Acclaim wants 5 gamers to sell out and change their names to Turok to promote the upcoming game. Apparently these guys will be \”ambassadors\” and \”explain the origin of his or her name to anyone who asks.\” And that\’s supposed to sell the game. These guys will get paid 500 pounds ($785 US), a game console and as many games as they can play.

Sounds like marketing was thinking a little too hard. When I hear a weird name like Turok I don\’t care about the fucking story behind it. And I\’m not gonna buy a game just cause some jackoff\’s named after it. The article\’s just full of marketing drivel and wishful thinking:

[Acclaim spokesman]Bloch described the original Turok as big and good-looking. \”You\’d be quite proud to call yourself Turok if you knew who he was,\” he said.

The firm\’s target audience ranges from teen-agers to Turok enthusiasts in their 40s. It expects that the first five Turoks – others may come later – will be socially active and may even work in the video games business.

A computer consultant in San Antonio stands up for jurors everywhere. When he received a jury duty summons for August, he prepared an invoice and charged the government his normal rate of $100 per hour, for a total of $16,800. He didn\’t receive a reply, so he sent the invoice 2 more times. Finally he got a letter ordering him to appear on the 26th for a 7 week trial. He wrote back \”If you would like to meet and discuss this, please have his honor call and schedule an appointment.\” This guy\’s my hero.

The Dude\’s House is a great Big Lebowski fan site. It has pictures, sounds, cool wallpapers, movie mistakes and trivia. Did you know \”fuck\” was used 276 times and \”man\” 144 times?

Lego Glamour Modelling. I dare you to set one as the wallpaper on your co-worker\’s computer.
[ From B3ta ]

The HisTory of Michael Jackson\’s Face. Arrrgh, that will replace the whale in my nightmare.
[ From B3ta ]

This article about using sound as a debugging tool is really interesting. Researchers at the University of Northumbria used software that mapped sound to structural elements in the Pascal programming language. For example, they used continuous tones to represent a loop, and they used meter and rhythm to represent differents parts of a program. I don\’t quite understand how it works though. I guess if you\’re listening and you hear something like a wrong note, it\’s a bug? Anyway, it seems like a useful idea.
[ From GirlHacker\’s Random Log ]

Great NYTimes article about the yuppie invasion of the annual Sturgis biker rally.

\”Call us scooter trash, but the whole point of Sturgis until not too long ago was to ride,\” Heartbreaker said. \”Sturgis didn\’t mean dragging your buffed $30,000 bike you picked out of a Harley catalog, changing clothes at a truck stop, then motoring into town crowing: `Look at me! I got a Harley! I\’m a two-wheeled cowboy riding near Deadwood, South Dakota, just like Wild Bill Hickok in the Old West!\’ \”

DVD File reviews Jackie Brown, finally coming to DVD on August 20th. It\’s a loaded 2 disc set with excellent video and audio, and includes deleted scenes, trailers, and documentaries. Surprisingly, for a guy who likes to talk so much, Tarantino didn\’t record a commentary.

And the Digital Bits reviews Pulp Fiction, also a loaded special edition. There\’s a documentary, behind-the-scenes stuff, and deleted scenes (they\’re the same ones from the old VHS release).

Sprint Airlines is offering free seats on September 11th. They have 90 flights to 14 locations that day. Pretty cool. Now if only I had somewhere to go…

Office toys. This article covers everything from rubberband guns to silly putty to flying toys. It also gives you lots of great sites to buy this stuff for cheap. Looks like I won\’t be so bored at work afterall.