idiosyncrasy Today

Scathing social commentary meets the gamer generation.

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Toyota PT meetings.... with Strippers!

Toyota Motor Co.'s Philippines branch has recently had a case of too much nookie during one of their "Personal Touch" meetings.

During this off-site meeting, nine local managers ordered a stripper. People found out and then the nine accused were "punished". I'm not sure what exactly this means, but hopefully it was more stringent then just giving the stripper a cat o' nine tails.

The Personal Touch meetings were started in the late 60's and have spread globally. Their basic premise is to have managers learn how to better interact and communicate with the staff beneath them. Japan still has these, but are called fureai katsudo (mixing activities). A name with slightly less immediately raunchy undertones.

All in all Toyota Japan hasn't divulged too much information about the event, as it's apparently not a big deal. They see it as a local problem and leave the actions to be taken up to their subsidiary branch.

According to one Philippines Toyota employee, "Strip shows are part and parcel of wining and dining during personal touch meetings. Workers have a lottery to see who gets to sleep with the stripper and some employees have actually done the deed. Do Japanese employees attend? We may sometimes invite them as guests."

Does anyone else feel like we've been cheated? Meetings on this side of the pond tend to veer away from obligatory sex and fun and rest more closely to prudeness and pain.

\\drew

Wii with DVD player a Japan-only feature

Back in the day, the original spec for the Nintendo Wii (at that time is was still the revolution) stated that the new system would come jammed packed with all sorts of features, one of which being a DVD player. This DVD playback feature ended up getting cut thanks to readily available cheap standalone DVD players.

Well now Nintendo has released information stating that next year they will be shipping an updated version of the Wii in Japan that will in fact have DVD playback functionality.

Nintendo has also said there are currently no plans to release this updated Wii in the States or Europe.

\\drew

Monday, October 30, 2006

Flasher's defense of "It was a hot dog" does not hold up in court

Convicted flasher Eric de Jersey was sentenced to two months in jail after exposing himself to two young girls (ages 13 and 15) in his apartment complex.

De Jersey claimed that he was not in fact exposing himself, but was instead waggling a Jumbo sized Hot Dog. He sure thinks highly of himself doesn't he?

Well the judge apparently saw through this fiendishly clever ploy and gave him jail time for lacking creativity in corrupting minors. Had he exposed himself while wearing a banana suit and claimed in court that he just wanted a cherry for his sundae he would have been let off with a verbal warning, a warm handshake and a light hearted chuckle from the judge.

Come on you sick bastards, be witty. Judges like witty.

\\drew

Friday, October 27, 2006

Sony up a creek without a paddle... oo puns!

Sony's chief financial officer, Nobuyuki Oneda, has warned that the games sector "is weak" and presents "a major challenge" after the company posted a drop in profit of more than 90 per cent.

Alright all you naysayers who didn't believe me when I said Sony is currently up the proverbial creek... take it, take it hard.

According to Oneda, the company saw a drop in profits from YEN 28.5 billion (239 million USD) to YEN 1.7 billion (14 million USD).

The big culprits to the lose in money? 9.8 million laptop battery recalls, and PS3 manufacturing costs.

*crosses fingers for Sony*

\\drew

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Super Mario Brothers in 3D

So I was bouncing around the web today when I found this over at Destructoid and then promptly lost 10 minutes of productivity.

I'm not sure who made this, but it's Mario from the NES, still rocking out on his spline, but in a cubical 3d world. It's pretty neat.

Controls are right, left, and up arrow keys for movement and jumping. w, a, s, d covers camera orientation to give whatever engrossing Mario feel you want.

Download this old school trip here.

More Images Here

\\drew

Nintendo DS, Map utility?

Apparently there is non-official software currently in Japan for the DS that shows the Tokyo Subway system, with an easy drag-to-scroll feature. It's not that complex from an engineering standpoint, but a great idea nonetheless.

Check out the video

Pretty slick if you ask me. I'd love to be able to buy atlases for my portable system. Seems much more reasonable than carrying around a stack of paper.

