An excellent piece of infoart from Jess Bachman.

click to embiggen

(via The Big Picture, Boing Boing)

(via Chicagoist)

I have only played the demo  for Brutal Legend. It is definatly in my exponentially increasing pile of games I need to play. But without ever playing it I am aware of the awesomeness that is the main menu for the game. Here the lead graphic designer, Joe Kawalski, explains the creation process:

(via BoingBoing, Kotaku)

Way to go, Lacey!

Take that, Patti!

(via Blame It On The Voices, ZanyPickle)

I was doing some research on Sammy Davis Jr. using Wikipedia and Amazon earlier today. Below is a screenshot of the related searches Amazon offered me when I searched for “Mr. Bojangles”.

In case you were wondering, ooooooooooooooooo (that’s 17 o’s) brings up 4 results, the top result being:

ooooooooooooooooo (Pamphlet)
~

That looks like a pretty hefty pamphlet. Surprisingly there are no customer reviews.

oooooooooooooooooo (that’s 18 o’s) brings up only one result (which is also the fourth result of the search above):

Indian Depredations in Utah; Memorial of the Legislative Assembly of Utah Territory, Praying for an Appropriation to Pay for Indian (Paperback)
~ Utah, Legislative Assembly

This one get’s into the search results because it looks like the OCR went haywire on page 14 and started spitting out gobbledygook:

And again, no reviews. Anyone read either of these?

I recently made some ringtones for my Nexus One and people have asked me to share them so here they are! Remember to right click on the download icon and choose “Save link as…” to save the mp3 to your system. You should save the files to the /media/audio/ringtones/ directory of your sdcard so the music player won’t see them. These are only 20 second loops, segments and intros. Amazon and iTunes links are there (when available) so you can purchase the full song or album and keep this all legalish. Have a request? Leave it in the comments and I’ll start working on Android Ringtones 2.

“1901″ by Phoenix

“A Glorious Dawn” by Symphony Of Science

“Back In Black” by AC/DC

“Blow Out” by Radiohead

“Break On Through (To The Other Side)” by The Doors

“Cars” by Gary Numan

“Cobrastyle” by Robyn

“Crimewave” by Crystal Castles vs. Health

“Galvanize” by Chemical Brothers

“Get A Move One” by Mr. Scruff

“Hey Bulldog” by The Beatles

“I Can’t Go For That (No Can Do)” by Hall & Oates

“Lullaby” by The Cure

“Never Let Me Down Again” by Depeche Mode

“Paranoid” by Black Sabbath

“Roadhouse Blues” by The Doors

“Saved By Zero” by The Fixx

“She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult

“The State Of Massachusetts” by Dropkick Murphys

“Train In Vain” by The Clash

“Your Touch” by The Black Keys

It may come as a shock and surprise but I was a pretty big comic book geek back in the day. So, I was pretty excited to find out that fans have been digitizing their comics books into the .cbr and .cbz comic book archive formats. These are just .rar or .zip files containing the scanned pages and the file format renamed. I’ve been using Comical as my comic book reader on the PC (Open Source and available for Mac and Linux as well) and Android Comic Viewer for Android.

Just for the record: I do not endorse posting or downloading comics that are available for sale. That said, I do think that the digital format is a great way to preserve rare comics and share comics that are not commercially available.

Take for instance Preventative Maintenance Monthly #592 from March, 2002. It is an official monthly comic book published by the US Army for the troops. I had never heard of it before so I was delighted when someone provided me with the scanned issue. It has information, humor, letters, and a short (what looks like non-Marvel authorized) Spider-Man story. The original scans I received were the unstapled pages in one big image. I chopped them up and put them in the right order. I am posting the original scans (as a .zip) and my reworking (as a .zip and as a .cbr). If anyone knows more about this comic or where I can find more please contact me, I find this sort of military history fascinating.

Preventative Maintenance Monthly #592
.cbz .zip original scans

“Alan Wake” bills itself as a “Psychological Action Thriller”. While I laugh at how that sounds, I can’t think of anything better to describe it. You play as author Alan Wake, a crime writer who, with his wife Alice, go on vacation to Bright Falls. Bright Falls is a small Pacific Northwest town that could substitute for Twin Peaks, Washington. It has it’s own oddball citizens, quirky local sherriffs, creepy old ladies, and a diner that is in the center of town. Quickly after arriving in Bright Falls Alice is kidnapped and Alan must rescue her. The story twists and turns while Alan battles the darkness that has taken and possessed many of the town’s citizens. You, as Alan, get a small cache of weapons along the way of course but what really makes the game intriguing is that you use light as a weapon against the darkness. To aid you in this battle flashlights, flare guns, fireworks, and many others are as valuable as the shotgun and pistol.

The game is broken down into six episodes, complete with “Previously on Alan Wake…” intros. It is a brilliant format that, like a good television series, makes you desire the next episode right away. Gameplay is third-person, over the shoulder which works well except in a few cases where enemies are able to creep up behind you without you knowing until it is too late.

On normal I never felt lost or too over powered. There are a slew of things to collect and do to keep your OCD working. There are pyramid cans to knock over, coffee thermoses to collect and manuscript pages to retrieve. These manuscript pages, which you actually read, provide insight into events (sometimes events taking place elsewhere), background to characters, or even clues to what you need to do next.

It’s quite simply a brilliant game with an even more amazing story. And although (or maybe because) I am not exactly sure I “get” the ending, I am looking forward to another playthrough.

Alan Wake (Xbox 360)
Alan Wake Limited Edition (Xbox 360)
Alan Wake Official Guide
Alan Wake Official Collector’s Edition Guide

Thursday night I had the pleasure of attending Cory Doctorow‘s reading, signing and answering questions at Bookpeople in Austin. Cory Doctorow is a (mostly) sci-fi author, founder and editor at boingboing, internet freedom advocate, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. His latest book, “For The Win”, is a young adults story about goldfarming and labor unions in the near future.

His perspective on Creative Commons and e-books was very refreshing and inspiring. He also told a story from his childhood that explains the origin of his love for all things Disney (which ends in tragedy).

I was able (through the magic of a Nexus One and the Voice Recorder app) to record most of the talk. Cory, I’m posting this because I feel it falls in line with your views on information and freedom, if you are reading this and don’t want it up here, contact me.

Right click here and select “Save Link As…” to download the mp3

After answering questions, reading from “For The Win” and answering more questions, Cory signed books for any and everyone. He spent a few minutes chatting with everyone which was just awesome.

(Image via flickr user ttrentham)

If you are one of the hundreds of people who have posted on the Google Calendar Help forums under “Calendar prompting invites to guests when I don’t want them” then you really don’t need to read any further. If you are a user of Google Calendar and haven’t noticed a problem you might want to double check how it is handling your events.

For two months now people have been complaining of Google Calendar inviting unwanted people to their private events when they enter them into Google Calendar. When I create an event on my Nexus One it sends an invite to another calendar I have (and to anyone who is using that if that calendar is shared). Other people have reported that it just invites people from their Google Contacts. This sends up all sorts of privacy concerns, obviously.

Some of you know that I am working on a new website (to be revealed soon) and I was thinking of using Google Docs but until this issue is resolved I cannot, in good faith, make the move. Two months is a long time to wait for a resolution.