Dance, Monkey, Dance!

Monkeys …

Manga art book banning: Internet discussion

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Duke Nukem Forever … still in the early stages of development

I loved Duke Nukem.

I don’t mean just in his 3D version, hard on the heels of Doom and bringing new interactivity to the nascent first person shooter genre. I loved him before that.

I loved Duke when he was the star of two side scrolling platform games, like Super Mario Brothers with a gun.

And yeah, I loved the 3D game. Played it into the ground, knew every inch of every level by heart. I even got add-on packs and played every inch of them into the ground, too.

And most of all, I was excited that Duke Nukem Forever, the fourth game in the series, was going to take it all to the next level.

Oh, if I only knew.

I upgraded computers twice, planning around the future specs of Duke4.

I combed the major game sites for information, eager for news of its impending release.

And now, nine years after the game was first announced, the game is still in the early stages of development:

the update describes the current state of the title, which was viewed at 3D Realms’ Texas studios: “mainly just pieces of the game in progress and tech demos”, including “an early level, a vehicle sequence, a few test rooms”, among others.

Duke, it’s over between us.

Murderball

I’m convinced that most documentaries are put together as a way of helping people get to sleep. Glacially slow storytelling, minute points (if there any points at all) and sappy narration are the rule more than they are the exception.

Not so Murderball. From its electric guitar soundtrack to its brutal sports footage to its unflinching looks at the athletes, this documentary is made of very different stuff.

A must-see.

SPJ 2006 Award Winners list finalized

The Society of Professional Journalists has finalized their list of 2006 award winners.

High Desert journalists picking up awards in Riverside on May 13 include the following:

Hesperia Star
Peter Day
Beau Yarbrough

Daily Press
Gloria Zulema Baez
Lisa Benson
Justin Boggs
C.J. Daft
Tim Haran
Veronica Hill
Stuart Kellogg
Mike Lamb
Gretchen Losi
Mark Peinado
James Quigg
Kris Reilly
Kate Rosenberg
LeRoy Standish
Michael Stenerson
Jason Vrtis
Karen Yosten

Desert Dispatch
Kelly Donovan
Travis Dunn
Adrienne Ziegler