Guitar Hero: So Last Year

By Martin Patriquin - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 12:34 PM - 0 Comments

While Guitar Hero and Rock band were hot moneymakers in the last few years, sales for the companies who own the games (Viacom owns Rock Band, while Activision owns Guitar Hero) are sagging. In his January list of games sales, analyst Ben Schachter wrote that these games are now “stagnant inventory” in retail shops. He notes that sales for Rock Band are down this year by 52 per cent; Guitar Hero is down 22 per cent.

The Business Insider

Can a Zune store help Microsoft?

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 12:30 PM - 3 Comments

Microsoft plans to follow in the footsteps of rival Apple by opening its own retail stores. The company has hired a former, 25-year Wal-Mart veteran to head up the project, which aims “to create deeper engagement with consumers.” But the move has many industry watchers scratching their heads. The company is moving ahead at a time when other computer stores, like Circuit City, are going bust. And Microsoft risks drawing the ire of existing retail partners, like Best Buy. It’s a plan loaded with risk. But perhaps the biggest challenge is that Microsoft doesn’t have the kind of

sleekly-designed hardware that’s made Apple’s stores so appealing. Would a store full of Zunes really draw a crowd?

The Wall Street Journal

New 13-year-old dad to receive the "birds and bees talk"

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 12:25 PM - 7 Comments

A 13-year old boy and 15-year old girl who both still live at home with their parents in East Sussex, England plan to co-parent their baby girl who was born four days ago. Alfie Patten, who’s 4-feet tall and hasn’t hit puberty yet, was 12 when his girlfriend Chantelle Steadman, 15, conceived after one night of unprotected sex. The couple discovered Steadman was pregnant at 12 weeks but kept it secret for another six weeks until she was confronted by her mother. Alfie’s father, Denny, who has nine children, says he plans to sit down with his son for “the birds and the bees talk”: “Some may say it’s too late but he needs to understand so there is not another baby.” Alfie, who says he doesn’t know what diapers cost, says he¹s thrilled to be a dad: “We wanted to have the baby but were worried about how people would react,” he told The Sun newspaper.

The Time Online

Clive, you would have fared better as Bond

By Brian D. Johnson - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 12:08 PM - 0 Comments

Before Daniel Craig was cast as the new 007, Clive Owen, the other True Grit Brit Who Can Act, was heavily touted for the role. No doubt, he would have been an excellent Bond. And after soldiering through The International with a license to wear stubble, he probably wishes he were Bond. I’m sure Clive would rather be enjoying an ice-cold martini, and contemplating cruel sex with a devastating babe, rather than plunging his grizzled mug into sink full of ice cubes and water so that a show-off German director can shoot him from the POV of the drain.

From the ubiquitous trailers, you would assume The International is a Clive Owen/Naomi Watts movie. Not true. It’s a Clive Owen movie, a generic thriller in which Owen shoulders the burden of a over-wound plot as Louis Salinger, a sleep-deprived Interpol cop who chase bad guys through picturesque world capitals. Watts, cast as Manhattan assistant district attorney Eleanor Whitman, tags along like an anxious mom, worrying about his health and sanity. The International is a tale global conspiracy with locations typed out it in the corner of the screen to the pulse of a portentous electro-beat. But compared to Bond or Bourne, this is second-rate stuff, and the suspense is choked by heavy-handed pretensions to intelligence. Like most espionage thrillers these days, including the Bond films, the enemy is high finance and the plot involves a shady arms deal. In this case, the villain is an invincible bank, which is more than ironic in light of the current fiscal meltdown. Lines like this become unintentionally comic: “The real value of a conflict is in the debt it creates—you control the debt, you control everything.”

