Monday, December 29, 2008
Pacific Division - She (Snippet) f. Tiron (Video)
Check out the snippet of Pac Div new song with Tiron, this is just a snippet so its like fuel to the fire. This song is definitely kuul music.
Console Wars: Who Won '08?
No software? No problem.
Despite early predictions that 2008 would be the year Sony regained momentum in the bitter video game console wars, it turned out to be false hope. Industry leader Nintendo stayed ahead of the pack all year, thoroughly dominating both the home console and handheld hardware markets with their Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS systems, respectively.
According to NPD Group, Nintendo flat-out owned the all-important month of November by selling over 2 million Wiis, better than twice as much as the next closest competitor, Microsoft's Xbox 360 (836,000). And at over 1.5 million DS systems sold, Nintendo tripled the output of Sony's PSP (421,000). While those numbers weren't nearly that high through most of 2008, the general order -- Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony -- held strong throughout.
But this was hardly a banner year for Nintendo in terms of software. The biggest games -- Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii and of course Wii Fit -- came relatively early in the year, and their biggest holiday release, Wii Music, has been labeled something of a dud. Miffed that the company was focusing too heavily on catering to its relatively new mass-market audience, the usually loyal Nintendo fans complained about a lack of core games. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Sony enjoyed a wealth of blockbuster games all year long, including top-sellers Grand Theft Auto IV and Fallout 3. So how did Nintendo compete, much less lead the way?
By finding a new niche, of course. While gamers lament the deluge of cheaply made games (dubbed "shovelware") aimed at capitalizing on the Wii's mainstream popularity, many of those titles speak to their broad audience and support the company's new directive. Nintendo knows on which side its bread is currently being buttered, and while Microsoft and Sony battle for the hearts and minds of the core gamers, Nintendo is content getting their moms to play, too. And their moms often have a lot more money.
Microsoft, on the other hand, found itself in second place by keeping its eyes on the prize: core gamers willing to shell out for great downloadable content. The recently released "New Xbox Experience" system update has nearly tripled sales over Xbox Live Arcade, while huge releases like Gears of War 2 and Fable II cemented their status as the go-to console for most gamers.
As the newest kid on the block, Microsoft is less concerned with catching Nintendo than they are with kicking Sony's butt, which is pretty much exactly what they're doing. Take, for instance, the November NPD numbers for Activision's best-selling first-person shooter, Call of Duty: World at War. The 360 version of the game sold an impressive 1.4 million copies -- over twice that of the PS3 version (597,000). It's hard to play catch up when you're getting beaten that badly.
As for Sony, well, they just can't catch a break. The company scored a major coup when Blu-ray officially trounced HD-DVD in the hi-def format war, but few believe the technology will catch on with consumers. Strong sales of big-time exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4 were promising, but the troubled launch of their 'Home' network coupled with relatively weak holiday sales (only Resistance 2 cracked the Top 10 list in November, all the way back at number 9) cramped their style. The once-promising PSP is getting whomped by both the DS and Apple's surging iPhone. Did a witch cast a spell on these guys or what?
Hopefully next year will bode better for the one-time king of the consoles, but for now, they'll have to get used to the view from the back of the pack.
Despite early predictions that 2008 would be the year Sony regained momentum in the bitter video game console wars, it turned out to be false hope. Industry leader Nintendo stayed ahead of the pack all year, thoroughly dominating both the home console and handheld hardware markets with their Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS systems, respectively.
According to NPD Group, Nintendo flat-out owned the all-important month of November by selling over 2 million Wiis, better than twice as much as the next closest competitor, Microsoft's Xbox 360 (836,000). And at over 1.5 million DS systems sold, Nintendo tripled the output of Sony's PSP (421,000). While those numbers weren't nearly that high through most of 2008, the general order -- Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony -- held strong throughout.
But this was hardly a banner year for Nintendo in terms of software. The biggest games -- Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii and of course Wii Fit -- came relatively early in the year, and their biggest holiday release, Wii Music, has been labeled something of a dud. Miffed that the company was focusing too heavily on catering to its relatively new mass-market audience, the usually loyal Nintendo fans complained about a lack of core games. Meanwhile, Microsoft and Sony enjoyed a wealth of blockbuster games all year long, including top-sellers Grand Theft Auto IV and Fallout 3. So how did Nintendo compete, much less lead the way?
