LRR.Community Update – August 4, 2008
August 4th, 2008

Posted by Jeremy

Yes, folks, welcome to August, one of the best months of the year . . . the month of beach time, PAX, and (most importantly) my birthday. Let’s see how the month has treated us so far . . .

Talk to Me Softly 02; 84

ASCII ninja JTaylor has put together a Mibbit widgit, for all those who took issue joining the LRR-Talk IRC chat via a dedicated client. It’s browser-based, and only needs javascript, so jump on in and join the party :).

LRR-Talk widget

Shirtstorm 126; 79

Tensen01 has apparently gone insane (in a good way), and turned his own thread about a hypothetical Zod T-shirt into veritable explosion of hypothetical LRR-wear. His ideas cover ground from season one to the present, and they just keep coming!

Have a look at the thread here – I wish we did have a catalog this extensive!

The Blog Prince 84; 32

After lats week’s running of the blogs, I’m happy to say that Graham, Matt and James have done a fantastic job of blogging consistently. How long this trend will continue before getting bucked–like a sultry doe–is difficult to say, but for now I’m certainly enjoying the updates. Meanwhile, Allen! has started a thread to try and suss out your blogs. While I don’t promise to read them all, what I have seen so far has taught me a lot about you folks. According to Wraith’s, for example, he’s decided that he hates Vista, and plans on using OS X and Red Hat on his mac mini from now on. Tru story, dat . . .

Check out Allen!’s thread here.

The Last Guy . . . 73; 82

. . . on the crew to know about LRR projects is often me, because school prevents me from attending meetings. However, I am not the star of Sony’s new Playstation Network game The Last Guy, which appears to be a zombie-survival game of sorts.

D-Darsh pointed out this week that using the web-based “demo”, The Last Guy Everywhere, you can play the game using any website as a level layout. If you’ve not tried it, loadingreadyrun.com makes a pretty decent introductory stage. It’s not fantastic but it’s a great way to kill a few minutes!

try The Last Guy Everywhere

Grand Theft LRR 67; 73

Earlier this week, Graham and Matt were accosted by Victoria’s finest on suspicion of car theft. They were not arrested, as their apprehension turned out to be the result of a computer error, but they did get to spend some time cuffed on the asphalt in front of angry dobermans. You can a better account of the story on their blogs.

Graham’s blog
Matt’s blog

Loading Time 75; 68

Are you sad because Proudfoot’s Community Profiles only appear on alternate weeks? Then maybe you missed the debut of his new project, Loading Time – an honest-to-goodness behind the scenes feature, showing the process behind Emergency Situation. Sure, we’ve done blooper reals before, and of course there was The Process from very early in season two . . . but seriously, this is bonus content on a whole new strata of quality. Also, it shows off LRR’s Orbiting Underground Moon Bunker for the first time ev(a)r.

If you’ve not seen it yet, you should.

New Digs (but not DIGGs, Unfortunately) 69; 69

I guess there is a chance that some of you are reading this via RSS, and if that’s the case, go load up LRR RIGHT NOW because today marks the debut of our brand spanking new site design! Paul’s been working on this for a long time now, and it’s fantastic to finally get to show the rest of you :). The new site features a lot of improvements to both the front and back ends to make your LRR-browsing experience as tight and feature-rich as possible.

There are still some bugs remaining to be squashed, and if you find one we want to hear about it. Just remember to try clearing out your cache and reloading (shift-refresh on most browsers) before making a report, and remember to tell us the browser and version number you are using to view the site.

If you have any constructive criticism, please let us know about that too :).

bug report thread
general comments thread

Desert Bus 2 News: Is Forthcoming 84; 126

Many of you have asked to know the whens, wheres and whatfores of Desert Bus 2, and while we want to spill everything, now is not yet the time. While DB2 is a go, a lot of our plans are still very much up in the air. While there may be a trickle of information over the next few weeks, don’t expect to know everything until at least September. We’re excited; we’re glad you’re excited; we just don’t want to make any promises until the details are set in stone

And Finally . . . 32; 03

I’ve decided that (after only two of these posts) I can no longer fit them into my Monday schedule. Beyond the fact that Monday is already a big day for us, you folks do a lot of talking on the weekends, and it’s all I can to to keep up. Thus, expect to hear from me again on Friday, and Fridays thereafter :).

Cheers!

–Jer out

Posted in Community, LRR | 1 Comment »

LoadingReadyRun v5.5
August 4th, 2008

Posted by Paul

Before I start, if you are seeing any site glitches, please refresh your browser to make sure you have the latest version of the style sheet.

