Disney is buying out Marvel

It was said today that Disney was going to buy out Marvel for approximately 4 billion dollars.  This may be good or bad news for Disney stockholders.  The agreement states that Marvel stockholders will get $30 per share they own, plus 0.745 of Disney's stock per share they own of Marvel.

The bad news for Disney stockholders is that there are going to be millions more stock floating out there, but Disney is planning to buy back the stock over the next two years, if approved

The good thing for Disney is that they will have access to over thousands of new characters.  They can use them in movies, or place the characters around Disneyland.

So many possibilities...""Spider-Man will appear in 'A Bug's Life' sequel," joked Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente." (CNN.com 2009)

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Heroes of Newerth Lawsuit?

So there has been many things floating around the internet claiming that HoN is being sued by blizzard for copyrights.

The big claim is that the custom created maps on Warcraft 3 (WC3) are the property of WC3.  Every player had to agree to TOS before playing the game, therefore DotA is the property of blizzard.

The biggest counter argument however is that "blizzard does not own the concept of DotA, or the concept of RTS, MMO, or action RPG" (Ashigaru 2009).

For more information click here.

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Yucaipa Fires / What to do in a fire

Recently there have been many fires in California (La Canada).  Today, fires were reported in the Yucaipa area.  The fires have burned at least 200 acres, and the 14 freeway has been closed due to safety reasons.  Officials say that the winds may change and pick up.  Currently the fires are traveling at about 2.5 mph.
Our governor said that three families tried to save their home in La Canda.  The result, some severe burns.  Do not attempt to save your house.  If you have insurance, you should be fine.  If you are ordered to evacuate, listen!  Take only a few items that you can in the short amount of time!

What to do in a fire:
1. Know your way to escape in case of a fire.  You should know your escape route for any building that you are in.  Even businesses.  They should have escape routes posted in the building.
2. Stay Low.  Crawl on your hands and knees.  Even though this may be a slow way to escape, it is a whole lot safe.  Smokey air from fires are toxic and can deprive you of the oxygen needed for your escape.
3. Feel door knobs before opening the door.  If it feels hot or warm, don't open the door.  New oxygen entering fires on the other side is fuel for the fire.  It can be explosive.  If you do open the door and feel very warm air entering through the door, close it immediately.
4. Cover cracks and open windows.  Try to seal yourself in the room until firefighters can get to you.  If you are able to, safely climb out the window and to the ground.  If this is not possible, wait for the firefighters.
5. Don't hide.  When the firefighters are looking for you, they won't be able to if you are hiding.  Stay low to the ground and stay visible.
6. Stop, Drop, and Roll.  If you are caught on fire, the best thing to do is stop, drop, and roll.  Cover your face if the fire is close to it.
7. Don't go back.  If you are safely out the door and away from the fire, do not go back in.  Call 9-1-1 or the proper authorities and tell them if you have anything in your home -- like pets.
8. Practice.  Practice makes perfect.  Do home drills or run the drills in your head (if you are at an office building).  You don't want people to think you are crazy =D.

Movie Review Home Page

Interested in some brief movie reviews.  Click on the titles below.

I
I Love You, Man
P
The Proposal

S
Sunshine Cleaning

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I Love You, Man Movie Review

I Love You, Man is a comedy movie about Peter Klaven looking for a best man for his wedding.  Peter is about to get married to Zooey and he is in desperate need to get a best man.  The only problem is that he has many girl friends, but not that many guy friends.
What was suggest to him for a solution was to go out on a "man date."  His first few are a disaster, but he eventually finds Sydney Fife (yes, he is a man).

Although there are some funny scenes, overall it was not that funny.  It made me kind of squirm to watch someone so awkward.  This movie is very predictable, and the drama is really not there as well.  It is funny to see two guys do very friendly things like hanging out and ditching the girls, but overall not worth it for me.

Genre: Comedy
Rating: 2.5 of 5
If you want to still watch it, you can rent it at redbox.com for only a buck (+ tax) or netflix it.

