I do this now as both a blog and a public service announcement. Yesterday after a long day of moving my stuff into a new apartment I sat down, relaxed and plugged in my brand spankin new iPod Touch into my computer so it would be charged for the next day. A notification pops up at the bottom corner of my screen. [Digital Still Camera] it says, “hmm, that’s odd” I think to myself and then BOOM Blue Screen of Death!!! I try restarting my computer then plug in the iPod again…same thing. “WTF I JUST BOUGHT THIS THING 2 DAYS AGO” so naturally, I was upset. After trying several times I gave up and went to bed.

This morning I did what everyone who has ever gone through a horrible, possibly life altering event has done…I Googled it. I soon found out that I was not the only person to face this problem on their non Mac computers. Message boards were filled with people complaining about their iPod related blue screens of death and very few knew how to fix it. Eventually I came across a possible solution. Apparently if you recently downloaded pictures via the app store that were stored on your touch but not stored on your computer this can cause the crash. A recommendation is made to delete these photos completely and this should solve it. Another problem could be an outdated version of iTunes or device drivers that need to be updated such as those relating to printers and Logitech cameras. Right now though, I am at work so I won’t be able to test these out just yet. I deleted my photos so hopefully that will work, but either way I plan on updating this post later with my (fingers crossed) solution. Please feel free to post any questions, similar experiences and solutions in the comments.

That’s all I got for today folks, cheers

-Rapidfire

[UPDATE]: Removing the pictures worked, I guess I can never download pictures from the app store again…

OH CANADA! That is right, THAT IS FUCKING RIGHT. When I logged on to my Xbox Live account and saw the Wal-mart advertisement for Batman Arkham Asylum for only $38.83 I thought it was too good to be true. It turns out I was wrong because from August 25th-27th, only in Canada as far as I’m aware, you can pick up a brand spankin new copy for that awesome price. After the 27th the price shoots back up to 70+. It seems someone decided to give us Canadians a break and priced the game cheaper. So, corporate competition being what it is every other retailer in Canada did the same thing and thus  Canada = Win, as always. All I have to say is LOLOLOLol to the rest of the world, but I have to get going because I need to track down one of these cheap copies as soon as possible! {Bolt’s out the door before remembering to save post, then runs back, saves it and leaves again}

-Rapidfire

[Update]: According to the worker at EB Games the price reduction was due to a pricing mistake at one of the big box stores, possibly Wal-Mart. They accidentally priced the game at $38.83 so everyone else had to price match in response. So I just saved myself $30, Lol

That right there my friends, is the formula for a truly great weekend. Well, that and a good night on the town with friends, women and booze. This weekend, as I previously mentioned, me and a few buddies (tjbroand Aaron) geared up for a night to remember. On Friday our first destination was Scotia bank theatre in downtown Toronto to catch an early show for District 9, a movie I had set my hopes quite high for. After purchasing our tickets and waiting only to be moved to another  screen for some odd reason we sat down and enjoyed the film. This movie was some epic awesome, I have to say. It’s amazing how a first time director, no-name actors and a 30 million dollar budget!!! could turn out to be so magnificent.      

**Spoilers Ahead, skip to next paragraph** First time director Neill Blomkamp takes us on a fantastic ride through a fictional alien inhabited Johannesburg South Africa where alien refugees have been causing problems for the local community since their mysterious arrival 20 years ago. Virtually unknown actor Sharlto Copley carries the film all on his own as Wikus Van De Merwe, a head operative for MNU who is in charge of facilitating the transfer of the Prawn population from the alien refugee slum  District 9 to the newly created District 10. Wikus is exposed  to an alien chemical that causes him to slowly transform into one of the prawn, making him the only human able to use their advanced weaponry (like a wicked ass lightning gun that basically turns people into shit and OMFG a Mech).

Overall I personally believe this was the best film released so far in 2009. The CGI was magnificent, the acting was superb and the story was just brilliant. A must see at this summer’s box office.

