SUPERBOWL SOOTHSAYING: EA Sports predicts the winner of the Superbowl successfully for the 5th time in six years by simulating the Saints vs. Colts match-up in the hyper-accurate video game microworld of Madden football. Watch for EA’s pick next year if you’re hurting from this year’s poorly placed bets.
AMAZON GIVES IT AWAY: For a limited time, Amazon is offering a sweet 3 for 2 deal on some classics for your gaming collection. Bioshock! Assassin’s Creed! Fable II! Halo 3! Strike while the iron is hot! You can also pick up Assassins Creed II at 33% off!
SCI-FI OSCAR SEASON: In a predicted but still surprising turn of events, the Academy confirms Avatar, everyone’s favorite 3D darling, as a 2010 Oscar Best Picture nominee. District 9 scored a Best Picture nomination too, making this the sci-fiest Oscars that I can recall!
FACEBOOK FACELIFT: Facebook issues yet more design tweaks that aim to make our incessant “poking” and “liking” that much easier. The Facebook redesign looks like it cleaned up the homepage a bit, which is good news to me. My social life’s been suffering ever since I can’t find the ‘events’ button.
DINO FUZZ: The suspected link between birds and dinosaurs may finally get a scientific stamp of approval, thanks to new feathery findings. And we’re learning more about dino-coloration too! Maybe we’ve been wrong all along when we color our T-Rexes green and our Velociraptors red! I have a lot of coloring books to correct, if that’s the case. I’ve been living a lie!
SOCIAL MEDIA IN SPACE: An astronaut tweets a beautiful picture of the Moon and the Earth from outer space!
LOST ALREADY: The first episode of Lost’s final season premiered in a one million hour long event last Tuesday. SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS DON’T KILL ME, SPOILERS. Things are zany already. Locke is not only in cahoots with ye olde smoke monster, he is ye olde smoke monster. Sayid had a weird crucifixion moment. There are seemingly two simultaneous presents, but hey, that happens a lot. Surprise! END OF SPOILERS MOVE ON, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.
IPAD V 2.0: Is another version of the iPad already on the way?
STRIPPED: Oh my god, this is my pet peeve. If you spend any time prying open computer casing or breaking and entering and hate stripped screws as much as I do, this tip is for you.
GAY GAMING: Mass Effect 2 finds itself knee deep in all manner of gay controversy, though it might not be what you expect. While Bioware’s original title contained the potential for homosexy times between two women, the sequel cuts out the controversy altogether, resulting in more controversy of course! Happily, Dragon Age: Origins, a 2009 Bioware title, does feature some man on elf action.
Responding to the queer controversy, Bioware slams its iron fist, freezing forum threads that throw the G-bomb. Certainly a chunk of this is just everyday gamer hatespeech, but this stifles mature LGBT-centric conversation as a side-effect. Is the company’s stance protecting the LGBT community or protecting its own ass from backlash? Either way, the inclusion of non-exploitative queer characters in gaming will continue to blow my mind every single time.
GHOST IN THE SHELL: The live-action adaptation of manga fan-fave Ghost in the Shell will draw its story from the original 1989 manga, the screenwriter confirms. Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks are still on board for the film. So are lots of rabid fans.
PROJECT NEEDLEMOUSE: Sonic the Hedgehog, Sega’s classic long-dormant ring-junkie, will return this summer in Sega’s brand new 2D side-scroller for Xbox 360, PS3 and the Wii. I still have a lot of longstanding pent-up anger toward Dr. Robotnik, so it’ll be nice to get that out and begin to heal. Also I just remembered how adorable Tails is. Remember Tails? Also how great is “Project Needlemouse” as a code name for a Sonic-themed undertaking? Amazing.
PERIODIC TABLE: You’ll never need that old fashioned Periodic Table again, with this new and improved table of “Smellements!”
TOUCHY: Yes, now you can make almost any surface a touchscreen, just like you can make your walls a chalkboard with that certain kind of paint but no one ever does it. Touchscreen pizza? Check. Touchscreen puppy? Awesome.
DAREDEVIL MAKEOVER: Fox announces its plans to re-imagine Daredevil for the big screen, and thankfully Ben Affleck announces his plans to not be involved.
Oh dear, my brain regressed a decade and got total innuendo overload reading that article about screws, holes, rubber, stripping etc.
But seriously, just use thumbscrews!
Also, kind of related to the touchscreen thing, I saw this video a couple of months ago about very cool-looking gesture recognition stuff:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tv/TED-India-Pranav-Mistry/videoshow_ted/5231080.cms
it’s so lovely that facebook keeps tweaking all of this stuff but still won’t let me comment on the autostraddle page as anyone besides autostraddle or make it easier to access groups from a home page or read all my emails for me and let me know if any of them are important and look at all my events for me and let me know if any of them are important. that is all!
*gasp* my velociraptors were red too! i’m telling the teacher!
srsly tho, technostraddle makes me happy. the fact that the amazon deal is 360 only does not. sad face.
I have the Sonic collection for PS2 and I love reminiscing. I wish someone would bring back Toejam & Earl. That was my game!
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GITS! Sqeueel! I was ready to start ranting about how Spielberg is going to ruin it but then I realized that it’s almost impossible to ruin.
I am a bit annoyed that Moon did not get a nomination because Sam Rockwell totally deserved it.
As much as i enjoyed Moon i hardly think it deserves an oscar.
I don’t care, BioWare, I’m still cranky that my FemShep can’t get it on with the crazy biotic chick with the shaved head (I MEAN COME ON).
Also, they didn’t do away with it entirely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvPt3eQeYA0 (spoiler alert etc.)
Hi Taylor, can we talk about how BioShock 2 came out today? *flails*
I didn’t know we needed to “strengthen” the dinosaur-bird link! I’m pretty much convinced, but then again I have a great paleobiologist/functional morphologist specializing in dinosaurs as my professor. I might be a little biased.
“Sci-Fi Oscar Noms” makes me think that we’re like grilling up some Na’vi for dinner or something. Anyone? Just me?
Omg , lol @ th mass effect lesbiange !! “ready for round two?” .. I laughed , then “commander!” … I had To squeeze my lady mucles to stop From soiling myself !!…. & what’s th big deal … Friken gay sex ain’t th worst thing on games , gta u can get it on with hookers, most war games u are killing people andor things … Gay sex is way down on th criminal offence list , like non – existant on criminal offence list! Pretty sure prostitution, blackmail, fraud, gross bodily harm & murder are tho, but ther fine to keep pumpin out to th masses .. Why not pump out th message that girl on girl or boy on boy action is dead on.. Normal .. And let’s face it – hot ! Lol…. a lot of these people need to catch a grip on reality ! Arseholes that they are!
Amen.
I have heard that EA is soon going to release FIFA 19. http://fewcheats.com/fifa-19/