Will Urbina takes DIY seriously.  He's got four impressive mods under his belt, but this time he's really outdone himself.  A self-proclaimed "PC," needing to familiarize himself with OS X, Urbina rigged a custom computer which triple boots between OS X, Ubuntu, and Windows 7, rather than purchasing a Mac Pro.  This dude's got serious skills.  Even the camerawork and editing are great.

At the heart of the OS Xbox Pro is an EFi-X dongle, which connects to the motherboard and lets the user install almost any operating system you could imagine.  You'll also find an Intel Core 2 that clocks in at 2.93 GHz, eight GB of Crucial DDR3 memory, a GeForce 9800, four standard notebook hard drives, and one solid state master drive attached to Gigabyte motherboard.  Oh, and it's all stuffed into an Xbox dev kit which he found at a tech recycling center.  (I wish I had that luck.)  All together, if you bought these parts at retail, you'd be spending $1,500 - about a grand less than what you'd spend on a comparable Mac Pro.  And you thought you were 1337 for building your own PC and hacking your Xbox.

Pics after the jump.

Will U. Design

Ever heard Don't Stop Me Now, by Queen? Of course you have. Ever heard Don't Stop Me Now...on Super Mario World?

More than just a mash-up, the song is actually done in four parts, with a split screen player for each instrument in the arrangement. In each quadrant, Mario goes through a modded Super Mario World level to create the sound of each musician's part through the various sound effects found in the game. I urge you to watch. You'll be having such a good time. You'll be having a ball.

BTW, if you had the sudden urge to pummel zombies with pool cues while listening to this song...then you are awesome, please marry me.

[GoNintendo]

So you're facing the prospect of spending more time than you're used to at the folks, or worse... the aunts or uncles. Sure you could just bury your nose in the ipod and hope no one notices, but you wont get that lucky. So, why not bring a game along to occupy everyone from having to talk to each other, therefore negating the realization that you don't really like each other all that much. Games are the perfect distraction!

Think about it, without the game the parents are going to start bugging you about how your college classes are going and you're going to have to lie about dropping out of school to focus on the illegal casino you run out of your basement. And is that a conversation you REALLY feel like having over turkey and stuffing? Didn't think so, so let's talk games.

So far I've looked at 5 different titles in my little analog games column, and today I'm going to both give you a preview of games to come and to offer my suggestions for games you may want to buy for yourself, someone else, or bring to a family holiday party. I promise at least one of these games will peak your interest, and they'll all be covered more at length in the coming months in the Analog Game Corner.

This pretty much says it all. 
[via]

It's hard to believe the last true 2D Mario platformer on a console was Super Mario World.  With almost two decades leading up to New Super Mario Bros. Wii, you'd think the plumber would be poised to come back at the top of his game.

He does.  Oh my, how he does.

As if the hype for Blip Festival wasn’t already reaching record levels, this past Friday’s Pulsewave was a good sign of things to come.  As a special fundraiser show for The Tank, which hosts the monthly chip show, NYC’s best came out in top form.  Despite several technical difficulties, Anamanaguchi and Talks To Animals played full sets, as well as several guest spots from Goferboy, Natty featuring Paris, Bubblyfish, Nullsleep and Starscream, an incredible acoustic performance by Bit Shifter, and more.

Hit the jump for a video of Glomag and Peter Swimm covering DEVO and a link to more pictures.

December 17th is approaching soon, and it brings with it 3 days of the finest chip music the world has to offer.  The trailer above shows just how much fun is to be expected.  For those of you still on the fence about whether or not to make it to NYC, the festival has officially announced a contest that could win you a 3-Day Pass, as well as some awesome software.

Basically, you create a SFW promo video, less than one minute, and featuring the basic Blip Fest info.  Official rules, details, and prizes are on the official blog, so hurry up and get to creating your content!  The lucky winner will have their spot shown at Blip Fest, and will personally get a high-five from me, if and when I see you at the show!

Modern Warfare almost didn't happen.  The execs at Activision were gunshy about letting their popular WWII shooter break the confines of its now familiar theatre of operations.  However, the creative blokes at Infinity Ward won the day, and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare became a reality.  It also became a huge megahit, possibly qualifying as a phenomenon.  The simple yet insanely visceral action won over just about every first-person aficionado, even the Halo faithful.  Not to mention the online multiplayer portion of the game which rewrote how online multiplayer should be handled.  Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) has much to live up to.  Does it succeed?

Matthew didn't study for a math test.  Consequently, he was unprepared for the problems on the test.  Rather than rack his brain and try to swing it, he figured his Charizard doodle might be worth more than a correct math answer.

He was wrong.  And his teacher, while not as good an artist, showed him who's boss.

via Geekologie.