A sad fact of life is that, with time and lots of loving use, LEGO gets dirty. Until now, the ritual cleaning method was to stuff the bricks into old socks and toss them in the washing machine – a less-than-ideal solution. Blessedly, those days are now part of the barbarous past with the announcement of Bosch’s new LEGO Edition dishwasher that includes a special removable carrier in the lower rack that will safely hold even the smallest bricks and elements through the special 40 degree pre-programmed wash cycle.

Truly, these are civilized times.

“Don’t eat anything that gets tossed onto the stage.”

The countdown is on to the Double Twin Mega Launches of the “next-gen” game consoles from Sony and Nintendo. Interestingly, while the Playstation 3 has outright dominated the news for the past 12 months, the tables are suddenly turned and in both the gaming press and the mainstream media the talk now is all Wii, Wii, Wii. The two reasons for this sea change is easy to fathom – Sony is adamant about maintaining their arrogant pricing and availability policy, and the Wii is (get ready for this) fun.

That may seem a tad simplistic – but remember that for the majority of 2006 has been spent watching both Sony and Microsoft poo-poo the idea that a game console should be, first and foremost, fun. They entrenched themselves in a battleground where all of the artillery being fired was based on grillions of polygons in hi-def screens of stunning visual wonder, and the idea of playing games just to have a really good time was left behind as a casualty of indifference.

Of course, with the sudden wave of exposure and kudos for the Wii there is the inevitable matching rash of rumours. Blog fodder if ever there was some. Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s ill-informed buzz and – hopefully – what is really going on:

Rumour: Wal-Mart will only be sell you a Wii if you are willing to take a big honking bundle.

Reality: Maybe. Certainly the only way that you can order online at this point is with a 4-game/extra controller bundle. After all the bad press that went Microsoft’s way over this sort of thing at the Xbox 360 launch (and will definitely go Sony’s way when the $1000 PS3 bundles are a forced buy in two week’s time) the gang at Nintendo are less than thrilled to see a retailer going this route with the Wii. They are pressuring Wal-Mart to knock it off, but in today’s retail climate there are very few companies that have the clout to tell the Beast of Bentonville what to do. If the in-store sales follow the same policy, expect to see less-than-subtle hints from the big N that you should shop somewhere else.

Rumour: New characters in Super Smash Brothers Brawl will be unveiled this week.

Reality: Wishful thinking, Otaku. Go back to your manga and be quiet..

Rumour: There will be almost no games available until after Christmas so people have to pay for downloaded games.

Reality: Get a grip. There will be a minimum of 29, and probably 32 titles in the stores on launch day. This is essentially an unheard of amount – compare this with the 18 that were “sort of” available for the Xbox 360. This is a direct benefit of the wild enthusiasm that third-party developers have for the console and the almost-unlimited potential of the new controller.

Rumour: Downloaded games will be expensive.

Reality: KInda. Downloaded titles for the Virtual Console will range from 5 dollars to a fairly-hefty 10 bucks. Certainly this is more than it costs to get downloaded titles from Xbox Live … but on the other paw, you can’t get legendary games like Super Mario Bros. and Sonic The Hedgehog on Xbox Live. Nintendo is banking on the cachet of their back catalog to entice buyers into spending the extra coin. One positive here is that they are allowing other developers to charge whatever they want for their own titles, so Sega and Hudson are charging less to try and get in on the market early. What might kill this service is the fact that Nintendo has always built the most durable consoles on the market, so the biggest audience for retro gaming goodness probably still has actual working NES, SNES, and N64 consoles hanging around. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pricing model here changes pretty drastically in the first month or so.

Rumour: Japanese buyers will get better pricing on Virtual Console downloads.

Reality: True. And fucking annoying to boot. Bastards.

There is an old adage – well, as old as it can be when talking about something that is only 30 years old – on the internet that “First In Wins.” The idea here is that whoever claims a niche first pretty much owns it, no matter how awesome the latecomers may be. Google ousting Yahoo as the “alpha portal” might be the only exception to this rule, and even Google doesn’t bank on that ever happening again – the whole purchase of YouTube was predicated by the fact that YouTube was kicking Google Video’s ass, despite GV being arguably better.