Heck, MapQuest on the DS would be awesome. It could update it's maps and whatnot via the WiFi connection.

\\drew

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Thompson on Kotaku

I don't even know how to comment on this, it's just so hilarious.

Jack to Crecente

This guy is awesome, he should have stock in the companies he attempts to slap with God and public decency because every time he opens his mouth their stock goes up by a point.

\\drew

Tesco Pole Dancing Kit... not for children?

Tesco has been forced to remove a pole-dancing kit from the toys and games section of its website after it was accused of "destroying children's innocence".

The Tesco Direct site advertises the kit with the words, "Unleash the sex kitten inside...simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go!

"Soon you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars".

Some soccer mom found this toy while searching for christmas presents for her two young girls and of course fell into a furor over the audacity of the internet retailer. I'm guessing this woman goes to church, call me crazy.

Me? I find this hilarious. First off, I checked the site, and it specified for ADULTS ONLY. Secondly, the internet is full of hardcore pornography. If this is what your two little girls google for in their free time your lucky. Third, this mom most likely bounded away from this item and bought her daughters matching Britany Spears dance outfits and her latest album called "I'm a dirty dirty whore and your kids can be too". Lastly, pole-dancing is a respected way for youths to work their way through med-school... or atleast that's what every stripper I've ever talked to has told me they were doing.

You know, maybe they were lying to me, I mean, if they weren't there should be a substantially higher majority of sexy doctors.

\\drew

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

WoW Burning Crusade Delayed

Following rumors on the internets, Blizzard today officially confirmed that the World of Warcraft expansion pack The Burning Crusade has been delayed. It is now scheduled for a January release. Closed-beta testing of the expansion began earlier this month.

"We appreciate the enthusiasm surrounding World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, and we're excited about putting the finishing touches on all of the new content," said Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "We feel confident that the extra time spent polishing the game will result in the high-quality experience that our players expect and deserve."


Big bucks no whammy! stop! aww... whammy! Well, I suppose it doesn't matter, Blizzard still has almost 7 million users world wide for WoW, expansion or not.

Sure, I wanted to start my Draenei, but it happens.

Full Article Here

\\drew

Monday, October 23, 2006

Patrick Macias and his take on Maids in Japan

As I have reported before, the idea of Maids in Japan is a booming industry and latched onto by Otaku and others alike. This video (courtesy of Kotaku.com) gives a nice incite into the world of Maids in Japan.




\\drew

Thompson being struck at by Take-Two

In a fairly commical role reversal, lawyers representing Take-Two Interactive are currently seeking to have Jack Thompson, outspoken Florida attourney, anti-video game advocate, and all around supremely misguided douchebag, declared in contempt of court.

If Thompson is found in contempt penalties could include jail time, fines, judicial admonishment, censure, and random people all over the world saying "na na na boo boo stick your head in doo doo".

Full Article Here

\\drew

Never get into a fight with a Mexican over road work

FOUR people died and three were injured after an argument, over who should repair a pothole in a rural road in Mexico, erupted in to gunfire.

These are the kinds of stories that remind me to not leave the country, I mean sure, we have crazy people here, but I'm not afraid of being gunned down in the street over an argument about who was first in the hot dog line.

Full Article Here

\\drew

Wii homemade commercial

This is a pretty slick hand drawn commercial some guy made for the Wii. Let's put it this way, it's better than every official Wii commercial I've seen thus far.

http://wii.hansv.com/

\\drew

Friday, October 20, 2006

PS3 controllers set up to be replaced by Sony

In a day and age of wireless this and wireless that we run into the brick wall of battery life, moreso now given that even our video game consoles are coming standardly with wireless models.

Sony has taken some flack for their current design, one which does not allow for the battery in the controller to be readilly changed. Some critics cited that this may be an attempt by Sony to deliberately cause the repurchase of new controllers once the batteries in the old ones kick the proverbial bucket.

