Its a mad world....

So M$ has put out a Gears of War add which will be hitting the theaters and airwaves soon. Its made up of entirely in-game realtime rendered scenes. Wow....


Watch it here!


The song in video is called "Mad World" Ive been told.

The Multiverse Is Now

Patrick Cox writes in an article for TCS Daily:

"The Web for many will become the cliched 3D virtual reality that has been so overused as a literary and cinematic devise that most of us have forgotten how compelling that vision was when it first appeared."

This article takes me back to a special time in 1994 when I first discovered the vast, magical world of the internet and further expands on a concept known as "The Multiverse"...the future of the internet in which users are submerged in a virtual 3D environments.

Of course it's no surprise that the "thriving frontier of virtual worlds" is video games.

Interweb Explunker 7

Microsoft has released the newest version of its flagship browser: Internet Explorer 7.

Risking the wrath of the IT department I went ahead and downloaded and installed it on my work computer. The install process went very smoothly. I started the install, went to lunch and when I got back the restart your computer prompt was staring me in the face. After a quick reboot IE 7 was up and running.

One thing that hits you instantly when you run IE7 is the task bar at the top. Its been put on a serious diet. Its been reduced down to two lines. The top line contains the back and forward buttons, address bar and search bar. The search bar is a major new feature of IE7. Much like the Yahoo, Google or MSN tool bars which allow you to search using the appropriate search engine this functionality is now built right into the browser. You can change which search engine the bar searches which is a nice feature for people who use something other then MSN.

The second bar contains the new tabs feature. Instead of opening 8 individual windows of IE to browse your favorite dirty sites you can now open one window with multiple tabs. The tabs line up across the top and you can page between open sites with one quick click.

Due to the reduced task bar at the top you get the advantage of seeing much more of a webpage at once. It threw off my usual browsing habits at first. Im used to going to a website and scrolling down to exactly what I want to look at.

Im sure there are bugs and problems that I havent found yet but so far IE7 is new enough to that the features are welcome but not different enough to scare people away.

Buy yours here. Check out the website too.

The power of the mind shall overcome!

Heres a confession:

Im terrified of needles.

Just the thought of a needle puncturing my skin makes me a little faint. I would for the lack of a better term have a phobia of needles. For a long time Ive just lived with the fact that I dont do well with needles. Since Im not a very sickly person I never have to get shots so in the end its always worked out.

Having spent a fair amount of time in hospitals (visiting) and in vets offices (taking the dogs in) I have been exposed to a fair amount of needles lately. So have decided I am going to overcome my fear of needles using only the shear power of my mind. No hypnosis, no doctors, no crazy drugs from the pharmacy, no psychotherapy; just me training my mind to put aside its fear of needles. My ultimate goal is to go give blood something I couldnt possibly fathom doing now.

I havent figured out how I plan on doing it but I figure Im going to phase needles into my life. First I plan on visiualizing in my minds eye, needles sticking me. Ill also try to recall in vivid detail previous times Ive gotten shots (there are not many but I hope its enough to make it through). Second Ill begin recording a bunch of medical shows and watching the needle sticking scenes. I usually turn away because it just completely creeps me out when the close up of the needle goes in is shown on the screen. I dont know where Ill go from there or how long it will take but I hope this helps.

I guess my goal is to prove to myself that the power of my mind is greater then the stimuli which act on it. The definition of a phobia is an irrational or illogical fear of an object or thing and I cant stand that I have an irrational fear. I dont want to get to LIKE needles I just want to be able to tolerate them.

Xbox 360 - Useful Links

Since I'm new to the whole Xbox 360 world, I've been trying to find some good sites that are Xbox 360 related and provide some useful information on what new games or devices/technologies are coming out. I've found a couple of sites (beyond those typical sites such as IGN and Gamespot) that I wanted to share. These are sites that are updated daily. One of my favorites is Major Nelson's site, who is an individual working for Xbox (I believe). He is very good a listing all the new content that is added to the marketplace daily. This way I don't need to check the marketplace to see if anything is new, especially since it can be a pain to find with all the different categories.

If you have any other sites, let me know as I'm always looking for more.

Major Nelson's
Xbox 360 Fanboy (though at times, a little too biased, especially against the "evil" PS3)
Gamescore Blog

Our Man John Finally Joins Ranks

The Righteous Dork finally joins the ranks of 360 owners! If he can pry himself away from it for longer than a minute or 2, I'm looking forward to his review/first impressions! Hopefully everyone is still planning on picking up Gears Of War when it hits so we can get our collective game on.