I’m finally back from my Thanksgiving holiday at my parents’ house, and I can hardly believe it’s already December!  Where has this year gone?

Anyway, I had a couple of things I wanted to post today, the first being a duo of clips from The Simpsons, found earlier on Engadget (and which I assume aired last night), where Apple becomes the target of Matt Groening’s irreverent humor when the Springfield mall gets its first Mapple store.  The funniest part of the two clips is when Bart hijacks the audio system in the store and puts some (quite truthful) words into Steve Jobs’ Mobs’ mouth.  Good stuff!

Update - Well, the YouTube videos are down, but if you live in the U.S., you can watch for free on Hulu.

The next thing I wanted to post, also a video, is a new trailer released yesterday for the Black Mesa mod - a Half-Life 2 mod that is looking to recreate the original Half-Life with the Source engine, but with more content, higher resolution textures and models, and environments that take better advantage of the engine than Valve’s original port of the game.  Normally I don’t get too excited over Source engine mods, since they rarely make good on their promises, or even get finished for that matter, but the amount of polish that has gone into this trailer makes me hope otherwise for Black Mesa.  You can view the trailer below, and find out more about the mod at the official site.

I played through a huge chunk of Half-Life 2 this holiday weekend, so I guess I’m a little bit excited about Half-Life in general again.

I’m glad to see that people found my recent set of examples interesting too, and I hope to get a fixed GM6 version of the 3D Rain example up sometime tonight.  Sorry about the slow rain example, I’ll play with it and see if I can get something up that’s a little easier on the older machines soon as well!

That’s all for now - thanks for reading, and I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving (or just a good weekend if you’re not from the U.S.)!

Update - I’ve made a new GM6 file that should run better than the previous rain example, and which should load correctly in GM6.  The area that the rain covers is a bit smaller than the original example, and the rain is a bit more sparse, but you should get the idea.

You can download the new example here (1.26 mb).

My boss sent me the link to this video earlier today.  Remember the old Anheuser-Busch “Waaasssuuuup?” commercials from 2000?  This is an update to those classic ads, but with a better message to push.

I actually thought the last bit was somewhat touching.  After all the laughs of the first section, it’s a solemn and smart note to end on.  It’s funny how big a difference 8 years can make, huh?

So anyway, BlizzCon!  It was awesome.  My brother and I arrived in Orange County bright and early on Friday morning, picked up our passes, dropped off our luggage at the hotel, and made our way into the Anaheim Convention Center to see what Blizzard had in store for us.

The entire convention center was dark, illuminated only by multicolored lights and spotlights shining the Blizzard logo on the ground.  Various islands of booths, displays, and photo areas were placed around the floor, and much larger areas were sectioned off to house many rows of computers set up for people to try out all of Blizzard’s latest and greatest (Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, and Wrath of the Lich King).

In the convention center’s largest room, a massive hall of chairs had been set up for the opening and closing ceremonies, and for other announcements and forums where the audience size was expected to be large.  At the opposite end of the center, a smaller stage had been set up, as a special place for awards to be handed out to tournament players, as well as an alternate viewing area to the live events happening in the main hall.

Various other areas included a small elevated platform with a desk on the top, at which a few commentators would sit and deliver their take on the event as it rolled on (for pay-per-view viewers), two merchandise stores, a retrospective on past Blizzard games, a collection of concept art, a TCG / adventure game store and play area, information booths, and small bars, where drinks of all sorts could be obtained.  An upstairs room was also reserved for other segments of the conference, and huge screens were set up all over the convention center so that no matter what one was doing, the important stuff would not be missed.

You can view a map of the event here.

After a quick breakfast at the Rainforest Cafe (the only restaurant that was open at the time) in Down Town Disney, we arrived at BlizzCon.  My brother (Spencer) and I wandered around for a while just taking in the various sights and sounds.  We leaned over the low barrier to watch fans trying out Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 for the first time.  We gaped at the seemingly endless lines to get into the Blizzard stores.  And we checked out the display set up for Blizzard’s past endeavors in gaming, which included the Lost Vikings games, an isometric racing game, and of course, Warcraft.