Anyways, after the movie we check our concert tickets to find out that the show started 1 1/2 hours earlier than we thought…ballz. Needless to say, we were late and ended up missing one of the opening acts Scale the Summit but I don’t really care and neither did my friends. Upon arriving at the Molson Amphitheatre Big Elf was on stage playing some kind of weird ass metalish music involving duel organs. They were okay, but the real treats were yet to come. Zappa plays Zappa was the next band to hit the stage and they were Awesome. Dweezil Zappa and his band played several hits from his late father Frank Zappa’s career. The sound was different, but I really enjoyed it and the skill these musicians had was absolutely excellent.

Next came the headliners, Dream Theater. This was my first Dream Theater concert so I wasn’t sure what to expect. As soon as they came on the band lit up the stage starting off with one of their new songs A Nightmare to Remember. Every single one of the band members was ON that night, apparently they always are so I’m told and it was one hell of a show. The band is just as good live as they are on their albums which is far above what most bands can say. The combination of Mike Portnoy’s antics, the musical skill of everyone in the band (especially John Petrucci on guitar and Jordan Rudess on keyboard) and the overwhelming energy of the crowd made it a great experience…The best live musical experience I’ve ever had. The only downside I could think of was the lack of audience interaction, but my friends tell me that Dream Theater is more of a show of musical talent than a concert where the music takes center stage, not just the band….I forgive them lol.

We left the concert feeling energized and satisfied so we headed to a local Fox and the Fiddle for some pints and bar food to cap off the night. There is more to tell about this weekend including lots more drinking, fun times with friends and all stumbling through the streets of Toronto but this post is already long enough lol. All I have to say is, what a weekend…

-Rapidfire

-Rapidfire

P.S. Here’s a metaphorical/hilarious representation of what could and in all likelihood will happen this weekend

**Warning this is a long one but a good one…that’s what she said**

Although my blog/RL buddies imthinking and tjbro have already created their own tales of our swashbuckling experience through the dense forests of Canada, I feel it is my duty to fill in the missing details with my own brand of truthiness.

So, let’s begin at the beginning instead of beginning at the end like so many poorly written Hollywood movies. Alright, Last week as the old crew gathered in our home town, my friend Jerry (imthinking) got the idea to go hiking through Algonquin park in Ontario, Canada. A few of the more outdoorsy of us (myself included) thought to ourselves “Yeah let’s fucking do this, Bring It ON!” ,or something similar to that. So the day was set for a week later. Being as awesome as we are, we decided to take the 35km Highland trails in the time frame of about 1 1/2 days (recommended 3 day hike, yikes ). We arrived at the trails at about noon on Saturday, full packs ready to go on our backs…and so the journey began {insert Lord of the Rings music here}. About 30 seconds into our hike we encountered the first of what would be an unending supply of grueling uphills strategically designed by God to make sure we permanently lost the use of of legs by the end of this. The path was epically tough, but stunningly beautiful as we strolled on through dense forest all day passing by amazing creeks, plants, wildlife and waterfalls, but throughout the whole trek there was one constant…this place was filled with mushrooms. Everywhere we looked there were mushrooms, some of which Jerry claimed were “edible” but I’m sure he was just trying to get us high and take advantage of us while in a hallucinated state. Anyway, I am almost positive that Algonquin park used to be the mushroom kingdom and I was sure we would run into Bowser soon enough. Here’s an artist’s vague representation:

So, moving on…After walking all day and particularly motoring it in the last 2km we reached ur campsite and collapsed in a joygasm on the ground. Now let me tell you people, you have no idea how long 17km really is until you’ve spent 5 1/2 hours walking with a heavy pack on your back, uphill both ways and nothing but “purified” creek water to drink. 

