I got an email about this, which took me to this link ...

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemupdates/default.htm

Here is the text ...

Updated August 5, 2009

One of the amazing things about the Xbox LIVE experience is that it’s always getting better. The upcoming August 11, 2009 Xbox LIVE Update truly cranks it up a notch – with features that improve your entertainment experience and give you new ways to express your individuality and connect with friends. With this update, you can download full Xbox 360® games and play them without a disc, and you and your friends will be able to party watch movies online through Netflix! Dress up your avatar to impress with premium props and branded apparel from fashion labels. And this update allows every piece of game content on Marketplace to be rated, so add your personal ratings and see what others think is cool. But that’s just the beginning. Check out all of the new features of the Xbox LIVE Update below.

Games on Demand
Enjoy the convenience of finding and buying new games right from the comfort of your own living room.  Download a wide selection of full Xbox 360 games over Xbox LIVE. Games on Demand will be available for purchase on Xbox LIVE starting August 11 as part of the Xbox LIVE Update. You will be able to browse and purchase games through the Xbox LIVE Marketplace on the Web starting August 13. 

• Shop- Games on Demand are found in the Game Marketplace and include a large library of favorite titles right from the start.  More titles are added every Tuesday, so check back whenever you’re in the mood for a great new game. 
• Purchase - Purchase full games using Microsoft points or a credit card.  Games are downloaded directly to your console (hard drive required), and your purchase history is stored by Xbox LIVE, meaning you can delete games and re-download them again if you run out of space.
• Playing and Sharing -    As with other LIVE content, your game license is linked to your Xbox LIVE account.  Download your purchased games to any console you are logged into with your Gamertag, and anyone else can play on the console that your game was originally downloaded to.  No physical disc is required to play these games!
• Find Manuals - Game manuals can be viewed, downloaded, or printed from Xbox.com. Just locate your game in Web Marketplace and select “See Game Manual”.

 

Avatars
Avatars have seen lots of love!  Check out the new Marketplace and Avatar Props. The Avatar Marketplace will be available on Xbox LIVE starting August 11 as part of the Xbox LIVE Update. You will be able to browse and purchase Avatar apparel through the Xbox LIVE Marketplace on the Web starting August 13.

• Avatar Props - Equip your avatar with animated items they can interact with and carry around. 
• Avatar Marketplace - Reflect your sense of style with the new Avatar Marketplace.  Download and purchase premium items, including branded apparel from your favorite fashion labels and Xbox 360 games.

Netflix*
Now you can watch movies with your friends and find new movies to add to your Instant Queue without leaving your seat. 

• Party Watch - Catch a show with your friends!  Bring your party into Netflix and watch a movie or TV show together.  (Feature available with supported titles.)
• Find Content Faster - Browse through New Releases and other genre lists based on the types of shows you’ve previously watched, all from the comfort of your couch.
• Improved Playback Experience - Improvements have been made to ensure a better experience when adapting to changing network conditions.
• Improved Presence - Richer information is now displayed in the Friends channel and in the Guide showing what you and your friends are watching.

 

Parties**
Everyone loves to Party!  Check out the new and improved party reconnections and streamlined party invites.

• Party Reconnections - If a user is disconnected from a party inadvertently, they will be automatically reconnected to the party without any user interaction.
• Streamlined Party Invites - Invites are now just a click away!  Never again will you have to navigate through multiple screens to get all your friends together.

Account Management
Been an Xbox LIVE member for a while?  Check out some of the new features we've added just for you.

• Gold Member Veterans - Been here long?  Show it off!  Anyone looking at your gamer card will now know how long you’ve been an Xbox LIVE Gold member.  And who knows, there might be other perks for you, too.  Thanks for sticking around!
• Subscription Notification - If your Xbox LIVE subscription is about to run out, you will now be notified when you sign into Xbox LIVE.  No more surprises the next time you hop in to frag your friends.
• Fixing Invalid WLID's - If the Windows Live ID you provided has expired, you will now be prompted to update it the next time you sign into Xbox LIVE.  

Account Recovery
Many changes have gone into the account recovery process to speed it up and to increase reliability. 

Video Display Options
Various improvements have been made to make it easier for you to see your game in the highest resolution possible when using an HDMI connection.

