loonyblog.

I can’t imagine how long it took to put this together:

Really well done.

It’s especially impressive when you compare it to the actual video for this same song, which is your typical music video gibberish.

Woo…awesome news for movie nerds…according to The Digital Bits, Criterion is going Blu-ray! I’ve expressed my undying love for Criterion many times before (I’ve had three different posts expressing said love in the headline alone), but these days, I’m an HD-only guy. Yeah, the PS3 does a decent job upscaling standard def DVDs, but there’s just no comparison.

So it’s great to hear that Criterion, having wisely sat out the high-def war, has decided to embrace Blu-ray. And the first round of movies includes some of my all-time favorites, too: The Third Man, The 400 Blows, Gimme Shelter and Walkabout. All gems, and I can’t wait to see how they look in shimmering 1080 (here’s hoping Gimme Shelter has lossless audio, too!).

Great news indeed. Now I just need them to reissue some of the other gems in their collection like Brazil, the Kurosawa collection, the Croenenberg collection, The Last Temptation of Christ, Rififi, and just for me, Kicking and Screaming (not the Will Ferrel one). Plus some of the many other hundreds of amazing movies in their library.

Such great news. The only thing that could top it is news that the Kenneth Branagh Hamlet will come out in HD. It was supposed to (I even got all excited about it), but then it never materialized, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it in low-def. For that one, I can keep waiting.

One of the annoying things about the PS3 (and to be fair, there are less and less of those as the system gets subsequent firmware upgrades) is its lack of an IR port. Sony says they didn’t need one, because they offer their Bluetooth remote, but for those of us committed to a one-remote lifestyle, this just doesn’t cut it.

That’s where the A/V nerd community comes in. I first was able to connect my PS3 to my Pronto using the PSone remote workaround. This was clunky, but it worked. Then Schmartz came out with a USB dongle device that was able to accomplish this with a simple plug. This was the same method, but a lot less cumbersome, and I was pretty happy for a while. Then Schmartz announced the PS3IR-PRO, a little device that not only replicates all the previous functions, but adds in everything else from Sony’s Bluetooth remote, like power and eject.

It accomplishes this feat because the box is just an IR to Bluetooth bridge. Your universal remote sends the IR signal, and it in turn sends the corresponding Bluetooth code to the PS3. Simple and effective.

My PS3IR-PRO arrived this evening, and I’m happy to report that it works like a charm. Getting it to sync was a little unwieldy, since my minimalist Pronto interface meant I had to specifically create temporary buttons to sync, but once I got that out of the way it worked great. I can now turn my PS3 on and off from my Pronto and eject DVDs/games/etc. w00p.

Ever since Sony added the ability to resume DVD playback automatically (please tell me why every DVD player in the world doesn’t do this?), my PS3 has been my default DVD player of choice. But not having all functions on the remote was a bit of a pain. Thankfully, that’s no longer an issue.

The one slight annoyance is that because the PS3 doesn’t keep its USB port powered on when the system is turned off, I need to leave the device plugged into something else. Thankfully my TiVo doesn’t have that problem (for one thing, it’s always on) so I just have it plugged in there. And if for some reason I decide that doesn’t work right, I can always plug it into my Wii.

Thank you Mike Muecke for correcting something that Sony should have done from day one. You’ve given my PS3 its dignity back.

CNN: Sleepy bear can’t stay awake.

Hard hitting journalism, just the way you like it.

WARNING: This post blatantly violates the rules.

As you make your way through the magnum opus that is GTA IV this week, be sure to listen to the voices of the various people who run in terror from your waves of destruction…one if those could be yours truly.

Yup, about a year ago (when I was still living in New York, obviously), I recorded a pedestrian voice for GTA IV. Sadly, this perk of working for Take-Two disappeared when I left for the lesser coast, but I’m glad I managed to sneak in there at least once.

In any event, I’m just one of many, many, many, many, many pedestrians in the game. You could play for a hundred, even a thousand hours and never once encounter me. But hey, it’s still cool, right?

So if you happen to bump into a neurotic jew who sounds like he’s just left his therapist in your travels around Liberty City, there’s a good chance that’s me (or one of the other dozen identical characters, that for all I know are actually in there). And if you need further proof, just check the manual. I’m in there, buried among the other thousand pedestrian voices. How cool is that?

Incidentally, this pretty much cemented my respect for actors of all kinds, but particularly those who do V/O work. That’s some hard stuff right there. All I did was stand in a closet and yell for about twenty minutes…I can’t imagine how weird it would be if I actually knew what I was doing.

