SPRING BREAK 89!!

5) Go Larping (Live.Action.Role.Playing)

Just hanging out

Have you ever been sitting around the house watching Lord of the Rings and thought to yourself, “Hey, I could grow a beard like Gimli”, but you never had the guts to try it. Well these guys don’t stop there. They go big or go home. There is something about running through the woods with foam weapons that never gets boring. It is like a Nerf War for grown ups. But better. There are girls there pretending to be Elves. Just don’t try and mess with these guys, they are super hardcore.

4) Road Trip To Your Heroes’ Hometowns

Hustlers

When I think of how awesome Harrison Ford is I often wonder of the birthplace of such a Man among boys. Turns out it is Chicago. Who wouldn’t love to hit up the open road and see the birth place of their favorite stars. Nothing beats the bonding experience of a road trip. Well maybe a kidnapping, but it’s such a pain to organize one of those. So instead why not see where William Shatner got his diapers changed before he conquered the final frontier, exotic Montreal by the way. So why not hop in the van, pump up the jams, and hit up those two lanes that will take you anywhere.

3) Stay Inside and Play Final Fantasy 13

Your soul will belong to this game

You know what is awesome about Spring Break? All the free time. What better way to use that free time than by pouring it all into the newest Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy 13 is going to take a lot of time to beat. Now you have it. If you put two and two together you get a lot of spiky hair to watch over the week. Isn’t that the American Dream?

2) Have A Sci-Fi Marathon

Firefly: This got cancelled and "According to Jim" survived until last year. My soul is weeping.

You know all that time I was just talking about, well if you don’t have a copy of Final Fantasy 13 why not have a marathon of your favorite Sci-Fi show or movie. Whether it be Star Wars, Star Trek, or Battlestar Galactica sit down and watch it. It will be like visiting family without leaving the comfort of your living room. Seriously though if you still haven’t watched Firefly, go do it. Right now.

1) Go to New Zealand

Land of Hobbits. And Flight of The Conchords

If you are a geek with excess cash flow, you should probably just go ahead and go to New Zealand. Every Fantasy film is shot there. Really. It is like waltzing through all your favorite battles as you drive to breakfast. So if you can afford it, you should. Plus Flight of The Conchords are from there. Doesn’t get much sweeter than that.

If you haven’t heard about Quirk Classics, that probably means you’ve been living under a rock on Mars for a while.  These guys are responsible for the hits Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.  Well, the latest one to come out from Quirk is the hilariously titled Android Karenina.  It apparently follows Tolstoy’s classic fairly faithfully… except that its lead heroine is not unlike Data from Star Trek.  Personally, I am salivating in anticipation for this robot classic.  Also, I’ve heard some craziness in the rumor mill about an Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  This book will combine two favorite things: emancipation and vampirism.  How can you go wrong?!

Modder jayrob from Laser Pointer Forums made me envious not only his clean modding skills but the deadly accuracy of his home brewed Star Trek Phaser. This hack will certainly give you the upper hand in your next office war when your colleagues whip out Airzooka’s and rubber bands.

Click here to view the embedded video.

[Via Gizmodo]

Paramount has finally confirmed a release date for the Star Trek sequel and it is scheduled to be released on June 29, 2012.

But besides the date, Paramount has been very hush hush on the details of the storyline and production.

[via MTV Movies Blog]

I love to gamble.  There’s just something about the possibility of losing all my “hard earned” money that excites me.  So the fact that Nelson, Andrew, and James are in Las Vegas right now for CES makes me extremely envious on two levels: tons of tech and (obviously) tons of casinos.  I tend to stick to card and table games, or at least the video machines that simulate those games, but every now and then, as I’m walking through a casino, a slot machine will catch my eye that I just can’t resist.

To win at a slot machine, all you need is time and money… oh yeah, and a shit-ton of luck.

There’s no skill involved.   They all work the same, and your chances of winning are abysmal.  So why are they so popular?  Because stupid people like to gamble too, and they can’t be bothered to learn the rules of a real game.  And why are there so many?  Because the casinos want to make sure they have at least one slot machine for every person that walks though the door.  So while your grandmother will be running straight for the Deal Or No Deal and Wheel Of Fortune machines, I have a pretty good idea which ones you’ll be headed to.  Check out a few of the geek-themed slot machines the casinos are hoping will lure you in on your next trip to Las Vegas.  Photos after the jump…

]]> http://pixelatedgeek.com/2010/01/geek-gambling-this-slots-for-you/feed/ 1 http://pixelatedgeek.com/2010/01/rdt-star-trek-the-original-series-wetsuit/ http://pixelatedgeek.com/2010/01/rdt-star-trek-the-original-series-wetsuit/#comments Tue, 05 Jan 2010 23:00:26 +0000 jesmes15 http://pixelatedgeek.com/?p=16790 Calling all Trekkies who love to surf!!!!

