This is a reportedly banned interview with an Irish journalist where you can see Bush turning first from a bumbling idiot, to a defensive and tetchy idiot, and then back to the bumbling idiot again. Worth watching, simply to see how in the world was it possible for the world's most powerful country to vote this guy into power not once, but twice.
And here is the rest of it
A man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his PC - all ripped from his collection of CDs, has been confronted with the news (along with the rest of us) that this is apparently illegal. So, you've bought that $25 CD and you have absolutely no legal way of copying it to your PC and then onto your MP3 player. Nope. None at all.
The RIAA's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argued in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files the man had made on his computer from legally bought CDs were "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.
The Washington Post has more after the jump
Amusing, if a little taken out of context. Sure to goad conspiracy-theorists everywhere...
Original review
Retraction
After losing a fight in school, a 17 year old boy in Beijing doused his classmate with petrol and lit him on fire. According to Beijing News the teen claimed that he “had lost himself in World of Warcraft” and “transformed into a Fire Mage.”
The teen has since been sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay the victim and his family 760,000 RMB (about $103,140 USD). (Wired)
Hell yeah, if I lost a fight in a public school playground I'd probably whip out my desert-camo Dragunov and start knocking off kids left, right and center too. Oh wait, you mean Call of Duty 4 isn't real life after all? Doh.
Beijing News
From CVG comes the news that the Guiness Book of World Records, purveyors of ever-spiraling and progressively stupider world records, will apparently include a section for gaming for the first time ever. Woo. Someone count up the most days off work record for playing games and I'm in a close second. Till then, there's a few from that list after the jump below.
Longest prison sentence for playing a video game
In September 2002, the UK's Faiz Chopdat was jailed for four months for playing Tetris on his mobile phone on a plane. Nobody has been jailed longer for playing a video game.
Smallest Dance Dance Revolution Mat
The smallest DDR mat in the world measures 10 cm (4 in) wide by 11.5cm (4.5 in) long and weighs just 20 g (0.7 oz) and is the world's first hand-held dance mat.
First game to inspire a ballet
The first video game to inspire a ballet was Dragon Quest.
First gaming clan to legally bind their players
The success of Counter-Strike inspired the first ever gaming clan to legally bind their players to the clan. The clan, SK Gaming, subsequently became the first clan to have a player bought out of their contract when Team NoA bought Ola "elemeNt" Moum for an undisclosed sum in May 2004.
Most expensive home-made flight simulation cockpit
Australian trucking tycoon Matthew Sheil has spent the last eight years constructing a flight simulator cockpit based around the Boeing 747-400. To date the project has cost $300,000 Australian dollars (£132,000) - it is the most expensive home-made flight simulation cockpit in the world.
Largest virtual beer festival
Once a year the warring factions of the Horde and the Alliance put down their arms and celebrate "Brewfest"; the world's largest virtual beer festival.
Most wins on Wii Sports
Most consecutive one-game wins of Wii Sports Tennis by an individual against multiple players is 21 set by Sta Kostrzewski (France) at Virgin Megastore, Paris, France on 7 November 2007. pictured
Character with the most real life stand-ins
Having been officially portrayed by nine different models, Lara Croft is the video game character with the most real life stand-ins.
Most prolific video game character
Mario has appeared in 116 distinct titles (not including remakes or re-releases) making him the most prolific video game character of all time.
Largest instruction guide for a racing video game
In China and Japan, the first editions of Gran Turismo 4 included a 212-page reference guide. The book feature a car index, an introduction to racing physics and various professional tutorials.
Most collectable items in any platform game
The most collectable items in any platform game is 3,821, held by UK developers Rare for Donkey Kong 64, released in 1999. Players can collect 201 golden banans, 3,500 coloured bananas, 40 banana medals, 20 banana fairies, 40 blueprints, 8 boss keys, 10 battle crowns, 1 Nintendo coin and 1 Rareware coin. There are also many infinite-supply items to gather, such as banana coins, watermelons and headphones.
Most players in an online race
The biggest race ever staged online was in TrackMania, where 132 players took part in a single time trial. In addition to standard races, the game uses a turn-based system to achieve such large numbers of racers.
Smallest game of Tetris
With the aid of a microscope, a game of Tetris was played at the Physics of Complex Systems Department at Vrije University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in November 2002 using tetraminoes made of tiny glass spheres. Each block measured just one micrometre (1/1000th of a millimetre) across.
Most uses of the F Word in a game
During a one-hour lunchtime LAN session of Quake III Arena team CVG.co.uk produced 4397 profanities, including several uses of the F word that no one had ever heard of, and received two official complaints from the HR department. They also went through a box of PC mice, after slamming them on the desk every time they got shot with the rail gun on The Longest Yard.
