Conan Sabotages Rock Band

Here's a clip from Conan while he was sitting around the office during the writer's strike:

Yes, Racing is a Noisy Hobby Too

Today was the 92nd Running of the Indianapolis 500 and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Scott Dixon won the race after leading 115 out of 200 laps with the #9 Target Chip Ganassi Racing Car to become the first New Zealander to win the Indy 500. As I was watching Dixon take his helmet after pulling into Victory Circle, I noticed him pull out in-the-ear monitors and throw them on the ground. Obviously the camera's fixed on Dixon, but I noticed the the monitors had a couple of cords and someone in the crew immediately picked them up off the ground. I did some digging and found out on the IRL website that the monitors not only give the driver the crew radio, but also include the Delphi Earpiece Sensor System. This system has a series of 3 accelerometers that gather vertical, lateral and longitudinal G-forces on the driver's head on the moment of impact. The earpiece sends the data to the car's 'black box.' Some pretty nice earpieces: Attenuate (some: racing is LOUD) noise, communication headset, and head impact data all in one.
UPDATE 6/4/08: Found out the earmold/headphone provider for the IRL headsets is Sensaphonics. The headphones are e-Racer 500's.











Also, in the mood of racing I found these:

That's right, they're ear plugs that look like spark plugs. The company Just Plugs' mission is to develop, manufacture, and sell high quality ornamental hearing protection. Check out their MySpace page, as it shows pics of how they look in the ears. Talk about ornamental, they look like the bolts coming out of Frankenstein's monster! They apparently have a 30 dB noise reduction rating, but no frequency attenuation information is listed on the site.

Breaking News in the World of Plastic Instruments

Since music and rhythm games have exploded in America primarily due to the success of several releases of Guitar Hero, the game Rock Band upped the ante by adding guitars, drum pads, and a microphone together to make the ultimate party game. Now Activision has announced the newest release in the Guitar Hero franchise: Guitar Hero World Tour. Not only will World Tour include a more realistic drum pad, but also a microphone. Those who've played both Rock Band and Guitar Hero know that the Guitar Hero axes are definitely a better build. Players will also be able to create their own music as well as complete online in a battle of the bands. Not to be outdone, Konami (developer of Karaoke Revolution) has announced Rock Revolution, which is the same concept - more plastic guitars, drums, microphone. This is madness, I cannot even imagine how many compatibility issues there are going to be! Plus, if the demand is so huge for this type of game, why don't kids start playing real instruments? I'm a huge fan of Guitar Hero, don't get me wrong, but this is overkill.

Here's the premiere video of Guitar Hero World Tour:


All this madness of plastic instruments reminds me of the hilarious South Park episode Guitar Queer-O. Here's a clip:


Think that was funny?

Watch the whole episode of Guitar Queer-O

See any episode of South Park at SouthParkStudios.com

Indy Wins Bid for 2012 SuperBowl!!!!

After all the hard work the last 2 years to get the Super Bowl to the cold-weather city of Indianapolis, Jim Irsay has finally gotten the biggest game in football to the Circle City. League officials and team owners voted today in Atlanta, and picked Indy over Phoenix and Houston. Now the Colts have extra incentive to try to keep competitive the next few years! The concepts for the city look crazy - it's gonna shut down the whole downtown Indy, let's not hope it's hosting an AFC Champion New England Patriots.
Presentation video shown, featuring Dennis Hopper:


Press conference video

Legos. Why'd It Have to Be Legos!

So Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull comes out this week. I'm not the biggest archaelogy geek, but this film does have me excited. In the spirit of the release of the fourth installment of the franchise, here's a video of a bunch of guys who make a giant boulder out of Legos and try to reenact the memorable scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. They butcher trying the soundtrack, so I figured I'd add a little bit of help:

Although.....the boulder seems to move a bit like a Katamari, so maybe this music works better:

Versatility in Furniture

So this gamer from Australia came up w/ this awesome idea to combine a coffee table, a storage truck and a NES controller together into one cool piece of furniture. Now, the large NES controller is not a new concept, as G4 did this earlier and on a larger scale. His blog shows the whole process of the build.

More Star Wars to Satisfy Another Year's Worth of Geekdom

Mark your calendars for August 15, 'cause that's the day more Star Wars comes out in theaters. Some of you may say "More Star Wars? Didn't they finish that already? Didn't Anakin already become Darth Vader?" These are all true. A quite successful animated mini series called The Clone Wars was released on Cartoon Network between Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith. If you haven't seen it, and you're a Star Wars fan, you must watch it! I think the series is better than all 6 hours of the entire prequel trilogy (Episodes I - III). Anyways, on the heels of the success of that mini series and also the completion of the prequel trilogy, George Lucas has started developing Star Wars television series. One of them is a CG animated series on the more of the Clone Wars. The film releasing on August 15 is a compilation of the first 3 episodes of the show. The success of the 1st Clone Wars series, I believe, came from the fact that it was full of massive battles, was devoid of all the boring dialogue from the prequels, and Lucas did not have a n active hand in the story or the development. This new series is Lucas heavy in influence and I'm not sure if we're going to get the same magic we got before. I'm still excited about seeing more Star Wars in theaters though! Below is the theatrical trailer that released, as well as the original sneak peek of the series. Again, if you haven't seen the original Clone Wars series, give it a shot! I've got pics of what the DVD's look like under the trailers. If you Netflix, click the pics to add them to your queue.