Minecraft, and not losing your head...
The Minecraft pre-release beta one-point-eight something-or-other is out. From what I can tell, this is the pre-release on the update that was leaked, so it's still kind of buggy, but a lot of bugs have been fixed. I decided to create a world and take a look around and I have one major reaction: Ravines. These things make aboveground exploration a challenge and make underground areas look like the inside of Mount Doom. I give this a pixilated thumbs up. I still haven't seen any Endermen, though I may have passed near one; they gave it the same sound effects as zombies, which I hope gets changed at some point. In short, it's still as addictive as ever, though now it's got more variety to the experience as you suddenly notice the disappearance of several hours along with the sunshine.
There's a new director attached to a reboot of 'Highlander.' I still like the original, in spite of its somewhat cheesy pedigree. There will be things a reboot simply cannot top:
- Clancy Brown as the Kurgen.
- Sean Connery, even if he's supposed to be Spanish.
- The Queen soundtrack.
- That animated ending sequence where MacLeod wins the Prize.
On the other hand, if one were to reboot the whole thing, one could fix a few problems the original had. The biggest one would be to actually cast a Scottish person as MacLeod and a Spanish person as Ramirez. The second biggest is to not attempt to use any of the ideas in "Highlander II." In theory, if the reboot is good, it could have the advantage of not being a self-contained movie where the ending has to be un-done by sequels (though there was nothing wrong with the first movie because it actually had a freakin' ending). But the biggest hurdle is that one of the writers involved worked on the "Twilight" screenplay. MacLeod is going to be an immortal, moody teenager, just you wait and see...
But while you wait for that, there's the remake of "Point Break" in the works to salivate over. Just kidding; I remember seeing the original in theaters. I was with a nice girl who was not destined to be my wife, and we were going to see it because she was a-twitter about Patrick Swayze (whom she referred to as "Swayze-bo"). Other than a handful of memorable "crusty old FBI agent" lines from Gary Busey and the US President masks used for bank heists, little sticks out as remake-worthy in my mind. However, it seems that there are other properties wanting to cash in on a Swayze "death bump." The new "Point Break" (a surfing term, by the way) will be moving to the world of so-called "extreme sports." I can't help but think of all of the MST3K movies where some edgy "sport" (like, say, Sidehacking) was shoe-horned into a typical undercover agent movie. It's another instance where I'm not sure they really needed to buy the rights to anything; I can't see anyone who loved the original film going to see a new one, and most people will either have never seen it on cable or won't care so long as it's got the requisite action and naughty bits. Closing this section out, even though it's early, I just want to wish everyone a Patrick Swayze Christmas.
Since I mentioned "Twilight," here's a vampire-related thing: set photos of Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins for his "Dark Shadows" movie. I'm kind of hoping that he's wearing a bunch of sunscreen or something there...
I ran across an article commemorating the fact that Tuesday was the anniversary of the first recorded death in the US of a pedestrian by an automobile. It got me to thinking about something a friend of mine told me when I moved to Kansas City. It was something to the effect that back in the early 1900's when there were only two cars in all of KC, they were involved in the city's first automobile accident. I finally did some looking around, and while the original article isn't online, an abstract is. I'd love to see the photo of the resulting crash. And since it was due to a game of "chicken," I'd say it qualifies as KC's first jousting tourney as well. Our local ren fest should have some kind of commemorative ceremony. :)
We're off to the links, but before that, why aren't you at the (as of this posting time) at the Woot-off? Or perhaps I should say "at Woot-off," as marketers are yet again trying to manipulate how we use language by dropping the use of articles like "the" before their product names. Before I trundle away to try and score a Bag of Random Crap (I just jinxed myself by mentioning it), I'll leave you with a Fall TV show cancellation forecast. Many of those shows were ones I'd never heard of. And if it's any indication, I picked up a "Pan Am" travel bag at the San Diego Comic Con a few months ago, and while it served me well on a recent flight, its time in the overhead bins alone was enough to make half of the logo peel off.
Please have your boarding pass ready:
- There's a language warning on the text in this next link, but it's about how a certain credited member of the team that brought us "Jurassic Park" has a few things to answer for. :)
- I wonder if giving cats the ability to travel through time is an idea that was worth considering in the first place.
- Someone needs to e-mail Gabe & Tycho or someone else who runs a video game convention and convince Coca-Cola to actually make these cans.
- I've been hearing bad things about the video game "Dead Island," but there's already a mod out for it that let's you fight zombies as the Fist of the North Star! If you have the game, a link to the mod is in the video clip's comments.
- Brother is a point-n-click adventure where you're trying to save your fellow arctic-dwellers who have been blown off of a cliff into some rather improbable fixes.
- Here's a real-world idea for your attempt to write your own sci-fi novel in the style of Philip K. Dick: Predictive policing sends cops to where a computer calculates crime is likely to occur.
- 50 new exo-planets have been discovered, one of which might be a "Super Earth." It's probably already covered in Wal-Mart stores and Starbucks, though.
- People who think Wi-Fi and wireless tech is causing them pain are taking refuge in a wireless-free zone in West Virginia.
- Next up is a gallery of bootleg movie posters from Ghana, made for traveling shows of Western and local films. I wouldn't mind having prints of a few of these, actually...
- You have to download and install a program to actually play with it, but if you think you're up to thinking four-dimensionally, here's a tesseract-based Rubik's Cube.
- Nokia is holding a contest for the best re-interpretation of its famous ringtone-melody, and hear the entries here, choosing to hear the more popular ones if you wish. For a little history on the tune (after a little treatise on gibberish), we turn to Q.I.
- There's a Citronen concept car that I think I saw in a Mass Effect game somewhere.
- Many are familiar with the mashing up of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and "The Wizard of Oz." In a similar theme, here's "The Wiz" set to "Brain Damage" and "Eclipse."
- In a similar vein, here's something that makes "X-Men: First Class" a little more fun: Setting its footage to "Make a Man Out of You" from "Mulan."
- And Once in Space is a challenging platformer that requires you to manipulate the environment and the things in it to gather (what else?) stars.