Yes, this joint’s been pretty dry lately. That’s because, among other things like looking for a new job and cranking out freelance work when I can, I’ve also been working on something shiny and new!
Some of you won’t be all that surprised, some of you will dig it and some of you won’t be into it at all. That’s OK, though. I stand at the ready.
According to an announcement today by Great American Group, one of the firms liquidating the remaining Circuit City inventory, over $1 billion of product has been moved in the last month. After the announcement on January 17 that Circuit City would be closing its 567 stores, sales have apparently been brisk on discounted consumer electronics.
While that’s all well and good, deeper discounts and even lower prices are on the way, starting this Thursday, February 19th, and will continue for the next month or so until all inventory is gone. So, for those shoppers who didn’t bite at the “going out of business” prices, maybe now they’ll be able to find some real deals worth their time.
Hot on the heels of last year’s big release of Battlefield: Bad Company, DICE has announced the release of Battlefield: Bad Company 2 this winter. Once again, gamers will ride or die with B Company and fight their way through more of the intense, totally destructive environments that only the Frostbite engine can deliver. Also announced is the new Battlefield 1943 title, following in the footsteps of the wildly successful Battlefield 1942 WWII setting and gameplay. Bad Company 2 will be available for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC, while Battlefield 1943 will find its way to gamers online through Xbox Live Marketplace, Playstation Store and PC.
I played a fair share of Bad Company and even though some of the weapons frustrated me to no end, it was endlessly amusing to see what can happen when you take all manner of weapons to any given structure. So while the promise of more vehicles, more team play and more mayhem in Bad Company 2 is a no-brainer, I’m more curious to see how Battlefield 1943 will fare, both in terms of being yet another WWII game and with online distribution for such a massive game.
With Barack Obama about to take office, he’s definitely bringing a new type of swing to government, including a full-fledged soundtrack. Featuring cuts by Black Eyed Peas, Sheryl Crow, Melissa Etheridge, Jennifer Hudson, Robin Thicke, Lionel Richie and others, the first single to drop is Stevie Wonder’s new original song “All About the Love Again”.
Apparently, Obama’s quite the Stevie Wonder fan:
“If I had one musical hero, it would have to be Stevie Wonder. When I was at that point where you start getting involved in music, Stevie had that run with Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Fulfillingness’ First Finale and Innervisions, and then Songs in the Key of Life. Those are as brilliant a set of five albums as we’ve ever seen.”
I’m all for breaking new ground and achieving some new firsts, but having your own administration soundtrack? Yes, he can!
It’s All About the Love Again – Stevie Wonder (Download MP3)
For years, anyone who wanted solid recommendations on movies usually took the question up with a local video store clerk. I should know. I used to be one. When you’re around so many movies and hear so many customers’ feedback, it’s easy to know what people really look for in their purchases. These days, as people buy and watch movies online, it becomes a one-way street, making it sometimes difficult to get a real human-based recommendation on what else is out there.
Created by Reel.com founder Stuart Skorman, Clerk Dogs is looking to fit that bill and do it with an unprecedented amount of human input, including hand-picked recommendations by thousands of video store clerks themselves. Even the site’s Mash It tool relies on real connections as suggested by people, not some collaborative, taxonomy-based algorithm. Check out this video of how the service works or just give it a spin and see what you think.
“Caprica” will star Eric Stoltz, Esai Morales, Paula Malcomson and Polly Walker, and will be set 50 years prior to “Galactica’s” seminal attack on human civilization by those dreaded ‘droids the Cylons. Family-drama-themed series will focus on the Earthlike planet of Caprica as two rival families deal with, among other topical issues, the broader implications of their society’s emerging artificial intelligence technology sector.
Today comes news of the first downloadable content to hit Xbox Live since the April release of Grand Theft Auto IV. The new episodic content, titled Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, will hit XBL on February 17, 2009 and is the first of two new episodes to come to the platform. No other details, such as plot or price point, have been revealed, but stay tuned!
“Making these episodes has enabled us to expand the narrative and the experience of interacting with a game world in really innovative ways,” said Sam Houser, Founder of Rockstar Games. “We hope fans of the game enjoy the new way of experiencing life in Liberty City contained in this first episode.”
Yes, it’s happened. Today, the United States of America made history.
Just like Redbox did a couple of weeks ago, Houston-based TNR Entertainment Corp. have acquired legal counsel to take on Universal Studios’ new policy on kiosk-based DVD rental services. Operating kiosks under the names The New Release and MovieCube, TNR is preparing to address the same changes to Universal’s policy starting December 1st that would require a 45-day delay for new releases and number of items allowed in each kiosk among other ridiculous demands.
This after a week when the only two major new releases, The Incredible Hulk and The Strangers, were both from Universal and probably saw a fair amount of rental business. I picked up both of them over the weekend, but would Universal rather I have not rented those? Because if it were any other week with more appealing titles available and/or if there weren’t enough copies to go around, I probably wouldn’t have.
Apple recently swung its big legal stick at the Victoria School of Business and Technology claiming that the logo infringes their rights and suggests an affiliation with their company and/or products. While that’s currently up for debate, on thing that is clear is that Apple must’ve been chomping at the bit to rid the world of one more piece of crap logo design. Seriously, if it were me, I’d be more than eager to change my logo. To my Canadian friends, if you’re gonna try to align yourself with Apple, might as well do it justice, eh?
