Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Super Smash Bros. Brawl Sells A Million

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Super Smash Bros. Brawl
is a super smash hit in Japan. When it went on sale, the game sold out at loads of Tokyo game shops, and in the last two weeks, the title has shifted a million copies. It took Wii Fit seven weeks to hit a million copies sold, and it took Wii Sports eleven weeks to hit that milestone. That makes Super Smash Bros. Brawl the fastest selling Wii game, which should make Nintendo very, very happy.

Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw

He is one of videogame media's most recognized voices, a quick-witted, fast talking Englishman with a bitter world view and a need to be pleased. He was named one of Destructoid's icons of 2007, and his weekly posts ignite message boards up and down the Internet. The man behind The Escapist's weekly Zero Punctuation review, this is one game critic who doesn't care how vulgar he has to be to get down to the grim truth at hand. If your game is bad, this man is going to let you to know about it.

His name, of course, is Ben Croshaw, better known as Yahtzee, a British born resident of Australia whose career as a games writer took a turn for the explosive when his video reviews, in which he spends several relentless minutes ripping a videogame limb from bloody limb, became an Internet phenomenon in just a matter of weeks.

The man known as Yahtzee was very kind enough to devote some of his meager spare time to answering some questions for the Destructoid readers. In this exclusive interview, Yahtzee discusses how he first got the idea for Zero Punctuation, what he thinks of his audience, and shares his views on some of the controversial current events that have affected our industry in recent history.

Hit the jump for the full interview with Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw.

Destructoid: The Zero Punctuation review has obviously taken the Internet by storm, and made yourself quite an iconic name among the gaming public. What first inspired you to start talking very quickly into a microphone while cartoon images struggled to keep up with your voice? How well were you expecting it to go over when you made your first one, and did you imagine you'd become an Internet gaming icon?

Yahtzee: Of course I've been running my own website for years which you could interpret as one long quest to continually sling stuff at a wall until something sticks. As for inspiration, I'd been watching a lot of youtube videos at the time and I had an idea in mind for making a video without any actual video recording hardware, by stringing still images together with narration. Then, after playing the Darkness demo, I had some subject matter to talk about. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I certainly didn't expect it to get as popular as it did. I was expecting to put it out there and maybe a few more like it before getting bored and ditching it for the next fancy.

Destructoid: When you first started, was the angry vibe something you'd intended from the start? Was the aim of the videos always to unleash the cynical and vitriolic personality known as Yahtzee, or was the reception of your audience a factor in making it the focal part of your reviews?

Yahtzee: I think I've always been a vitriolic writer. My chief influences are humorous British critics like Victor Lewis-Smith and Charlie Brooker. The cynicism was always going to be in there regardless of how the audience reacted, so it's lucky they seemed to like it. There's something about the sardonic British man with exacting standards that gels well with people, which might explain how Simon Cowell keeps getting work.

Destructoid: How constraining is the need to always find something to criticize in a game? In your Orange Box review, for example, the only problem with Portal is that you couldn't find fault with it. Is there a thin line between being informative about a game, and giving the viewer the level of anger and hatred that they've come to expect?

Yahtzee: I like to think I give most games a fair go. If I have any sort of fun with the game on any level I'll usually say so. Believe it or not I don't consciously decide going into a game how much I'm going to hate on it in the review. Every game has the chance to get the kind of lip service Portal did but nothing else has, for me, reached the same level of quality in entertainment value and balance of story and gameplay.

Destructoid: Writers in the games media industry are often accused of being cynical and jaded to appeal to their apathetic readers. As someone whose entire review style hinges on this much-maligned cynicism, do you think it's sometimes too easy for us to be negative and ignore the positive aspects of the games industry? Do you think it's even fair to be so miserable all the time, or do games developers deserve a dose of harsh truth?

Yahtzee: I believe in being cruel to be kind. I love gaming, I have done all my life. I want to see it lifted in the eyes of the general public above how they view it now. Pottering endlessly about with the same dreary plots and game mechanics isn't helping any of us evolve.

Destructoid: What reaction has the industry itself had to your work? Is there any tension between you and certain publishers, or do they understand what it is you do? What do you think of companies like Eidos and Midway who have thrown hissy fits about bad reviews from media outlets in the past? Is creating fear and enmity from publishers ever a concern for yourself?