Nerd + Athlete =  HAWT. =)

Developed exclusively for the RDT by JMJ Wetsuits, “These wetsuits are not novel gimmicks, they are the real deal, made using the highest quality materials and expert craftsmanship. Each individual wetsuit is custom made and tailored to your exact measurements for a perfect fit and unmatched performance. This is the ultimate in warmth and exposure protection when exploring strange new worlds!”

These suits are are available in three colors and are made-to-order. Each suit is $469.95 and can be purchased on Roddenberry.

Would you buy one?

[via Roddenberry]

I consider myself to be a bit of a Star Trek fan. Mind you not so much that I would call myself a Trekkie. I have however played various amounts of Star Trek Games and none in my opinion have really captured the essence of what Star Trek is. That’s where D.A.C comes into play. With the recent rebirth of the Star Trek Franchise D.A.C. attempts to bring a new type of Star Trek game to the table. How does the game hold up?

Gameplay

Well my first question when I was starting to review the game was what does D.A.C. stand for? It stands for the 3 types of gameplay: Deathmatch, Assault, and Conquest. The game is broken up into 2 factions Fedration vs Romulans. The game is a top down shooter featuring a variety of different ship classes. There are 5 total classes all with their own strengths and weaknesses. It’s broken down into Flagship(Tank), Fighter(Balanced), Bomber(Fast), Support Frigate(Medic) and the Missile Cruiser(Strongest). There is also an upgrade function for your weaponry, as you fly around the map there are 2 types of orbs. One that upgrades weapons the other that contain special weapons. You can also collect weapon upgrade orbs by destroying enemy ships. This game is very interesting and is one that is best played online. I started the game playing solo mode just to get used to the the controls. I found the solo version to be a bit lacking. The game is very simple to pick up and soon you’ll learn which class suits you best. The Online partition of the game is where it shines. It essentially is a 12 player versus with 6 on each team. I felt the match length was perfectly suited for a quick game of course depending on which Mode you play. Another thing I was impressed with was the additions of the shuttle craft. Once your health is up you start to blink red and it gives you the option to escape. At a press of a button you then leave your ship and escape in a much smaller shuttle craft. If your able to escape you will spawn quicker. The only other thing I felt this game could use would be more factions. I understand that this was supposed to be using the rebirth of the Star Trek series but it would have been nice to play as other species in the Star Trek Universe.

Graphics

The Graphics were pretty descent though at times the game looked a little small. What I mean by this is that some of the ships seemed really tiny. The Maps were pretty large and there was plenty of space debris. The effects on the weaponry all looked pretty good.

Sound

The Sound was just okay. The SFX were spot on for Star Trek though the Soundtrack seemed to be a little lacking. It pretty much was just the Theme song used over and over from the new movie.

Overall

While this game certainly isn’t the best it was surprisingly entertaining. Though the game certainly lends itself more towards the online arena. If your looking for something fun to play online or with a group of friends DAC is certainly an option. Another benefit is you don’t need to be a fan of the series to play.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s that time again, time to review some of my cherry picked smaller stories of the week for those that might have missed them. This time round we’ve got an Adobe Flash update that doesn’t suck. OK, sucks a little less. Flash 10.1 beta was unleashed to the willing public with GPU video acceleration for certain Nvidia cards on Windows, but perhaps more importantly reduced CPU usage across all platforms. What does this mean? YouTube that doesn’t make your Mac or PC red-line that’s what. A step in the right direction Adobe, maybe Flash isn’t a lost cause after all. I’ve certainly seen some improvements on my netbook and Mac.

Talking of YouTube, Google introduced skippable pre-roll adverts this week to YouTube in an effort to finally make some meaningful money from its enormous purchase. It’s not the first time Google’s tried pre-roll adverts however, with previous efforts seeing a 70% bail rate before the video actually starts. Google’s hoping with skippable 15 second ads it will be able to see which ads fit and are acceptable with which content. Google also started the roll out of 1080p video for all the content that’s been uploaded in full HD. Couple this with the improvements Adobe is making to Flash and you might even be able to watch them without having to pack a Core i7!

