Kinda clever. Here’s a model train enthusiast who’s worth mentioning. Instead of building the typical bucolic settings that other hobbyists strive to achieve, this guy makes miniature slum-scenes for his trains to roll through, replete with liquor stores, blowing trash and graffiti.

1up gave a glowing review to a game that will be released this week for XBox, called Stubbs the Zombie in “Rebel without a Pulse”. It uses the Halo engine and some of Stubbs’ developers also worked on Halo. It’s said to have lots of gore balanced by a good amount of humor, and it’s set against the backdrop of the idyllic American 1950s. The perspective sounds intereseting, while not entirely new (MediEvil on PS1). You control a zombie instead of the usual zombie hunter, and your arsenal consists of parts of your body that you can detach and throw at people. And it features split-screen Co-op (got that Crabby?). People are already claiming that this will be the best game of the year that no one played (like the awesome sleeper Beyond Good & Evil).

FWIW, geeks seem to have a special affinity for zombies. Sure zombies eat human brains, and, yes, they’re ugly and undead. But I’ve never understood the fascination. I’ve often felt that zombie games put their theme first and gameplay second. That can be OK if the theme is great and the gameplay doesn’t suck (ex. Black & White, Psychonauts). But zombies alone is not a sufficiently compelling theme. So I’ve avoided them with the thought that they typically relied on their theme which, to me, sucked.

It’s a scan of a newspaper article that I’m not going to transcribe. Check it.

From Ananova,

Computer chips that store music could soon be built into a woman’s breast implants.
One boob could hold an MP3 player and the other the person’s whole music collection.
BT futurology, who have developed the idea, say it could be available within 15 years.

That’s sooo 2003. The video iPod is here now. Where’s the in-tit rear-projection display? You could watch a movie about boobs, and navigate with the familiar iPod scroll wheel/areola.

Here’s a gallery of images taken from decades of Watchtower tracts.

I like these:

There are a bunch like this where the true-believers’ backs are turned to cities being destroyed by falling flaming rocks, lightning, and earthquakes. They’re obviously excited about where they’re going. My money’s on Krispy Kreme. Also, check out the two guys in the back. They’re obviously having butt-sex, something that religion expressly forbids (with a weird proviso). It must be the artist’s little joke. “Who can spot the escaped sinners?”

This artist must have been absent from school when they taught the concept of metaphor. “Run, Barney Frank!”

Both favorites.

From a former Blockbuster executive:

We had the option to buy Netflix for$50 million and we didn’t do it. They were losing money. They came around a few times,” he recalls. Instead, in 2000, Blockbuster inked a 20-year exclusive video-on-demand pact with Enron as the energy conglom launched into telecom. Blockbuster canned the pact after nine months. Netflix is now worth $1.4 billion. Blockbuster’s market cap is about $850 million.

There’s nothing that livens up a poker game than a good bit of old-fashioned proselytizin’. These are awesome.

I’m surprised that no one has made condoms with a picture of the Pope or the Virgin Mary on them.

There’s a new technology around the corner that allows cordless power charging via proximity. One prototype product is Splashpower that uses a plugged-in pad, and you just place your electronic device (phone, iPod, vibrator, etc.) on the pad and it will charge. Until OEMs really buy into it, you’ll need an adapter for each device. Thus rendering it essentially no more useful than the collection of wires and cradles you already have.