Daily Roundup: Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Welcome to the Daily Roundup, a once-a-day dump of anything interesting, goofy or otherwise I find or hear about around the internet.

Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan has a hissy fit.

An extra bulky roundup today, given the weekend and my laziness on Monday…

• The Oatmeal warns you: your cat might just be a serial killer.
• Korean phenomenon Psy had a ‘thank you’ concert in Seoul, and 80,000 people shut the city down. Meanwhile, he tells NME that his next single will be in English.
• Major porn site PornHub is donating money to breast cancer research for every video watched. Just about the finest piece of shifting the moral landscape I’ve encountered, and I love it.
• SoundCloud user 8corp has compiled a short EP of four great Childish Gambino (a.k.a. Donald Glover, Troy from Community) mashups. They’re all great, but the best mashup I heard today might be The Melker Project’s mashup Me and My Bitch Are Never Getting Back Together. Notorious B.I.G. seems to mashup well with everything. Probably helps that he has the best flow of any rapper, like, ever.
• One of my favourite subreddits is /r/facepalm, which chronicles some of the dumbest and most aggravating things seen on users’ Facebook newsfeeds – basically, things that make you facepalm. User bodmon submits probably one of the biggest facepalms I’ve seen in some weeks, simply titled: “Facebook philosophers, PLEASE STOP“:
  
• The boys from Mythbusters show that with a little bit of quick thinking, Jack and Rose certainly could have both squeezed onto that famous door at the end of Jame’s Cameron’s Titanic.
• An infomercial host fainted, and her co-host went right on with the advertisement.
• A bunch of cool-looking films had trailers released recently:
  • Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe and Catherine Zeta-Jones star in Broken City, set to be released early 2013. Director Allen Hughes is relatively unknown, but the trailer looks pretty rad, and those three stars ain’t nothing to sniff at. [Trailer]
  • A gritty, raw drama about a man struggling to find his footing after the mother of his young son dies. Looks sad, but looks good. It’s called The End of Love. [Trailer]
  • The First Time is a romantic comedy that doesn’t actually look terrible. [Trailer]
  • IMDB calls Movie 43 “an ensemble comedy intertwining different tales.” Usually that concept would scare me, but when that ensemble includes Elizabeth Banks, Emma Stone, Kate Winslet, Hugh Jackman, Kristen Bell, Sean William Scott, Richard Gere, Naomi Watts, Halle Berry and Gerard Butler (who apparently plays a midget), then this film has officially caught my eye. [Trailer]
  • On a slightly different note, Bruce Willis is in another Die Hard film. This one’s called A Good Day to Die Hard and I MUST WATCH IT. [Trailer]
• Two songs of the day for you today: Child of Lov’s debut single, “Heal” is great, and has a super funky video clip. No video clip for Crystal Castles’ new single “Wrath of God“, but it’s rad nonetheless.
• Obligatory cat picture.
• Lady of the day is Modern Family star Julie Bowen. Ms Bowen also starred in Weeds and Lost as well as a childhood favourite, Happy Gilmore. She is also very good looking. I will always secretly like her more than everyone else’s favourite from Modern Family, Sofia Vergara. Crazy part is, Ms Vergara is actually third on my list from that show, behind second-placed Sarah Hyland, who is thankfully 22 years of age, significantly older than the character she portrays. Oh, I’m sorry, did I just sneakily dole out three ladies of the day? Oh, me.

Daily Roundup: Friday, October 5, 2012

Welcome to the Daily Roundup, a once-a-day dump of anything interesting, goofy or otherwise I find or hear about around the internet.

Parkour-powered Rube Goldberg machine? Parkour-powered Rube Goldberg machine.

• A dispute between Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey is spilling over onto various social media platforms. It’s becoming so frenetic that Gawker’s Louis Peltzman worries the events might be too good to be true.
• Recently, Hong Kong billionaire Cecil Chao offered up $65 million to any man who could turn his daughter straight. I didn’t think it could get any better, but now it’s been announced that Sacha Baron Cohen will be making a movie based on the story. Can’t wait.
• Taken 2 star Liam Neeson appeared on US sports program SportsCenter, but things went a bit wrong when he was asked an (American) football question, and he promptly dropped the S-bomb on live television.
• Youtube user DiranLyons has mixed together a nice little “Obama rapping 99 problems” clip.
• Joystiq’s Xav de Matos explains how sports video games put up barriers to new users through unexplained complexities of the sports they are designed to replicate.
• Your song of the day is British singer Adele’s newly-released song Skyfall, which is to be the theme of the upcoming James Bond film of the same name. Listen here.
• Obligatory cat picture.
• Lady of the day is Jenna Fischer, most famous for her role as Pam in the U.S. adaptation of The Office. She also stars in one of my favourite underrated comedies, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Oh, and she’s also really good looking.

Happy Friday.

Daily Roundup: Thursday, October 4, 2012

Welcome to the Daily Roundup, a once-a-day dump of anything interesting, goofy or otherwise I find or hear about around the internet.

