uTorrent Comes To the Mac - Beta Released

uTorrent has been released in Mac beta form. It currently only works on Intel Macs but they are working on previous incarnations compatibility. uTorrent for Mac is clean, simple and very functional in my use of it so far.

YouTube Goes Widescreen

Well YouTube has really decided to shake things up a bit. They've gone widescreen in the viewing of videos on their site. What does everybody think?

The following is a high quality video in widescreen format to show what YouTube is now capable of.

Check it out now. It's Manga of some kind but you just have to behold the quality.

Gamespot Top 10 Games of The Moment

Gamespot has a list of the Top 10 Most Visited, therefore popular games on the site. Fallout 3 dominates this week.








1. Fallout 3 | PC
2. Fallout 3 | Xbox 360
3. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin |PC
4. Fable 2 | Xbox 360
5. Resistance 2 | PS3
6. Valkyria Chronicles | PS3
7. Left 4 Dead | PC
8. Fallout 3 | PS3
9. Call of Duty: World at War | PC
10. Saints Row 2 | Xbox 360

Maybe I should get my hands on Fallout 3 seeing as it is so popular.

Last.fm Top 10 Played Charts for the Week

The Last.fm Charts for the week. I think it's a better indicator than all those Top 40 Pop Charts around the world. Plus I use the Last.fm scrobbler so I may have a vested interest. Check it out though. Viva La Vida still on top.





1. Coldplay - Viva La Vida
2. Kings of Leon - Sex on Fire
3. The Killers - Human
4. Coldplay - Violet Hill
5. MGMT - Time to Pretend
6. MGMT - Kids
7. Britney Spears - Womanizer
8. Katy Perry - I Kissed a Girl
9. MGMT - Electric Feel
10. Kanye West - Love Lockdown

Michael Jordan Shatters a Backboard

5th Grader Wants to Take Over The World

A young child's plans to take over the world.

Smash a TV Office Space Style

Guts - A Short Story About Masturbation From Chuck Palahniuk

So disturbing that over 60 people fainted while listening to readings of the story over the course of Chuck’s book tours. The story is about three incidents involving accidents during masturbation. From Chuck Palahniuk, the writer of Fight Club and Choke.

read more | digg story

Zack and Miri Make a Porno Red Band Trailer

The latest movie from Kevin Smith involves man of the hour Seth Rogen, as well as Elizabeth Banks. Should be interesting to say the least. It's called "Zack and Miri Make a Porno".

Plex is the shizizzle.

Lifehacker have pretty much got this one covered so I'll redirect you to them and give them some love because they deserve it. For one they referred me on to Plex and I will forever be thanking them. For two I'm just really happy what Plex has done for my vast media library.

Lifehacker's Plex Article

Plex basically is a media centre to replace Front Row on the Mac (Sorry PC and Linux users) and does a very fine job of it. I'll post some screens of it below to give you an idea of the excellence.

It organizes music and photos, which is great and all but not something I would use the software for. I've got iTunes and iPhoto for that. The cheese comes in the organization of movies and TV shows. It completely shits on Front Row in what it does and I can only explain it to you in pics. So look below or go to Lifehacker's article.

Updates in TV Land - New Season News

A few notes of interest to make your tongues wag. Curb Your Enthusiasm has been confirmed for a seventh season, with a rumoured Woody Allen story arc. Entourage will premiere Season 5 on HBO on September 11 with the return of a previously unpopular character. Family Guy will also be gracing us with it's presence for a seventh season in '08. Flight of the Conchords will be returning January 2009 so we can all make a song and dance about it. Bender's Game is the title of the latest Futurama straight-to-DVD movie and it looks to be a fun take on Dungeons and Dragons. The third season of Heroes titled Heroes: Villains will premiere September 22, 2008. A fourth season of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is most definetely in the works and will be released into the wild September 18, 2008. Additional good news for Sunny fans. FX has ordered an additional 39 episodes on top of the 13 already ordered for Season 4. Great news methinks! Scrubs is back for Season 8 but on a different network but the bad news is that Zach Braff may be leaving at the conclusion of the eighth.

Another TV Show that may be coming down our tubes is Boldly Going Nowhere. From the creators of It's Awlays Sunny in Philadelphia, the show will be a mix of comedy and sci-fi and will contain the day to day life of an intergalactic spaceship controlled by a rogue captain. Looking forward to that one.

Web Comic Roundup

I'm not much of a comic lover. I never got around to any serious comic reading apart from the odd Mad Magazine here and there. With dwindling attention spans web comics which mostly consist of around 3 panels that get to the point straight away are a lot easier to digest than epic Phantom comic tomes of yesteryear. Web comics have reignited my passion for casual perusal of selected comics on the internet. Here is a roundup of some of the comics I've been reading lately:










A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math and language is the self-description of xkcd on it's website. The comic has a variety of topics it satirizes and makes fun of and a lot of that is based on pop culture but random content is often used. xkcd is the darling of the web community Digg with comic posts getting dugg on the website quite often.








