Jim Carrey - Jacuzzi Lifeguard

List of Top Ten Films of Summer 2007

Recently, MSNBC came out with a list of films that they believe will come out on top after the summer of 2007. Now, I usually would not make predictions as to how films will do since normally predictions are off. But, I disagree with some of MSNBC's chooses. So, here is my list of what I believe will be the top films of summer 2007.

1. Spiderman 3: This film I believe will beat all others including Pirates of the Caribbean 3. Not that the first two movies have the box office record that Pirates of the Caribbean 2 set, but most people liked the first two Spiderman movies and I wager that those people will go out to see the last one in large numbers.

2. Transformers: MSNBC choose this film to be #5 on there list, but I believe that it will take the number 2 spot since it is the first Transformers movie that we have had in about 20 years and so fans of the original will go out to see this one. Originally, I was going to place this movie in the number 1 spot, but I believe that since this movie doesn't follow from the original series some people will not relate to it on the same level that they did the original.

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End: This film took the top spot on MSNBC's list but I don't think that this film will do, as well the previous film did. Why? Because many people were somewhat displeased with the last film and so not all of the people that saw the last movie will be willing to go out and see this one. Will it still do well? I believe so, but just not as well as the last one.

4. Shrek the Third: This one speaks for its self. The previous two movies were very popular and did very well in the theatres. But, since the last film wasn't as good as the first one in the series some people may stay away from this one, unless there is some new buzz around the movie.

5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: This film series is still very popular, as the book series is very popular among children. But, I don't see it doing better than the number 5 spot on this list.

6. Live Free or Die Hard: Although it kind of has a dumb name I believe that this film will be a surprise hit this summer. Why? Because there is enough of us that grow up in the late 80s early nineties that really liked the first three films and are willing to go out and see the fourth one in this series.

7. The Bourne Ultimatum: Although the first two movies in this franchise were not your typical action movies, and some might say were a bit slow. I think that there are enough people that liked the previous movies and who like the trailers to the Bourne Ultimatum to make it a success.

8. Evan Almighty: I think that a lot of people enjoyed the previous film Bruce Almighty and enjoyed Steve Carell's character to give this movie a try. Will it do as good as Bruce Almighty. Probably not.

9. The Simpsons Movie: People have been waiting to see a Simpsons movie for almost 20 years and for that fact alone I believe this film will be very successful. Also, for those that don't normally watch the Simpsons on TV, the trailers are funny enough to bring those people into the theatre.

10. Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer: I believe that this film will be the most surprising hit this summer season. Why? For one, you have the Silver Surfer that, in all the previews looks really cool with all of the special effects that have gone into creating him. Also, fans of the Silver Surfers origin story will go out to see this movie. Finally, the fact that Galactus will make an appearance in the film will send people running to the theatre. But, this is also the point that will keep some people away from seeing this movie, since it has been rumored that Galactus will be a cloud. This has pissed off a lot of people in the Blogosphere. But, I wager that Galactus will not be a cloud, and if he appears as one that it is not his real form. Once that comes out, people will forget there anger and go out to see this movie.


Now, by no means do I believe that this list will pane out the way that I have it listed, but I do believe that it may be closer to what will actually occur at the Box Office. But then again, maybe it won't. What do you guys think? What movie do you believe will be #1?

Jack Black sing "Kiss from a Rose" on Idol Gives Back

Tiger Attack

I really feel sorry for this guy.

Record Labels may get rid of DRM in Six Months

Ars Technica is reporting that record labels may get rid of DRM on music with in six months. Apparently record label execs are beginning to see that DRM is hurting (and not helping), the record industry since it has created problems with interoperability between players and services. This is good news for us the consumers, since if DRM is removed from all of the music we purchase, we no longer need to worry if or music will still play if we decide to move to a different service or device.

Although, I do disagree with Paul Jessop when he states that "removing DRM could pose a particular challenge because open formats often mean "free" to consumers used to pulling down MP3s from peer-to-peer networks." If the record industry produces content that people want, then people will pay for it. Will people pirate the DRM free music? Of course they will, since they are doing so with the DRMed music right now. Those people will not change if the DRM is removed, but what it does is allow their paying customers the ability to enjoy the music that they paid for hassle free and not turning them into criminals for using their music the way that they want to.

