The Geeks of Hazzard s02e13 (#040) (MP3 – 21.2 mb / 0 hr 46 mins)
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When all through the night, the boys were yammering on about all the geek-shit they were hoping to get. At least, I assume that’s what they were doing. This was supposed to go out to you guys before Christmas, but they’ve been so busy playing… um… with their toys… um, well. Here it is, the Post-Pre-Christmas Post. According to Kev, they mainly talked about 3 movie trailers:

Nick Fury appears in Hulk and Iron Man. Hopefully he does more than just appear, hopefully he brings his FURY!

Hellboy 2 trailer. There’s a hell and there’s a boy. Again. And that cool fish dude.

Duke Nukem Forever? FOREVER!
Peace Out!
Van’s Girly

The Geeks of Hazzard s02e12 (#039) (MP3 – 21 mb / 0 hr 45 mins)
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Kev considers the virtues of working away from the office (hint: it’s freakin’ great)
The reviewing media hits a new low, as a Gamespot editor is fired for honesty.
Street Fighter 4 confirmed, in-game screens look a bit shit.
Ray Park is Snake Eyes in GI Joe!

The Geeks of Hazzard s02e08 (#038) (MP3 – 17.8 mb mb / 0 hr 38 mins)
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Welcome to another episode recorded on the road! Tonight we caught the cinematic screening of the Star Trek: The Original Series double-episode “The Menagerie” at Cinema Nova here in Melbourne. It’s had a massive worldwide release, and we were lucky enough to get into the Melbourne screening! It was pretty damn amazing what they’ve done with it. The remastering is fantastic, and the updated effects were tasteful and really quite good. Very, very impressive stuff.

Definitely gonna have to grab the new HD season 1 box set when it comes out!

Other crap we talked about:

In other news, the Ghostbusters are back! In Pog game form!
Are you an Australian, desperately yearning to ride a Segway? This is your time!
Google Maps street view readying for Australia!
Video, GPS, Googlemaps and you. A mashup.
How does the WGA writers strike affect you? Here’s how!
Google might be feeling lucky, but it’s costing them a hot mint.

The Geeks of Hazzard s02e10 (#037) (MP3 – 17.1 mb / 0 hr 37 mins)

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Van’s girly here. I’m back and I’m RAD. So rad, in fact, it is now my official GoH moniker. Yay, me! (It works, kind of. It’s got three letters!)

So yeah, Ken and Viv Kev and Van went to the Egames Expo and promised they weren’t going anywhere near the Sexpo. So they said. But while I’m positive the Stig once punched down a horse, the possibility that these two didn’t ponder the Sexpo entrance for a long 10 minutes is beyond belief. And so it goes.
Okay, the official reason they were at the Sexpo Egames Expo was to interview Mark Eliot, some dude who made an actual computer game! Fo’ shizzle! According to Van’s taped confession, it’s highly addictive. For those of you still recovering from years and years of Tetris addiction, *ahem* BEWARE!

Peace out. RAD out.

The Geeks of Hazzard s02e09 (#036) (MP3 – 25.8 mb / 0 hr 56 mins)

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Even more illogical would be Van’s girlfriend doing this blog post ON THE SLY! Which is happening right now, at this very moment! Excitement abounds! Especially when you realise that I haven’t heard the podcast and I’m totally winging it here! All for the sake of you loyal listeners, waiting patiently (too patiently?), for the next episode. I see the Geeks have trained you well. All Your Base Are Belong To Us and other geeky stuff. Yeah. On to the fun links. Stop looking at me.
First look at Zachary Quinto as the young Spock
Steve Guttenberg is BACK, baby
Winona Ryder is Spock’s mum! I didn’t know!
Pacman swallows a guitar, fat end first
Tim Kring, creator of Heroes, apologies to fans for sucking
The Last Starfighter arcade machine has been recreated by a fan
Wil Wright, creator of The Sims, was a street racer
Ehgamay sexpo! - Origami Sex Po? Conveniently, an actual “Sexpo” was happening next door to the gamer nerds. This is how we got Tomb Raider, I guess.
Alone in the park trailer - Probably a game from the sexpo. Wait. What?
Trent Reznor is a pirate! Argh! I mean, oink!
Okay, I hope you guys have the idea. Now I’m gonna go see/hear how much is right.

The Geeks of Hazzard s02e08 (#035) (MP3 – 25.8 mb / 0 hr 56 mins)
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A Jedi Academy in NYC? I’m afraid so kids, I’m afraid so.
A Star Trek coffin? Didn’t they pull that stunt already in Star Trek II?!
Heroes Origins cancelled! Also, this season might be shortened!
Here, have some more info about JJ Abrams’ monster movie!
The Google PC! Well, Sort of. US$200!
Check this out; an arcade cabinet with a beer keg inside!
PacMan text adventure? That’s right! If you’re under 20, you won’t get this at all!
Afterburn, the new post-apocalyptic comic from Red 5 Comics.
The scooter that also chills your beer, and your balls! Maybe. I dunno.
Steampunk PacMan arcade toy. This is cute as shit, I want it.
Joss Whedon’s new TV show, Dollhouse!
And here’s a few extras that we didn’t talk about!

