Although some folks affectionately call them "time wasters," we prefer to think of our little jaunts into the far reaches of the Internet as "exploratory ventures that perhaps lead to a greater understanding of the world in which we live."
Not buying it? You're right, they're time wasters.
FreelanceSwitch.com thinks so too, and they've compiled a great batch of Web sites to check out when you have some free time (or even when you don't). There are a couple oldies-but-goodies (Desktop Tower Defense and movie trailers on Apple.com) but there are also some new ones. Be sure to check out Very Funny Ads and Duels.
Care for a little celebrity time waster? Famousr has a database of over 8000 actors where you as the viewer are presented with two famous people and have to guess which one is viewed as the more popular star. Users are awarded points, given a title and can save and view high scores.
The Famousr database has a unique calculation that determines a "fame rank" from combining statistics through multiple sources including mentions on blogs and news as well as the volume of movies and shows the celebrity has been featured in.
Famousr also features a game called Who is"That Guy". It displays a picture of a movie star that you might recognize, but just can't figure out what movie they played in. It gives a list of movies that you choose from as a guess, and lets you know if you guessed correctly.
Listen To A Movie is a website designed solely for the purpose of listening to your favorite movies and TV shows. The site contains a pretty substantial collection of low-quality audio files for popular movies and TV shows that can be listened to for free using the sites built-in audio player. Clips can be paused, fast-forwarded and rewound to get to your favorite parts, or you can scroll through parts that translate much better when you can see them. You can also comment on your favorite movies, read small plot outlines, and of course purchase the DVD.
Designed for "the cubicle workers of the world," the player can be quickly put in "stealth mode" which disguises it as an excel spreadsheet when you boss walks by. While the excel sheet is still blatantly an explorer window that says "Listentoamovie" on it, you could fool the less observant passerby. This isn't exactly the best way to "see" a movie for the first time, but for things like episodes of The Simpsons or movies you may have seen a thousand times, it can be a great way to pass the afternoon in the ol' cube.
AOL is offering 30 or so movie titles for free download today only (one per email address). You can get some of your favorites including:
Nacho Libre
The Muppets Take Manhattan
Mission Impossible 3
Spongebob Squarepants Movie
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
My Dog Skip
Failure to Launch
Jack Frost
Zoolander
Patriot Games
National Lampoon's Christmas
School of Rock
Last Holiday
The Perfect Storm
Jackass: The Movie
Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights
Rugrats Go Wild
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Can't Hardly Wait
Maid in Manhattan
Star Trek 1
Men in Black
All I Want For Christmas
The Prince and Me
Only Natural
Analyse This
D.E.B.S.
Easy Rider
Flatliners
White Christmas
The Golden Child
You won't be charged at checkout, but a credit card is required to verify your U.S. address and you must have a screenname to download a movie. As you might imagine there is a backlog of downloads going on right now, but AOL is saying that everyone will be able to receive their full download in spite of the server load. Enjoy a free movie download from AOL. Here is the official T&C from the download page at AOL Video:
Terms and Conditions Offer good from 12/2/06 at 6:00 am ET through 12/3/06 at 6:00 am ET, or until supply of free videos is depleted, whichever comes first. Open only to US residents, 18 or older, who have an AOL or AIM address. A credit card is required to confirm US address. Only the select videos listed on the promotional page are available for free. There is a limit of one free download per person and e-mail address.
DISCLAIMER: AOL is the parent company of Weblogs, inc. Download Squad is a member of the Weblogs, inc. network.
Downloading movies was supposed to be fun, easy, painless, and the next big wave of digital entertainment. Not quite. How about not even close? No service has really lived up to the ideal standard we had in mind. So far the whole movie download service idea is as big a flop as light-up shoelaces, or bread made from rock, or even The Land Before Time quintrilogy. A new service called ClickStar hopes to be the answer (like all the others have and failed). Founded by the venerable Morgan Freeman, the service will begin its foray on December 15th. There will be DVD quality downloads for a fee, as well as the ability to watch movies on your TV. Another emphasis of ClickStar, besides improving the download dilemma is that documentaries and even JPL content from NASA for educational purposes will be available. Will ClickStar rule the day or go the way of the others?
I don't know if it really qualifies as a time-waster if it's not something you can play, but nevertheless Animator vs. Animation II is right up our alley. It's a great Flash animation by Alan Becker about a Flash animator's creation that goes awry. If you enjoyed the original Animator vs. Animation, you'll enjoy its sequel, which features a lot more creativity on the part of Becker as Firefox, AIM, Photoshop, and even My Computer get in on the act. Definitely worth watching twice.