"This is a purely speculative story and is largely untrue. The latest generation of Lithium Polymer batteries hardly suffer any memory effect at all, so it'll be many years before there's any degradation in terms of battery performance," a Sony spokesperson told GI.biz.

And in turn Sony has also said they will be providing a service to exchange the dead controllers with new ones in the event that the batteries do go south.

My view on this? Well of course they'd be willing to recall them and then replace them, they are already going to have the infrastructure set up to do so seeing as how they are currently recalling 9.6 million laptop batteries. See? Practice makes perfect.

\\drew

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Sony cuts profit forcasts

The electronics giant Sony is cutting their forcasted profits this year due to lack luster PSP sales, a global recall of notebook batteries, and of course their dropped price of the PS3 in Japan.

The cut is around 38 percent of what they had originally aimed at.

I can see the selling of stock now.

"With regard to PS3, although we expect to record a loss for the business during its initial launch phase within the current fiscal year, we look forward to the successful worldwide deployment and expansion of the platform," said the manufacturer.

*shivver* I'll believe it when I see it. Always the optimist huh Sony?

\\drew

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

PS3 mad dash has begun

With the PS3 scheduled to be released November 17th, and the pre-orders already sold out, the throngs of rich misguided (see: bastards) members of societies try to jump on the chance to guarantee themselves the new hotness (see: keeping up with the Jones') this winter.

What does this mean to you and me? Basically, we can sell our PS3 reserves on Ebay for around $1200. Yes that's right, these sick individuals are selling their reserved systems already. I kind of want to be sick. The XBOX 360 had a similar ebay frolick after release, but it was more contained (ie: only a few systems sold for prices above 1k)

Enjoy your $1200 system, I'll be playing my Wii and rocking to Zelda (in between bouts of Guitar Hero 2)

Bunny Fight Club

Bunnies... Fight Club... 30 seconds of your life... put them together and what do you have? Bunnies reenacting Fight Club in under 30 seconds.

Video Here

\\drew

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Online communities getting slapped by the IRS?

LONDON (Reuters) - Users of online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft transact millions of dollars worth of virtual goods and services every day, and these virtual economies are beginning to draw the attention of real-world authorities.

"Right now we're at the preliminary stages of looking at the issue and what kind of public policy questions virtual economies raise -- taxes, barter exchanges, property and wealth," said Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.

"You could argue that to a certain degree the law has fallen (behind) because you can have a virtual asset and virtual capital gains, but there's no mechanism by which you're taxed on this stuff," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

My god... next thing you know when I go to buy that shiny new level 50 sword on the AH I'm going to have to give the government $2 in taxes for "acquiring virtual property".

Now, I can understand taxing Second Life as it's whole shtick is real world money as in game currency and vice versa, but games like World of Warcraft? I'm sorry, I just don't see how being taxed to buy a chainmail breastplate that I'm going to wear for 4 levels in an imaginary world should be a viable capability of the United States Government.

Want to make an MMO crash and burn? Let the government tax its transactions. I like WoW, but not that much.

Full Article Here

\\drew

Anti-Bush bumper sticker could get you a ticket

... in Georgia... by a conservative police offer... and then have it overturned by a court judge as unconstituational... and then sue to have the federal court claim that this particular bumper sticker is perfectly ok and constitutional.

Zing

I love it, well played Nurse, well played.

Full Article Here

\\drew

Monday, October 16, 2006

Bully, it's like unleashing Godzilla on Tokyo

Bully has been cleared for sale in Florida despite the inane ramblings of that Jack Thompson guy.

In response to the Florida Judge's decision Thompson sends a letter declaring

“What you conducted in your chambers, Judge, was the equivalent of Iran leading UN weapons inspectors around the country taking them to places where the illegal activity was not occurring.”

Yes, games like Bully are equivilent to weapons of mass destruction, terrorists, and godzilla.

\\drew

Friday, October 13, 2006

YouTube sells to Google - Google makes YouTube suck

For those that were unaware, corporate giant Google recently bought out the internet company YouTube for $1.65 billion *cough* holy hell.

