What’s Internet Radio?

Just recently I discovered what internet radio is, yeah I’m kind of behind the ball of this one. Internet radio is audio brocasting streaming through a host site. Like regular radio though you don’t have control what you end up hearing, but the difference is, the sites usually find a way to narrow down what music you like and create an nonstop playlist of songs you enjoy. Internet radio differentiates from on-demand selections or just online music stores where you just go and buy your music. So if you have no control over it why would you want to use internet radio? Well you don’t know it sometimes, but you use the radio to discover new music, and you get the same effect with internet radio, but even more. By just listening to Pandora for one day, I discovered a couple of new bands that I liked. So if your just sitting at your computer, turn on a internet radio site and listen, it’s not like your doing anything else at the moment.

Pandora

-type in an artist/song and a “radio station” will be generated

-simplistic and easy use interface

-able to buy songs playing from iTunes or Amazon

-mobile version and iPhone version available

-you can only decline a song 6 times in an hour (thumbs down)

-commercial pops up every 4 songs

last.fm

-type in an artist, you go to an artist bio page, then you launch the player

-player is sleeker than pandora’s with a slideshow going

-you can’t go backwards in playlist, you can’t pause

-has a social networking setup and favorite artist show listings

-premium account offered with added benefits, available through XBox Live

-indie artists have free downloads of songs, others buy through amazon, iTunes

Wait! That character is a chick now?

So yeeeeah, I really don’t get why this keep happening in Marvel comics, but male characters are turning female then turning back. I can’t really think of any good reason of why they are doing this beside lack of female characters? The other thing they all seem to be villains.

Loki

In the post-ragnarok Thor comics, Loki came back as a female and noone knew why for the longest time. Until recently we found out it was one of his scenes to mess with Thor’s head by inhabiting Sif’s body (Thor’s girlfriend). The story is in post-ragnarok world all the Asgardians were put inside human bodies and then Thor had to go around restoring everyone. Loki stole Sif’s body so her soul had to inhabit a dying old woman. But in the latest issue of Thor, Thor was able to pull out Sif out of the dying woman and restore her. Loki is back to his male self again and being apart of Osborn’s Cabal.

Starhawk

Starhawk is one of Marvel’s unknown characters. He was a space character from an alternate future where he was apart of the first version of Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s able to fly, shoot out energy, and can see into the future. He recently reappeared in the new version of Guardians of the Galaxy along with his former teammate Major Victory. He was wrecking havoc in the GotG’s homebase that they had to lock him down. They found out later that being away from his universe made his form fluctuate, which is why he is randomly female now. She recently broke free of the prison during the commotion of War of Kings, where this will lead we’ll find out in the coming issues.

Mr. Sinister

Mr. Sinister has been one of the X-Men’s deadliest foes and he doesn’t seem to die or go away easy. At the end of the Messiah Complex saga, he was supposively killed by Mystique who pressed his face against the unconscious Rogue’s face. Sinister thought ahead of his foes by trying to take over Xavier’s body but was defeated. Later we see Sebastian Shaw (Hellfire Club) speaking to a female version of Sinister called Miss Sinister (his other other backup plan). Miss Sinister is missing Mr. Sinister’s memories or personality. She was behind the emergence of Daken, son of Wolverine. She was injured during this, but is still active, look for her to do something big soon, especially since Dark X-Men is coming next month.

2010 Revival of the Racer Game

If you didn’t notice at E3 this year, there was an influx of racing sims that came out of nowhere. For the past few years there would only be only 1 or 2 racing sims and maybe a kart game but this year we got around 6 different titles. So here’s a rundown of what’s going out in the next year.

Systems: PS3, XBox 360, Windows

Release: Q1 2010

This might be the only cool game that Disney Interactive Studios has ever made. There is a fictional reality show where the racers must race through tracks that are destructable on command, and you must drive through constantly changing environments. There is a “powerplay” meter that is built up by doing stunts and drifts that will trigger these track destructions basically your special power. This game is borderline cart racer, but the graphics so far look pretty cool especially with the destructable environments, the problem could be that this game could get gimmicky really fast and lose its appeal in gameplay. Different vehicles or differents modes of play haven’t been announced as of E3.

Systems: PS3, XBox 360, Windows

Release: Q4 2009

From Bizarre Creations is their new racer Blur, Bizarre is behind the Project Gotham Racing games for the X Box so they know their racers. This is the game we all wished would eventually come out, a kart racer with real life vehicles. The premise is that get an invitation from a fictional social networking site to race and as you race and do exciting manuvers you get fan points (equivelent to PGR’s kudo points) with the main goal of obtaining a huge fan base. So far 5 powerups have been announced all being pretty basic: nitro, shock, barge, shunt, mines, and repair. Expect much more to be announced as we approach the holiday season.

