announced today that, they've teamed with rapper/entrepeneur Snoop Dogg to create a new top level domain. Domain names with the new three letter suffix .izl will be available starting today, April 1.

--Source fosh.izl

Labels: videogames

There are so many words to choose from in the English language, each with different emotional shades and tones that allow you to carefully express your thoughts while at the same time shape someone else's opinion of what you are saying. Framing is popular in politics and propaganda, but it's disheartening that the world of comic books isn't immune from manipulative language, as two terms that have risen in popularity in the past few years are as irritating as finding a coupon cut out of the inside of an expensive back issue I didn't inspect before buying.

I'm talking about "pamphlet" and "floppy."

As comic book periodical sales have steadily fallen over the past 20 years and graphic novel sales have risen, I've noticed more and more that there seems to be disrespect, if not outright contempt, for the age old magazine-style format of comics. Maybe it's just that the comic books, long thought of by the general public as enjoyed only by children, juvenile delinquents and slow-witted, basement dwellers with no social skills, lack the respectability that so many serious comic book afficianados crave. The train of thought seems to be that, since graphic novels are more like real books, maybe normal people will start to accept the artform of comics as something serious and worthy of attention and study.

Perhaps that's the case (jeez, after 25 years, Fantagraphics has ceased publishing Love and Rockets in a periodical format), but it's a cryin' shame that self-hating collector types have to denigrate the traditional package with cheap words "pamphlet" and "floppy." A pamphlet is something the religious lunatics leave at my front door every Sunday in hopes I'll find Jesus. A floppy is something that can be cured by Viagra. (Not that I would know.)

Frankly, I find "pamphlet" and "floppy" as derogatory as an ethnic slur. It's offensive on the level of being an insulting put-down for the format, as well as being a cutesy hipster nickname that is completely obnoxious.

I like comics precisely because of the package, not in spite of it. There is something to be said for the pure sensuous experience only an old comic book provides, from the beauty of fading CMYK halftones on yellowing paper to the wonderful smell of decades old newsprint. To me, that's the true spirit of comics, not some pristine hardcover perfectly reproduced on expensive paper... not that I don't enjoy DC's Absolute Editions, but isn't there room in collecting for both?

Labels: comicbooks

Labels: comicbooks, movies

Just about everything about George W. Bush rubs me the wrong way, but for some oddball reason, his recent speech on the fifth anniversary of the disastrous Iraq war really annoyed me, particularly his word choice in the phrase "No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure."

Treasure? TREASURE? ARRRRRR, MATEYS, THE WAR HAS COST US IN LIVES AND IN TREASURE! Yeesh, like we're paying for this thing in gold doubloons and jewelry.

Labels: politics

We're going on Day Six of All Steve's Flu Crisis 2008 now. I've missed four days of work this past week; Missed Monday through Wednesday, then went in Thursday and worked a full day, which somehow made it worse, but then I got sent home Friday lest I spread pestilence to the rest of the staff.

I've not had a decent night's rest since last Saturday night because I wake up every hour to pee, then fumble through the mad scientist's lab that is my medicine cabinet to try to whip up some kind of potion that will kill this thing or at least put it to sleep for eight hours. Gah!

I got so desperate I actually used a neti pot. A neti pot! If you don't know what that is, look it up on YouTube and gasp in the sheer disgustingness of the process using one. At first I thought it might be working, but that's also the point where I started getting worse, so who knows?

My buddy's comic shop is having a big anniversary sale this weekend and I'M MISSING IT! I bet today's the day that a bus carrying a load of bikini models breaks down in front of his store and they all have to go in and ask to use the phone and if it would be okay that they jump around in place to stay warm.

The only upside is that I've lost three pounds because I have no appetite. I can't remember the last time I weighed less than 190. I think it was first grade...

The lesson here is to never interact with other people. (Or maybe it's to interact with them more to build up a tolerance; I'm not so sure.)

Labels: deardiary, internet

Here was a great column on Valentine's Day gift giving from Karl Heitmueller. Has it really been four years since he wrote this? I'm so old...