• Display Discovery - Override audio and/or video formats independent of the display's capabilities.
• How It Works - By default, the console uses the information provided by the display (via its EDID) to determine the audio and video capabilities of the device. However, often the data is invalid or malformed, hence compatibility issues are encountered. When disabling display discovery, the EDID of the display is ignored, thereby enabling the audio and video settings to be overridden with the desired format regardless of display support.
• Who Should Use It? - The Display Discovery feature is available for DVI and HDMI connections in the Display settings section of System Settings in the dashboard. Please note that Display Discovery should only be disabled if audio and/or video related compatibility issues are encountered, otherwise, the output quality may be compromised.
• Monitor Support - Additional monitor resolutions are now available for HDMI connections.

User Ratings
User ratings help you find content that other people think is awesome! 

• How It Works - Every piece of game content on Marketplace can now be rated using a 5-star system.  Just open up the details on what you want to rate and choose the Rate button.  Each time you press the Rate button, you add one star to your personal rating.
• Sort by Ratings - Find great games, demos, and more that you might have missed out on.  Just visit Browse All in the Game Marketplace and click on “Top Rated” to see what everyone’s been talking about.

 

UI Improvements
Some parts of the dashboard have been slightly re-organized to make it easier to find the things you’re looking for.

• Indie Games - We listened to our community and have decided to rename Xbox LIVE Community Games to Xbox LIVE Indie Games. This new name better represents the independent spirit of these titles.  User ratings are also available for Indie Games, allowing you to share your rating for a game and use ratings from others to find great new games.
• Achievement Browser - Launch a game directly from the Achievement browser making it even easier for you to max out your Gamerscore.
• Achievement Tracking - A new All Games view inside the Profile panel includes a summary of Achievements earned across all the games played, and shows off all your completed games.
• Achievements - Check out the changes to the Achievement browser while playing a game.  It’s now much easier to read through all the achievements so you can rack up that Gamerscore.
• Streamlined Navigation - New entry points in the Dashboard for Active Downloads, Redeem Code, Auto Sign-In (via Profile), Create Profile, and Recover Gamertag are included, so that these features are easier to find.
• Voice Messages - When recording a voice message, a warning is now displayed if no audio is detected so you don’t accidentally send blank messages to your friends.
   

Console Settings
We’ve reorganized the Console Settings menu with fewer, more intuitive categories.

• Memory - Time stamps now appear in the Memory Area.  This is particularly handy when managing saved games. 
• Friends List Sorting - It’s now much easier to find your friends!  Sort your friends list by Activity, Gamertag, or Online Status (default).  Just press the Y button while you’re viewing the friends list in the Guide to change the sorting order.

New Experiences Coming
And we have new experiences coming all the time.  This fall, Xbox LIVE will see the addition of the following new features as well:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Last.fm
• Zune Video

Stay connected to Xbox LIVE to ensure you are getting the best gaming and entertainment experience.  Xbox LIVE is where games, movies and friends connect.  Aside from all of the great additions mentioned above, you’ll find free game demos so you can try before you buy, and tons of free videos, trailers and more.  Plus you’ll have access to Game Add-ons like new songs and adventures to extend the life of your favorite games.  What’s more, thousands of downloadable HD movies and TV episodes are available with the press of a button.  Connect to Xbox LIVE today. It's free.

I think the Facebook and Last.fm additions will be very cool. I also love that I will be able to download the complete versions of newer games that I have never bought.

This is pretty significant. M.I.A.'s single, "Paper Planes", has reached #5 in Billboard's Hot 100 chart, which takes into account sales, radio airplay, downloads, etc., of singles. The song has been steadily rising (due to the "Pineapple Express" trailer, among many other reasons), but what is amazing is that the album, "Kala", which the song is on has been out for almost a year.

 

"Kala" has re-entered the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, which is even more impressive in my opinion. I am glad people are buying the album, too. "Paper Planes" is a great song, but people should listen to "Bamboo Banga" and "20 Dollar", too.

If you want to continue the rise of the album and the song, you can buy Kala at the following links ...

Buy Kala on Amazon's MP3 Downloads site (very easy, better quality and cheaper than iTunes)

Buy Kala on iTunes

Buy Paper Planes on Amazon's MP3 Downloads site

Buy Bamboo Banga on Amazon's MP3 Downloads site

Buy 20 Dollar on Amazon's MP3 Downloads site

Here are the three songs, again, if you want to listen to them ...

