Internet Friendships

Today, the busiest day of my weeks, ended up being a lot better than I thought it would. What are the odds that the cute girl in my Physics lab would approach me to partner up, and what are the odds that I would be able to stay awake in CS 337 (which is a great class, but I am lacking in sleep). However, there was less techie news today than usual. Hence, I thought I'd talk about a slightly off-color topic: making friends in video game communities. If you're a gamer, than you know you've done it. Maybe you've joined a clan or maybe you've just had a great experience with someone and have kept them on your friends list. My former room mates would talk about their clanmates in World of Warcraft as if they saw them in real life. I sort of wonder if it may discourage people from becoming more outgoing in real life to get their human interaction at home, but I think people tease those with Internet friends a little unfairly and agree with that editorial. It can be hard to find people who share a common interest, though it may seem like so when you're in school and can join clubs pertinent to your major. I think it's funny to be able to talk about nerdy stuff at ACM parties because I don't consider it as "work" as much as I do something I'm deeply interested in. We all need more than one type of friend in our life to keep ourselves going and feel like you're needed, and I don't see why video game friends can't be a part of that. This isn't to encourage online dating (not through a dating service, but through a chat room), but rather to condone making the time you take to relax and play video games more human by not being afraid of maintaining some friends.

I don't believe that I posted about the Flowers of Jack campaign last week, but it was basically an effort to raise money for flowers to send to Jack Thompson and have a more open dialogue with him. Well, the flowers were sent and he responded with bitterness and misplaced anger. This guy couldn't be any more of an asshole if he tried. Engadget put up their picks for various "best of" categories from 2005 in gadgetry and a little bit of technology in general, and it's a good review of last year in case you feel behind. If you're looking for an open source alternative to iTunes, then you should look into SongBird, which is cross-platform and is made even cooler by allowing user-produced extensions (much like Firefox). It's probably not all that stable yet, but I can definitely see it gaining steam. There is speculation that Apple is poised to take over Palm, whose biggest investors are pressing for the company to sell. At first I was skeptical, but it would actually go well with a supposed strategy for them to make an iPod Phone, and it could produce an interesting followup to the Newton that only a few of us remember. Lastly, in light of sites like Pandora and MusicPlasma, Gnod is an AI engine that can make book, music, and movie recommendations for you based on your tastes. Its server is overloaded right now, but I suspect that it will be back soon enough.

That wonderful painting right there was created by the eccentric artist (and my personal favorite) Salvador Dali. Soon, you'll be able to learn more about him as Simon West will be working on a biopic on the man behind the paintings and is looking around for someone to portray him. Steven Spielberg also plans on making a biopic of his own, but his will be on President Abraham Lincoln and has now been delayed for currently unknown reasons. It could be that Liam Neeson wanted to hold off, or maybe Spielberg is eager to work on Indy 4? I've been keeping my eyes peeled for any updates on the Kill Bill Special Edition DVD situation, and now we finally know what the cause of the delay is: Weinstein Co's split from Miramax. I was actually wondering about that the other day, and it turns out that the brothers Weinstein have control of the movie, but they have to set things up with their new DVD distribution partner, so it's causing some slowdown. I wish they could work on it faster! I've been waiting a year and a half now for this. Comic book fans will have to wait quite a long time themselves to see a teaser for Spider-man 3, which apparently will release with the August release of Talladega Nights. We can take some solace in knowing that at least they're probably not rushing production. Kanye West will be responsible for remixing the classic Mission Impossible theme for MI:3, and I'm really curious to hear what he comes up with. Lastly, MSNBC has a short clip from Da Vinci Code, but it's part of a brief interview with the director as well so if all you want is the clip then forward to about 5:30. I personally felt that it was a bad clip to show because it looked a little too scripted, but it's something.

Now for the Wednesday Mind Hump:

1. What album or artist in your music collection lets you express your rebel side?
I guess 2Pac, because his lyrics can be pretty harsh, but it's still really good music.

2. What's your favorite rebel song - "Rebel Yell" by Billy Idol, "Rebel Rouser" by Duane Eddy, "Rebel Rebel" by David Bowie, or "She's A Rebel" by Green Day?
I'm going to go with "She's a Rebel" by Green Day, because Green Day was so awesome back in the day.

3. What's the most rebellious thing you've ever done? If you don't want to answer that, tell us who your favorite rebel is, actor or musician.
My favorite rebel is probably Kanye West, because people really take way too much offense to some of the stuff he says/does. I don't really think his cover on Rolling Stone or his dialogue about Hurricane Katrina was all that bad, but to each his own.