Welcome to LRR v5.5! As you can see, we have made some fairly major changes in the layout and functionality of the site, but we feel that that this was a long overdue revamp.

It is no secret that Iron Stomach Challenge has been neglected in the the past months. In order to remedy this situation we have decided to move ISC under the LRR umbrella. http://ironstomach.com will now take you to the latest ISC video on the LRR site. We have also given the Phailhaüs and bonus videos their own sections and colours so that you know when we update each category. Speaking of categories, these new sections replace the old categories we were using (shorts, other, x2y, etc). Since almost everything was a “Short” or an “Other” they ended up being kind of pointless.

We have also added some advertising in the sidebar and below each video. At the moment they are just showing whatever AdBrite will feed us, but hopefully we will be getting some more relevent stuff soon.

Please note that we have changed the urls for the blog and the forums so that they make more sense. The new forum url is http://loadingreadyrun.com/forum and the new blog url is http://loadingreadyrun.com/blog.  In the interests of backwards compatiblity, the old urls will still work, but you should update your bookmarks.

I will try to do a more in-depth post about some of the other new features and maybe some of the backend stuff, later in the week.

Posted in LRR | 7 Comments »

Preview – August 4th
July 31st, 2008

Posted by james

So we are shooting this weeks video tonight. Basically last weeks preview picture was enough for you guys to figure out that we were green screening. Good luck with this one.

photo

Posted in LRR | 12 Comments »

LRR.Comunity Update: July 28, 2008
July 28th, 2008

Posted by Jeremy

In an effort to keep our community informed of the various goings-on in the land of the LRR, I am starting the LRR Community Update Project: a weekly update on what you may have missed from the expanded LRRosphere. I figure not everyone has time to read the forums, but there’s no reason that should keep anyone from staying informed!

Today’s update will cover the last couple weeks because, being the first of its kind, it seemed fitting.

Blogapalooza 2008

The last couple weeks have been big ones for blogging. James, after attacking the rest of the crew-members with pointy sticks, finally got them off their asses with enough momentum to get to their keyboards; now, he, Graham, Matt and I have all committed to update the blog more frequently. This has also seen the rise of two new “regular” columns: “M@ Movies”, Matt’s semi-regular movie critique series, and the LRR.Community, Update which you are reading now.

Feeling especially inspired, Graham, James and Matt have also started their own private iPhone blogs:

Graham’s blog
James’s blog
Matt’s blog

Aristocratic Profile

Proudfoot published the second installment of his ongoing community profile project this week, this time interviewing semi-regular video contributor Tensen01. The community profile project continues to be an entertaining listen, and comes highly recommended by . . . well, me.

Download the latest episode here!

Love to Hear the LRRies go Tweet-Tweet-Tweet?

Remember Graham’s twitter feed from a while back? Well Matt and James have also started twitter feeds to perpetuate internet stalking and keep you vultures going between blog updates. Honestly, the iPhone may well be the greatest ever advent in LRR community management. You should all thank Apple.

[Update: Graham informs me that he and Matt may not twitter as much anymore now that they have iPhone blogs]

Graham’s twitter
James’s twitter
Matt’s twitter

Mannish Cooking

While it’s been a long while since Morgan put out a Man Cooking short, several of our forum members have decided to fill the void by constructing their own largely substitutes. Check out the thread here, or have a look at Yamaro V2’s Man Cooking Knock-off.

They Really Love Us!

Last week’s two topical LRR videos were not only successful, but apparently flattering! Bungie’s Luke Smith posted a link to The Superintendent’s Sorrow on Bungie.net, while Bizarre Creations‘ Ben Ward sent us a lovely letter with regards to Geometry Wars 2: Developer Spotlight.

While we consider parody and satire to be high forms of flattery, to have such things recognized by the creators of the original works makes me feel all gushy inside.

And thus the circle continues! (cue music)

A Picture is Worth . . . A Forum Rank!

I’m happy to report that King Kool was the winner of our latest LRRcast challenge. This contest, which had our forum members photoshopping green-screened pictures of us into amusing situations generated some fantastic entries, all of which must absolutely be viewed here.

Desert Rumblings

Reisgar42 has announced his intention to run a fan-based Desert Bus elimination tournament. I hope that he knows what he’s getting into, as he could be in for a long slog. I personally see such a venture as intrinsically chess-like, 90% of success in Desert Bus is based on patience in the face of attrition as opposed to skill in the face of adversity. Hopefully, we will hear more on this soon, but in the meantime, check out this thread.