Sunshine Cleaning Review

More Reviews

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Restaurant City New Feature

Restaurant City has come out with a new feature.  The newest and greatest feature is probably the mini farm.  This patch of land is like any other farm game on face book, only a bit easier.  Instead of having to plow the area, like most of the farm games, you just need to drop a seed.  Then you have to water it at least once every nine hours.  You don't get to select the seed you want, it is at random.  You get 9 patches, and each patch becomes available to you as you get more GP (Gourmet Points).  The best way to accumulate GP as of now is to keep your game open.  If you close the game, you do not accumulate any GP.  You only accumulate income.  For more information go here.

NEW: Restaurant city has more new features



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Apple Slashed Prices on the new Snow Leopard

The price is being cut and it isn't even out yet.  Thanks to Amazon.com, you can get the new Apple's OS, Snow Leopard for only $25.00 (from the original $29).  The 5 license is also being cut down to $44.00 (from the original $49).  You may think this is not a big cut, but being cut down from the already great price...GET IT!

After purchasing the produce, amazon is also offering free "Super Saving" shipping if you buy the new OS.


Snow Leopard is officially on sale starting tomorrow 08/28/09.  It includes upgraded versions of finder, mail, iCal, iChat, and Safari.  They are coming out with new multithreading technology called GCD (Grand Central Dispatch) that will take advantage of the processors full potential.  This is good news for gamers.  The mac can finally compete up to par with PC's.



More information about Snow Leopard.

Full Article


Amazon.com (Snow Leopard)



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2009-10 Toyota Scion Owners...Recall

Toyota recalled about 95k Toyota Scions because of an accumulation of ice on the braking system.  People who bought this car and who live in cold places need to return the cars immediately.  Brakes pads can accumulate ice and therefore causing longer brake times.  People who live in "19 states: Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wisconsin and Wyoming" (Reuters 2009) are asked to return their cars.


For more information go to toyota.com's website.


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Playfish Country Story on Facebook

Playfish has done it again. They have a new beta game out called Country Story for Facebook.


This is a brief walkthrough of the game...if you missed it the first time around. By the way, this is the hand tool that you can hover in order to get more information.



This is the digging tool. You click on the ground and it will plow to make a plot of soil for you.



This is the watering can. Before you can water your soil, you have to go to the well and fill up your can. You can water your soil multiple times for different levels of moistness. The little number represents how many times you can use the can until it is empty.


This is the harvesting tool. You go to a fully grown patch and harvest your crop.



This is your backpack that holds things that you have collected.



This is your seed tool. You can select what to plant in your soil.





This is your button to go to the town. In town you can pick up more quests to do. But this will be later on in the game. Don't forget to visit your friends for one time items.



This is your storage, or barn. This is where all of the things you harvest are put.



This is your quest button. I suggest not doing anything more than the tutorial. Your quests lead you on from there. If you get ahead of yourself, you have to wait. For example, there is a watering quest, and if you already watered your plots, then you have to wait until the plots become dry before you can continue with more quests.


This is your paint tool. You can change the color of your house/barn



This is your decoration tool to make your farm look more...well, decorated.



This is your gauge. The top is your stamina. Every time you do an action (like watering), you lose points. You gradually gain them back overtime, or when you eat food. The bottom is your green points. You get these points by gardening as well as questing. This is essentially your experience bar.

Edit: 08/27/09 @ 8:57 AM

This is the friendship tool.  You can ask your friends for help as soon as you do favors for them and get closer with them. 

This is what the friendship window looks like.  The highlighted area is the "points" you have to order your friends to help.  Each time they take care of a plot of land, this number is reduced.  The icon below that is your relationship status.  In order to get help (BTW this is also going to be one of your quest so wait till you get it), you would click on the get help button.


When you click on the get help button, the game will ask you to click on the plot of land that person would help.  After you click on the land, you get this image as a hover.  The friend that is taking care of it.


After they help you, as a result, you can check to see what they did.  This is the icon you would click and the result would be the following window.

This is what would pop up after clicking the above icon.
It will tell you what your friends have been doing on your farm.  If they came to take some of your crops, it will be listed here.  Any help that you receive, it will be listed here as well.