Swindon is set to become the UK’s first free Wifi town rocking free WiFi across the entire city. Dubbed the ‘Swindon Mesh’, the £1 million wireless network will allow all residents completely free access to the internet. Residents who want greater speed, ‘up to 20Mbits’, will be able to pay Digital City UK for higher bandwidth, but a vast majority should be set with the free service. Those passing through will also be able to hook up via a PAYG scheme in which prices have yet to be set, let’s hope they’re at least competitive. Work starts December and Digital City UK is expecting to roll out the service to all Swindon residents come April 2010. Great, but sorry Swindon I still don’t want to live there, do you?

Talking of Wifi towns, the MPAA shut one down. Yes that’s right, the MPAA shut down a whole town’s municipal wifi after it detected a single copyright infringement. That’s what happens when you give companies the power to crush the little guy without due process or trial. So, if you’re expecting to connect for free in Coshocton, Ohio, sorry you’re out of luck for the foreseeable future just like the 100 or so active residents.

So we’ve seen the Beatles unleash music on apple shaped USB drives, but how about movies on flash drives? OK, you’ve got the odd movie distribution service via SD card, but I think novalty shaped flash drives with your favourite movies on them tops a lowly SD card. Yes that’s right, I’m talking about JJ Abram’s Star Trek hitting the small screen courtesy of some fancy flash drives. The movie comes pre-loaded onto a flash drive shaped like the new Star Trek logo so once you’re done watching the movie you can proudly display it as a piece of Star Trek memorabilia next to your model of the Enterprise and Warf’s head. Michael Bay fans haven’t been left out either with Transformers 2 set to follow soon on appropriately shaped flash drives. Yours for the bargain of £17.99 a pop. Think I’ll stick with the Blu-Ray but maybe that’s just me.

This week has also seen the shuttering of the Pirate Bay torrent tracker. Now it’s not all bad news for those amongst you who use BitTorrent as they’ve set up a Magnet link repository. For those uninitiated, BitTorrent has evolved to support a decentralised structure using the DHT and PEX protocols. Now what that means for you and your, umm, linux downloading friends is that you no longer need a .torrent location file to find and download files over the p2p network. In fact if you’re running one of the more up-to-date clients such as uTorrent or Azureus, you’ve had the magnet-link capability for a while and probably didn’t even know about it. The Pirate Bay is so certain that it’s search engine and magnet-link repository is the way forward for BitTorrent that it’s been canvassing other torrent trackers in an effort to get everyone to move over to the decentralised system. Whether this is a sinister plot by the Pirate Bay’s new owners or an honest to goodness evolution of piracy (and legal p2p) is unclear at this stage. What is clear is that this is an end of an era for BitTorrent and I don’t see it going away anytime soon.

Facebook, everyone’s favourite stalker hangout has made yet another move to conquer your life away from the computer this week. The PS3 saw an update that includes a somewhat weak browser based Facebook integration a rather rushed effort on Sony’s part to match the Xbox 360 which has proper Facebook and Twitter integration. OK, you might want to brag about your Achievements or Trophies to your mates on Stalkerbook or Twatter, but seriously, who is going to sit in front of their TV and use this on an 8-foot interface? I mean the Xbox doesn’t even have a web browser so how are you going to check out the links and pics that your friends send out via TwitFace?

Talking of Facebook, if the fuzz ever comes a knocking, your inane status updates could count as an alibi. Yes, you heard right, a 19-year old Harlem resident was cleared of charges resulting from a mugging in Brooklyn by an alibi provided a status update made on Facebook from his Dad’s house at the time of the crime. Am I the only one who could see this as being really easy to fake? You could just automate a status update, VNC into your computer or just get someone else to update on your profile for you from your computer. Still the courts subpoenaed Facebook for the IP address of the computer that made the status update, which of course pointed to his Father’s house where he claimed to be at the time of the mugging.

Last but not least from my picks of the week, Google Chrome OS. OK, it’s basically an OS built inside Chrome browser. I’m not surprised, that’s exactly what I thought it was going to be. What I am surprised about is that it won’t run on everything, Google doesn’t even support HDDs! I get that it’s meant to totally rely on the cloud for all data and applications, but not even supporting HDDs for local storage? Let’s just say it’s probably not aimed at me, or you reading this for that matter, but perhaps, maybe those non-tech-savvy buying netbooks might get used to it, I’m not sure though.

Movie making is professional business. This is until the camera stop “officially” rolling. Check out J.J.’s dance moves and the cut Irish accent scene in the Star Trek blooper reel above.