If you don't know exactly what goes on during Hanukkah, this series of videos will set you straight. Hanukkah is the most recognized Jewish holiday, right around Christmastime, and Chaim from Maoz Israel is going to show you some traditional customs that are performed during t ...more
In our media-enriched world, past and present, SCRABBLE has made a name for itself, whether deliberately, subconsciously, or influentially. You may have a read a book that had the popular word game within a chapter, watched a movie that showed your favorite characters bringing ...more
Want to know how to perform Dru Hill's "5 Hill" on your piano or keyboard? Learn how with this free video piano lesson, which presents a complete breakdown of the song and its chords. While this tutorial is best suited for intermediate players, pianists of all skill levels can ...more
Japanese people are into many things Americans find weird—like YouTube's beloved canine-hosted cooking show or Daito Manabe's light up LED grills or even more insane, a vending machine that distributes live crabs. In light of these cultural oddities, the Japanese phenomenon of ...more
For as long as I've loved SCRABBLE, I can't believe I've never come across this before. "CRAZIEST" - A short story by Liz Dubelman about words and numbers as a religion (think Pi), about SCRABBLE being the oracle, about her quest for the "triple-triple". This spoke words to m ...more
Dead Island (PC, PS3, 360) had the worst launch of any game in recent memory. The wrong version of the game was released on PC, matchmaking was down for three days on PC, saves were deleted without notice making people start from scratch, and the Feminist Whore (a file found d ...more
At one point or another you'be probably been in a relationship that resembles that which Roberta Flack sings about in "Killing Me Softly With His Words." The girl is madly in love with the guy but he's kind of, well, a douchebag who hurts her repeatedly. But she still hangs on ...more
Tune into these tuts and learn any of the following Taylor Swift hits. I will teach you easy to follow steps that will have you playing in no time! Have taught 1000's of students just like yourself. Go to my site and read what they have to say! Also check out: http://www.yout ...more
I am the sort of man whom game companies fall all over themselves to seduce. I'm sweaty, pale, awkward, and spend too much money on video games. There are many of us, especially among XBox 360 owners. We are the most stereotypically "gamer" group of console owners. The XBox 36 ...more
This isn't your ordinary Scrabble fiend, but relax... Scrabble was not the reason behind the death of this Pennsylvania woman's baby. But nonetheless, it's a horrible story of parents who'd rather neglect their own flesh and blood, rather than their pets. "A western Pennsylva ...more
Wow, this story, written by Becky, is riveting. I know we've got some StarCraft 2 fans in here. I'm glad that Eve seems really stoked to be playing StarCraft 2, and I think a lot of the grief she's getting is from jealous players who are mad that they didn't get selected for a ...more
Hey Everybody, This past weekend marked the opening of the big Hollywood Blockbuster, "The A-Team." This remake of the old television series is fun and exciting film that hits right on the nose, when it comes to snappy writing. Written by Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin Aces) the ...more
Learn how to play the sweet song Drown in My own Tears by Ray Charles in Minutes! 1. The intro starts with the G# chord until the first line of the verse. 2. The next tab is the G# G#7 F# and G#; on the line after the lyric "my eyes". 3. The second tab of the second line: G# F ...more
Learn how to play "Underneath Your Clothes" by Shakira, an acoustic guitar tutorial. Follow along with this demonstration, tabs and lyrics here: Standard Tuning: Capo On 1st Fret Em Bm You’re a song C D Written by the hands of God Em Bm Don’t get me wrong cause C D This migh ...more
I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for so many reasons. For its fantastical sense of adventure, set against the real world action and tragedy of the Jews in Europe during World War Two. I loved the opening chapters of Josef in Prague – a city I spent several m ...more
Everybody loves Oprah Winfrey. Maybe it's because of her philanthropy. Maybe it's her onscreen personality. Maybe it's the fact that it was a rags to riches story. Or maybe it's because she likes SCRABBLE... The iPad SCRABBLE App by Electronic Arts had made it onto Oprah's Ul ...more
If you loved the movie Toy Story 3, then you'll have a good time playing the game as well. Aside from all the missions and objectives you have to complete, you can also unlock some easy achievements as well. In this tutorial, you'll find out how to get the Space Ranger Elite a ...more
Like a great acting performance, making a really good game is all about choices. While creating or playing a game, those involved have to constantly make small choices that will affect the outcome, either positively or negatively. And the only thing worse than choosing wrongly ...more