Hope springs eternal, however, and outfits that don’t have 1.6 billion dollars laying around to buy annoying competitors have to think up other ways, no matter how futile it would seem, to topple the king. Case in point: Metacafe, which wants to be the next viral video powerhouse. They are pinning their business model on the idea that good content actually attracts eyes, so they are offiering to pay part of their ad revenues back to the people who create the content.

The problem here is, of course, the ads themselves. It’s hard to get people to sit through an ad at the start of each video, no matter how short the ad actually is, when they can go see videos without ads elsewhere. Someone must be watching, though … the folks at Metacafe claim to have paid the guy who shot this clip over 23 grand so far. I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that the guy in the flick would kick 15 kinds of ass in Dance Dance Revolution.

Anyone with a mailbox will have noticed an interesting (or annoying, depending on the state of your liver) new trend in spam. The long-standing kings of spam content – the dire twosome of Viagra and The Thousand Dollar Gift Card – have been toppled by pitches for penny stock. The premise is simple – a quick-buck artist buys up all available shares of a penny stock, whips up a couple of fake-but-impressive looking “stock report” web pages, and then sends out spam to suckers with a “hot stock tip”. The “tip” is pretty much always addressed as if it was supposed to go to some client of the “investment advisor” who sent it, and includes links to the bogus web pages.

Incredibly, there are people who do fall for this. They honestly believe that a secret tip-off for the Next Big Thing has miraculously fallen into their hands, and they buy up the worthless crap, instantly enriching the scammer who sent the tip in the first place. It’s like clockwork, actually – if you want to see the whole mechanism in action, check out this cool page. You can follow an automatic tracker that shows the value of these junk stocks as the spam affects the market.

The upshot? People are really fucking stupid.

We are now a mere eight full days from the insanely awesome release of Guitar Hero II. To try and make the wait a little less interminable, we’ll start each day of this week-long purgatory with a quote from the original game. Enjoy!

Today’s offering:

Always keep an empty bottle in the van. You’ll see.

One of the more gaping holes in the Adobe web development suite has always concerned sound. They give you all these tools to do fabulous work with Flash and HTML, but absolutely nada to dead with the audio that you might just conceivably want to go along with it. There was always some sort of implication that animation was much more zen without all that annoying aural clatter.

That was then, this is now. And Adobe is letting their fledgling audio package stick its head out into the light of day so we can all poke it with sticks and peer at it. It’s called Soundbooth and you can get a free beta right now. Free is good. So is sound. Go.

There was some palpable disappointment amongst the troops regarding the fact that Line Rider had no goal / end / set of winning conditions. Apparently amusement for amusement’s sake isn’t your long suit. Fine. If you want a goal, the try BowMaster – you get to shoot arrows into the eye sockets of various and sundry cannon-fodder troops. There’s flames and shit, too, so I the repeat enjoyment factor for some of you (and you know who you are) is very high.

These days there is so much stuff being born from the gaping womb of Google that it’s easy to miss something. Flying pretty much under the radar of the whole “Google Office” thing we have one of the best ideas for a web app ever – Google Reader. It’s a fully featured RSS aggregator, it runs as fast as your browser will allow, and – best part – you never miss out on an item of double up on feeds because you decided to check a news site when you are out an about. No matter where you go, your feed statuses follow you around like happy little information puppies. Well, beta puppies anyway. Enjoy.

If you have ever picked up a copy of Rollercoaster Tycoon and read the back and wondered just why people would invest time and effort into a title that seems to have such limited interest … now you know.

0.004: The percentage difference in heat transmission between the shiny and matte sides of aluminum foil.

The great promise of a playground like Google Video You Tube is not reposting yet another episode of Melrose Place. The real payoff is that people with interesting things to do and say now have a place to dabble where actual live humans will see the fruits of their labours. This is a good thing, because the web-surfing mope gets entertained, and the creative person gets the audience that they crave. Better, it means that fringe creations and off-speed collaborations are suddenly much more than a “basement” exercise, and interesting things that deserve some sort of acclaim might actually find some.

Case in point: Less Than Three, a remix europop tune that has been set to some nifty flash animation. Everyone wins here – viewers get some new music and visuals that they may never have seen otherwise, the animator gets some much needed exposure, and the artist and label get a free promotional package that would cost thousands and thousands if done in the traditional manner.

