It’s been a few days now since e3 started and all kinds of news has come out about various games and such.
The biggest news is of course the announcement that Final Fantasy 13 is coming to the Xbox 360. I was watching the press conference “live” and was absolutely floored when this information was revealed. I knew something was up when Yoichi Wada (current president of Square Enix) came on stage seemingly only tell us things about games we already knew. They even let him walk off the stage! But then he politely came back on stage, interrupting Don Mattrick (Senior Vice President of the games division er, “Interactive Entertainment Business” at Microsoft) and said there was one more thing that he wanted to show the audience. I had a gut feeling it was FF 13 on Xbox 360 but the IGN video feed I was watching shifted to a camera looking on the stage and a large portion of the audience from way way behind the audience for the duration of the video. Only when the FF 13 logo came up at the end of the trailer was my feeling confirmed.
The internet erupted with chants and cries of how this effects Sony. After all, now countless Xbox 360 owners who were debating buying the PS3 just for the game no longer have to. I’m personally amazed that SE is actually giving the Microsoft’s Xbox 360 the time of day so to speak. SE didn’t do anything on the original Xbox, what made them change thier minds now? Could it be that SE has noticed that PS3s just aren’t selling at the same rate the PS2s did? It would be pretty cool if the Xbox 360 version sells more copies than the PS3 version of the game. I’ll probably be getting the PS3 version myself eventually though.
Apparently the game is only coming out on Xbox 360 in territories outside of Japan. This probably isn’t a big deal for the five people that own Xbox 360 in Japan since they probably own a PS3 anyway. In North America though, the console wars just got a whole lot more “war-y” and once again, it’s all due to a Final Fantasy game.
So yesterday marked the return of Edgefest as they skipped putting on a show last year. I decided to buy a ticket many moons ago since it was announced that the newly reformed Stone Temple Pilots would be performing. Amazingly enough STP weren’t the headliner, they were co-headlining with Link Park whom I’m not really a big fan of but decided to tolerate since the ticket was rather expensive. Sam Roberts and Ashes Divide rounded out the acts that I actually wanted to see.
Ashes Divide played a decent set. I haven’t heard their entire album but what I heard yesterday had a very APC feel to it. Sam Roberts was pretty rockin’. Him and his band played all of the hits everyone knows and loves. They have a very “Canadiana” feel to them, much like that of the Tragically Hip.
STP played all of their hits as well. Scott Weiland talked to the crowd a bit which is something I always like at a live show. He didn’t chit chat as much as I liked but then again no lead singer ever does 
. It had rained all kinds during the day but luckily my friend Steve supplied me with a rain protector thing that kept me reasonably dry. Scott commented on the rainbow that appeared during their set and asked Chester Bennington, lead singer of Link Park, to come on stage and sing with him. But other than that, he didn’t really say much and Chester didn’t make an appearance.
When Linkin Park finally came on they started out with some mellow songs that I’d either never heard before or just didn’t recognize. According to a blurb I heard on the Edge today this was due to half the band being missing because of a problem at the airport. The part of the band that was missing was looking to get a helicopter to make it the venue but for some reason that never happened for whatever reason. After those first few mellow songs, I pretty much recognized every song. All in all their set was very flashy but Chester didn’t talk to the crowd at all. I wouldn’t say STP stole the show but they definitely put on a better one.
Other than the acts there was tons and tons of rain. Where’s there’s rain, grass and lots of people there’s bound to be mud. I saw numerous people covered in mud from head to toe throughout the day. Also saw a bunch of guys mudsliding. The other big topic of news was the beer area that was terribly executed for some reason. The line to enter the area was enormous and super slow moving. The beer area had a maximum capacity so once people were in, they didn’t bother to leave. My friends and I didn’t even bother trying to get beer because of this. Word from the radio station is that this will be rectified next year.
All in all, Edgefest 2008 served as a decent way to pass the time for a Saturday afternoon. Hopefully they will be some good bands next year 
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Turns out that once again the city needs to do some construction at Dufferin and St. Clair thanks to the street car track replacement going on on St. Clair that prevents cars from crossing St. Clair on Dufferin. As such my street has been turned in a detour or Highway Norton Ave. I went out yesterday night and luckily left during a window where there were hardly any cars. I peeked outside a few moments ago though the line of cars extended all the way down the street. I need to run to the liqour store today so I’m guessing I’ll be walking instead of driving. Heading to a BBQ later so I’ll probably be walking somewhere where it’ll be easier for my buddy Nick to pick me up. All in the name of progress and improvement right ?