Labels: internet

Part of the fun of watching Antiques Roadshow is what might turn up. Tonight's episode was particularly interesting because Captain Cecil W. Stoughton, who worked as White House photographer in the 1960s, brought in some historically significant photos that he shot, including the iconic photo of Lyndon Johnson being sworn in as president on Air Force One shortly after the Kennedy assassination. Here are more photos from his collection, including a rare photo of JFK, RFK and Marilyn Monroe.

Labels: tvmovies

A thread on Action Figure Insider's Mattel forum contains some news of Justice League Unlimited action figure news in next week's ToyFare magazine. According to the poster and confirmed by a Mattel employee who posts there under the handle ToyGuru, Mattel's JLU line will be a Target exclusive starting this summer, and fall 2008 product plans include a New Gods 6-pack called Attack from Apokolips with three new characters (Forager, Mantis and Lashina), 13 other new characters (presumably in 3-packs or singles), a boatload of repaints (including "this really cool repaint of we did in his look from the comic books") and the Question. Going into 2009, we may see even more new characters in the animated style that were never part of the JLU animated series.

Ooooh.

Because the line is exclusive to Target, it will not be shown at Toy Fair later this month, but it will be unveiled to the public at the New York Comicon in April and in San Diego in July.

My only hope is that they're easier to find than the last few rounds of JLU figures. Because it's never been a blockbuster seller in spite of its popularity with collectors, the line's been plagued with distribution problems, particularly the assortment with the rare Volcana three-pack, which I have never seen in person. I never saw the Target exclusive Grodd 6-pack, either.

Labels: jlu, toysandcollectibles

More here.

Labels: comicbooks, superman

"She looks like a 60s superhero that fights bummers." (From Vice Magazine's Dos and Don'ts.)

Labels: internet

Labels: comicbooks, wonderwoman

Labels: travolta

Labels: spider-man, tvmovies, youtube

Read Part 1 here if you haven't already

I reached my peak score on Pac-Man Championship Edition in late July, 2007 and have struggled with the game ever since in spite of playing almost daily. I clearly didn't reach the maximum score of the game, because the current high score is over 520K, and three players have posted scores over 500K, once thought to be the theoretical maximum score in 5:00 Championship mode. What happened?

I bought an HDTV.

What TV manufacturers don't want you to know about HDTV

I wanted to reward myself for doing so well on the game, and was looking for an excuse to upgrade to an HDTV. I studied various online forums and found a manufacturer I liked, and when I found a really good deal on a Samsung LN-T4053H in August, I bought one. The picture is amazingly clear, crisp and bright, and video games look absolutely amazing. When I go back to watching regular TV, it looks fuzzy and weak by comparison. However, there's a pretty big issue...

There's a three letter word that plagues most if not all HDTV sets, and that word is LAG. As explained on the excellent site HDTV Lag: The Unofficial Guide, lag is a delay caused by an HD television's image processing and upscaling. On most regular analog television sets, the picture is displayed on the screen the moment it is sent. On an HDTV, the picture isn't shown until it has been scaled to the native resolution of the set, and enhanced to reduce noise, increase brightness and contrast and/or adjust color. All of that processing results in a slight delay between when the picture is sent and when it's displayed.

That delay, or lag, while imperceptible while watching movies or regular TV, is enough to make many interactive video games virtually unplayable, particularly those that aren't HD-native and need to be upscaled (like the PS2 and Wii when connected through a composite cable), or those that run at high speed and require precise timing, like Pac-Man Championship Edition or Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Though some television manufacturers offer a "gaming mode" which turns off some of the image processing features that cause lag, that delay isn't completely eliminated and still becomes a factor.

The gaming lag issue isn't one that retailers or manufacturers publicize, because it absolutely ruins high level gaming. If you are trying to move quickly, as in the later levels of Pac-Man Championship Edition, the lag prevents you from making directional changes as rapidly as you want, so if a ghost suddenly comes after you, your countermoves are delayed by the amount of lag the set has. Your timing is thrown off and it simply becomes incredibly difficult to accurately control the Pac-Man after the key level. Playing Pac-Man Championship Edition on an HDTV can leave me as frustrated as a ninja in squeaky shoes.