That night we spent our time roasting sausage over the fire, taking a swim in the cool lake and wondering whether the girls across the lake were old enough, a.k.a 18 and older u pervs, to play hide the tea cup in the tent…they weren’t, thus destroying our dreams and leading to much brooding that night. So, instead of having our wilderness fantasies fulfilled we sang unorthodox campfire songs (Bohemian Rhapsody, Fuck Her Gently, Journey, etc), joked around and shared some laughs until we were ready to pass out. It was at just this time that the Chupacabra’s amphibian cousin which I dubbed the El Chupalibre Pamplemousse decided to stalk around our campsite making us realize it would probably be safer to share a tent instead of being separated so we could be picked off one by one. Thus began an uncomfortable and sleepless night (having no pillow sucks) as we all shared the three person tent which I brought, keeping our hunting knives close at hand. I’ll skip to the morning because I don’t wanna talk about it ok [sobs and shivers with fear].

Ok so the next day we “woke up” if that’s what you want to call it seeing as how we barely got any sleep, and made a huge breakfast to give us enough energy to survive the remaining 18km we had to face that day. After consuming a metric ton of oatmeal, purifying some lake water to drink and packing everything back up we continued our voyage {insert Lord of the Rings music again}. Once we had hiked for about 15 minutes that morning I made the mistake of thinking “this isn’t as bad today” so nature turned around and metaphorically kicked me in the nuts as right then and there a huge thunderstorm started that would rage on for hours as we trudged through the forest soaking wet. The forest was still awesome and all with the plants and the mushrooms and frogs and stuff but we just wanted to get the hell out of there so we motored. We flew through the trees that day and destroyed our bodies in the process. The rain kept our body temperatures down which made it a bit easier to keep walking, burning through 8km in just under 2 1/2 hours. Along the way we noticed a set of moose prints that seemed to be from a moose that was most likely just a little bit ahead of us. That was until I came across what looked like wolf prints and the tracks mysteriously stopped *gulp*. So after walking past what was probably an epic moose massacre it was about 2 PM and the rain finally stopped. Thanks to this we were able to enjoy a cool breeze and some sunshine as we took the final break of the day before finishing up the trek (wish I had a picture of this). Finally after 27 hours 22 minutes and some change we emerged from the mushroom kingdom, drenched with sweat, tired, dehydrated and REALLY hungry. That evening we chose a classy victory meal of Wendy’s double cheese burgers and Dairy Queen, oh Yeah! After that we simply parted ways and returned home to collapse in broken heaps on the floor. My legs were a broken pile of mush, Thom’s (tjbro) feet had turned into giant blisters and torn skin and Jerry claimed he felt fine…but he is a chronic liar and masturbator so no one listens to him anyways. Thus ended our journey through middle-earth/the mushroom kingdom/Algonquin Park/Pee wee’s playhouse.

To all my readers I just want to say that you should all experience something this awesome. Get out there, experience the world…just give yourself more than a day if you’re doing something as crazy as us lol. My legs still haven’t recovered from this. Cheers everybody

-Rapidfire

P.S Here are our Heroes just before we embarked on our mystical Journey:

The time we spent together has been wonderful. I can still remember the first time we met when our eyes met across the desktop. You were one foxy little browser and I just had to get to know you. That hot little Firefox 3.0 dress looked so good on you. After taking the plunge and asking you to be my default I couldn’t have been happier. You could do things that no other browser could. You had tabs and themes and that little thing you can do with your tongue . I didn’t think the good times could end. But I have to be honest, we’ve drifted apart recently. I no longer get that blissful feeling when I log on to you and I just needed something to spice up my life. This is hard to say…but I’ve found someone else. Her name is Google Chrome, a friend introduced me to her not long ago and we just hit it off instantly. We didn’t plan this it just happened. I know you may get upset because she’s younger. In fact she is only in the Beta phase right now and I know some people may think that’s too young but damn it we’re in love and who are they to judge. She’s so sexy with her graphical interfaces and she’s always quick to open a web page and forgive me for saying but she has a way bigger and nicer set of….applications.

I hope, in time that you can forgive me and that we can still stay friends. I’m sorry it had to turn out this way and I just want to wish you good luck. I’ll miss you.

