by Aggro Me on July 3, 2009
Electronic Gaming Monthly, or EGM for short, ceased publication a few months back. But what about the remaining months left on the subscriptions of all the paying customers?
If you were in charge of how to handle this, would you:
A. Give subscribers a pro-rated refund
B. Apply the balance to a gaming website which charges a monthly fee
C. Switch the customer’s subscription to a similar gaming magazine
D. Send everyone Maxim!
Yes, EGM subscribers began to receive Maxim magazines in the mail as a “replacement” for the EGM magazine they were no longer getting. This isn’t a joke or some clever fakepost. I think this is the first website that mentioned it, but there are plenty more and a search for “EGM Maxim” will keep the party going. I was going to write a long post about the idiocy of the whole thing. But I think other websites have already adequately covered the reasons why this is so asinine, such as: Maxim only does a couple of pages of really short game reviews and they suck, getting a Maxim out of nowhere can get kids in trouble with parents or boyfriends with girlfriends (etc.), it’s obvious that zero consideration was given to the many female subscribers or any gay male subscribers. And just in general, it makes so little sense.
But hey, I just want to say that no matter what anyone says about Maxim, there is one thing you can truly count on…reviews with the highest ethical and journalistic standards. Oh, unless they’re pressed for time. Then they just write a clever sounding review and give it a random amount of stars without even listening to the CD they’re reviewing. (”Humor” after the jump!)
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by Aggro Me on July 2, 2009
Some historical figures are overhyped. Hey, their fame is bigger than their game - that’s all. But I think Ben Franklin deserves his place in the constellation of awesome and his face on the C-Note. I won’t rehash all of his many accomplishments because that would take days (and besides Wikipedia can do it for me). An interesting aspect to Ben, the person, as opposed to just the historical figure, is that he developed a fascinating system of self-improvement revolving around what he felt to be the key virtues a person should have. Ben was the first to admit he had plenty of issues when it came to virtuous living. But he wanted to better himself and came up with a way to do it.
Ben enumerated and defined thirteen virtues to focus on and work towards. Rather than try to master them all at once and become Super Virtue-Man in a week, Ben challenged himself to monitor and improve one virtue at a time. He even designed a notebook with the whole deal: columns and red ink and black spots. It really sounds like something you would read about in a modern organizational or personal improvement program today. You can read more about it, straight from Big Ben himself, right here.
I had read about this whole system before ever seeing the app I’m discussing. Not that I actually read a history book or anything. I’m pretty sure I first came across it a few years ago through this Lifehacker post. It sounded like a simple idea but an awesome one…and I even resolved to try it. My modification of the system was to write one word each week that represented a goal on the magnetic notepad stuck to my fridge. Well, it didn’t really work out and was forgotten about in less than a week. Maybe I should have written a virtuous or helpful word instead of “Everquest.” Anyway, when I came across Virtues, from Equilibrium Enterprises, in the App Store, the whole experience came flooding back and I decided maybe technology would increase my Virtue Level to 744993, allowing me to defeat Goku.
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by Karnatos on July 1, 2009
By now you ought to know who Felicia Day is. I don’t know how you couldn’t, really, she’s been everywhere this year. Well, this past weekend was her birthday and, as fans, a bunch of us internet folk uploaded videos of varying length, which were edited together into a birthday present for her.
She posted about the video on her personal blog, and you’ll see my dorky-mug at the 3:14 mark. I think I have the shortest recording of them all, but that’s my fault. I wish I was more comfortable and creative in front of the camera.
It took me no less than 45 tries to just say the short little bit that I managed - and for anyone out there that actually knows me, if there’s anything I am good at it’s talking, so I was surprised that I just froze in front of the camera, clueless as to what I should say. I have to give props to Dani Figueiredo for planning and executing the Happy Birthday video montage, she didn’t make me look half as dorky as I felt.
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by Karnatos on June 30, 2009
Every now and then I come across a new artist with an online portfolio and I end up spending a good deal of time checking out everything they’ve made available, some of them are better known than others, some are virtually unknowns out there.
