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AltecApollyon's World

*geek*fashion*gaming*randomness*movies*

Fashion Awesomeness : Hellboy Adidas!

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I while back I fell in love again with some footwear. But I had just bought my New Balance shoes (that I blogged about before) and so I decided to hold off of the new ones.

Now, I cracked and ordered these limited Hellboy Adidas shoes (Forum Mid-Golden Army i think they are offically called). Apparently there were only 5000 made, so I'm glad to have found some in my size, and just in time for me to go to London. Nice!


Web Awesomeness: Found!

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This is just to spotlight a really cool original site. Its Found Magazine - which pretty much is simply a bunch of galleries of 'found' pictures, notes and drawings. The best thing about these is that they are often funny, so random, sometimes thought provoking and always interesting. Definately worth getting a set tab inside your Opera, because they have the 'Find of the Day' and its always changing. So next time you find a faded water blotched picture on the side of the rode, or a shopping list in a subway, scan that sucker and send it to Found Magazine - thats what its there for!

Link : www.foundmagazine.com

Bananagrams!

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In London on our first day we went down to Regent Street and walked around, mostly because the girls (refering to my sister and my wife) knew that I would get a kick out of the toy store : Hamley's. It was really awesome, their workers are outside, dressed in costumes, blowing bubbles and playing with toys, inside they are are smartly dressed playing with toys. Needless to say, they take toys as they should be : serious fun. We ran into this one guy playing a game, and he invited us to join, so we did. It turned out it was BANANAGRAMS! A game that I tried to get last year for christmas, but it wasnt available outside the US.

The point is this : its like scrabble, except everyone gets 21 chips, then you try to make a crossword in front of you (only building words left-to-right and up-to-down) You do this as fast as you can - if at any time you cant use a letter you can trade it back into the pile for 3 more (so always 3:1). The fastest one to use all their letters wins! This is the classic varaition, (with all the banana lingo like "peel" and "split" and "banana!" its rad.

And it comes in a banana-peel case, so its great for travel, the whole London trip we played it everywhere we went : cafés, friend's houses, museums.

What makes it so good, it that its not about who can make the longest or craziest word. It#s about who can make the words quickly, and who can break-up and make new words as needed. So kids can play as well - actually it was made by a family in the US, and they said that their kids win more then the adults. Another good thing is that its still a private enterprise from this family - they didnt sell the idea to Milton Bradley or Mattel or Hasbro. Good stuff people!

Check it out if you get your hands on it. I'm sure they are developing versions for all languages as we speak! But until then you can check it out online - and on facebook! I can't wait until they bring a downloadable version for the wii or the xbox 360 to xbox live to play with our avatars! Sweet!

POTP (Picture of the Present)

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Starbucks design : Owl Eyes

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Starbucks has "make-your-own" tumblers (thats the name they've given to travel mugs without handles) And I finally got around to designing mine. The cool thing is that you can do it really quickly, just draw something / or stick some stuff to a piece of paper, or whatever - and then slap in into the mug, screw it in, and finitto- done and done. I decided this time to go with "Owl Eyes" because I started drawing owls, but then noticed that their eyes were enough.

Please dont steal my owl eyes. Thanks.

Summer Movies 2009

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This summer is full of good movies. Here are some of the ones that I find especially special. I'm really looking forward to the following...


Pixar’s Up
Why? Pixar has never made a bad movie. They actually seem to be getting better. Up follows suit.


Star Trek
Why? Though I'm a die-hard Star Wars fan, I'm always up for a good sci-fi flick. Heard alot of mixed reviews about this, but I'll go with some Trekkies and get their opinion.


Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Why? Because I already have IMAX tickets, and they cost me an arm and a leg for when I'm in London. So, despite disliking Michael Bay I gotta look forward to this destruction orgy. Oh, that reminds me: and Megean Fox.


Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Why? Because the last one was actually good - and the trailer already looks great. I might actually have to read the HP books sometime.


The Brothers Bloom
Why? Because Brick was very original, and this looks equality so plus being quirky and fun, Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel Weisz, and the movie just looks good.


Inglourious Basterds
Why? Well, if Tarantino cuts out the fat - I think this cool be a real wicked Tarantino style genre piece. I'm all for it.


Tetro
Why? Because its Francis Ford Coppola, show some respect.


Drag Me to Hell
Why? Because despite that I'm not a huge fan of horror, I like it when Sam Raimi does it.


