Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Deals, Paramount, Fandom, Newsstand, Religious

Talk about a casting scoop. The nice people over at UGO.com are reporting with all confidence that Tyler Perry — yes, you heard me — has joined the cast of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek. According to the site, Perry will play the head of Starfleet Academy who acts in a sort of prosecutorial role in a courtroom scenario when a young Kirk cheats on a test and must be punished. This is apparently a well-known event in Trek lore, and UGO gives the whole breakdown of what happens. It seems that Spock finds out that Kirk cheated and turns him in and then … that’s about where the scoop stops. But forget all that — Tyler Perry?! I’ll admit that I’ve been lucky enough to avoid all of his movies, but I live in the same country as you do so I know who he is, and this seems like casting that’s almost intended to be jarring. And lucrative … everyone knows what an insane moneymaker Perry is, and this move is obviously designed as a test to see if that money tree can be planted in foreign soil.

I imagine that Paramount will create an entire secondary marketing channel that caters specifically to Perry’s devoted church crowd. It will go something like this: “Come and see the latest Tyler Perry movie, in which he delivers some down home Southern schoolin’ to a test-cheating white boy and shows him that the only place he needs to ‘boldly go’ is straight to church.” Will the teaser trailer show a guy in drag chasing a pointy-eared guy with a rolling pin around the deck of a ship? Probably not, but this casting is so out there that, combined with how incongruous the other casting choices have been so far, I’m now almost excited to see this film.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Cellphones

What’s that we see? The Nokia N95 8GB listed on the Nokia US retail site? Okay, calm down, it’s not the US-specific version (read: it uses 2100MHz WCDMA, i.e. European 3G), but you’ll still have a 2.8-inch mammoth screen, A-GPS, a five megapixel camera, and the rest of the goodies that maybe, just maybe, you’ll be willing to fork out $780 for, even knowing that a US version HAS to be right around the corner.

[Thanks, Preston]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Share This

Filed under: Action, Drama, Casting, Sony, Fandom, James Bond, Remakes and Sequels, Daniel Craig

The British Times has gotten word that Bond 22 will be filming a scene next week at the Barbican, a performing arts center in the north of London. The center is typically used to host music concerts, art exhibitions and theater productions, and according to the paper the “a sign has gone up giving warning that next week it will be the venue for the filming of a scene from the next James Bond film, currently working title Bond 22, which will again star Daniel Craig. Relax, ladies, Craig won’t be there as far as I know, but in the Sculpture Court … they will film a man talking on a mobile phone, the sign says. We’ll have to wait for the release of the film, set for November, to see why it was necessary to go to the Barbican to film someone talking on their mobile phone.” And that’s it. At first blush, this sounds to me a lot like the Miami Body Worlds scene in Casino Royale, doesn’t it?

Meanwhile, a source who would know tells me that Eon Productions has yet to release any information whatsoever on Bond casting to Sony, and that includes a thumbs up or down on Gemma Arterton having a role in the film. In other words, they are trying their level best to keep all of this information secret for the time being. Still, I bet that whoever the actress is, she’ll eventually be spotted lunching or walking down the street with Barbara Broccoli or Michael Wilson and the game will be up. The last time a major hiring decision was made — Marc Forster — the press knew about it before the release could be put out, because the press knew that Daniel Craig was incongruously walking down the street with Broccoli in L.A, obviously to talk business.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Many of us know The Sharper Image best as a purveyor of massaging lounge chairs (which makes their stores a must-stop location in the mall), a chronic pusher of ozone generators, and as a perennial favorite in SkyMall catalogs as we bide our time on the redeye. What we don’t know The Sharper Image for, though, is its broad selection of no-name phones procured from Chinese manufacturers. We just happened to be flipping through TSI’s latest catalog today and came across these four little gems, three with “The Sharper Image” proudly emblazoned across their faces. The pack includes a touchscreen equipped Chocolate knockoff (very 2006, but still quite strapping), a branded version of the AMOI N810 Windows Mobile 6 Professional device, a black slider that looks like death incarnated, and an ultra-generic silver clamshell that looks straight out of the early part of this decade. The good news is that they’re all unlocked and range from a very reasonable $169.95 to $499.95; the bad news, however, is that you may have to keep your thumb over the TSI logo to keep the public mockery to a minimum.

