DOOM Beta recently launched on April 14th for an entire weekend of blood, guts, and BFGs. Okay, maybe the BFG itself didn't make an appearance but that doesn't mean that the guns weren't fucking big. While I should have been doing more important things, I had decided that raging my way around DOOM Beta's multiplayer maps would be time well spent. I also got to push my computer to its limits, cranking up the settings and recording some footage to toss into a few different videos.

The first video is a little something I like to call Bloodrun, showing every single one of my frags and deaths neatly wrapped in a soggy box and tied together with the end trails of my adversaries. I know...gross. You won't see the usual onslaught of demons, but you do get to experience the terror of the Revenant. Picking up a special ability allows players to turn into that bastard for 60 seconds while jet packing and double rocket blasting their way through enemies. Every time the announcer comes on and tells you a Revenant spawns, you almost immediately shit your pants. It's hard to take one down because they are swift on their feet and have about three times the amount of health as you do.

And speaking of shitting ones pants...if an enemy is lucky enough to get behind you, you're in for a really sweet takedown animation where your head gets twisted and ripped off or you get punched into a million pieces. Yeah, it's pretty satisfying to watch.

If you happen to be more of a purist, you might enjoy watching this gameplay video. You get to see the sweet menus, loading screens, customizations, and the multiplayer lobby. Enjoy!

During the month of April it is declared that you are a fool. That is to say, we are fools. The fools of the month are nothing more than gullible folk, pressured into participating in foolish acts. I can rephrase it and rephrase it, however, I only need to declare that April Fools Day is a big pile of rubbish that only fools partake in. < That right there is declared to be a dangling preposition but is it's usage only to make angry, those who hate bad grammer? Or does using bad spelling drive us into deep holes in the ground, only to come up for air that is as sweet as proper usage. I don't believe that we can escape a single day without some type of tomfoolery. All of us are children in some way or another. Children are better behaved on April Fools Day because its their parents that dare to teach them the ways of the foolish. They become tainted with our desire to fool and be fooled, and trick and be tricked. They are bamboozled when a rainbow is claimed to be outside and also double. They run like mad-men and mad-women over to the window only to find out that nothing could be farther from the truth and now, grandma is in the corner snickering and pointing her finger directly at this poor child who has no idea what just happened. Their self-esteem has either gone out the window or their confidence has been intrigued to behave mischievously for the rest of time. And thus, the tradition of April Fools Day shall live on or die in that exact moment. The same moment that will someday create an ouch or a tear, a fluttering heart or a gasp of breath. It's also the same moment that instills fear for those with self-esteem so very low, that it will have them cowering behind invisible walls and create closed-eye syndrome that could sell prescription drugs as easily as saying the words, "April Fools!"

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

I've always dreamed of a world where Pokemon and humans coexist. Things would be peaceful, children and their Pokemon would play in the park all day long, and nobody would have to work. All society would have to do is catch Pokemon and trade them for food (or just eat them). But how would people do this on a daily basis without going crazy?

A Pokedex is only so useful...all it can really do is identify and remember which Pokemon you've caught. The major problem would be trying to find them all on your own. Well, what if a mega tech giant such as Google came along and decided to solve this problem and find them for you? What would be required of the company to achieve this?

Google would have to hire the best hunters in the world to seek out every Pokemon or at the very least, identify a specific number of Pokemon in a region. Pokemon would be pre-identified for the purpose of a brand new Google service which would display to a user the exact location of Pokemon. Essentially, Google would physically micro-ID Pokemon and allow only a specific number of customers to join their service. To even further break down this concept, let's just call this geo-caching for Pokemon. 

Why not use crowd sourcing? I suppose there would have to be some incentive to not capture Pokemon since, in this society, people must capture and trade Pokemon to stay alive! So I would say that crowd sourcing would not be ideal. Users of the service would not want to be the ones to get their hands dirty for free. All they would want to do is pick up their newfangled devices and point it in the direction of the nearest Pokemon to start capturing them all.