(In the interest of fairness, I should point out that for 90% of games on the 360, the lag isn't enough to have a significant impact on play. It is enough of an issue that timing-sensitive rhythm games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band now offer a setting to offset the impact of HDTV lag.)

More links about HDTV lag:

The HDTV Lag FAQ from AVS Forum
HDTV Gaming Lag: An Epidemic Exposed

One other top player I know, the first American to beat my 454K high score, pretty much gave up Pac-Man CE after he bought an HDTV, but I kept plugging away in spite of the handicap of a delayed set. I watched my rank fall from #5 to #18 in the world, sadly enough. My persistance did pay off, because after five months of adjusting my gameplay to the lag and improving my starting pattern so I'd get 70-75K in the first minute, I was able to reach a new high score of 464K in late December. I'm still only #15 in the world, though.

I think I can do better.

Postscript: Lots of Pac-Man Championship Tips

So you want to play Pac-Man Championship Edition and get good at it? Here are some tips to help improve your game in 5:00 Championship Mode.

The object of Pac-Man Championship is maximum points in minimum time. Remember this as you play. You want to be able to reach the key level, which has six energizers and a minimum of dots to clear, so you can string them together and eat plenty of 3200 point ghosts. (Clever players also string the first energizer from the level before the key, as well as several energizers AFTER the key.)

If you are fast enough, you can reach a similar level later in the game called the candy level, which also has six energizers, and possibly string it to the shamrock level, which has four more energizers. The basic strategy most players use is eat at the beginning, clear dots and avoid ghosts until the key level, where you eat again, then clear dots and avoid ghosts until the candy level, where you eat again if you are lucky and fast enough.

Build speed early. The higher your score, the faster your Pac-Man will go. Build your speed early by eating all the ghosts at the beginning, and stringing as many energizers together as possible to eat more 3200 point ghosts. It's those 3200 point ghosts that matter! My goal for a good game is 70K-75K in the first minute.

Clear levels quickly and symmetrically. By clearing symmetrically, you can maximize points on the key level and on the candy level. Otherwise, you'll end up with three energizers and hardly any dots on one side, and a whole mess of dots to clear on the other, and you won't be able to string energizers together.

Develop patterns. Learn to clear each board as efficiently as possible. It helps if you have a pattern to clear dots from the inside of each board AND from the outside of each board.

Study the masters. Go to YouTube and watch videos of the runs posted by the world's top players. (Like this one by the first player who broke 500K.)

Pace yourself. Getting a great first minute score is important, but equally important is your pace of clearing levels. Ideally, world class players finish with the six energizer key level at or very near to 2:00 remaining.

Learn to watch the entire board. A fast game depends heavily on crossing from one side of the board to the other via the warp zones. It's important to look across the board for the position and movement of the ghosts so you don't get nailed as soon as you cross. (The orange and blue ones are particularly nasty about that.)

Know your opponents. Each color of ghost has slightly different behavior. The red is most aggressive, but that is also most predictable and easy to deal with... the orange is usually pretty passive, but he always seems to be where you don't want him to, particularly when crossing warp zones.

Learn some basic evasive maneuvers. Patterns are never 100% perfect, because ghost position and movement is highly dependent on how you are moving and your timing, so it is very important to be able to adjust your game on the fly. There are some boards where you can easily get trapped if you don't know how to escape, so it's always a good idea to develop some basic escape maneuvers. The more evasions become like second nature, the more likely it will be that you can avoid dying.

Don't die. Easier said than done! Each death costs you five seconds of time, and that five seconds can mean 12,800 points at the end. Not only that, but dying also resets your dot eating score back to 10 points. Little known fact: You get 10 points for each plain dot you eat to start, but that score gradually increases to 50 points per dot. Those points can definitely make a difference in your final score!

Happy playing!