 

In other news, I started searching for all of my favorite video games on YouTube today. I wanted to go as far back as the days of a Texas Instruments keyboard/CPU that I would hook up to the back of an old TV to play games like "Hangman" and "Parsec". I found a video for Parsec, but I couldn't find a video for Hangman. The great thing about Hangman is that its theme song was the same theme song as Alfred Hitchcock Presents (the old black and white TV show ... there was an 80s version, too).

Here is the playlist (it is short right now, and I am only including games that I actually played ... I only solved a handful of them) ...

I have another playlist that I have posted before of M.I.A.'s concert at the Hogg Auditorium at the University of Texas in Austin, TX on November 3, 2007 ...

Here is another playlist I am going to be working on to provide an easy way to see all of M.I.A.'s videos ...

Another item I have been reading about is Yahoo!'s new "Fire Eagle" (Firefox's cousin?), which allows advertisers to know where you are. It kind of reminds me of the advertising in "Minority Report" ...

It sounds a little scary and Big Brother-ish, but I think something really cool will come out of it, and I think Google will take it and make it into something a lot better. I just want to be able to play with it on my Blackberry Pearl 8110. ;)

I felt this was blog-worthy. When I bought my XBOX 360, the one doubt that persisted in my head about the purchase was that Final Fantasy XIII would come out one day, and that it would only be available for the PS3. Well, all my doubts are gone now. I am so happy that I bought an XBOX 360 now because not only will I get to play FFXIII on it when the game is released, but I also got to play Lost Odyssey on it. Lost Odyssey has turned out to be just as good or better than any Final Fantasy game I have ever played.

I was able to purchase additional content for Lost Odyssey recently (it's called the DLC, and it is on XBOX's marketplace), and it made the game even better. I love the idea of solving a game, leveling up your characters as far as they will go, finding every weapon, spell, and treasure that you can find, and thinking that there is nothing else to do. Then, you are able to purchase a whole new world for the game. It's pretty cool. I hope XBOX gets more of these. It would be nice if games could continually be updated with new content.

Here is the article about this ...

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2008/07/14/final-fantasy-xiii-coming-to-xbox-360-in-simultaneous-launch

Here is the latest trailer for Final Fantasy XIII (which is not exclusive to Sony anymore) ...

This news, along with the fact that Resident Evil 5 will be released in the next year, is great for people who own the XBOX 360.

Candy posted about this SocialVibe widget you put on your blog, MySpace, etc. I thought I would play around with it. You get to choose which cause you want to support, and the only one that I liked was the One Laptop Per Child program because I love the idea of technology and communication tools being introduced into an area where people don't know anything about email or "surfing the web". I think the idea behind the OLPC program is pretty cool, but I know there have been issues with the program, which you can read about on Wikipedia or just by doing a Google search for "OLPC". I think the program will improve over time, though. I wish SocialVibe would let you choose any charity you wanted such as the Alzheimer's Association. I like to donate money to that charity sometimes because my grandmother died from Alzheimer's, and it is not a nice way to go.

Here is what the SocialVibe widget looks like ...

You also choose the sponsor that appears in your widget. I chose XBOX since I actually have an XBOX 360 and play it quite often. I think you earn points whenever someone views the webpage or blog entry or profile page that contains your SocialVibe widget. I think those points are later converted into money for the charity somehow so that's cool. I'll have to monitor it to figure out how it works because I am still new to it.

In other news, Tricky has a new album coming out called Knowle West Boy. There is an article about it here ...

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/want-a-free-pou.html

I have always liked Tricky's music. I even like his acting in The Fifth Element. I like it when he does remixes of others' songs, such as Garbage or Bjork, too. Here is one of his songs, "For Real", that I like ...

In other news still ... I think there are a lot of people out who do not have anti-virus and anti-spyware protection on their computers. One of the biggest challenges with connecting the whole world with networks, broadband internet connections, etc., is that there are going to be tons of people with unprotected computers. Here is a website that will test your computer for viruses, spyware, etc., for free ...

http://housecall.trendmicro.com

Here is a free anti-virus program ...

http://free.grisoft.com (I would think it's better than nothing).

You may want to read about it here before you download it, though. (that link will take you to an article on LifeHacker, which is a great website.)

Other programs I like are the free versions of Spyware Doctor and Lavasoft's Ad-Aware. You can also download Microsoft's Windows Defender for free.

Once you download any of these programs, you should always turn on some sort of auto-update feature to make sure you are using the latest version of the program. If there is no auto-update feature, then you can usually go somewhere like "Tools" or "About" within the program to find an update option.