Yahtzee: In some cases I've corresponded with the developers of games I've given a bit of a lashing and they're almost always good sports about it, unless they're putting on a brave face. I remember after I did the Fable review Peter Molyneux told me he agreed with a lot of my points, which is a very respectable attitude. As for publishers throwing hissy fits, that strikes me as immature. An artist should appreciate constructive criticism, right? Unless all they're worried about is making money, which speaks rather poorly of them.

Destructoid: On the subject of the reviewer/publisher relationship, what did you make of the Jeff Gerstmann controversy?

Yahtzee: I thought it was ridiculous, as you might predict from my previous answer. Eidos seemed to miss the point of a 'review' somewhere along the line.

Destructoid: How well do you feel the games industry is doing creatively right now? 2007 was hailed by some as one of gaming's greatest years, and it's generally considered to be a good time to be a gamer. Is this something you agree with? Do you think the games industry is churning out enough hits to make the misses not so glaring, or are we still mired down in a sea of pap?

Yahtzee: It's been a pretty good year, certainly. I think there's better competition in the current console generation than there has been in many previous ones, which is keeping standards high. There's still an inevitable amount of mass-market drivel splurging from all cylinders but we're living in a time when there are so many different avenues for gaming - consoles, PC, handhelds, digital distribution, casual games, mobiles - that the spread will ensure you never need to drink down more than a few tall glasses of sh*t.

Destructoid: As a fan of your work, I've noticed that it's not just games, but your own audience that comes under fire from yourself. In your personal blog post following the Call of Duty 4 review, for example, you told anybody who missed the ironic part of your ending question that you hated them, with a genuine level of contempt and disgust that ached your abdomen. As someone who deals with gamers on a daily basis, I can certainly understand their tendency to sometimes drive one mad, but how much of your hatred toward the mass audience is genuine, and is it played up for laughs? What do you think of your fans, really?

Yahtzee: I admit that the fans do tend to annoy me. That post was driven by having to spend a morning wading through an entire inbox - for I always try to read all my mail, if not reply to them - reading that same bloody non-joke over and over again out of what I presume was either a misguided attempt to impress or a very savvy attempt to deliberately annoy. And then there's the constant recommendations of games to review when I tell them over and over again that it's futile. And the really long, verbose diatribes I have no time to do more than skim-read. But the nice short mails - 'Hey, I love your work, keep it up' - are the ones I like. More like those, please.

Destructoid: You obviously inspire strong feelings from your viewers -- anybody with personal opinions on videogames will inevitably make some people angry, as gamers can be amazingly defensive about their favorite consoles and games. Have any accusations or hatemail stood out to you as particularly jawdroppingly stupid? I've no doubt you've been called every name under the Sun, but is there anything in that has surprised you among fan reaction?

Yahtzee: I'm surprised by how little hate mail is sent to me directly. Plenty to be found when I search around on forums, but I guess people are afraid I'll swear at them or something. Weirdly, while I seem to brush off a lot of appreciative mail, hate mail really gets to me, and I agonise over whether I've lost it. I put it all down to self-loathing. It's just one of my many quirks that make me work well.

Destructoid: As a British gamer, I've often complained about the way the European market is treated by publishers, but I am often reminded by my Australian readers that they have it worse. As someone who moved from England to Australia, what do you think of the gaming situation out there, especially when it comes to lengthy release dates?

Yahtzee: I don't know what America and Japan have against us, maybe we slept with their wives or something, but it's really hard to defend the arbitrary release dates and price jumps over here. I'm not so worried since other people pay for all my games now (tee hee) but I've seen in some cases that even when buying software online, just saying you live in Australia can tack 20-30 bucks onto the price. Why can't you just be nice, publishers? We just come to you to get some nice games and you kick us in the balls. That's kind of rude.

Destructoid: Videogames as art is a debate that crops up more and more these days, especially as titles like BioShock strive to achieve more and more in terms of storyline and style. Do you think videogames are, indeed, art, or merely possess artistic elements? Will they ever be accepted as an art form, and what's currently stopping them, if anything?

Yahtzee: I do believe that games are art. That's part of my passion for them, and why I distrust people who only seem to be in them for the money. I think it was Ebert who said that games can never be art because of the need for player interaction, but what did he know, the big fat chinless git? For me, that's just what makes them so unique and fascinating as an art form. I love games that truly explore the possibilities of a user-driven art form, generally games that mesh gameplay and story well, rather than just interrupting the shooting for a cut-scene every now and again.