• Mitt Romney and Barack Obama had a Presidential debate, on Michelle and Barack Obama’s 20th wedding anniversary. Both handled it rather well, but I agree with Mitt (for once): this was probably the pair’s least romantic anniversary yet.
• The kooky iPhone assistant Siri has some neat summaries of some of your favourite films.
• South Korean rapper Psy’s hit song Gangnam Style is causing investors to by stock in Psy’s father’s company. The odd part is, the company has nothing to do with Psy or his music. The Economist explains the phenomenon.
• And Gizmodo explains how social news site Digg got its revamp, and how it could be headed back to its former glory.
• San Francisco Weekly critiques the business model and virtues of one of the world’s most visited sports news websites, Bleacher Report.
• Plus-sized NFL players are complaining that the new Nike jerseys make them look fat.
• Your song of the day is by solo artist Joe Banfi, and it’s called Guts and Bones. Listen here.
• Obligatory cat picture (from cashcats).
• Lady of the day is Natalie Zea, who plays one of my favourite characters on the TV show Justified. She also happens to be really attractive.

Happy Thursday!

Daily Roundup: Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Welcome to the Daily Roundup, a once-a-day dump of anything interesting, goofy or otherwise I find or hear about around the internet.

• Kanye West is being sued by a record company for allegedly illegally using samples of theirs on two tracks off his 2010 album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
• The Black Keys are guaranteeing a follow-up album to their 2011 hit El Camino at some point in 2013. That’s exciting, because The Black Keys are the best thing about rock ‘n roll right now.
• The first trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski’s new wild west thriller The Lone Ranger can now be seen, and it features Johnny Depp wearing strange makeup. Like in Pirates. And Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And Edward Scissorhands. And that one about the pie maker who kills people. Johnny Depp loves dressing up.
• Your song of the day is a new one from SBTRKT, called Terminal. Listen here.
• Obligatory cat picture.
• Lady of the day is Alison Brie, who is fantastic in Mad Men and even better in Community. She’s also really, really, ridiculously good looking.

Happy Wednesday.

Plenty more outdated video game reviews coming up – Here’s what my queue looks like

Just went to JB Hi-Fi to buy Skyrim. I know I’m late on that gravy train, but that gravy train passed me by while I was looking the other way (see: Deus Ex).

Anyway, there were heaps of “Buy 2 games for $40″ buckets, so I naturally have just returned from the store with 5 games. Adding these to the pile I already have sitting under my desk, here, in somewhat chronological order, are the video game reviews you can expect in the future:

• Skyrim
• Crysis 2
• Prototype
• Dead Space
• Dead Space 2
• Mass Effect
• Mass Effect 2
• Far Cry 2
• Bioshock

So … I guess I’ll start playing Skyrim now. If you don’t hear from me for weeks, don’t worry.

2011: A Year in Review – Video Games

2011 was a pretty good year for gaming. Here I’ve listed my 10 top games of the year, 5 I wish I’d played, and my top 5 anticipated 2012 releases.

Game Review: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Every now and then, a game comes along that changes the way you look at gaming.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of those games.

My Cuban Coffee Recipe

Makes 1 cup of Cuban coffee:

• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 shot coffee
• 2/3 cup steamed milk

Steps:

1. Pour boiling shot of coffee into mug.
2. Mix in sugar until dissolved.
3. Add steamed milk, mix and allow to cool to desired temperature.

From Wikipedia:

Traditional Cuban-style espresso is made by adding demerara sugar to the container into which the espresso will drip, allowing the espresso to mix with the sugar as it is brewed … Some people believe that this results in a smooth, sweet espresso.

My version doesn’t use demerara sugar necessarily… don’t really know what that is. But this is my take on it, and it’s quite splendid.

My Mocha Recipe

Makes 1 cup of Mocha:

• 1/2 teaspoon of hot chocolate powder
• 1 shot coffee
• 2/3 cup steamed milk

(note: hot chocolate powder can be substituted with 50% cocoa, 50% sugar/sweetener)

Steps:

1. Put hot chocolate powder in bottom of mug, add boiling coffee shot and stir until combined.
2. Add steaming milk and stir lightly, allowing to slowly combine and cool to desired temperature.

This is my favourite way to make a mocha, which is essentially a latte with some addition of chocolate. Some use cocoa or hot chocolate powder, while others use chocolate syrup or even melted cooking chocolate. This variation isn’t quite as chocolatey as most.

Top 10 Judd Apatow Scenes

Producer of some of the (so-far) defining films of my generation, Judd Apatow is perhaps one of the most influential and far-reaching members of today’s film industry. His films include the 2004 sensation Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, and subsequent hits The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, Step Brothers, Pineapple Express, Funny People, and 2010′s Get Him to the Greek.

So without further adieu, here are my Top 10 scenes from Judd Apatow flicks. This is of course a subjective list – everyone will have their own opinions and I welcome those in the comments section!