I sincerely, hope that DRM is dropped in six months.

Why do people like UFC?

Last Saturday, I was out at a bar in Montreal. Just sitting back, enjoying a beer and the atmosphere in the bar at the time. When I noticed that they had the last UFC fight between Gabriel Gonzaga and Mirko Cro Cop on. As I watched, I began to notice how brutal these fight still are, as competitors punch and elbow each other in the head (not that Mirko Cro Cop did very much in the match). So, I began to wonder to myself, "How could people possibly like this?"

I am always surprised by how many people I know that actually watch UFC. Even people that normally frown on watching TV, and read books in there spare time seem to like UFC. So I ask, "Am I the only one that doesn't like UFC?

Sure it is different than the way that it used to be. I remember back in high school, seeing matches that may friend recorded from Pay Per View, where people would have blood pouring out of their foreheads and fighters would get pounded on by their competitors if ever they got on the ground. But now, the fights seem a lot cleaner and prettied up so that you can still recognize the fighters after the match is over.

But, I still worry about the level of damage these fighters are receiving each fight. The fact that people are actually damaging the other person disturbs me. Not that everyone that watches UFC is thinking of that. Back in the 80s, I use to watching Wrestling fully believing that it was real. It didn't bother me when Hulk Hogan went out to the ring and used violence to try to beat his opponent. Part of it probably was that everything was so clean and it was entertaining to think that the matches weren't already decided.

The unpredictability of each match in UFC, is probably what draws people in and has allowed it to became the new wrestling since WWE wrestling has been shown to be fake. Then again, maybe we just like to watch a good fight, as for years boxers have been knocking each other out without any outrage. In any case, I don't think I will be watching UFC again any time soon. But I would like to know what you think of UFC. Am I over reacting?

Vader Dealing With Cellphone

If only Darth Vader could be at the theatres that I go to. I always hate hearing people talking while I'm in the theatre. It is very cool that Lucas Arts has made this warning. I just hope that people will finally listen to it.

Amazing Japanese Street Painter

Mr. Bean-- Mr. Bean at the Fair 2/3

Derren Brown - "Paying with Paper"

I'm Back From Montreal

Hi, everyone. I hope that you all had a get weekend. I just go back today from Montreal where I spent a lot of my time just walking around and seeing the sites. (Which was kind of cool in itself, since Montreal is a pretty interesting place.) But, I do regret going for such a short period of time. There was places I want to go to, but time didn't allow it. But that a side, it was great to get away and if anyone is thinking of going there it is a great place to visit.

Also, you don't really need to know French to go there, since pretty much everyone also speaks English.

I'm Off to Montreal

I'll be heading to Montreal tomorrow for some much needed rest and relaxation. So, there will not be any posts until at lest Sunday. I hope to see you then.

See Digg as a Tree Graph

The guys at Digg Graphr have come up with a website that allows you to view Digg as a tree graph. Now, I tried their site out for about a couple of hours today, and I have to say, that this site goes along way towards fixing the problems with Digg. In just a few seconds of scanning the table you can pick out stories from Digg that you are interesting in reading. I'm not sure what their algorithm for displaying articles is, but it seems to equally display upcoming stories and current front page stories equally. So, you are able to see what current stories you want to read and the upcoming stories that you are interested in at the same time.

Now, the graph only has the sections of "World News", "Programming", "Game News", "Movies" and "Music" right now, but if they expand it or give you the option of choosing what categories that you want to be displayed this could be the perfect way to search Digg. I hope that Digg buys this site off of these guys and incorporates it in to Digg.

Men to be spanked in new town

News.com.au is reporting that in the Shuangqiao district in China's Chongqing construction has begun on a new town that will be ruled by women. Apparently, men will have to obey women while in the area or face a judge that will be on hand, as well as, a "tip staff" that will punish men that disobey women.