Stormtrooper - aka blogger Danny Choo - dancing in Shibuya, Japan! Link 2!
Chinese kid makes his own Bumblebee model from KFC boxes!
Dude, make your own Flux Capacitor. Hell yeah.

DINOSAUCEEEEEERS!

[via HaHa.nu]

The Geeks of Hazzard s02e07 (#034) (MP3 – 25.5 mb / 0 hr 55 mins)
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Wow, two episodes in two days, you guys are probably crying right now so damn lucky, right? This week, Kev rambled on for 4 hours about our download stats, and then I spent the remaining 12 hours being a jerk. Why do I do it, damn it? Why? Here’s a few other things we talked about!

Kev gives his best Chris Crocker impression while reading a Trekkie letter.
If you’re down with the lolcats, you’re halfway toward being a badass programmer!
Mozilla announces Prism; web apps on your desktop!
Add your own captions and dialogue to scenes from The Living Dead.
Ways to make Facebook a little more useful, and a little less shit.
New photos and screens from AVP-R - Predalien!
Josh Lucas to play Captain Christopher Pike in Star Trek XI?
Comic book artist Kaare Andrews pitches a He-Man movie!
Mad Max 4 is going ahead, without Gibson!
Yeeaah, I’m gonna get you to go ahead and watch Ron Livingston’s trailer.
New I Am Legend trailer and short! Good gravy!
New Harold and Kumar 2 poster, and here’s the trailer too.
Incidentally, Dumbledore was gay!

Stay tuned for next week’s episode, where we have some technical difficulties and drink beer! A must-hear show!

Nate Bellegarde has been one of my favourite artists for a while now, best known for his art on the backup stories found in the back of Invincible. Every now and then, he posts a comic on Fetorpse, his Livejournal account. The guy’s artwork is messed up in every way I’ve ever wanted mine to be, and my hat is off to him at least twice a day. He’s posted up a new strip, so go check it out if ye know what’s good for ye.  You can also check out his sketchblog here.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m busy listening to a 90s compilation. Aaaah Mr. Big, wherever did you go.

There appears to be a problem with this week’s (aka last week’s) episode, so we’ve taken down the blog post for the moment. Apologies to folks who’ve already downloaded the file via their subscriptions, no doubt you’ll come here to the blog wondering WTF! Kev will fix the file tonight and we’ll put the blog post back up, so please come back in a bunch of hours and grab the file again. Again, sincerest geekapologies!

<3 Van.

The Geeks of Hazzard s02e06 (#033) (MP3 – 25.6 mb / 0 hr 55 mins)
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Honda’s ASIMO robot has been touring Australia lately, so Kev and I thought we’d go and check it out at Chadstone—Australia’s fashion capital. We tried on Thursday night, and were 5 minutes late—which we discovered is late enough to be turned away. We tried again on Sunday, and found out after standing in line for 25 minutes that the shows were all booked out—and they’d known this for an hour or so. Jerks! So, in true nerd fashion, it’s time we got out revenge.

TGoH now exists for no other purpose than to ensure the return of Sony’s QRIO! Keep an eye out for our chart on the reasons why QRIO is not only better than ASIMO, but would beat its ass in a fight to the positronic death. There may also be a t-shirt in the works, which we’ll give away to a lucky listener or two (one each, of course. We wouldn’t make you share it. Nerd germs!)

BRING BACK QRIO, DOWN WITH ASIMO!

Wolverine movie to begin shooting in Australia and NZ soon!
Vin Diesel’s new action/sci-fi movie with the cheapass looking poster!
Sly Stallone in Rambo City! Sin Rambo? I give up!
The I Am Legend website is awesome. CONCUR!
The trailer for the upcoming Street Fighter 4 game is extremely slick, check it out!
Exclamation mark!
Check out the Robot Hall of Fame!
A StarGate MMO? I hope it does better than the Star Wars Galaxies one!
The End of the World is Nigh! The robots are revolting!

The image above was painted by one Will Murai, and taken without permission—and altered—by TGoH (as you’d expect). Check out his work, it’s phenomenal. Seriously.

The Geeks of Hazzard #032 (MP3 – 25.5 mb / 0 hr 55 mins)
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On tonight’s episode, Kev came to term with the trials of Bacon.
The ridiculousness of copyright law carries on!

We talked movies ’til the sun came up!

Peter Jackson and Spielberg on a Tintin movie.
Vin Diesel and Paul Walker return for Fast and the Furious 4.
Continuing on the Vin Diesel train (geddit, diesel train); Terminator 4.
If podfade exists, what about blogfade? It’s just too out there, man!
Wanna see how the different sci-fi spaceships stack up? Check this out!
A Karate Kid remake? Oh jeez. Ralph Macchio, come back!