Destructoid: What's your opinion on the other thorny issue of videogame violence and its portrayal as a "cesspool" in mainstream media? Are the likes of Jack Thompson a problem or just irrelevant idiocy? Are they ever right to attack videogames as "murder simulators," or is biased and uneducated reporting like Fox News' Mass Effect "sexbox" scandal more damaging than any simulated gunplay?

Yahtzee: Here's the thought that comforts me. People like Jack Thompson are the same sort of people who decried comic books, rock music, women's suffrage, films, theatre, novels. None of their influence remains today because they were usually the older generation, and the good thing about the older generation is that they eventually die. Leaving us, the younger generation, to pass on our values to the generation that follows. It's just a fact that old fogies are scared of change because it makes them feel like they've lost control of the world, and they justify their prejudice with whatever they can latch onto. The struggles of a new media are always temporary. You shouldn't let it bother you.

Destructoid: To finish up, we're going to be incredibly trite with a tacked on word association. Fun.

Xbox 360.

Yahtzee: Shooters.

Destructoid: Nintendo Wii.

Yahtzee: Gimmicks.

Destructoid: PlayStation 3.

Yahtzee: Fat.

Destructoid: PC.

Yahtzee: Nerds.

Destructoid: Fanboy.

Yahtzee: Twats.

Destructoid: Games journalism.

Yahtzee: Yes.

Destructoid: Angry Videogame Nerd.

Yahtzee: No.

Destructoid: EA.

Yahtzee: Satan.

Destructoid: Activision.

Yahtzee: Weirdoes.

Destructoid: In-game advertising.

Yahtzee: Whatever.

Destructoid: Online gaming.

Yahtzee: Shouting.

Destructoid: Casual.

Yahtzee: Goldmine.

Destructoid: Hardcore.

Yahtzee: Pale.

Destructoid: The Escapist.

Yahtzee: Cha-ching.

Destructoid: Yahtzee.

Yahtzee: Me.

Destructoid would like to thank Yahtzee once again for taking the time to talk to us, and reminds you that you can catch the Zero Punctuation review every Wednesday at The Escapist. You can also check out his written work and videogame creations at Fully Ramblomatic.

GTA IV: Reinventing a World

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Tucked away in a secluded bungalow in West Hollywood's Châteaux Marmont, a hotel as famous for those who stay there as it is infamous for those who have died there, a world reimagined comes into focus.

Standing hands akimbo, a nonplussed expression planted firmly on his almost cel-shaded face, Niko Bellic could easily be a touched-up still. But it's no bullshot. The world around Bellic is bustling with activity: Bits of trash float on a digital drift of wind, people walk by, cars cruise in and out of the shot, an almost familiar skyline fills the hazy background. A palette of city sounds laid over this living diorama completes the effect.

"We decided we wanted to go back to the basics and reimagine the world," Jeronimo Barrera, Rockstar Games Vice President of Product Development, says. "The results have been incredible."

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Grand Theft Auto IV is, its creators tell me, the biggest leap forward in experiential sandbox gaming to ever come to the franchise, larger even than the one that brought the once 2D top-down series into the third dimension.

"In many ways it's a bigger leap going from San Andreas to GTA IV than it was going from 2D to 3D," Barrera says.

That shift isn't delivered in one mighty leap, he adds, but rather in a collection of tweaks and changes made to the basic nature of the franchise.

"It was about hitting reset and reworking a bunch of things," he said. " We reworked everything from locomotion to targeting."

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Bellic is on the street, a local tough has asked him to kill off a guy who's about to talk to police. Instead of telling him where the guy is, he suggests Bellic get his hands on a cop car and use the laptop to find out where he usually hangs out.

Bellic calls 911 on his cell phone and then when the cop car arrives, he carjacks it and drives away. In this latest GTA your wanted level corresponds to the place in which you commit the crime. As soon as you break the law a shaded circle pops up on your radar showing you where police are looking for you. If you can get out of that area before your spotted you can lose the cops and, eventually, your notoriety.

