Morning Discussion

It has been posted before, but in this case that's exactly the point. It needs to be reposted for bewildering goodness.

Ultimate Muscle Roller Legend!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHygoVCV-rY (somewhat nws)

The new WIRED magazine came in over the weekend and while it's not online yet (WIRED puts all the articles on their site for free), they did have a pretty good article which summarized the development process for The Beatles: Rock Band. Some highlights:

- MTV bought Harmonix in an attempt to make the MTV brand relevant to music again since MTV's ratings as a reality television channel are in the shitter. This is probably not a new revelation at all but it's interesting to hear them admit that they've fucked up and in the process created Rock Band which is basically this generation's MTV.

- MTV wanted to have Beatles songs in the original Rock Band, to give it an edge over Guitar Hero. Apple Corps (The Beatles' company) said they would only agree if a lot of songs over their entire career were used. They may have meant that as a big impossible blowoff. Instead it got the ball rolling on TB:RB.

- Many of the early Beatles recordings did not have separate tracks (they were done "live in studio") and so they had to use software (originally designed for forensics) to separate it out. Interestingly enough the person that helped them do this was George Harrison's son, who was the first person they contacted on the project

- Not too long before the October 2008 announcement, Activision made a last minute huge offer to counter the deal away from MTV/Harmonix. Nothing further is mentioned in the article on this but it's interesting to hear how close we came to Guitar Hero: The Beatles. Also they didn't start coding the game in ernest (outside of some tech demos for the parties involved) until after the announcement, so the game has less than a year of development in it (of course the Rock Band engine is pretty solid at this point so that's not really a huge deal)

- Three months before the 2009 E3 unveiling (the one with Paul & Ringo) Yoko Ono showed up and wanted to change up a whole bunch of shit. And since she owns a ton of the rights in this area - pretty much anything related to John Lennon - they had to accomodate most of her wishes. Had she done this three months prior it might have not been such a big deal. Apparently the coordination of all the parties involved was nothing short of an engineering feat - there's half a dozen companies to work with, including the music holding companies formed by the individual Beatles, the Sony/ATV holding company (the one Michael Jackson had a controlling interest in), and Apple Corps themselves for the likeness of the Beatles. To say nothing of the fact that the Beatles have historically had wildly diverging opinions on how they want to be portrayed in the media.

- Microsoft and Apple have made huge offers to The Beatles to have their catalogs on their services. And have been rebuffed so far. But here they are in a video game now. and it still took less time than DNF

Anyways it's an excellent article and I'll post a link to it once it goes online

In only 12.5 days I will be watching LSU give UW a lubeless fisting! I'm pretty sure what I'm feeling right now is my prostate pumping! I wish I could just be put into a chemical coma and wake up and it would be Spet 5th!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH9IWFvCI00&NR=1 youtube commercials now? great

EvE Online How is it going and what is everyone up to? I am 100% fully addicted to FW and PvP. I did a marathon this weekend and had a blast whoring up the KB's =)

The Lost and the Damned is supposedly 1200 points as the "Deal of the week":

http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/games/offers/0ccf0001-0000-4000-8000-0000545407f2?cid=MajorNelson&partner=MajorNelson

Still shows up as 1600, but it might be a US only deal.

Does anything pleasant ever happen in Breaking Bad because I feel like slashing my wrists and I'm only on episode 3

http://bash.org/?900148 fuuny

Are we doing a survival or pick'em league this year? Did I already miss the boat on those? What about shack fantasy leagues?

Started playing Dark Sector finally and I'm digging it, but did anyone else have a problem where the character seemed to walk forward on his own? Maybe it's a sign that my analog sticks are going out. Wish you could adjust sensitivity for movement and not just aiming. :(

roushimsx posted over the weekend, but I think it's worth a repost. Hideo Kojima's game Policenauts had an english translation released yesterday. I'm about 30 minutes into it so far and can tell it's going to be really great.

You can get it from http://policenauts.net/english/

Batman HECK YES!!!!!. Also i surprisingly enjoyed that section 8 demo.

XNA Dream Build Play

Was going over some of the videos for the DPB competition this year, and ... ... wow...
HOLLANDIA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxnRUXPxAjw
Band of Bears: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed5D0g4BFmE

and my personal favorite, I'm buyin this the moment it comes out..
Dust: An Elysian Tail: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR7vE6l1MN0

Full list of entries - http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/31341.aspx
Youtube collection page - http://www.youtube.com/group/dbp09

I've been sitting here waiting for the page to load until I realized, oh wait, it's new.