If you:
a) Remember Matthew Broderick as being the coolest actor of his time
b) Have owned every (or nearly every) single video game console ever made
or
c) Are a 'casual' gamer who loves owning a Wii and inviting 'friends' round to play virtual tennis
I highly recommend you read this blog post from my new favorite blogger. To quote (and whip up that appetite of yours):
(A) casual gamer is a term for someone who fucking sucks at video games, but plays them once in a while so they fit in with other beings of superior intelligence and manual dexterity. I’m a casual gamer for games that suck – I play them for 10 minutes and I shut them off – permanently.
If you can handle more - read on, this guy is brilliant. Link here (TommyV2)
And here is the rest of it
This is pretty cool. That is, if you like dissecting electronic things and potentially destroying every new toy you buy.
More on this project here
And here is the rest of it
'Nooooo...' (at the thought of another WW2 shooter)
'NOOOOOOAAAAHRHRCCCCKKKHHHHHHHGGHHH!' (at the thought of crappy-COD3-developer Treyarch taking over the reins from COD4 demi-gods Infinity Ward)
(Ed. This actually sounds like a rumor, but we should all still be praying for Treyarch's immediate demise from the dev scene regardless)
GamesRadar has an amusing look at some of the more criminally-minded celebs to have graced us with their gaming presence...
Name: Tim Allen
Appeared in: Home Improvement (SNES), The Santa Clause 3 (GBA)
Heard in: Toy Story 2 (PC/PSone), Toy Story Racer (PSone)
Rap sheet: Tim Allen's stint in prison is rarely discussed, but hardly a secret; before he was synonymous with family-oriented comedies, Allen (then named Timothy Allen Dick) was a cocaine dealer (Wtf). In 1978, he was nabbed in Michigan while carrying more than a pound (somebody's coke bitch?) of the stuff, and subsequently served more than two years in prison before turning his life around and embarking on a career path that included some of the most aggressively mediocre tie-in games ever made.
Oh, so many more funny ones following the jump below...
Name: Danny Trejo
Appeared in: Def Jam: Fight for NY (PS2/Xbox)
Heard in: Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PS2/Xbox/PC), Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (PSP/PS2)
Rap sheet: In movies or in games, Danny "Machete" Trejo has always been a scary-ass mofo, largely because he used to be one in real life. Specific details about his early life of crime are sketchy, although in an interview with the UK Guardian, he claims to have started by smoking pot at eight, doing heroin at 12 and then graduating to armed robbery, all of which put him in and out of jail through his teenage years before finally landing him in at least three separate California prisons between 1963 and 1972. Prison boxing and a 12-step program helped Trejo turn his life around, and his record since his release has been spotless. Of course, that doesn't make him any less fun to play as in the raptastic Def Jam: Fight for NY, in which you can put his tattooed muscles and intense, mustachioed glare to good use hurling Flavor Flav through a penthouse window.
Name: Steve-O (aka Steven Glover)
Appeared in: Jackass (PS2/PSP/DS), ESPN NFL 2K5 (PS2/Xbox), Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (PS2/Xbox/PC/GC), Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix (PSP)
Rap sheet: We never knew this before, but it turns out that getting naked in public and stapling your nutsack to your thigh isn't just a good way to have fun without drugs or alcohol - it's illegal, especially if you do it in Louisiana. Steve-O's most infamous run-in with the law began when the hyper-obnoxious and frequently nude Jackass star performed the "Butterfly" stunt at the Abyss nightclub in 2002, after which he was arrested, charged with obscenity and assault and eventually put on probation and barred from ever performing in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana again. Later incidents saw Steve-O arrested for trying to smuggle drugs into Sweden in 2003 (for which he paid a fine and admitted to drug possession), and charged with disorderly conduct after publicly pissing on potato chips (yes, really) during a Lollapalooza show in Pennsylvania.
Name: Macaulay Culkin
Appeared in: Home Alone (NES/SNES/GB/Genesis/Game Gear/PC), Home Alone 2 (NES/SNES/GB/Genesis/PC)
Rap sheet: Frankly, we're not really surprised that a former child star with a private life as reputedly effed-up as Culkin's has been arrested. What surprises us is that he's apparently been arrested only once, after Oklahoma cops found him carrying weed and prescription drugs during a traffic stop in 2004. After posing for a gruesome mug shot and being briefly jailed, the kid we fed to giant evil Christmas trees in Home Alone 2 was sentenced to drug counseling. Not exactly a harrowing tale of steel bars and hard time, but we are only getting started.
Name: Paris Hilton
Appeared in: Paris Hilton's Diamond Quest (mobile)
Rap sheet: Everyone already knows that media target/attention whore Hilton was jailed for 22 days in June 2007, after repeatedly violating her probation and driving with a suspended license after her 2006 arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol. What you might not have known is that she also starred in her own cell-phone game, Paris Hilton's Diamond Quest, an odious piece of vanityware described by IGN as a hybrid of casual games Bejeweled and Jewel Quest. And that's really all that's notable about Hilton's connection to the world of gaming, aside from the fact that she was roundly ridiculed for getting the name of her own game "wrong" during a press event at E3 2006. Whether the title was changed because of her flub is up to history to decide, mainly because we don't care enough to take even a cursory look into it.
Heaps more on the GamesRadar site here