This weekend I found Aimé Jalon’s portfoilio; he is an artist that seems to be garnering a lot of attention online, which is how I came across his work. What caught my eye was his piece called ‘Texas Gerilla‘ (today’s pic is a cropped portion of his work); it’s not flashy, but I really like the style and decided to check out his site.
His website is pretty simple; there’s a front page, a portfolio page, and a third page with information and links of interest for anyone wanting to see what Aimé Jalon is up to. Flipping through his portfolio, I soon realized that his work really appealed to me. I like his style of digital painting - it’s not over-produced, giving it a more speed-painting look, a style I am growing to like more and more.
Flipping through his work I’ve picked the following as some of my favorites, but I don’t want to ruin the fun of discovering his work on your own… so please head on over and check out his website.
I really do wish he had higher resolution images made available, but I understand that he is making a living at creating this art and cannot give away everything; it would be really slick to have some of these as my desktop wallpaper though!
by Aggro Me on June 28, 2009
When looking for a photo app, I’m not interested in one that let’s you edit or add effects to photos you take. I’d prefer to do that kind of stuff on my PC after transferring the photos. But, of course, I’ve been interested since day one in an app that can actually improve the quality of the pics I take with my iPhone. However, I’ve been very wary of purchasing such an app because there is so much utter crap out there. I think it’s pretty shitty that there are so many worthless apps out there for photographs that sold so incredibly well. I’m speaking mainly about those apps which promise “zoom” but really only enlarge a portion of the original photo and produce awful looking, pixellated pictures. You could do this kind of “zoom” yourself by cropping and enlarging and it’s really not what people are thinking the app will do.
But I actually did find an awesome photo app that really does improve the quality of my pictures. In my view, if you take photos with your iPhone, this app is actually a must. It’s called Darkroom Premium and the main reason I love it so much is that the Steady Mode works very well.
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by Karnatos on June 26, 2009
Today is my son’s 4th birthday. The little rascal is really growing up on me. It’s times like these that both sadden me and make me proud.
Why sad? If you are a parent, you certainly know what I mean. He is really growing up fast, and it’s hard to believe that he is starting Jr. kindergarten the first Monday of July. Well, it’s actually before and after school care, but it is open all summer long so the parents can work. In the fall he will begin actual kindergarten, but as far as he is concerned it starts this July.
He’s really looking forward to it too. He knows a couple older children that will be in the same class as him, and they are always telling him stories about big-boy-school.
So today’s a pretty special day for me and my family. We’ll be celebrating his birthday all weekend long - we like to spread the fun over a few days. Let’s hope the weather complies!
And with planning a weekend of fun comes a week filled with to-do lists that need doing, which left me little time to spend online. I did come across some great links though, here’s some of the fun I discovered this week:
- Crawling Zombie Torso Gelatin Mold
- Mario and Luigi
- Dungeons and Dragons Commercial
- Homemade Batmobile Tumbler Go-Kart
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by Karnatos on June 25, 2009
Turning Left at Albuquerque is a new weekly audiobook podcast about a man named Jason, and he’s just been sacked from his job. Once he gets home, we experience Jason’s life as he goes through the paces of learning to deal with the whole situation.
Now, I gotta come clean; I have known the author Mary R Higgins through the internet for nearly a year now - I originally got to know her through our shared fandom of The Guild, the online web series. I follow her on Twitter and FriendFeed, and I get a charge out of her wry wit and silly humor - but I did not know that she was an author until recently.
Some of you may already know of her; she goes by worldofhiglet online, and if you follow The Guild or Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, you’ve more than likely come across her name, be it through her blog posts, her name streaking across Twitter, or her videos on YouTube, she certainly does spend a good deal of time online - which is full of win for everyone.
This spring I learned that she was working on releasing her latest book in audiobook format for free consumption as a promotional medium for her work. At first I was not exactly sure what she was talking about when she started promoting a chapter from something she called “Turning Left at Albuquerque”, but as usual my curiosity wins and this time I struck gold - I am really enjoying this series.
… no worries folks, there are no spoilers beyond the jump.
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