Slashdot Mirror

And what exactly is a Man In The Mirror attack?

I don't know, but it probably involves a "special underwear" packet.

(It's worse than you think: I blew the chance to use moderator points on this post just to make that joke. See what I do for you folks?)

> I miss the good old disaster flicks of the 1970s

Indeed sir, but I look forward to 2012 topping them all. Consider the latest trailer... looks like good times...

No, we are not afraid of tits here. Tits are not usually censored. Most people don't care. Look at the television show "Underbelly" which practically had tits shown in every episode and it had an 8:30pm time slots on free to air TV.

Tits and swearing are far less likely to get censored here compared to violence.

What I find particularly odd is that American television and radio are heavily censored, yet this is seldom mentioned on slashdot. It is common for radio stations to censor songs because of swearing, and its also common for television stations to censor tv shows because of their fear of multi-million dollar fines. CBS was fined $3.6 million for an orgy scene on the show "Without a trace".

My point is that America is not some sort of panacea for artistic expression where one can create their artistic media free from censorship if they wish to mass market it even though it seems to be portrayed as such on slashdot.

I really would be surprised if an internet filtering scheme wasn't on the agenda to be implemented in America too, but on the guise to prevent the dissemination of copyrighted material.

Anyway, didn't slashdot have an article a few weeks ago about how support for the filter is waning and its unlikely that it will be implemented?

Entertainment Weekly confirms it... Futurama is not dying

After some quick googling it would appear that Moranis will be returning to acting for this movie.

http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/04/ghostbusters-ii.html

In April of 2009, Entertainment Weekly's website quoted Harold Ramis as saying that Moranis was indeed on board for the third Ghostbusters movie that Sony Pictures was developing.[5]

Seems so. It's going to be *really* hard for this to live up to the hype it's going to generate.

After his panel at the New York Times' 6th Annual Arts & Leisure Weekend, EW sat down with Mission: Impossible III helmer and Lost creator J.J. Abrams to get an inside look at his new enterprise: a Star Trek movie. While it isn't clear when we can expect to see the film, which will be the 11th in the series, he confirmed a draft of the script is done, and it will be trimmed sometime soon.

So what, exactly, will be the plot? Early reports (like this one in Variety) said that it will focus on the young, post-Starfleet Academy days of James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, but Abrams wouldn't specify. Still, he assured us it's a story that even non-Trekkers can enjoy. ''On the one hand, for people who love Star Trek, the fix that they will get will be really satisfying,'' he says. ''For people who've never seen it or know it vaguely, I think they will enjoy it equally, because the movie does not require you to know anything about Star Trek. I would actually prefer [that] people don't know the series, because I feel like they will come to it with an open mind.''

The real news at the moment is that a photo of the new Enterprise was released yesterday. I was expecting changes, but this awkward kitbash makes me very unhappy.

From TFA:
"If you're going to do Star Trek, there are many things you cannot change. The Enterprise is a visual touchstone for so many people."

And so, naturally, they changed it. :D

@seatbelts:

They apparently now have handrails to keep from falling.

The REAL trailer is coming out in another five days. (Per startrekmovie.com where you can watch the previous trailer in HD.) Perhaps it would have been better to wait before proclaiming it? Or at least give useful information on the release date of the footage?

The real news at the moment is that a photo of the new Enterprise was released yesterday. I was expecting changes, but this awkward kitbash makes me very unhappy.

The new bridge was also revealed about a month ago. Many refer to it as the "iBridge" because of its resemblance to Apple hardware. Personally, I'm mostly happy with the bridge design. It appears to be functional and otherwise looks nice.

I just wish they hadn't made a parody out of the old girl. :-(

"Let's make sure history never forgets the name, Enterprise."
--Captain Picard (Yesterday's Enterprise)

Entertainment Weekly has an eight-page article with pictures about the movie, as well.

"By the way, Moore doesn't mind: He's adamantly opposed to Watchmen's adaptation for artistic, business, and personal reasons -- a position that hardened after Fox's limp 2003 version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- and plans to give any film royalties to Gibbons."

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1120854_4,00.html

So, yes, it is quite a poor example of copyright law

But based on the production clips it seems like the director is really trying to be true to the story and look of the comic, so as long as they don't change the ending I don't see that it could be THAT horrible, no matter if Alan Moore has already disowned it (he disowns like ALL his movie adaptations, doesn't he?)

From page 5 of the EW article that someone else on this page linked:

... Sure, there have been changes. The catastrophic climax is different. Provocative bits, like a timely subplot about alternative fuels, have been added. ...

I want the spirit to be kept true to, not the actual pages.

Then you are among the few.

Most fans would rather have movies based on books and comics copied page for page to the screen than making it according to the spirit.
Or whatever spirit means to the director, producers, studio execs, toy makers and actors.

Read the EW article - it should help you see how much of the book has been copied verbatim and how much of it was adapted while being "true to the spirit".

Oh... and the smiley is there. Comedian is wearing it in the Vietnam. Minus the bloodstain of course.
And it appears in the end - on the date of the movie. This one is with the bloodstain.