Sometimes, these programs are going to scan your computer and tell you that there are "cookies" on your system, but "cookies" are not that bad. An example of a cookie is when I go to TVGuide.com, and I customize the channel setup to reflect Time Warner Cable in Austin, TX. Well, that is a cookie, but I don't want to remove it because I don't want to have to setup the channels each time I go to that site. Therefore, don't freak out if a program tells you there are tons of cookies on your computer after a scan.

I like to go to My Computer, right-click on the main hard drive (in my case, it is C:), and choose Disk Cleanup to see what unnecessary items are in my hard drive (especially in the "temp" folder) ...

I also like to go to My Computer, and then choose the Add/Remove programs option to see if there any unnecessary programs installed on my computer. Be careful that you don't delete something just because you don't recognize the name, though. If you are unsure about a program, you can always do a Google search on it to see what it is. A lot of the time, it is a vital program that came with your computer, and you should not delete it.

Speaking of Anti-Virus software, I like to use McAfee for everything, but it does cost money. It's nice to be able to install the McAfee programs on more than one computer, though. I have let a lot of my friends download my McAfee programs onto their computers because they did not have any anti-virus software already installed or they had some awful program like Norton installed, which I hate.

Another way to keep your computer (and your money) safe is to be aware of phishing scams. Banks and credit unions will never ask you for your information through email or by phone unless you initiated the conversation. However, if you get an email from a bank such as Chase (which I have gotten), and it is asking you to verify your account number, SSN, etc., then you need to mark it as SPAM, delete it, report it as phishing, etc.

Gmail has a really cool option that allows you to report a message as phishing. Here is screen cap (or capture) of it ...

The email in that picture is definitely spam, but it is not a phishing email. Phishing emails usually come from banks, PayPal, etc. They pretend to be from the real company, but they are really from crooks who are good at disguising the information in an email. The cool thing  about Gmail is that the more people who use it, the safer it gets because if one person marks a message as phishing and/or spam, then Gmail is going to go ahead and mark that message as spam for all the other users who receive it. That's why I wish everyone would use Gmail. To me, it really is the best email provider out there.

Here is a website from a good credit union in Texas that will tell you all about scams that relate to phishing, cashier's check fraud, Ebay fraud, Craigslist fraud, lottery fraud, etc. ...

https://www.rbfcu.org/NBO/Jsp/Reference/OnlineSecurity.jsp

You can also try these websites ...

http://www.fakechecks.org
http://www.ckfraud.org

 

 

If there is anyone out there who likes to chat on XBOX Live or knows some cool multiplayer game to play (that maybe I can just download on XBOX Live), let me know. I am markaus77 on XBOX Live, and I don't know that much about it. I will be playing GTA 4 for the next couple of months or however long it takes me to complete all the missions. I know there are some multiplayer games you can play within GTA 4, though.

I just figured out how to send pictures, music, and video from my PC to the XBOX 360 to my TV using a wireless router, and I think it is awesome. I don't have that much of a need for it, but the technology is still cool.

Now, if you could watch the "Watch Instantly" Netflix movies on your regular TV using the XBOX 360 and a wireless connection ... well, that would just be awesome!

http://live.xbox.com/member/Markaus77

Here's a battle scene from the English version of Lost Odyssey that will be available to purchase in one week, I think. This scene makes it look even more like a Final Fantasy game, and it looks like you can really do a lot of different stuff during battles so that will be cool. I got this video form Gametrailers.com.

Lost Odyssey Battle Scene

I was watching videos about video games on GameTrailers.com today, and I realized that there is already a Final Fantasy XIII (13), and that it is only going to be available on Playstation 3 (PS3). That is really, really sad since I bought an XBOX 360 (however, deep down I knew this would happen).

Well, GameTrailers.com had many videos that are part of a Final Fantasy retrospective. I watched some of them, especially the one about Final Fantasy II (which was part 4 in Japan), and I now know that the the genius creator of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, has made a game for the XBOX 360 called "Lost Odyssey". The composer behind the best game soundtrack ever, Nobuo Uematsu (who composed the Final Fantasy II score) composed the music for Lost Odyssey, too. Another person who helped create Lost Odyssey is Hideo Minaba, who has worked a lot on the Final Fantasy games, too. Sakaguchi, Uematsu, and Minaba are all part of the company, Mistwalker, which works with Microsoft. They were part of the company, SQUARE (which is now Square Enix), which put out all of the Final Fantasy games.

