I've always like Nerf Herder. I love Olivia Munn. I love video games. So a video by the former singer from Nerf Herder singing about video game stores featuring Olivia Munn pretty much was a home run in my book.

Video Game - E3 2009 - Attack of the Show

(Not that I've bought a game at an actual brick and mortar store in a long time. It's online orders for me baby.)

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The Music Industry Is Run By Idiots

ASCAP's latest claim: embedding YouTube videos requires public performance license. Even though YouTube paid them, now they want money from sites that imbedded their videos, and gave those artists *FREE* promotion. Morons.

Of course, it's not just America... Swedish Performing Rights Society demands cash from companies that let employees listen to music. Soon you'll have to listen to music in some sort of soundproof chamber, pay per listen, and be fined just for thinking about a songs lyrics or notes.

From Russia, With Stupidity: Band must pay fines to itself. Get this one, Deep Purple played in Russia without getting a license from the Russian Author's Society and was fined for it. They have to pay $1,000 a song to "the victim". Themselves. Figure that one out. Of course, that organization gets a cut of that fine, hence the fine. How this isn't considered racketeering is beyond me. At least street criminals are upfront about what they are and how they're robbing you.

These organizations need to just go away. Now.

Musicians, On The Other Hand Aren't (All) Idiots

Trent Reznor Explains What A Musician Needs To Do To Be Successful These Days. Basically, skip the label system. Promote yourself via the net, offer free DRMless recordings, and make all of your money via shows and merch. The same things I've been saying for years now. (He also says to ditch flash on your band websites and I wholeheartedly agree with that!!!)

Tech And Law

DC police chief says it's 'cowardly' to monitor speed traps with your iPhone. One man's cowardly is another man's resourceful and wise.

Schwarzenegger: No internet sales tax in California, please stick around Amazon. Well, that's pretty cool.

Entertainment

WATCHMEN 5 disc UCE scheduled for the holidays. I had forgotten about this. Now I'm re-thinking getting the Director's Cut Blu-Ray this month. A better version will be coming out later on.

BBC3 orders 6th series of IDEAL. Awesome. The end of the 5th series seemed like the show's finale. Glad to see my favorite slightly dark comedy about a weed dealer will be back. (Personally, and this is just me, I like it better than WEEDS, which I think jumped the shark during or after season 3.)

Your first horrifying look at DOCTOR WHO's next monster. I still haven't watched the last two or three specials. I do want to see how #10 goes out, but mainly I'm just waiting for the new Doctor and show runner.

CEMETERY JUNCTION trailer. Not so much a trailer really. Still, it's Gervais and Merchant, so I'm looking forward to seeing this flick and the "trailer" was amusing.

Eli Roth talks THANKSGIVING. "White meat, dark meat... all will be carved." Probably my second favorite of the GRINDHOUSE fake trailers. (The other being MACHETTE.)

Pegg and Frost video blog real details of PAUL. I'm a fanboy for these guys, even if I do have "I liked there stuff before everybody else in the US did" syndrome. So there you have it.

Video Games

Epic likely to use traditional controllers moving forward. I hope games don't drift too far into gimmick controllers. Glad to see Epic sticking to the regular stuff.

MODERN WARFARE 2 box art includes 'CALL OF DUTY'. I wish they'd make their mind up already! Anyway, Activision explains why CALL OF DUTY's back in MODERN WARFARE.

Nathan Fillion talks about his role in HALO 3: ODST. Nathan Fillion = awesome.

BIOSHOCK 2 has four developers: Arkane Studios the latest. Hopefully the old saying about too many cooks doesn't hold true in this case.

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Generally I don't post my poker stuff on here. (Although I'm sure my Twitter followers are sick of my updates on my progress!) Anyway, I wanted to share this screenshot I took. I've had four of a kind before, but hitting that with Aces is just crazy.

Of course, the payoff on this was virtually nothing. I was dumb enough to make a tiny raise and everybody folded. I guess I should've slow-played it. Even when I get lucky, I still don't make out that great. Sigh.

(And yes, I realize my stats are way too passive at that table. Also, I blurred out the money amounts and other players names for obvious reasons.)

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I spent my Wednesday playing with people who play like idiots and get lucky with junk hands. It's incredibly frustrating.

