I don’t have a big ass projection system at home. I do have some good sized TV’s here and there but my siblings and I are getting older now and our eyesight doesn’t work out as well as it did when we were all eighteen. To combat this minor factor we strung my 360 up to a set of 2.1 computer speakers, grabbed my sister’s projector and cleared a spot on the dinning room wall for a little game time.
Well, to be exact we cleared a spot big enough for a 154 inch picture – my bro and I busted out the tape measure cuz we just HAD to know. [sniff] Bragging rights being what they are and all. Yeah, it was huge. No crazy screens, theater style seating or surround sound but we did have the biggest picture any of us had ever played Halo on and that’s what counts. We are hoping to do the same thing again tomorrow for some serious game time now that we know the setup works and how to rig it up.
Ahhh, a zero dollar solution to a non-existent problem… life is good.
One alpaca breeding group gathers each year to create fleece hats and socks which they donate to cancer patients. Thanks to this enterprising (if somewhat slow-speaking) iReporter who turned in the story to CNN.
If like me you get a big kick out of the music NBC’s selected to spice up the kick-ass show Chuck, you’ve probably looked around for a soundtrack. The bad news: there isn’t one, and there isn’t likely to be one any time soon. The good news: NBC (and some dedicated fans) have sussed out most of the relevant tracks.
So I took it upon myself to make my own Chuck soundtrack via Amazon’s DRM-free MP3 downloads. I’m not the world’s finest mix-tape maker — in fact, I pretty much suck at it — but I felt inspired, so I spent a bit of time selecting the tracks I thought would make a good soundtrack and organizing them for an entertaining listen.
Here’s my Chuck Season One Soundtrack:
- Cobrastyle Featuring Mad Cobra (Album Version)
by The Teddybears (3:00)
- The Missionary
by Brothers Martin (2:03)
- Sugar Assault Me Now
by Pop Levi (3:02)
- Don’t You Evah
by Spoon (3:34)
- Don’t Make Me a Target
by Spoon (3:56)
- Fall Into Place
by Apartment (3:24)
- A Comet Appears (Album)
(Album) by The Shins (3:49)
- Santa Maria (Del Buen Ayre)
by Gotan Project (5:58)
- Titoli (For A Fistful Of Dollars)
by Ennio Morricone (3:03)
- Toxic
by Britney Spears (3:19)
- Pimp Juice
by Nelly (4:52)
- It Takes Two
by The Hit Crew (4:22)
- Don’t Look Back In Anger
by Oasis (4:48)
- Dice (Album Version)
by Finley Quaye & William Orbit (4:15)
- Lust For Life
by Iggy Pop (5:14)
- Cellphone’s Dead
by Beck (4:46)
- Into Your Dream
by Foreign Born (2:37)
- Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is (Album Version)
by Jet (2:37)
- Gone Daddy Gone/I Just Want To Make Love To You (Album Version)
by Gnarls Barkley (2:28)
- Short Skirt/Long Jacket (Album Version)
by Cake (3:24)
Total: 74:31, $19.70
A few ID3-tagging tricks to complete the process: once you’ve purchased (or located in your own collection) all the tunes, you can replace the individual album art with your own (or mine above if you like it), replace the ablum name with “Chuck: Season One Soundtrack,” set the track numbers to the correct order above, and (the big trick if you want it to show up right in iTunes) set the “Album Artist, “Sort Album Artist,” and “Sort Artist” to wherever you keep soundtracks (I use “Various Artists”). This results in retaining the artist name for each tune, but showing the soundtrack together as an album — and iTunes plays the album in track order.
Also, you should know that the above links are encoded with GWC’s amazon associates code, so the tiny commission Amazon pays if you buy the tunes will go to help operate GWC. (Of course you’re welcome to grab the tunes without the links above, or buy them anywhere you like. We’ll totally live.)
Even if you’re not willing to pony up for the whole album, I’d absolutely recommend checking out some of the previews. I ended up getting into a couple of the bands on the list and snagged whole albums from ‘em. Great stuff, and yet another reason that Chuck (the show) rocks so hard.