This list of signs that you may not be a hardcore gamer is an entertaining read. And pretty accurate, although I’m pretty sure I’m still hardcore. Totally hardcore.

The list:

• You prefer playing against the computer: That’s pretty much been the case with me since Quake 1. Pass.
• You only play when your girlfriend is out: I usually play when Heather goes to sleep, but I do play a lot while she’s home and awake. My girlfriend lives in Mexico, so that’s never an issue (kidding). Pass.
• You believe that winning isn’t everything: Yeah, that’ll be the day. I prefer games with an ending or else I feel like I’ve wasted my time (this is a major reason why I don’t play multiplayer games). Pass.
• It’s been days, not hours since you last switched on your console: More like minutes. Pass.
• You’re the oldest person trading in games at GameStation: Okay, maybe. But is it my fault they’re all youngins at GameStop? I assume that’s because everyone in Marin my age or older can afford to buy their own games and doesn’t see the need to sell stuff back. Sigh. Fail.
• You like your Xbox 360 and your PS3 equally: I prefer my 360 slightly more thanks to achievements. But my PS3 is my default DVD player, so…Fail.
• You fondly remember a ‘golden age’ of gaming: I remember several golden ages. The early 90s, the late 90s…I remember the golden age of the Quake community…okay fine…Fail.
• You avoid playing on the Wii because it’s too much effort: I avoid playing games on the Wii because most of them are crap. But I love a good Wii game. Pass.
• Your FPS experience consists of spawn, run, die… spawn, run, die… spawn…: Only in multiplayer, and I don’t play those, so…Pass.
• You find the idea of videogames based on board games perfectly acceptable: I take offense at this one. Videogames based on board games are awesome. Turn-based anything is awesome. Sigh. Fail.
• You’ve pre-ordered GTA IV but don’t mind if it doesn’t turn up on launch day: Well, I work for the company, so I haven’t pre-ordered it, but I’ve accepted that it’s gonna be a couple of weeks before it gets here. I have coworkers who can’t wait and are actually paying for it. The heck with that. I can wait. Fail.

That’s six to five in favor of hardcore. See? I still got it. Totally hardcore.

No shockers here, but this article from Wired makes it official. The theories typically come down to water, which I previously discounted, but after hearing how far Mario Batali goes to replicate Italian water in his restaurants, I’m starting to think there’s some truth there. I definitely think the oven “gestalt” has merit though. Places with older brick ovens do have better pizza, no question.

But really, a lot of the time the fault lies in the recipe. You wouldn’t believe what passes for pizza out here. The best I’ve found is Red Boy Pizza, but even they look at you funny when you walk in and ask for two slices.

Their response? “Two slices of what? Cheese?”

Oy.

Apparently this has been added to reruns of the recent James Woods episode of Family Guy:

Frankly, I’m amazed Stewie made it through the whole thing. Hell, Joe Rogan couldn’t make it through it! I only made it a couple of seconds, and that was plenty.

Good lord, the rumors are true…Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. It’s real:

It’s also completely absurd. But strangely compelling. I’m a firm believer that the fighting genre is long dead, and the idea of a Mortal Kombat without fatalities sounds kind of silly to me…but at the same time, Sub Zero versus Batman? Superman versus Kano? Dude, I’m there.

Nah, probably not. But I’m curious nonetheless. If only to see how they justify this bit of IP mishmashing. GameSpot offers some insight, but it’s still a little vague on the details (okay, so worlds are colliding, but how do you get from that to having them all fight each other in a tournament?).

WARNING: This post blatantly violates the rules.

As I mentioned over the weekend, I won’t be able to attend the New York Comic Con, which is a true shame. But at least there’s another bonus for working in the industry I’m taking advantage of that I can finally talk about…

As we’ve just announced, we hired Shepard Fairey and Studio Number One to produce an image for the Civilization Revolution marketing campaign. This was something I started pushing for as soon as the name for the game (which I’m somewhat proud to say I came up with, although let’s face it, it wasn’t the most original suggestion in the world). It just made sense to me…if you’re doing a game with revolution in the title, why not hire a professional propagandist?

In any event, the resulting image is awesome, I think…take a look:

Pretty cool, huh? If you swing by our booth at NYCC (#1157) you can pick up a free poster for yourself. Me, I’m holding out for the super nice lithograph version. Can’t wait to get that sucker framed. Maybe it’ll go in Alice’s nursery…