Wednesday, February 28, 2007

2IGTV Episode 36

The 79th Oscar's post-mortem! What's the deal with Ghost-Rider? Discover who's teaming up with Ben Stiller for The Hardy Men! James Cameron (not exactly the sanest man on the planet) joins the ranks of the batshit crazy! Aaron Eckhart is Harvy Dent but would he have made a better Joker, or even a better Batman?

Following in the success of Rocky Balboa, Stallone changes the title of Rambo IV. Will Abrams Direct Trek after all? All this and more of the usual stupidity here.

Making The Headlines

Three different people cut this out of the back of a newpaper and wished me luck...

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Snake Crandall Gets Medal Of Honor

As a 32-year-old helicopter pilot, Major Bruce "Snake" Crandall flew through a gauntlet of enemy fire, taking ammunition in and wounded Americans out of one of the fiercest battles of the Vietnam War in Ia Drang Valley in November 1965.

At the time his unit has no administrative staff and had no way of supplying the required paperwork to Washington to award Crandall the Medal Of Honor. Generals in-theatre could approve nothing higher than the Distinguished Service Cross, so he got one of those, but now 41 years later the paperwork and bureaucracy has been filed and completed and yesterday President Bush awarded the 74 year old retired Lieutenant Colonel Crandall his overdue Medal Of Honor.

The 7th Cavalry regiment "taking some of the heaviest casualties of the war, out of water and fast running out of ammunition, was engaged in one of the fiercest battles of the Vietnam war against a relentlessly attacking, highly motivated, vastly superior force," said U.S. Army documents supporting Crandall's medal. The U.S. forces were up against two regiments of North Vietnamese Army infantry, "determined to overrun and annihilate them".

At the time, Crandall was a commanding a company of the 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). He didn't have gunners for his aircraft and flew unarmed helicopters into the battlefield. He didn't have night vision equipment and other later technology that lessens the danger of flying.

The fighting became so intense that the helicopter landing zone for delivering and resupplying troops was closed, and a unit assigned to medical evacuation duties refused to fly. Crandall volunteered for the mission and with wingman and longtime friend Major Ed Freeman made flight after flight over three days to deliver water, ammunition and medical supplies. They are credited with saving more than 70 wounded soldiers by flying them out to safety, and Freeman received the Medal of Honor in July 2001.

Without his actions, the embattled men at Ia Drang would have died "cut off, surrounded by numerically superior forces, overrun and butchered to the last man," the infantry commander, Lt.Col. Hal Moore, wrote in recommending Crandall for the medal.

Moore, now a retired lieutenant general, later wrote a book We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young. The book was also adapted into the 2002 film We Were Soldiers with Mel Gibson as Moore and Greg Kinnear as Crandall.

"In men like Bruce Crandall, we really see the best of America," President Bush said. "For the soldiers rescued, for the men who came home, for the children they had and the lives they made, America is in debt to Bruce Crandall."

"I'm still here," he said of his 41-year-wait for the Medal of Honor. "Most of these awards are posthumous, so I can't complain."

Source: Fox News

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Blacksite: Area 51

Who remembers the Area 51 lightgun game? I certainly do and I always preferred it to House Of The Dead; probably due to the fact that I've "taken down" aliens in reality, but demons and zombies are firmly in the realm of fantasy. This however sounds like something I've been writing about myself... the truth.

In early 2005, developers Midway rejuvenated the lightgun shooter franchise on the PC, Xbox and PlayStation 2 with Area 51. The game was a pleasant surprise all around, boasting fantastic visuals and an engaging storyline that wound tighter and tighter as it progressed. Now, this year they will unleash its sequel on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC in the form of BlackSite: Area 51.

It will not be a true sequel but more a game inspired by the previous game. It's more rooted into the fiction of what's going on in today's world and what we afraid of today: Terrorism, world wars, powerful governments that are secretive to the population - things like that.

