You all know the rules, I state a quote from a TC member here and you all have to guess what the context of that statement was when it was said. Whoever guesses right gets to post the next quote.
And here it is!
"Technically, this isn't illegal until I'm finished."
So, was this person a software pirate, or trying to murder someone? Maybe it's just something about sandwitches. Or maybe it's murder, or even attempted killing. In any case, who said it, and in what context?
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Arnold Schwarzenegger is at a crossroads.
Should he continue as filmdom's handsomely paid Terminator or become a Great Communicator as Ronald Reagan did when he gave up playing opposite chimps to make chumps out of his political opponents?
As the Austrian-born actor flits from interview to interview pushing "Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines," which opens on July 2, the third in the 20-year-old series of movies about machines out to destroy humankind, he demurely declines to deliver a definitive yes or no to the annual question of whether he will say "I'll be back" to his film career or start a new one as a Republican politician.
The plot is simple: As he promotes "Terminator 3," for which he was reportedly paid a whopping $30 million, Arnold is keeping an eye on a Republican-led movement to remove California's unpopular Democratic Governor Gray Davis in a recall.
If enough signatures are gathered by mid-July, the measure could be on the November ballot along with another question: If you recall Davis, who do want to replace him?
Schwarzenegger, who has eyed a political career on and off for years, could quickly mount a campaign and might even win because only a plurality of votes would be needed. Thanks to his fame, he'll go into an election with more name recognition than possible opponents.
"I have heard from both Democrats and Republicans who are close to him that he is definitely interested but 'definitely' in politics is different from 'definitely' in other professions," says one top-level California political player.
"But I think he will do it. His shelf life would be put to the test in a real 18-month-long gubernatorial campaign while in a 90-day-long recall election, he can ride on his name and hope he doesn't get asked any hard questions," the operative added.
FUN SCENARIO
Anyway that's the scenario and that's the one Arnold is having fun with as he drums up publicity for the latest, loudest "Terminator" yet, complete with a female villain who tosses Schwarzenegger from pillar to post.
Ever the perfectionist, Schwarzenegger even put up $1.4 million of his own money to pay for a car chase scene that involves his getting hit with a crane and slammed into a fire truck. The film was over budget until he came to the rescue.
Doing that kind of back-breaking work on a regular basis may be the real reason the man is eyeing the soft life of a politician. But it's not quite like what Ronald Reagan faced as his career dimmed and he wound up playing against a chimp in "Bedtime for Bonzo."
Plus the puns are good. Schwarzenegger can make jokes like "My kids are normal kids. They go to the mall and pass out recall petitions ." Or tell Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show" as he did on Thursday that he's going to Iraq to show his film to U.S. troops and "There is no money over there. There's no leadership, pretty much like California."
But talking seriously with a group of journalists the other day, he insisted he isn't thinking about running for governor -- yet. "There is no reality there. There is no recall and I will think about it after promoting 'Terminator' around the world ... and that will take me to the end of July. My mind is not there yet."
Yet when asked by a reporter if a recall movement was not in effect terminating, or at least short-circuiting the democratic process, because an election was held just seven months ago, Schwarzenegger says no.
"There is a question of how the people feel. I think the people feel dissatisfied at what is being done in Sacramento and the way the governor is handling things," he said.
He added jokingly that it might be time for a sequel to another of his famous movies -- "Total Recall."
--------------------------------------------
Someone vote for this man...at least you cant do any worse
Hey it looks like Nintendo is finally beefing up their advertising. In the past two days I've seen three different Gamecube commercials for games that are coming out this fall; one for Rebel Strike, one for F-Zero GX, and one for some Wrestling game. It's great to see Gamecube ads this frequently (and I don't even watch that much tv), but it's even greater to see them hyping up games a few months before their release like Sony and MS do.
Quote:<b>Max Roivas rumored to believe "this isn't happening."</b>
Hypnotic, a Hollywood production company, has acquired the TV and feature rights to Nintendo and Silicon Knights' critically acclaimed 2002 title, "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem." The three companies have worked together in the past, as Hypnotic was responsible for overseeing the Eternal Darkness Films contest last summer.
Here's a little snippet from the Variety.com article:
"We are thrilled to once again work with Nintendo to extend this brand and its powerful story to the masses," said CEO Dave Bartis. "We are eager to get the project started and to leverage our relationships in both the entertainment and marketing worlds to propel 'Eternal Darkness' to another entertainment platform."