In the wake of such a monumental changing of hands however people were afraid that YouTube would end up veering away from its current edgy internet grotto for all things video.

People were right... well, in a sense. Google is currently developing a new anti-piracy system for the site which has the possibility of seeing some of the main search topics be banned from YouTube all together now.

*cry* Well, I can't really be upset, especially with the previous owners and creators seeing as how I'd do a whole lot... and I mean a whole lot, for 1.65 billion dollars. All these guys had to do was sign a piece of paper and stop coming to work.

Full article here

\\drew

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Gamestop to take Wii reserves

According to the Gamestop website they will be taking orders (online atleast) for the new Wii system. Not yet, but apparently "SOON!"

Word on the street however seems to be that the stores will be taking in-store reserves as well as early as tomorrow. So give your local Gamestop a call and see if they are actually looking to guarantee systems to people. If there are do it up... and let me know.

UPDATE: So I just received confirmation of this, they will begin taking reserves in store tomorrow.


\\drew

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Don't walk around your government building naked

In Hamilton Ohio security cameras caught city prosecutor Scott Blauvelt wandering around the office after hours butt naked.

Blauvelt was charged with two counts of public indecency and Mayor Don Ryan will be discussing Blauvelt's "employment status" on Tuesday with the city law director.

Thumbs up Blauvelt! Way to throw your job away. Was being naked at work really worth it? Especially seeing as how you have to know they have security cameras.

I suppose I can't judge too much as I enjoy walking around naked as much as the next guy, but at work? In a government building? That's a good way to get cigared by Bill Clinton, and we all know you don't want that.

Full Article after the jump

\\drew

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Don't bury elephants without informing the appropriate parties

In Ranchi India a town in currently under siege by a marauding band of elephants searching for their now deceased mate.

Apparently the mate, a 17 year old female elephant wandered into an irigation ditch and drowned, leaving the townsfolk with the task of burying it. Well the other elephants are not fans of such methods and are striking at the village with ill intent, albeit whether it's out of revenge or just a general search is questionable.

“We have now formed a team of thirty people armed with crackers to try and chase away the elephants as they are out to avenge the death of their mate,” U.R. Biswas, Jharkhand’s leading forests official, said in Ranchi.

I'm not sure what crackers are, but I'm assuming they aren't talking about $2 saltines bought at the local 7-11, though the mental image of 30 people frantically waving dried wheat and slightly salted crisp wafers at multiple ton pachyderms is nothing if not amusing.

Full MSNBC article here

\\drew

Monday, October 09, 2006

...

sick.... i'll try to get an article up later...

Friday, October 06, 2006

Idolm@aster XBOX 360!

January 25 2007 Namco's Idolm@ster will be hitting Japanese shelves for the xbox360. Don't be turned off by the name, this game is a hardcore..... girl band sim... ahem... yes, so the game is based on the player controlling would-be J-Pop singers, bringing them to singer boot camp to learn to sing, dance and pose with the best, like Koda Kumi.

The game has a collector's edition, complete with art book and pvc model diorama complete with 11 figures so that you can have your girls sing both on screen and off. Christ that's scary. I can just picture the lonely male otaku naming all of his dolls, creating elaborate histories for them, and punishing the dolls when their on screen counterparts mess up.

I'd like to pretend I don't have any ideas what "punishment" could be, it's less scary that way.

\\drew

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Youtube walking on eggshells

Youtube has now taken a stance against any anti-Muslim radical videos. I guess people were complaining, causing both of these videos to be removed as a violation of the terms of use.

This is however the complete opposite stance they seem to have taken versus anti-American war footage. Youtube is littered currently with footage of purported US soldiers being killed in numerous ways.

The wildly popular video-sharing Web site YouTube.com has dozens of videos purporting to show individual American soldiers being killed in Iraq, in what amounts to snuff films, overlaid with music and insurgent slogans.