Bellic tears around the corner and drives to an area where he can pull over. When he taps into the cop car's computer a screen comes with tons of options including one to search for suspects either by name or photo. Using a pop-up QWERTY keyboard, he taps in the name and gets an address to go to which is added to the car's in-board GPS.

When Bellic tracks the guy down he runs, kicking off a car chase. The drive through town doesn't look or feel like a scripted event, and a Rockstar employee is in full control of Bellic and his stolen car, but some of the things that happen, like a large truck dumping its load of barrels onto the street, were written about by other publications which saw the game as well. I suspect that there might be a number of events like this which can be automatically triggered depending on where you are and what's happening.

After zipping through the rolling barrels, Bellic catches up with his quarry, whose car is marked with a red arrow, on a bridge and manages to fire off enough shots to first flatten the suspect's tires and then set the engine compartment on fire. The car, riding on rims now, tries to zip between two cars and misses the gap, fishtailing into a vehicle before rolling. The bad guy is thrown from the car, sliding across the bridge to stop near the railing, and then the car explodes, catapulting the would-be informant up and off the bridge.

The Rockstar guys erupt into laughter. "Did he just go off the bridge?" one asks, laughing.

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The mission's complete, but Bellic still needs to get off the bridge and two cop cars are speeding toward him from the other side. He zips past them and comes to a stop. Getting out of the car, he pulls out a rocket launcher, which slides out of his pocket like a gag from a Bugs Bunny cartoon, and fires a shot off at the police cars blowing both up. Instantly, Bellic's wanted level is raised to three stars and the cacophony of an approaching army of police can be heard in the distance.

"You're three stars? How'd you get three stars?" Barrera asks of the demo player. "Oh you blew up those cop cars."

"You told me to."

The sound's getting louder.

Bellic hops back into his car and makes his way toward the other side of the bridge, as he approaches we can see that it's been blocked by police and not just police cars, but what looks to be police humvees. Bellic rams his way through and tears down into a tunnel. He makes it up through the other side as police follow in hot pursuit, guns firing. The car, now on its rims and engine smoking, rolls slowly into a gas station.

"Oh, a gas station," someone in the room says.

There is, it seems, a moment of breathless anticipation as Bellic jumps from the car and runs past rows of gas pumps. He turns to see dozens of police cars descending on his still smoking car. And then the world explodes, the image on the screen literally blurs as the car, the gas station and all of the police cars near it turn into a blooming fireball.

Bellic turns and runs down a grass hill to another highway, but two police cars are already descending on him. Above a helicopter is following. He pulls out that rocket launcher from his pocket, looks up at the sky and fires off a shot at the copter. It's hit, smoke billows from its engine, it starts to spiral, dropping suddenly to the ground about 100 feet from Bellic and explodes.

An alert pops up on the screen "ONE MAN ARMY ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED" before the demo player quickly gets rid of it and uses a cheat to rid himself of his escalating wanted level.

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While the setting for this latest Grand Theft, based on Manhattan and its surrounds, isn't as large as San Andreas in terms of land mass, it's more detailed and there's more to do, the Rockstar guys tell me. You can drive boats, helicopters, motorcycles, cars, trucks, hail cabs, but you can't fly a plane.

"It's not like people in New York fly airplanes around, it's more of a helicopter town," Barrera says.

The games intertwined storyline takes place over a number of months in the city with two minutes of gameplay translating to an hour in the game world.

The game now incorporates auto-saving to make it a bit more player friendly this time around. After every mission the game saves.

"It makes it more accessible," Barrera says, "gamers shouldn't have to fight against the save system to enjoy a game."

Other neat tweaks include a cinematic mode which slows time to a crawl on the fly and can be used at anytime in the game, making it easier to do things like slip through rush hour traffic at high speeds, cab rides which can either be enjoyed from beginning to end or, for a small fee, skipped entirely. You can also bribe the cabbie to break traffic laws to get you to your destination faster.

The game's once tragically flawed targeting system has also been heavily reworked. I got a good look at the system in a mission that involved Bellic having to take out a bunch of mobsters from a construction site.

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The mission starts with Bellic sniping three guards from atop a nearby high rise. The demo player takes out the first two guards with headshots. The first man toppling from his position high atop the construction site, tumbling end-over-end until he lands with a thud on the ground below, his rifle popping out of his dead hands and letting off a single shot.