All of this is designed to attract tourists, but I'm just wondering what guy would go to a town like this. I don't think a guy would enjoy, being pushed around by his wife or girlfriend or some local women. Then again, if we take a look around the internet, you can see that there are some guys clearly into being pushed around by women. Tourism officials believe that it will encourage men to be respectful of their wives, but I'm just not sure that message will get across. Also, I wonder what will happen if a guy begins to refuse to be punished. Will he go to Jail? I guess we will have to see what happens when guys start going there.

If anyone wants to read more there is also a article from China Daily that can be read here.

Grayson

This is probably one of the best trailers that I've seen in a long time that is not hollywood. If anyone wants to see more behind the scenes stuff from the making of the trailer, you can see them here.

Man Proposes on Price Is Right and Gets a Surprise

Paris Hilton runs out of gas

Celebrities videos - Paris Hilton runs out of gas

This Girl is just plain crazy. This guy (the Cameraman) is nice enough to go out, get her gas, then to give her back her change just to have her through it down in her back seat. If she didn't want it the lest she could have done is give it to the camera man, who helped her out. Paris really needs an attitude adjustment.

Tim Duncan Ejected! Worst Ref. in the world.

I don't normally watch basketball, but when I came across these two videos I couldn't help but blog them. Did Tim Duncan deserve to be ejected? I don't know. If all he did was laugh, then the referee should be disciplined. But, if he was complaining like the referee Joey Crawford was saying I don't know. It depends how he said it. If he was swearing, and insulting to Crawford then he deserves it. But then again, I don't normally watch Basketball. What do you think?

**If anyone wants to read a write up of the incident, there is a good article at NBC Sports which you can read here.

I've Officially Joined the Red Ring of Death Club

Yep, its finally happened. My brothers X Box 360 has just broke down and is now displaying the 3 flashing red lights. And so, now I am able to experience the same leave of joy that millions in North America have already experienced and the horrors that they have endured.

This past weekend, I went to the Toronto Comicon Fan Appreciation Expo, were I had a chance to talk to Agnes Garbowska about videogames. (By the way, if any of you ever gets a chance to go to one of the Toronto Expos, make sure you drop by and see Agnes. She is a very nice person to talk to and although she is not a big name, she has a lot of good stuff which you can see at Evilrabbit.) But anyways, when we got on to talking about the X Box 360, she became somewhat anger and explained that the X Box 360 that she had bought for her boyfriend had broken down, and so she called X Box customer service where she was told that she would be able to get a credit for the two X box Live accounts that they had on the system. But, when they called X Box Live they were told that they do not issue credits for X Box Live her situation. (Which is ludicrous, since it is Microsoft's hardware that is the problem.) Also, there was someone that was standing by who heard our conversation, and told us about his friend that had his X Box 360 breakdown, he had sent it in and was told that he would get it back in 5 business days. Well, 5 business days turned into a month, and he still hasn't gotten back his system.

So, hearing all of this I thought that it would be a good idea for me to ask anyone that has had problems with their X Box 360, What are your horror Stories? How long did you have to wait for your system? And did you get any credit for X Box Live? This maybe helpful to me and to anyone else that is sending in their system for the first time.

Spike's Crappy Neighbor

I guess she won't be stepping on his lawn again.

Red PS3 Sells for $12,100

I couldn't help, but blog this. Bunga Tech is reporting that a Maserati red PS3 has sold for $12,100. This is absolutely insane. They can't sell PS3's at $650, how can they sell it at $12,100. I guess they should paint them all red, and then maybe they'll start to move off shelfs.

Details on Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD

I just got back from the Toronto Comicon Fan Appreciation Expo where I had an opportunity to talk to UDON about their work on Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD. They have conformed that they are currently working on this project and have been doing so for about the last couple of months. They also have conformed that they will be drawing 17 Characters (which includes Akuma) for the game. And, possible features for the game may include Online Play, the ability to talk to other gamers while in game and leader boards.

Vista Degrades Video Podcasts. Particularily Doesn't Like the Democracy Player.