Blacksite is an FPS where you're now in complete control of a Special Forces squad. Their morale will play a part in how well they perform. Properly commanding them will have them at their best, but running them poorly into bad situations will negatively affect their aim, wear down on their fatigue and make them even lose the will to fight. Squad commands are said to be contextual, utilizing a single button to take care of all your available commands without the need to scroll through menus or whatnot.

Vehicles will also play a part in the game. Vehicles such as HMMWVs, ATVs and even civilian vehicles will play a part in the action. The level design is promised to be multi-pathed with various routes that you can take to surround and flank the enemy. Cover points will be prominent, encouraging you to make proper use of your squad and covering fire. The cover won't be safe for long however as much of the game's environments will be destructible.

The storyline is being scripted by Susan O'Conner previously responsible for Gears Of War and Acts Of War (which is on my playing list on the right sidebar). Apparently you start off in Iraq; you're actually on the battlefield in a war that's happening today. You and your squad mates are there fighting the war and you see some things that are kind of strange, which then ties you into the fiction that brings you back to the United States to investigate a strange town where some being has been found.

The game's producer Zack Wood said "There are some parallel elements to what you saw in Iraq and what you see in America and that ties those elements together. We're toying with that idea of what it'd be like if there were alien elements involved in what we face today as a society. It's kind of fun to play with those ideas a bit."

Personally I was thinking of bringing a lawsuit against them as its obvious from that "storyline" that the writer has seen part of the manuscript of my autobiography, but perhaps if the world is exposed to these ideas through the video-game medium first then when I eventually reveal the truth I won't be ridiculed. It also won't hurt to find out if this game isn't mysteriously shit-canned and if all involved don't have fatal accidents, then I know the way will be safe for me to do what I need to following my eventual retirement.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Lance Corporal Promoted Himself To Colonel

I was researching a little-known fact about the Medal Of Honor recently- that apparently the amount of people pretending to be recipients of the award outnumber the amount of living recipients.

During this research period, I came across this clown who, while not claiming the MOH, was instead passing himself off as a Marine colonel for years...

Albert T. McKelvey, 69, was ordered to pay a $2,500 fine when he was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Hardiman for pretending to be a Marine colonel.

For one Eugene McLaughlin, the punishment wasn't nearly enough. He described to Judge Hardiman his first meeting with Mr. McKelvey. He was in a meeting of his Marine Corps veterans association when Mr. McKelvey walked in, wearing a colonel's uniform. He told the members he'd been "ordered by generals in Washington, D.C., to take over this outfit." Too bad they don't have a firing squad," said the former Marine sergeant who spent eights years trying to expose McKelvey before turning the case over to federal authorities.

In 1998, prosecutors say McKelvey began ordering uniforms, medals and insignia to support his bolstered rank. His dress blues uniform was soon adorned with a Purple Heart, Navy Cross, Silver Star, Navy Distinguished Service Medal and the Navy Marine Corps Medal as well as the full "bird" colonel insignia on the shoulders.

"He holds delusions of grandeur, a need to hold a title, a need to be something more than he is, which I find sad," the judge said.

He wore the uniform and played the role of colonel for years at veterans functions, holiday ceremonies and military funerals, giving speeches, celebrating the birthday of a Navy admiral and presenting folded flags to widows.

When one of McKelvey's friends confronted him for wearing the uniform some years ago, he claimed he was a colonel and said that he had done some classified work in the military but that the paperwork was lost or otherwise unavailable.

What a tosser! These people are a disgrace and should be shot.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Ireland v England, Croke Park

An edited excerpt from a letter published in the English Times referring to the upcoming Ireland vs. England Rugby match being played in Croke Park this Saturday:

Ireland may well be missing BOD and O'Gara on Saturday and don't have the resources in depth to overcome such losses. However neither will England have the armoured cars and machine guns they had the last time they entered Croke Park!


-Frank, Co. Wicklow

Kudos to the editor of the English times who had the stones to let Frank's letter go to print.