The third man is taken out with a shot to the leg. As he falls to the ground, he appears to weakly flail. The man's body finally crashes into the roof of the car, crushing it flat.

Once Bellic clears the guards he makes his way across the street. The demo player, hurrying to get into the heart of the mission, lets a car clip Bellic, who falls to the ground. Getting up slowly, Bellic plants his hands in front of him, gets to his knees and then slowly stands, a nice touch.

Once in the construction site is cleared, Bellic moves into the yard and almost immediately has to duck for cover, a new addition to the game's fighting system that allows you to stick to cover like you can in games like Drake's Fortune or Gears of War.

Once in cover, Bellic can fire blindly from his hiding spot or lock onto a target and plug away at them. You can also now free fire in the game.

"It's comparable to a shooter," Barrera said.

A target's health is shown in the targeting reticule when you lock-on, while Bellic's appears in a green bar that wraps around the radar. A blue bar shows his armor, like a bullet proof vest. As Bellic's adversaries die the items they drop glow in the dark showing where to find ammo, weapons and cash. And when Bellic finally, inevitably, dies in the heat of battle the world fades to black and white.

The game will, Rockstar has said, feature multiplayer, but they're not quite ready to talk details on what that will entail. They did tell me that there won't be cooperative multiplayer because it wouldn't really fit in with the game's story.

'There's really only one main character, so it wouldn't fit," Barrera said.

As with most of Rockstar's games there are definite cultural themes at play in Grand Theft Auto IV, though in this game it might not be as easily definable as the gang culture of San Andreas or school culture of Bully.

"There is an immigrant theme, a world culture theme," Barrera says. "This is Rockstar's ten year anniversary and when we got started we all moved to New York at the same time, so there's a lot of that in there.

"The beauty of our games is that we don't hire a research firm to figure out what we should be making games about."

Instead they make it about the things that interest them, and it it shows.

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The Iceman Cometh

The past few days have been lovely, haven't they? They closed up shop at my place of indentured servitude, so I've been staying home with Kitty and watching movies:

The History Boys
Notes on a Scandal
Dreamgirls (don't ask how many times I've watched this--you really don't want to know)

Now I think I'll get ready to watch Mr. & Mrs. Bridge. Set in 1930's--40's Kansas City, this might be one of my favorite Merchant-Ivory films. There's very little plot; nothing much really happens in the film, but it's beautiful, and Joanne Woodward's performance as India Bridge earned her a well-deserved Oscar nomination. I love the last scene where she's stuck in her garage during a snowstorm. It's a perfect image for days like these.

Iphone 1.1.3 Video



This video shows off the iPhone 1.1.3 system software s new features, including new icon creation, movement, and home screens, Webclip, Google Maps with location finder, and more.



HOW TO JAILBREAK Iphone 1.1.3!!! Update* I would advice not to use this method as it was an unstable early release of the 1.1.3 jailbreak.

Marisa Miller Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Covergirl

David Letterman revealed that Marisa Miller is the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover girl this year. A massive billboard is now standing high above Times Square in NYC.

Marissa Miller 2008 SI Swimsuit Issue

Marissa Miller 2008 SI Swimsuit Issue Marissa Miller Marissa Miller 2008 SI Swimsuit Issue

Marissa Miller 2008 SI Swimsuit IssueMarissa Miller 2008 SI Swimsuit Issue

Potomac Primary Quandary

With Sen. John McCain cruising toward the nomination I'm wondering if my vote in tomorrows Virginia primary (Maryland and D.C. are voting as well - hence the Potomac Primary moniker) might have more worth elsewhere; specifically as a vote for Hillary Clinton. Having no dog in the Obama/Clinton fight I have no problem casting a ballot in the Democratic primary to try and get Hillary, who I consider the more favorable opponent for McCain in November, back on track for the Democratic nomination.

I've not made up my mind about how to proceed, and if there's even a hint that McCain might not win big in Virginia then there's no way I even consider such a move. Since my mind is not made up I figured it was worth opening up for discussion.

It's a not suicide voting, it would be more like kamikaze voting...

Lennon Murphy

Lennon Anne Murphy, named after rock and roll legend John Lennon, is a singer/songwriter from Hendersonville, Tennessee, United States. Born in Ronkonkoma, Long Island, New York on March 31, 1982, Lennon and her mother moved to Hendersonville when she was four years old. Lennon began playing piano at a young age and performed her first gig in front of people when she was fifteen.