%Gallery-12422%

Read - Sharper Image 101TSI
Read - Sharper Image 008TSI
Read - Sharper Image 007TSI
Read - Sharper Image 005TSI

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Share This

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Not to say it’s actually easy to get your hands on the rumored 1.1.3 firmware at this point, but in the event that you do, proceed with caution. Nate True, the guy that brought us a video walkthrough of the supposedly leaked goods, is reporting that he can’t seem to downgrade to 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 after performing the install. Locked phones show an “Incorrect SIM” error — a problem unlockers of yore are all too familiar with — while previously unlocked phones can’t be upgraded to 1.1.3 at all. Let’s be honest, though: if you somehow managed to score a copy of 1.1.3, is that really going to stop you from going for it?

[Thanks, cingular#1]

Update: We’re hearing that the phenomenon observed by Mr. True has existed since the very first firmware release; it’s a state the phone enters whenever it finds a baseband version different than the one it’s expecting to find, and it’s apparently been bypassable via a modified “lockdownd” binary for some time. Thanks, Alex!

Update 2: To those asking why the network says “Nate,” Nate True told us that “The network name comes in through the com.apple.springboard preferences plist. That file is copied back to the phone after a restore (and is thus not affected by an update).” In other words, even after an update that file pushed through and apparently showed the network name. So there you have it.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Share This

Filed under: South Asia, Food Oddities, On the Blogs

It’s pretty much a given these days that you don’t get much in the way of food on airplanes, especially when you fly in the continental United States. I was shocked to discover on my last flight out to Portland that I was actually served a meal (a microwaved mini pizza, an iceberg lettuce salad, a bag of potato chips and a package brownie). However, when you fly internationally, food is still part of the travel experience, and can range from terrible to excellent.

Over at Gastronomy, Cathy and her boyfriend, Vernon (aka the Astronomer), have spent the last few months in Vietnam. They did an amazing job of documenting all the amazing things they ate while they were there, and now have even gone so far as to photograph and report back on the meals they were served on EVA Airlines. Cathy requested a high fiber meal and was served an amazing assortment veggies, fruits and whole wheat breads. It seems that selecting high fiber is the way to go when flying EVA.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Grains, Cheese, Recipes

I love baked spaghetti, even if I haven’t had it in many, many years. I first had it over a friend’s house. His wife made it once in a while and it tasted so fantastic - all salty and cheesy. She made it without any tomatoes or tomato sauce of any kind, and I’m not sure of her exact recipe (I’ll have to call her soon to get it), but this recipe sounds damn good too. I don’t think my friend uses Gruyere and Gorgonzola (she probably uses cheddar, mozzarella, and/or Parmesan), and she used to break apart her spaghetti so it would be easier to eat, but I’m going to try this one.

Continue reading Baked Four-Cheese Spaghetti

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Grains, Raves & Reviews, Health & Medical

I have a new internet game addiction and it has the quirky benefit of being somewhat food related. You see, I’ve always been a sucker for words (it’s part of why I like this whole writing thing) and when a friend sent me a link to Free Rice a couple of weeks ago, I thought to myself, “gee, that sounds sort of cool.” I navigated over and started to play and loved the fact that it pushed my brain a little while also giving me the opportunity to donate rice to the United Nations in order to help end world hunger.

I realize that it sounds sort of crazy to think that playing a vocabulary game on the internet could do anything to help stop hunger, but they make money through advertising revenue and so the longer you are on their page and reloading the site as you play, the more dough they make off their ads. So go challenge your brain and donate some rice to the UN.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Candy, On the Blogs, How To, Christmas

For all the cooking and baking I’ve done in my life, one area of food preparation that I’ve stayed fairly far away from is the realm of candy making. I already eat enough candy without adding to the load by making my own. However, I am always impressed by the people who take it upon themselves to make gorgeous hard candies, fudges and chocolates.

I ran across this very awe-inspiring post over on Caramel Cooks a couple of days ago, all about his adventure making filled chocolates for the holidays. I am dumbstruck by the amount of work that went into those chocolates, as well as totally envious that I didn’t get a chance to taste them, as they look fantastic. If you want to whet your appetite for making filled chocolates at home, definitely take a look at this post. If that’s a project you’d prefer to stay far away from, still take a look, because it is impressive.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Share This

Filed under: Gaming, Portable Audio, Portable Video

We’re nearly nauseous from all the spinning on the Xbox Live carousel. One minute we’re in, the next we’re out. Now, Microsoft is confirming that the issues are back via Xbox.com, and as if that weren’t enough in and of itself, the outfit is also informing Zune owners that they “may experience intermittent issues logging onto Zune Marketplace.” From what we can tell, there’s no definitive ETA on a resolution that will actually stick for more than ten minutes, but if we were you, we’d lock down that Hotmail account, pronto.

[Thanks, Robert S. and everyone who sent this in]
Read - Xbox.com Support
Read - Zune.net Support

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Share This