Where in the World is Abry 'n' Chief

**UPDATE: Arby 'n' Chief is now back online on both Youtube and Machinima. No word yet on why the series was down. The two most popular rumors circulating are hackers attacking the Machinima account or a ban by Youtube over copyright infringement issues.**

Speculations are abound as Youtube no longers seems to be hosting the popular Halo Machinima, "Arby 'n' Chief." Rumors are flying as to why the videos no longer play on Youtube and why their website www.machinima.com isn't working (or timing out). We are checking as much as we can on this and will definately let all of you know when Arby 'n' Chief is back on.

Until then, let's all just hope there are no copyright infringement issues or anything like that. It's a great little series, the guy does awesome work (Check out "It's A Wonderful Live" and "Master Chief Sucks At Halo") and I laugh my butt of at it.

Bungie making third-person Halo prequel?

Game magazine, EGM (Electronic Gaming Monthly) is reporting in the June issue of Quartermann's rumor column that Bungie's first game post-Microsoft will be a third-person Halo prequel "chronicling early skirmishes between the ODST troops and the Covenant" (that means: no Master Chief). They're not sure if this is related to Peter Jackson's mysterious Halo project, as Microsoft recently confirmed that they are hiring a team specifically for that. EGM says that Microsoft will be ready to reveal all once the hype-train for Gears of War 2 has come to a halt.

NASCAR Bar

"A clear winner in the fast lane of treats—a chocolate cookie layered with caramel frozen dairy dessert with caramel, wafer and milk chocolate flavored coating with peanuts."

Today, we had free ice cream at work and I selected the Klondike NASCAR Bar. It looked really good and, without looking at the ingredients, it tasted really good too. What surprised me most about this bar though was reading the ingredients on the wrapper (broken out in 4 sections):

Ice Cream: Nonfat Milk, Buttermilk, Milkfat, Sugar, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, etc.

Caramel: Sugar, Water, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, etc.

Wafer: Bleached Wheat Flour, Sugar, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, etc.

Notice a pattern? Why does one product need (or even have) High Fructose Corn Syrup in it 3 TIMES!!! This is a really scary example of how bad mass market food has become. Please read product labels and educate your family and friends about healthy eating options. It's no wonder why America is overweight! Exp. Rating -10

More information on reading food labels - Click Here

Landmark: Irvine Ranch

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Tuesday that 40,000 acres of Irvine Ranch land will be designated as the state's inaugural "California Natural Landmark." Full Story

This is amazing news for all us mountain bikers/hikers who love this area and were fearful that the greedy Irvine Company was going to come in and eventually develop this precious land. The Governator gets +10 Exp. Points for a job well done!

Halo Movie (On Again?)

Microsoft has confirmed that they are hiring for Peter Jackson’s “Halo” project. The company is looking for a Creative Director, Producer, Game Engineers and more to “help develop a new experience in the Halo universe.”

This is the best news yet for the Halo movie since it was announced in 2006. Click Here for full story.

Arby 'n' Chief

**Warning: These videos are entirely too funny and may cause irreparable damage from laughing too much. Also there is some colorful language**

After playing a few late night games of Halo 3 and trying to find a few Halo videos on Youtube to bring me down gently from my Halo high, I wandered upon this gem of a series: Arby 'n' Chief

Watch one episode and if you don't die laughing then just put down your controller and realize that you should never play Halo again.

I believe it all began with a set of videos called "Master Chief sucks at Halo" One of a few of these videos is here:


It always gets me to see them sitting there with the controller on their laps, talking smack to themselves and other players. Also, just my personal opinion, but Arby FTW!!!

This Is How The World Ends

Check out this crazy story on Europe's enormous $8-billion particle accelerator.

It's the most complex piece of scientific equipment ever built, and the collider will send particles crashing into each other at just shy of the speed of light, generating energies more powerful than the sun. Scientists believe that this instrument, when it begins operating as early as this summer, will peer into a looking-glass world that could contain entrances to extra dimensions and super-massive partners of the familiar particles that make up our world. Critics think the collider could also spawn a black hole that will swallow Earth.

Click Here for the full story.

The Video Games New Responsibility?

I recently heard two different NPR shows referencing video games in different usages. The first was a show on the evolution of music in video games and how it went from little blips of noice to full blow symphonies. They discussed how its interesting that many video games went that route and how it gives musicians a new way to approach their music. Great games were referenced, but I was a little annoyed that Marty and Halo didn't get any reference, I thought they desreved a mention due to Halo's popularity and the quality of gameplay music.

The second show was on video games and its lack of responsibility to political awareness. This wasn't one of the common video game violance rants, but an attack on the fact that video games are not taking a stand on global issues, be it the plight of 3rd world countries or corrupt political parties. The interviewee claimed that since video games now reach billons of people and have established themselves as a prominent media giant on the ranks of TV, Movies, etc that they now face a responsibility to the public to educate on global and local issues. It was cited that the Movie and TV industry do this by creating politcally aware media and that they are the model the Video Game industry should follow.