Spielberg has said in an interview (I don't have a link to the original interview, which was several years ago, but there is an interview in Entertainment Weekly from April that says the same thing) that he purposely did not want to include the Nazis in the new movie. After his experience making Schindler's List, and all the emotional baggage the film brought along for him, he simply could not portray the Nazis as campy cartoonish bad guys anymore. During the making of that movie, he interviewed a lot of holocaust survivors and faced his own demons about the war, the holocaust, and the systematic extermination of an entire culture.

Once you've stared real evil in the face, I suspect that a caricature just doesn't seem appealing anymore.

I get a kick out of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (a regular running TV series devoted to sex crimes). It features Ice-T as a regular "good guy". He's the same Ice-T who starred in Pimps up, Hos Down and who wrote a song about killing cops. I don't have a problem with Ice-T, but featuring him as a prominent character in a show about sexual mistreatment? War is peace, freedom is slavery.

It was from Entertainment Weekly and it is interactive with description for each person.

Nice image, but I'm curious... Where is Tory? If she's one of the final 5 wouldn't she be important? Is she supposed to be at the empty spot at the table? Or is she the "red shirt" of the final five?
Found this in the Flickr comments and it might be of interest...

...and Tim Kring (that's the creator of the show) admitted it and pledged to fix it. Which he did, if you watched the end of the second season.
Of course, the dialog is still ridiculous, but it always has been...it wouldn't quite be Heroes without an occasional West-ism.

Captcha: Testicles
Hmm...it sucked what again?

They claim the software is to expedite stalking women by getting their phone number, pictures, etc.

There, fixed that for you. Seriously, any woman that does run a mile and/or get a restraining order after being told you got her phone number and photos off the Internet probably is a Russian Fembot (with machine gun jubblies.)

It's clear what Gene Simmons' priorities are.
Oh, besides being a greedy bastard.

Disclaimer: I do not read EW -- I just remembered that quote from a guitar magazine awhile back ;)

I've read a few things this morning... I rather liked Lisa Schwarzbaum's writeup in Entertainment Weekly.

My wife was horribly dissapointed but I'm glad we get to wonder what they might be doing now, albeit without us watching...

-S

Yet again, another "controversy" where the comment that starts it all is taken completely out of context. Here's the question Miyamoto was asked taken from the original article (http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20037961,00.html) :

You mentioned social issues in Japan. But games are a global business -- and the youth of America have a host of unique issues in front of them. The reason I mention this is that one criticism of Nintendo's games is that they are very Japanese-centric. American gamers have bought more copies of Halo than they did of Metroid, for instance. Do you ever worry that you're losing touch with what young American players might want to play?

Obviously, looking at that question, it's no wonder he replied the way he did. He wasn't putting down Halo, he was trying to explain why he designs games the way he does. The very next question he's asked:

Some game companies in America don't think like that. They are mostly risk- averse, producing sequels and franchise extensions, rather than exploring new ideas. There is a lot of emphasis on market research and focus groups. Does that hurt the games business?

Miyamoto's response?

With rising budgets, I understand why game companies have a great deal of concern if they don't design games in this way. But you need to create what you want to create! In that sense, I would really like to see people develop games like I do...

So you can see that Miyamoto's intentions weren't bad; rather than following the American flow, he creates what he wants to create. Let's look at O'Connor's side of the story! What was O'Connor asked?

One final question: last week, Shigeru Miyamoto said in an interview with Geoff Keighley in Entertainment Weekly that he could make Halo.

Hmm.. that sure seemed to leave out a lot of information! O'Connor's sitting there thinking that Miyamoto was challenging his game-creating abilities, downplaying the difficulty of creating Halo, or something else stupid like that, when in reality it's just some brown-nosed interviewer trying to get a good response for his story. Sickening, I know. I just get pissed when the media tries to create controversy where there really is none.

Why do you think Zelda isn't doing well in Japan?

Well, I think a lot of people who bought the Wii are not necessarily the types of people who are interested in playing that kind of game.

Stephen King perspective on Mr Cho's writings:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20036014,00.html
Basically, what someone writes says little about their state of mind.

I agree 100% with Mr King and add that many people write in order to understand why people do the things they do. They want to see things through their eyes and live through the experiences that lead up to a "nut job end" so that ultimately they can become better more compassionate human beings or better able to see the warning signs when people start to get lost or just to form their own opinions instead of parroting the reaction they're "supposed to have".

The last thing we need to do is to discourage this sort of wisdom seeking. The world is already too full of superficial reactionaries that mindlessly see the world through safe "society approved"[TM] labels like "nut job", "terrorist", "communist", "capitalist", "fanatic", "cultist", ....

No, what's really scary is that even Stephen King says the dude was crazy (in those exact words, no less).

You know the sad thing? It's only the fourth worst movie I've ever seen:
1. Dancer in the Dark is so bad that I can't sit through Chicago due to flashbacks.
2. Glitter, because any good 5-digit slashdotter has had a woman or two in his life, and at least one regret among them.
3. Unknown. I remembered what it was 3 days ago and repressed it again.
4. Tammy and the T-Rex, one of the earliest movies I've seen with the worst Bond girl. I have actually seen the utterly gorgeous Denise Richards in at least 4 or 5 movies, and am still looking forward to a chance to see her act.
5. Ma Vie En Rose.

Your mom wouldn't happen to be Sally Field would she?

Methinks you read too much slashdot and don't travel enough on the web:) Firefly is all over the place.

Here's one recent example....

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,107 2933_1%7C%7C1072975%7C1_0_,00.html

Cheers
SB

Chewie and Yoda were apparently aquaintances and yet the Wookie never mentioned this to Han, or if he did, despite the trust between the two of them, Han didn't consider it to be a reason to believe in the Force.

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

actually it's "YES!"

Now the question is, will it be rescued by Fox?

Funny you should mention that, they did a remake of Fantasy Island with Malcolm McDowell as Mr. Roarke.

It was....different....Not everything turned out happily every time. It seemed a little darker.

But it was still a remake of a 20 year old idea.

I saw this article a few days ago and thought it would be perfect for /. story.

Link: The Family Dynamic -- "We pick the 25 best (and 1 worst) ''Simpsons'' episodes ... As the landmark series' 300th show approaches, we look back at Homer and Co.'s most hilarious, inspired moments (Television, 1/31/2003)."

It's a joke.

Does anyone remember that agony of defeat guy from the old ABC Sport intro? Now imagine a lot more teenagers doing impressions of that guy becuase the tried to make their skis "faster".

Then again, maybe it'll remove some of the stupid people in the world.

Entertainment Weekly has an interesting review of LOTR:TTT.

The problem the reviewer has with the movie is the lack of subtlety--good is good, and evil is evil. Period. That, from the reviewer's point of view, makes for an undynamic storyline.

I don't necessarily agree with that POV, but I do think it's an interesting point. My personal opinion is that a film like TTT gets a pass on that issue because of its epic scope.

But, I haven't seen it yet, either. Probably going with the wife on Friday.

I realize this is offtopic but this is major. MP3-loving artist Moby was attacked by three armed assailants after playing at a nightclub. Although Moby was unable to identify the assailants, some believe they were acting on behalf of the RIAA to "send a message" to Moby and other artists not to break with the RIAA party line that MP3s are evil. You can find the story here!

I realize this is offtopic but this is major. MP3-loving artist Moby was attacked by three armed assailants after playing at a nightclub. Although Moby was unable to identify the assailants, some believe they were acting on behalf of the RIAA to "send a message" to Moby and other artists not to break with the RIAA party line that MP3s are evil. You can find the story here!

In an industry scrutinized by the government as a drug infested haven that pollutes our communities and destroys the ability to lead a productive life, there is another industry that has the potential to become even more dangerous than any drug addiction. I'm not supposed to be writing this. What was supposed to happen was I prove my thesis that I couldn't be sucked into a virtual reality like many people I have met before. I never really understood what I was getting myself into when I started my research experiment, playing a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

Three years ago at a nightclub I bumped into an old friend of mine who went by the nickname "Iggy". I was really amazed to see him because no one had seen nor heard from Iggy in over a year. Many of his friends had all wondered what happened to him.

"Jesus Iggy, where in the hell have you been?!"

"Everquest," was all he said. He looked down at his feet when he said it.

"Huh?" I had no clue what he meant.

"I've been playing Everquest."

As we spoke, Iggy opened up to me and confessed that he had lost his job, his friends and didn't want to go out much anymore.

"It's an addiction. I'm only out tonight because the server is down for patching and I'm miserable."

For some reason, he couldn't look me in the eye while he was talking. He was obviously embarrassed.

"Um. Okay." I mean, what was I going to say to something as incredulous as that? I've heard of game obsessions, like those college kids in the seventies that murdered their whole family while playing a Dungeons and Dragons game, but I just thought that sort of obsession lies only in the minds of sociopaths or people with a lot bigger problems than playing a game. Iggy was a really nice, normal guy who had lost a lot to some online role-playing game called "Everquest". I had no idea what to make of it.

I never saw Iggy again. Neither has anyone else who knew him that I have asked. Since that night I really pondered the absurdity of his situation. It nagged at me.

On the web you can put the words "gaming addiction" into Google and discover a thousand and one sites for support groups, self help courses, testimonials and various studies. There's the "Everquest Widows" forum, a site called "Ariadne - Understanding MMORPG Addiction", and a myriad of articles on topics like game addiction and the innocent bystanders that suffer from it.

As one Everquest Widow puts it, "I plan on starting "Widows Weekly." It will be a group that meets in a local coffee shop. Here, spouses can talk and help one another through this difficult process, and begin to realize that there is a life out there despite the loss of our loved ones. I plan to send the bill for coffee and snacks to Verant. It would be but a small compensation on their part to repay me and others for the loss of our loved ones--so pay up, Verant!" -- Christine Gilbert CD Mag.com

What I find interesting is that many of the people who author these articles or sites have usually neither played the games or have just been the "victims" such as spouses or family. Others who dissect the topic of game addiction tend to be outsiders looking in, shaking their heads or turning the study into one giant mouse in the maze science experiment. It's rare that you find someone, who actually plays games passionately, speak up or write anything about negative side affects.

The more people I met who played computer games, the more I wanted to understand the obsession. I also had another stake in this because my partner, Low, is a gamer and a "geek" in every sense of the word. Not to mention my fiancé. It was beginning to cause some strain on us from time to time in terms of "quality time". I was getting really angry with him on a regular basis actually. According to Low, it was I who had the problem, not him. This is how most gamers think. Deal with their gaming or don't deal with it at all. They will play either way.

So I eventually decided to do some investigation and find out what makes these gamers and role players tick. What sort of recreation has the ability to absorb people to the extent that marriages break up, jobs are lost, and they lose friends? How does playing a game on a computer make someone lose functionality in the REAL world, because they want to spend too much time in some imaginary reality? For crying out loud, I thought, it's just a game.

I had a lot of questions but no one I talked to had answers. Gamers would tell me, "You won't understand unless you are a gamer yourself." Ok, no problem. I figured I could just play a game I find entertaining and get bored and write about what nut cases gamers really are.

It just wasn't that easy. This little experiment of mine turned out to be more dangerous than I ever imagined.

I wasn't able to begin playing a game right away. The opportunity just never really presented itself directly to me. There just wasn't a game I really liked enough to "get into it" for long enough. Low would play his Quake, Unreal Tournament, Black & White, Carmageddon, Fallout, Diablo II and a multitude of other first person shooters, but nothing seemed all that captivating to me and there was no way I could play these games with him due to his extreme level of skill and years of practice in a 3D environment.

I played a little Diablo and actually had a bit of fun with that, but I found I only really enjoyed it when I played with Low or our friends in multi-player mode. We would go "adventuring" together as they call it, fighting demons and wizards and monsters and coming out winning or dying, but having some fun just playing together. It was my first taste of actually playing with another player in a game as a team. But when Low moved onto the next game, bored with Diablo, I didn't have the same drive to play anymore. So I put my project aside and put up with his gaming as best as I could.

Massive Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games (MMORPG) have been around for many years. You can find thousands of websites, magazines, web-zines and the like that are devoted to the enormous market out there for online gaming. Sites like GameSpy, that literally receive millions of visits per day from gamers and industry types from all over the world, provide an almost infinite amount if information about these types of games. Hundreds of thousands of people play games like Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, and Ultima Online each day from all over the world. With the upcoming launch of The Sims Online, analysts and game reviewers are expecting the largest online game community ever seen to develop.

"The Sims promises to be one of the most interesting human experiments in the history of the Net." -- David Kushner, Entertainment Weekly

Low had tried many of these MMORPG's. He never stuck with one very long because, as he puts it, "I got tired of being a crappy tree-elf that always fell out of the damn tree village." In Ultima Online, he "got tired of having all my stuff stolen from me and getting killed by stupid 'PKers' (Player Killers)." Apparently for him, the rewards were far and few between to keep him interested in these games. He also has a very short attention span with most games. Play it, beat it, and move on to the next game is his motto. The more games you play in a single year the more well rounded you are apparently. With the new enhanced graphics engines, hardware and development that goes into games these days, it's amazing how stimulating the market can be right now.

Early in 2001, however, Low's opinion of online gaming changed drastically. He read an article about a new online role-playing game that was set about 30,000 years into the future, on a colonized planet. The story line was science fiction themed, with monsters, mutants, futuristic weapons, wars, and sinister political plots. The player would have the ability to create a character avatar from a wide variety of attributes and be surrounded by very realistic 3D graphics, with incredible scenery and sound. You would have to defend yourself, form guilds, make friends and alliances and your goal would be to "learn" or level your character as the game progressed in order to increase your skills and possessions. There would be PVP (player versus player) combat, PVM combat (player verses mobile or "mob" for short, a term used to explain computer generated enemy or monster) and a variety of other things one could do while in the game online. You could fly a plane, morph into animals and go on dangerous missions and epic quests. The game was called Anarchy Online.

Something about this Anarchy Online game really had his attention and right after it came out in July of 2001, he bought his copy and began playing, and once again I lost him to a game. He could not stop going on and on about how "cool this or that was" or the graphics or all the people he was meeting. His excitement was just ridiculous in my eyes but I had been through this before. Nevertheless, the game also captured my interest because of its science fiction theme. I am a sci-fi buff and the storyline had such a great plot that they actually sell the novels online for it. I read the chapters as they were released and was hooked on the storyline.

Low bought another copy about two weeks later. "I want you to play with me." By this time we were under some strain because he was really absorbed by this game every night. It looked really intimidating to me and I opted not to play it right away, stalling for time. The 3D environment bothered me because any game I had ever played, like Diablo, for example, had always been in third person view, which is a bird's eye view of the environment. The 3D graphics were dizzying as I looked over his shoulder from time to time.

In the end I caved in under the pressure and began playing it in September of 2001. I was a horrible player in the beginning, running into walls and getting lost or killed all the time. It didn't matter to me. I was playing a game with my boyfriend and found with each day that went by, I wanted to log on and play more and more.

So what was the appeal? Before I realized what was happening, I became addicted to playing this game. While logged into this game I met wonderful people, via their avatars, laughed to funny antics via chat window discussions, and experienced a futuristic sci-fi world via incredibly realistic 3D graphics and sounds. We ran through swamps with mutant wolves chasing us, the sound of our feet making wet suction sounds just like you would have in reality. We could hear birds chirping in forests we scouted and vultures crying overhead as they spotted us and attacked.

Our adrenaline would pump as we fought for our lives against twenty-foot tall robots with buzz saws for hands, or as we went on safaris to hunt giant brontosaur-like animals. We had the ability to heal and save each other as well as other members of our team at the time. We also had the ability to gain the respect, over more than a year later, of many online players, for being a great couple of characters in this game. We have, in fact, become high-ranking officers in our guild, which is almost like a family or alliance with other people to help you in the game.

In South Korea, some in-game alliances are valued more than real life friendships. A game called Lineage: The Blood Pledge has captivated approximately a third of the population. In Lineage, characters can take on the role of Princes, Wizards, and Knights and vow their loyalty to their clan or guild. This loyalty had lead to an incident in 2001 where a player was nearly beaten to death in real life for virtually killing the character of another player.

"He boasted that he had offed the gangman's virtual character just for the fun of it. Bad idea. The roughnecks dragged the 21-year-old into the urinal and pummeled him until he was covered with real-world bruises." -- By Michelle Levander, Time Magazine

It is easy to lose yourself to your imagination while you become someone you could possibly never be in the real world. You can become a hero, a bad ass, a wealthy person, someone with special powers or gain an enormous amount of respect from people who look up to you. This isn't to say you can't be that kind of person in reality, but what if everyone had this ability to find respect, admiration and status, simply by being in the environment long enough. What if all you had to do was play each day and level higher and higher, each goal leading to a new goal of achievement and possibilities. And what if you never had to leave the comfort of your chair to do this?

What if you could really become a diva, a soldier, a magician, or a samurai, and people respected or admired you unconditionally as long as you had a long red bar looming over your virtual head. Or, as in especially my case, what if while you were in this virtual reality, you didn't have to worry about deadlines, due dates, over 1000 emails per day to read and answer, or day-to-day stress that comes with what I do. The virtual reality could absorb you so much, that for the time you are logged in, you forget everything else. It doesn't seem to matter whether you are a strict role-player (someone who stays in character) or 'hardcore' (someone who spends more time in-game than an average user). You still can be addicted and absorbed with the attention you get.

The official Anarchy Online Community Forum, which gets thousands of posts per day, has also been one of my sources for observing how obsessed people have become with the game. Recently, a devoted and well known player had to throw in the towel due to her addiction problem.

"The level to which I got into things here is what has lead me to this point where I must say goodbye. My internet addiction and denial of it has taken me to a point where I must get a hold of it. I realize that many people have what it takes to play a game like this "casually" in a healthy manner. I am unfortunately not one of those people. I am currently battling bi-polar disorder (manic depression) and the escapism that a game like AO offers is too much like a drug for me."

The ability to be respected, to be admired, and to succeed, even in an imaginary world, is a very powerful lure. It can cause a person to produce endorphins, a chemical released into the brain that causes a feeling of energy and well being. Gaming also causes adrenaline production and extreme excitability. Scientists have proven that endorphins and adrenal rushes are incredibly addictive.

"There are indications that pleasurable games and activities cause the body to produce endogenous opiates such as endorphins. These substances are actually addictive. Some addictive drugs, such as heroin, are chemically similar to these natural substances, while other addictive drugs are thought to stimulate their production."
-- Leonard Holmes, Ph.D. from the article, Is Pokémon Addictive? 1999

It should be easy to see why gaming can be addictive as a direct result of the physical effects on the body. I also believe that people can become addicted to respect, admiration and power as well. Even though the production of endorphins can be a positive side affect in one way, it can be easy to overindulge and put aside productive living. But there are many ways to do this and online gaming is not the only vice out there. People find many different ways to escape the problems in their life or to combat stress.

People log on each and every day to find a level of respect that doesn't come easily in day-to-day life. They log on to escape reality or to escape other real problems such as illness and stress. I have met people in this game who have mental disorders or physical impairments. I have also played with people who are in IT jobs all day long, listening to customer complaints, getting bitched at regularly. Some have even admitted that they never hear the words "good job" in the real world.

One player who works in the IT technical services industry, told me "I get my faith in people restored when I get online. People treat me with respect and are actually nice to me. They don't expect anything in return. Also, they believe me when I tell them something because of my level in the game."

I know of other overly stressed out people who log in each day to escape their day-to-day experience of working or living in hard reality. We met a person in game, for example, who is an EMT. Everyday he witnesses death and horrible accidents. He told us that he plays the game to get it all out of his mind. I also met a nurse online with a similar story, and a school teacher who teaches eleventh grade in the Bronx, NYC, who is very stressed out by his job.

"Most human beings pass through periods in their lives, when they feel compelled to engage in some apparently mindless activity that, for the time being, seems to provide some relief from the prevailing chaos in their lives. This could be something as simple as spending hours in front of the television set. Or going on uncontrollable buying sprees just to feel and smell the newness of the product. Or getting into a series of dead-end relationships. Or going on eating binges. Or playing computer games, uncaring of unattended work piling up. Or playing snooker every evening at the club regardless of the family's legitimate demand for more attention. In other words, binging on anything potentially destructive to the body or the soul. Fortunately for many of us, after a period of this compulsive indulgence, we pull ourselves back to the mainstream and get on with our lives, until the next compulsion hits us."
-- Dr. Vijay Nagaswami, from the article, Who? Me? An addict, The Hindu Folio 2001

This is not to say that there are not positive aspects to interacting with people online. Online gaming opens the doors to people who might not have the ability to do so due to time, geography, or many more reasons. Gaming online is an inexpensive and quick way to make new friends, chat with people all over the world and share an experience with people you would never meet because they may be continents away.

One of our online friends, for example, who goes by the character name "Docker", lives in Leiden, Netherlands. Another friend, "Chanell" lives in Einselthum, Germany. These are really interesting people we would never have met if it was not for the game we play online. I asked Chanell why he started playing online games.

"It all began with Diablo II being released. Then my friend, Yppo, made me try it online. I found it was an incredibly boring and annoying game. Then Yppo made me try it online and I loved it. I joined his clan and had months of online fun, then it got boring, close to the moment DAoC [Dark Ages of Camelot] was released in Europe. While I went to DAoC, Yppo chose to go to A.O." Eventually Chanell started playing A.O. as well.

When asked how playing A.O. affects his social life, he reflected, "As for my friends... yes we hang together a lot less. This could be related to A.O. or the fact that we don't work in the same city anymore. I am not totally sure. I still have a lot of phone calls and meetings so I am not "lonesome" it just isn't an as high frequency as before."

And with that I can only think that one's social life is in the eye of the beholder. I interact with Chanell almost every day. In fact I interact with more people than I ever have before because of playing a computer game. They just are not all physically in my proximity.

Interaction with people... It got me thinking and I began to develop my own theories on what causes the addiction. Psychologists can use fancy terminology like "Motivation Factors" and "Attraction Factors" such as self-esteem and self-image problems. They can harp on the role of achievement problems and relationship deficiencies in a person's personality. But I think I can sum it up to one word that would work for any individual needing his or her game "fix" each time they log in, regardless of how well rounded they are in their lives or how much of a basket case they could be perceived as.

RESPECT.

I think it is just that simple. I like the feeling I get when people look up to me in the game or ask my opinion. It seems to be a common drive for players in general. That is, to be respected for being the best and reaching the next level in the game.

Not everyone who plays games neatly fit into these Psychologists stereotypes. "Solories", another Anarchy Online player, is an example of someone who just logs on for the sake of play.

"I would say that I am responsibly addicted, meaning I have never been late to work due to AO.
My wife would prefer that I not play AO as much as I do, but I always make time for her every night, and try and do one thing planned together every weekend. I have never been late to work, but the first night I played AO I stayed up until 4:00 am and had to get up at 6:00 am and the next day I played until midnight. I don't feel that AO affects my work habits, work is work and when it is time to play, it is time to play. I enjoy watching my character grow in his skills and MMORPG's in general let you get away from the normal day to day monotone life and do something out of the ordinary. In AO I am Solories Enforcer of Rubi-Ka a defender of the cause. I fight battles that help my guild get better and help the clans win a war against the Omni."

In the process of my gaming experiment, I became a casualty of the concept of being respected. If someone had asked me in September of 2001 if I expected to be obsessed with an online role-playing game a year down the road, I would have said with confidence that I am one of the most level headed non-addictive persons I know. No way could this happen to me. In fact, I would have been reminded of poor old Iggy and his demise.

I technically have ended my experiment. In the process, I haven't lost my job, and due to our simultaneous obsession, I have not lost my fiancé either. I haven't lost my real life friends, but they do sometimes look at me funny when I talk about the game I play. Low and I get our work done, run our business and have a great balanced life together I think. Anyone who actually knows me in real life can tell you that I have no self image or esteem problems and in fact, I have been accused of having quite an ego. I won't even go into Low's ego. I will admit though, that I have missed quite a few parties, nights out with the girls, shopping, and some chores needed around the office and home because of Anarchy Online. I will also admit that I want to log in as much as I possibly can every single day.

People have worse entertainment addictions than playing computer games. If I am going to be addicted to something, I would choose online gaming over drugs, bowling, gambling, television, or being a baseball fanatic easily. I don't have to wear ugly shoes, lose my hard earned money or do the wave next to someone I don't know and that just about makes it a no-brainer for me. It IS after all just a video game, like Neal describes in his great novel, Snow Crash. It is just another amusement park.

"Amusement parks in the Metaverse can be fantastic, offering a wide selection of interactive three-dimensional movies. But in the end, they're still nothing more than video games."
--Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

And I will leave you with that. Signing on now... Tenjikiito, level 157 Female Solitus Adventurer, Advisor to the Clan Guild Synergy Factor, the best damn guild on the world of Rubi-Ka, with the best damn virtual people one could ever virtually meet.

Special thanks to the following people for help with my research and leveling:
Sohjiro (Low Tek), Theevilcouch, Demnspawnt, Akarah, Chanell, Sheffy, Mr. Cheeze/Conqueso, Solories, Kirishami, Docker, Ramzie, Boco (who is to blame for all of this), Sultanx, Asmoran, Caddock, Meurgen, Tergwannabe, Trus, Ayanamie, Cplkane, Spherana, Ankokujin, Thedwarf (aka Notmyfault), Stromm, Molg, Butwalrus, Ciyt/Toonot, and Yokoduna.

Related links:

Anarchy Online
Dark Age of Camelot
Ultima Online
Diablo II
The Sims
Everquest
Try Anarchy Online free for 7 days! (We dare you to). =]

Here are some links re: those episodes. Nothing really earth-shattering in them though: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/living/0512spaces .html

http://www.wingfieldfans.org/douglas_wilson/articl e.asp?pubid=58

http://www.usatoday.com/life/llead.htm

http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,233279~3~~,00.h tml

AotC got a C+, while Spider-Man got a B (different reviewer though).

AotC reviews have also been summarized at Studio Briefing (first headline under "Film"), although it mistakenly points out that Episodes IV-VI are the top-selling DVDs (instead of the top-REQUESTED DVDs) on Amazon.com, and listed at Rotten Tomatoes.

AotC got a C+, while Spider-Man got a B (different reviewer though).

AotC reviews have also been summarized at Studio Briefing (first headline under "Film"), although it mistakenly points out that Episodes IV-VI are the top-selling DVDs (instead of the top-REQUESTED DVDs) on Amazon.com, and listed at Rotten Tomatoes.

I could critise Microsoft over this (but this is probably just a few odd employees who did this), but then I'd be a hypocrite because I have participated in ballot stuffing before.

About two months ago, Entertainment Weekly did a poll on Entertainer of the year. It was soon posted on Fark and then slowly migrated itself to the Something Awful forums. Now, we decided to ballot stuff it with "Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka" due to the fact that they didn't have any sort of security method to stop people from doing multiple votes.

It soon became a battle when the Shack News forums and some other forum started a battle with us. So we then got cocky and wrote various scripts in langauges varying from Perl to JavaScript (I wrote a script in mIRC considering I wanted to write it in a small bit of time). From all of our efforts, Lowtax got over 500,000 votes.

Yes, Lowtax was on top, but then they took the site down and then reopened it with a security measure and a little comment in the webpage taunting us. A few weeks later the results came out and I am not sure who got into the Top 10, but Lowtax and Something Awful DID get a mention in an article they wrote later.

If I hadn't done that, I'd be saying things differently here.

I didn't read the review myself (I hate when they give away the ending! ;-) ), but Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of "A". Click here for the full review.

I didn't read the review myself (I hate when they give away the ending! ;-) ), but Entertainment Weekly gave it a grade of "A". Click here for the full review.

He thought it was all in fun, but apparently yes, she WAS a "colossal bitch". And WTF? She seemed to have it in for him from the minute the show started!

I thought Neo was The One. Anyway, the movie is getting average ratings from papers across the globe. Here they are if you'd like a second opinion:

Chicago Tribune: 3 stars

Detroit Free Press: 1 star

E! Online: C-

Entertainment Weekly: C-

Did you know that the movie was originally going to star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson of WWF fame?

• Atlanta Journal-Constitution - (grade: C+) "Maybe Darwin was wrong: this remake shows no sign of evolution."

• Chicago Tribune - "...a rouser, a screaming-banshee fun house."

• CNN.com - "...this is one really bad script."

• Deseret News (Salt Lake City) - (3 stars) "...when it's good, it comes close to being great."

• E! Online - (grade: C+) "...offers an eye-appealing world but a truly disappointing story."

• Entertainment Weekly - (grade: C+) "...[features] everything...but imagination."

• L.A. Weekly - "...underwritten..."

• Los Angeles Times - "...over-plotted and under-dramatized..."

• Mr. Showbiz - (rating: 2/5) "...despite its presentation, the film is so very ordinary, without urgency or revelation."

• New York Times - "...both a gas and distant, a toy sealed in its unbreakable box."

• People - "The fault lies not in the stars here but in the script."

• Roger Ebert - (2.5 stars) "I expected more."

• Salon - "...stops far too short of being completely seductive."

• San Francisco Chronicle - "...an amazing display of imagination."

• TV Guide - (2.5 out of 5 stars) "...sorely deficient on the story front."

• USA Today - (3 out of 4 stars) "...[the costumes] allow the power of the performer inside the ape gear to break on through."

• Search the Movie Review Query Engine

Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" wants to be all things to all men, and all apes. It's an action picture and a satire of an action picture. It's a comedy and then it gets serious. It's a social satire and then backs away from pushing that angle too far. It even has a weird intra-species romantic triangle in it. And it has a surprise ending that I loved, even though Matt Drudge spoiled it last weekend with a breathless "scoop."

The movie could have been more. It could have been a parable of men and animals, as daring as "Animal Farm." It could have dealt in social commentary with a sting, and satire that hurt. It could have supported, or attacked, the animal rights movement. It could have dealt with the intriguing question of whether a man and a gorilla having sex is open-mindedness, or bestiality (and, if bestiality, in both directions?).

It could have, but it doesn't. It's a cautious movie, earning every letter and numeral of its PG-13 rating. Intellectually, it's science fiction for junior high school boys.

I expected more. I thought Burton would swing for the fence. He plays it too safe, defusing his momentum with little nudges to tell you he knows it's only a movie. The 1968 "Planet of the Apes" was made before irony became an insurance policy. It made jokes, but it took itself seriously. Burton's "Planet" has scenes that defy us to believe them (his hero survives two bumpy crash-landings that look about as realistic as the effects in his "Mars Attacks!"). And it backs away from any kind of risky complexity in its relationships.

The key couple consists of Leo (Mark Wahlberg), who is the human hero, and Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), who is the Eleanor Roosevelt of the apes. They're attracted to each other but don't know what to do about it, and the screenplay gives them little help. Leo is also supposed to be linked romantically, I guess, with a curvy blond human named Daena (Estella Warren), but her role has been so abbreviated that basically all she does is follow along looking at Leo either significantly or winsomely, as circumstances warrant. At the end, he doesn't even bid her a proper farewell.

Leo, to be sure, is not one for effusive emotional outbursts. He's played by Wahlberg as a limited and narrow person with little imagination, who never seems very surprised by anything that happens to him--like, oh, to take a random example, crash-landing on a planet where the apes rule the humans. He's a space jockey type, trained in macho self-abnegation, who is great in a crisis but doesn't offer much in the way of conversation. His basic motivation seems to be to get himself off the planet, and to hell with the friends he leaves behind; he's almost surly sometimes as he leads his little band through the wilderness.

The most "human" character in the movie is, in fact, the chimpanzee Ari, who believes all species were created equal, casts her lot with the outcast humans, and tells Leo, "you're sensitive--a welcome quality in a man." Helena Bonham Carter invests this character with warmth, personality and distinctive body language; she has a way of moving that kids itself.

There's also juice in a character named Limbo (Paul Giamatti), a scam artist who has a deal for everyone, and a lot of funny one-liners. That he sounds like a carnival pitch-man should not be held against him.

The major ape characters include the fearsome Gen. Thade (Tim Roth), his strong but occasionally thoughtful gorilla lieutenant Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan), and Sen. Sandar (David Warner), who is a parliamentary leader and Ari's father. There's also a cameo for Charlton Heston, as a wise old ape who inevitably introduces a gun into the plot and has a curmudgeonly exit line. Watching the apes is fun all during the movie, while watching the humans usually isn't; the movie works hard to bring the apes to life, but unwisely thinks the humans can take care of themselves.

It's interesting that several different simian species co-exist in the planet's ape society. It may be a little hard to account for that, given the logic of the movie, although I will say no more. One major change between this film and the earlier one is that everyone--apes and humans--speak English. The movie explains why the apes speak English, but fudges on how they learned to speak at all.

The movie is great-looking. Rick Baker's makeup is convincing even in the extreme closeups, and his apes sparkle with personality and presence. The sets and locations give us a proper sense of alien awe, and there's one neat long shot of the ape city-mountain that looks, when you squint a little, like Xanadu from "Citizen Kane." There are lines inviting laughs ("Extremism in the defense of apes is no vice") and others unwisely inviting groans ("If you show me the way out of here--I promise I'll show you something that will change your life forever"). And a priceless moment when Leo wants to stop the squabbling among his fugitive group of men and apes and barks: "Shut up! That goes for all species!"

"Planet of the Apes" is the kind of movie that you enjoy at times, admire at times, even really like at times, but is it necessary? Given how famous and familiar Franklin J. Schaffner's 1968 film is, Tim Burton had some kind of an obligation to either top it, or sidestep it. Instead, he pays homage. He calls this version a "reimaging," and so it is, but a reinvention might have been better. Burton's work can show a wild and crazed imagination, but here he seems reined in. He's made a film that's respectful to the original, and respectable in itself, but that's not enough. Ten years from now, it will be the 1968 version that people are still renting.

Copyright © Chicago Sun-Times Inc.

Let's make a tradition of this!

"Another nail in the coffin of the arcade."

Arcades are far from being dead. Maybe in small town malls they are fading away, but just look at places like GameWorks. Here in Dallas the one we have is always packed. For those of you who have never seen one, just imagine an old-two-story-warehouse-looking-building with tons of games and VR rides. Way cool, and far from dead.

Anyway, it is really sad to see another company who helped to define a market now abandon it.

What is this a sign of? First Sega drops out of the console market. Then the S word is spoken 162 times on television. Now Midway is droping out of the coin op business. What is this world comming to ;-)

bad humor is still humor.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Mike Myers was having a hard time determining the vocal characterizations for Shrek. He changed his mind about how he was going to play Shrek, and as a result the facial renderings had to be changed. It was supposedly a big challenge with Dreamworks because of the cost involved.

I would provide a link, but the EW site is a slow moving piece of crap. I read it in the real world, on paper.