[A while ago we had started what we intended to be a weekly feature here, Non-Gaming Post Sundays. The idea was that we'd find something that tickled us during the week and share it with all of our readers on Sundays, a day when there's not much going on in the gaming world. Now it's back and under the moniker you see above. Enjoy!]
Welcome to the first installment of Bob Vance Of Vance Refrigeration Presents... Most of the time this will be a pretty light-hearted column where I share the wilds and wonderment of the internets. Unfortunately my plans got sidetracked this week when the entertainment world lost a couple of notable people. Actor Peter Boyle and Atlantic Records Co-Founder Ahmet Ertegün. Boyle was known for many surly and threatening roles but most notably for playing Frank on "Everybody Loves Raymond" and The Monster in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein. He was 71.
Besides founding Atlantic Records with his brother, Ahmet Ertegün also helped to kickstart the careers of Led Zeppelin and Ray Charles (he even wrote the hit "Mess Around" for Charles). Ahmet passed away after he slipped into a coma resulting from falling down a flight of stairs at a Rolling Stones concert in New York. He was 83.
I'll avoid getting too sappy here and leave you with this classic scene from Young Frankenstein:
Much in the spirit of The Typing Of The Dead comes this flash game I saw on Fark called Word Shoot. The faster you type, the longer you live. Simple as that.
When a news story falls through the cracks, our own danzuke catches them for a segment we call “Here's what we missedâ€. (In other words, here’s some stuff that happened last week we never told you about, but probably should've. Our bad.)
Epic said there was some free content coming for Gears of War, and it looks like it's gonna hit on Christmas Eve. SWEET! And it looks like MSoft decided to go a little viral with their marketing for it, which is interesting since you never really have to promote FREE. But over at theabovedomain they have a page titled re-emergence day with the graphic you see above. Looks like maybe a corpser is in there??
2old2play.com dug a little deeper and found this info on the domain registrar:
Registrant: JS Mining Corporation
North Sera Road
Sera, unknown 20 852 US
Domain name: THEABOVEDOMAIN.COM
Administrative Contact: Baird, Cole
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
New York City is a big place, and Elliot Hanson knows it. He's been single-handedly recreating every last streetlight, hot dog cart, and apartment window in the Big Apple for the last three years. His medium? SimCity 4. I had the chance to have a virtual sit down with Elliot recently. Hit the jump for the full interview;
[e·phem·er·on –noun, plural -anything short-lived. Trolling the depths of eBay to being you the goofiest, weirdest (and sometimes cool) game related crap people are selling this week. Found a good one?
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]
Sonic wasn't always a total tool like he is these days. Back before we all lost our love for the blue haired speedster, his image could be found on just about anything. Call it the George Lucas method of product placement.
So for those of us that just couldn't bear to be away for a Sonic related game for any stretch of time, we had this. It's a combination game & shampoo bottle. Of course I'm not really sure how cool the game is, but at the absolute minimum getting a bath didn't have to interfere with your game playing. Now that your all growns up, why not have a little entertainment in the shower? Unless you have a boyfriend/girlfriend / wife/husband/friend with benefits, cause in any of those cases you oughta have something better to do in the shower than play with a Sonic the Hedgehog shampoo bottle.
Thank the people that aren't wearing the strap and destroying their televisions for this one. Though I'm dubious about the validity of the original wrist strap breaking if you're using it properly & not trying to show off to your friends, Nintendo has stepped up and made a more robust version. If you have the original skinny version, Head over to this form page to have replacements sent out. I credit Nintendo with tackling the "problem". Now there's no excuse for that black eye you gave your girlfriend.
I'm still entirely convinced it's not an issue if you're using the device properly, but it can't hurt to upgrade. Especially since it's free. Here's the form once again.
Exciting news for all of you puzzle fans out there - Ignition Entertainment has just announced that the Mercy Meltdown franchise will be making its way to the Wii in Spring 2007. Tentatively titled Mercury Meltdown Revolution, the gameplay won't stray too far from its PSP predecessors. You'll still be tilting the world around your little blob of Mercury in an effort to get it from point A to point B, using all kinds of color changing, mercury-flinging gadgets along the way. The twist? This time around you'll be doing all the tilting with your wiimote! Who didn't see that one coming?
Considering that the original title in the franchise was supposed to feature some sort of a tilt sensitive add-on for the PSP that was scrapped before release, this is a pretty sweet decision on Ignition's part. I can't wait - despite the crippling difficulty I loved Archer Maclean's Mercury, and I've heard Mercury Meltdown is even better. Let's just hope this controls better than the labyrinth-style mini-game in Raving Rabbids.
In one of the more creative mods I've ever seen, the modding community has taken the wargames inspired Defcon, and taken out the nuclear war element. Now your job is launch Santa's presents, not warheads. Hug babies, not bombs people.
From the Introduction:
Your mission is one of the most important mission that has taken place every year for hundreds of years. This mission requires you to do the impossible: DELIVER PRESENTS TO ALL THE BOYS AND GIRLS ALL OVER THE WORLD. You must position your distribution system before Christmas Eve. It's Christmas, and everybody wins. But maybe - just maybe - you can show your generosity the most.
I'm posting this cause Greshkov and B play the game like it's going out of style, and quite honestly I'm about to buy the game just so they'll get off my back about it. I told you guys, Christmas!! :) Either way, at least when I start playing I won't have to deal with all the issues they seemed to have fixed.
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New York City is a big place, and Elliot Hanson knows it. He's been single-handedly recreating every last streetlight, hot dog cart, and apartment window in the Big Apple for the last three years. His medium? SimCity 4. I had the chance to have a virtual sit down with Elliot recently. Hit the jump for the full interview;
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Exciting news for all of you puzzle fans out there - Ignition Entertainment has just announced that the Mercy Meltdown franchise will be making its way to the Wii in Spring 2007. Tentatively titled Mercury Meltdown Revolution, the gameplay won't stray too far from its PSP predecessors. You'll still be tilting the world around your little blob of Mercury in an effort to get it from point A to point B, using all kinds of color changing, mercury-flinging gadgets along the way. The twist? This time around you'll be doing all the tilting with your wiimote! Who didn't see that one coming?
Bloguin is the revolutionary blog network specifically focused on helping bloggers get the most out of their websites. We're currently working on building a large network of online communities and hope to expand our blogging coverage to include a wide range of topics. 
The Bloguin Network allows advertisers to promote their products and services to our ever-growing number of visitors. We offer both site-specific ad placements as well as the ability to run a network-wide campaign. If you're interested in working with Bloguin to meet your advertising needs, please contact us.
The Bloguin Network is always looking to expand. We're specifically looking for blogs in the sports, entertainment, and video games field, but are open to adding any type of quality site.. If you're a blogger and interested in joining our network, please fill out our application form.
The Bloguin Login gives you full access to everything our network has to offer. Your name and password will work for each and every one of our sites. Signing up is simple, and will allow you to post in all our forums, create member blogs, and access other cool features! What are you waiting for? Create an Account! 