zelda retrospective

part one
part two
part three
part four

holy shit wii zelda

(title link goes to official nintendo movies.)

the review embargo just lifted tonight and all of the overwhelmingly positive hype made me wii my pants a little:

1up

Now, two weeks before launch, the fog of mystery is clearing away. No crowded E3 tech demos; no we-play-it-for-you exhibitions. Just us, a Wii, and sheer Hyrulean excellence. We've seen only a tiny bit of the game so far -- 10 hours, to be precise, which is practically nothing given that Nintendo claims its testers needed 70-plus hours to finish the game their first time through. Twilight Princess features nine dungeons in all; after six hours, we were barely past the first.

That is to say, it's a big game. Huge, actually. In fact, the sheer enormity of Twilight Princess doesn't really strike you until after you've completed the first dungeon. Clearly, there's a great deal we've yet to see, but the most pressing (and frequently-asked) questions about Twilight Princess can fortunately be answered based on the time we've spent with it.

hoooooooooly shit. a 70 hour game?!!? are you kidding me? most games today only have a 10-12 hour single player component if you're lucky.

...

If Twilight Princess manages to uphold the level of quality seen in its opening hours for the entire duration of the adventure, it will unquestionably go down as one of the greats. Imagine Ocarina of Time, but polished and expanded and refined and generally perfected: that's what Twilight Princess feels like so far.

whoa whoa whoa... a more perfect orcarina? :O :O :O are you fucking kidding me?!

(finds wallet and credit card)

wii+zelda = fucking sold on the 19th.

sneak king

i'm interested in anything that's $3.99.

wii melee

ooooh. confirmed online play too.

homemade he-man costume

made by melissa but couldn't have happened without the courage of geoff. this is tied with anand's megaman costume in my mind.

space is crazy

awesome hubble pix

i'm nearly sold on the wii now

jeez. there's a lot of glowing hype brewing in the gaming press about the new wii zelda. it's amazing how nearly every successive zelda generation is better than the last. i really can't wait. every new zelda is like a gift of love.

lost until february

well, tonight's episode was pretty awesome. and next week promises more... more... more!!

anyway, next week is the last episode until february. like omg. abc (and the lost writers too) are really trying their hardest to turn their fanbase against the show the way they've been running it the past few seasons.

next week will be an official evite event. fo reals.


eddie/derek/scott: if you need any repeats, i have every episode this season so far recorded on the dvr. just let me know.

i know eddie and derek probably picked up final fantasy 12

so how is it? i hear good things about it. not enough for me to pick it up yet though.

i thought toronto would be too cold for zombies...

a shacker posted a link to some images on flickr.

update for zombie waldo.

omg, megaman

anand's home-made megaman costume is very excellent. (repost from facebook and myspace with permission of anand.)



so far, i think this is tied with geoff's home-made he-man costume for best of 2006.

for geoff and other zombie fans

what's wrong with philadephia?

(link goes to eddie's post. also updated text.)

we're a horrible city filled with horrible people.

and look, there's even an interactive murder map! you can even sort by age and race! (would people would call me a racist if i pointed out that 211 of the 296 murders were black males? too late.)

all of us who have played simcity know that crime is a socio-economical problem and this whole murder pandemic thing will take many many many many years to correct (and full police department funding!). and there's a fuckton of causes and symptoms but no one magic silver bullet. let's see: our public schools are awful and our kids are apparently dumb. our police department is shrinking. we've got unemployment. there's guns everywhere. we have a street culture and mentality that embraces violence and police noncooperation. we have shitty civic pride, civic self esteem issues, and an inferiority complex to new york city. and our sports teams haven't won anything in forever and are downright disappointing all the time. one out of four philadelphians live below the poverty line. i also blame grand theft auto.

would more and better schools help? would more police officers help? would more jobs help? would citywide anger management and therapy help? would citywide internet help? would martial law help? would just one freaking championship help?

there's a magic affluent bubble around center city where none of those really affects those of us who live here. we read about the new daily death count online while sipping our chai teas and shake our heads before clicking on the next link blissfully ignorant of what it really means to us, if anything. meh.

the city is on fire, folks. and i can't wait for guitar hero 2.

eman's halloween party

trogdoooorrr!

burninating the countryside!

geoff and melissa are zombies

this makes me want to wii

awesome gears of war tv commercial

all in-engine too! preordered for november 7th!

i hope you pick this up, scott. 2 vs 2 deathmatch at my apt.

wii plans

people with wii plans on november 19th, comment in here plz.

