My first Spore Creation

The Spore Creature Creator Trial was released today for PC and Mac today. If you aren't familiar with Spore, read up on it on Wikipedia. It's a virtual life game from Will Wright, creator of Sim City and The Sims. This release is just the creature creation portion of the game, with limited options. You can get it here.

Surprisingly, its a lot of fun to just mess around with the different options available in the Creature Creator and create your own creature. You can also buy the full version of the Creature Creator, containing four times as many options as the trial, from the EA Store for 9.95 as a direct download for PC starting tomorrow. The boxed PC/MAC version comes out thursday, according to Bestbuy.com. Mac users will be able to download a copy from GameTree Online.

A really cool feature this has is the ability to upload videos to YouTube directly from the program. Here is my first creature, Horny:

Hulu just got awesome

Hulu, the joint-venture between NBC and Fox, just got more awesome. Earlier this week, "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" were added to its growing library of TV shows.

I don't watch too much TV, but there are a few shows I must catch. Now that Stewart and Colbert have joined "Heroes" and "The Office," I have no need for cable anymore. O, and Hulu also runs in 480p with no lag on FiOS.

Automated DVD Rental is the greatest thing ever!

So my local supermarket recently got a one of those new automated DVD Rental machines, and its great. It costs just a dollar a night to rent a DVD; the system requires a credit or debit card to rent to enforce that. It uses RFID (radio frequency identification) tags located on the discs themselves to track rentals. Since I work part-time at the store, I find it to the be the best way to see new releases on DVD.

Fallout for free!

According to Joystiq, GameTap will adding the Fallout series, presumably Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics for everyone to play for free! YESSSSSSSS! Just in time for Fallout 3!

For those of you confused about why I'm happy, all I can say is that you now have the chance to make up for missing one of the greatest games of all time. Fallout, a role-playing game originally released in 1997, was set in a post-apocalyptic version of southern California. Below is the original intro sequence from the game, narrated by Ron Perlman.

New Weezer Video!

Sorry for the delay loyal readers. Besides class requirements, the main reason I posted on this was to procrastinate. Since school's out, I haven't had much to procrastinate doing.

Stereogum informed me of Weezer's new video for "Pork and Beans." The song is decent, reminds me of "Beverly Hills," but the video is pretty hilarious, with appearances of many YouTube celebrities and references to a bunch of internet memes.

While the recent track leaks from Weezer's new album have left me hopelessly disappointed about the band's future, they still can make a pretty good music video.

While this may be the first "live-action" mash-up of old YouTube classics, South Park did it a couple months ago in this hilarious fight scene that includes many of the same personalities and memes.

Both videos are below.

Uwe Boll

Switched recently published a list of their picks for the most obnoxious people on the internet. Check it out here. The pick for number 9, German film director Uwe Boll, is a hoot.

In case you aren't familiar with Mr. Boll, he is notorious for making absolutely terrible films that usually based on videogames. Besides, the ridiculous things mentioned on Switched (including making fun of 9/11 in his new movie),the most ridiculous thing he's done was challenging Michael Bay to a fight. Like, a real fight. In a ring. On pay-per-view.

As I was writing this, I came to the realization that I'm part of the problem of obnoxious people on the internet. As much as people dislike the people on this list for being completely obnoxious, this list (and this post by extension), are really only making the problem worse by giving these people attention. Maybe all they want is attention in the first place? Conclusion: The internet is probably the greatest thing to happen to attention seekers ever.

IRON MAN

Before I went to see Iron Man last night, I was cautiously excited. I had high hopes for the movie, directed by Jon Favreau (writer and star of the classic Swingers) and Robert Downey Jr, but I recalled the many times those hopes were destroyed by terrible superhero movies (X3, Superman Returns, etc).

Well friends, Iron Man, did not disappoint at all. Downey Jr. was incredible as the super rich armsmaker/inventor Tony Stark. Gwyneth Paltrow was perfect as his assistant Pepper Potts, and had great chemistry with Downey Jr. Jeff Bridges' Obadiah Stane was hilarious and menacing. The only weak performance among the main cast was Terrence Howard as Air Force man Jim Rhodes. It seemed like he just didn't care at all.

The movie did a great job appealing to a mass audience while throwing in some great nods to the source material. The action scenes were great and, as I said above, most of the lead performances were brilliant. The humorous scenes strattled the "too corny" line without going over it, like Spider-man 3 did. From what I could tell, the theater I was in loved it. For the comic fans (indluding myself), the couple of references to S.H.I.E.L.D. needing a new acronym as well as the end credit sequence with Nick Fury were appreciated.

See Iron Man. You won't be disappointed, unless you are a curmudgeon.