If there's any Rocky fans out there, you ought to jump on Amazon's Deal of the Day if you don't already own the DVDs. The first 5 for 20 bucks is a pretty good deal considering the cost of movies - even mediocre/bad movies are usually $5 on DVD.


It's only a one-day deal though.

This is pretty ridiculous, and I'm scared to see how much worse highway traffic is going to get as a result of everyone trying to avoid these fines, but starting in July the Illinois Department of Transportation, State Police, and Illinois Tollway are going to begin using cameras to log violations of those 45MPH workzone speed limits. Which means no escaping getting caught. And the fines are horrendous. $375 for the first time, and $1000 after that, as well as demerits on your license which affect your insurance rates and a potential license suspension.

I wonder if this will only be enforced during the day? Because it doesn't make sense to take those signs down and set them up each day, but at night people tend to ignore them because there aren't any workers around. All I know is I wouldn't want to risk getting one of these tickets. From IDOT:

Starting in July, State Troopers will deploy specially equipped vans that can take photographs of drivers speeding in IDOT and Tollway construction and maintenance zones. Tickets will be issued by mail to vehicle owners.

Under enhanced penalties passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Rod Blagojevich last year, first-time work zone speeders, including those caught on camera, will be hit with a fine of $375, with $125 of that sum going to pay off-duty State Troopers to provide added enforcement in construction or maintenance zones. Two-time offenders are subject to a $1,000 fine, including a $250 surcharge to hire Troopers, and the loss of their license for 90 days.

Photo enforcement vans will be equipped with cameras designed to record a clear image of the vehicle and driver, its [sic] speed, and registration plate. The registered owner will not be liable if someone else is driving the vehicle.

Photo speed enforcement will be taking place at various construction zones around the state, including on the Dan Ryan and Kingery projects and Tollway projects in the Chicago area as well as various downstate projects.

IDOT and Tollway officials stressed the importance of complying with work zone speed limits even when workers are not present because of the dangers posed by features such as narrow lanes, lane jogs, reduced shoulder width, obstructions and drop-offs.

That last part makes me think they might continue enforcing this, even at night.

Nintendo has announced that starting next year, Wii owners will be able to use a new service called either WiiWare or Wii Software to download games from developers via the Shop Channel. By allowing the games to be downloaded instead of stocked in stores, smaller companies get a chance to create games and see if they catch on without risking a huge investment.

I think this will definitely lead to some amazing games since there's plenty of people with plenty of ideas on how to use the innovative controller. And I'm sure there will be plenty of websites that popup to point out the cream of the crop via rating systems too. If Wii Sports has proven anything, it's that you don't need some massive budget graphics as long as the gameplay is solid.

This is remarkably stupid. Apparently after receiving 37 complaints about the following poster, it got banned from the London Tube:

Those who complained thought the poster was offensive and likely to encourage violence, dangerous driving or vandalism.

The ASA said the slogan, combined with images of a car that seemed to have crashed at high speed and a burning tyre, could be seen to condone dangerous driving and anti-social behaviour. The authority called the poster "irresponsible".

Electronic Arts said the advert deliberately did not show people, so the focus was on the game and not real life. The company said it would not run the poster again.

dave submitted a link to IGN's video section where there is a teaser trailer up for the Hitman movie coming out October 12th. I think the actor playing 47 should have a taller head, and more sinister face to match the game. Supposedly (according to IMDb), Vin Diesel was going to produce and star in this when the project first got shopped around. Also, as I'm pretty sure Dave mentioned to me previously, this seems like a hard movie to translate to the screen (as with many video game translations) since so much of the interest in the game comes from controlling all the action. Watching one of those plots unfold without actually taking part takes a lot of the thrill out of it. All that said, the trailer looks pretty cool.



In case you have trouble with the IGN video, someone has put up the video on YouTube, but it's basically the IGN version at a lower quality.

If I hear another word about Paris Hilton or the iPhone I'm going to puke. Of course considering Paris is just getting out of jail today or tomorrow and the iPhone is coming out on Friday, odds are pretty good I'm going to be pretty sick.