And what about Star Trek XI?

Karl Urban to play a bad guy?
Of course, we’ve also got Eric Bana, John Cho, and Simon Pegg, what the!
And it might cost more than US$150m to make!

Until next time folks, keep it “rizzeal”!

The Geeks of Hazzard #031 (MP3 – 41.7 mb / 1 hr 3 mins)
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I think I’ll make it a rule from now on that I should listen to Richard Marx’s Hazzard song whenever I’m updating this podcast blog.

My apologies for last week’s episode going up today! We’re not having the best relaunch, that’s for sure. The fact that I’ve returned to full-time study saps a lot of time and energy out of me I’m afraid, and sometimes it’s a real chore to put all this together. But we’ll stick it out and keep doing our best to bring you all the slack, weird, unprofessional, and bumpshit GoH you can handle!

We yammered on a little about some of the following!

Dinoriders Park 4!
Terminator 4!
The craziness that is the world we live in because of Facebook and MySpace
George Miller of Mad Max fame to direct Justice League movie.
Richard “DK” Kelly’s latest flick, Southland Tales.
The Google Phone.
Is that all? Jeez. How the hell do we get through an hour’s worth of crap?! I’ve probably left some things out, so y’all feel free to remind me and I’ll add them to the post!

Until next time, remember: it’s better to travel alone than with a fool. But what may two fools do?

The Geeks of Hazzard #030 (MP3 – 45.85 mb / 1 hr 12 mins)
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A good episode this week! We trod frightfully close to professionalism at certain points, and of course we’ll try to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

What did we jibber jabber on about?

Kev whined about the lack of good news sources online - what?!
We discussed Peter Jackson’s directorial work, and the New Zealand horror scene.
The new film called Ferryman, wherein John Rhys-Davies doesn’t star as himself.
We learned more about the Zombie cocktail, and the Tiki scene, than we thought possible.
George Miller has been pegged as the director of the new JLA movie.
Richard Kelly’s new movie Southland Tales is Donnie Darko with a bigger budget?
The smiley emoticon is 25 years old! In other news, so is the frown emoticon!

And of course, we played a great track from Jonathan Coulton, called Re. Your Brains.  It’s awesome!
Until next time, I always thought Buddha was a fella!

The Geeks of Hazzard #029 (MP3 – 41.2mb 1 hr 02 mins)
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We’re Baaaa-aaaack.

Man, we sure know how to waffle on! If there’s a less professional podcast out there using higher quality recording techniques, I’d be duly shocked. But hey, that’s the Geeks of Hazzard. Dig it, or complain to the network and have us thrown off the air get over it!

In this week’s episode, Van tried to talk about a few especially excellent comic books, but ended up just talking crap as per usual. See what you can get out of it! He recommended the following titles.

Y The Last Man
Fear Agent (which he said was written by Kirkman, but is in fact Rick Remender!)
The Walking Dead
DMZ
A definite end of the world theme going on there!

He also mentioned a comic which he refused to name on the air, and that is Lucha Libre. You will go and buy it, ASAP!

Other things we touched on included:

Kevin Sorbo (of Hercules and Andromeda fame) will be starring soon on Smallville as Supergirl’s pop!
Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios replaced by a Simpsons ride. Noooo!
Optimus Prime pillow that actually transforms. This is groundbreaking.
Natalie Portman in her birthday suit?
Van whined about the title of the new Harry Potter Indiana Jones movie!
ComingSoon.net are looking for writers for their new Sci-Fi site.
Kev finds some Stormtroopers on Google Maps Street View!

And on top of all that, we rambled on for some time about Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, Microsoft’s Surface technology, Kev’s upcoming trip to the US for a private meeting with the President, and his desperate desire to witness a cop run down a vigilante on a Segway.

You may also enjoy this Honda engine painted up like a NES controller.

If you’re not already reading the new Thor series, by Joe Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Rising Stars) and French artist Olivier Coipel, sort your shit out.

If you need to do a little catching up on the Thor storyline and history—I sure did—you can check out this Wikipedia entry for that big Norse bastard of the Marvel Universe.

Read a little of this JMS interview over at Newsarama to set yourself on track.

Get a look at some more art from the series here, from issue 2.

Welcome to Season 2 of The Geeks of Hazzard! That’s right, we’re playing this big delay between episodes 27 and 28 off as though it were merely a season break! Clever sods, eh?

For various reasons, mainly to do with geographic and work-related issues, The GoH podcast was forced to take a very long breather. Over recent weeks though, we realised that we still very much missed doing this, and the problems that caused TGoH to fall off the wagon last year were no longer an issue. So here we are, back in action bitches!

