The GTA V trailer that went live yesterday definitely raised eyebrows as people painstakingly extrapolated information frame by frame to get an idea of what features and details we could expect from the game. Although we weren’t given the identity of the protagonist, nor were we explicitly told who the protagonist in the trailer was, there was some wild speculation about the trailer’s voice-over being done by Ray Liotta, the guy who also voiced Tommy Vercetti in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Liotta’s reps officially denied the rumor stating that Ray wasn’t involved at all with the production of the GTA V trailer, but some people think that just means that Vercetti still might be the main character, except voiced by someone else.

For some reason the hints that the protagonist is middle-aged, graying, and is voiced by someone who vaguely sounds like Ray Liotta are making people think that Vercetti is coming back. Except Vercetti will be 60 years old if he does, taking into consideration that this game will be set somewhere between 2010 and 2010. Rockstar Games would be really pushing the lines of believability if they want to sell us on the notion that a 60 year old retiree can outrun cops, lug around rocket launchers, beat up people of all ages and sizes, and do other feats that need strong physical and mental conditioning.

Furthermore, Rockstar decided that the third GTA era (III through San Andreas) was over with GTA IV and didn’t include any cameos or direct references to characters from the previous games. With the exceptions of some Easter eggs and the re-appearance of media personalities and commercial brands, GTA IV was devoid of any former characters. Bringing Vercetti back would not only break that change, but it would force Rockstar to bring back many of the third era characters in some way, either by cameo or by reference. Considering the rich pool of new characters in GTA IV, which Rockstar will definitely tap into for cameos and references, bringing third era characters into the mix would just over-complicate and dilute the game.

Of course, Rockstar isn’t one to turn down a challenge, so they very well may bring back Vercetti in the starring role and bring back some old beloved characters as well. The chance that this will happen is quite slim. The probability of there being multiple main characters or playable characters, however, is quite high.

So this summer I am planning to:

1. Lose weight
2. Learn French
3. Compose a song
4. Write a screenplay

Realistically, I will most likely:

1. Gain weight
2. Have a blood alcohol content average of 0.12
3. Get a killer tan
4. Fall in love with someone unattainable

Yay summer!

Chicagoland got hit by severe weather on Tuesday evening with winds up to 90mph and threats of tornados developing. Luckily there were no tornados but the weather did a fair deal of damage such as taking down trees and pushing jumbo jets around. My area got hit the hardest and hundreds of thousands of people were stranded without electricity. Not me, though.

It seems like everyone was living in the dark but me. For some reason my power was still on and life was good. With ComEd bringing in electrical crews from other states ans pulling 16 hour shifts to repair all of the damage, people still didn’t have power 24 hours later. On Wednesday word got out that I had power so my neighbors came over asking me to store perishables in my freezer and pull extension cords to their homes. Of course, I had no problem with any of this.

On Thursday people still didn’t have power. I was working and doing my thing when suddenly I heard a crash and an electrical explosion outside. I looked outside and saw two electrical poles pulled almost to the ground and a garbage truck in between with electrical cables on it. It turns out some idiot hit one of the poles with their car just as the garbage truck was passing under wires. The wires got snagged by the truck and the speed pulled down both of the poles.

Yup, you guessed it, no more power for me. Fate has a fucked up sense of humor. If that wasn’t ironic enough, today the people who didn’t have electricity now have electricity, and I’m still in the dark. Delightful.

Master Chief from Halo makes a cameo appearance in Duke Nukem Forever. Well, his armor does. A Earth Defense Force soldier offers it to Duke Nukem and Duke has something to say about it. Check the video for the clip.

So when it first became an issue, Anthony Weiner’s weiner was a big deal. The media had a field day with it and eventually uncovered that Weiner had questionable online contact with six different women while his wife was expecting their first child. Now the latest batch of headlines are “Anthony Weiner admits he sent messages to teenage girl but denies wrongdoing.” When I first saw that headline I immediately thought “here comes Chris Hansen” but I couldn’t be further from the truth. It turns out that this isn’t the case at all. Both Weiner, the teenager, and the teen’s parents have denied that anything bad happened in those Twitter messages and there was no scandal or anything rising out of it. So why the fuck did this become news? What’s next, “Anthony Weiner hugs his niece, wrongdoing denied”? Since when the hell did showing the world your crotch and possibly being unfaithful to your wife make you such an evil person? How come Ron Jeremy isn’t being scrutinized every time he is around a teenage girl? Is it because Jeremy isn’t an elected official? Since when did elected officials become gods amongst men that we have to hold them to different standards than everyone else? Yes they were elected by the people to represent the people’s interests. Crotch shots and sexy Twitter messages may not be the people’s interests, but before he was elected he was just another civilian. Civilians get away with sexting, watching porn, using Ashley Madison, or putting up their profiles on Adult Friend Finder. I don’t see why elected officials need to be held to a different standard than any other human being. And I don’t see why the media must make a story out of a non-story just to continue the pressure on Weiner to resign.

