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.

The future of this blog

I want to continue with this blog, but I don't know how. I really enjoy writing about social networking, but I also enjoy writing about a lot of other stuff. I could start some more blogs, but I don't write enough to justify that. I could start writing about my personal life, but I don't think I could do that to my loyal readers (you are out there right?). I'm just a pretty boring person, plus I already tried that back in high school with my Xanga. To show you, here's a fake post that I easily could have written on my old Xanga.

Evan's Xanga!!!!!111oneone

October 03, 2002

So today I went to schooll and lerned some stuff. then i went to home
and listened to weezer. they are like the greatest band ever.
seriously.

Currently Playing: Soul Calibur II on gamecube. I'm like really good
with taki the ninja. seriously, her ninja moves are
awesome.

Who would want to read that? Nobody. That's why I stopped writing about my personal life.

I think I'm going to continue this blog, but change the focus away from social networking technology and such. But I need a new title. I like using "Ramblings" in the title, because I like to ramble. But it needs more. I will probably be writing about general tech stuff, business, social networking, video games, and entertainment. I also enjoy self-deprecating humor if you couldn't tell already. Right now, I'm leaning towards "Unmused Ramblings." But that title really needs a good subtitle. What do you think?

And here's a question I want to pose to everyone in our class. What are you going to do with your blog after this semester? Are you going to keep writing on social networking? Are you going to use it as general personal blog? Are you going to let it languish in the blogospere with no more new posts? Or will you simply delete it?

Two Amazing Cover Songs

Here are two amazing cover songs that I recently found on YouTube. The first is The Fratellis' cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" that evokes the excellent Jimi Hendrix version of the song. The second is Kate Nash covering "Fluorescent Adolescent" by Arctic Monkeys.

The future of social networking?

Whats going to happen to social networking in the future? I have a few ideas, but I'll save them for later. First I want to talk about something I think will not happen.

This post (from last November) on the NY Times Bits blog, describes how Google and Yahoo! are going to use their e-mail programs to create a sort of organic social networking service. Now here's why I don't think this is a good idea. I don't really use e-mail to talk to any of my friends. I use AIM, Facebook, and Skype. I use e-mail almost entirely for mailing lists, and other website communications. While I can't speak for others, I would gain little benefit from either of these services.

I really don't know what the future of social networking will look like. I feel like the cycle of the new "next big thing" replacing the old "next big thing" will continue for a while, until someone figures out a genius way to actually make money over a long period of time using social networking.