We’d planned for tonight’s show to actual be quite huge, but unfortunately the software we use—GarageBand—is the undead form of a warm piece of shit, and wouldn’t allow us to record beyond roughly 1 hr. Something to do with bars (possibly chocolate, but likely not) and the fact that we’re limited to 1099 of them. I think it’s 1099, but the point is that I don’t care.

So with this in mind, episode 28 stands as the first part in a massive two parter! To those to whom I promised I’d cover all the comics I’ve been reading in the past year and a bit, and the comics I’m looking forward to, I apologise. We ran out of time before I got a chance to touch on them. But I like to touch things, and I assure you I’ll go full hammer at them next week!

What did we talk about then? I don’t bloody remember!

I’m pretty sure we touched on the iPhone, and of course the new range of iPods announced yesterday.
We spoke about some of the bigger movies of 2006, including Transformers and Pirates 3.

Heck, that might be all! But we did rant for a very long time in our usual fashion about my dislike for Apple’s policies, so that covers easily 59 minutes of the episode!
A huge thanks to Cam for being so gracious in accepting us back into the TPN fold, and thanks of course to all of our loyal listeners for replying so positively to our email about us being back online!

So, the latest Apple Keynote was today. Jobs unveiled: the new stubby little Nano with video and Coverflow. the iPod Classic which is basically the current iPod, but even thinner. And lastly, the iPod Touch—essentially the iPhone, without the phone. It’s got wifi, and you can download songs from iTunes via the wifi. There were a bunch of other little bits as well, so check out the Engadget link below for a full runthrough of the event.

Engadget runthrough
Apple store
Apple Australia store

If you wish to beat off over this, now’s the time. If you wish to announce your hatred for Apple, now’s the time. I’m somewhere in the middle, hating Apple and myself while beating off. Kev on the other hand, probably has a dirty big serial killer like smile on his face.

Now obviously a lot of geeky things have happened since July last year—the iPhone and the Transformers movie being standout examples of such geeky happenings—and we’ll try to catch up on as many of those things as we can.  Will this result in a longer than usual episode?  Quite possibly, biznitches, quite possibly!

Expect us to touch on some of the following things.

The iPhone, and how much it sucks
Transformers, and how much it almost sucked
A whole slew of comic book stuff

Oh GOD, I can’t think of anything else!  We’ll just make some stuff up.  In the meantime, if there’s anything especially geeky and noteworthy that’s happened in the past year that you think needs a GoH spin, leave us a comment!

Record labels castrated themselves, thanks to Apple.
Singer wants to do Batman and Superman. Dirty boy!
Trailer for Ben Stiller’s Night at the Museum. Looks rad!
The age of the Web Hermit. Go outside? Nah.
Iron Man slated for mid-2008 release!
Check out the first 24 minutes of A Scanner Darkly!

Until next time, stop being fat pregnant bitches!  van.

American Apparel have opened a store in Second Life!
The phone that won’t let you Drunk Dial if you’re smashed!
Firefox messenger bag. Eww!
Amanda Congdon replaced on Rocketboom by an MTV VJ!
Van got a SE K800i, and it’s porn in disguise.
MS’s ‘iPod killer’ - Project Argo (or is it Zune?)
James Cameron returning to film, with Avatar (Project 880)

Did you know that dogs lick their balls just because they can? I knew I wasn’t weird!

The ever-present magic was present this week as well! Kev’s internet sucks the nut, and that kinda screwed things up a bit, but that’s not his fault. Except that it IS! AAAAHAHAHA! Ha. So anyway.

Winamp as an actual PMP. So awesome.
Gadget-loving is a genetic disorder? Works for me!
Monkey Island: The School Play. Hah!
Apple chasing the losslessness of quality music.
Earth Sandwich? Genius.
ComicBookDB.com - the IMDB for comics!
Apple keen to secure bigger bite of the market.
Nintendo are considering renaming the Wii.
Dude hacks a Mac Mini into his Toyota Prius. Trendy!
Bedroom painted to look like Super Mario World. HECK YES.
The greatest DDR dancer of all time? Believe.
Humans soon to live beyond 1000 years? We’ll see!
40 things you didn’t know about Superman.
Sony’s lame car-to-car communication system.
Star Trek New Voyages episodes free for download.
The science of Superman’s powers.
A spaceport in New Mexico? Hokay!

Until next week, excelsior!

Another brilliant episode this week, with all sorts of shenanigans called.
The one-red-paperclip bloke is getting an entire town!
Is the RIAA really suing people for dancing to their fave music?
Michael Jackson patents the 45 degree lean. Okay!
Google’s secret weapon for intarweb domination!
Skype + Paypal = infinite awesome.
Halo graphic novel. Saddle up!
Netscape Navigator reborn as a Digg clone!
The future of mobile phones - this is rad.
Spider-Man reveals his identity (in the comics).

Stay tuned folks! I’m trying to get us a couple of media passes to the Melbourne International Animation Festival, so hopefully we’ll soon be coming to you live from Federation Square in Melbourne!

