in the news today

I don't know who was in charge of guests and reported on this mornings MSNBC, but they were all highly retarded.
Firstly was a women commenting on President Bush's visit to Iraq. Casually she stated that the war in Iraq had been going for 8 years now. 8 years?!! does she know what year it is? or, what does she know that the rest of us don't. as far as my mathematical skills go, that would mean the war started in 2000...before the event that started all the U.S involvement in the middle east (September 11, 2001). The worst part was that no one checked or challenged her on it. whats the news come to when anything that's said goes...
secondly, the weather guy was describing the blizzard like conditions in North and South Dakota today. Roughly quoting he said, 'with visibility at or below zero.'
...
at what point does visibility decrease below zero? i don't even have words or sarcasm to comment on this with the due diligence it deserves.
Finally on MSNBC this morning i saw them using Google Earth for their imaging. In case you didn't know, or couldn't figure (perhaps your visibility is below zero?) MSNBC is a joint venture between Microsoft Corp and NBC Universal. Microsoft has its own satilite imaging software, Virtual Earth...so why is MSNBC using Google software?

I'm usually a fan of MSNBC, but the news this morning was baffeling and confusing...so i watched a rerun of Mythbusters instead.

the newest WMD...

President Bush made a surprise visit to Iraq today. One could expect that any area in Iraq that the president is there would be a considerably high level of security. That's why i couldn't help but laugh when i saw this:
Introducing the newest Weapon of Mass Destruction (and this one exists)

"who throws a shoe...honestly" (sorry couldn't help but quote Austin Powers here...and im sure a lot of you jumped to it too)
CNN seriously spent 5 minutes analyzing the footage and the Secret Service agents, drawing on the screen like they're football defensive backs.
...got to give Bush credit though for his mad-quick reflex's...

SOTM: ‘Talking to Myself’ by Readymade Breakup

This first Song of the Moment is especially pertinent because it was the band I went to see last week. My mate Harris got an invite to go see them at ‘The Space’ in Hamden, CT. So while I was up in Connecticut we decided to go, hearing them on Myspace and them sounding fairly good. Long story short, overall they sound better live than recorded, but their sound and songs are both really good.
Readymade Breakup is a band from Asbury Park, New Jersey made up of 4 members all of whom are male. The lead singer/guitarist has a really good quality voice that really projects (even if he has to dance like a dinosaur to get it out there). Overall the sound of the songs is carried by the melodies of acoustic guitar and piano—both of which played by the lead singer. Their tempo can be related to the killer’s second album, slow yet somehow upbeat…but they sound nothing alike. Running something like KT Tunstall in the feeling of the songs, especially the song ‘Talking to Myself,’ the songs are lead by the steady drums, accented by short riffs from the electric guitar and carried by the vocals of the lead singer. Overall the melodies are something that you can get along with, while not feeling that you’re putting up with it.
My only complaint of the band is that the majority of the band (save the lead vocal-dinosaur) seam dead, tired or bored on stage—just not with it.

…of the Moment

Knowing what a disaster a weekly type update would be, I’ve opted to start something slightly different with the same core values. The ‘… of the Moment’ series will be things that a pertinent or prominent in the time that I chose to right about them. Much like a ‘song of the week’ operates, ‘Song of the Moment’ will describe a song, why I like it and what makes it special. ‘Flash of the Moment’ will operate in much the same way, when I find a Flash movie or game that is worthy of recognition I will mention it in one of these segments. The beauty of this is that I’m not tied to a schedule for updates. I can do them when and how I choose without having to worry that today is Friday which is song of the week day.
Here’s to hoping that this lives past its infancy, and the very first Song of the Moment will follow this post.
You can also catch a listing of all the SOTM and FOTM by clicking on those respective links thanks to Blogger’s labels system.

Fighting with Funny

So I heard this morning on the radio that today was ‘Call in Gay Day.’ The point was to show exactly what influence the gay community has on the world. So in light of this I thought I’d point out some of the interesting videos I’ve see around.
Two or so weeks ago I saw this on Will Ferrel’s / Adam Mckay’s website FunnieorDie.com. Dealing with proposition 8 when it was prominent in the news and what the Obama-nation means (featuring some big name actor/comedians).

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and many more... by Jack Black

While comedians can make jokes at the expense of this issue, there is one comedian out there who I saw yesterday take the issue more seriously than any other. When John Stewart interviewed former republican presidential nominee mike Huckabee on Tuesday he took the second part of the interview to press Huckabee on gay marriage. During the first part of his campaign I liked the idea of Huckabee. While not a republican myself, he seemed a wholesome guy. But when I dug deeper I saw some of his more outrageous values. In this segment, John Stewart’s eloquently puts his argument to Mike Huckabee in support of gay marriage and Huckabee responds—an interesting and intellectual dialog.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Mike Huckabee Pt. 2

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

"Please chose LOVE instead of HATE, besides your nation was built on separation of church and state"

Prime Time with Leno?

