Blackspace: Not what it sounds like, but still cool

Upon first hearing the title Blackspace, one is libel to think of one of three things:

1. A secret government research facility.
2. A blacksploitation Star Wars knock-off.
3. A mid-90s R & B group.

Despite how amazingly cool option 2 is, the Blackspace in question is, unfortunately, none of the above. It is, however, yet another entry in the indie game revolution happening on kickstarter.

Ever since Tim Schaeffer and Double Fine blew the doors off of crowdfunded gaming expectations, a certifiable flurry of developers have looked to the crowd to finance their development process. Pixel Foundry seeks to join the ranks of kickstarter success for their seriously-it's-not-an-R&B-group game Blackspace.

The game is something like a real-time strategy game merged with an in-game level editor. Using the exciting (and safe!) occupation of asteroid mining as a backdrop, Blackspace has you piloting a hovering-lander vehicle around spherical asteroids while building bases, fighting off waves of enemies and mining. With rockets!

I could go into some long-winded (and inelegantly overwrought, knowing me) description of the game's mechanics, but there's a great video on the kickstarter page that explains it much better than I could. Also: Why read when you watch rocket mining?

So get your wallet out an head over to Blackspace's kickstarter page and fund this bidness.

Overgrowth: Does gaming need another samurai-influenced, man-rabbit hand-to-hand combat simulator?

It seems like every year, another installment is made in the seemingly omnipresent anthropomorphism-based brawlers genre. Attempting to break into what is easily one of gaming's most over-saturated fields can be a mind-numbingly difficult task. With labels like, "copycat" and "clone" flying like shuriken, what chance does Overgrowth, the latest effort from ultra-small indie dev Wolfire, have of cracking the entrenched mold of the anthropomorphized characters with multiple classes competing in rich, physics-based hand-to-hand weapon combat in a gorgeously rendered world built from a proprietary engine genre?

Probably a pretty big one, it turns out.

What the fuck happened to these Adidas sandal things?

What are we looking at here? What's going on in the region above this text? Apparently, adidas has just completely lost it, and has produced one of the most hideous pieces of footwear in history.

CHECK IT: Ruin - An incredible post-apocalyptic animated short

Amid the seemingly unending sea of animated shorts that pop up online from time to time, none has stood out as much as Wes Ball's Ruin. Ball is an eight year veteran of Hollywood, where he has primarily stayed behind the scenes, doing graphic work for HBO and special features featurettes Well no more of that. With Ruin, Mr. Ball  has launched himself into the limelight, and we can expect to hear a lot more from him and his company, OddBall Animation.

Naturally, any news will be accompanied by many ballin' puns from yours truly.

What stands out about the short is the visceral feel of the action, an area where other animated science fiction shorts, notably the heralded Rosa, have stumbled. Any great action director imbues their work with a certain kineticism that heightens the tension immeasurably. Whereas the action in Rosa is stilted, as if the characters are floating; silkily dancing around each other in a pantomime of fighting, Ruin is an eight minute long exercise in the act of gut-wrench.

If the recent announcements that Rosa and previously Salted short Archetype will receive feature-length adaptations, surely we can expect the same for Ruin. Or at least a major directing gig for Ballin' Wes Ball, a name we'd do well to remember.

Hit the jump to watch Ruin.

Saga - Chapter 1 (Review)

Saga is a comic that came to the forefront of my attention out of a combination of pedigree and concept. When someone writes one of the best pieces of contemporary literature in recent memory as Brian K. Vaughan did with Y: The Last Man, it is required that attention be paid to whatever project said person turns to next. If that project happens to be a science fiction opus on the scale of Star Wars illustrated by the excellent Fiona Staples, that merely sweetens the pot.

Fully aware of the dangers of expectations, I plunged head first into Saga #1.

What the hell is wrong with Los Angeles?

We find out when:

Los Angeles has a special place in my heart. Unfortunately, that place is the corner of the heart reserved for scorned ex-girlfriends and particularly nasty chunks of cholesterol. I spent a year of my life there, and during that time, developed a hatred far beyond acceptable levels for a geographic region. I could wax poetic about my loathing of this abysmal place, but it would, sadly, be entirely unnecessary, as The Decemberists pretty much nailed it when they called Los Angeles "the ocean's garbled vomit on the shore."

Los Angeles, I'm yours.