The International is directed by German filmmaker Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run), who has a great eye for urban landscape but a tin ear for dialogue, or at least the English-language variety. He has pulled off a rare feat, something I would have thought impossible: he’s extracted a bad performance from Naomi Watts. The flat line readings delivered by Watts make her sound like an overgrown child lost in a Nancy Drew adventure. She doesn’t just phone in her performance, she texts it—quite literally in one ludicrous scene where she corresponds with a source in what appears to be a blatant product placement for Blackberry. This is perhaps the first thriller in which the purr of a Blackberry’s vibrate alert, amplifed in Dolby 5.1, has been used as a suspense device. Continue…

A line of cocaine is now cheaper than a pint of beer

By John Intini - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 11:40 AM - 0 Comments

Whole books have been penned exploring and bemoaning the decline of that proud British tradition, the local. Maybe the problem is this: pub-goers can now score a line of cocaine in the United Kingdon for less than the price of a pint of beer. A gram of the drug now goes for as little as £20, down from £77 a decade ago, according to a report from the Home Office. Given a gram can make for 10 to 20 lines of cocaine, a single line can be had for a quid. A typical pint, meanwhile, fetches £2.75. As the Telegraph points out, the recession has forced many pubs have slashed the price of a pint to 99 pence. But maybe its not the credit crunch that’s keeping the lads and lasses away.

The Telegraph

Second-hand smoke linked to Dementia

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

A shocking study published today in the British Medical Journal, highlighted a 44 per cent increase in the risk of cognitive impairment when people are exposed to high levels of second-hand smoke. While earlier research found an increased risk of dementia in smokers,  this is the first time a link has been made between second-hand smoke and development of dementia in elderly non-smokers. Researchers at Cambridge University measured levels of cotinine (a by-product of nicotine) in the saliva of nearly 5,000 non-smoking adults over the age of 50, to map out the amount of exposure they had to second-hand smoke. After a series of neuro-psychological tests, they were able to assess aspects of brain function like verbal memory and fluency, and mathematical calculations. The results were then added to together to make a global score for cognitive function, and those who scored in the lowest 10 per cent were identified as suffering from cognitive impairment. From those findings, the scientists concluded that second-hand smoke exposure may be linked to an increased chance of developing cognitive impairments like dementia. The researchers believe that passive smoking increases the risk of heart disease and stroke which are known to increase the likelihood of neurological problems.

Belfast Telegraph

Week in Pictures: Feb. 4th – Feb. 11th, 2009

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 11:07 AM - 1 Comment

Remember When Network TV Stars Were Forced to "Host" Other Shows On the Same Network?

By Jaime Weinman - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 11:04 AM - 5 Comments

Oh, this is a trip back to the glorious days of the first Bush presidency (just before the first recession that started during the Bush era and continued into the next administration): Eleven different nights of Larry and Balki from Perfect Strangers “hosting” ABC’s Friday night lineup. You may recall that in the late ’80s and early ’90s it was common for actors to film, in-character, some introductory segments for other shows on the same network, to give the lineup the feeling of being one continuous, connected block of programming. I remember, as a kid, seeing actors from 227 and other NBC shows doing wraparounds for the network’s Saturday morning lineup, and ABC launched its “TGIF” lineup with segments like this (featuring a terrible laugh track that sounds like high-pitched tape hiss)

Lame as these segments were, they actually did work — not so much on Saturday mornings, where kids were likely to wonder who the hell these actors were, but in prime time, where the presence of two or more popular characters might keep you watching for longer than you otherwise might. I think if a network tried it today, it still might work. If you had, say, Michael Scott, Jim and Pam film wraparounds where they’re watching NBC’s popular Thursday night shows (and when they get to their own show, Michael might say something like “here’s this show… I don’t get this one, is it a documentary, a drama, or what? Oh, well, I like the boss, he’s funny”), it could provide a sense of continuity and unity for the whole lineup. Sure, it’s cheesy, but no cheesier than most network gimmicks.

Side note: The Going Places plot they describe is stolen from an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. That show must be tied with I Love Lucy and The Andy Griffith Show for the largest number of plots that have been ripped off or “paid homage to” by other shows.