One day, Lennon came home after school to find her mother, her only parent, dead in her closet from an allergic reaction to some pills she had taken. This was just a few days after Lennon's eighteenth birthday and just before she signed with Arista records.

Still Lennon prevailed, fighting for custody of her younger sister Mariella (which she eventually won) and releasing her debut album, 5:30 Saturday Morning, on the historic date of September 11, 2001. Her only single from that album was a song called "Brake of your Car". Lennon ended up leaving Arista because, "I wanted a career as a rock act, and an album I could be proud of, and staying with Arista I really didn't see that happening,".

In 2004, Lennon released 2 albums and a DVD. One album is a strictly acoustic release entitled Career Suicide, released on September 24, 2004. It was just Lennon and her piano, which makes sense since Lennon has said, "I write on piano, which I’ve been playing all my life". Most songs were remakes of songs from 5:30 Saturday Morning but the new ones were also well received. On December 27, 2004, she released another album entitled I Am. She also released a DVD entitled My Crazy Life. She released them all independently on John Galt Entertainment, a record label she founded with her manager.

On September 5, 2006, Lennon kicked off a tour opening for Aerosmith and Mötley Crüe to support the September 19, 2006 release of her album Damaged Goods. The lead single is the track Where Do I Fit In?, which is a revamp of the track My Beautiful from her Arista debut. While on tour, she is also headlining gigs at local clubs along the way. Often those who hold tickets for the Aerosmith/Mötley Crüe show in the area can get into the smaller venue to see Lennon for free.

Lennon has completed her new album with producer Jason Suecof (Trivium, DevilDriver, Chimaira). Lennon will reportedly be taking a more guitar-heavy approach with her newer material. The album will be released in 2008.

John Fitzgerald Page Named "Least Influential"

John Fitzgerald Page, guys. Do you remember the details? He told a girl who "winked" at him on Match.com to send more pictures showing her body in the context of an email succinctly detailing his credentials, beginning with "8.9 on Hot or Not" and ending with "has had lunch with the secretary of defense." He's just been named one of Atlanta's "Least Influential People," by the local alternative newsweekly, which snapped this priceless picture of him leaning on his "Beemer convertible" with a martini we hope is spiked with polonium. (Click on it, it's much better at 400 pixels! Related: please someone make a poster of this.) He's the only one of eleven we'd heard of, although interestingly #3 is also named on the basis of an ineffectively straightforward romantic invitation on the internet. ("I am looking to Give Head and have some fun NO GAMES." The name's Karma Delite, and he's been in Atlanta for four years without love. ""I know it sounds corny, but I feel like a woman trapped in a man's body...I'm more feminine than masculine. To be perfectly honest, I would rather meet straight men." Lightbulb!)

As in most of these cases involving random people who somehow manage to curiously channel the anger and disgust of humankind, I'm torn. Because I went to Penn, Page's alma mater. And as putrid as this guy is, there is just so much more where THAT came from. It's almost like, you know, blaming Michael Jackson's children for turning out kinda pervy. [Creative Loafing]

Angelyne Unearthed in Malibu

Celebrity archaeologists were both baffled and delighted on Sunday in Malibu, when paparazzi dusted off billboard fossil, Angelyne, marabou wedgies and all. DNA tests are inconclusive; her age is unknown.The still ambulatory, ample-bosomed relic… Read more

Barron Hilton Arrested for DUI

Barron Hilton (18), Paris Hilton’s little brother, was arrested for DUI in Malibu at 8:30 am. He was having alcohol for breakfast.

Cops say Barron was driving a black Mercedes on Pacific Coast Highway with a passenger, not one of his sisters, when he was pulled over at a 76 gas station.

He’s currently in the process of being booked at the Lost Hills Sheriff’s station, the same place Mel Gibson was taken.

When Paris was taking Barron out drinking, even though he was underage, I said she was setting him up for a DUI, and now it happened. Paris must really love her brother to make him part of the DUI club she’s in. Don’t forget about all his pill popping too, just like his sisters. First Paris got Britney allegedly hooked on drugs, and now her younger brother. Paris is such a great role model. I am still amazed she is so popular in Asia, despite the fact the same behavior would kill an Asian celebrity’s career.