More to come...as I play myself.

Sunshine Cleaning Movie Review

Sunshine cleaning is a movie about two sisters who go into a cleaning business cleaning up biohazard. The reason they start the business is to help out Rose Lorkowski's son get into a private school.

Rose's sister, Norah, gets fired from her job and is forced to go into the cleaning business with Rose. They both seem to be doing fine until they hit a snag.

Rose tries to cope with not being married by having relations with her former boyfriend in high school who is now married to another girl. She wants to believe that Mac is going to leave his wife and marry Rose. Unfortunately, things do not go as planned and she begins to fall for someone else.

The Lorkowski family loses their mother at an early age. Norah only remembers glimpses of her past about her mother. She desperately tries to connect with her in some way.

Type: Comedy/Drama
Rating: 3/5
Rent it for $1.09 through redbox.com
Netflix it at netflix.com


More Reviews


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Heroes of Newerth Beta Keys

Beta keys are out. Go here to claim yours (not sure if the link is unique)
 
Edit: 08/31/09 @ 4:24 PM: HoN being Sued?



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Snow Leopard

Apple's new OS (operating system), Snow Leopard is scheduled to be released Aug. 28 (Friday). The new OS was priced at $129, but apple is reducing the price to just $29. The reason being that apple wants every user to have this program.

The benefit of upgrading from the leopard is that apple users will gain about 7 gigs back. Apple programs load and run a lot faster with the new OS as well.
Now those of you who bought an apple recently are eligible for an upgrade at a reduced cost. $10 for the program for anyone who bought a new or refurbished computer after June 8.

For those of you who have more computers, $49 for five licenses.

For more information go to apple.com.

Edit: 08/27/09 @ 8:07 PM: Apple cut prices!! Check it out.


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The Guild Update

The guild new episodes are out today...for those who own an Xbox 360. For those who have a zune or have msn, new episodes come out Sept. 1st.
For more information on the guild, go to the official site or the facebook fan site

Update: 8/25/09 @ 3:02 PM: The Guild released the season 3 trailer. Watch it here.

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Heroes of Newerth Beta Key Update

Heroes of Newerth is getting ready to send out 75,000 beta keys. Fan them on facebook to make sure you get one. More info here. Look for edit 8/24/09 @ 6:42 PM.

Edit: 08/26/09 @ 10:09 AM: Beta Keys are out!! Go here for more information.




Edit: 10/21/09 @ 1:13 AM: Beta Keys are being opened for registration.  Instructions are given only through facebook.  More info here.

Xbox 360 Inductive Charging System

Woot.com is selling a charging system for $20.00 (14.99 + 5.00 Shipping).

Direct form woot.com site:
"

Features:

• Charge up to 2 Xbox 360 controllers via inductive charging
• Inductive charging uses no contacts, it won't get dirty, or tarnish
• No need to remove the battery packs or plug your controller in, just set the controller in the charging base
• Charges in about 5 to 6.5 hours for 25 hours of play time
• Includes two Lithium Polymer battery packs for xBox 360 controllers
• 50% lighter than AA batteries and other charging solutions
• After 4 hours of game play, it only takes 1.5 hours to fully recharge the batteries
• Easy to read LED Charge Indicator lights tell you the battery status
• Green LED indicates charging
• Blinking Green indicates that unit is fully charged
• 6 foot power cable with a wall mount AC adaptor
• Battery cover has the same look and feel as the original white xBox 360

Additional Photos:

• Teknocreations ICX360500CP InCharge for Xbox 360 with Controller Charging

In the box:

• 2 xBox 360 Controller Batteries
• Charging Base Station
• AC Power Adapter
• (xBox Controller in Pictures Not Included)"

Putpoketers

Have you heard?

In London there are putpocketers!!! -- Opposite of pickpocketers.
20 former pickpocketers are putting money into unsuspecting pockets, purses, wallets, etc... The put in about $8 - $32. They are putpocketing about $160,000. They are doing this in touristy areas until the end of August and will do this country wide in the future. Interesting, right? For more information and the article, you can go here and check it out!