Labels: videogames

York County man kills wife with electric nipple clamps. Sad, but it's hard not to chuckle a little bit at this... it happened so close to where I work, too! I've eaten at the pizza place mentioned in the police report posted on the Smoking Gun

Labels: news

I spotted these Superman trading cards on eBay a week or two ago and fell in love with them instantly because of the combination of their folksy, off-model drawing, the cheap, off-register printing and the exotic/cool Japanese script. They kind of remind me of old tobacco trading cards; they're much smaller than American trading cards at around 1-1/8" wide by 2-1/2" high. They're cards for a Japanese game called Menko, which involves card flipping or knocking an opponent's cards out of a ring in a manner similar to sumo wrestling. (Not surprisingly, sumo wrestlers were a popular subject for Menko cards.) There are other variations of the game, including rock/paper/scissors (see the little icons on some of them?) and one involving fighting numbers (highest number wins).

According to the seller, these cards date from the 1950s or so. Because they were made to be destroyed in play, it's very difficult to find them in decent shape. I actually kind of like seeing a little wear on old stuff anyway. It makes them more authentic.

Probably my best eBay find in a good, long time, even though I probably overpaid. I just couldn't let them get away!

Labels: japan, superman, toysandcollectibles

Back in June of 2007, ten of the best Pac-Man players in the world were invited to New York City to fight for the title of world's best Pac-Man player at the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championships, an event sponsored by Namco Bandai, Microsoft and Quiznos. However, Namco surprised the contestants by announcing that they wouldn't be playing the classic arcade version of Pac-Man for the title, but a brand new sequel called Pac-Man Championship Edition which would be available for download on Xbox Live.

Most video gamers paid very little attention to the contest and the announcement of a sequel to Pac-Man, because we've been getting sequels to Pac-Man for a quarter century. Aside from Ms. Pac-Man, no one has managed to improve much on the original game's huge impact or its lasting appeal among hardcore arcade nerds. Frankly, in today's world of first person shoot-em-ups with complicated control schemes and high definition graphics, Pac-Man is somewhat of an anacronism with its no button controls and simplistic game design. So why expect anything different from a $10 Xbox Live Arcade release?

Because Pac-Man Championship Edition is really, really good.

I'm a Pac-Man fan. It was one of my favorite games back in the 1980s arcade boom, and I spent probably hundreds of dollars in quarters playing it. I bought the little paperback Mastering Pac-Man by Ken Uston and learned some patterns to use to improve my game, to the point where I played well enough to win $25 in a local month-long tournament. (Never mind that I'm sure I spent more than $25 trying to win...) I even had that Buckner and Garcia single Pac-Man Fever.

Pac-Man Championship Edition (PMCE) is without a doubt the best Pac-Man sequel ever released. It's a sequel manages to improve upon the original by adding high definition graphics and new twists to the game without tinkering with the simple but successful formula of the original.

In Pac-Man Championship Edition, the objective, like in Pac-Man, is to manuever your character around a maze and clear it of dots while avoiding crashing into ghosts. Like in the original, you can eat a larger dot (or energizer) which will enable you to turn the tables on the ghosts... for a brief time, you'll be able to eat them for big points. However, Pac-Man Championship Edition adds new elements to really make for exciting gameplay.

First, the action in Pac-Man Championship Edition is continuous. Instead of trying to clear a board completely, you clear the board in left side or right side halves, which spawns a fruit. When you eat the fruit, the next level appears with a new maze full of fresh dots. You never get a break or an intermission, and the action never lets up. Unlike regular Pac-Man, you do get an extra life for every 20,000 points you score, to a maximum of 15 extra lives.

Second, you can string energizers to eat ghosts for bigger and bigger scores. When you eat the first energizer, you can eat a ghost and get 400 points, then 800 for the next, 1200 for the next, and 1600 for the next. If you can get to another energizer before the time limit on the first one expires (and the ghosts revert back to their usual menacing form), you can continue piling on the bonus points. Fifth ghost is 2000, sixth is 2400, seventh is 2800 and eighth is 3200, the maximum score. If you can manage to string several energizers together and continue to eat, you can rack up a ton of points in a very short time.

Third, your speed increases subtlely as your score climbs. At the beginning, you move relatively slowly, but gradually, your speed increases to the point where you have to play on pure instinct with little time to react. Playing at the fast level makes for an incredible rush, yet you are eased into the fast level with such steadiness that you barely notice until you are flying across the board.