Russell Heimlich over at our sister blog DV Guru has a great article on Microsoft's step into the living room (beyond gaming) with their TV offering, which soundly beats Apple's actual delivery of their iTV device. We have all known for awhile that Microsoft was aiming for our living rooms with the sexy stylings of the Xbox 360 and the many media-streaming features it offers. Along with HD-DVD support, Microsoft is far ahead of Apple, giving all us dumb consumers a way to have living room Internet-enabled content. Of course I am talking about us consumers other than Russell, who has had this functionality for a year, and some of our readers even longer I suspect. So what of Microsoft, Apple, and your living room or den? Is the Xbox 360 the killer app of cozy-home living room multimedia, or will Apple reign supreme, eventually? If it isn't operating systems we're fighting over, it's the living room, or MP3 players, or browsers. Xbox movie downloads, here we come. If the Xbox contained a HD-DVD burner, that would be sublime.
So you wanna watch a good flick with your mum? BSkyB, the British satellite TV broadcaster has restarted its popular movie download service, after having shut down in August due to a security breach and subsequent patch from Microsoft to fix their DRM. Up until it was shut down, over a million downloads were, well, downloaded, making BSkyB's service Europe's most popular download service to date. Any folks in the UK feel like sharing your experiences with our readers? Is BskyB a good service, and if so what do you like about it? Dislike? What about here in the States? I have pretty much written off the whole idea until someone comes up with a better way to download (except iTunes). I am biding my time until then, what about you?
Mr. Star Wars, the geek-man, OB1 himself, none other than George Lucas thinks movie downloads are where it's at for the future of movie entertainment distribution. Really? We didn't see that coming. Steve Jobs has also been chatting with Lucas at various times about the idea, which isn't surprising now that iTunes now has movies from Disney, with more to follow invariably. Lucas and Jobs have history as most people know in the Pixar sale back in the day. The two it seems are interested in where movies are headed. Diversity of content is a big thing, as the audience will determine what movies make it and which don't. The media moguls seem to think that most people who would download movies are somewhat picky, and generally I have to agree. I am picky too, can't deny it, I want movie studios, download services, websites, and software makers to cater to me, and so does everyone. It isn't that out of the ordinary. Lucas says that those who can capitalize on the public's wants and desires by producing the kind of content they want will win in the new world of movie downloads. This begs the question then, are the theatres in trouble of becoming extinct? Will they have to reinvent themselves to remain relevant? Maybe not extinct tomorrow, but what about in five or ten years?
The newest version of the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide has been released by LandWare. If you are ever in the video store and want some guidance to pick out something good you can use this guide. This new version has the complete listings of both of the 2007 Movie Guide and the Classic Movie Guide by Leonard Maltin.
LandWare makes this product not just for the Smartphone platform, but also the Pocket PC, as well as their original platform of the Palm OS. This year's update now includes support for the Motorola Q, which is why this caught my eye. Just the other day I was watching "The Great Escape" and had a question about one of the actors in the film and my old "Video Hound" book never made it out of a box (or was lost tossed) during move back early this year. As I was watching the baby, I could not leave the room to use the other computer, so if I had this on my Q it would have been great. I just downloaded the trial version and will be checking it out this weekend.
Amazon ends speculation and buzz by announcing their Unbox movie (and TV too) download service today! TV shows will be $1.99 (gee, that sounds familiar), movies will be $7.99 to $14.99 and $3.99 to rent them. Who knows at this point, but I'll bet if the service is the cat's meow it could give Blockbuster and even Netflix a run for their money. I see Amazon's service as taking the waiting out of getting your movies and TV shows, much like Apple, except it seems that Amazon has a bit more of a selection at this point. Hopefully Amazon's use restrictions will be bearable and I will be able to burn movies to play on my set-top player as well as my PC. They are even offering one free TV show to hook you.
This is all too sweet. Some lucky dudes got
a replica of the arcade cabinet used in the movie The Last Starfighter, and they are preparing to load a copy
of the game used in the movie on it. Well, the game Starfighter is also a replica... But it's fun! And
it's free. And with a little soldering know-how and a few spare weekends, maybe you too could build such a replica. The
one they bought was used in a documentary on the movie (which is odd enough in itself), as the original was destroyed.
And as one astute digg'er noticed, these guys have also given us a replica (mostly) of the game Jeff Bridges plays in
his arcade in Tron, Space Paranoids! Now if they
would slap together the Global Thermonuclear War game from War
Games, we're all set...
Although some folks affectionately call them "time wasters," we prefer to think of our little jaunts into the far reaches of the Internet as "exploratory ventures that perhaps lead to a greater understanding of the world in which we live."
The newest version of the Leonard Maltin Movie Guide has been released by LandWare. If you are ever in the video store and want some guidance to pick out something good you can use this guide. This new version has the complete listings of both of the 2007 Movie Guide and the Classic Movie Guide by Leonard Maltin.
This is all too sweet. Some lucky dudes got
a replica of the arcade cabinet used in the movie The Last Starfighter, and they are preparing to load a copy
of the game used in the movie on it. Well, the game 