first four minutes of the borat movie

i lol'ed. i may end up having to see this.

poor mikey

way to sink lower than an invertebrate, rush! quite a feat, i'd say.

p.s. michael j fox was and is a national treasure. sha-na-na-na...

season 6 preview of 24

fuck yeah brah

trogdor!!!

i have received word from the internets that guitar hero 2 will have Strongbad - Trogdor as an unlockable bonus song.

omg.

update: added link to muzak.

oh hell yes, new updated close combat games!

top down 2d world war 2 tactics. i killed hours and hours with this game series.

me and anthony used to play cc1 to death.

david blaine street magic

i lol'ed plenty

update: youtube

fish biscuit

some lost ytmnds

original
remix

rainbow six vegas multiplayer

holy shit this looks great!!

kasabian "shoot the runner"

it's like an ipod video gone too far

snoop dog's dreamland

omg. snoop set to kirby's dreamland.

splinter cell double agent multiplayer

looks like hide and go seek for grownups! i think this would be fun to play on a halo night.

spies
mercs

greatest guitar hero video ever

a piece of pizza playing a custom dual-neck guitar!

more guitar hero 2 expert videos

the human camera

man draws city from memory

play some freebird!!!

freebird on hard in guitar hero 2. starts off relatively easy and then gets crazy awesome around 5:15.

i love my dell 20 inch widescreen

this is such a great deal for quality 20" widescreen lcd that i might want another on my desk this christmas. of course, that would be totally ridiculous... but i can dream, i suppose.

I'VE HAD IT WITH THESE ZOMBIES ON MY PLANE

Plane Dead

we are soo going next year. book it.

and we're back!

server move!

"Misirlou" in guitar hero 2 on expert. only one more month left!

guitar hero 2 final song list

just one month left to go...

for derek and scott

keep reaching for those stars

guitar hero 2: holy moly

click on the link to watch the video.

another quality office episode

the climax of this episode was grand, or as the french would say, grande.

"hug it out, bitch."

edit: the end was like oldboy.

eddie was not completely LOST

iawtp 200%.

looks like we're in for another long torturing season...

about running

well i didn't do the philadelphia distance run half marathon two weeks ago. i was nursing a pretty bad foot sprain at the time that took about 3 weeks to clear up. i definitely trained too hard too fast. then i had a cold that kept me down for a week. it sucked; at my peak condition, i was running 9 miles outside. there's always next year.

i was able to do the parkway run 5k on 9/24 though. i placed #425 with a little over 27 minutes. wasn't my best where i got a slow start with the crowd and i ran out of gas in the final 1/2 mile. it's amazing how quickly i lose my conditioning. that was for the children though.

if you remember from last year's parkway run:

• 1
• 2
• 3

this was the same 5k that took away 4 months of my life last year. and i avenged myself and i felt a burden lifted off my shoulders.

right now i'm getting ready for the marathon relay in november. there's a team at work i volunteered to either do the 4 mile segment or the 6 mile segment, depending on who we can get.

to tune up for the marathon relay, i'll be doing the dash for democracy 5k on november 4th. that should be fun.

foxnews: fair and balanced

wow. shouldn't there be laws against this?

zomg

we've outsourced michael jackson to india.

urban dead

i'm enjoying this a lot. i have a zombie character that joined horde a of zombies ransacking fort creedy in peppardville. fort creedy now belongs to the dead. braaaaiiiinnnnnsss.

make a character today!

i am the new proud owner of this jacket

winter is going to be awesome

you call that a burger?

this is a burger.



ted's montana grill: kitchen sink bison burger

mental note for next weekend

the first paradox of gaming

it's true. as age and ability to buy games increases, the amount of free time to play decreases. it's pretty sad. i'm going through this now. :'(

you can grant yourself retroactive immunity?

wtf. how is that possible?

because we all love zombies

BRAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNS.

halo rts for xbox360

the trailer made me pee myself a little bit.

and it's the age of empires people. if anybody can make a good and solid rts, it's them. my only concern is how to actually play a rts on a console. i don't think any console rts game figured that part out perfectly yet.


update: just watched it again. spartan group omega? oh please fuck yes.

guitar hero 2 for xbox360 makes me hot

wireless controllers and xbox live downloadable content?

hell yes!

unfortunately, it comes out sometime next year so it looks like i'll pick it up for ps2 this november anyway.

update: it's still on, eddie.

guitar hero 2 beta in public competition

it gets good around 8:20.

i couldn't help but yell fuck yeah a few times around the 10:00 mark.

the madden curse strikes again!

madden curse in detail

i'm going to be poor this fall


9/27 Just Cause
10/16 Blitz: The League
10/17 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent
10/23 FIFA 07
10/24 Marvel: Ultimate Alliance
Phantasy Star Universe
10/31 Need for Speed Carbon
11/01 Forza Motorsport 2
11/07 Call of Duty 3
F.E.A.R.
Fuzion Frenzy 2
Gears of War
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Vegas
Star Trek: Legacy
Tony Hawk's Project 8


and the wii on november 19th.

this music video is just way too awesome

metal gear solid 4 trailer

click on tgs 06 trailer

first episode of season 3 of the office

probably one of the best 30 minutes i've ever seen on tv.