Theater Hopper is a flat out comedic look at the current films in cinemas through the eyes of two movie goers. It is also distributed in the blog FirstShowing.net. I really enjoy the blog due to it's essays and reviews on the movies they are featuring which really complements the comic.








Press Play Comic is a new kid on the block. It's only been around for a month or so but I think it's doing great things. Taking Theater Hopper's lead it makes fun of all things movies and does so in an amusing way. I see great things for this comic.

Please tell me if you have any recommendations because I am new to the web comic craze and comics like the ones above have left me wanting for more.

Keep Track of Watched TV Show Episodes and Movies and Plan What to Watch!

I've been looking for something that the title explains for a while now. Only recently have I called myself to action to try and get something done about it. I wish IMDb.com or TV.com would add a feature for all us TV and movie freaks along the lines of keeping track of what movies we have seen, what TV show Season and Episode we are up to and so on. It would track every episode you have seen, perhaps suggest other TV shows to watch. I just want a no nonsense service that caters for today's download and consume society of entertainment seekers. It would also have when the next installment of your TV show or movie is coming up so you know when to watch your episodes or prequels by.

A mockup not very well thought through but you get the basics example I give below:



If you think this is a good idea spread the word. I know it might seem like a simple idea but I think it could be very effective and helpful to a growing number of people. I picture it as not being dissimilar to the way Amazon.com handles their recommendations system. If only they could add that to an optional part of IMDB.com or make a separate niche site. Anyways if you like the idea Digg the story and hopefully the collaborators that be will put this into motion.

What you would need is a Wiki style database of all TV shows and Movies and a tick box whether you've seen it or not with an optional episode rating next to it to gauge episode popularity. People from countries around the world should participate to make local content up to date as well.

View the 2011 updated edition of this post with solutions to the problems I presented in this post.

Kiva - Micro Financial Loans that change lives

Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world - empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty. Choose a third world entrepreneur with a business plan to donate $25USD or more to and than watch as their lives change. You get you're money back by the way, and it's yours to keep or put back to good use. It's known as micro financing, an idea that won a nobel price last year. It's an excellent idea, check it out, digg this story and do some good today.

Access Hulu Internationally

Hulu has just come out of private beta.  This great service all the movie studios have put together to compete with piracy is a great thing. It has television and a limited selection of movies.  There is excellent content included if you can handle a little ad here and there.  The only problem is you can't access it unless you live in the United States.  Well with a little googling around you can overcome this.  To save you the trouble I'll tell you what you have to do if you live outside the USA and want to access Hulu.

Point your mouse to the below address and download the software.

http://anchorfree.com/downloads/hotspot-shield/

Once installed and applyed just go straight to Hulu and as long as your internet speed permits the content is your to divulge.

The whole three seasons of Arrested Development is on there.  Not to mention the first seasons of Buffy and Firefly.  Plus some really top class movies.  I just finished watching The Big Lebowski.

Some other great movies on the site for free consumption include:

The Girl Next Door

Ice Age

Titan A.E.

Dude, Where's My Car?

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Planet of the Apes

The Usual Suspects

October Sky

Me, Myself and Irene

Mulholland Drive

Requeim for a Dream

Three Amigos!

Boat Trip

K-Pax

Red Dragon

Man on the Moon

Sideways

Quills

Very Bad Things

Fierce Creatures

and Bulworth

Come to think of it some high quality movies to choose from.  I hope this goes well an they actually do decide to release it outside of America and localize it for other countries because it's a lot of fun to use and the video is very good quality in my opinion.  I want the movie and tv studios to do well to produce high quality material into the future and they need to keep thinking of good ideas like this to do so.  They can't make an enemy of their fans.

So give it a try and tell me what you think.

Who said you need real instruments to produce an album?

A band called breadpig has come up with the unique idea of playing instruments from the video game Rock Band on the streets butthey have also taken it a step further and released an album full of them playing the fictional instruments. It's called When will then be now?

Live Performance in Washington DC

Barack Obama on Net Neutrality

Some Movies Looking Good in 08

I've done a little research in the way of looking at movie blogs, IMDb and Wikpedia and found a few movies that are shaping up as pretty finger lickin'.  So without further ado here are some movies that are looking good in 08.  I haven't included movies that I've seen so far but that only includes Jumper, Dan in Real Life and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and they are all pretty good so I'd recommend them if you haven't so far.

Out Now

Semi-Pro

The Other Boleyn Girl

10,000 BC

21 - March 28th

Smart People - April 11th 

Forgetting Sarah Marshall - April 18th

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay - April 25th

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - May 22nd 

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - May 16th 

The Incredible Hulk - June 13th 

 

Hellboy II: The Golden Army - July 11th

The Dark Knight - July 17th

Zack and Miri Make a Porno - Q4 

And the rest...