Instant coffee at Starbucks

By John Intini - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

When Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz reclaimed the top job at the coffee chain last year, the company’s investors and employees heralded his return as if it were the Second Coming. After overdosing on a caffeine-infused expansion plan under Schultz’ predecessor, the company saw its market share eroded by the likes of Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonalds, one time purveyors of drip coffee swill that have dramatically improved their caffeine offering. So after weeks of hyping a new strategy, what does Starbucks offer as a way to fight back? Instant coffee. The company claims its new line, called Via, will taste just as good as what’s brewed by its baristas. Fortune magazine isn’t buying it, though. “If Schultz doesn’t produce the next Frappucino soon, consistent innovation might not be enough – and his instant coffee won’t be the only thing in hot water.”

CNN

Flipper fights terror

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 11:00 AM - 3 Comments

How’s this for cool? The U.S. Navy has a trained fleet of 78 dolphins, 27 sea lions and one beluga whale that sounds an alarm if strange swimmers or other vessels come near their high-security ports. Basically, the dolphins are given a floating marker that they can position on the surface above any suspicious visitors lurking underwater, alerting patrol officers nearby. “It’s like people-fishing,” says Dorian Houser, a research scientist for the Navy’s marine mammal program. The fleet is currently deployed to the Kings Bay submarine base in southeast Georgia, and over the years, it has worked in war zones like Vietnam and Iraq. But controversy is brewing because the Pentagon wants to use the dolphins in the chilly waters off Puget Sound, Wash. Environmentalists say the creatures aren’t accustomed to such frigid temperatures, and may not survive. (One protest group, Knitting for Dolphins, is showing its displeasure by, well, knitting sweaters for the dolphins).

The Los Angeles Times

Oops?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 10:52 AM - 20 Comments

Someone I know on the Hill has been agitating for this to be flagged. I post it now both to bring an end to his incessant emails and to explain why I am otherwise hesitant to draw your attention to the latest poll numbers.

From some numbers released earlier this week.

Quebec voters, meanwhile, appear to be abandoning the Bloc since the last election while the Greens have seen a huge surge in the province (difference in brackets):

Bloc Quebecois: 22 per cent (-16)
Liberals: 24 per cent (0)
Conservatives: 17 per cent (-5)
NDP: 12 per cent (0)
Green Party: 26 per cent (22 per cent)

A risky yet promising treatment

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 10:50 AM - 0 Comments

Two years after receiving a transplant of stem cells from a person who has a genetic mutation, CCR5 delta32, that confers immunity to HIV/AIDS, an American living in Germany has been declared free of HIV. The historic case is the subject of a newly published official report in the New England Journal of Medicine. However, physicians warn that the treatment is an extreme and risky measure: a third of patients would die during the transplant. But it could lead to an evolution of new gene therapies that prevent HIV from latching onto receptors that lead to illness.

CNN

Nanosteria

By Andrew Potter - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 10:40 AM - 9 Comments

Nik’s back and there’s gonnna be numbers. Here’s his latest on leadership:

Budget Performance Question:

For each of the following leaders I would like you to rate their performance in handling the federal budget as very good, good, average, poor or very poor.

Net Leader Performance in Handling the Budget

Michael Ignatieff +21 (n=1,000)
Gilles Duceppe +18 (n=263)*
Stephen Harper +15 (n=1,000)
Jack Layton -6 (n=1,000)

*Note: Quebec only

Net Performance is calculated by subtracting those who thought a leader had done a poor or very poor job of handling the budget from those who thought a leader had done a good or very good job.

Oops

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 10:33 AM - 82 Comments

The Governor General versus geography.

“So where is Vancouver?” Ms. Jean asked warmly, before children shouted out answers. “Of course, Canada.”

And so forth went her lesson. ”From that city you can see some very, very tall mountains … and these mountains are called …” Ms. Jean asked, before proclaiming: “The Rockies.”

Cue freshman senator, B.C. resident and Olympic ski legend Nancy Greene, with a geography crash course. ”No, it’s the Coast Mountains,” Ms. Greene said.

