Hey guys, I just wanted to give you all a heads up. As far as I can tell, there was a price hike in our Time Warner cable bills for August 2010 here in Rochester. I don’t remember getting a warning about it, but I also don’t tend to read their letters that usually start with them stroking themselves off.

Here is my last bill the nazis sent me compared to my current bill. Sneaky how they changed it around a bit so the details are hidden and it almost seems like I am saving money! Again, I didn’t change anything on my plan at all.

Last Month
Basic Tier … 7.39
Standard Service … 43.58
Digital Programming … 5.06
Digital Set Top Terminal … 7.00
Remote Control … 0.30
DVR Service … 10.95
Road Runner … 31.08
Road Runner Turbo … 7.74
Digital HD Tier … 4.95

Subtotal: 118.05
After Tax: 122.67

This Month (August 2010)
Watch’n'Surf Package … 111.95
You’ve Saved $16.30 by subscribing to this package!
DVR Service … 10.95
Road Runner Turbo … 9.95
Digital HD Tier … 4.95

Subtotal: 137.80
After Tax: 142.98

Thanks for saving me money guys!

Anyways, dropping cable is long overdue. I will miss it probably once every 2 weeks when I have that moment where watching sports center would have been nice, but there is no way to justify this sort of expense on something that is used so infrequently. It really does suck that there are no other outlets to get, say, ESPN, but I have my podcasts and the internet and hulu and netflix. What else do I need? Certainly not worth it.

Drop cable boys!

That’s the official trailer for Blocks. I worked very closely with sir Eric Rothman on that elegant piece of art, and man did that guy do a fantastic job. Thank you so much Eric, you are a true professional.

If you still don’t know what Blocks is, it’s a game that several Juicers have been making at a company called Darkwind Media. We’ve spent a lot of time designing, polishing, testing, refining, testing again, so on and so forth. We’ve even had a beta testing pizza party, where we invited about 50 people to come in and give us feedback, complete with interviews and surveys. We’re riding the express train to legit-town my friends, and this is the first game of hopefully many more to come.

We’re planning on entering Blocks into 4 game development competitions this year, starting first with www.indiepubgames.com. Voting begins August 1st and lasts until August 31st. If you feel like you want to support our efforts, swing by that site and vote for us. You can also join our Facebook group from the website, where we are amassing an army of followers to help spread the word and vote for the various competitions.

I officially invite everyone to visit the brand new www.blocksthegame.com. Enjoy.

<3

Comic-Con kicked off this week and 3 of Sucker Punch’s developers headed down to San Diego to hold a panel on comic book driven video games. During their presentation they showed this clip. Check it out and get pumped up!

Lawyers for the State of Arizona have filed a response to DOJ’s petition for a preliminary injunction yesterday.

In looking over the arguments raised by Arizona, there seem to be some compelling arguments on their side, particularly involving Sec.2 of SB1070, which requires local law enforcement to determine status of persons detained, who are reasonably suspicious of being in the country illegally.  There are also many bogus claims, specifically those regarding the rest of the sections in the act, and most specifically those regarding Sec. 3 (making it a crime to be in Arizona illegally).

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Only when you set out to completely eradicate fake foods from your diet do you notice how deep the food-industrial complex has crept into your routines.  Growing up, my family would rely heavily on boxed rice mixes.  So much so, in fact, that as a child I literally didn’t know how to make rice without them.  Soon, I learned how to make plain white rice, but this was a far cry in terms of flavor from Herb and Butter Flavor Rice-a-Roni.

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Check out this awesome stop motion video celebrating the upcoming revival of Capcom’s classic games on XBL and the Playstation Store.

So Jay May posted this today on his blog, and it hit home pretty hard. He has an uncanny way of relating to people through songs and his work.

“July 13, 2010
Simple.

I wish that when I was younger, I could have met my current self. We would have sat down at a coffee shop so that I could explain life to young me in terms that only we would understand. It would have saved me a lot of hardship.

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When SB 1070 passed, I began pondering ways in which it would be challenged in federal court.  I dreamed up some fairly specious arguments for an as-applied challenge with respect to the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.  But as I’m not a constitutional rights lawyer (I only try to play one on the internet), I didn’t know about the fairly substantial claim of preemption under the Supremacy Clause that could be applied in this case, which is exactly what the Department of Justice cited in its brief today, filing for a preliminary injunction against SB 1070 from taking effect.

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