5 lols out of 5.

free mmo zombie game

Urban Dead is a free-to-play browser-based multi-player game where you play the survivor or victim of a zombie outbreak in a quarantined city centre, alongside tens of thousands of others.

In death, the city stirs. Its borders still locked down after a sudden government quarantine last year, Malton's trapped civilians make their way through the derelict buildings, surviving the winter to rebuild their fragmented society from the rubble upwards. Military cleanup squads patrol the empty streets, stationed in the city for the long haul, while embedded scientific groups continue the experiments that brought them here.

And the dead rise up and thrive, trailing through the ruined streets of the city, milling between buildings and clawing through makeshift barricades and diversions, reclaiming the city as their own.

this would be like chocolate and peanut butter

Ausiello: What's this I hear about David Cross coming on as his Arrested Development character?
Braff: That's what I'm trying to broker. I'm a huge fan of his and so is Bill, and our idea was that he would play Tobias in an episode. Obviously, we have to get that cleared by a lot of people, like [Arrested creator] Mitch [Hurwitz] and Fox, but that was my pitch. David wants to do it.

Ausiello: Is it your goal to get the entire Arrested Development cast on Scrubs?
Braff: [Laughs] Yeah, one by one. I was such a fan.

hell yes

guitar hero 2, november 7th.

it's so ON, eddie.

update: what a horrible heart-shaped box cover.

mario cake

poor jevon kearse

one of my favorite players too. :'(

i would also like to pimp dinosaur comics

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

one of my new favorite webcomics

http://xkcd.com/

A webcomic of romance,
sarcasm, math, and language.

don't you ever touch a black man's radio, boy!!!

edit: fixed link to youtube

wii and nintendo, best summarized by penny arcade

from a gaming forum...

Well, the PS3 entry model is $500, not $600. 600 for the upgraded HD. But that is beside the point. My point is - look at those Tennis players heads - OMG! They are spheres! Vic20, Apple IIe sprites? Come on...my PS3 Tennis players will have grimmaces, sweat running down their faces, and strands of hair moving to real physics. Why? Because I AM a gamer. Not a pre-teen. I am not after bouncing dwarfs, discs, trading card games. Please do not confuse the two of us under the one term of "Gamer." The Wii is an alternative to the PS3. Yes. There are hundreds of alternatives to Ferarri, too. But given a choice, and within my reach...

:roll: :roll: :roll:

deporting dave to korea party pictures

eddie and derek's.

edit: update to link directly to photo set.

some pictures of anthony, geoff, and i

from a few weeks ago.

company of heroes demo

1.8gigs.

for eddie, derek, and scott.

prepare to blow your mind

way too cool.

update: link to nasa's hubble page.

eddie, your site's rss feed is borked

http://shyturtle.blogspot.com/atom.xml

high def home entertainment media centers

these are awfully tempting.

AVeL LinkPlayer2 for Consumer

Eureka LX350 HD High Definition Wireless Media Center with DVI

i'm still kinda content with my pc media center though. although it's a pain in the ass sometimes, it's still more flexible overall than one of these things.

pictures from zanzibar blue

zanzibar blue during restaurant week.

pictures from tria 2 party

bonus humping.

new itunes

is taking forever to go through my files and figure out which ones are gapless.

i hope they fixed the bug where itunes can't find your music even though it's phsyically still there.


edit: nope, they didn't.

jesus christ!

literally!

this militant christianity freaks me out.

tvu player is the greatest thing ever

watch tv over the internet!

awesome for espn on monday night football.

what's it gonna beeee???

not work safe lol

i'm not even sure i will even categorize this as music.