In an exchange captured by CTV, Ms. Jean laughs at her mistake, turning off-camera to an unseen woman said to be Ms. Greene. ”We can also call them the Rockies, no?” she asked.

No, we can’t. There are seven different mountain ranges in mainland southern B.C., including the Coast Mountains, where the Games will be held, and the Rockies far to the east. Ms. Jean skipped the Purcell, Selkirk, Cariboo, Monashee and Cascade ranges.

Power-sharing Robert Mugabe style

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Zimbabwes  new unity government involving the countrys longtime dictator Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangarai has got off to a predictably rocky start. Roy Bennett, a senior official in Tsvangarais Movement for Democratic Change party and the partys nominee to become deputy agriculture minister, was reportedly seized today upon arriving at Harares airport. Bennett is a white farmer who lost his property during Mugabes “land reform”program.

BBC News

Uh yeah, but did you need to tell the world?

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 10:10 AM - 2 Comments

As chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) should probably know better than to think aloud during public hearings. But that’s what she did yesterday, disclosing that U.S. Aerial drones—which have bombed Taliban fighters in northern Pakistan—are actually flying out of a base in Pakistan. The leak could prove difficult for Islamabad, as the matter of co-operation with Washington remains an explosive issue across the country. The drones are said to cause civilian casualties, and U.S. troops or intelligence officials are not supposed to be operating inside Pakistan’s borders. Indeed, the Pakistani government has lodged diplomatic protests over the bombings, arguing they are a violation of sovereignty.

Los Angeles Times

Newsweek: It's like Newsweek, except smaller and worried

By Paul Wells - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 10:02 AM - 13 Comments

One of our U.S. peers/competitors prepares a bold experiment in strategic shrinkage. In a lot of cases, I think retrenchment makes good sense: while it may once have been possible to put out a bit-of-everything product that everyone in your market area would pay to read occasionally, in many cases those days are simply gone and they are really not coming back. It’s actually safer (sometimes!) to abandon most of your readers because they have already abandoned you, and fall back to a defensible niche where you can provide unique value to a smaller group that takes a more active interest in a narrower set of topics. Somewhere on the website for his very interesting consulting firm, our old friend Richard Addis makes that argument.

So, for instance, if I were running the Ottawa Citizen, I might ask myself: is it better to go micro-local, in the hopes that the good people of Barrhaven and Kanata and Old Ottawa South and Westboro will discover a common community spirit and an interest in daily newspapers that (in the first case) never really existed and (in the second) is vanishing; or would I seek to be unbeatable in a few segments of the Ottawa market where people are obsessive about what they do and desperate for solid information — like, say among others, Parliament Hill? Continue…

Amazon.com bans rape video game

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 9:45 AM - 1 Comment

Amazon.com has stopped selling a PC game that allows players to stalk and gang rape virtual woman after complaints from users in Britain, reports the Telegraph. Rapelay, released in Japan in 2006, was developed by the Japanese production house Illusion, which makes sexually violent games for the domestic market (other titles include “Battle Raper” and “Artificial Girl”.) According to reviews of the game, players are encouraged to force the virtual woman they rape to have an abortion; if they are allowed to give birth the woman throws the player’s character under a train.  There’s also a feature allowing several players to team up against individual women. A spokesman for the Illusion says the game cleared regulatory channels in Japan: “We believe there is no problem with the software, which has cleared the domestic ratings of an ethics watchdog body.”

The Telegraph

l'Affaire Radwanski

By Andrew Potter - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 9:38 AM - 9 Comments

NOT GUILTY:

The Ottawa Citizen’s Cassandra Drudi has the story:

OTTAWA — Former privacy commissioner George Radwanski has been found not guilty on criminal charges of fraud and breach of trust.

His former chief of staff Arthur Lamarche has been found guilty of one count of breach of trust, carrying a maximum penalty of five years’ imprisonment. The verdict was delivered by Ontario Court Justice Paul R. Bélanger Friday morning.