I've watched a trailer for Lost Odyssey, and it looks really good. It definitely has aspects of Final Fantasy in it. I wonder if it will be better than Final Fantasy XIII. It's kind of weird how PS3 has FFXIII and XBOX 360 has Lost Odyssey. It seems like the two games are symbolic of the competition between the two consoles.

It's very stupid for games to be exclusive to one console. I am sure FFXIII will be on XBOX 360 one day, and I bet Lost Odyssey will be on PS3 one day. For the meantime I will buy Lost Odyssey, though, which comes out on 2-12-08. I don't know when FFXIII will come out, but I am sure it will be in 2008.

Here is a preview of Lost Odyssey on YouTube, but you should go to video websites like GamerTrailers.com or IGN if you want to see good quality trailers of games. The official page for the video game usually has good videos, too.

Lost Odyssey

Trailer for Final Fantasy XIII

In other news there is a Highlander game for the XBOX 360. I was worried about not really liking the XBOX 360, but I just haven't found the right game, yet. If there is going to be a Highlander game and this "Lost Odyssey" game, then I am going to be doing pretty well. There will be a Resident Evil 5 game for the XBOX 360 one day, too. However, I think there is going to be some controversy around the release of that game.

Here is an article about Resident Evil 5 and racism. The point that you were killing Spanish people in Resident Evil 4 and no one cared is a valid point; but I can understand why people are worried about Resident Evil 5, too. It's a white man who runs around killing Africans (of course, they have become the "undead" so they are not really human anymore). The graphics look amazing, but the game may never be released if it is deemed too controversial, and I can understand the controversy. It will be interesting to see what happens with this game.

Well, I have some money from Christmas now to buy a video game system. I want to either get an XBOX 360 or a PS3. I have no idea which one to get, but if I had to choose right now, I would get an XBOX 360 because of the game, Bioshock, which came out a while back. I actually posted 2 videos of a walk-through of this game a while back on YouTube, and the videos got tons of views and comments because everyone thought the game looked really cool. The videos were from someone who works for the IGN website, I think. My account got suspended at YouTube, though, so I don't have the videos up on YouTube anymore (I have a new YouTube account now).

Bioshock is not available on the PS3. It is available for the PC, but my video card is not good, and it can't be switched out because my DELL is not set up for that (Damn!). Here is a video of Bioshock ...

Another game I would like to play is Halo 3 since it got so much buzz this year, and TIME magazine called it the game of the year in their recent Top 10 issue. They also included Bioshock in that list.

Oblivion, the Elder Scrolls IV (I think that is the right name), is another game that would probably be pretty cool on the XBOX 360. I think it is available for PS3, too, though.

Assassin's Creed (update: this game is on XBOX 360, too, so that is great!) is a game on the PS3 that looks really great, but it is probably the only game for the PS3 that looks good to me. There is an older game called Darkness that is on the PS3, but it is available on the XBOX, too.

A lot of people say "Oh, you have to get the PS3 because it comes with Blu-ray", which they seem to think is the future of DVD. However, I like to watch just regular DVDs. I don't think I am even going to notice a difference between normal DVD and Blu-ray DVD on my TVs. I don't have any large, flat-screen TVs. I have the older kind, but the picture still looks really good. That will be a purchase that I make much later in the year or even next year (I mean 2009 since I already feel like we are in 2008). I think the flat-screen TVs are still way too expensive.

The XBOX 360 has HD DVD, which is the DVD format that will compete with Blu-ray. A lot of people I talk to seem to think that Blu-ray will win out in the end, but I don't know how they know this. There may not be a winner, but there probably will be. VHS won out over Betamax a long time ago so there probably isn't room for HD DVD and Blu-ray.

All this thinking about video game systems and what games they offer made me think of my favorite video games of all time. Here are some of my favorite games ...

Final Fantasy II (I think this was part 4 in Japan)

Final Fantasy II in the U.S. was an amazing role-playing game that came out with the SNES (Super Nintendo). There was a commercial for it in the early 90s where a kid played it throughout all four seasons of the year, never leaving his room. That is an accurate description because I played it for hours and hours, which you must do with any Final Fantasy game to increase in level. The wonderful thing about the Final Fantasy games has always been the ability to get stronger by fighting more monsters. You also get more money to buy better weapons in the shops, and you can get secret items that are dropped by your enemies after a long time of fighting. You can learn new spells and abilites to use on your enemies, and you usually travel through lush landscapes full of mountains, caves, castles, etc.