And Finally, On a Related Note

In case you missed it, Graham semi-officially stealth-announced Desert Bus 2 late last night. This comes hot on the heels of the original Desert Bus becoming recognized on the GameMarathons.com as not only the first internet-broadcast gaming marathon, but also the longest and most financially successful (accounting for over half of all game marathon charity earnings so far to date). So begins the ramp-up to an event that will reportedly “surpass the lofty expectations of our community, and the internet as a whole” (quoth I).

Accused of sounding like Bungie, it was suggested that we bring in the Superintendent onboard to help us market Desert Bus 2 . . . but this would be ridiculous, as everyone knows ARGs are for losers.

Cheers and beers, folks!

–Jer out

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Posted in Community | 10 Comments »

M@Movies: The Goddamn Batman
July 25th, 2008

Posted by Matt

As Ben Affleck said it in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, “The internet is a communication tool used the world over where people can come together to bitch about movies and share pornography with one another.” There’s still one niche there you’ll have to look elsewhere for, (though possibly not much further than Morgan’s MSN info), but I got to thinking that there’s no reason I can’t make an attempt at filling the other.  As a result, M@Movies has been born. (Please forward all complaints about the choice of name to [email protected]).  Putting the cheesy puns behind us though, M@Movies blog posts will come along whenever I’ve got something I want to say about a film (or just films in general).  It might be a review, it might be an observation, it might be a complaint.  You’ll just have to keep your eye out for them to see what every update brings.  For now, though, On with the show…

Batman.  At this point, it’s safe to assume that most of the world has seen The Dark Knight.  A fantastic film that everyone should enjoy.  (Well, unless you’re Keith Uhlich – Seriously?  Thinly veiled endorsement of the Bush Administration’s surveillance policies?   I’m pretty sure batman has had a big bank of computers that let him watch Gotham long before Bush was in office.)  But that’s not what I want to talk about.  Graham pointed me in the direction of a YouTube video last night featuring a clip from the fourth season of Batman: The Animated Series.  The clip surrounds Joel, a flambouyantly gay batman fanboy, enamoured of a pink feather boa, expressing his adoration of Batman’s “fabulous” rubber muscle suit and car, while standing in front of a store named “Shoemaker’s”   (Check it out, funny stuff).  This obvious dig at Joel Schumacher’s Batman movies naturally inspired a great deal of debate about the batman film franchise (and by debate, I mean swearing and poorly-spelled insults), as well as the inevitable ranking of the films.  Typically, the rankings went like this:

  1. Batman
  2. The Dark Knight
  3. Batman Returns
  4. Batman Forever
  5. Batman Begins
  6. Batman & Robin

Now back up the batmobile a second here.  What?  Why is Begins at the bottom of that list?  When did this happen?  Last time I checked Begins was everyone’s favorite.  Aside from laying the foundation for Dark Knight, which is singularly the best comic-book movie I’ve ever seen, it provided a compelling and believable origin story for Batman, and revitalized a franchise that had seen some serious damage done to its credibility. To rank it down with Forever and B&R makes a big statement.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that the Joel Schumacher Batman films employed art direction and a consistency of style the we have rarely seen since.  I hated it, but at least it was comprehensive and complete.  (I put it forward to you that Schumacher’s films were going for a very specific goal – a revisit not of the previous films, but that of the 1960’s Adam West Batman.  In that regard they were a total success – the campiness, the rogues glalery, the whole bit.  It was neon colours and crappy pop music instead of comic-book sound effects and the Bat-Dance, however the end result was fundamentally the same.  This topic could probably constitute an entire post of it’s own though.) And in fact, the film Batman & Robin was brobably the breaking point for that style.  After a film that bloated and overwrought, who could ever hope to pull that style off again? (And who would want to?)

For reference:

We needed the reboot of the franchise that Christopher Nolan gave us, and I’m sad to see that it’s not getting the kind of respect that it deserves.  The film was a credit to everyone involved, and if the Dark Knight’s box office take is any indication, it made us care about old bats once more.  So, when constructing your best-to-worst lists, don’t just remember what Batman Begins was as a film, but what it meant for the franchise it rescued.

See! Now youve made Batman sad. I hope youre all happy.

See! Now you've made Batman sad. I hope you're all happy.

-M

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Posted in LRR | 10 Comments »

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