Yowzers, it’s been a couple of weeks but we’re back, and kids - we’s better than ever we is.

Kev checks out some weird Superman Alienware laptop. Urgh!
Dude protests America’s dead soldiers in online America’s Army game.
You can do anything in Second Life; even sue people in the real world.
Nike + iPod = Ultimate Consumerism 2006.
Sneaker Freak Al Cabino makes it into the (web) papers!
Photos from the set of the Transformers movie!
Howie’s Gamer Shack Ultra Supreme Battle Edition.
Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchett both to star as Bob Dylan.

Vids
The evolution of dance.
Neo versus Robocop (and friends).

Next week, we’ll be recording live from Van’s girlfriend’s place, zomg!

Ho boy, late again! Entirely my (van’s) fault, folks. My computer is fubar’d! I lost the blog entry twice last week with Firefox continously crashing, and then I had the notion to type it in Notepad instead and then paste it into the blog and I ran out of time as I had to get to my motorcycle training and then I busted my shoulder and leg! Well not entirely busted, but I’ve got some serious bruising and even picking my nose hurts. What kind of god would make it hurt just to pick your nose? I dunno.

In other news, our shows will now be recorded on Thursdays! That’s my pay day, so it’s easier for me to afford the pizza and beer. Hah!

Flyers!  Stick ‘em up FFS!

Black and White
Colour
Morgellon’s Disease.
Hellboy video game? Now we’re talking.
Luxury submarines. Money, is there anything it can’t do?
Funky X-Men 3 trailer.
Timeline of CGI in film and television!
Business shirt for hiding your PMP!
.TEL domains? …Righteo!
Badass video game polo shirts.
Australia’s new “format shifting” laws. For crying out loud.
Chinese dude rips off Chinese govt. Boy is he screwed now!

Stay tuned as Van actually makes an effort to get the blog entry done less than a week late.

By the way kids, I starred in last week’s Melbourne Confidential vidcast. Check it out, if you have a strong stomach for fugly heads!

In this week’s episode, Kev says the C word! We tried to bleep it out, but it was just too much work. Also, we drank cheap grog, ate expensive pizza, and talked cheap thrills.
Halo 3! If only we could have gotten the trailer to load…
Today’s nuclear waste, in the future.
Star Wars Lego 2 (video game).
The video game console murders continue!
Movies!
Casino Royale trailer.
Greedo shoots first again! Bully for him.
The Hoff’s been booted off the Knightrider movie! WTF!
World of Warcraft coming to the big screenz0r.
Stargate SG-1 movie. A movie about a show about a movie.

Join us next week as we do something unexpected, and do episode 22!

…Okay, it is.

…Because I’m down-right-fierce!

Wow, big freakin’ episode this week! Do you see the filesize up there? Do you see the duration?! Holy shitballs on a rope!

This week we were joined in the studio by Drew Taylor, editor of every amazing magazine ever, from EGM to Super Play right through to Better Homes and Gardens! Okay, that was a lie. Fairly blatant one, too. He is, however, the editor of JumpButton Magazine, and it’s probably the sexiest magazine you’ve ever seen (except for The Big Issue). JumpButton is a gaming magazine, but not in the traditional sense. Drew’s goal revolved around the concept of discovering the culture of gaming, rather than looking at the latest games on the block. Heck, every gamer mag does that, but none of them actually look at gaming as a way of life - as an important part of a generation’s lifetime.

He’s a hell of a guy, and it’s a hell of an episode. Check it out!

If that weren’t enough, Drew’s given us a entire box of immeasurable dimensions (I didn’t have a ruler, stfu) full of JumpButton issue one mags! Heck yeah! Right on! So over the next week, we’ll come up with a way to, you know, give those things away. Stay tuned Platoon TGoH!

…Platoon TGoH?

It’s ANZAC Day today, down here in Australia. ANZAC - an acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps - Day is a public holiday created to give all Australian citizens, residents and visitors an opportunity to give thanks to the Australian servicemen and women who have served our great country throughout Australia’s relatively short history as a nation. More than that though, it’s an opportunity to get piss drunk while shouting things like “those bloody ANZACS, mate, what a bunch of bloody legends eh? Bloody right mate!”.

Today’s podcast consisted of stuff!

Old school computer game Another World gets a second life!
If Microsoft made the iPod? It’d look like this.
Two brothers fight over a console… one dies.
Monopoly’s getting an update woo woo!
Boeing 797 looks like the future!
Macbook (buckaw!) Pro 17″
Apple retailers selling iMacs with WinXP pre-installed?
iPod Nano capacity increased to 8gb and 10gb this August-ish?
Manhole covers in NYC turned into steaming cups of coffee lolz!
Google are fiddling with their search results page.
Roffles, a US penny costs US1.4cents to make!
iTunes Music store scores a couple new features.

Movie news FFS!