Systems: PS3, XBox 360, Windows, PSP, iPhone, Mobile

Release: Sept 22, 2009

The latest game in the Need for Speed series is Shift (name’s kinda straight to the point). This game has been in development for some time and the series is taking a chance to beat out main contender Gran Turismo in the sim racing instead of the usual arcade racing. They are making the driving experience as real as possible with a new in car view that shows just about everything including shifting. There will be 80 cars available (all from Nissan to BMW) and all will be fully customizable. The original soundtrack that Need for Speed is known for will provide background tunes as usual.

and now THE BIG 2…

Systems: XBox 360

Release: October 2009

The XBox exclusive sim racer Forza Motorsort returns this fall with the latest installment. It will come back bigger and better than ever, with 400 cars from 50 manufacturers and 100 tracks to drive those babies on. There will be a hundred new events that you can test your skills on including the Circuit de la Sarthe track. Online racing returns, but this won’t be the only sim with online anymore since GT just added it on with GT 5 Prologue. A new feature will be added that allows you to “rewind” to fix mistakes made in single player. The game also just looks really good with an the game running at 60 frames per second. All of this will add on to it being a contender for best racing game in the coming year.

Systems: PS3

Release: 2010?

When you think driving game, you think Gran Turismo and the actual sequel (no prologues or anything like that) for the PS3 has been a long wait. But the wait will be worth it since somehow in someway GT has gotten the liscenes for NASCAR, WRC, and Ferrari cars (Thank You God). And to prove this fact the trailer at E3 show racing on the Indy and Daytona Speedways. In actuality much about this game is kept under wraps right now, even the rumor that it might be released in time for Christmas, but don’t keep your hopes up. This Gran Turismo will also be the first in the numbered series to have online play (GT 5 Prologue being the first). If it takes advantage of the PS3 processor power it should also look and play spectacular also (just a hunch on my part). I can’t proclaim this game the king of racers just yet until I see actual gameplay but then again Tokyo Game Show is just around the corner.

Other Racers Not Mentioned:

-Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing

-Need for Speed Nitro

-Dirt 2

-MySims Racing

-Fuel

-ModNation Racers

Amazing Comic Moments – Week 4 June

Spider-Man #598

yeah on the level of how messed up this is, its pretty up there (harry osborn’s dad just knocked up his girlfriend)

Dark Avengers/X-Men Utopia

Norman just caused Cyclopes to get arrested and the Dark X-Men arrive next month

Dark Reign Elektra #04

Bullseye isn’t dead, but revenge is definetely sweet for Elektra

X-Force #16

Strife vs Apocolypse- you die now bitch

Detective Comics s#854

Ok this just looks way too cool, great art in this run of Detective

interRacials Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

Server’s Review

I just saw Transformers 2 today with Tyle, my brother, and Eric and I thought it was pretty meh. This was a typical Bay film with a lackluster story and effects that didn’t blow me away as it did in the first film. You couldn’t get a feel at all for what the director was going for and it leaves you with a “what was the point?” feeling after seeing it. The main complaint from everyone was the movie was too long at 2.5 hours (149 minutes) which wouldn’t be a problem if the plot was good enough to keep us thrill for that long. Besides Optimus and Megatron, every other transformer was kind of there as background and just thrown into the movie without any depth whatsoever, its even worse for the Decepticons (about like 30 of them) and they just get shot and destroyed, no name, no personality. My problem with the movie was the fact it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be, first quarter was a teen comedy, second quarter was a fugitive escape movie, third quarter was a war movie, finally the fourth quarter was good ole robot battle. Number one thing that bugs me are the smaller transformers, they are stupid, just used as comic relief, and are the Jar Jar Binks of the Transformer movies, please just stick with the originals and it will be fine. The Transformer series still continues to be human centric which takes away interest of the robots, this is their movie not f’ing Shia Lebeouf’s. Don’t even get me started about the plotline, fan boys will just RAGE at what’s been done to their characters and regular viewers will just scratch their heads about what the hell is going on here. You know a movie is getting bad when you keep hearing the same soundtrack of Green Day’s 21 Guns and Linkin Park’s New Divide over and over through the film (makes me hate some good songs). The fights scenes that involve Optimus Prime are spectacular looking and Megatron is developed as a character (though he’s made more of a wuss). This movie will probably rake in a bunch of money opening weekend just off of false hope, hopefully word will spread and this letdown of a movie dies out in theaters. I’ve been saying this since Transformers 1, let Michael Bay only work on special effects and to save the franchise by 3, GET ME A BETTER DIRECTOR!

Server’s Grade: D

Tyle’s Review

Standing on its own, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a pretty decent follow up to the first one. As for being consistent with the previous original series to come out before it, it fails to keep the basics in line. If you ignore any thing related to Transformers before these two movies, they’re rather dashing. They’ve got the effects down right, fight scenes every one loves, and the two things every guy loves: new model cars and hot chicks a plenty. I liked the action and that the story can stand on its own, however, it stands about as well as a 3 year old. Compared the the orignal series just about everything is messed up: there’s to much emphasis put on the humans and not enough on the Transformers themselves, the scenes cut from one thing to another with little flow one too many times, and one of my biggest issues with the new movie, there are too many random Transformers without names brought into it. But even with all it’s faults, of which I won’t list the rest of them it’d take too long, it has Megan Fox in it. That right there makes it worth for any man, or even women, to go see that movie.

Tyle’s Grade: C-