Some of the videos, including ones of American soldiers purportedly being picked off by snipers or being blown up by improvised explosive devices, have been viewed tens of thousands of times each in the past few months. Some are posted in YouTube's "news and blogs" category, but others are listed under "entertainment" and even "comedy." -starbulletin.com

This reminds me of racism and how it is viewed around the world. It is perfectly ok for African Americans to have events and organizations like the Black Movie Awards , the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and heck, even the National Brotherhood of Skiers. These events, especially the NAACP are important and serve a purpose to help people in need, but if a group of Caucasians decided to have the White Movie Awards there would be riots and picket lines.

I feel like the same applies to this situation on Youtube. It's now a national taboo to have any media that belittles Muslim radicals, while it's still perfectly ok for all people of minority to belittle Caucasians. Personally I don't believe that any of this should occur. We are all humans, judge people based on their actions, not on their race, gender or creed. Unfortunately that's not the way of the world, and this form of reverse racism is only serving to bring us down.

Double standards won't help anything, we should treat all equally, and here's an idea Youtube, remove the videos of American soldiers dying.

I'm personally going to go and flag all as against the TOU, you should too.

Thanks to Nobody's Business for the story

\\drew

Cuban centenarians attribute longevity to depravity

Cuba's high number of centenarians say their longevity is down to laying off alcohol, but indulging in coffee, cigars, and sex.
None was alcoholic, and they said they loved coffee and cigars, which they consumed in large quantity.
They had a healthy interest in a number of areas, including sex, said Dr Nancy Nepomuceno, who carried out the study.


See, now these guys have it right, if we fill our bodies full of caffeine and smoke we become immortal. No disease or other physically debilitating ailment can harm us seeing as how the aforementioned 2 ingredients are still inside fighting for dominance, lesser things like cancer and cholesterol are kicked to the proverbial curb.

Not to mention the sex! Good lord, engaging in rampant permiscuous sex is a great way to keep the body clean despite what researchers say. Constantly making the body produce more fluids keeps the insides from going stagnant, trust me. Look at this guy, he'll live forever.

\\drew

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Ms. Magazine incites abortion debate

Ms. Magazine, a feminist publication with staunch beliefs has decided to release a fall issue commemorating the abortions of over 5000 women, roughly 1000 of which will have their names published in the magazine. The magazine is showing that while the choice was difficult for these women, they made the choice, and had the right to.

Even before the issue reaches newsstands Oct. 10, anti-abortion activists have been decrying it. Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, wrote in a commentary that when she saw a Ms. announcement of the project, "the evil practically jumped right off the page."

Ms. executive editor Katherine Spillar said more than 5,000 women have signed the petition so far -- heeding its appeal to declare they are unashamed of the choice they made. The magazine itself had room for only 1,016 names, she said Tuesday, but all of them will be viewable online as Ms. encourages other women to continue adding their signatures.

Ms. says it will send the petition to Congress, the White House and state legislators.

Personally I think this is a good thing, women know the decision to have this done isn't easy, and will resonate with them for years to come, but again, they should have the right to do so. My one apprehension here is that all of these women have stamped their names in ink. Hopefully those crazy, inane pro-lifers don't get the idea to start mail bombing the names here, it's like they effectively have the address of a whole bunch of abortion centers.

What a woman does with her own body is her own damned business.

\\drew

A look at where our Street Fighter heroes are now

Good times, thanks College Humor.

Link here

\\drew

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Greece, not afraid to throw unwanted immigrants into the ocean

Greeks, apparently unafraid of Turkish repercussions, are currently denying that they have been tossing Turkish illegal immigrants found in their waters back over the edge once closer to Turkey.

Recently a group of illegal immigrants of Turkish decent were picked up while boating to Europe by Greek Officials (my assumption is coast guard), brought to the Agean, and tossed back into the waters with no boats. The survivors were later picked up by the Turkish Coast Guard, and brought back to Turkey.

Greece is vehemently denying that they were involved in this. Of course.