So That's Why The Olsen Twins Are So Thin

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Mary-Kate Olsen, also known as the Olsen Twin who can act, tells Interview magazine that she and her sister Ashley were taught to act by being forced to reach for small pieces of candy: “We would get little gummy bears—like a gummy bear cut into three pieces. And we’d crawl to the gummy bear or reach for it.”  She also reveals that she recently woke up and found Ashley watching Full House reruns at seven in the morning. Maybe she’s starting to suspect that they got their best roles at the age of one.

Interview magazine

Canada’s love affair with Barack Obama

By Charlie Gillis - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 184 Comments

We love him, with an asterisk. The broad-band smile, the Lincolnesque bearing, the sense of the man as an avatar of multiculturalism—it all makes Barack Obama the perfect U.S. president in the eyes of Canadians. Heaven knows we’ve been waiting. When the motorcade rolls down Wellington Street next week, or pulls up to Rideau Hall, you can expect dewy-eyed kids to line barricades with paper flags, no matter how foul the Ottawa weather. Eighty-two per cent of us say we approve of Obama, the polls indicate, and the number requires a moment to digest. Never mind American politicians. Who’s the last American we can say that about?

When Angus Reid Strategies quizzed Canadians last week on behalf of Maclean’s, the lines practically glowed with excitement over a perceived new era in Canada-U.S. relations. More than half of respondents said they think Obama’s economic policies will be good for Canada—however bleak the outlook for the U.S. economy. Same went for his energy policy, while fully six out of 10 voiced support for his environmental program (remember that?), suggesting Stephen Harper got it right when he proposed a plan to coordinate the two countries’ climate change strategies.

Continue…

GiornoWatch: The rise and fall of the Muttartian Empire

By kadyomalley - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 9:20 AM - 11 Comments

A glance through the latest changes to GEDS confirms that the Giornectonic plate shifting that began earlier this week continues to reshape the geography of the Langevinoverse.

Continue…

What's a guy have to do these days to lose endorsement deals?

By Colin Campbell - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 9:17 AM - 4 Comments

It may be one of the most surreal commercials anyone has seen in a long time—and not because of what it’s selling, or how. The television ad for the video game Guitar Hero features Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps and Alex Rodriguez, both dancing around in pink shirts, like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Where the ad once seemed inventive and fun, it now seems almost comically incorrect. Both stars are immersed in controversy. This month, photos surfaced of Phelps smoking marijuana at a college party, while Rodriguez was forced to admit to taking steroids. Amazingly, though, the troubles haven’t bothered Activision, the company that makes Guitar Hero. It has said it has no plans to dump the ad.

Scandals normally take a heavy toll on celebrity endorsements. Phelps’s drug use had many marketers predicting that the US$5 million a year he is said to earn in endorsements would disappear. But the Phelps brand has proven to be amazingly resilient. Companies like Subway and the watchmaker Omega have also decided not to toss him in the deep end. Omega called the photos a “non-issue.” Continue…

On Stephen Harper's unique unprecedented confrontational secretive media style

By Paul Wells - Friday, February 13, 2009 at 9:02 AM - 75 Comments

It’s not that unique. The other night Barack Obama read the names of reporters his staff felt he could safely take questions from, in order, off a prepared list. This has led to a micro-debate in the U.S. about the new president’s media-management style; Salon establishes rather conclusively that, in this particular at least, it resembles his predecessor’s. The other day Obama’s campaign manager gave a speech that was closed to the press — at the National Press Club. Fun!

As I said three years ago when the then-new Prime Minister of Canada’s then-New Government™ was being standoffish and list-y, I thought the Harper rules were unusually formal in the restrictions they applied, and more than a little silly. And I also thought many of my colleagues were wildly disingenuous, or devoid of institutional memory or an ability to look around, when they depicted Harper’s rules as uniquely wicked or oppressive.