P.S. : Here’s a picture of her

- Rapidfire

After hearing a lot of hype about this mysterious “Splosion Man” in the past few weeks I decided to find out first, what the hell sploding is and second, is this game any good? As soon as I got home from work that day I downloaded the demo off of Xbox Live Marketplace and sat down for some crazy. Let me just say one thing…WIN. Twisted Pixel’s  newest addition to Xbox Live Arcade takes platform gaming to a whole new level of awesome and ridiculousness. To give you a short and vague description, Splosion Man is like the unholy love-child of Mega man, Sonic, LSD, Shrooms and a whole lot of Cocaine…and about 12 cups of coffee on top of that.

The object of the game is to take your little radioactive cocaine addict and explode or “Splode” your way through the side scrolling platform levels. Apparently you are taking revenge for some reason on the scientists who made you awesome… That or your crack dealer is waiting outside and you REALLY need to get to him fast. Your character flies through the levels by sploding from wall to wall over pits of acid with the help of explosive barrels and basically everything you see on your quest to escape this underground laboratory, including the thousands of nameless scientists who you turn into meat…literally, when you splode them they tumble into piles of ribs and steak Lol. Your character also has an extreme fascination with cake too as you will randomly find floating cakes in every level that you devour in seconds, making your character’s face light up like it was Christmas.

So all I have to say is Buy It! This game is non-stop fast paced fun that will leave you entertained, frustrated at the hard parts and laughing your ass off the rest of the way due to the absolute insanity that you will encounter. There are 50 levels of single player campaign and 50 completely different up to 4 player co-op levels and at 800 Microsoft Points it is a huge deal. So go inject some caffeine into your jugular and Get ready for some Sploding!

-Rapidfire

LucasArts is gearing up to give us a giant pile of awesome this fall. The hugely successful game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will see a new expansion which will let the sinister little Sith inside you live out his dark side fantasies. Titled the “infinities” storyline, it will allow players the chance to explore the hypothetical story that would have taken place after killing Darth Vader and becoming the Emperor’s new apprentice. The player is sent on a mission to Tatooine by the Dark Lord of the Sith in order to assassinate Obi-Wan Kenobi. While on Tatooine, you end up at Jabba the Hutt’s palace where you have to face off against a pissed off Boba Fett and I’m guessing also a Rancor. This downloadable content will be available available on Xbox Live, PSN and PC/Mac.

A second part of the “infinities” storyline will be available ONLY as part of a new box set Star Wars: The Force Unleashed – Ultimate Sith edition. This second chapter brings you to the ice planet Hoth in order to kill Luke Skywalker and crush the remainder of the Rebellion. As someone who already owns the Force Unleashed this disappoints me because I don’t want to have to re-buy it in order to get this slice of awesome. Hopefully LucasArts will fix this issue. Either way, check out The Trailer.

That’s right folks, its official. Another spidey film is headed on down the pipe and I for one am going to approach this one with a little caution. I thought that the first two films were excellent, but was pretty put off by Spider-man 3. The whole thing was way too cartoony in its execution and tried to cram too much story into one movie. I mean come on….sandman…Seriously? Anyways, the new film shines a glimour of hope this its rumored cast of villains. At long last we are finally going to get to see the Lizard. After seeing clips of Dr. Curt Conners dropped in every single Spider-man movie but never getting that sweet scaly pay-off, supposedly SamRaimi has finally decided to throw this bad ass villain into the mix. Also, I am very excited for….wait for it….CARNAGE!!!

After years of waiting us faithful fans are being rewarded with THE most hardcore awesome and absolutely tweaked villain in the Spider-man universe (rumored). The combination of the Venom symbiote and serial killer Cletus Kasady will take this movie franchise into much deeper and darker places. I expect this installment to be the darkest and most sinister in the film series and I really hope Sam Raimi can pull this off. I have faith in Sam though because I am a huge fan, but after that last one I’m still gonna be a little cautious. Oh and also the movie might include the Black Cat, which should make for a smoking hot addition to the cast but other than that I honestly don’t care. Lol.

The new film is scheduled for release in May of 2011.