Be warned, however, that there is a catch. Don’t watch this more than twice, or the song will never ever leave your head. Four times would be tantamount to synaptic suicide, with your neural net unable to accept or process anything else ever again, and effectively monotasked into humming this over and over until the end of time. You ignore this caveat at your peril.

With that in mind, you can check it out at YouTube or on Newgrounds where it was originally released. Note that the Newgrounds version is higher res and has much better audio, but (as with all things Newgrounds) the load time is horrific and your system will probably barf all over itself during the wait. Plus, if you are at work, your employer may block connections to Newgrounds. Why, I have no idea, but it seems like a trendy thing to do.

Line Rider is not so much a “game” as it is a “digital toy” – the same sort of concept that Nintendo is trying to push with their experimental forays like Electorplankton and Animal Crossing. There is no goal per say, no levels, just a chance to goof around and have some “cause and effect” fun. And, if the vast number of Line Rider postings to YouTube is any indication, there is a seething untapped market for this sort of thing. Have fun.

I try not to riff on things from other blogs very often – a rule I only break if said thing is really awesome. This was on Boing Boing. And yes, it is awesome.

Firefox 2 is now 100% official and on the street – you should download yours Right Now. Lots and lots of people have raved on and on about it during the development cycle, so there is no need for me to rave on about subtle-yet-highly-civilized advancements like the in-line spelling checker and the full-on RSS support.

What I will point out is that the advancements in tabbing behaviour may well leave some former IE users – the ones that Microshaft claims don’t want tabbing – scratching their heads. Or thinking the build is broken. If this is you, here are a couple of fun’n'easy tweaks to make the tabs less mysterious – albeit also less functional – for you.

NOTE: Johnny5 wanted to pass along these other tweaks. Helpful? Only you can decide.

Really. This is all bad.

If you are one of the teeming masses who wonder just what Marmaduke is really about each day, then your salvation and attendant peace of mind is at hand. You’re welcome.

If you are not in the habit of looking for all of the Easter Eggs in the Strong Bad Emails over at Homestar Runner, then it is time that you repent and disavow your scandalous ways. Because hunting for the eggs is the only way that you are going to find the full and totally colour-able version of the Limozeen 1989 Commemorative Tour Colouring Book! With crayons! Which, by the way, is awesome in the extreme and a gonzo way to kill some of that Tuesday afternoon that is no doubt going to start dragging really badly at about half-past lunch. So get thee to an email and start colouring!

NOTE: If you are a total newbie to easter egg hunting, just remember this: The “tab” key is your best friend.

OTHER NOTE: If you are essentially hopeless and can’t manage the intricacies of the tab key, then just click on the colouring book after the end of the email.

Anyone who has taken a moment to cast a critical eye on the happenings at the Saddam Hussein trial will pretty quickly come to the conclusion that the whole thing is controlled and scripted for the benefit of the American media. Or, more to the point, controlled and scripted by the Republican party’s P.R. department for the benefit of the American media. Honestly, some days you got the feeling that Karl Rove was handing out scripts to the judges and prosecutors and witnesses as they filed into the courtroom.

I don’t think that anyone would have been surprised if a tragically persecuted witness had pulled out a picture of George W. and started kissing it and weeping on it.

So of course it is a complete and utter coincidence that the verdict in the trail has been delayed until November 5th (which is a Sunday, and court verdicts are always handed out on weekends, you betcha) – which just happens to be the last day that you can generate news and have it hit the papers and airwaves before the U.S. mid-term election. You can bet that all of the space in the media that is normally filled with the latest US casualties in Iraq will instead be filled with the “good news” that shows the Great And Utter Success of the invasion.

The level of cynicism and complete disregard for the intelligence of the voting public is staggering. And yet the media south of the 49th seems to be playing along with the whole thing. They are obviously being manipulated and turned into tools of the Republican re-election push, and yet … this is the only reference to the timing of this spectacle that I have been able to find. Why? Why the silence? Why aren’t otherwise savvy writers crying foul on this? What is going on?

It was five years ago today that Steve Jobs held a little press conference and announced Apple’s new “breakthrough” digital device … something called the “iPod”. To mark the occasion, I thought i would pass along this forum comment that a friend of mine – who shall remain anonymous to so that he doesn’t look like a moron – made that very day on an Apple-centric news site.