Fourth, and most importantly, there is a time limit. Pac-Man Championship has several modes, all of which are limited to five or ten minutes of play. My favorite mode is 5:00 Championship Mode, which forces you to pick the most efficient patterns to score the most points in the least amount of time. This constant quest for improvement makes the game incredibly addictive, especially because the game's only five minutes long, so you can play ten games an hour easily.

It's that addictive quality that's made it my pick for 2007 video game of the year, because I don't think I've played a video game this long or this hard in years. I am hooked.

An Addict Is Born

I think what cemented it for me is that I started to get really, really good at it. Granted, the audience for Pac-Man Championship Edition is a tiny fraction of the total gaming audience, but I started climbing the All-Time High Score charts on Xbox Live in late June when I broke into the top 100 or so scores in the world, then top 50, then top 20, then the top 10.

In early July, I happened to spot an announcement on the Xbox Pac-Man Championship Edition forum for a Pac-Man Championship Edition tournament, and I entered figuring other top 10 players might enter and I had little or no chance to win. I was ranked #7 on the all-time leaderboard, but certainly was not the best player by any stretch. The DTMMovies.com/All Games Interactive Pac Man Championship Edition Leaderboard Challenge lasted about three weeks where two players with the lowest scores were eliminated every day until the final week, where the scores would reset and the top five players remaining would battle for high score.

I led the tournament when I entered and had the high score every day. One player made this interesting message board post during the course of the finals.

I'm beginning to picture Stephen sitting in a dark living room wearing a little black halloween cape. A pentagram is drawn crudely upon the ground in chalk, votive candles burning at each point. Lying before him is a bootlegged copy of the 80's PacMan cartoon show, smeared with the blood of a virgin. You really are an Inhuman Monster Stephen, aren't you?!

Heh.

Actually, one of the other contestants pushed me pretty hard, but I won pretty handily after I managed to break my record, vaulting me to the #5 position on the all-time scores. At that point, #1 and #2 were glitched scores, so I was really #3 in the world, #1 in the United States. Woo. I'm such a nerd I even recorded it and posted my record run on YouTube.

Sadly, that was my peak. I blame HDTV.

To be continued in part 2...

Labels: videogames, xbox360, xboxlivearcade

That would be Renato Guedes, a 27 year old Brazilian artist who currently works exclusively for DC Comics. I first really took notice of his amazing artwork when he did a fill-in issue of Action Comics (#847) shortly after the Last Son storyline ran off the rails. Here's the cover of that issue:


I had originally written out all of this artsy analysis about his confident but delicate linework and the beautiful use of colors, but instead, let me just show you some examples of his art, because it really speaks for itself.




Guedes has done a lot of work on the Superman titles as a fill-in artist, and did a recent run of Supergirl that was just amazing, though some comic book nerds didn't like that his realistic proportions made her look "fat." Um, right...




Man, that guy can draw (and ink and color)!

Guedes has a definite talent for developing and capturing realistic likenesses, a great eye for composition and color, and clearly pays particular attention to detail in his rendering. Check out how much effort he puts into things other artists ignore, like backgrounds and even the way fabric wrinkles and drapes... it's just mind boggling how good he is.

The good news for Superman fans is that Guedes is taking over art duties on Superman starting with issue #674. I cannot wait. With the exception of Morrison & Quitely's wonderful All Star Superman, the Superman titles have suffered shuffling artistic teams for too long and my greatest hope, as a huge Renato Guedes fan, is that he can stick with it for a good, long time.

A woefully incomplete Renato Guedes checklist
If you know of anything else that belongs here, please let me know!

Action Comics 821, 839, 847, 850
Adventures of Superman 629, 636, 637, 647, 648
Brave New World
Omac (2006 mini-series) 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7
Supergirl (2006) 20-22
Superman (1939) 668 (Cover), Annual 13
Superman (1987) 226
Superman Secret Files and Origins 2005

Other titles he's worked on
24
CSI
Smallville
Stargate SG-1

Some relevant links

Renato Guedes on Wikipedia
Renato Guedes' official web site
Renato Guedes artwork for sale

Labels: comicbooks, renatoguedes, superman