Barron Hilton rammed an employee at the 76 gas station off the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu early this morning, just before his arrest for DUI. The worker, Fernando Tellez, was not hurt when Barron’s black Mercedes bowled into him between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m., but he insisted on calling the cops.

The cashier at the gas station this morning said Hilton "bumped" a worker at the station with his car, while the worker was at one of the pumps. Tellez said:

“I was knocked to the ground,” Tellez claimed to PageSix.com. “The Mercedes lost control as it was turning into the gas station and Barron got out of the car and he was totally drunk and couldn’t walk straight.”


Barron’s been officially booked and is currently being held on $5000 bail.

The Sheriff’s Department says Barron Hilton registered at nearly twice the legal limit, even for people over 21.

Spokesman Steve Whitmore tells us Barron blew a .14 blood alcohol reading.

In California, .08 is considered legally intoxicated for drivers over 21. If they’re under 21, and Barron is 18, any blood alcohol level is considered legally drunk.

Project Lifeline to help mortgage mess

The Bush administration, trying to deal with a worsening housing slump, announced a new initiative Tuesday aimed at helping homeowners about to lose their homes. For qualified homeowners, it will put the foreclosure process on hold for 30 days.

Dubbed “Project Lifeline,” the new program will be available to people who have taken out all types of mortgages, not just the high-cost subprime loans that have been the focus on previous relief efforts.

The program was put together by six of the nation's largest financial institutions, which service almost 50 percent of the nation's mortgages.

These lenders say they will contact homeowners who are 90 or more days overdue on their monthly mortgage payments. They will be given the opportunity to put the foreclosure process on pause for 30 days while the lenders try to work out a way to make the mortgage more affordable to the homeowner.

“Project Lifeline is a valuable response, literally a lifeline, for people on the brink of the final steps in foreclosure,” Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, said at a joint news conference with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

He said the goal was to provide a temporary pause in the foreclosure process “long enough to find a way out” by allowing homeowners and lenders to negotiate a more affordable mortgage.

Paulson said that the new effort was just one of a number of approaches the administration was pursuing with the mortgage industry to deal with the country's worst housing slump in more than two decades.

In December, President Bush announced a deal brokered with the mortgage industry that will freeze certain subprime loans, those offered to borrowers with weak credit histories, for five years if the borrowers are unable to afford the higher monthly payments as those mortgages reset after being at lower introductory rates.

“As our economy works through this difficult period, we will look for additional opportunities to try to avoid preventable foreclosures,” Paulson said. “However, none of these efforts are a silver bullet that will undo the excesses of the past years, nor are they designed to bail out real estate speculators or those who committed fraud during the mortgage process.”

Seton hall shooting

Seton Hall campus under lockdown; report of possible shooting
SOUTH ORANGE, NJ - The Seton Hall University campus in South Orange is under lockdown and students are being told to remain in their dormitories. ...


Seton Hall keeps its focus on Big East tourney
The Star-Ledger - NJ.com
And after being held to two points (on 1-for-5 shooting) the first time Seton Hall played Marquette this season, Hazell is looking to bounce back tonight. ...


Seton Hall campus locked down
SOUTH ORANGE, NJ - A friend of a Seton Hall University student was hospitalized in fair condition after being found on the school's South Orange campus with ...


UConn's Big Three difficult for opponents to stop
The trio combined for 63 points on 22-of-38 shooting (7-of-15 3-pointers) in 83 minutes in UConn's 82-36 victory at Seton Hall. ...


Seton Hall Shooting Flap
In much ado about nothing, someone seems to have shot himself — whether accidentally or as a suicide attempt is not known yet — and then drove on to the Seton Hall campus, looking for a friend for assistance. The person who was shot was ...
http://www.brunchcoffeeshop.com


Seton Hall University on LOCK Down following shooting
Man shoots himself, is rushed to hospital from Seton Hall, authorities say. We are waiting all clear for Campus authorities. 10:40 - ALL Clear issued at Seton Hall. Politisite... read more.
http://www.nowpublic.com/developing?filter=news&order=votes

Seton Hall University Shooting
Seton Hall University shooting locks down the campus as a caution as young man shots himself in the Set Hall University campus.
http://www.huliq.com/taxonomy/term/42/0