I recently decided to go legit and picked up a copy of Windows Vista. But, one thing that I've noticed after installing it is that the quality of all the Video Podcasts that I watch has declined. Below is a image captured from the last episode of MacBreak (EP. 63), while running Quicktime happening even though it is an . If may you click on the picture you will notice that there is some pixelation happening even though it is a HD program.

But if I try to run the same video with the Democracy Player, it becomes so dark that you can't see anything.

Now, this could be an issue with the Democracy Player itself, but seeing that everything other Video Podcast that that is not shot in HD does not suffer from this "Darkening" I have to believe that it is Vista's DRM reacting to the Democracy Player. Then again maybe I'm wrong.


**Just a note I downloaded PixalPerfect from the Revision 3 network and found that It became very dark as well in Democracy, but not under Quicktime. Also, I'm using a slightly older monitor without a DVI connection.

Bill Dance Fishing Bloopers

This is probably the funniest set of Bloopers that I have ever seen. Enjoy.

Toronto Comicon

I'll be heading to The Toronto Comicon this afternoon and maybe tomorrow. I put up a post about the show probably tomorrow or Sunday.

Will It Blend? Video Camera : The Return

Pelican eats bird

I think this video speaks for itself. This is just strange.

Fixing Digg

Last week, I wrote a post called Is the Digg Effect Over?, in which I complained about the problems with Digg. But given some thought, I thought that it might be useful for to supply some suggestions to improve Digg, which are:

• Digg should become more of a "Long Tail" site
  
• Add More Categories
• Add Editorial pick stories

Becoming more of a "Long Tail" site

For those that have read Chris Anderson's Book " The Long Tail" , you realize that the long tail refers to the content that is usually left out of normal, main stream media. Now, what does his have to do with Digg? Well, one of the many principals behind Digg is the ability to find stories that you want to read. But, because of the Digg model ("The Hits Model"), it has the weakness where only the most popular stories at the time see the light of day and the rest stay close to the bottom of the pile. So how do we fix this?

Add More Categories

By having more Categories it allows for more people to find the stories that they want by allowing the stories to become more filtered. How does this work? Well, say I was looking for news on the Apple iPhone. When I log into Digg I see all stories, but no iPhone stories, so I click on "Technology" where I see all Tech stories and probably no iPhone. So I click on "Apple" under Technology where I can see the story " iPhone confirmed for Rogers Wireless in Canada. Again. and no other iPhone stories. Under the current system, if I wanted to read more about the iPhone I would have to perform a search, but if there was a "iPhone" sub category under "Apple" I would simply be able to click that and see the most recent iPhone stories. In this case a simple search would work, but what if I were looking for something new and I didn't know the name of it. You probably won't find it since other stories will probably overshadow it and making it impossible to find. And example is the story One Second Film with over 7,000 Producers!, which I read about a week two ago and had an idea what the story was called, but still had difficulty finding it using the search.

Another advantage of having more categories is that it is less likely that a small group will be able to dominate Digg. This works since someone that is into Tech news is probably not equally into all areas of tech. Thus preventing postings in those areas that he or she is not into from being over shadowed. So, someone that is an Apple fan is probably not equally a windows fan and so if he or she dominates in the "Apple" category he or she probably won't dominate the "Windows" category.

Also, by having more categories, it also invites different kinds of stories to be posted. Sometimes if their isn't a category that fits a certain type of story it discourages people from posting them. An Example is "Car" stories. If you want to post a story about a new car, where do you put it. It doesn't really belong in any of the current categories and so it could discourage people from posting "Car" stories. Although for some, it makes them become inventive and submit the story in a category that it doesn't really belong in. An example is if you perform a search for "cars"you will find that there are stories in pretty much all categories. Some are in Design, which is the same section that you find stories about wallpapers and web page designs. Some are in Tech Industry News, which is the same category that this article is being submitted to.

Finally, by having more categories, and thus more stories, it invites more different types of people to come to Digg. Digg right now is a primarily for people into "Tech". There are far more tech stories than anything else on the site (which is fine with me), but the vision of Digg is to be appealing to all types of users and so you need the stories and thus the categories that will appeal to a broader audience of people. If I were into fashion I wouldn't be on Digg since there are no fashion stories. If I were a car enthusiast I wouldn't probably come to Digg since I would look at the categories and not see it and probably leave.