Yesterday the announcement was made to stop packing. That’s right Jay Leno is staying at NBC…“but how can that be? Conan’s taking his seat and Conan’s is replaced by Jimmy Fallon (who’s house band I’m skeptical off). And besides leno is past his prime” you yell (ok so maybe the last part was my input). But the execs at NBC have decided to keep Leno at the Network at a five night a week 10pm slot. With that you can pretty much kiss your bubble shows goodbye—with Lipstick Jungle and My Own Worst Enemy already in the can. What does that mean for the 10 hours of prime time left to be scheduled? Well we’ll still have comedy Thursdays, then geek Mondays (chuck and heroes), a double dose of Law and Order, medium and life might make it through alive, which combined adds up to 6 to 8 programming hours. Shows like Friday Night Lights and Knight Rider though will probably see their end. With ER gone after this season, NBC probably did the right thing by filling their lame duck of 10pm slot with easily produced (and cost effective) duck shit.
But I’ve held the long opinion that late night is dead. I’m sorry, but there are only so many times you can photoshop advertisements, or use the same joke about a unpleasant dog or Abraham Lincoln. The writers strike really spelled it out for me, Conan unscripted was great and unpredictable, but the first week back they slipped right back into a dumb and pointless joke about canoeing.
Do I think he’s going to do well? Only if he can bring his 1130 audience to the 10 o’clock time. Will I watch it? No.

Back to Ba6 – Mercury Studios v6

I’m back for my excursion in Australia (read the blog, visit the site) and while ignoring my duties to finish updating the mini site I’ve been working on another new version of Mercury Studios (version 6 as far as I can count if you start from the very beginning). Yes, in what seems to becoming a yearly tradition the sixth version of Mercury Studios comes 5 years after the beginning of my life as a web and flash developer, 1 years and 3 months after the conception of Mercury Studios (what I call v4), and 1 year after Mercury Studios V5. With Version 6, I went widescreen and simplified the whole layout, giving each element its space. From what stats I caught from viewers, the majority of users had screens equal to or wider that 1024. I took advantage of this space and expanded my pages (as many others have done in recent months). Ill also be changing the way content is viewed. The news page is gone, with bloHG now taking center stage as the news and blog section. Flash was renamed to animation because, after all, interactive is also flash. Advertisements have also been incorporated in the pages other than the home page. That’s the bulk of the changes for this update, and you can see it right now on the homepage only. The other pages will follow for the beginning of 2009. If you have any comments, shoot an email to david@mercury-studios.com.
Also I was thinking of entering the Newgrounds Winter Flash-Off, but ill have to see what time this redesign takes and if I get any good ideas as well as completing my Australia Mini-site.

Gmail

I dont know why (probably because ive been reading these past days about gmail's new Video Chat, and this article), but i decided i wanted to make a gmail acount for myself. And now im really confused. basically i was expecting a big hassle because i have blogs under one blogger sign in and then would have this gmail account (google owns blogger), so i would have to sign in multiple times to different places with different logins. im confused because not only did it automatically take control of the blogs i was posting under the account for my mercury studios website, it also found a blog i had started about two years ago for a website i had since forgotten about and deleted...

im not sure exactly whats going on, or why im even alowed to post this...but here goes!

oh and my gmail account is: britishboy973@gmail.com  ...unsuprisingly any variations on davidhitchings@gmail.com were already gone.

Vote 4 Hope

Obama '08 - Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

NY’s Latest Fad…

climbing the New York Times building. And who wouldn’t want to? It’s like a giant ladder—a giant, four sided, 52 story ladder. When you step out of port authority it’s the first thing you see in the city, and I think from the time I first saw it I thought about its climb-ability—not that I would ever EVER consider EVER being up that high clinging to the side of a building with nothing but my hands and feet. So I guess I was surprised that it took over a year and a half for someone to do it (sorry, for two people to do it). I commute into the city everyday and I work about a block and a half from port authority/New York Times building. I didn’t really know about the first person (you tend to zone out the sirens), but it was mentioned after the fact. The second person though came to our attention because of the media coverage (the helicopters). We watched it online first—thank you video streaming—then realized we could see the New York Times building from our building (in fact we have a REALLY good view). It should also be mentioned that there was nothing stopping these climbers hitting the concrete pavement pretty hard if they had fallen. Now I really just need to carry my camera around more that I do, then I would have some pretty awesome pictures.