Wedding themes are no rarity, but a SCRABBLE wedding? I never would have guessed, until I came across "10 Ways to Incorporate Scrabble Into Your Wedding" at CasaSugar. Now, I'm one of the biggest SCRABBLE nerds out there, but I could never see myself getting hitched amongst SC ...more
For this week's review round-up, we bring you two games from opposite sides of the indie world. One is a free online hybrid shooter/platformer combining elements of Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft. The other involves driving jeeps around and shooting things as fast as possible. ...more
I love role-playing games. They tell great stories, require intense strategy, and make minimal demands of my tyrannosaurus-like hand-eye coordination. The idea of an RPG experience, at least on paper, is to allow users to play the role of a character. However, real people do n ...more
First off, let's explain the story that inspired the phot I'm using for the post. Friday night, restaurant gig at Vallartas Mexican Restaurant in Lutz/Land O' Lakes, and I was making balloons for all the children throughout the evening. As I'm about halfway through my shift, I ...more
The developing team Techland gets a free pass. Having thoroughly enjoyed their previous title, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, this sequel was bought on day one by good ol' fashion blind faith. After playing for most of today, it's still to early to tell if the game is a mess ...more
Deep in their heart of hearts, most Americans dream of having their car festooned with missile launchers and machine guns. Anyone who cuts them off or looks at them funny in traffic could be dispensed with quick and extreme justice, leaving a real-life James Bond and his passe ...more
Is game play king? Or was it that graphics is king? or maybe the story? Arghhh... well, regardless from which school of thought you come from, Tera online has bet most of their chips on game play. Tera's game play separates this game from the rest. The ability to deal damage ...more
This week, we take a break from the holidays and focus on one of our favorite pastimes: video games. With new releases, hacks, and Easter eggs coming out every day, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the choices available. Never fear: we're here to help you sort out the wheat from ...more
It's been a long time. The console HD gaming era started with the 360's release in 2005. Until now, the only true kart game to be released till this year was, believe it or not, Burger King's Pocketbike Racer released in November 2006. Five years of HD console gaming and that ...more
Make a mad escape at the end of the quest in The Saboteur for the Xbox 360. The twentieth mission in Act 2: Repo Man is where only an asshole gets killed over a car. Vittore gives you this story mission. Get into disguise before you get to your destination, because the place i ...more
There will be blood at this wedding on The Saboteur for the Xbox 360. On the twelfth mission in Act 1: Red Wedding, pick off all the Nazis at the ceremony. Time to finish Father Denis' story. The wedding is way in the east. You'll have to park the car on the far side of the br ...more
Many gamers see the film industry as the premier model that video games should follow, and it's no surprise. Movies are seen as the most legitimate and profitable of all artistic visual mediums, which is certainly qualities practitioners of any new medium would desire. Big bud ...more
Video capture... how does it work? Apparently, I have no idea. What I thought would be a simple undertaking turned out to be a slow and annoying pain. I just wanted to capture video in high definition and to lessen the time it takes to setup, record, and upload the video. Or ...more
Most of the oddest games in the world are free web games. They may not always be well made, but low budgets (and consequently low risk) allow them to be as weird as they fancy. That's a big part of why they are so interesting. Prime examples such as Don't Take It Personally, B ...more
Playing Super Mario Brothers for the NES is the first thing I can ever remember doing, at age 3 sitting on the carpet at my grandparents' house. It was a special game for an entire generation, including British youths Andrej and Adam Zamoyski. It inspired them to eventually be ...more
Meanwhile, back in Marwencol, the SS took me, tied me up and started to cut me... The SS had me tied up. The girls went into the church. They eliminated the SS. Her coming and saving me proved to me that she loved me. So, this is my wife, Anna. Does this sound like a tragic W ...more
Red Dead Redemption is hard to pin down in game play and story. The game offers this massive multi-layered world in which the player can roam freely, offering plenty of challenges, beautiful graphics and atmosphere for the player to experience. Yet after some point the whole w ...more
Looking back on Alan Wake, more than a year and a half after its release, it's still one of my favorite games. The graphics and ambience have held up well in comparison to any other story driven game, and it's still the best third-person horror game out there, in terms of game ...more
A first hands look at the first chapter of the game. "When the wife of best-selling writer Alan Wake disappears on their vacation, his serach turns up pages from a thriller he doesn't remember writing. A dark presence stalks the small town of Bright Falls-" Suspense thrille ...more