I personally think that the Video Game industry should be left apart from the political spectrum of things and operate without political relevance. Sure there can be games made that accomplish these political goals, and it will happen if someone really wants to make it, but it should not be thrust upon the industry or asked to appeal to a certain norm. Video Games are fun because they step the player away from that and let them enjoy a good story or fun competition.

Lost Season 4 News

The 4th season of Lost has been the best yet and the show will return with new episodes on Thursday, April 24th. This season was supposed to run 16 episodes straight, with no breaks, but because of the writers strike only 8 episodes were made and have aired. When the strike ended, 5 additional episodes were announced to finish the season but on Monday 4/14, ABC announced another episode will be added to bring the final season total to 14 (2 short of the original planned 16). Lost will have it's 2 hour finale on Thursday, May 29th.

Legendary Map Pack Tour

X3F scored early access to Halo 3's upcoming Legendary Map Pack, and made this video tour of all 3 new maps!

Behind the Game: Master Chief

Interesting story on how Halo 3's marketing team molded the image of Master Chief from being a hardcore game to a pop culture hero.

"Microsoft knew Halo 3 could be big, bigger than gaming itself. It wasn't about video games, wasn't about video games press, but the franchise had to become part of pop culture."

"We didn't have an awareness problem – people knew Halo 3 was coming out. We had a perception problem."

"People thought the game was hardcore, and not mainstream. To change that perception, the team wanted people to think about Master Chief as a hero. That's how we transcended from video games to pop culture."

Click Here for the full story.

Sweded Movies

In one of the funniest films of 2008 Be Kind, Rewind, (Exp. Rating +10) Jack Black and Mos Def must re-record classic movies to replace broken VHS tapes. The process is described in the film as sweding, or “re-making something from scratch using whatever you can get your hands on.”

Click Here to watch this amazing sweded version of Tron!

This sweded version of Star Wars is one of the funniest I have seen!

Pace's Sweet Three Feet of Air

I let my roomate take the wheel for a few games of Halo and after a few games of dizzying play he got in the Warthog and somehow pulled this off.

Exp. Rating +10

Ocean's Rush

Another weekend and another 2 movies, so let's get to it!

First up, Leatherheads. This is the new George Clooney football movie about how professional football got up and running. I'm not a big sports fan and I really don't like sports movies (because they are too predictable) but I did like the actors in this so I decided to give it a whirl. The movie is a little slow, but the story is good and it has some funny parts. I really liked Jim (John Krasinski) from The Office in it too. Surprisingly, most of the movie is about a love/manipulation triangle between two players (Clooney and Krasinski) and a reporter (Renée Zellweger). Also, Clooney seemed too similar to his Ocean character and I kept thinking Brad Pitt was going to come in and set up a gambling scam on the final game. Overall it's a pretty good movie and worth checking out.
Exp. Rating +5

I also finally saw August Rush. Ever since Felicity, I fell in love with Keri Russell and think she is an amazing actress (and hot too). Keri should have gotten an Academy Award for her performance in Waitress. Also, Mission Impossible 3 would have been a much better movie if she were in it longer than the first few minutes. She is the sole reason I wanted to see this movie and as a bonus, this movie is really good! All the actors are great but the kid, August Rush (Freddie Highmore), steals the show. The story overall is a little unbelievable but it doesn't hurt the movie and the music is excellent.
Exp. Rating +5

One quick unrelated note: Sunday at lunch I got to eat at a new restaurant in Irvine called "The Counter". When you sit down, instead of a menu you receive a pencil and a clipboard with an extensive list of ingredients that you select to build your own gourmet burger. There are 312,120+ different burger combinations! It was seriously amazing and the best burger I have ever had!
Exp. Rating +10

Computer "How to Guides" at Radified.com

You need a self-help guide to assist in that mind-boggling computer configuration task you were working on? End that call to tech support in India and click on the link below.
http://www.radified.com/index2.html
Chances are my buddy Joe's blog has a link to a guide that will pull you through.
Joe is a great guy and a good friend. His site contains lots 'o computer config info and captions about his personal life and adventures with his son (He is a fantastic father).
Experience Points gives him 1000 points for being a great dad and another 500 for his supply of useful computer "How to" guides.

Dune Re-loaded

New Dune movie confirmed! Best of all is that the producers are looking for writers to create a faithful adaptation of Frank Herbert's classic novel. In the David Lynch 1984 big screen adaptation there were numerous differences. This will be the second big screen adaptation and there was also a TV mini-series released in 2000 (also available on DVD).

The new Dune movie has no firm release date yet. [Full Story]

New Pwnage

New trailer for the Halo Legendary Map Pack. Pwn the noobs!