September 3, 2008 2:26

Dr. Horrible Rules iTunes, the Future

My work-copy of iTunes is so broken, it actually emitted that sharp, loud angry-Mac beep when I fired it up just now. But nonetheless I was able to confirm that the Dr. Horrible soundtrack is the number two-most downloaded album right now. Such is the amazing power of Whedonicity.

It looked like a one-off, but it's turning out that Dr. Horrible is just too awesome to die. I am given to understand -- MTV gives me to understand -- that there may be more Horribleness in the future. Or at least Moistness:

“I’m interested in exploring how Moist became Moist,” Whedon said. “It’ll be ‘Moist: Humidity Rising.’ He is so far from making it into the Evil League of Evil, because he really isn’t that bad at all.” (Instead, Moist is in the Henchman’s Union, because he accumulated enough hours “assisting evil people, and inconveniencing people. It doesn’t take much,” Whedon said.)

Whedon said they’ve talked about Fake Thomas Jefferson being next up. “Maybe we can get Drew [Goddard] to do some,” Whedon said, considering Goddard played FTJ in the webisodes and wrote the “Wolves at the Gate” arc in the Buffy Season Eight comics. “That’s a no-brainer for him. And that would be a coup.”

Plus something's afoot with the Evil League of Evil. And somehow this Captain Hammer webcomic slipped onto the Net without my noticing. Now if I could get a bit more Johnny Snow I'd be sorted.

It's kinda fitting that Dark Horse should be handling the comics side of things. What with the Thoroughbred of Sin and all. Speaking of which, do they have a monopoly on Web things that are good? Today Dark Horse put up a special color Achewood comic.

September 2, 2008 3:32

They Are 8-Bit: From Games into Art

There's always something cool-slash-disturbing to see whenever the I Am 8-Bit people put on a show. Basically it's paintings inspired by 1980's video games. For some reason they're all really fascinated by Dig-Dug.

September 2, 2008 11:15

Google Releasing Its Own Browser; World Wonders What Took Them So Long

Google's Chrome browser drops today. They've created a handy comic strip outlining its features so clearly that even a technology journalist can understand them. I hear Jon Favreau has already acquired the movie rights. Some screenshots are here.

Obvs I'm going to give it a spin. Google people are smart, which makes me curious what they've come up with. You can't expect it to have the maturity of a generations-old browser right off the bat, but there's got to be some cool stuff in there. If there's a weak spot I expect it'll have to do with the UI, since design is not what Googlers do best. Though they do make a helluva comic strip.

Whenever anybody releases a browser I always find myself asking, why the hell did they bother? No one's ever convincingly monetized a browser. But it's more obvious in Google's case than most. Since they're investing so heavily in online apps, why not create an environment for said apps that they can control?

(By the way I hear the Chrome comic was drawn by Scott McCloud, the artist who also produced Zot, which was recently released in collected form. I have a special fondness for Zot because it takes place at a suburban high school that looks exactly like my high school. I always wondered why that was, till I found out that McCloud actually went to my high school.)

August 29, 2008 2:27

Off for Labor Day Weekend

I'm not going to the 5th annual PAX this weekend. Instead I'm going to stay home and work on my book and monitor Robo-James's favorite Simpsons quote thread and possibly hack away at Force Unleashed. If anybody has any information about the care and feeding and killing of bull rancors, hit me.

In conclusion, I would just like to know: if a dude from the New York Times feels the need to Twitter in the voice of a prostitute and her homicidal john, I'm not going to throw around any judgments about it. But why must said homicidal john be named Lev? It's not a common name. I'm just sayin'.

Sucka tried to play me ...

August 28, 2008 2:09

The Greatest Video Game Ad of the Year

I'm starting to feel like the video game ad is an underrated medium. Yeah, most of them are forgettable. What do you want, they're ads. But sometimes you see one that just rips off your head and thrusts its awesomeness down your neck. I'm thinking of the "Mad World" spot for Gears of War, for example.

But check out this one. I don't have any special interest in playing Mercenaries 2. I played the original Mercs, thought it was OK, never came back to it. But I caught this ad while I was watching clips on adultswim.com, and dang. It's the white-boy rap-singing video-game jingle of the summer:

Glad to see the guy from Sugar Ray is still getting work. (That was a joke. I have no idea who the song's by.) If you feel the way I do, you'll want to see the high-res version on the Mercs 2 site.