Okay, so there haven’t been any confirmed sightings of a Cylon ship — but as of this year, the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) perched atop Mount Graham in Arizona is the closest we humans have come to being able to see clearly something that far away. At 580 metric tons (double the weight of the previous heavyweight telescope champ) and with ten times the clarity of the Hubble, the LBT can’t see farther than our previous best scopes, but it can see a wider, sharper view of space — and also whatever sexy cyborgs may be hurtling toward an inevitable invasion of Earth.
According to Spaceref.com:
With unparalleled observational capability, astronomers will be able to view planets in distant solar systems, and detect and measure objects dating back to the beginning of time (14 billion years ago)…It uses two massive 8.4-meter (27.6 foot) diameter primary mirrors mounted side-by-side to produce a collecting area equivalent to an 11.8-meter (39 foot) circular aperture.
To be honest, I didn’t know that scientists had quantified the “beginning of time” at 14 billion years ago. I have a pair of jeans at least that old, and something had to come before. Otherwise, who made them?
Academic and astronomy institutions in Germany, Italy, and the U.S. began with conceptual designs twenty years ago and today are undoubtedly popping champagne across the globe. Just keep an eye on the Dradus.
LBT Observatory [Main Site]
The LBT [SpaceRef]
You may have missed this morning’s 2:28 a.m. ET launch of the space shuttle — unless you live in Brevard County, Florida. Besides the fact that the shuttle’s three main engines and two SRB’s make enough noise to be clearly heard in Orlando about fifty miles away, the launch is so bright it turns the night sky a light blue. Sadly, night launches are somewhat rare. This is the only the 30th night launch of the shuttle.
So far it appears that everything went off with out a hitch, and the orbiter Endeavour’s crew is currently resting after a busy first day.
I’ve always felt a somewhat personal connection to Endeavour specifically, because when I was touring the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, Endeavour was sitting inside awaiting its Orbital Maneuvering System pods. (Yes, I’m dating myself. Endeavour was brand-spankin’-new back then.) I walked around it and beneath it — my first close encounter with a still-active spacecraft.
This mission, STS-123, is expected to last seventeen days, and will deliver to the International Space Station the Japanese Kibo laboratory — two small pressurized sections that will increase the station’s research capabilities — as well as Dextre, a “hand” for the station’s robotic arm. According to NASA, Dextre (pictured below) “is capable of sensing forces and movement of objects it is manipulating” and “can automatically compensate for those forces and movements to ensure an object is moved smoothly.”
If you’d like to keep up with the latest on STS-123, take a look at NASA.gov’s space shuttle page. And remember, an online feed of NASA TV is always available free.
Space Shuttle [NASA]
NASA TV [NASA]
We normally avoid current political topics here, but I couldn’t help but notice everyone’s favorite time-traveling schoolteacher (Mary Steenburgen) having a brewski with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a CNN Video today. Regardless of how you feel about Clinton (or politics in general), it’s nice to see that Ms. Steenburgen has aged well.
You might recognize that other guy, too.
Clinton Relaxes With A Beer [CNN]
PS: Please don’t let me know how much you love or hate Clinton. Please. Pretty please with Inara (or Mal/Apollo for the rest of you) on top?
Think you’re the only one who watched the new Iron Man trailer at least thirty times? Check out this awesome second-by-second analysis by MTV scribes Shawn Adler and Larry Carroll. From the music to the minute details, they pick up damn near anything there is to see in the two-minute thrill ride, setting it the context of the magnetic marvel’s 30+ year history in pulp.
Iron Man Shot-By-Shot Analysis [MTV Movie Blog]
Yes, the C3PO you see pictures above is indeed made entirely of paper. As one not well acquainted with the art of papercraft, I’m nothing short of amazed by it. It’s an incredible design. The good news: if you’ve got the patience to assemble it, you can easily build your own. The design is available for free in PDF form.
The bad news: it’s incredibly complex, and the instructions are in Japanese. Then again, there’s never been a better time to take up a new language.
