• Real Time With Bill Mahrer. It’s awesome that his first night back is tomorrow night, the night after the DNC ends.
• Mercenaries 2 (it came out a couple of days ago, but I haven’t got it yet)
• Entourage
• Heroes
• Viva Pinata 2. I was ranked around #35 globally in the first one, though I don’t think I’m going to have the time to compete with all the 12 year old girls. Nevertheless, I’m going to fill my garden with Sparrowmints, Chewnicorns and Dragonaches (or their Viva Pinata 2 equivalents) running/flying around being generally adorable. Then I’ll head outside and work on my actual garden which, while not quite as colorful, is still fairly charming.
• Spore
• True Blood (though I’m hesitant about this one. HBO’s record lately has not been great with new shows. I still want the three hours back that I spent watching three hours of “John from Cincinnati”)
• Californication. I almost feel guilty for liking this show so much as it’s fairly gratuitous, but it’s fun.
• The Office
• The Force Unleashed
• I WAS looking forward to the next Harry Potter movie (I recently watched them all for the first time) but of course that’s not happening for awhile now.
• Lego Batman
• Appaloosa. Ed Harris, Aragorn, and Jeremy Irons, in a Western! They’re all great to watch.
• The rest of the season of Mad Men and Weeds.

Congrats, Ben and Jillian!

Some of the pictures below!

By nature, I’m not really a “joiner.” I dislike political parties, and have major reservations about our political systems in general, but I’ll tell you what: It’s time to take the White House back from the incompetent, corrupt lunatics that have been such a disaster for the last 8 years. Bush is a traitor to most of the ideals that America was founded upon (if never acted close to perfectly upon), and McCain appears to back most of what he’s done. All signs point to a McCain administration looking a lot like a Bush adminstration: Driven by misplaced idealism rather than pragmatism, incompetent in practice, and terrible for both America and the world at large.

Go Barack Obama!

But what’s this? The Hamburgler got the jump on everyone and stuffed Star Wars into the month-old McDonalds virtual world, with, of course, a tie-in to Happy Meals (get a character and a code in a Happy Meal and unlock it inside the virtual world).

There’s lots to be said (and no doubt others will say it) about the way in which brands are best-used in virtual worlds. Is it better to start your own or infiltrate other worlds? Probably depends on the size of your brand. With a brand the size of Star Wars, and with its reasonably wide-appeal (as compared with something more narrowly focused in terms of demographics like Bratz or Barbie), why not run multiple MMOs and stick your lightsaber into other people’s virtual worlds (provided those virtual worlds aren’t tarnishing your brand with flying penises and simulated paedophilia, of course)?
It does sadden me a little to think that children out there is being assaulted by the happy yellow brainwashing that Ronald dishes out, particularly with childhood obesity and diabetes on the rise. Fast food sucks.

I’ll join in the game, as well. One of my favorite books ever is “The Story of Philosophy” by Will Durant. It’s a fantastic property for an MMO. Play as a disciple of one of the great philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Bacon (no, not Kevin), Spinoza, Voltaire, Kant, Schopenhauer, Spencer, and Nietzsche. The spells and abilities practically write themselves! Just imagine….

Meditate in the Cave of Plato and Pierce the Veil!

Join the order of Aristotle and unleash your Boredom skill tree, incapacitating your enemies with mind-numbing treatises on pretty much any subject known to man!

Become a follower of Kant and warp reality with your Epistemological Blast!

Join forces with Nietzsche to unleash your inner Ubermensch!

Follow the footsteps of Voltaire with your Flame of Heresy and fight for the Light of Thought against the evil Church!

Succumb to the pessimism of Schopenhauer and discover the power of the Will Unparalleled!

There’d be no leveling, of course, as none of the philosophical orders could agree on either what to measure, whether it’s possible to measure it, or indeed whether whatever one proposes measuring even exists. There wouldn’t be much loot, but there’d be some awesome PvP, enacted largely via deploying pamphlets accusing the other philosophical orders/guilds of being vacuous and sophomoric. The best part is that since each operates within its own frame of reference, this is a PvP game where everyone can win, since each order’s definition of win differs!
There’d also be raids, of course, and some would be extremely difficult to complete. For instance, I’d imagine that the Caves of the Critique of Pure Reason (200 man raid) would require a whole lot of attunement quests ahead of time, lest the psyches of unprepared adventurers be shattered by the horrors found within, foremost the Shade of Kant, who has been known to one-shot unlucky adventurers with his Sustained Beam of Universal Law or the terrible AoE spell, A Priori Reasoning.

Heady stuff. If any dev teams are interested in taking this idea further, let me know. I’d say that this game is probably perfect for a tween or teen audience, so I’d probably nominate Jagex (Runescape devs) for it, though I’d be happy to talk a call from Blizzard too. Ring me up, Rob Pardo, when you’re tired of working on Deathknights and Lich Kings.

In brief: It’s an add-on to the Wiimote that will allow for nearly 1:1 motion. Sword/lightsaber fighting ahoy! Despite my general lack of excitement over the Wii, this announcement has definitely perked me up regarding the little white box.

I don’t actually like the Wii from the perspective of myself as a games player, but that’s not because I’m too mainstream for it or whatnot. I’m more of a 360/PS3/PC gaming guy because I’m into hardcore niches (Rock Band and my most-unmanly love of Viva Pinata aside). Takes some odd logic to portray the console that’s outsold the PS3 by a margin of about 2.3:1 as the niche option of the two.

It’ll be interesting to see if this boosts Runescape’s user numbers or not over the next few months.

Click here to see a shot of the new Runescape look.