Editor's Picks

Another way that Digg could help people to find the stories that they want is by having an "Editors Picks" section under each category (or at lest the most popular categories). The job of the editor would be simple. To go out and look at the incoming stories, go through them and pick out the stories that he or she finds to be most news worthy or interesting. Now, some may say that this goes against Digg's model. But I disagree, since we already have some types of editorial services on Digg where users are able to look at what stories other people on Digg are digging, and so by having an "Editor's Picks" category, all it does is carry this same idea forward, and does it a little more professionally.

I hope that these suggests do help those at Digg. But then again, maybe they have already thought of these ideas and didn't think that these ideas would work. In any case, Digg will be around for some time to come and so lest see what changes do eventually come.

GTA IV Spoof - Real Life

Joost Invite

Hey guys. I just received my invite for Joost, and it is looking pretty good. I have had some issues with slow down so far, but it might just be issues with my Internet connection. I hope to give a more in depth review of Joost much later.

X Box 360's Hard Drives Overpriced

2old2play is reporting that Microsoft has responded to complaints that the X Box 360's hard drives are too expensive. In their response they have stated that:

"We know it is expensive and we have definitely heard that feedback but it is a little apples and oranges to compare it to internal PC hard drives because those are off the shelf drives that you have to install yourself. There is a lot of work there for your average consumer it is not a plug in and play experience for them"

This is complete garbage. I bought a 200 GB external hard drive last year for about $130 CAD at Best Buy. And all the work involved in setting it up was to plug in the A/C adaptor and the USB cable to the computer. XP did the rest, by auto detecting it and installing drivers. These guys must have been smoking something pretty strong if they believe that we are really going to except this as a valid excuse for overpricing their hardware. It is bad enough that they sell their wireless adapter for about $130 CAD ($100 US). But then again, maybe not too many people complained about that and so now they feel that they can overprice their stuff elsewhere. I really hope these guys come around on this issue, or they may find a lot more left over hard drives kicking around their warehouses.

ASIANS: The Asian Response to Asian Responders

Is the Digg Effect Over?

Tonight as I was reading through articles on Digg, I happened to come across the article entitled "Is Digg Broken Beyond Repair?". In this article, the writer talks about the need for Digg to get fixed, as the site seems to be dominated by a small number of users. And, I have to say that I agree with him. I was just the other day thinking about how Digg has slowly over the last couple of weeks been losing its appeal. It seems that the same stories always make it to the top and many of the front page stories aren't that interesting to me. It could just be a slow news period or it could be signs of a broken system.

Now, can I lay the whole burden of this on the guys at Digg? Probably not. Part of it is the way that we use Digg. I remember early on when I went to Digg, I would read a story and then automatically "digg it". So, maybe as users we need to be more choosy with what we digg, since I probably was not the only one digging every story they read. Then again, maybe the guys at digg could give us an option of allowing some diggs to be more weighted than others. Kind of like a rating system, where we could say this is article should be on the front page. Then again maybe that was what the "My #1" feature was meant for. What do you think?

Meltdown on the View

The Above, is the now infamous video where Rosie O'Donnell commented that she believed that England purposefully went into Iranian water in order to justify military action in Iran. I am not sure whether or not England is telling the truth ( which is a bit concerning as there ally), but one thing that I notice from the video is that Rosie is somewhat persecuting Elizabeth for her views.

Now, I don't watch the show often, but when I do, it always seems that Elizabeth (Hasselback) is being somewhat pushed around by the other women on the show because she has a different view. This bothers me. Elizabeth is the only person on the show that I can say that I agree with most of the time. And so I ask myself? Why is Elizabeth still on the show? When she airs her views she seems to get into an argument, or somewhat put down by the other women on the show. And lets face it, she is an very attractive women and talented young women who, if she left, could probably get a show somewhere else. But, maybe I'm wrong. What do you think?