For those of you historically challenged (or from a far-off foreign land), Frank is referring to an infamous massacre during the Irish War Of Independence by the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary (a British force) of 13 spectators and a football player at Croke Park in Dublin in 1920. These shootings, on the day which became known as Bloody Sunday, (not to be confused with the 1972 Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland - What is it with the Brits and shooting unarmed folk on this island?) were a reprisal for the assassination of a dozen British Intelligence officers by Michael Collins' Squad earlier that day.

Historically, any 'garrison games', or those believed to have stemmed from British rule, were banned from the stadium by the ground's owners the Gaelic Athletic Associations (GAA), until a groundbreaking vote allowed rugby and football matches to be held there while Lansdowne Road stadium undergoes renovation.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Change to the "New" Blogger.

Blogger received a massive upgrade in late 2006 which required you to migrate your blog to the new Google servers. Many claim the service is now more reliable, due to the quality of the servers; I've not found anything that would make me disagree with that claim yet.

I'd been holding off on this until I had implementation time, so before the weekend I moved Whopper's Bunker over the new Google-Powered Blogger. Now, one is not forced to move (as yet) but I'd received a lot of encouragement from Blogger to make the move, most notably in the form of in big letters "have you moved to the new Blogger yet?" etc. when I logged in, replacing my dashboard editing screen with Google account applications and information on the three steps to make to migrate the Bunker.

Well it wasn't as painful as I imagined, but there were some changes to existing settings and a few new options to ignore or adopt. Along with the migration to Google servers, several new features were introduced:

Label organisation. This is the ability to apply labels or topics beneath each post. Clicking on the appropriate label should now bring up posts which I've applied that label to, like President Bush or GWOT (Global War On Terror). I've made specific ones in some cases for say, Star Wars or Paris Hilton and generic ones such as TV and Games. They take time to apply as I have to revisit and attack labels to almost 400 posts but should be working by this Friday.

Drag-and-drop template editing interface. As I have a custom template, I'll have to investigate this before implementing it or everything could go wonky.

New Web feed options. I didn't notice much in the way of new options at least anything that I'd use, but I'll investigate further later. One alteration that could not be helped was the change to the RSS site feed, so if you use an RSS reader to access my headlines then you must now point your aggregator to: http://genthar.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss to avail of my wisdom.

Furthermore, blogs are updated dynamically, as opposed to rewriting HTML files which decreases posting time and ensures quicker updates.

As always if you see anything wonky on any browser (except Opera mobile or whatever you were on about the other day Sithy) let me know.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

2IGTV Makes Irish Blog Awards Shortlist

Thanks to everyone who voted for Mark and I for the 2007 Irish Blog Awards.

The shortlist was announced this evening and 2IGTV remains in the running for an Irish Blog Award on March 3rd at the award ceremony in Dublin.

Cheers folks.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

The Bionic Brit

The news was broken on 2IGTV some months back that NBC was working on a "re-imagination" of the 1976 series The Bionic Woman which starred Lindsay Wagner as Jaime Sommers, a tennis professional whose body is rebuilt with electronic parts after an accident, giving her superhuman abilities.

News came this week that Michelle Ryan (left) who protrayed slapper Zoe Slater on Eastenders for a few years has landed the lead role in the remake. She apparently beat a host of Hollywood names to the role according to Variety.

The original was a poor offshoot of the superior The 6-Million Dollar Man starring Lee Majors. I think this version should be superior if only because Ryan's tits are bigger than Wagner's. But let's just hope that god-awful East-End accent was faked or she'll be too hard for the yanks to understand and the show won't get very far.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

2IGTV Episode 35

2IGTV nominated for an award! Mr. & Mrs. Smith cast. Battlestar Galactica Game on the way. Coppola's new ego-trip. Is J.J. doing Trek or not? Release date for Indy IV. Will they de-age Brian Cox for Wolverine? What will Robert DeNiro's role be in The Departed 2. Intel's new 80-Core processor and Mark sees General Colin L. Powell in action.



It's all here.

The Hoff still loves you!


Because of the day that's in it...

2IGTV Nominated for Irish Blog Award

When someone says "award" to me, I obviously think of shiny medals which I'm pretty used to getting at this stage of my military career but when Mark said to me Sunday that: "We're up for an award!", I thought "Oh Christ!!".