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Back with links. First one is a cool idea...

Turn a bookshelf into a secret passage. I've often thought how much I want to do this. Someday I might!

Tech

Goodbye, CompuServe! (We thought you already died). I seriously didn't know CompuServe was still around either.

British spy chief's cover blown on Facebook. Good lord. Don't they vet these people and their families before putting them in charge of sensitive branches?

Soapbox Issue Thingy

Did OpenBitTorrent just become The Pirate Bay 2.0? De-centralized torrents were supposed to be the wave of the future.

Guest Op-Ed: Why I'm a Third-World File-Sharer. A worthwhile read with some good points.

No Deal! Jammie Thomas to appeal $1.92 million fine. That fine is pure extortion. There's no realistic way a person with an average income could pay that anyway.

Entertainment

Does WATCHMEN's leak matter? Since I haven't seen the movie yet, I was tempted to download both leaks. The theatrical cut and director's cut. Still, I plan on waiting for the Blu-Ray, which will be a rare blind buy for me. Honestly, I want the full HD experience the first time seeing this movie since I skipped out on the theater experience.

LOL: Man arrested for running around naked in a casino claims he's a Terminator. Hey, you never know! In the movies nobody believes stuff like that when it happens, and then it turns out to be true and they're screwed!

T.J. HOOKER, the movie? They better find a way to include Shatner. (Still, I have zero interest in this movie.)

Video Games

Wish I had a record player. Why? Because there's a promo record for BIOSHOCK 2. What's on the BioShock 2 record? Find out by clicking the link. (I like the soundtrack from the first game, so I hope the sequel's soundtrack is as full of win.)

Bleszinski sees RPGs as key to the shooter's future. I don't see many RPG elements in GEARS OF WAR, but the man seems to know what he's doing, so I'll take his word for it.

Valve: People always complain. That's for sure. Personally, given their track record, Valve hasn't given me anything to complain about.

DONKEY KONG Easter Egg discovered 26 years later. It's just for the Atari version. Personally, I'm an arcade purist, and that's the best version of DK. (Even as a little kid, back in the 80s, I thought that the arcade versions of games made the Atari look like crap.)

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Lately, I've been preoccupied with other stuff and even the somewhat minimal effort of throwing up a bunch of links with commentary has taken a backseat for me.

Kicking off with an amusing headline...

Man beaten when teens mistakenly think screams during sex were calls for help. That's pretty priceless.

Tech

Firefox 3.5 downloaded 5 million times in first 24 hours. I'm amazed their servers didn't crash under that much traffic.

Windows 7 RTM: July 13th confirmed. That's pretty far ahead of the October retail release. So I imagine that copies will be floating around the net soon enough.

Tech Crooks

No comment for these two, just thought they were worth sharing.

NY thieves want iPhones, victims fight back

Gamer steals from virtual world to pay real debts

Speaking Of Crooks...

Ringtones are not concerts, groups tell judge. Why do people have to tell judges that? Because ASCAP wants royalties on ringtones. Seriously. The music industry, not musicians, just the industry part, needs to just die in a fire already.

Entertainment

Kristen Bell doesn't think a VERONICA MARS movie will ever happen. Well, no shit!

Alice in Chains reunion "Gives Way" to album, tour. Their new single actually sounds like Alice In Chains, which is a bit surprising since their original lead singer died.

Video Games

There's been a lack of game-related stories on here lately. Here are a few from the last few days. In the interest of saving myself (and you) some time, they're presented without comment.

Boston mayor who forced GTA ads from public transit now appears on buses pushing ESRB

If a pirated song = $80k, what is the value of a pirated game?

New SPLINTER CELL to run roughly 12 hours

No room for mediocrity this holiday season, Eidos says

Tecmo Koei asks sony to "please cut [PS3] price"

Breaking: Valve still hates the PS3!

Microsoft will 'enhance' gamers' experiences with dashboard ads

LEFT 4 DEAD 2 boycott didn't change Valve's plans

Advocacy FAIL: L4D2 pre-order sales double of original, says Valve

ALPHA PROTOCOL to hit in early October

Analyst: 2 more GTA IV episodes on the way, GTA V by fiscal 2011

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