Star Trek XI? Let it die!
More Transformers news, heck yea!
Starblazers? Trust me, this is righteous.
Johnny Depp as Michael Hutchence in an INXS movie?

Download here!

And episode 19 will be coming today! What the hell is going on around here? My head hurts, which is funny because it was PodKarsten that accidentally headbutted the ceiling and showered the living room floor in plaster. Ha ha, good times!

Here you are kids, episode 17! I can’t even remember what happened in that episode, so I have nothing more to say! Sue me, go on! That’s a dare, right there. Them’s fightin’ words, big bird.

Stay tuned for episode 19, later today or tonight depending on where it be that you preside!

This week, the glorious CEO of The Podcast Network, Cameron Reilly, joins the Geeks on their world tour of comics, as well as the best friend of the average comic book reader: boobs. Van calls Cameron a “cock” on air, and doesn’t lose his job! Amazing.

Raymond E. Feist’s amazing book Magician now a comic!
Onslaught, the love child of Magneto and Prof X, is back, ten years later. To reference my favourite quote on the Newsarama.com forum: “”I can’t believe anyone would want to celebrate the anniversary of this shit. That’s like celebrating the anniversary of getting multiple STDs”.
Spider-Man 3 plot outline.
Alpha Flight is back, and lead by Captain America! After the Civil War, Captain America defects to Canada, just like those folks who wanted nothing to do with the US or the hostilities during the Vietnam War. Guess what? He becomes the leader of Alpha Flight. Turns out most of the team is made up of ex-American heroes, who move to Canada to escape America’s new Superhero Registration Act, an act of law which requires all vigilante superheroes to come forward, identify themselves, and be registered.

Crazy balls! Join the boys next week as the show returns to what passes for normal in the TGoH universe!

Hit this.

- Van

But yes, there’ll be no Geeks of Hazzard this week, my friends.  Kev and I have both been called upon to lead the forces of good in the Not-So-Secret Wars!  Please keep a Sonic Discombobulator™ handy in the event that one or both of us happens to return with a seemingly beneficial but in fact evil symbiotic exo-suit.

Alright, enough with the shenanigans.  Kev made me type that previous paragraph.  Or did he?!  You’ll never, ever, ever know.

We’re both very busy this week, so y’all can roast in hell a little until our return next week.  But good news, before I go.  Cameron Reilly, boss-man of The Podcast Network - has been all “uh uh uh I wanna get on your show guys come oooon lemme on your shooow!  I’ll f***ing fire you assjacks if you don’t”, so I guess he’ll be on.  We’ll probably talk comics and stuff, so prepare yourselves!  Also, his genius knows no peer.  In the immortal words of astronaut Jack Austin, “I KNOW EEEEVERYTHIIIING!”

…Hey, who added that last sentence?!

- Van

Looking below, it would seem as if this week’s episode was a shorty, but I tell you kids, we went off! You know how those heaps cool bands “go off” in concert? We were like that, but with twice the going off.

Battlefield 2142. Van cares not for the game, but the trailer is hot!
Sandisk think they’ve got Apple’s number. Think again, kid.
The world’s 10 most exxy cars. No Ferraris or Lamborghinis WTF!
Van has a “Snakes on a Plane” comp!! Win an Amazon.com voucher!!
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift!! (trailer)
Garth Ennis to pen a new Midnighter comic!
La Fuga - A real life “escape from high-tech prison” game. Nuts!

Enjoy The Geeks of Hazzard!

Folks, mi apologies.  I accidentally put the filename of episode 13 into the episode 14 post.  What does this mean?  It means if your iTunes grabbed this week’s episode in the past 8 or so hours, you’ve probably got ep 13 all over again.  Very sorry about that, however it’s been corrected now, so please don’t stop loving me!

What a brilliant return to form for them geek boys! However, Van’s tired as hell and wants to go to bed, so he (aka the guy typing this) is going to get this done fast and then hit the hay!

Ragman’s Vista screenshot (Nothing special, but hey).
Superman Returns to be prefaced by a comic, if you want to buy it.
Kim Jong-Il? He be illin’.
Mark Ronson and Alex Greenwald cover Radiohead’s “Just”. Video!
Urban Ninja: This guy is mental. A must see.
Boeing 787 Dreamliner interior photos.
Aaaaaahahahah MC Hammer has a blog!
WTF; a glowing plant?
Microsoft Origami project is awesome, ’nuff said.
More Origami screenshots - awesome!
Beautiful Microsoft Origami advertising video.
Suicide Girls model successfully sues tattoo artist.

Great vibe this week, and next week can only stand to get better. And I may also take a leap here and let you all in on a secret: In the coming weeks, we’ll be having Cameron Reilly - CEO of the The Podcast Network - in the studio! …On the show! …This show!

