Category: Real-Life

Don’t edit Wikipedia at Work

Wikipedia

Don’t edit Wikipedia at work, unless you want to get fired. When you’re a fanboy that works at a boring job, you’ve got to find ways to entertain yourself, but spending hours editing Wiki articles is not the way to go about finding that glimer of fun in your job.

Japan’s Agricultural Ministry reprimanded six officials who did just that. They let their geekdom for Gundam and other cartoon robot stories get in their way. In total they made 408 entries since 2003 on the ministries computers.

Companies have the right to monitor everything you do using their equipment! Usually it says this in your job’s contract.

Wikipedia is a great resource, but remember children work is work so just do it and get out of the office as quickly as possible.

[Source: Yahoo]

Artifacts stolen from Dr. Jones

Indiana Jones IV

Dr. Jones look out! Someone’s after your Crystal Skull. Thankfully Steven Speilberg is getting in on the action and throwing out his wip as well.

Police are being called into the scene to figure out who has stolen Dreamworks’ computers and photographs relating to the production of the latest Indiana Jones film, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

If you see any of these items turn up on the Black Market, the Silk Road, or eBay – please called your local authorities.

[Via Yahoo]

Transformers 2 coming in Summer 2009, Michael Bay confused

[UPDATE: Click here for the The Super Bowl Transformers 2 Trailer]

Transformers!

First off, it’s now official that Transformers 2 is hitting cinemas on June 29th 2009. That’s right, no Optimus Prime for you next year. The actual deal came early on with Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay, who decided on a sequel to this year’s hit Transformers. However, (fortunately or not) Bay appears to be preoccupied and may direct the film adaptation of 2012: The War for the Souls, and maybe the Prince of Persia movie. Wait, whah? Let’s clarify.

See, Michael Bay first confirms that he’s making a sequel for Transformers. Then news breaks out that he’ll also be handling Disney’s Prince of Persia, the movie. However, things are starting to look rather confusing now.

Bay now says that he may go for a pre-strike film. This unlucky movie can only turn out to be:

  • the film adaptation of Whitley Streiber’s 2012: The War for the Souls
  • the Prince of Persia movie (which is listed as a pre-strike movie, but now looks more like it’s geared for Summer 2009).
  • a home video. (Can’t trust a director who blogs. On the Internet.)

What choice will Bay choose? Why does it matter to us? How cheesy will the second Transformers be? Is this movie actually going to make some logical sense? Should Uwe Boll direct Prince of Persia? It appears that we must leave it to time to answer the questions now.

[Via /film]

Dog swallows Wiimote, Sony not involved (as of now)

Labrador Retriever

The Becknell family from Loveland, CO was leading a normal day when suddenly their 3 year old Labrador Retriever started vomiting blood. A visit to the friendly vet showed that there was a freaking remote inside the dog’s belly. But the Becknells made the mistake of thinking it was just another ordinary remote. Turns out that there was also a Wiimote. That might also explain the many bugs the family faced when they turned on their regular copy of Wii Sports, and how the dog was able to mentally win every tennis match.

The dog had chewed the old family remote “into little pieces and that wasn’t the mass in the X-ray.” Eventually, the Wiimote surfaced. As you can expect, the parents got angry, the vet got money, the dog breathed a sigh of relief (and despairs at having lost his cheat) and the kid got blamed. The poor kid has lost two weeks’ worth allowance to pay for a new remote.

When contacted, the dog denied any connection with Sony. Sony representatives threw rocks at us when we tried to contact them. I think there’s no corporate politics involved here.

[Via Fun Tech Talk]

Colin McRae dead in helicopter crash?

Colin McRae

For a lot of us gamers, the name “Colin McRae” is nearly synonymous with a line of great rally games. But it appears that bad news has struck. Colin McRae is feared dead in a helicopter crash in Scotland.

The chopper was owned by McRae, and originally four bodies were found in the crash. McRae’s agent confirmed, however, that Colin was piloting the craft. No survivors have been found, and the identities of the other passengers have not been confirmed yet.

Colin McRae was a popular rally driver known in the gaming industry for the series of racing games that share his name. Goodbye, Colin. We’ll always remember you.

[Via Telegraph]

Blizzard getting sued by Chinese firm

Blizzard

Yes well, thankfully it’s not the Chinese Government that’s going gung-ho this time. Blizzard Entertainment, the famous makers of the StarCraft series, the WarCraft series, and of course, World of Warcraft are getting sued by Chinese IT firm Founder Electronics Co., Ltd. Blizzard is sharing the pain with IT company The9, which handles WoW in China and Qingwentuwen company, which handles it in Beijing.

The offence? Nope, it’s not enslaving half of the Chinese population, but stealing five of the fonts made by Founder Electronics and using them in World of Warcraft. Awesome lawsuit strategy. Founder claims that they lost “One Billion Yuan” because of the whole thing, seeing as WoW itself snowballed into 7.5 million players. If my conversion is correct, that should translate to $131,648,235. Big money, indeed.

If some people are right, this is the largest intellectual property lawsuit in the land of the dragon as far as damages are concerned. It appears that Blizzard is in quite a spot.

[Via Xinhuanet]