Specifically, my driver’s side mirror. Fate would have it that an Italian win during Euro 2008 doesn’t come without drunkenness and drunkenness doesn’t come without destruction of property, mainly mine. So $235 dollars later I have a shiny new mirror. The nice Portuguese family that lives 2 house over had their car (a VW Jetta) vandalized as well to the tune of $500. The third car that was damaged has an owner that is currently out of the country and probably won’t be too pleased to find this “present”, a missing mirror as it wasn’t lying around anywhere nearby (or dangling on the side of the care like mine was).
In other news Portugal was eliminated from the tournament by Germany today which brings a smile to the face of just about every Italian person I know . Not mine of course, I like to stay neutral 
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So Nine Inch Nails released a new album entitled “The Slip” yesterday completely out of no where. They released a new single “Discipline” about 2 weeks ago which had a message in the file’s ID3 tag saying “Go to www.nin.com May 5″ (yes, I just copied and pasted that directly). Yesterday came around and viola, a brand new album was available for download in MP3, FLAC, M4A and High Quality WAVE 24/96 (clocking in at 1.2 GB in size) formats. Everything but the MP3 version was being distributed via torrents. I don’t even think you can buy the thing in stores for another 2 weeks.
I have to admit, Trent Reznor is pretty brilliant by beating the pirates at their own game. Instead of the album leaking out two weeks early, he put it online himself two weeks early. It’s hard to say if this is really where music is headed though as Trent himself said in an article I read a while back that his experiment with the Saul Williams’s “Niggy Tardust” album didn’t go as planned. Then again, he did make a reported killing on “Ghosts I-IV” but that was because he put out a limited edition deluxe version that sold out and went for a few hundred dollars. So while this approach works for a band as big as nin, it debatable if the idea is for everyone.
I’ve listened to the album and it’s decent. None of the songs have really jumped out at me just yet besides “Discipline”. Maybe if my computer would stop acting retarded I could listen to it a bit more…
No, I’m not talking about Godsmack’s album of the same name which funnily enough I finally heard in full for the first time recently. I’m talking about the new Grand Theft Auto game that everyone is going crazy about. Many stores around the city are going to be open at midnight in order to deliver the game to eager fans. I’m sure lots of people are taking the day off tomorrow to spend some time with cousin Niko in Liberty City (I read a story where someone use this exact line on his absence request form).
Personally, I think this game is going to help persuade people still clinging to their PS2s to upgrade to the next gen. The general consensus is that the PS3 version looks prettier whereas the Xbox 360 version will have a plethora of downloadable content to extend the experience. I lack a PS3 or Xbox 360 but seriously gave purchasing one of the two consoles some thought. I just couldn’t live with myself playing either console on my ancient CRT television though and I’m not really interested in upgrading to an HD TV just yet. I think the Xbox 360 version offers the better bang for the buck since apparently the online capability of the PS3 version isn’t all there just yet whereas the Xbox 360 version uses Xbox Live which is already proven to be rock solid (even though it will probably be crashing all kinds tonight). I’d still probably go with the PS3 version though since I know I’ll inevitably be buying one for Final Fantasy 12 (I refuse to use Roman numerals for the games anymore). If the PS3 hardware itself were a little cheaper, I’d probably be all over it. Anyway, have fun tonight (and tomorrow) boys and girls.
This gentleman has been making waves all over the world with his custom software that helps turn a Wii Remote in an affordable white board display and head tracking device. The TED talks people invited him to showcase his work:
The really cool thing about Johnny Lee’s story is what he touches on at the end of the talk. The fact that he’s just a humble researcher but thanks to the internet and sites like YouTube, everyone around the world know about his work. There is no doubt in my mind that without the internet, no one would have ever heard of Mr. Lee and the fact that we are hearing about him is a remarkable thing.
On March 31st, 2007 the people of Sydney, Australia turned off their lights for one hour and dubbed it Earth Hour . So today marked the first time this event was acknowledged or carried out globally. Toronto took part of course along with other cities from around the globe. Google drew attention to the cause as well and even made their normally white homepage all black for the day. They of course covered their butts by saying that they are aware that a black homepage wouldn’t actually reduce world wide power usage like some people surmised as this was later proven false and it instead just a gesture to raise awareness of the cause. Anyway, I turned the lights out here. Anyone that knows me knows that try to be energy conscious in all of my actions. Sadly everyone takes a “my little contribution doesn’t really count for anything” attitude when it really does. It’s not just when it comes to climate change, which can be debated backwards and forwards, but more when it comes to any kind of change.
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Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