Brüno
Why? Because he's a genius, despite Borat being so 2006 :wink:


Ponyo (Gake no ue no Ponyo)
Why? Because Miyazaki is magic. Beautiful entralling magic. Show your love for Ghibli Studios, go see this. Unfortunately this wont be in Germany until October.


District 9
Why? Because this might be the director of an eventual HALO movie - and thats a very good thing, because this already looks AMAZING - from South Afrian director Neill Blomkamp. I'm sure you've already seen some of the viral ads theyve been putting out.


Dead Snow (Død snø)
Why? Because a nazi-zombie flick is long overdue. It's actually getting a limited release in the US! I wonder how much has been cut from the original Norwegian release? I'm sure it wont be coming out in Germany.


Ché
Why? Because Benicio Del Toro is a true artist, and this is being given a fighting chance in Germany, where there is still a respect for art house films.


Public Enemies
Why? Are you kidding? Christian Bale and Johnny Depp in a Michael Mann gangster movie? This could be the new HEAT. And : Giovanni Ribisi, Billy Crudup and Leelee Sobieski in the supporting roles.


Moon
Why? Because its Sam Rockwell. The shots look amazing. I'm hoping for a poetic space thriller, the 2001 of 2009 if you will.



Blood: The Last Vampire
Why? A female japanese vampire hunter with a samurai sword, based on the anime? This couldnt get much closer to geek heaven.


WHAT SUMMER MOVIES ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO?


Gaming-Awesomeness : Portal

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Portal. From the makers of Half-Life. It'S already gained cult status - though lately, Ive met quite a few gamers that dont know it at all! With the influx of new gamers there seems to be the need for help when deciding what to play. There are so many games nowadays and that means that most of them are pure crap.

Not however in the case of the short yet wonderful : Portal. Its a ego-shooter puzzler game, and could very well be the beginning of its own genre. I was lucky enough to find the hard to get (in Germany) Orange Box at a used game shop. For me, it is the most memorable game that I have played in a long time. Its non-violent, it has great humour and a well told, unfolding story. It's short, yes, but its the beginning of something new, Portal 2 (already has been announced) will be much longer I am sure.

Im not going to get into what the game is about, there is a wikipedia link at the bottom that explains it all better then I can. I think you should just give it a try, if you consider yourself to be someone who loves gaming for gaming then there is little risk involved; great gameplay, well-structured, self-explanitory, full of story and humour, cool music - try to find another 5 hour game that can stand up to this one!

Also included in the amazing Orange Box edition, is a game commentary, that you can interact with while playing the game, you find little speech bubbles that you can activate to hear more about the making and testing of the game, and how it came to its final version : more 70€ games could learn something about value here.

The first Half-life changed the ego-shooting genre forever. It was a much more story based game, less of just finding exits and killing. It placed you in a role. Portal harkens those emotions that bubbled up while playing the first Half-life for the first time : "This will change things."

It seems that the gaming world is becoming more and more like the movie world; there are big budget games, that dazzle with their effects but lose out on there innovativeness, and then there are the smaller indie games(Portal, Flower, Braid) that are extremely innovative, but are at times a tad lackluster, but for a true gamer thats easily forgiven.

You can get Portal on Xbox Live for around 1000 points. It's more then worth it. Then after you're done, check out all the fan art & stuff online - Im sure you'll already be doing it.



If you already know "Portal" here's some rad links to check out :

A German review from another blog.
Portal meets Escher fan art.

Aperature Science Buttons
Wired's Portal Article. (cool picture explaining how Portal Works)
Portal as a 2nd Flash Game!

Portal Projects : 1 2

Also checkout Portal on Wikipedia ENGLISH GERMAN

Food Album

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My wife is a rad cook. She really is. Just yesterday she threw together a salad, with mozarella, radisches, bacon, white asparagus and it was so good. She rarely uses a recipe even when she bakes. I kinow for a salad you dont need to use a recipe...Sometimes the food is sooooo good, I gotta get a picture of it. I thought it would upload some of these for fun into a new photo album. Some of the photos (usually the ones that DONT look so good) are some things that I made using my Nintendo DS Cooking program. Ill be sure to mark those ones.

One more thing : its really hard to take pictures of food. If you mess up on the lighting, or the white balance, it just doenst come out right, and if you think it looks good to your eye, when you see what the camera sees....well, it just is really hard to capture - so give me a break, at least for a bit, until I figure out how to do this :wink:

Any tips are appreciated.
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