The boys are back in town. Metallica is back in full form with their new album. Metallica’s Death Magentic is controlled chaos in the purest sense. After the self titled album or as some refer to as the black album, things have not been that good for the band. Every band that tries to mature as adults along with their music always finds a way to sink in the quicksand of changing music tastes. Lars did not help himself with his cause with his attack on Napster. The bitterness associated with the band with their newly found corporate greed which lead to the attack on illegal downloading of Metallica music.  They championed the music industry at that time and it was not their finest moment. Time has a way of healing old wounds, and in some quarters Metallica is given a clean slate with the Internet public. With Guitar Hero and Rock Band, new audiences are building bridges to bands like Metallica and Guns and Roses to the apparent heirs of the 80’s air guitar heroes. Now everybody can experience guitar godliness without the toil. Putting flash aside and a horrible concept for a CD, the music is what really counts. It seems the group sat down and shed away those Bob Rock awful albums and went back to the roots of the group and added a little maturity to the songs. It’s a fresh welcome to the days of the band when they could do no wrong. Guess some of us matured along with the band. Welcome back guys.

Card games are not as popular as they were before television. Give credit where it is due, some companies are trying to be as imaginative so that they can to compete with the video gaming world. Falling: The Goblin Edition by the Paizo Publishing, LLC is a great way to lure those 8 year old kids from their gaming consoles. You won’t need a crowbar to pry them with this beautiful illustrated set of cards created by James Ernest. The very simple rules will give the little ones hours of fun.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Falling, Titanic Games proudly brings you a re-envisioning of James Ernest’s highly popular card game. You’re all goblins and you’re plummeting toward the ground. Be the last one to hit and you win! Falling is a fast-paced, real-time card game for 4 to 8 players, suitable for any audience.

Google Chrome is a new Google search engine for web enthusiasts who have time to fiddle with the new open source project. Pop culture comic book artist Scott McCloud the creator of the classic Understanding Comics, Making Comics and Zot! is having a banner year. If you wanted to explain a new project in graphic form Scott would be your man for the job. Google hired him to draw and explain how this new project works. Google Chrome is an exciting project that will reshape Google to the next level. Here is a company that keeps re-inventing itself over and over again. Google Chrome is the future. Read more>>

Sex sells. The visual media in general are over sexing our youth. The National Film Board of Canada has an interesting documentary about the exploitation of the youth culture who are exposed daily to sexual images and how it is having a profound influence in their thinking. Kids in their early teens should be thinking about having fun. There are no longer any barriers. Mothers are now dressing like they are still younger than they should be. Their relationships with their kids are friend based at the same level. Constantly bombarded with bawdy images and language each day from early morning till they come home to watch shows that have way too much sexual content.

 

Today’s youth can only emulate what is presented to them in front of their screens. The Internet is a free flow sea of sex for all to easily dip in. Sophie Bissonnette’s documentary, Sexy Inc. Our Children Under Influence, explores the harsh realities of this generation of kids who are headed straight into adulthood and skipping their precious teen years. It’s really confusing for parents who want their kids to grow up right and are fighting an uphill battle when everything around them is telling their kids to sex it up. How can a parent battle the odds of a struggle like this? Sexy Inc. Our Children Under Influence is eye opening visual presentation and a concern for parents who are unaware or just don’t want to bother with their kids. What kind of future do we want for our children? Are we so selfish that we doing them a great disservice by not opening our eyes. Sexy Inc. Sexy Inc. Our Children Under Influence is an eye opener for any North American city under the influence of the sex trade that peddles to all levels of the media industry. Watch clips>>

PlayCrafter is the building block for many of those gamers without computer skills who want to build their own games. It’s a fun way to be creative and get a sense of how games are built. PlayCrafter is community based where all can share and play games created by members and make the games better at the same time.

Cool! Kewel! Cuil? Cuil is the newest search engine that might give Google some competition. At one time Yahoo was king and a little lacklustre simplified search engine with a goofy name Google came out of nowhere and cleaned house. Cuil has some promise considering it was bankrolled by 33 million because the architects are former Google employees (Tom Costello and Anna Patterson) who created this little jewel. Word has it that it there are still many kinks in the engine. Time will tell if the new upstart will put any dent on Google. If the bugs are not fixed, Cuil might just cool off and disappear. The dark background deliberately contrasting Google’s warmer gentle white welcome page with daily fun laced Google logos. Cuil gets straight to the point and starts a unique magazine style search experience.

Looking for a painting program like Corel Painter? Corel Painter might be a bit pricey for some. Sure there is Photoshop and other programs out there that might emulate brushes. Artweaver is the new kid in the block and it has a lot of punch going for it. This robust program is everything Corel Painter has going for it and more. If you can navigate with Corel and Adobe products then Artweaver is no different, easy to draw and paint as natural as possible. The best part about Artweaver is that it is free. Artweaver will make every job easy and has the main extensions such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, PCX, TGA, TIFF, PNG, and PSD. You can mimic art tools such as different digital brushes e.g. chalk, charcoal, and pencils. Read more>>

Least we forget, the Beatles want to be trendy once again. It’s now a battle of the bands of sorts with new games  "Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero" as they go head to head in vying the Beatles on their products. The gaming world got wind of Guitar Hero and the Beatles are in talks to mimick the business plan of Metallica and Aerosmith who have lent their faces and songs to a very lucrative venture in one of the fastest generating money ventures in a long time. Seems there is a new kid in stores each day trying out either Rock Band or Guitar Hero. The games seem transcend easily with parents because most of the music in these games are from their generation. These power chord games are a hit and will one day change the landscape of music as they are also reinventing the music instruments. The future is bright. Wonder how many kids know of The Beatles? The market is growing to encompass all ages who want to graduate from air guitar to a semi-guitar god.

The New Yorker Magazine is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you will get. Adrian Tomine’s cover is a priceless expression between the war of the local bookstore versus Amazon. This issue has a new found story by Vladimir Nabokov, worth getting if you are not a Adrian Tomine.