Folks, it is with the deepest regret that I must inform you that this week’s episode is horrible! Unfortunately, real life occasionally intervenes in one’s hobbies, and despite the grandiosity of TGoH being a part of TPN, it’s still very much a hobby. It’s been a busy week for both of us, so there’s not much good to be said about this week’s episode! Though we did still manage to talk quite a monstrous amount of shit, and I present you with the following!

Dominoes boss is opening a smut-free town in the US. (NSFW)
Hotel Room Nudes - inspirational artistic nude photography. (NSFW)
MacGuyver to get star on Hollywood Walk of Fame?
X-Men: The Last Stand! Trailer.
Tom Baker says get a real podcast, biatch!
This bike is a pipe bomb!
Illustrated guide to Steve Jobs’ outfits. OMG, Finally!
Pope Benny scores a Nano with some wicked tracks!

We’ve got a much bigger show in store next week, folks, along with a special announcement re. Kev’s sexuality!*

*He enjoys it!

A friend of mine, a video game journalist here in Australia with years of experience in the industry, has prepared a case against the Australian banning of the video game Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, and has put together a letter to the OFLC and Phillip Ruddock. As is made clear in the letter, the future implications of this ban in Australia are far-reaching and potentially devastating to the video game industry, and because of the code’s relation to the film, writing, and music industries, it also stands to wreak havoc on these areas as well. This is a matter of oppression, of taking away from adults the right to decide for themselves what is and isn’t suitable for their own viewing, and is potentially - not to make this sound bigger than it is, but I fear it is this big - a further step toward building a police state.

Below is the letter that Drew Taylor, editor of JumpButton Magazine, emailed to friends and industry and Government peeps.

—————————————————

While I make no pretense at being any kind of legal or argumentative whiz,
the following is an open letter that I constructed and this morning sent
to Philip Ruddock’s office and the OFLC (as well as all of you).

If the letter is something you support, please feel free to post the
contents of it on forums, forward it to friends, collegues or media, or
use it as the basis for your own letter to the Attorney-General.

If you hate it, and wish to flame me, please at least wait until Monday!!
And preferably until after my 10 am coffee!

An open letter to Australia’s Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock MP.

RE: overturning the decision to refuse classification to the computer game
Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure

Dear Mr Ruddock,

I write, urging you to overturn the OFLC Review Board’s recent decision to
refuse classification to the computer game Getting Up: Contents Under
Pressure on the grounds that the ban was unfounded, given the guidelines
set down in the Act and the Classification of Films and Computer Games
2005.

I put forward the case that the decision made by the Board does not meet
the requirements outlined, in that the videogame Getting Up does not
provide ‘detailed instruction or promotion in matters of crime or
violence’ when compared to previous OFLC classifications and decisions,
and the large array of information already freely available.

In the official press release regarding the Board’s refusal of
classification, OFLC Review Board Convenor Maureen Shelley cited three
main areas of concern that led to the decision:

‘1) the realistic scenarios whereby the central character Trane acquires
his knowledge of graffiti tips, techniques and styles–including meeting
with five real graffiti artists who pass on details of tips and techniques

2) the reward for and positive reinforcement of graffiti writing on public
buildings and infrastructure, and

3) interactive biographies of 56 real graffiti artists, with details of
their personal tags, styles and careers. The game detail states that all
these artists began their careers performing illegal graffiti on public
buildings and infrastructure and that some continue with this practice
today.’

Contesting those three points, one by one:

1) while the central character (Trane) does meet with the digital
representation of five real graffiti artists, the tips and techniques he
receives are not detailed.

Take for example, his conversation with Shepard Fairey, whose ‘tips’ and
‘techniques’ include the line ‘A little wheat paste glue, a squeegee and
some posters and you could become the city’s best ad agency’, and, after
handing Trane nothing but a squeegee, the dismissive comment, ‘Here’s all
the tools you need’.

There are no details given as to what ‘wheat paste glue’ is or how it
should be applied, the type of paper Trane should use, how he should
create the posters, how to create larger posters, or anything else of
practical use. If a driving instructor handed one of their students the
keys to a car and said, ‘Go, drive’, would the law determine that the
driving instructor’s company had provided the student with instruction on
how to pass their driver’s license test?

2) without doubt, limited rewards are given for the restricted application
of graffiti within the game. But, in context, can these rewards be
considered of a stronger impact than the rewards given for equivalent, and
often far more serious, crimes in games that have successfully been given
classification by the OFLC?

In The Warriors, players not only engage in interactive graffiti, but they
are rewarded for looting shops, mugging civilians, attacking police
officers and inciting riots. Hitman 2, the Grand Theft Auto series, Tony
Hawk’s American Wasteland, Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance and Total
Overdose are just a few additional examples where crimes with a level of
realism are met with rewards. (Should the entire phrase ‘matters of crime
or violence’ be included and possibly a quarter of all games awarded
classification by the OFLC would need to be reconsidered.)

Or consider the G rating allowed for Need for Speed: Most Wanted, in which
players are rewarded and given positive reinforcement for gaining
notoriety as a wanted felon by engaging in illicit street racing and a
variety of criminal acts including the destruction of public and police
property and resisting arrest.