“All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? Something has snapped in Steve’s mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off.”

Yeah, it never really caught on, did it?

10.1: The millions of dollars that US Airways made from napkin and tray-table advertising in 2005.

The bits and pieces of the Guitar Hero II playlist that have come to light so far have done nothing to dispel the universal belief that life will be empty and meaningless without this game. Combined with the totally awesome co-op “bass and lead” mode and the new “basement” mode that lets you practice any part of any song at any speed, the sublime strength of the revealed selections hints at a gaming experience that will border on profound. Certainly any opportunity to play Surrender must be grasped and exploited to the utmost.

To think that people take for granted that we live in an age of these kinds of wonders. Heathens.

The music theme continues today with a peek at Tangerine. This is one of the cleverest little apps I have seen in a long time – it analyzes your iTunes music library and then lets you match songs and playlists by the Beats Per Minute of a song. Better yet, the algorithm is incredible, because it is wicked fast. This is one of those “hit of miss” applications, because half of the people who look at it will go ‘why would i ever need that” and half of the people who grok it will say “this is going to change my life”.

If you are one of the life-changers, head on over now and grab the beta. Be warned – this is Tiger-compatable only, and it doesn’t yet know how to deal with the DRM on files purchased from the iTunes store. But clever readers already know how to deal with the DRM. Have fun.

We are less than 20 days from the release of Elite Beat Agents, the North American localization of Osu! Tatakae! Oendan! - quite possibly the greatest handheld game of all time. Let’s pause to gaze upon the glory of the cover art for a moment:

Verily, it is like a holy thing. And, as we get closer to the blessed date of November 8th, key details have begun to emerge. One of these is the hotly debated tracklist – the crucial list of songs that need to be danced to during each of the game’s missions. The original Japanese release featured an unbroken diet of J-pop, leading some people to wonder if the english release would have the same narrow focus on genre. Fear not – the list of 19 tracks runs from Jumping Jack Flash through You’re The Inspiration and right out to YMCA. The complete list is like peeking into a drunkards’ iPod on shuffle:

ABC – Jackson Five
Sk8er Boi – Avril Lavigne
Survivor – Destiny’s Child
Without a Fight – Hoobastank
Walkie Talkie Man – Steriogram
Makes No Difference – Sum 41
I Was Born to Love You – Queen
Highway Star – Deep Purple
Y.M.C.A. – Village People
September – Earth, Wind and Fire
Canned Heat – Jamiroquai
Material Girl – Madonna
La La – Ashlee Simpson
Rock This Town – Stray Cats
You’re the Inspiration – Chicago
Believe – Cher
Let’s Dance – David Bowie
Jumpin Jack Flash – Rolling Stones
The Anthem – Good Charlotte

The operative terms at this point are “anticipation” and “fever pitch”. The days, they seem to crawl …

You know that you are a creative genius when you can recycle some old storyboards and some unfinished text and turn it into a groovy quasi-goth Halloween poem. Mr. Mathers, I salute you.

You have to read this for yourself. There is nothing I could add to this no matter how hard I tried.

150,680: The number of people killed by gun violence in the United States since September 11, 2001.

Regular users of BitTorrent clients (for Legitimate Software Downloads only, of course!) will have noticed the “BitSuck” effect – the incredible drain on your system resources that occurs when you get multiple torrents going. Usually four or five torrents is enough to start the downward spiral, and if you are one of those greedy bastards who has 20 or so torrents blasting away at once, forget it.

This phenomina is, of course, a direct result of you using the wrong fucking client. Get rid of whatever it is you are using now and download yourself a copy of Bits On Wheels. It is fast, slick, super stable, has a totally awesome tabbed interface … and it uses almost no system resources at all. Plus there is this awesome “3D swarm” display that really doesn’t have any use, but will be sure to impress your friends. Highest recommendation.

Apple has posted a notice advising consumers that a small but not insignificant numbers of Video iPods have shipped from the factory infected with a Windoze virus – a variant of RavMonE. It would seem that Apple’s contract manufacturing facilities not only use Microsoft junk, but use it in the same careless way as the typical Windoze devotee. Obviously this won’t affect any iPod users who have a real computer, but still … this counts as “extremely shoddy”. No excuse for that at all.

2,973: The number of confirmed deaths in the attack on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001.