I wish they could do this in America. It would be awesome. Then again, I guess we don't have that many pickpockers (at least where I live) compared to London.

Jump Rope

I found this on one of the sites I frequently visit

The Guild

I have been following their videos for a while, and I love their latest music video.

The Guild is about 6 people who are in a guild and do quests together online on an unknown MMORPG (because of copyright stuff). For those of you who are into MMO games, this series is for you. You can go on youtube for more episodes, or you can go directly to their site and look at their videos there. They have up to season two (although season two has only 2 episodes).

Good Luck!

Edit: 08/25/09 @ 11:22 AM. Update on new episodes here. And a trailer too...same link

About the characters (Taken directly from http://www.watchtheguild.com/characters/)

Name: Codex
Class: Mage
Alignment: Neutral Good


Strength: 8
Agility: 11
Intelligence: 18
Charisma: 14
Stamina: 11


Strong vs: Fire, mean girls, chicken pox


Weak vs: Boys, mean girls, pudding

-----

Name: Zaboo
Class: Necroromancer
Alignment: Chaotic Good


Strength: 13
Agility: 17
Intelligence: 12
Charisma: 8
Stamina: 14


Strong vs: Theft, insults
Weak vs: Mostly anything

-----

Name: Vork
Class: Planner / Organizer
Alignment: Heavenly Pure


Strength: 10
Agility: 7
Intelligence: 18
Charisma: 9
Stamina: 16


Strong vs: clutter, spreadsheets


Weak vs: disorganization, child support

-----

Name: Bladezz
Class: Fighter
Alignment: Neutral Neutral


Strength: 16
Agility: 14
Intelligence: 11
Charisma: 9
Stamina: 12


Strong vs: Yeti, Street Fighter IV


Weak vs: Bongloads, Tinkerballa

-----

Name: Tinkerballa
Class: Hunter
Alignment: Choatic Neutral


Strength: 12
Agility: 12
Intelligence: 13
Charisma: 13
Stamina: 10


Strong vs: savings accounts, credit cards


Weak vs: friendship, Forever 21

-----

Name: Clara
Class: Cleric
Alignment: Neutral Good


Strength: 12
Agility: 10
Intelligence: 14
Charisma: 17
Stamina: 15


Strong vs: birth control
Weak vs: Child Protective Services, Home Shopping Network

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17 Again

So this movie is about Mike O'Donnell wanting to turn back time to change things in the past. He gets a girl pregnant and throws away his college career to take care of her and the baby. He is going through a divorce so he wants to escape it all and go back to when he was 17 (hence the movie title). So a janitor who has the ability to turn back time for an individual gives Mike a chance to go back to the past and relive his high school life all over again. When he is there, he thinks that in order to turn time forward, he needs to help his kids succeed in high school (preventing his daughter from getting pregnant, and making sure that his son gets on the basketball team). His ultimate goal is to get his wife to love him again.

So, I remember Zac Efron from high school musical. The sweet little boy who was starting his career singing to a musical. Sure all the girls loved him, but he was out of sight, out of mind for me. Then I saw this movie and I said, "I'm not going to watch that movie" but sure enough I did. I wish I had a body like him. The little kid I knew from high school musical is no more. He is this ripped out man (not boy, haha). What does it take to get that kind of body. Gym 3 times a week? Every other day? 3 times a day?

Also, Matthew Perry (The adult of Mike O'Donnell) was in this movie to. He aged (I'm sad). He's older now, but I hope he is doing better. (Picture order is Older / Younger)

Charter Communications / Bobby Pin

Charter Communications went down today for several hours. I'm unsure on what time they came back online. Charter subscribers had limited or no internet connection due to an outage. The toll free number took over one hour for a representative, and all of the local charter communication division disconnected their phone lines or did not answer their calls because people (like me) decided to call local numbers instead of the toll free number.