Seton Hall's outside shooting sunk Cards
Seton Hall's outside shooting sunk Cards. By Brian Bennett bbennett@courier-journal.com The Courier-Journal. RELATED VIDEO: Padgett talks about getting ...
www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=200880122036


Penn State's Claxton, Battle Sink Men's Basketball in Overtime, 89 ...
Dec 9, 2007 ... Seton Hall, shooting 61% from the floor in the half, ... Seton Hall finished the game shooting 44.1% to Penn State’s 47.8%. ...
www.shupirates.com/ViewArticle.dbml?ATCLID=1350530&DB_OEM_ID=12600


Scarlet Knights Fall to Seton Hall in OT, 84-71
Seton Hall pressed the Scarlet Knights early and often. ... As the Scarlet Knights free throw shooting improved, the score gradually narrowed. ...
www.scarletknights.com/news/release.asp?prID=6098


Seton Hall's outside shooting sunk Cards - Sport Snipe - Team News ...
Seton Hall's outside shooting sunk Cards, Blogs, Updates, Team News, and Stats from all sports sources, updated continuously.

Major BlackBerry outage in US

A major outage hit BlackBerry users in North America on Monday afternoon, cutting off wireless e-mail for everyone.

The problem, which BlackBerry owner Research In Motion described as a "critical severity outage" affecting users in the Americas, once again raised concerns about the stability of the e-mail service 10 months after a widespread crash last April.

Carmi Levy, senior vice-president of strategic consulting at AR Communications, said reliability is a serious concern for companies like RIM because if problems become routine, they can drive customers away.

"It's a big issue and it's a growing issue," Levy said, adding that huge outages could prove to be "a major Achilles' heel" for RIM.

RIM's US shares fell as much as 1.3 percent on the news, after closing up 5.3 percent in regular Nasdaq trade. On the Toronto Stock Exchange, the shares finished the day C$4.73 higher at C$94.62.

RIM notified its clients of the outage in an e-mail, but officials at the Waterloo, Ontario-based company were not immediately available for comment.

"This is an emergency notification regarding the current BlackBerry Infrastructure outage," RIM support account manager Bryan Simpson said in an e-mail sent to large clients.

The notice gave no details on the cause, when service might be restored or how many people could be affected.

The last big outage in April 2007 provoked an angry backlash from more compulsive users, who have dubbed the device "CrackBerry" due to its drug-like addictiveness. At the time, co-chief executive Jim Balsillie said such incidents were "very rare" and RIM was taking steps to prevent it from happening again.

RIM's worldwide subscriber base reached about 12 million people by late last year, mainly executives, politicians, lawyers and other professionals who rely on the BlackBerry to send secure e-mails. Sleeker new models are also catching on with students and others outside professional circles.

Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, said, "While the outage did confirm our widespread addiction to BlackBerry service, fortunately it did not cause more than a temporary inconvenience."

Voters go the polls on Tuesday in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia, the latest battleground in a tight race between Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination in November's election.

By about 7:00 pm Eastern time -- about three hours after RIM notified customers of the problem -- some users said a few e-mails were trickling through. Others, however, continued to be without service.

US mobile phone service provider Verizon Wireless said the outage was affecting all carriers' BlackBerry email service in North America. It said Verizon Wireless customers can still make calls on their BlackBerry.

Some appeared to enjoy a respite from a device.

"It made my life a little bit easier, since I didn't have to reply," Liberal Party spokesman Jean-Francois Del Torchio said from Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

"But when I arrived at my desktop and I saw all the e-mails I received, I was like, 'Oh, I still need to work'," Del Torchio told said - Reuters.

Diacritical Mark

A diacritic or diacritical mark, also called an accent, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from Greek διακριτικός (diakritikos, “distinguishing”). “Diacritic” is both adjective and noun, whereas “diacritical” is only an adjective.

A diacritical mark can appear above or below a letter, or in some other position. Its main usage is to change the phonetic value of the letter to which it is added, but it may also be used to modify the pronunciation of a whole word or syllable, like the tone marks of tonal languages, to distinguish between homographs, to make abbreviations, such as the titlo in old Slavic texts, or to change the meaning of a letter, such as denoting numerals in numeral systems like early Greek numerals.

A letter which has been modified by a diacritic may be treated as a new, individual letter, or simply as a letter-diacritic combination, in orthography and collation. This varies from language to language, and in some cases from symbol to symbol within a single language.