Okay, Hypnotic, listen closely. Eternal Darkness is one of those rare games that, if done well, would absolutely rock as a movie. If you do choose to make it, hire some good actors and spare no expense, and you'll make plenty off of it.
From a purely technical standpoint Voices doesn't seem like it would be that great an anime: It's 25 minutes long and it was made almost entirely by one man. It must be a low budget, fan-made project that doesn't have much going for it, right? Actually, Voices is the exact opposite.
Although the character models are somewhat crude, the animation is great. It also has some CG for added affect, although it isn't anything amazing it easily does it's job. But, what about the story? You'd think that the story would be very shallow, but in 25 minutes Voices weaves an incredible story full of details. Voices only has two characters, but they are very realistic and memorable.
The Story: Mikako and Noboru are two average high school students, but their lives are disrupted when an unknown alien force attacks Earth. Mikako decides to join the army and travel into space to fight the aliens, but Noboru stays behind on Earth. The only means of communication that they have are text messages that they send over their cell phones. As Mikako travels farther away from Earth their messages take longer to reach their destination. As years go by Noboru ages, but in space Mikako hardly ages at all.
All in all Voice of a Distant Star is a very good movie, whose only downside [if you can even call it that] is that it's short.
...er, the name of the chapter I just finished in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Superb book, like the other four (and I started reading before it turned into a gigantic craze). Assuming any of you bought it (I'm thinking at least a couple did) how far are you, what do you think of it?
Been reading for 4 days...technically (the I got it in the mail, I had three more days of exams 'till school was finished), and I'm on page 353.
Just a reminder to everyone, the new Ren & Stimpy show is gonna debut tonight at 10:00 EST on TNN. I know I'll be watching it. Just letting you all know...
Quote:According to Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, you could be paying an extra 10 dollars for top titles by the end of this year. An MSNBC report tells why it may be possible, even though most analysts agree that most game makers want to keep software prices where they are. In a case against the increase in game prices, studies of the 'life cycle' model of previous consoles and the current next-generation consoles show that new games stick at a higher price, but old games and relatively unknown games get slashed prices. GameCube, PS2, and Xbox are entering the second half of their life cycle, the period where price points in hardware and software trend downward. But what isn't happening is development costs declining as developers reach the technical limits of the platform. “Research and development costs continue to go up,” said Richard Ow, a game analyst for the NPD Group. A typical Playstation game in 1996 cost less than $1 million to make and sold for $49. Today the console games run around $5-7 million per title and sell for $49.99.
Development costs have risen because the 128-bit generation requires at least 40 times as many lines of codes to exploit the system capabilities as the previous console generation. “To keep pushing the limits, that not only takes more people, but better people,” Perry said. “Great development staff are therefore becoming more and more valuable, and as our industry moves to Playstation 3, Xbox 2, etc., then they will be at a new premium,” he said. Game creators are also adding costly exclusives video footage for Enter The Matrix to grab peoples attentions, and licensed material. Then there's marketing to handle. "With so many costs built into production," said Halpin of the game retailing group, "a triple-A game price change in favor of higher prices and higher margin or lower prices and higher sales would not be easy. Right now it’s too much a part of philosophy in way of conducting business. Especially for public companies. They would need to re-scale their economics.”
The other problem is there isn't much complaining of the game prices. “There just doesn’t seem to be negative reaction to game prices,” said Ow. “Even if one publisher took the chance to lower the price of a triple-A game, it could bias the consumer that it’s a lesser game." "Game publishers don’t understand consumers, they understand video games,” he added. “Prices never go down. People don’t have a problem with prices going up, the publishers do.” Over the next year, about 750 new titles will hit the market. "If past sales figures offer any clues," said Pachter, "the top 50 to 60 games will rake in 50 percent of the total sales. Once you see those numbers, it’s easy to see that half could command a $60 price point. The thing that may counteract all of this is the fact that game sales have risen tremendously. $10 billion was spent by Americans on hardware and software. The conclusion they come to is if one publisher sells a very popular title for $60 and thus makes a killing on sales, publishers with similar titles may follow.
Quote:People don’t have a problem with prices going up
No, I think most people DO have a problem with prices going up.
