Super Mario as Unreal Tournament level

Boing Boing: “The fun-loving gamers at the Unreal Tournament forum have recreated Super Mario Bros as a rockin’ UT2D level.”

LINK

U2 Scrap Work And Start Again

Ugh, there goes a 2008 release…

U2 Station: “Rockers U2 are scrapping all the tracks they have written for their
next album to start all over again - ditching a year’s worth of work.

The band has been working on the follow up to 2004 LP How To
Dismantle An Atomic Bomb for the past 12 months, but they’re far from
happy with the results.

Guitarist The Edge reveals bandmembers have mostly messed around in
the studio - and they have now decided to get stuck in and finish the
record.

He tells CMUMusic.com, “We went into this project allowing ourselves
the indulgence of making music without thinking about where it was
going to end up. We’re starting to get serious now”.

Star Trek Bottle Opener

Neatorama:

“Open your beer with the starship Enterprise! This item should be in stock by the end of June, but you can preorder now.”

Link -via Gizmodo

The second-gen iPhone: 3G, GPS, only slightly thickerE

Engadget:

So
we’ve got it on authority that the second-gen iPhone is already well
into testing, and numerous units are floating around in super secret
pockets. A trusted source got a chance to check one out, here’s what
we’ve heard.

• The first thing people will notice: the 2nd gen iPhone will be about the same size and shape as the first gen.
• It will, of course, have 3G. And proper GPS!
• The
  most noticeable physical difference is back of the phone is no longer
  metal — the whole thing is glossy black, from top to bottom. The
  volume buttons are now chrome.
• Because it’s got a little
  less metal to deal with, it doesn’t have quite as many angular edges.
  The battery is (still) not removable.
• The phone itself will be slightly thicker than the first gen device.
• The headphone jack will no longer be recessed, and will finally be flush with the body.
• The device itself uses roughly the same size and resolution screen as the first generation product.
• No solid word on battery life or storage capacity.

It
could ship (or be introduced) as early as July — but it’s worth noting
that none of this is necessarily finalized, and any of it could change
between now and its introduction. You really never know with Apple!”

[Image via iPod Observer]

Contacts Sidebar Beefs Up Thunderbird’s Contact Manager

Lifehacker:

“Thunderbird only (all platforms): Thunderbird extension Contacts
Sidebar pulls Thunderbird’s built-in contact management out of
obscurity, making it more usable and accessible. After installing, just
hit F4 at any time to toggle Contacts Sidebar’s visibility in the
Thunderbird sidebar. Once visible, you can easily search, edit, or
email contacts from the main Thunderbird interface. We’d mentioned
Contacts Sidebar once before among our eight killer Thunderbird extensions, but in light of today’s Hive Five contact managers and the ‘bird’s relatively poor showing, it deserves a mention of its own.”

Contacts Sidebar [via OStatic]

BSG Closing Animations

Someone has collected a bunch of the hilarious closing animations from the end of BSG:

It’s Official - Guillermo Del Toro is On Board To Direct HOBBIT

AICN: “Well - Our Good Friend… and by that I mean - GEEKS EVERYWHERE… Has officially put quill to vein and blood to paper - to solemnly swear to direct the best fscking movie called THE HOBBIT he could possibly make.

In fact - there’s going to be TWO of these movies. The story of THE HOBBIT will not be divided - and I’m pretty damn sure that the second film won’t be titled HOBBIT: SMOKING IN BAG’S END… Instead - I feel the 2nd film will be the true challenge. To create a bridging narrative that connects the events that end THE HOBBIT - with those that begin THE LORD OF THE RINGS is one of the riskiest and toughest tasks that any modern artist would undertake.

It’s a fine thing to originate and create a binding mythology between two incredibly well-established tomes of mythology. However, in Guillermo, Peter and everyone in the magical land of New Zealand we’ll have to place our trust.

That said - I’m taking bets on Doug Jones as a Wood Elf…. and Ron Perlman as the voice of Smaug. This is so gonna fscking rock!”

Click here for Variety’s Story

Tarantino Still Getting Animated With Kill Bill

Rotten Tomatoes: “Two year ago Quentin Tarantino piqued the interest of film fans
everywhere when he promised two new anime companion films to “Kill
Bill,” one supposedly about the origin of The Bride and the other about
Bill himself.

We don’t know what’s happened to the story of The Bride, but the
other animated film is going to blow you away, insisted star Uma
Thurman.

“His anime stuff is strong,” she smiled.

We say we don’t know what happened to the story of the Bride, by the
way, because Thurman claims to have never recorded a voice-over for the
anticipated project.

“It has nothing to do with me,” she said. “It has to do with another character. You’ll have to see.”

That screams Bill to us. But the best part? It looks as if we’ll get
to “see” real soon, perhaps as part of an expanded DVD release, Thurman
teased, indicating that the short will be part of a larger re-release
for “Kill Bill.”

“Right now he’s putting the two films together with an intermission
with an added anime sequence he had already written,” she said of the
ongoing saga of Beatrix Kiddo. “So additional stories are in there, in
animation.”

Sounds pretty groovy to us? What about you? Would you plunk down
some coin to buy an expanded “Kill Bill” set? Looking forward to more
animation from Tarantino? Sound off below.”

Rock Band kick pedal modded for double bass action

Engadget:

“It’s one thing to use a real live stompbox to activate Overdrive; it’s another to hack up your Rock Band
kick pedal to enable that sweet, sweet double bass action that Lars
Ulrich, Joey Jordison and the rest of the crew (read: you) just have to
have. As you’d expect, there’s a bit more to it than just adding in a
splitter, but if you’re not frightened by circuitry diagrams and having
to ask the hobby store guy for a 5-volt power supply, you’ll be more
than fine. Check out the video demonstration after the jump, and tap
the read link for the full list of instructions.”

[Via MAKE]

Xbox 360 wireless Rock Band guitar starting to show up in stores

Engadget:

“We’ve been waiting for Harmonix to deliver the promised
Xbox 360 wireless Rock Band guitar controller for a while now, and it
looks the company is stealthily getting them out there. Pre-orders have
been trickling out for about a week, and alert reader Greg just sent us
these shots of the controller in the wild at his local Best Buy. Oddly,
he says the in-store price is $79.99 while the BestBuy.com price is
$59.99, so if you’re looking to cut the cord, you might want to save
some cash and order online. Oh, and remember — this bad boy doesn’t
work with Guitar Hero, so don’t say we didn’t warn you. One more shot
after the break.”

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