The First Cut is the Deepest (S4E2)

This week's episode was strange. The whole thing with Billy had many predictable events and everytime they deal with Billy it just feels like more of the same. Of course they finally did get to see the film, and E couldn't tell Billy he didn't like it. I don't know how he and Vince could have such varying opinions though. And obviously E needs to make his opinion known at some point and that's going to lead to Billy going crazy.

Billy sports some bling

It seemed like the whole Ari plot was there solely to provide a reason to put Ari in the episode, and it certainly didn't feel like it was useful in any way. The Turtle and Drama plot was ridiculous as always, but it at least impacted their living situation. It's weird how they have 4 characters that are basically now broke or with only a little money, and none of them seems to care. It makes me like when E used to get all nervous and worried about their expenses, because how can they keep going without the cash? Especially if Medellin turns into a huge bomb. But that's probably unlikely...somehow they always end up with a hit which results in a cash infusion to go on for a little longer.

At any rate, it'd be nice to have some consistency to Ari's agent character rather than him sometimes being entirely absent and other times being involved in completely unrelated/useless plots. That's Turtle and Drama's job, and they've got that category handled pretty well. I'll be happy to see an end to any mention of Billy in the near future. He's no longer adding humor or interesting conflict. Overall the episode had enough entertaining moments, but I'm hoping for some changes.

Also, Dave was mentioning how it's lost some realness in the progression of time, and I agree completely. The show used to feel more or less like it occurred in real time, because shooting a movie occurred between seasons and there was a big break. So you could believe that the movie was shot, released, and got some reactions and reviews. But with this season immediately following the last with just a one week break, it doesn't seem believable that shooting happened so quickly, and that it's already progressing to release soon.

This was a review of Episode 44. See more reviews.

This is a pretty interesting development, because it seemed to be a long requested feature. Google Blogoscoped is reporting that Google Talk now has group chat. The weird thing is there's now more features in the browser version (that appears in Gmail or you can add to your iGoogle page) than in the standalone application you can download to your desktop.

I've always liked GTalk because it's so light and built into Gmail (and if you want you can store your conversations and search them later), so this is a pretty awesome addition.

If you're unlucky, your request for a visitor's visa to go to the UK may be denied because "you plan a holiday for no particular purpose other than sightseeing." Apparently there's been some pretty ridiculous reasons given for denied visas:

• [Some people were] turned down because they had never previously taken any foreign travel or could not speak English.
  
  
• A common reason for refusal was "you wish to go to the UK for a holiday. You have never previously undertaken any foreign travel before and I can see little reason for this trip".
  
  
• She also highlights the case of a person whose request was rejected by an officer because they had "little or no idea what you plan to see or do". This was, she discloses, because the person had answered the question on a form asking why they were going to the UK, with the words "annual leave vacation".
  
  
• An applicant in St Petersburg wrote: "I just want a holiday, my friends live near the seaside" to which the officer wrote "you have not named any places you will see".
  
  
• In one case, a man was refused a visa because the officer thought it not credible that he was going to stay in a hotel in Cirencester "far from [his] friends in Surrey and Kent". The hotel was in fact in London and the man had told the officer that he had not wanted to put a burden on his friends for his entire 28-day visit.

Mrs Costelloe Baker, who is independent but appointed by the Foreign Office, concluded that overall "there has been a significant improvement in the quality of UKvisas work compared with 2005 and I have found that refusal notices are more consistent and less idiosyncratic".

So apparently you must speak English, have a specific set of places or friends to visit, and do something besides sightseeing. And also this is better than the application office used to be? What did they used to do, just write "I don't think so" in big red letters across the application regardless of what was on it?

kirat submitted a story about a mugger getting his own wallet stolen:

After the 20-year-old stole the driver's wallet, a scuffle broke out between the two, in which the cabbie not only recovered his property but also took his attacker's wallet, police in the western town of Aldenhoven said Tuesday.

The driver then locked himself in his taxi and called the police, who were amazed to find the mugger waiting patiently for them on the curb next to the vehicle when they arrived.

"He wanted his wallet back," a police spokesman said. After taking the man in for questioning, police released him and returned his wallet. He faces charges for attempted robbery.

I don't know why the mugger wouldn't have broken the cab window or something in order to get his wallet and get away. Also, how and why did the cab driver take the mugger's wallet? What a strange story.