The rescued Turks said that the Greeks didn't even ask if they could swim. (My guess, they didn't care)

Here's an idea, if you don't want to get tossed into the ocean stop trying to illegally ship yourselves to other countries. I understand that this is a very inhumane thing to do on the Greek's side, but come on, I'd imagine at some point the coast guard would want to drive the point home of "knock this off, we don't want you up in our junk". Tossing roughly 31 Turks into the Aegean seems like a very poignant message to the rest of them. They will kill you, don't piss them off.

While I find this mildly amusing it is fairly horrible, it'd be like us car bombing trucks we though were carrying illegal immigrants from South America. We probably shouldn't do it though it would be a wake up call.

Personally I don't understand where the line is drawn on who is and who isn't deemed "valuable" enough to be allowed into a new country. I somehow remember this crazy motto:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Well we can most likely make an abridged form of this calling for only other countries' elite, rich, and those with valuable trade skills.

Full article here

\\drew

Proof that our government is failing us

Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, last Monday delivered an unusually candid assessment of the Senate's notoriously light work schedule.

In a National Press Club luncheon speech, Specter noted it was "very hard to convene a Monday morning hearing" because of extended weekends. He continued: "We've fallen into a routine . . . of starting our workweek Tuesday at 2:15 after we finish our caucus luncheons, and people start to get edgy and heading for the airports early on Thursday. So we might increase the workweek by 50 percent, say, to three days."

Realizing it was highly unusual for a senior senator to talk so frankly of the chamber's work habits, Specter quickly added with a smile: "By the way, that's off the record." The speech was broadcast live on C-SPAN.

The important part of this to remember is that these elected officials make more money than you. We elect them into positions of power as to better represent us, the working man, and in turn they apparently choose to no longer work. It must be rough to have to labor over luncheon tables for 2.5 days a week. They certainly understand the issues of the every-day man now. I wonder if the Congress works this hard... you know, how they decided not to raise the minimum wage since 1997 yet didn't fail to raise their own yearly salary.

Thanks to Volokh Conspiracy for the quote.

\\drew

I just don't understand how they get away with this

You know we constantly read about stories concerning censorship and strick guidelines being forced upon television and the gaming industry, and this seems like the two industries as a whole are getting beaten into submission. But then something like this shines through, and quite frankly it makes me drop my jaw.



How in God's green Earth did those crazy bastards at South Park get away with dropping arguably the most lewd of all the 4 letter words multiple times on cable? Don't get me wrong, I think it's hilarious and absolutely fantastic... but damn.

Remember when NYPD Blue aired an episode with the unsensored word "shit" in the episode? oo, ah, fancy. South Park parodied them on that one, and then numerous years later they slapped that show in its proverbial wang by repeating a fairly viral depiction of female genitalia.

Thanks South Park, you keep reminding us that popularity can prevent persecution, well, unless you're Howard Stern of course.

\\drew

Monday, October 02, 2006

Armored Core 4 to drop at $70

With the coming of the new Sony system, the internet has been simply buzzing with price rumors and such concerning the games.

AC4 information has been released, the game will ship for the PS3 on december 14th (in Japan) and sell for the beef noodle hardy price of 8190 Yen ($70 USD). This in stark contrast to the already released price of the new Sonic the Hedgehog game which is selling for only $60. Does this mean that the PS3 game prices will be fluctuating? Is $60 the budget game price and $70 the standard? Last time I checked there are very few games I'd spend that kind of money on. Hell, for $70 I could buy a Gamecube... or my groceries for the week.

Hopefully the $70 tag will not make US shores as I'm afraid it will, especially seeing as how Microsoft seems to have capped their games at the $60 level for "next gen". Also I'd like to take this moment to mention the fact that Nintendo Wii games will most likely not be selling for even $60, they are looking to hold true to the current gen pricing scheme.

Also, before you run out and blow your hard earned food money on AC4 ask yourself when was the last time that one of the games in the series was different? Don't get me wrong, I own ever AC except for that crappy budget Last Raven one, but come on, $70 for a reiteration of the game I played on my PS1? Maybe the gameplay will be updated, hell, I'd like it update at all, maybe a new HUD, better (and more fluid) controls. Anything. Please. Let my mecha gene rejoice again.

\\drew