Another wonderful thing about the Final Fantasy games is the music. My favorite music of Final Fantasy II is the one played by Edward on his harp (I guess it is actually called a "lute") when he is playing a song for his recently deceased love, Anna. There is actually a video of someone playing this song on the piano on YouTube. People are so devoted to these games. It's funny.

Here is a good scene from Final Fantasy II that shows the simple graphics the early 90s offered ...

Another game I liked on SNES was Soul Blazer. For some reason I really love games where you help rebuild cities. Act Raiser (which I just learned was made by the same company) is another example of this kind of game, but Soul Blazer had much better graphics. Here is a video of Soul Blazer ...

Zelda was another great game on SNES, but I am not going to post that here because everyone knows about the Zelda games. Well, here is a link if you need it.

I tried to play games on the PC (I didn't have a PC until 1995, I think, and it was my parents', not mine) like Sim City 2000. They did not always run as smoothly as console games, though. Here is Sim City 2000 ...

Sim City 3000 was better, and I had a better PC to run it on ...

I always turned disasters off in my Sim City games. I didn't want to have to deal with them.

I waited a long time before getting a PS2. It was a good thing because the price dropped down a lot (I wish I could wait now, but I am not that patient). One of the first games I got for the PS2 was Final Fantasy X. I hated it at first for some reason and did not want to play it. However, about a year ago, after talking with a co-worker about it, I started playing it again and realized it was just as great as that old Final Fantasy game that I had played more than a decade earlier. Here is Final Fantasy X on PS2 ...

Enter the Matrix was another game I bought right away when I got the PS2. I loved the Matrix movies, and the ability to do slow motion in the game was the coolest thing ever! Here is a clip of it ...

Another great game for the PS2 is Siren (sometimes called "Forbidden Siren"). As weird as it may sound, I just can't get enough of the post-apocalyptic zombie type games, such as the Resident Evil franchise. The amazing thing about Siren is that you can tap into the perspective of the zombies (you can see through their eyes so that you know if they can see you or not). Siren is an example of a "stealth" game, which I am not good at. In stealth games you do not always have a weapon or spell handy, and there is no way to increase your health if you get attacked. Here is a very low-quality video that I took with my cell phone a long time ago of a scene from Siren (I had this video on my old YouTube account. I decided to upload it to my current YouTube account).

I later got one of the best games ever for the PS2, God of War. The graphics of this game were great, and the theme of Greek mythology was pretty cool, too. Here is a sort of tribute video to the game ...

I received Resident Evil 4 (PS2) and Sim City 4 (PC) for Christmas of 2005 (I think that is right. If not, then it was Christmas of 2006). Sim City 4 is not bad, but Resident Evil 4 became my favorite game ever. It was like being in the middle of a great horror movie. I love the first two Resident Evil movies, too (the third one is in my Netflix queue).

Here is a clip of Resident Evil 4 ...

Final Fantasy XII and God of War 2 are the most recent games that came out on the PS2 that I purchased.

Final Fantasy XII

God of War 2

So that is a summary that shows all of the games I have really enjoyed. Now, I just have to decide between the XBOX and the PS3. I am worried that a new Final Fantasy or a new God of War is going to come out on PS3, and I will have the XBOX 360. However, I don't want to get the PS3 right now because there are games on the XBOX 360 that I want to play. Any advice from gamers out there?

The other dilemma is that I need a new PC with a much better video card if I am ever going to be able to play a game like Sim City: Societies ...

Well, really those two things have nothing in common, except for the fact that they are both released in America on August 21, 2007! Woohoo! Actually, I don't have an XBOX 360 so I don't think I will be able to play BioShock(a game that is supposedly based on an Ayn Rand Utopia gone horribly wrong) when it is released.

However, a trailer for BioShock was one of the first videos I uploaded to YouTube. It wasn't my video. I think I got it off of a site like IGN. I had to divide it up and upload it as two videos because it was so long. It's gotten several views so maybe by talking about BioShock here, I will be able to get some exposure for M.I.A.'s new album, Kala.

Here are the BioShock videos ...

Here is one of the most popular songs from M.I.A.'s Kala album, called "Paper Planes" ...

You can download it here.

Here are some M.I.A. remixes I just found recently on Missing Toof ...