I heard of The Irish Blog Awards last year, most likely through Mark as I pay little attention to the Irish blogosphere (yes that's a "word" apparently) and I had forgotten about them until the Sunday revelation. From what I learned it sounded like an excuse for a load of Dubliners (pardon, and Damien Mulley) to get together for a piss-up and praise each other for their accomplishments and enhancements to the Irish blogosphere (there's that word again).

However looking at this year's nominees, I'm thinking of revising that opinion. I see that there are people outside the pale up for awards as evident by the number of entries as Gaeilge. As I've never heard a Dubliner, or a true Dubliner rather speaking Irish; they must be from other places in Bogland.

Anyway the point of this post is to let you know that Mark and I have been nominated by some goon with more time than sence, who, upon discovering that there was a Best Podcaster category in this year's awards decided it would be a great idea to put us in the ring. Whoever you were: What the hell were you thinking?

Have you any idea how much a real award would go to my head? Don't you think I'm unstable enough already?

Actually it's great! Because I get attention, so go here, stick in your name and E-Mail, scroll down to Best Podcaster, select 2IGTV from the dropdown list (and obviously make other selections as you see fit) and submit. Only do it once, you clown or you'll make your vote null and void. Voting will close February 16th at 17:00 GMT so don't wait around.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Music video tribute to the legendary Michael Bay.

This dude can't sing for shit but I agree with his sentiment 110%.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Iron Man to be a trilogy

Well that's Fav's plan at least and he's signed up Downey, Paltrow and Howard for three movies, possibly Jeff Bridges as well.

Yes I said Jeff Bridges. He joined the cast last week and while not officially revealed yet, I suspect he'll be Sal a mentor character from the most recent Iron Man run (Volume 4) based on the The Hollywood Reporter's article where it's said he'll be "a confidant and close business associate of Stark, a longtime employee at defense contractor Stark Industries who plays a major role in shaping Stark's life." Marvel's president of production Kevin Feige added "He's excited about doing a movie like this, and we're excited to have him in this particular role. There are many facets to this character which I can't discuss, but looking at the spectrum of all of Jeff's roles, this fits in nicely with the man who played Starman, Tucker, Big Lebowski with a little bit of Tron thrown in."

The origin film will obviously be self-contained, but it may contain threads that will continue in future outings and set-ups that will come in to play later like Tony's drinking perhaps. War-Machine for instance will most likely not appear in the first Iron Man but that character was a key factor in casting Terence Howard as Rhody so I'm glad that Favreau is thinking that far ahead for trilogy cohesiveness (unlike say the Wachowski Brothers).

Mark Fergus one of the Iron Man writers was interviewed by a Jewish run entertainment website during the week.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Anna Nicole Smith is Dead

This is hardly news; anyone anywhere should now know that the woman who became famous for being a celebrity is dead at 39. However, I myself was somewhat shocked to see the headline on the Sun that some bloke was reading on the bus at 7:30 yesterday morning - and I'm not often shocked.

Every day while filtering through the news for both Whopper's Bunker and 2IGTV, I saw news stories about her battles with her stepson over late husband's (the 93 year old billionaire) fortune and more recently the death of her 20 year old son and the custody battle over her newborn baby.

It's fascinating the way the media has all but "cancelled" all other news to focus on Anna Nicole's death before even knowing the cause. Batshit crazy broadcaster Larry King, disclosed that he has a painting that Smith had done hanging in his home. King predicted that there will be "a major motion picture" about her. Esewhere, on Fox News, New York Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman commented that Smith's life had aspects of "a certain kind of really lousy Hollywood script."

I guess all we need now is the lousy script and get some balloons for, oh let's say Jessica Simpson to stuff down her blouse to play her :)

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Chewie Goes Apeshit! ***Updated***

Updated with Video Footage

A man dressed as Chewbacca was arrested after police said the street performer head-butted a tour guide operator in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Frederick Evan Young, a 6-foot-4 street performer was seen arguing with a tour guide who had expressed concern the wookie impersonator was "harassing and touching tourists" in violation of city law according to police Lt. Paul Vernon.

