Information Society is big in Brazil. Nobody’s really sure why.

Their rabid Brazilian fans have compiled this YouTube video which shows scenes from old Star Trek episodes where the band took many of their samples. Think “Pure Energy,” etc.

In case you haven’t heard, the subs at Disneyland are coming back on June 11th.

They were shut down in 1998 by a cost-cutting corporate regime that saw their expensive upkeep as a threat to the bottom line. The submarine lagoon has been sitting dormant, unused, between Tomorrowland and Fantasyland for nearly a decade.

For the past few weeks teams from Imagineering, Attractions, and Pixar have been busting ass to meet the June 11th opening date.

I know because I’ve been spying on them!

I’ve been casually listening to their radio communications on my scanner every day at work. A lot of interesting stuff gets discussed over those radios!

For example, I now know that the projections in the caverns use a lot of QuickTime and that videos are somehow processed in Adobe After Effects. There are sixteen show scenes, and getting the lighting just right seems to have been the focus of much of the work last week. Today at 10AM there was a visit from some Pixar head honchos, and the stressed voices of the WDI staff prior to that ride-through made it sound like a big deal! I bet John Lasseter was there.

It’s all very exciting to hear these folks scramble to get things ready. It sounds like a lot of work and there’s a lot of coordination between many different teams. Pretty neat.

Maybe I talk about video games here too much. I think I might. Oh well. You can leave if you don’t like it!

Five sweet-looking board games are coming to Xbox Live Arcade. Like all XBLA titles they’re downloadable and will probably be in the $10 price range. Like many XBLA games they will probably capture my attention for weeks-on-end while all of my Rainbow Six-playing friends shake their heads in dismay and embarrassment.

All five of these games are based on real-world board games, but with the added bonus of pairing you up with skilled opponents worldwide at any time of day!

Settlers of Catan has lots of people excited. I’ve never played this game but it is supposed to be Super Duper. I did captial-S, capital-D to emphasize this point.

Carcassonne looks interesting too. I have no idea what it’s all about. I’m guessing you build things. Most of these games seem to be about building things. Build build build!

Alhambra is another game I know nothing about but looks interesting! The screenshot above was released months ago and that’s all they’ve given us.

Puerto Rico has something to do with Puerto Rico. I think. No screenshots have been released, but here’s a picture I found of the real thing! Man what a headache it must be to deal with all those little cards and game pieces all over the place!

Talisman is a game I am anticipating with much anticipation! During high school, and maybe even before high school, my friends and I played Talisman all the time. I don’t really remember how to play it nowadays, but I’m sure I’d pick it up pretty quickly. I actually threw out my Talisman set years ago, and now I see that they’re going for $100+ on Ebay. Figures. No screenshots for Talisman exist either, but it was only just announced last week.

So that’s what I’m looking forward to!

I love 2% milk.

It is one of my favorite things to drink ever.

I buy milk two gallons at a time.

I love it more than water.

Every morning I have a big bowl of cereal for breakfast. There is milk in it.
Every evening I have one, sometimes two glasses of milk with dinner.

At work when we all try to decide where to eat lunch I always try to steer the decision toward Bruegger’s Bagels or Soup Plantation. Why? Because they both have milk.

I drink milk at every opportunity. Yes, it costs more than soda. It usually costs more than water. And it’s a little inconvenient to drink ‘on the go’ because it requires refrigeration. But it is so, so worth it.

Last night when I pulled a gallon of milk out of the fridge it slipped out of my hand and crashed on the floor! In that half second I saw my life flash before my eyes. When it hit the ground it went boom and I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. I was relieved to see that the container had not exploded and my precious milk was safely contained. Plastic is wonderful. Not as wonderful as milk, but still pretty wonderful.

If you like Myst and board games, you’ll love Get The Glass. It’s a very well-done Flash board game with a Myst-ish art style. The object is to get the Adachi family around the map to a glass of milk stored in a stronghold at Fort Fridge! This thing must have cost a fortune to put together, because it is really a beautiful, lushly-detailed board gaming experience! They used to sell this kind of thing on CD-ROMs back in the 90s.

If Get the Glass gets just one more person to start drinking more milk, then I and the California Milk Processor Board (no relation) have done our jobs.

Picking which songs go into a game like Guitar Hero must be hard.

I’ve been playing it for the past week and it’s been super fantastic. I do love the game – it’s tons of fun…but some of these songs are really getting on my nerves.

I haven’t even heard most of the songs in the game before. They’re fun enough to play for a while…up to a point. When you find yourself saying “I have to play this death metal shit again?” you start to realize that you really only truly enjoy a handful of songs in the game and maaaaybe you’re just tolerating the rest to unlock the achievements. Admit it!

I never liked Anthrax growing up, so why would that change now just because I can pretend-play their songs?

To be fair, there’s some nice diversions sprinkled in there (Less Talk More Rokk and Misirlou are particularly awesome) but they’re the exception.

My ideal Guitar Hero game would combine 70s disco, 80s new-wave/synth-pop, and no hair bands. Or heavy metal.

That would be an amazing thing. Truly. It would make me so happy I would probably cry a little. I would buy twenty copies just to keep the game in circulation, just like Scientologists keep buying copies of Dianetics.

I think I’m missing the point of Guitar Hero! But I just want to play songs that I like, not songs that are famous for having thrashin’ guitar solos. If I could play Earth Wind & Fire’s September on this controller I would not rest until Elbow Macaroni was at the top of the leaderboards. For real.

I’ve started saying ‘guitar’ like a cowboy too. GIT-tar. I think it sounds way cooler.

Well I’m back from the DMV. That was incredibly easy and pleasant. I was in and out in fifteen minutes.

I checked in, took a number, and got called up two minutes later. They took a new picture, thumbprint, and I was done! They’ll mail me my renewed license in one to two weeks.

Let it be known that the Fullerton DMV is a model of efficiency! Totally sweet.

I get to go to the DMV tomorrow!

My license expires in three months and I just need to renew it. California won’t let you renew by mail three times in a row, and this is my third time! They’re going to fingerprint me again AND take my picture again. Then they’ll put my new information in “The System” and I will be invincible.

I made an appointment and I’m really excited! Well not really. DMV offices are usually full of scary-looking/smelling people (on both sides of the counter) so it will be a true adventure!

My morals are weak.

I had fully planned to boycott Guitar Hero II until someone with some sense decided to make a wireless guitar.

Then last night Tammy decided she wanted it. If life has taught me anything, it’s that when your girl tells you to buy a video game or anything electronic you get your ass off the couch and you BUY IT.

So that is what I did. Boycotts were made to be ignored!

Luckily the guitar is USB, so it can be used in both Windows and OSX, so it’s not like you’re locked in to only using it with this one game. There’s always Freetar and Frets on Fire too!

The cable has a quick release connector, so if you rock out too violently your Xbox won’t go flying across the room. This pleases me.

So far the game is great. It plays just like the PS2 version with a bunch of extra songs thrown in. I never bothered to pick up the PS2 version back when it was popular and I’m glad I held out because this game+controller cost a fortune.

The promised flood of downloadable songs starts next week, but if Activision is planning on charging extra for everything with no freebies thrown in they can suck it. Guitar Hero is the kind of game that has the potential for extreme abuse/overuse of microtransactions, and I have no doubt they will milk it for every penny they can. Although it would be nice to see record companies hopping in to offer free playable tracks to promote new artists or something…

Anyway! Even though all of my friends have much higher scores than me, I’m climbing up the leaderboards and will overtake them in no time! WATCH OUT FOR ELBOW MACARONI and his awesome band, “BRETTSPLOSION” you SOFT ROCK PANSIES!