Get yo' tomahawks ready. It's Assassin's Creed III.

Barely a week after the leak and subsequent reveal of the Assassin's Creed III cover art, Ubisoft has dropped the debut trailer for the third (but actually like the 17th) installment in the Assassin's Creed saga. The trailer merely confirms what was obvious after the cover art's release; that the "third" game in the series will finally eschew rooftop scrambling over Mediterranean architecture for the frosty wilderness of the American revolution.

If stabbing dudes in a supreme one-upping of the tomahawk massacre scene in The Patriot is your thing, this trailer probably looks pretty awesome.

Backstage Bar

Warning: Your vision should be at least this blurry before attempting food consumption at any McMenamins.

Architecturally speaking, Backstage Bar is easily the most jaw-dropping space in the Portland bar scene. It's immense verticality easily stiff-arms the skyline views from rooftop lounges like Departure and Noble Rot, which are probably its closest competition. The incredibly high ceiling makes for a stunning first impression, and the massive tapestries that it affords the walls make closer inspection equally rewarding.

Just don't inspect closely enough to see anything that's on the menu.

St. Jack

Portland, Oregon - 8:54 am - Monday. February 27, 2012.

As I nervously paced back and forth down SE 21st between Division and Clinton, anxiously checking my phone every two minutes to see if time had reached the 9 am unlocking of St. Jack, I began to wonder if one of the stars of South East Portland's hipster resurgence, St. Jack's Patisserie, was paying tribute to the crackheads and car boosters who roamed these very streets less than two decades ago by slowly unveiling their fresh-baked caneles and pan du chocolat behind a firmly locked door, causing my head to bubble with thoughts of kicking in that door and screaming, in my most crack-addled voice, "BITCH I NEED THAT CROISSANT!"

The Best Website I've seen in a Minute.

Dangers of Fracking is a website that is totally not what Battlestar Galactica think it is. If you like yourself some HTML 5, check this out. You won't regret it. You might also learn something that you will never, ever need to know unless you find yourself in a very bizarre action movie.

Dangers of Fracking.

Awesome Lobster Johnson Cover by some dude.

Some guy who calls himself The Silent H has put together an awesome cover for the Dark Horse Comics' latest Lobster Johnson series.

CHECK IT OUT.

PIRATES! (The new masters of quality control.)

Avast ye! This torrent of The Green Lantern was an .mov and thar be no Quicktime in these parts!

A new study has been making the rounds across the interwebs which states that the advent of copyright piracy dens the Pirate Bay and torrent clients like BitTorrent have had no effect on Hollywood's box office receipts. Unfortunately, this study has been falsely hailed as the definitive assuagement of the internet's collective guilt over illegal downloads.

The Future of Meat Creation

I came across a particularly disturbing article on Wired today.  It describes a process of growing (not raising) chickens for meat in some sort of unconscious Matrix-style apparatus.  This imedietly sounded like a project being worked on by Veridian Dynamics and another attempt at their lab grown meat blob, that turned out to taste like nothing else other than despair.  Not only am I unsure about eating something that was stimulated by electricity rater than good ol' moving around.  I am also worried about how easy we are making it for the singularity to us into a far more complicit state when it takes over.

Portland's Love Affair With Masochism

I should know better than to root for the single most-slighted small market team in an already biased league (See: Game 6 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals). And I should probably know better than to hinge my well being and sanity on the successes of a group of men who likely have growth disorders. But I don’t, which is really more of a testament to how few prospects I have at the moment, but such is life when you’re a woefully underemployed single dude trying to make it honest.

Shit the Internet needs to stop making.

Courtesy of xkcd - The best webcomic.

The internet has produced a great many things. In sparking everything from social revolutions to complete government overhauls, the vast network of people has already proven its worth ten times over. In order to get to the worthy stuff, though, one must sledge through a wasteland of content that can best be described as fucking terrible.

And you don't have to worry. Cat-related content is left off this list because of its glaringly obvious unnecessity.

A Deep and Compelling Argument That Soccer is the Greatest Sport of All Time

Are you a super-wealthy comic book fan looking for a good cause and some awesome art?

Perhaps imitating the villains that their heroes have repeatedly conquered for the better part of a century, Marvel Comics is attempting to completely destroy Gary Friedrich, the creator of Ghost Rider. They've already made millions from a character that Friedrich created, and are now trying to make him pay $17,000 in "damages" that he has brought about to the corporation.

Standing beside Friedrich are Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and The Goon creator Eric Powell. Like Friedrich, they have created characters that have gone on to be wildly successful, but unlike Friedrich, they created their characters in a time when comics publishers weren't all vile, money-grubbing emulations of their own super-villains. Dark Horse allowed their creations to remain their own and flourished because of it. 

Now Mignola and Powell are each auctioning a piece of original artwork tied to their most famous character in an attempt to raise money for Friedrich. Mignola's gorgeous Hellboy print is above, and Powell's The Goon is after the jump. 

Curren$y - "Here EP" (Review)

Okay. Best album art of the year. The rest of you can try, but yeah. Spitta's got it. No worries though. Second place still gets a a nice tote bag.

After Curren$y dropped, like, 209 albums in a two year period, one would be forgiven for thinking he might fall off. After so many verses, is it even possible that the guy had anything left in the tank? If there was any sort of upper limit to the number of lyrics a human being can feasibly construct in a lifetime, surely the New Orleans MC had to be nearing it.

As if the copious volumes of THC slowly being absorbed through his lungs have given him clairvoyance into the anxious minds of his listeners, Spitta dropped his five-track EP Here last week in order to tide them over until March's The Stoned Immaculate.

 Hit the jump for a track by track breakdown.

Star Wars: The Phantom Menace 3D - The Definitive Review

In a move that I think we can all agree is excreting the very nectar of necessity, the Star Wars saga is being rereleased, one movie at a time, with an extra dimension added for shits and giggles. The natural place to start is with Episode 1. What more could an added dimension bring to one of the most abysmal disappointments in cinemas's history?

It's Ultimate Salt's review of Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace in 3D.

Cole Hann Lunar Grand

In a lab buried 20 miles beneath the Cascade Mountains, some diabolical Nike scientists have combined the gala-attending style of a wingtip with their "Lunarlon Cushioning System" to create the Cole Hann Lunar Grand. The Lunar Grand represents exactly what you'd expect from a sportswear company's high end brand: Stylish shoes with a made-up material for the sole. It's currently only available in Cole Hann's soho showroom.

Here is an excerpt from our interview with Nike's science engineers:

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World: An Adorable Movie About the Apocalypse.

A romantic comedy with Steve Carrell and Keira Knightley?

Normally, I'd overlook my schoolboy crush on Ms. Knightley and pass on such cinematic fluff, but I'll be damned if an apocalyptic twist doesn't give this romantic comedy a spark that the genre sorely needs. If the trailer is any indication, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World looks to use an impending doomsday meteorite as a framing device for cross country romp to find a lost love, rather than the typical ohshit-there-is-like-200-dudes-trying-to-eat-my-face.


Although there may be some of that for good measure.

Carpe Sodium - Part 1: "The First 20 Minutes"

Ultimate Salt Presents: 

Carpe Sodium

An advice column by Alexander Pence

TODAY'S LESSON:

The First 20 Minutes or: The First Step Out of the Friendzone

     Confidence goes a long way. Looks, smarts, athleticism, and money are all good, but if you don't act like you have it; you basically don't.

However, there is a fine line of being tactful and tactless. Show your strengths and hide your weaknesses, because most girls make the decision about your placement in the friendzone within the first 20 minutes of meeting you. 

The most horrifying news of the day.

For anyone who has read Farenheit 451, news that the modern world has successfully created the primary human-life-ending robobeast from Ray Bradbury's masterpiece would be met with little less than abject terror. Well get your terror faces ready, because that news appears to be upon us. DARPA has released the video of the first field test of their unsettlingly named Alpha Dog.

The Bourne Legacy Teaser: More stars, more action, less point.

The poster is nice though. Digging the
horizontal bar motif from the trailer.

Throughout cinematic history, there is no end to the number of unnecessary sequels. After the wild success of his breakout gangster saga A Better Tomorrow, director John Woo was tasked by hungry studio execs with continuing the story. The problem: At the end of the movie, Chow Yun-Fat's character, the heart of the story -- played by the film's biggest star, dies. Spoilers, by the way.

Solution: He has a twin brother of course! This pathetically contrived narrative loophole is downright admirable in its idiocy. It is so patently absurd that the audience immediately accepts it as humorously ironic and moves on with the story. The film gets away with it because the idiosyncrasies of the storytelling had made it apparent that action, not story, was the film's focus.

Which is why it is so frustrating to see such The Bourne series, renowned for blending storytelling with action, fall into such painful narrative traps in order to prolong a franchise that needs no prolonging.

It turns out Jason Bourne wasn't the best. It turns out there was this other guy who was totally way better than him, but for some reason made it though three movies without being mentioned. It turns out that nothing in the first three movies mattered, because that's how much of the shit this new dude is.

His name is Kenneth. AN' HE JUST WENT ROGUE!!! DOH SHIT!

So we're rehashing the last three movies with a new guy in a crew cut punching people? WHY?

What I do like:

1. The line "Will you submit to this program?" being reused. If you're going to shit on your foundation, at least give it a call-back.
2. Tony Gilroy directing. Dude's 2 for 2 at this point. Maybe he'll pull off a trifecta.

Here's the trailer anyway. Blech. Just watch Hanna again, please.

Kanye's New Clothes

While Kanye's music career may have attended Ball So Hard University, his fashion career may have dropped out of Ball So Hard Community College. 

Despite his first attempt at fashion design being doo-doo'd upon, Kanye West is determinedly dropping his second effort at women's wear at this year's Paris Fashion Week. Concordantly, Guinness World Records officials will be on-site to confirm the record for Most Playings of "Niggas in Paris" in a Single Week.

True Crime returns, kinda. Square Enix announces "Sleeping Dogs" or: White people don't have to be in everything, it turns out.

Lost in the furor surrounding the initial wave of Grand Theft Auto clones was the fact that Luxoflex's True Crime: Streets of LA was actually a pretty decent game. It's varied gameplay and branching storyline were enough to forgive its obvious inspiration in Rockstar's opus. True Crime's unique contributions to the open-world genre may be minimal, but I will always appreciate it for its awesome brawling system, the ability to frisk pedestrians for drugs at will, and for bringing some desperately needed slow-mo dives to a sandbox style game.

Its sequel, True Crime: Streets of New York brought predictable advancements and changes to the model of its predecessor, but never cracked "noteworthy" status. The slated third game in the series, True Crime: Hong Kong was cancelled almost exactly a year ago when publisher Activision thought it wasn't up to snuff. They must have been on a significant amount of snuff to have thought that, because the game looked incredible. Square Enix obviously thought so, and copped the rights to the game a few months after its shelving.

Now, Square Enix is giving True Crime: Hong Kong a second chance under the new title Sleeping Dogs, a title originally thought to be reserved for a third Kane & Lynch game. While it's sad to see Kane & Lynch go, Sleeping Dogs' proof-of-concept short film looks promising.

Man, Joysitq got linked to like ten times above. Hit the jump for the short and a brief commentary on how racist everyone secretly is.

Why Do Girls Like Flowers?

Despite a valiant push by Christmas in recent years, Valentine's Day remains everyone's favorite made up holiday. While it lacks Christmas's genius capitalistic hook (you buy people stuff, for Jesus), Valentine's Day is particularly despicable because it uses humans' one fatal flaw against them: Love. War and hatred may seem the most damning flaws in the human condition, but there is nothing more irrational or  more dangerous than a man, driven by the blinding chemical reaction we call love, to impress the object of his affections.

Valentine's Day takes love, that drive that has ruined so many great people, and puts it to the test. How much do you love someone? You had best get the correct number of chocolates, or else you'll suffer a humiliating defeat of being unable to correctly express your love through capital. While love punishes universally and indiscriminately, the encumbrance of Saint Valentine's great test falls solely on the male gender.

Due to Valentine's Day's dubious historical precedent, the reasoning behind the male's duties in preparation for February 14th remains murky at best. Regardless, any man unfortunate enough to find himself in a relationship in a week's time will be faced with the prospect of purchasing a bundle of the most manifestly incomprehensible gift imaginable: Flowers.

Compelling Reasons Greg Oden Should Smile More

We need to talk about Greg Oden, and his trademark unsmiling disposition. Not only because its irks me to no end, but more importantly because it threatens to undermine the already tenuous suspension of disbelief required of any rational human being before said being can derive any pleasure whatsoever from watching a professional sport.

On the radar: Hawken

Mecha have entrenched themselves fairly deeply into sci-fi lore, and for good reason. Any potential future without giant robots that you can drive/do battle with isn't really a potential future worth imagining. Video games are a natural extension of anything involving giant robots, and the human-piloted aspect of mechs make them particularly susceptible to appearances in video games.

That said, video games have a fairly uneven history with giant battlesuits, with mech-based games ranging from simplistic but good to financially exclusive to just kinda meh. With Hawken, Adhesive Games have thrown their hat into the frenzied mech-combat arena, and from the looks of early gameplay, they may have a winner.

Calvin and Hobbes Art

Calvin and Hobbes is the best comic strip ever made. That might seem like a bold statement, but it's really not. It's a pretty simple fact. Opinions come in varying degrees of ferocity, but there are few who would even bother to contest that opening statement as an opinion. No other comic --hell, no other work of any kind-- has managed to so perfectly capture the wonderment and innocence of childhood and blend it so masterfully with a scathing critique of American culture. Wildly imaginative and always pushing it's own boundaries, Calvin and Hobbes is an absolute treasure.

Speaking of treasure, the above watercolor illustration for a 1989-90 calendar by Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Waterson is going up for auction in New York, where it is expected to fetch over $50,000. If everyone who has one of those incredibly tasteful bootleg Calvin bumper stickers chipped in a nickel, there would be more than enough money to hang this in the Ultimate Salt offices.

Find out some more details on the work here.

Experiments in Infusion part 2

The last time we attempted to infuse liquor we wound up with delicious peppermint vanilla martinis and horrible hangovers.

We should have learned out lesson.

Via Tribunali (Review)

You might know Via Tribunali as that pizza place across the street from Voodoo Doughnut, but it is much more than that. It is the most geologically sound replication of the eating conditions of bats available outside of an actual cave. As a feat of scientific engineering, it's astounding. Born out of a 1965 CIA research laboratory designed for testing human beings' ability to consume food in low light conditions, Via Tribunali has grown into a nationwide chain with locations in Portland, Seattle and New York. How did they achieve such success? By skimping on light bulbs.

I'll elaborate after the jump.

Awesome advertising: Shame print ad

After appearing in the escort ads section of indie newspapers, Michael Fassbender is officially in everything.

Steve McQueen's Shame is probably the best movie about someone with a made up condition to ever get snubbed by the Academy Awards. Any film that can make sex addiction, which is, again, not actually a thing, seem like legitimate drama is surely worthy of some sort of plaudits. The above ad, which is appearing in UK newspapers, capitalizes on the film's riské subject matter by shadowing Michael Fassbender's face over the escort ads. Juxtaposing sexxxy singles with with classy scarves has never been accomplished with such taste. Artfully done and thematically relevant, this is some of the best movie advertising you're likely to see.

[via Copyranter]

The Triple Nickel Pub (Review)

This dive spot is one of those places we love like our drunk selves love Crunch Wrap Supremes at 3 am, or better yet like our inner angsty tween loves some Third Eye Blind every now and then, i.e., our attendance is more of a compulsion than a choice. If we’re being totally honest here, its virtues are few and far between, but you’d be hard pressed to find a cheaper drunk, that is if getting a little sauced happens to be your thing like it is ours/mine.

I wouldn’t send anyone here for an impeccably-mixed cocktail, they may well make them mind you, but, as I’m a sucker for three dollar and fifty scent triple shots of Old Crow, I’ve no frame of reference for that stuff. I do know a thing or two about getting slizzered beyond comprehension for under ten dollars, though. You’ll not find more bang for your buck anywhere in the city. Bet. ­­

Something we can all agree on: NINJA TURTLE ACTION FIGURES.

Playmates Toys is releasing a line of 6 inch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures that harkens back to the series roots. That means no terrifying realistic renders and none of whatever this is. It means pure Saturday morning, 6 am, four-bowls-of-Reeses-Puffs bliss.

Now let me get something out of the way. I'm not your run-of-the-mill Ninja Turtles fan. I'm not that guy who rocks a Ninja Turtles hoodie to a kegger, then says something like, "Man, I fuggin' love Ninja Turtles! HAHA So cool! When the evil Splinter attacks? I fuggin' hate that crazy Splinter dude, why does he need that mask?" I'm the guy that's punching that dude in the face, demanding he apologize for blaspheming the most honorable Master Splinter by confusing him with the vile Shredder.

I had boxes, no, crates of Ninja Turtle action figures as a kid, and all I can say is that I wish any were as cool as these. The new line features a ridiculous amount of articulation points; even the fingers can be moved individually. I come from a time when you were lucky to get two shoulders and a waist that rotated, so this is blowing my mind.

Hit the jump to check out all the members of the world's most fearsome fightin' teenagers.

Alan Wake (Retromendation/ PC version "advance" Review)

It would seem that Ultimate Salt only likes to belatedly review Third Party Xbox exclusives from spring 2010. But technically, as Alan Wake is PC bound, this counts as an advanced review! Booya.

Hey guys, I don't know if you know this, but this game is a psychological action thriller. Just in case you missed it, we put it under the freaking title.

Remedy Entertainment's long-awaited follow up to their stellar two-part Max Payne saga was a long time coming. Initially announced in 2005, the game didn't see release until the spring of 2010, at which point cautious skepticism was bubbling close to the boiling point of outright disregard. What could cause such a high profile game to be delayed for so long?

The answer is about as mysterious as the events that befall the game's titular character. As it would turn out in, Alan Wake, the character, has some problems. Not standard video game problems, though. No one is trying to shoot him, no ambiguously foreign villains have a dastardly scheme that needs foiling, and no flags need be captured. Alan Wake has real problems; problems you might classify as either "grown up" or "first world," depending on your disposition.

His writing career is at a dead end due to a serious case of writer's block and his marriage is on shaky ground; two individual problems that serve to exacerbate each other. In an attempt to alleviate both, Wake and his wife Alice have sought refuge in the relaxing solitude of the Bright Falls, Washington. Things take a sinister turn after a brief encounter with a demonic presence at a local diner, (don't you hate when that happens?) and pretty soon Wake is besieged by ghastly forces of darkness, both metaphorical and literal.

Sydicate Demo Drops (Thoughts on that.)

Despite the cries of blasphemy at the thought of turning an all-time great strategy game into a balls out first person shooter, there is something undeniably appealing about Starbreeze's upcoming remake/sequel/adaptation/whatever of Syndicate. With it's gun-laden tale of futuristic corporate espionage, Starbreeze's Syndicate looks a little like Deus Ex: Human Revolution for stupid people, but add in some crazy weapons and mind-hackingly cool augmentations, along with the involvement of Starbreeze, whose Chronicles of Riddick and The Darkness were both criminally under-appreciated, and you've got a stew going.

A co-op demo drops on Xbox Live and PSN today. Hit the jump for a trailer, and later, some thoughts on the demo.

Levi's Vintage: Girding Loins since 1873

Levi's just  out-retro'd everyone. Styles may come and go, but there is an indisputable blueprint for men's jeans: The Levi's 501. The west was still an untamed frontier when Levi's dropped their classic trouser in 1890, at which point Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis had been making jeans for 17 years. Levi's design and development wing, Levi's XX has just launched the Levi's Vintage Website. It's worth checking out, especially the page dedicated to the 501, which features a comprehensive breakdown of changes to the classic fit since it's inception.

It all may seem like a little too much emphasis to put on a single article of clothing, but when you're responsible for *95% of the world's pants, you're entitled to a little self-obsession.

Hit the jump for an awesome comparison chart showing the minute changes that have slowly altered the 501 over time.

HIP HOP IS DEAD

It finally happened. Okay, to be fair, this was a long time in the making, and should come as no surprise to anyone having endured the roughly ten years of pretty abysmal output from the genre. Sure, there were flashes brilliance here and there, but the aughts also bore the artist Chingy, mind you. I knew it was terminal after Little Brother broke up, but I thought we'd have more time... I was wrong. The ailing movement took a turn for the worse after hearing this, and finally succumbed to its injuries surrounded by close friends and family this morning upon learning of the release of G.O.P. campaign tool "Hoot for Newt." I wish I were kidding. Reportedly, the genre's lasts words were, "F'real? Fuck that, I'm out this piece."

Hit the jump for the wackness fraught "joint" that killed hip hop. And before you ask, yes, these kids do hail from Florida.

Lana Del Rey - A story about last summer.

Lana Del Rey first drew my attention last summer. It could have been her gorgeous appearance, or the fact that her lead single was called "Video Games." Whatever it was that drove me to click on a non-hip hop music link, it is an impulse I am eternally grateful I indulged in.

PIFF Lineup Released - The Highlights

The Portland International Film Festival has released the list of films showing at its 35th iteration. Mixed among the typically impenetrable or lethargic independent fare are some true standouts that merit a ticket.

Hit the jump for the list:

Barena Lookbook: The most expensive way to look like a post-war Chinese peasant farmer.

Venetian clothier Barena has released it's lookbook for Spring and Summer 2012, and it's pretty clear that they are eschewing the "boat-life" aesthetic prominent in so much clothing design for what can only be dubbed "boatyard-life." But that's being a little salty; maybe it's that sea air.

The lineup here is actually quite nice. A lot of rough textures, muted colors and dangling accents definitely give off a Long March vibe, but that may just be me being subconsciously swayed by the fact that the models appear to have their feet bound.

Other potential names for the increasingly popular "peasant chic:"

     - Proletariat Chic
     - The Great Leap Fashion Forward
     - Rice Paddy Life

Hit the jump for some highlights, and check out the some extra shots at OEN.

Attention All Trill Ass N****s, Three 6 Mafia To Play Portland Friday 27 January 2012

Yes, that's right. If you weren't already tipped off by the recent rash of pharmacy robberies, Academy Award winning, American hip hop group Three 6 Mafia are, in fact, Rose City bound.

In what is sure to be Portland's most 'throwed' show in recent memory, the group that once ate so many shrimp, they got iodine poisoning (swag) is poised to soundtrack a night of syrup-laden debauchery the likes of which we haven't seen since... well, since the last time Three 6 Mafia came to town. Those of you stockpiling promethazine-codeine for a rainy day, this is your moment, provided it's not expired like our bottle. You had better hightail it to the corner store before they sell out Sprite and Jolly Ranchers though.

Tickets are available here.

Now, for your listening pleasure, we present to you, the official music video for Three 6 Mafia's 'Sippin on Some Syrup'. Enjoy.

Mondo's Planet of the Apes Posters (Now with judgment!)

For years, Mondo Tees have been producing and archiving some absolutely exquisite movie posters and tee shirts. The distinctive style of their prints has led to fame, and presumably, some form of fortune. Their latest endeavor is a series of posters for the Planet of the Apes films to celebrate their being screened at the Alamo Draft House. They teamed up with an All-Star lineup of movie websites (movies.com, Film School Rejects, io9 -technically a scifi blog but get off my back yo- Badass Digest and Collider) to debut the posters, which promptly went on sale and were devoured by the unquenchable maw of apparently wealthy Planet of the Apes fans.

I say apparently wealthy because the six poster set went for $230. The posters are undeniably awesome (with one pretty notable exception), but in all seriousness, what are you really going to do with six Planet of the Apes posters?

Ball out beyond belief is what. Can I trademark B.O.B.B. as a rap name?

Hit the jump for the collection.

A Decade Later, Nintendo tries to catch up.

A week after a Japanese tweeter noticed a suspicious-looking "Nintendo Network" logo on the box art for a game that anyone would be brave to tweet about, Nintendo confirms the existence (or future existence) of The Nintendo Network.

Those with a keen insight to the passage of time will note that a similar service has been offered by both of Nintendo's primary rivals for the better part of ten years, yet the legendary company sees fit to tout features like "Personal Accounts" and "Community Features" as things that make Nintendo's upcoming Wii U console worth purchasing. There are already plans for the network to interface with the already released 3DS handheld as well, allowing for wondrous volumes of downloadable content.

Obviously, Nintendo is pretty confident that the Network will at least turn enough of a profit to make up for any ill-will incurred any time someone sees an RSS icon.


Because, it's like... yeah. Awkward. This was there already, and, like, you took it, Nintendo. I mean, I guess you kinda put an "n" in there, which, it's like, yeah... that's you guys, that's your thing, your letter, but... couldn't you have at least gone with green or something?

[via Kotaku and Joystiq]

It's been a big day for Sci Fi breakthroughs.

First the NYPD and the DOD announce a visual metal-detector straight outta Total Recall, and now word comes through the BBC that a breakthrough has been made in full three dimensional invisibility.

I'm all teched out after paraphrasing that metal-detector article earlier. I'll let the links do the talking.

[Header via Deus Ex: Human Revolution - hopefully real life cloaking has a longer battery life]

Spirit of 77 (review)

The Portland Trail Blazers last won an NBA Championship in 1977.

Interestingly enough, 1977 was also the last time anyone wanted to go to a sports bar. There is something intrinsically repulsive about a building full of people placing the well-being of their mental state in the hands of large men playing childrens' games, blindly glued to the disgusting Americana of an endless array of television sets. The Spirit of 77 aims to change all that. And for the most part, they're largely successful thanks to some incredible design work and a splash of Fooseball.

Sad News: The Goon movie is no more. (Update)

Despite including the above scene, the cinematic adaptation of Eric Powell's AMAZINGLY GOOD (seriously) comic book series, The Goon, is no more. (UPDATE: PSYCHE!)According to Paul Giamatti, who was slated to play the Goon's smart-assed, blank-eyed sidekick Frankie, the production ran out of money. Sad news, but at least the comics are still there. Check them out at Dark Horse Digital.

Hit the jump for the awesome promotional trailer that was put together to sell The Goon on investors.

One step closer to X-Ray glasses

Perverts everywhere rejoice.

So as it turns out, New York has a wee bit of a gun problem. Despite having some of the strictest firearms restrictions in the Republic, New York has been unable to curb gun crime with any satisfying results. The New York Police Department's current method of dealing with the overwhelming handgun population are  random (read: of black dudes) pat down searches. While this technique managed to procure over 800 guns, 88% of the searches performed came up with nothing. The NYPD wants better results, and if they can get those without all that pesky "movement" required when frisking someone, all the better.

Enter science!

Jean Dujardin in GQ

Jean Dujardin. Remember that name. It'll be important to know in the coming years. You could be forgiven for mistakenly assuming that Dujardin's name just recently became relevant thanks to his Oscar-nominated performance as a silent film star faced with the dawn of the talkies this year's The Artist. His turn in the silent film has Hollywood buzzing, and his nomination is just one of the film's ten.

Of course, Dujardin's name has been buzzed about for considerably longer if you ask anyone who has seen the brilliantly funny (and devilishly stylish) pair of French spy spoofs OSS 117 - Cairo: Nest of Spies and OSS 117 - Lost in Rio, in which Dujardin and Michel Hazanavicius (up for best director with The Artist) manage to transcend the spy spoof and elevate it from the shlock that Austin Powers turned into, all while predating the vainglorious misogyny of FX's Archer.

Basically, Dujardin has been killing the game for a minute.

And, as anyone who's seen Dujardin in anything will attest, he looks damn good in a suit. GQ was wise enough to recognize this and has an excellent photoshoot of Dujardin rocking plaid suits like he intends to kill the game then hunt down its family.

Hit the jump for the photos.

Ultimate Salt Presents: The Science of Hipsterdom

A$AP ROCKY'S 'WASSUP' VIDEO PREMIERE

Harlem up and comer A$AP Rocky has teamed up with Global Editor Andy Capper of VICE to produce the video for Rocky’s oblique condemnation of materialist philosophy, ‘Wassup’. Those who can’t be bothered to listen to lyrics, i.e., simpletons like Trent Fitzgerald at Complex magazine, will woefully misinterpret Rocky’s lament against the trappings of material wealth as just another vapid celebration of the very things the song decries, further bolstering my theory that most people in the world are retarded, but I digress. Are we witnessing the birth of a fame-eschewing paradigm shift in hip-hop music!? Probably not. But the video’s still well worth a look.

Hit the jump for the Official Video.

Underwolrd: Generic Subtitle (Review)

Pictured: Kate Beckinsale upon being informed she was contractually obligated to do another one of these.

The Underworld series is one of those rare film franchises that is comprised entirely of terrible films, yet is somehow still in existence. Born out of a post-Matrix desire to see attractive people fly around in patent leather while dual wielding pistols, it has inexplicably clung to life as if it had the willpower and tensile strength of its protagonist's apparel.

It's similarities to the abysmal Resident Evil films are staggering; only it's continued presence is infinitely more baffling, as there was no precedent set by an existing intellectual property. I've even made a nice graph charting their similarities:

Regardless of it's quality or necessity, Underworld - Awakening is extant. So get ready for another round of vinyl jumpsuits, pistols akimbo and blue filters; it's time to review this piece.