metallic

More on band names

As a quick follow-up to yesterday's post on profane band names: McSweeney's has just released a book that simply lists more than 50,000 heavy metal band names. The Q's are listed here.

Still stuck for a name? There are tons of band-name generators on the Web, including this one for metal band names, with a checkbox to include non-evil words. Finally, John Roderick of The Long Winters blogged last week about selling out, and how Seattle rock bands used to purposely choose ridiculous names to appear more authentic.

'Metal Gear Solid IV' gets its own watch

Grand Theft Auto IV is a tough act to follow, to put it mildly, but that's not keeping Metal Gear Solid IV from trying--and one of its key tactics is a blitz of bundles and branded accessories that even include its own Bluetooth headset.

That makes sense, to a degree, but its marketing people might be reaching a bit with their latest offering, an MGS4 limited-edition watch. About 500 of these exclusive brushed-steel timepieces will go on sale in the U.K. market on Halloween, according to Tech Digest, for about $197.

There's nothing wrong with the watch … Read more

The 404 119: Where if we don't have a title, it's not the end of the world

Justin Yu takes a meeting, so Mark the Intern in his first week as Mark the Associate Producer takes his place. We chit chat about the lack of balls it takes to use Microsoft Surface to flirt with girls and why the iPhone actually costs more than your first born child. We also hit up some news about the life expectancy in the United States, and it looks like we're going to break out our walkers. Finally some ramblings about Iron Man 2 and restoring your male virginity through surgery. All this goodness and more found on the Interwebs. … Read more

WiiWare and Virtual Console releases for this week

Both WiiWare and the Virtual Console get a pair of additions this week. Virtual Console

City Connection (1985, NES, 500 Wii points): City Connection is one of the first "chase" games to have you running from the law. Use your arsenal of various road-weapons to throw them off track in this unique action game based on the arcade classic. Metal Slug (1996, NeoGeo, 900 Wii points): Metal Slug is the classic side-scrolling shooter where you take control of either Marco or Tarma and destroy everything in your way. Battle through a vast amount of levels as you try … Read more

Two 'Metal Gear Solid 4' PS3 bundles are arriving in June--but only one's a good deal

By most accounts, the release of Grand Theft Auto IV helped move quite a few game consoles--both Xbox 360s and PlayStation 3s--in the past few weeks. But there's another four--Metal Gear Solid 4--that's eagerly anticipated by many gamers as well. No, MGS4 isn't going to shatter sales records like GTA did, but it's safe to say that Konami's PS3 exclusive is the reason that many forward-looking gamers chose Sony's console over that of archrival Microsoft. And with the game's June 12 release date fast approaching--after a hype buildup that stretches back to at least 2005--the waiting for those faithful PlayStation fans is almost over.

But what about those gamers who still haven't taken the next-generation plunge?… Read more

DS gets a celebrity makeover

Nintendo is trying to turn an ugly duckling into a rose princess. Next week America Ferrera, the star of Ugly Betty, will be joined by Grammy winner Carrie Underwood in a campaign to promote the "Metallic Rose" edition of the handheld DS, which came out last year as part of a special package but is now being offered as a separate product.

Actress Liv Tyler will also be making an appearance in commercials for the red and black version, which also was released in 2007. It's unclear why these celebrities were chosen to promote these particular versions, … Read more

'Metal Gear Solid 4' gets its own headset

The old formula, as was evidenced once again by Tranformers mania last year, is clear: Hype the title, leak word of related merchandise, and cash in just before the release (and before people come to their senses). As gamers have been losing sleep in anticipation of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, a "rumor" of a branded headset mysteriously began floating around the blog circuit. Then, just as miraculously, it turns out to be real and destined for sales that will coincide with the game's June launch.

The Bluetooth headset is not surprisingly done in … Read more

IBM: Faster, not hotter, 32-nanometer chips coming

Chips in 2009 will run faster but not necessarily hotter. That's the gist of what IBM, along with its joint development partners such as Samsung Electronics and Toshiba, announced Monday.

The IBM alliance is using "high-k/metal gate" technology to achieve this, the same category of process technology that Intel currently uses in its 45-nanometer processors. The alliance says it is seeing performance improvements of up to 35 percent over 45nm technology at the same "operating voltage" or power levels.

This allows alliance chipmakers such as Samsung, Toshiba, and Freescale Semiconductor (formerly an arm of … Read more

Black Mountain, 'Tyrants': Free MP3 of the Day

Vancouver's Black Mountain takes dirty heavy-metal guitar stylings that would do Tony Iommi proud and combines them with hypnotic pacing and lyrics that are more along the lines of intergalactic incantations. It all adds up to an intoxicating brew--the soundtrack to an alien abduction.

Download free MP3 now!