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Soon my brother and I will be packing up and getting ready for what will hopefully be a fun two days down in Anaheim, as we attend BlizzCon 2008!

I’ve been so busy with work and other things over the last few days, I haven’t really had time to even think about it, but now that we’re a day before the event I’m getting very excited about going.  After only a short flight and a quick ride, we’ll be heading over to the Anaheim Convention Center and getting an early start on the long days Blizzard has planned.

I don’t have much more to say for now, other than I’m getting more excited as the event draws closer.  If you’re interested in seeing BlizzCon but weren’t able to get tickets, Blizzard’s apparently struck a deal with DirectTV for a live PPV broadcast, so you might be interested in that.  Either way, with upcoming games like StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3, it should be a great show, and I will be back to say more about everything when I can!

And back to the grind of the working life.

My girlfriend had some business to do in Las Vegas this weekend, and I tagged along for the trip.  It was my first trip to Vegas, and definitely won’t be my last; I had a great time, and even made it out with only a small gambling debt.

I flew out on Friday and met my girlfriend at the hotel, a small-ish but nice place only a half block off the strip, which proved to be a great location for refuge after a lot of walking in the desert sun.  I was surprised to see the rows of slot machines inside the airport terminal - it seems one can gamble from the moment his or her plane arrives to the moment it leaves again.

That night we went out to take in some of the typical tourist stuff - the local hotels, casinos, and the sights around them.  The Bellagio was probably the nicest hotel in the neighborhood, with the amazing fountain show out front (synchronized to the tune of Chicago’s “All That Jazz”), the glass ceiling in the foyer, and the beautiful fall conservatory display (which was sadly under partial construction at the time).

Caesar’s Palace was also pretty incredible.  We wandered around the indoor casino sections, clubs, restaurants, shops, and other faux sky covered venues ’til our feet hurt.

The next day, my girlfriend had to a work event in the morning and afternoon, so I spent a good deal of time just walking around, looking at everything.  After we grabbed an awesome breakfast at Paris, I hit the Miracle Mile Shops, and then the Vegas strip.  I ducked into the odd casino here and there to cool off (it was hot outside), and before my walk was through I’d finished off a two sodas and a bottle of water.  I got to see some more great stuff, like the Venetian gondolas and the pirate ship at Treasure Island, and of course, I did a little gambling on one of my breaks from the street as well.  Throughout the trip, I only gambled about $40, and though I did have small winnings here and there, I lost it all in the end.  I had a good time doing it though, so I have no regrets.

After getting some much-needed rest in the hotel, my girlfriend arrived and we went out again.  We had a great dinner at Pampa’s in Planet Hollywood, and then took an impromptu limo ride over to the MGM Grand to catch Kà, one of the handful of Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas.

Kà is the second Cirque show I’ve seen, and though I imagine it’s quite hard to be as blown away by the wonder of a Cirque show as the first one you see, it was an absolutely amazing show.  Through a series of performances which expertly mix theater and acrobatics, the tale of two siblings and their travels to re-unite is told.  This show’s signature is a moving platform which serves as floor, wall, and everything in between as the performers run, climb, fight, bounce, and slide over it.  It’s hard to describe it in words without giving too much away, but I highly recommend seeing Kà if you’re even in Vegas and have time to see a Cirque show.  It was truly incredible.

My girlfriend and I finished off the night with a quick walk over to New York New York, and just barely made it onto the roller-coaster there.  It was fitting to end the last night of a whirlwind trip on a whirlwind ride.

On Sunday, we got up early, had one final breakfast (a champagne breakfast!) at the Caesar’s Palace buffet, gambled a few more dollars, and then headed to the airport.  A fun weekend for sure.  Hopefully we can visit Vegas again someday when we’ve got a little more time to play around.