After almost 3 and a half years, I finally finished what I inadvertently began so long ago. I never intended on watching every single episode of every single Star Trek series, let alone in semi-reverse chronological order. It all started with my curiosity for Star Trek: Enterprise, a show I had only watched a couple episodes of but never got into it. I figured that I would give it another chance. Upon completing the entire series I thought to myself, well, why not watch Star Trek: Voyager, as I had missed a fair amount of episodes in that series. And after completing that, I thought the same for Deep Space 9. By then watching The Next Generation was inevitable. Here I am now having just completed Star Trek: The Original Series with no more Star Trek episodes left unseen. I’m not counting The Animated Series for the same reason I don’t count The Clone Wars as part of Star Wars. Continue Reading »

I was extremely disappointed today when I saw the first peek Microsoft gave the world at Windows 8. Now let me say off the bat that I find nothing wrong with Windows Phone 7′s tile-based UI. I think it is a wonderful evolution to the smartphone/tablet UI and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple or Google borrow such elements for their future versions of iOS or Android. In fact, for mobile devices the tile-based UI is a perfect fit. However, from what I saw in the video above, I am not entirely convinced that Microsoft is properly implementing it into Windows 8. When I first started watching the video I was under the impression that the tile-based UI was the UI of Windows 8. The problems began to pop up in my mind almost immediately. What does this mean for people who run multiple programs at once? Doesn’t this UI make the experience slower when it comes to power-users? I am used to saving files temporarily to my desktop for easy access, so what now?

It turns out Microsoft addresses those questions by showing you how you can multi-task using your finger to stretch the width of a running program app (yes, everything was called an app, not a program) and easily go switch to other apps in the sidebar. This includes actual apps as well as actual programs, like Microsoft Word. What Microsoft purposely doesn’t mention in their showcase is that underneath that lovely UI is a full running version of Windows 7 that can be accessed for apps that aren’t native to the UI. You can clearly see this in the video but Microsoft doesn’t really elaborate on it so the magic of the presentation isn’t tainted. So a tile-based UI running over a regular version of Windows? This is nothing new.

In fact, if you have Windows 7 or Vista (maybe XP, not sure) you can use Omnimo, a Rainmeter-powered skin that will do exactly what Windows 8 has showcased. It seems like Microsoft is pretty much doing what Omnimo does, except developing it in-house so it integrates seamlessly into Windows. Of course, what we have seen of Windows 8 is not going to the the final product. We won’t know for sure if Windows 8 is really just Windows 7 with a skin on top until the final release. Based on what we’ve seen though, this is exactly what it looks like, and unfortunately it isn’t the right path for Team Microsoft in the OS wars. At their simplest level, Windows, Apple’s OS X, and even Ubuntu are just GUIs for a text-based kernel. Microsoft is just adding a GUI to the GUI of Windows, not revamping their operating system as they claim. Is the tile-based UI of Windows 8 a significant change in the evolution of Windows? Sure it is, but it is nothing more than a sidehack that tries to streamline the Windows experience on all Microsoft powered devices.

For many people the new UI will be a cool new toy to play with. It will make things convenient and simple to use. However, the fairy tale will only last for so long. People will be dishing out $99 for essentially a skin for their already existing operating system. Sure, the full version of Windows running underneath Windows 8 will offer improvements upon Windows 7, but it won’t be long until the tile UI will become an annoyance for many. There’s a fundamental difference between a desktop operating system and a mobile operating system. We go back to our desktops or laptops because our mobile devices are lacking in many aspects, not only in functionality and power, but in the user experience. For now I will remain highly skeptical of Windows 8. I can only hope that as time progresses we will see future versions of Windows 8 be something more than just a skin with Windows 7 underneath.

I have this huge problem of thinking big. My ideas and goals live in a world where money is not an option. The other day I caught myself using Google to research how much it would cost to employ a film production team; something small to be able to crank out video editorials, news briefs, and possible investigative reports. I am not sure if I suffer from megalomania or its the natural ENTJ that is coming out (Editor’s note: this sentence proves that it is megalomania). However, I hate giving up on my obscenely unattainable ideas because I don’t have those millions of dollars to make them come true.

So I begin to think big by thinking small. I am finding myself in that position again. I’m taking baby steps towards making a fist and cocking the arm back, knowing fully well that it will all lead to that giant leap of a punch. Unfortunately this means reevaluating my position. What do I have? What do I need? What do I have that is not helping me get what I need? This means not succumbing to my natural pride and compassion that are challenged far too often in these situations. Just thinking about it is causing an uneasy knot to develop.

So what does this leave me with? Decisions that cannot be answered with questions. Rational uncertainty. Heart vs mind vs society. I know that I will be OK regardless the approach. I always end up OK. I can take it, and when I can’t, I take it until I find an opportunity to privately purge.

So what of my big ideas? They are being processed and refined in my brain. Some might not see the light of day. One already has and I’m working on evolving it. But what they all have in common is this: thy require a lot of money to work, but I never once have thought about how much money I will make from them. I’ve always been one for providing content because content is made for providing, not because it’s made to make money.

By now you are thoroughly confused at what this post is talking about. Don’t worry, I am just as confused as you. But if you want to blame anyone, blame ABC News for their story on how people in my generation are not failing, they are just blossoming later. I’m blossoming all right, blossoming my blog at the late hour of 2:15am.

The other night I was scrolling through the news wires hoping to catch some piece of incendiary news that would be inspire me to write an editorial for The Noisecast. I came across about some blurb regarding LimeWire and its ongoing lawsuit with the RIAA. Obviously this did not inspire me to write an editorial. In fact, I haven’t written an editorial at The Noisecast for quite a few weeks. I blame the site revamp and internal restructuring on that, as it has consumed most of my free time the past two weeks or so. Anyway, the article triggered my oft-prevalent ADD and my mind began to sail away on a journey through time. My thoughts went something like this. Continue Reading »

Based off of this video gem: