Babel Con 2009

I went to Babel Con 2009 (held in Baton Rouge, LA on July 17 - 19) and realized why they are not having another one next year (2010)... because it sucked! The staff was so rude. A friend of mine misplaced his badge and they wouldn't give him a break even though he had an ID and his name was on the list of people who signed in the day before. Oh well, surely Mecha-Con (the next weekend) and GenCon would be better.

Bard

Green Chix dancing

One of the Green Chix

Belly Dancers

Monsterpocalypse in Boardgame Room

Star Wars Costume Panel

Breakfast (best hangover food!)

'Aqua Teen Hunger Force' Movie Intro

Freakin' hilarious.


via videosift.com

Star Wars - Longest Crash Ever

via videosift.com

New WOW Expansion Name and Races Revealed

courtesy of gamespot

Source: World of Warcraft enthusiast blog WoW.com (formerly known as "WoW Insider").

What we heard: The site cites "multiple sources close to the situation" who claim two new races will be added to WOW as part of a rumored new expansion called "Cataclysm." For the Alliance faction, the upcoming race will purportedly be the lupine Worgen. Meanwhile, the Horde will reportedly receive the once-neutral Goblin race.

The suspected leak comes after previous speculation that the Goblins and Worgen would be added to the 11-million-strong massively multiplayer online role-playing game's roster. On July 17, the fan site MMO Champion said it was convinced the two races would be playable after Blizzard revealed Goblin and Worgen novelty masks for its in-game Halloween-themed festival. Previously, only playable races were granted such distinction.

The reported name of the supposed upcoming expansion, Cataclysm, was trademarked by Blizzard on June 26 for everything from computer games to greeting cards. When GameSpot inquired to the developer on the trademark filings, the company declined to give any further details on the title, including whether the cataclysm label would be applied toward other game series or a new one altogether.

Although the latest WOW expansion--Wrath of the Lich King--did not add any new races, its predecessor, The Burning Crusade, added the Blood Elves and Draenei when it was released in January 2007. The latter had been known about since December 2005, when an advance edition of Computer Games Magazine revealed the new Alliance race.

The rumor comes 10 days before BlizzCon 2009, which runs from August 21-22. The developer has traditionally used the convention to officially announce new titles, including both games and expansions. The Burning Crusade was unveiled at BlizzCon 2005, and Wrath of the Lich King was unveiled at the event two years later.

The official story: "We haven't made any announcements in regard to any new races for World of Warcraft and don't comment on rumors or speculation." -- Blizzard rep

Bogus or not bogus?: WoW.com accurately predicted the previous two add-on races, the Blood Elves and Draenei, well before their official revelation by Blizzard. However, WoW.com had reported based off disclosed sources and cited concrete game data to back up its claims, such as screenshots, audio files, and video clips. The site's new blog post, on the other hand, only goes off anonymous sources and dubious novelty-mask image files. But with BlizzCon right around the corner, the veracity of WoW.com's sources will soon become clear.

Speed Reading (How to)

My friends and I will be attending Gen Con this week and I'm sure a big part of my duties will be reading instructions for games that we buy (because I know my lazy ass friends won't be reading them!). I wish I could've found this video a couple months ago so I could've practiced, but I guess better late than never. How to read 4x faster than you do now. *video below*

More DIY videos at 5min.com

Sanwa Waterproof Bag takes the iPhone out to sea safely Sanwa Waterproof Bag takes the iPhone out to Sea Safely

courtesy of dvice via Sanwa

Whether you are a techie fisherman or simply a savvy beach bum, the new Waterproof Bag for the iPhone and iPod Touch is probably something you've been hoping to see invented.

Designed by Sanwa, the waterproof pouch features a robust sealing mechanism to keep out the elements but still allows you to use the touch functions of the iPhone or iPod Touch as well as take photos via the rear window of the case. Although this won't rank among the most feature rich items in your tech arsenal, it will certainly prove to be one of the most useful. You can pick up your own iPhone protector for just 3,280 yen ($34) here.

New Series 'FlashForward' Will be Similar to 'LOST'

courtesy of SciFiWire

Early buzz has already called ABC's new series FlashForward the new Lost—probably because the network loses that hit series after next season—but the show's creators embrace the comparison.

Speaking to the Television Critics Association summer press tour in Pasadena, Calif., today, co-creator and executive producer David S. Goyer said that Lost gave him the confidence to bring FlashForward to ABC, even though he began developing it as a spec script (originally for HBO) prior to 2004.

"I'm an enormous fan of Lost, because I just thought it was a genre-breaking, bold show," Goyer said in a press conference. "It proved to me that [on] network television, there could be a place for a show like that. Once I started talking to [Lost co-creator] Damon [Lindelof] even more, and he was saying how supportive ABC had been, I became convinced it was the right home. By the way, we'd be happy with half the rabid fan base of that show."

In FlashForward, based on Robert J. Sawyer's SF novel, every person in the world blacks out for 2 minutes 17 seconds, during which time everyone has a vision of the future—April 29, 2010, to be specific— and the show's characters, notably FBI agent Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes), begin to piece together what happened. Goyer said that the show is built so that about one-third of the characters are eager for the future, a third will dread what may be in store and a third are neutral about it.

During the press conference, which included new cast member Dominic Monaghan (who is not in the pilot), Goyer revealed that Alex Kingston's character will return and that Gabrielle Union will be a cast member (playing the fiancee of John Cho's FBI agent character, Demetri Noh) and that a kangaroo glimpsed in the pilot episode will appear again as a leitmotif (kind of like Lost's polar bear?).

"Lost taught me you can do a show with a large ensemble cast," Goyer continued. "You can tell a big cinematic story, and Lost traffics a lot in shades of gray, different shades of morality, which is something I find really interesting. We're huge fans of TV. Whenever we're breaking story with [executive producer] Mark [Guggenheim], we approach it as if we were watching a television show. What would we like to see?"

As the master of a new mythology, Goyer and company take their responsibility seriously. "I feel as a viewer I really like to feel the storytellers know where they're going," Goyer said. "We have an enormous obligation with a show like this, where we state this claim: April 29, we constantly talk about the obligation we have to really figure it out and know where we're going."

Part of the plan is that viewers will see the events of the future on April 29 by the end of season one, Guggenheim said. "The answer is yes," Guggenheim said. "By the end of the first season, we will get to April 29, 2010. That's not necessarily the season finale, but we will definitely get up to the future."

Goyer added, "April 29 is a Thursday when we're airing, conveniently enough. Somebody actually did look at a calendar."

Perhaps the only mystery FlashForward plans to hold back is just what caused the flash-forward blackouts. "By the end of the first season, most of the questions raised in the pilot—including the one you see at the very end [of the pilot]—will be answered," Goyer said. "The over-arcing sort of cause of why the blackout happened, that's our background-radiation mystery of the whole series. I think to really do the show justice, we would need at least three seasons."

The series is only loosely based on Sawyer's book, with different characters, setting and time frame. But one character imported from the book is Lloyd Simcoe, played by Jack Davenport. Goyer said the book won't provide much in the way of clues about the show's version of Simcoe.

"He's a version of that character," Goyer said. "The book obviously jumps 21 years in the future and concerns a group of particle physicists at CERN. We thought if we led with that, it's a group of wacky particle physicists at CERN. We met with Robert Sawyer, who completely grasped that in order to make a TV show, we took the premise, truncated it and provided more points of entry. Robert liked it, and he's going to write an episode for us the first season."

The pilot features an epic freeway accident that occurs during the blackout. That was all shot practically, Goyer said. "All real freeways," Goyer said. "We shut down the 110 freeway [in Los Angeles]. That was awesome. I had a lot of friends texting me saying, 'Is that you shutting us down? Thanks.' We shut it down intermittently for three days. It was cool."