I don't see what's wrong with having a peaceful society in which Pokemon exist. I just wouldn't want to have to bother looking for them all day long. It would be incredibly boring. That's why a Google service such as the one I've described is incredibly smart on their part and innovative. It keeps the peace. But it makes me use my hands. What if Google gave away Google Glass? All we'd have to do is turn our heads to find Pokemon. Forget using your hands or minds – too difficult. Of course it would be ad supported, selling Pokemon litter or toys, potions and elixirs, auto-levelers and poke-pills that reduce your Pokemon to a previous evolution. But that's in an ideal world and I don't see that happening anytime soon. 

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

The eastern wood thrush is my favorite songbird. The best time to hear one is just before sunset when it fills the woods with an ominous yet beautiful flowing whistle. Click to listen.

Catbirds can be identified by a very busy and some may say noisy call. Their tails usually flutter sporadically and they are quick on their feet. Click to listen.

Hang an orange in a tree and if you're lucky, a Baltimore Oriole will come to eat it. Click to listen.

These birds are strange and so is their name. They almost look as if they're hurt while in a resting position. Click to listen.

These large birds can be found by riversides, perched high up in trees. Their nests are generally messy looking so they aren't too hard to find. Click to listen.

Via: BirdJam.com, AllAboutBirds.org
By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

I first have to admit that I'm a huge fan of the show Mythbusters before I praise a podcast that's....very worthy of my praise. I had no idea who the Mythbusters were when I first started watching the show years ago, but I knew that between Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman they had over 30 years of experience in special effects and not much more than that. 

The two busters of myths are famous for saying that they make a great team but wouldn't make great friends because they are so very different from each other. The only reason that they've been blowing stuff up for the past ten years or so has to do with Adam being hired by Jamie's company to work on the set of A Nightmare Before Christmas. This is where the all the fun began. 

A few years later they were shooting a pilot for Discovery. Adam did what he does best and put his ability to embrace something new to work by learning how to edit video while in the process of editing their video pitch and the rest is still history in the making. But I'm not here to talk about the Mythbusters. My knowledge about them is a result of hours and hours of listening to a wonderful little gem called Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project. Yes, it's a podcast titled after the absence of a title and yes, you can download and listen to it whenever and wherever you please.

I've spent the last few weeks listening to old episodes not because I'm trying to catch up, but because I genuinely enjoy listening to Adam Savage talk about just about everything! He covers it all...parenting, marriage, working in a shop, being a geek, video games, special effects, film, Etsy shopping, hearing loss, stitches, whip making, holiday shopping, Indiana Jones, Quentin Tarantino, tech, shop safety, dumpster diving, building a toolkit, cooking, celebrity encounters, travel, science, comics, cosplay, myth busting... To sum up the real Adam Savage: He's a human sponge willing to absorb anything and just as willing to regurgitate that information back in the most passionate and gracious way possible. 

Of course, he's not alone while spouting out randomness, he's joined by Will Smith (not the Fresh Prince) and Norman Chan (Jamie too, but he's not on this particular podcast). Together they are part of Tested.com which is sort of like Mythbusters but online and on a much smaller, more focused level. Will and Norm are technology writers and built Tested as a place for "anything that's awesome." Somehow, they linked up with Adam and Jamie and now they have a place for mega awesomeness!

I've seriously learned a ton by listening to Still Unitiled: The Adam Savage Project and think that if you enjoy science, family life, cooking, and the long list mentioned above, you'll without a doubt love listening to these guys and their interesting lives as they pepper listeners with mega awesomeness and the occasional Jamie-looks-like-a-walrus joke.

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

Fans of the still amazing TV wonder Seinfeld must have dreamed of setting foot inside Jerry's apartment. Well, with the help of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset that is currently getting mass recognition, it might be possible to grab something from Jerry's fridge and see what's on his TV.  This VR recreation was made entirely for fandom's sake and will be available for free if you own an Oculus Rift.

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

Close your eyes and place yourself anywhere in the world. Go ahead. I'll wait... Long enough. Karl Pilkington doesn't exactly get to snap his fingers and magically appear in any country. That is Ricky Gervais' job. Oh yeah, and Stephen Merchant plays a huge role in what appears to be pure torment for poor Karl.