By finding a new niche, of course. While gamers lament the deluge of cheaply made games (dubbed "shovelware") aimed at capitalizing on the Wii's mainstream popularity, many of those titles speak to their broad audience and support the company's new directive. Nintendo knows on which side its bread is currently being buttered, and while Microsoft and Sony battle for the hearts and minds of the core gamers, Nintendo is content getting their moms to play, too. And their moms often have a lot more money.
Microsoft, on the other hand, found itself in second place by keeping its eyes on the prize: core gamers willing to shell out for great downloadable content. The recently released "New Xbox Experience" system update has nearly tripled sales over Xbox Live Arcade, while huge releases like Gears of War 2 and Fable II cemented their status as the go-to console for most gamers.
As the newest kid on the block, Microsoft is less concerned with catching Nintendo than they are with kicking Sony's butt, which is pretty much exactly what they're doing. Take, for instance, the November NPD numbers for Activision's best-selling first-person shooter, Call of Duty: World at War. The 360 version of the game sold an impressive 1.4 million copies -- over twice that of the PS3 version (597,000). It's hard to play catch up when you're getting beaten that badly.
As for Sony, well, they just can't catch a break. The company scored a major coup when Blu-ray officially trounced HD-DVD in the hi-def format war, but few believe the technology will catch on with consumers. Strong sales of big-time exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4 were promising, but the troubled launch of their 'Home' network coupled with relatively weak holiday sales (only Resistance 2 cracked the Top 10 list in November, all the way back at number 9) cramped their style. The once-promising PSP is getting whomped by both the DS and Apple's surging iPhone. Did a witch cast a spell on these guys or what?
Hopefully next year will bode better for the one-time king of the consoles, but for now, they'll have to get used to the view from the back of the pack.
"Tainted Love" Commerical
This Levi commerical was released in the days of my youth and I still remember it because I had my Levi 501's and I rocked them tough. The commerical was done by Spike Jonze, he's done numerous commerical ads for Levi, Gap, Adidas etc etc. Check check it.
The Smashing Pumpkins "Tonight Tonight"
To think its enchanting music video almost never came to be. Directed by the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (who went on to helm Little Miss Sunshine), the original concept was a Busby Berkeley-esque musical, characterized by blankly smiling women in bathing caps performing elaborate swimming patterns and acrobatics. But when the Red Hot Chili Peppers released a nearly identical video for “Aeroplane”, Dayton and Faris had to revisit the drawing board. After abandoning a third concept involving audience P.O.V., they decided to pay homage to another classic filmmaker, French visionary Georges Melies, and his milestone silent sci-fi film, 1902’s A Trip To The Moon.
Although watching the revolutionary film nowadays is a cinematic treat, one can’t help but wish the details were more vivid. Filmmaking was still in its primitive stages, and its surreal nature is often bogged down by the cloudy cinematography. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a masterpiece, but the video for “Tonight, Tonight” brought it to a more fully realized form, bringing all the black and white dreariness into technicolor tints mixed with sepia. Most of the actors remain aesthetically drab while the environment around them glows with fluorescent beauty and a colored cardboard, children’s theatre aesthetic, making for a piece of art that looks fittingly archaic but wonderfully hallucinatory at the same time. It manages to capture the album artwork of Mellon Collie, something that was an inspiration for the directors as it “looked like a silent movie.”
The video follows the same basic skeleton of a storyline. However there are slight artistic changes: the astronomers are replaced with two young lovers (played by SpongeBob Squarepants voice actors Tom Kenny and Jill Talley), the rocketship is substituted with a steampunk blimp, and the humanoid stars are traded in for the Pumpkins themselves, decked out in Victorian evening wear and classical instruments. But the point of the video isn’t accuracy. It isn’t a remake. It simply uses the images and concept of the original film as a springboard for the Pumpkins’ more romantic form of storytelling. During each of the song’s sunbursting string crescendoes, we see the young couple persevere in some shape or form, the most emotional one being when they break free of the ropes that the aliens have used to ensnare them. The fight that ensues isn’t a triumph of scientific achievement as in the original film, but a triumph of our heroes’ relationship.
As in the original film, they escape to the ocean, only here, they meet a merman who wards off a predatory fish. The merman enlists the help of his mermaid friends and a large octopus to put on an underwater show for the young couple before sending them to the surface in a gigantic bubble. What began as one of the world’s finest science fiction films ends as one of the world’s best date movies.
Here goes the original Georges Melies - A trip to the moon (1902) remember Humans this movie was made in 1902 the slient era for film, so there is no dialect.
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