Papercraft C3PO [PaperKraft]
Direct Link To PDF [Way-Nifty.com]
MSNBC film critic Alonso Duralde has rounded up six lessons Hollywood starlets can learn from the youngest Star Wars royalty, Natalie Portman. He writes:
In an age of starlets gone wild — and the pursuit of same by the insatiable scandal-sheet press corps — Portman has risen to the top of her profession with smarts and class. Even if all of her film choices weren’t the greatest — anybody remember “Where the Heart Is� — she’s hit upon a winning formula for playing the fame game, and her peers would do well to follow her lead.
The rules:
- Be smart.
- Be politically committed.
- Date non-gross guys.
- Work hard.
- Have a sense of humor about yourself.
- Have parents that support you — and who stay out of the spotlight.
He also adds a seventh: “…remember to wear panties when exiting a limousine.”
Kidding aside, this is a really nice article showing how Ms. Portman clearly has a good head on her shoulders and is handling herself — and her career — with style and class. It’s a good read.
(Thanks, Hot Rod Homepage, for the great CC-licensed photo.)
The inimitable David Pescovitz at BoingBoing discovered today that “the Sagan Appreciation Society is petitioning the US Postal Service to issue a postage stamp honoring astronomer and science writer Carl Sagan.” Personally, I’m entirely for it. I grew up — as did Sean — on episodes of Cosmos. And while the movie Contact was fun, the book was simply divine.
The bad news: we’ll have to wait a bit for the petition. Apparently the ‘Society hasn’t put it together yet. We’ll keep an eye out and let you know when to sign on the line.
The Petition Site (Under Construction) [Sagan Appreciation Society]
Scientist’s Fans Push For Stamp [Ithaca Journal]
Martin Leung is a classical pianist with a twist: he plays music from video games. And while the idea of hearing the themes from Mario Bro’s first level on the piano may not sound exciting, I can personally tell you that it’s not only exciting –Â it’s addictive. When GWC reader dxf turned me on to Martin via the GWC Forum, I downloaded some of his free recordings thinking I’d show ‘em off to friends.
But a week later I’m still listening to them, Martin’s performance often conjuring up images of something entirely different than the game from which the piece originated. The Video Game Pianist doesn’t just bang out game themes. He interprets them in the same way he’d interpret Brahms or Debussy. The result is quite compelling.
Of course, now I’m really bummed that I missed Video Games Live when it came through Dallas. Doh!
The Video Game Pianist [Personal Site]
Note: You’ve probably heard a lot of discussion about some of the things Jamie Bamber and Aaron Douglas said during Dragon*Con recently. Well this post isn’t about those things. It’s about some of the other awesome things that happened at D*C – as experienced by longtime GWC community member Raemani. I’ll let her take it from here.Â
Because it definitely colors my experience, I should start out by saying that I decided to go to Dragon*Con while hanging out on the SciFi.com forums in the Jamie Bamber appreciation thread – we call ourselves the “Bamber Bunnies.†Eight of us who talk there went, and three of the girls brought their husbands. In addition, about twenty other people from around the forum joined us there.Â
I’d also like to point out that I owe all of my pictures — which you can view in the GWC photo pool — and videos to the people I was with. Because there were so many of us, there was really no need for me to take pictures. As it was we had over 600 pictures between us after the event.
Read on past the jump for a daily breakdown of my experiences.
GWCers on Flickr
Recent Blog Comments
on #42: Juan Chooses a Tablet { Looking forward to the reasoning behind the Ipad, in a similar position but so far I can't justify the price + data contract despite a... } – May 09, 4:26 PM
on #321: Avengers Pt. 4, Thor { First off - it is great to be back. I have been away for a couple years. I was listening during the original run of... } – Apr 24, 7:23 PM
on #28: Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan (Cat) { I would like at least one episode where Audra doesn't try to "beat" along with the intro. It gets old. Thanks. } – Apr 21, 12:50 PM
on #31: Sight Unseen { The episode commentaries seem to becoming less about the show and more about everything else. You guys get off track easy, and tend to stay... } – Apr 04, 11:19 PM
on #37: Draw Something/360 Cloud Sync Fail { I was sick too! You and I might be carrying around each others germs. } – Mar 29, 6:39 AM