Trying to find out about this, I ran across this article (Link). Charter is apparently filing for bankruptcy and got it extended. They are trying to reduce a 21 billion (not million) dollar debt to a 13 billion dollar debt. Yikes. Companies have so much money, or lack of...haha

On another note, I was in class and saw a classmate with a bobby pin in her hair. She had two going across the center of her head. It was placed on top side to side and it looked like she had antennae. A human ant. Anyways, you can try to picture that in your head.

Farmville

So, I've been playing farmville on facebook and was using the scythe to harvest my farm. And the scythe, usually associated with the grim reaper, made me have a "light bulb" moment. The grim reaper is the farmer and we humans are the crops. When we are ripe and old, we get harvested. And like plants, we spawn little ones and the whole thing starts over again. I wonder if there is a farmer for the grim reaper, or a farmer for that grim reaper. Where does it end?

Discover Card Holders

Discover is being sued by Shakib, et al. This is a class action lawsuit against Discover for improperly disclosing customer information to a third party.

Now, discover is settling this case, without admitting faulty, by providing the following:
1. "120 days of identity fraud insurance for californian card holders from 1999-2005"
2. "90 days of identity fraud insurance for californian card holders from 2006-June 15 2009"
3. "$400,000 donations to certain charities and non-profit organizations"
4. "$5,000 payment to settlement representatives"
5. "$3,150,000 payment for court costs (court fees, attorney fees, etc.)

Link for more information or call 1-800-347-3028

Man, that is a lot of money. I wish I had that kind of money to give out to admit no fault if allegedly I did some wrong doing.

Heroes of Newerth information and Beta Key information updated. Look at Heroes of Newerth Blog.

Heroes of Newerth

Heroes of Newerth (sounds like New Earth) is a new game based off of the popular game in Warcraft III -- DotA.
The creators of DotA created this game separate from Warcraft III and is currently in beta testing. They gave out free beta keys on facebook for everyone who fan'd them. They are currently out of beta keys, but HON released some beta keys to certain sites like http://www.alienwarearena.com/event/hon-beta-giveaway/
Here is the link to their intro video to the game via facebook. Hope you enjoy.
http://honwiki.net/ for more info.

Edit: 8/17/09 @ 8:38 AM "Heores of Newerth:

Sometime in the next 10 days, we won't say when, we will send out a fan update with 75,000 keys to the beta. The keys will only be available for 12-24 hours and you'll have to regularly check your Heroes of Newerth fan updates. Also, the ...2nd tutorial video in our tutorial series is coming shortly."

Edit: 8/24/09 @ 6:42 PM "Heroes of Newerth

We just added 2 new heroes to the game, Wretched Hag & Succubis. Everyone should soon get a chance to play them as well as almost 50 total heroes very soon. We're getting really close to sending out those 75,000 invites, so make sure you b...ecome a fan and get the update the moment we send it."

Facebook's Restaurant City

I will be talking about the game I am currently addicted to...Restaurant City on Facebook.

This game is fun. It has different aspects to it. It is almost like the sims. You don't directly control individual people, but you control how you design it.

This is a picture of my restaurant. I made an outdoor theme where the floor is made out of grass and dirt. You can do many more designs patterns. You can go 70-80s style with red couches and red floor patterns to modern and futuristic with glass floors and automatic opening doors.

You get 2 coins for every food you sell and you get to buy things for your restaurant, or buy more recipes to improve your dishes.

Your restaurant becomes popular with every sale, but will go down in popularity every time a customer is not satisfied (doesn't get the food in time, too much waiting, etc.).

A funny thing happened to my Restaurant City just a few minutes ago. Here's the video.

Kind of weird right. Usually doesn't happen like that.

EDIT 08/30/09 @ 10:17 AM:  RC has come out with a new feature!

Set Up

I finally got around to creating a blog. Yay. I am trying to switch over from xanga.com/spi2its.

I will be taking 21 units next quarter. I am doing this (instead of the normal 12 units that I usually take) because I am trying to get into UCR Grad School of Education. They require that I take 3 out of 4 education classes before I apply. And guess what...those 2 of the classes I need to take are only offered next quarter. I hope I get in. If I don't, I have to wait a whole year to get into grad school.