The city passed ordinances last year seeking to crack down on the colorful assortment of actors who perform outside the landmark theater. The move was prompted by complaints from tourists who said the actors were aggressive and abusive if they refused to pay for pictures.

Security guards escorted Young off theater property, but Chewbacca decided to strike back and head-butted the tour guide, Vernon said. "The lesson here is you can have the force with you, You just can't use illegal force."

The tour guide, Brian Sapir, told the Los Angeles Times that he asked the Chewbacca character to stop harassing two young Japanese tourists when the actor exploded in anger.

"He said, 'Nobody tells this wookie what to do,"' Sapir said.

Source: Fox News

Sunday, February 04, 2007

A sword-wielding teenager gunned down - Part 5 in my "Shoot First, Questions Never" series!

In Huron, South Dakota, a sword-wielding teenager killed his mother and injured three others before police shot and killed him.

When officers arrived at the family's home Friday, they saw 16-year-old Josh Gilchrist wielding a long sword one officer described as "something you'd probably see in an ancient knight-type movie." Gilchrist struck one of the officers several times before the others fired shots and killed him, Huron Police Chief Doug Schmitt said Friday. "We don't have any background or any events leading up to the assault this morning that would give any indication of a motive," Schmitt said.

Police found 49-year-old Betty Gilchrist dead. Fourteen-year-old Rebekah Gilchrist and a foreign exchange student were injured. The injured officer was treated at a local hospital and released. Four officers were placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, which is standard procedure when police fire a gun.

Sounds to me like a D&D LARP got out of hand :)

Source: Fox News.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Pic on 3DRealms ad was Duke Nukem 4 Ever Screenshot!!!

Everyone who has any intrest in gaming saw that 3DRealms were hiring a new programmer as of last week. Attached to the ad here was this picture of Duke Nukem with a gun. It was assumed that this was a pre-rendered image of a kind usually reserved for advertising or a cutscene.

We were all mistaken.

"...That's an in game, real-time shot of Duke standing in a random hallway.", the developer's George Broussard stated on 3D Realms forums in a thread about the image. "It was really done as a small teaser for the ad. Nothing more. I'm glad some of you enjoyed it," he continued, adding "we'll show more later as we start to wake from our slumber and decide how best to show the game off."

In the same thread, 3D Realms staffer Joe Siegler promised that "When we open the floodgates, you won't have to do any convincing - the game will do it's own convincing" in response to poster Spooger asking to get the DNF image in high-res as "I'm having trouble convincing some friends that DNF is the second coming of Christ with a 200x100 pixel pic".

More on this life-defining event as it happens. Stay tuned.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Ze Germans want CIA arrested

This shit really annoys me: A court in Munich has issued warrants for the arrests of 13 suspected CIA agents who allegedly kidnapped and tortured a German citizen.

The men are accused of falsely imprisoning and causing grievous bodily harm to Khaled el Masri. Mr Masri was arrested in Macedonia in late 2003 and says he was handed over to the CIA. He was then flown to Afghanistan, where he was held until his release at the end of May 2004.

State prosecutors say the accused are thought to have been on board the plane which took him to Kabul. They were identified with the aid of intelligence provided by Spanish investigators.

"According to current findings, the particulars of the suspects listed in the arrest warrants suggest these could be cover identities of CIA agents," prosecutors said in a statement.

The case has increased speculation in Europe about so-called rendition flights, where US intelligence agencies allegedly used private planes to transport suspects from one legal jurisdiction to another.

As I said, this really annoys me. Just look at the guys name: Khaled el Masri it's not Hans so he can't be German and so he's obviously a terrorist. The CIA do not torture people, they "persuasively interview" people and if you co-operate with them then there no need for waterboarding. So why didn't this wog co-operate? Because he was a terrorist. Anyhow, it's pretty obvious Ze Germans are just looking for some excuse to get back at the US after having their ass kicked in WWII.

Source: Sky News