Karl's been to China, India, Jordan, Mexico, Egypt, and Brazil, just to name a few places. He's in a class of his own when it comes to observational humor and literally pours his deep inner feelings onto whoever is standing directly in front of him and doesn't care if that person is, oh say, a naked man with the ability to stretch his you-know-what to incredible lengths. But maybe it's because he's been forced to eat things that make him gag. Or maybe it's from drinking water that gives him the runs. Or maybe it's the shit-hole he's forced to stay in. We go where Karl goes and only for Ricky Gervais' amusement.

One of the best parts of the show would have to be the phone calls between Ricky Gervais and Karl. It doesn't take much to push Ricky's laugh track button, which sounds like...which sounds... I'm quite not sure. It simply sounds like no other laugh I've ever heard before and it can now be heard around the world.

An Idiot Abroad is currently available on Netflix.

By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

When I was growing up I had a wristwatch with a barometer. I was able to predict the weather without any help from the weatherman. I also had cats. Now if you have a cat, you already know that they sleep for most of the day, they get into trouble when you are trying to sleep, and they can also predict the weather. My cats never told me about the latter. They were more adept at allowing me to live in my house and to making me feed them. I had no clue that they were almost as good as my fancy-pansy wristwatch. 

If a cat sneezes, scratches, licks itself against the grain, or sleeps on it's back with it's mouth turned up, it means that some kind of weather is going to happen. So what if we got together some cats – maybe two or three – we could make them smell some pepper. We could offer them a cozy spot on the couch. We could also try tickling them with a feather to try to make them lick or scratch themselves. The idea behind this would be to create some kind of weather event that no human has ever seen before – never ever recorded in a Farmer's Almanac. We could create some kind of "supurrcell" blended with who-knows-what.

Via: NPR
By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics

I don't need to say much about Hayao Miyazaki and his films. They are charming gems that the world has fallen in love with – hopefully. Some are quiet and quaint. Some take you on a journey to unseen worlds. Some are creepy and uncomfortable. Almost none of them are filled with unnecessary violence or pointless action. His on-screen action is highly motivated by the story and his charming characters. I'm just fine with that.

I do like his sort-of reoccurring characters like old ladies with large noses. They all have strong personalities and tend to fuel the main character in some way. It's safe to surmise that he had an older woman in his life that heavily influenced his work. You can also say that he loves aviation to the point of wishing he could just sprout wings and fly away...

I'm not here to pick apart his brain, but I am here to tell you that he recently gave some classic Miyazaki wisdom to the world of anime. Apparently, anime studios are filled with otaku (nerds) and to Miyazaki that's not necessarily a good thing. In a TV interview he said, "If you don't spend time watching real people, you can't do this, because you've never seen it." He went on to say, “It’s produced by humans who can’t stand looking at other humans.” At this point it's hard to tell if he personally knows this for a fact or if he's just being cranky. "And that’s why the industry is full of otaku!”

If you compare his work to the rest of the anime industry, yeah, there's some not so great stuff, but there's also some amazing productions that edge pretty close to the master himself. If I had to pick two artists most similar to Miyazaki, I would have to go with Makoto Shinkai and Shūzō Oshimi. There's no doubt that each of these writers observed real life people or else they wouldn't have been able to produce such beautiful work that is grounded in deep human relationships, which explore some of the most breathtaking moments I've ever witnessed in any medium of entertainment. I may have just thrown a brick into a glass window saying something like that, but it's 100% true. 

Miyazaki's last film, "The Wind Rises" comes to theaters in limited release February 21st. Retiring from the one medium through which his work has literally come to life is beyond sad. Hopefully it will be his greatest film yet and leave us with some fulfillment. But I doubt he'll rest. He does create some pretty amazing mangas and might continue to do so at the wise age of 73.

Via: Rocket News 24
By: Alex Zarnoski | @ajazz16 | Crappy Comics