9/9/99 never forget

Top 10 Reasons to Relaunch IGN Dreamcast

3. The Dreamcast didn't fail, we failed the Dreamcast

this post is about getting eddie or derek to post something on their blog

not brave enough to wear one of these but...

check your lease, man!

what ho! perhaps you should dig a trench!

old but classic conan o'brien clip of him playing 1860's baseball.

an old bed closes and a new bed opens

got my new bed delivered today and got rid of the one that i've been using for decades. decades. it's something that i've been putting off for about a year but finally did this weekend.

i suppose that old bed was a part of me and it's a strange feeling to replace something so familiar that my parents bought a long time ago. it's that same feeling that i had when i bought my own travel luggage earlier this year instead of borrowing my parent's. it's my bed now. that thought is bewildering and exhilerating at the same time.

so the details of this bed is that it's a simmons wilshire of the beautyrest world class mattress family. i consider it a 15-20 year investment. it's got 2 inches of "pillow top" foam or something that makes it plush. it's queen sized so it's omg xbox huge lol. it takes up like a third of my bedroom. and it's so tall i may need a stepladder to get on and off. and god help me if i fall of it, i'll probably need to be treated for wind and atmosphere burns.

battle pope

srsly.

(if it wasn't for geoff, i wouldn't have known about this)

i wish i could do that on treadmill

all i can do is run and hurt myself apparently.

this is almost as bad as the star wars kid

i'm glad me, anthony, or geoff did something this stupid on tape in our youth...

(at least i don't think we did).

expert take me out + lols

nws for language

i want one

arrested development season 3 on dvd...

acquired!

we should do a marathon.

update: see the amazon link for a pretty good jason bateman interview.

since i'm up early today

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (Hardcover)
This title will be released on September 12, 2006.

"The Crisis" nearly wiped out humanity. Brooks (son of Mel Brooks and author of The Zombie Survival Guide, 2003) has taken it upon himself to document the "first hand" experiences and testimonies of those lucky to survive 10 years after the fictitious zombie war. Like a horror fan's version of Studs Terkel's The Good War (1984), the "historical account" format gives Brooks room to explore the zombie plague from numerous different views and characters. In a deadpan voice, Brooks exhaustively details zombie incidents from isolated attacks to full-scale military combat: "what if the enemy can't be shocked and awed? Not just won't, but biologically can't!" With the exception of a weak BAT-21 story in the second act, the "interviews" and personal accounts capture the universal fear of the collapse of society--a living nightmare in which anyone can become a mindless, insatiable predator at a moment's notice. Alas, Brad Pitt's production company has purchased the film rights to the book--while it does have a chronological element, it's more similar to a collection of short stories: it would make for an excellent 24-style TV series or an animated serial. Regardless, horror fans won't be disappointed: like George Romero's Dead trilogy, World War Z is another milestone in the zombie mythos. Carlos Orellana

crosslink for zombies and battle pope

hooray for science

some of the more interesting articles:

Ancient jewellery points to early origins of language
The discovery of 100,000-year-old shell beads suggests that human language was already well advanced and must have developed earlier than we thought

Muggings were rife in New Stone Age
The first systematic survey of early Neolithic British skulls reveals that life was more violent than anyone expected

Human brains enjoy ongoing evolution
New variants of two brain-development genes have swept through the human population during the last several thousand years, biologists reveal

Free trade may have finished off Neanderthals
Homo sapiens may have driven the previously successful species to extinction by embracing the new concepts of specialisation and trading

Did early humans socialise to avoid getting eaten?
Simulations provide more evidence that hominids may have adapted cooperative behaviours to avoid being eaten by other animals

i couldn't get that last link posted but it's at the bottom of the main page.

cannot look away

a japanese video called poodle fitness.

i know i'll be having nightmares tonight... *shudder*

if you're into weird guitar

kaki king

price of a perfect child

from wired magazine, june 2005, page 52-53. i would link to the original story but i can't find it anywhere online at their site:

(click on image below to get the huge 1.9meg jpg)

new xbox games

i picked up madden 07 and burnout revenge on the 360. my thoughts:

madden looks phenomenal on the 360. i'm having a hard time adjusting to the 360 controls from the ps2 controls. i keep hitting 'y' which is to jump the snapcount whereas i think that it's coverage audible (coverage audible + right to realign the db's). and i keep hitting 'b' by accident which is sprint on the ps2 and is actually change selected player on the xbox. kicking is kind of weird this year. i need to get more practice in for reading coverages. running the ball is much better this year though.

burnout is really fun. i just started playing it yesterday and i've been enjoying it. it's definitely different from mario kart which is what i'm used to. burnout rewards aggressive and dangerous driving, ie driving into oncoming traffic. i'm still trying to figure out how to drift in this game without losing control. yeah good times.

i hope to get some points.