William & Theodore's Rather Tepid Outing

Over the past couple of years there's been talk here and there on the cyberweb regarding a potential second sequel to the film that introduced the world to those goofy 80s zonk-heads, William S. Preston Esquire & Ted "Theodore" Logan, of the band that was meant to save humanity from itself, Wyld Stallyns! (I believe that the exclamation point is actually part of their name). So with Keanu "I know Kung-Fu" Reeves spouting his ridiculously wishful director's choices off to the press, including such heavyweights as Scorcese and Coppola, while making vague statements suggesting that the lukewarmly-anticipated threequel is already in the can (and I mean film can, not toilet) one has to wonder what Alex Winter, the other half of the questionably-talented but totally loveable dumbass duo has to say about it. Well after nearly two years of dead silence about the project from everyone who could possibly be involved, Alex has let it slip to the mass media that the script is complete, Dean Parisot, of Galaxy Quest fame, is attached to direct and both he and Reeves are on board to help propel the next chapter of the franchise forward. I just hope it's better than that godawful after-school cartoon or the even-more-painfully-bad live action TV show that the networks tried to sneak past us. Who knows, since Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, the writers of the original film, are involved it may actually be a nostalgically fun flick.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

"8-Bitty" Bluetooth Gamepad

ThinkGeek.com, in case you didn't already know, rules. Besides the fact that they have a gazillion different tech/geek/nerd items available to the savvy spaz for purchase, most of their products won't break the bank, wilt your wallet or chomp your change like some other gadgety stores (cough, cough - Brookstone and Sharper Image). Plus they looove retro stuff like this super-awesome Bluetooth-enabled Nintendo-styled gamepad for your iPhone, iPad, iPod or Android device.

Dig it:

• Classic retro-styled game controller fits in your pocket and works with iPhone & iPad
• 8 button control including 4 face buttons, select, start, and two shoulder buttons... plus the D-Pad for movement
• Wireless Bluetooth® connection with auto power save mode
• Mini version of larger size iCade cabinet invented and designed by ThinkGeek
• Fully compatible with all iCade games
• Completely open development platform. App developers can add support for iCade with no permission needed from Apple or ThinkGeek. (See links for code examples below).
• "Atari Greatest Hits" iPad App ready to go with the iCADE, including support for over 100 classic Atari games.
• Atari App comes with Missile Command for free, other games available for in-app purchase. 3-game packs are $1. All 100 games are $14.99
• Compatible with iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Android support for most tablets and smartphones.
• NOTE: Atari Greatest Hits only runs on iPad, not on iPhone or iPod touch.
• Requires 2 x AAA batteries (not included)

CLICK HERE TO THROW MONEY AT IT

Bonus Video: iCade 8-Bitty demo in FULL COLOR!

The City I Live In, the City of Shuttles

Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that being a photographer is way more fun than either graphic design or blogging, the Atlantic has posted several photos of the space shuttle Endeavor being carted through Los Angeles, scumball capital of the universe.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS AND WORDS

Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded

One of the most popular computer game series of the 80s and 90s, the tongue-in-cheek (or hand-in-pocket) humor of Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards was a hit with juveniles of all ages. The game began its life as a basic text adventure for the Apple II called "Softporn Adventure" released by Sierra Online in 1981. Digital titillation being a rather new form of entertainment in the early 80s, the game was, of course, a huge success, prompting Sierra to task now-legendary programmer Al Lowe with the honor of rewriting the game to utilize a graphics engine (read: digital boobs). The result of Al's hard work was perhaps greater than the sum as the oddly endearing protagonist of the game, Larry Laffer, or as he is better known, Leisure Suit Larry, unexpectedly became a very marketable property. Five sequels (some say six) and millions of 5.25 inch floppies later the original series finally came to an end in 1996. After many years of dormancy, several questionable Larry adventures eventually appeared on Xbox and Playstation but they lacked involvement from the original creators and dropped most of the naughty-but-not-dirty humor of the classic series by replacing any potential instances of "clever" with "cleavage." Good eye-candy, to be sure, but weak gameplay. As one would expect, these titles sold poorly (they wouldn't even take my copy of Magna Cum Laude at Game Xchange, true story) which sadly brought the entire franchise to a screeching halt. Boo. But here's the part where the little indie developer swoops in to save the day. From Wikipedia:

• In June 2011, Replay Games announced on their blog that they had acquired a license for the Leisure Suit Larry series. Replay Games plans to re-release the titles it has licensed for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, XBLA, PSN, On-Live, and Steam. It is also announced that Al Lowe will be involved with the development of the new releases.

And then:

• In April 2012, Replay Games initiated the Kickstarter project Make Leisure Suit Larry come again! which finished funding on May 2, 2012 and secured a total of $674,598 ($655,182 via Kickstarter and $19,416 via Paypal) in funding compared to the $500,000 that was asked for. The "HD" Version of the game has a completion date of October 2012 listed, but it might be delayed to December 2012 or early 2013 since hitting the $650,000 mark. The $650,000 mark will add more story, dialogues and one more character.

Yup, they even got old Al Lowe to come back. Click on the links below. You know you want to.

CHECK OUT THE OFFICIAL SITE FOR ALL THE SLEAZY DETAILS

Bonus Video: Al Lowe talks about the rebirth of Leisure Suit Larry

Ye Olde Candies

Sorry we haven't had too many posts lately but my SyQuest drive crashed last week and all of my WordPerfect blog templates were lost. I'll have to fire up my phone list in Lotus 1-2-3 and lookup the support number for my Packard-Bell because I think the problem was caused by a faulty parallel port. Man, I should have stuck with that SCSI Zip drive instead. But until I get all that sorted out, look at this: RETRO CANDY! Yes chubby 40 year-olds everywhere can rejoice because you can now get all of your favorite sugar bombs from days gone past on one awesome website! Well not actually from days gone past. For example, a surviving Marathon bar would nigh be inedible at this point seeing as they were discontinued in 1981, but Old Time Candy sells the same product on their site, although it's actually shipped in from merry ol' England, where they still exist as the Curly Wurly. Other hard-to-find favorites featured on the site include Big League Chew, Flipsticks and those nasty little button candies that you could never get off of that damned strip of paper but you ate them anyway.

CLICK HERE TO GET FAT


Bonus Video: 1975 Marathon Candy Bar Commercial

1955-2011

www.apple.com

"I'm the Weeener" Says Mario

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. This great nation of ours is in peril. Not only is it in peril but it's teetering on the very brink, as well. In fact, you could probably say that it's right there on the verge of teetering on the brink all the while that it's in peril as well, too. And while you, the people of this great nation, look forward to that Tuesday after the first Monday of November to cast your ballot for the Presidential nominee hopefully best-equipped to pull us back from the edge of the verge that we're on, you know, with the brink and all, are bewildered by the myriad of choices with which you, the people, have been presented. Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Progressive Socialists, Neo-Fascists and of course, the Silly Party, are all begging for your votes. Well actually they're begging that 11 percent of undecideds for their votes and really don't give a crap about the rest of you, or anyone who lives in Puerto Rico, but still, not one of these would-be potential future presidents-in-waiting has shown you - you, the people of this great nation, the voters, the taxpayers, the workers and business-owners, and you, the great people of this great, great nation, just what a true American president should be, what a great American leader is truly made of and what you, this amazingly great nation of truly great people truly desire: an Italian plumber. Truly.

Sheena Easton breaks up with Defender

...because she likes Sinistar better.