3) yes, biographies are available on up to 56 real graffiti artists,
should the gamer manage to ‘unlock’ them all. It must be pointed out,
however, that they are hardly interactive, unless one considers turning
the page of a book or scrolling through a page of a Word document as
interactive.

Additionally, the issues of detail and fair comparison must again be
questioned. Each biography included in the game is roughly between 30 and
60 words, and the level of information supplied regarding their styles and
careers is realistically less than expected from any year seven school
project.

Interestingly, our public schools have no problem teaching students about
Australia’s own ‘legendary’ criminals–bushrangers such as Ned Kelly, who
robbed banks and murdered policemen–without those teachings being brought
into question or deemed to solicit additional criminal acts. That the
government finds it acceptable to elevate real criminals to ‘hero’ status
(the impact of which must be considered greater due to the fact that Kelly
et al were Australian) and teach extensively about them (even deem recent
films about them as classifiable) raises serious questions about the idea
that Getting Up could be banned on this premise. Even a biographical film
about Australia’s notorious underworld criminal, ‘Chopper’ Read, was not
refused classification.

It must also be noted that a single entry at Wikipedia (‘graffiti’,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graffiti) provides almost more information on
a single internet page than is contained in the entire game, with the site
listing in excess of 85 graffiti legends (providing links to extensive
biographies for the majority), as well as an expanded history of graffiti
art, a glossary and a list of additional links, including image galleries
of graffiti artist’s work. And, unlike the game, all of the information
available online is able to be printed out, duplicated and given to
others.

In addition, it is understood that graphic arts magazines such as Computer
Arts Projects have run special issues on graffiti art (which have included
particularly detailed step-by-step how-to instruction and promotion of
illegal graffiti), and Australian books and magazines (such as Artillery)
have been published showcasing illegal graffiti and street art (with
profiles on, and interviews with, current graffiti ‘legends’ and
‘criminals’, a number of which are Australian).

The legal use of illegal graffiti in television advertising must also be
considered promotion, and the questionable use of stencil art by
VicHealth, spraypainted onto the platforms of Melbourne railway stations,
sends a very mixed message indeed.

Broaden the topic to include ‘crime’ or ‘violence’ in general, and based
on the level of detail and promotion contained in the videogame Getting
Up, one must expect the government to refuse future classification to any
publication or film resembling JFK, Wolf Creek, The Godfather, Pulp
Fiction, Natural Born Killers, Chopper, The Bourne Identity, American
Psycho, Crime and Punishment, serial killer profiling or true crime
stories, and films or documentaries on matters that instruct or promote
instances of assassinations, riots, unsolved crime, criminals, the
construction of a crime or forensic investigation.

After all, let it be made quite clear that the basis upon which the ban
was made– namely that computer games can be refused classification if
they ‘promote, incite or instruct in matters of crime or violence’–is the
same one within the Act which is able to be applied to film and
publications.

Investigating further the topic of the decision, while it is recognised
that the way in which the vote was carried out was within regulation
(according to section 57, page 47 of the Act), concern must be raised over
two particular facets.

Firstly, why would a Review Board be called with an even number of
members? Surely, this would increase the likelihood of a ‘hung’ board. Is
this standard procedure? And, if it is, why would a government department
create a system that encourages problematic situations and decisions?

Secondly, why is the Convenor given the power to make a casting vote (ie.
with Getting Up, Convenor Maureen Shelley was able to make her vote count
twice)? With a board able to be made up from as little as three or four
members, a second vote is a considerable percentage of the vote.

Furthermore, let it be pointed out that I strongly believe that the
Classification Code itself–in part–contravenes its own principles. It is
clearly stated on page 1 of the Code, that OFLC ‘decisions are to give
effect, as far as possible, to the following principles: (1) adults should
be able to read, hear and see what they want’.

How this can be possible if–in direct contrast to publications and
film–the Code does not allow for an R18+ classification for computer and
video games? Given that statistics provided by the Interactive
Entertainment Association of Australia point to a situation where 88% of
Australians believe there should be an R18+ classification, 76% of
Australian households have a device for playing games and the average age
of a gamer is now 24, it must be assumed that the Code needs immediate
revision.

In closing, then, for the Australian government and its legal
representatives (such as the OFLC) to consider itself in a position to
fairly and justly classify all publications, film and computer games, I
believe:

1) the decision to ban the videogame Getting Up must be immediately
overturned

and, 2) future provision be made for R18+ classification for computer games.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I look forward to your
response, and subsequent action.

Kind regards,

Drew Taylor
Editor of JumpButton magazine: the art and substance of videogame culture

——

–
Drew Taylor
Editor
JumpButton Magazine
PO Box 293, Blackburn South 3130
Australia
email: info@jumpbuttonmag.com
web: www.jumpbutton.com