Steam has been a game-changer in the PC indie game market over the last eight years, making smaller games available to millions of users at lower prices than ever before. And few times in those eight years have there been as much indie awesomeness on sale for as little money a ...more
Image via Tiger Mom Says. Amy Chua didn't realize what she unleashed when the Wall Street Journal published a string of excerpts from her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and titled it "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior". The article sparked a lot of interest and anger, ...more
I was raised in the glory days of Japanese RPG's (JRPG's) on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest were the biggest game franchises, and real gamers could debate their merits endlessly. We remained engaged in the stories of the games, even though ...more
Note: Little Brother is available as a free ebook download. Warnings I read Boing Boing a lot, which means that I know just about everything about Cory Doctorow's politics and opinions. So, knowing his politics definitely colors my perceptions of this novel. My review will i ...more
If you like 2D side-scrolling video games, then Shank's your man. Shank is full of "beat 'em up" action and combat, perfect for any gamer addicted to the old style of play. Shank is available on both the Xbox Live Arcade (Xbox 360) and PlayStation Network (PS3). But this Mahal ...more
Well, we have had a pretty basic story structure in the previous couple of blogs. However, for the third act there is considerable leeway on how this story can play out. You can turn a story like this into a tragedy or comedy. Remember the line from the film Stranger Than Fict ...more
Hello! My name is Nicole Valentine and on behalf of Expert Village, I'm here to talk to you about how to coordinate birthday games for a birthday party. Its time to party. Now we're going to discuss the appropriate games for the birthday party. For example, if you're having a ...more
This Null Byte is the first part in a mini-series on the art of Social Engineering. I will be teaching you how to effectively defend yourself against it. What is Social Engineering? Social Engineering is the art of hacking humans. It's when a person is manipulated into doing ...more
In the past 25 years, there have been five generations of home video games systems. Since Nintendo changed the world by releasing the NES in 1987, there has always been at least two consoles competing for dominance in the wild west of the games industry. This competition— coup ...more
Big brother is watching when you're playing around on another system—and big brother is that system. Everything from operating systems to intrusion detection systems to database services are maintaining logs. Sometimes, these are error logs that can show attackers trying vario ...more
If you've been reading, watching or listening to the news, you sure know about the Trayvon Martin case. If you visit this site often, you may also have noticed that I've not put up any news on this case. I have my reasons. And this post will describe why. Before continuing, I ...more
One of the reasons I love living here in Northern Chile is the great variety of personalities represented in the people who live here. Truly, the culture we enjoy in Northern Chile is as diverse as the history of this region, and by reason of Zofri and the multinational custom ...more
I first heard the term molecular gastronomy while watching an episode of Bravo's Top Chef a few seasons back. Intrigued by the concept, I sought to find out more about this modern, deconstructed type of cookery. If you happen to be around foodies and the topic of molecular gas ...more
The Funny Thing About Dying - A Story of Coping With Loss I remember once as a kid someone fake-punched me in the nose. This older kid hauled off with his fist and pulled the punch just shy of ruining some great and prominent Italian cartilage in the making. Somehow I stood ...more
Today's smartphones and tablets offer a great way for children to learn through interactive sight, sound, and touch, but they can also provide hours of genuine fun. If you have a spare tablet laying around—or at least a nice, durable case—the only thing you need to get your ch ...more
If you made a resolution for 2020 to get healthier, it's essential to concentrate on your mental health just as much as you do on physical fitness. Running and exercising is great, but a sound mind is integral to a healthy and balanced life, and you can improve your emotional ...more
With the Masters, one of professional golfing's four most prestigious annual tournaments, now in full swing, Snapchat is giving users the ability to commemorate the moment in augmented reality. A new Lens in the Snapchat camera carousel places a white visor with the Masters l ...more
We've already shown you our favorite new action games that have come out this year, but now it's time to share our all-time top ten list. These games are available for both Android and iPhone, they don't have intrusive ads or freemium schemes, and most importantly, they're all ...more
Thanks to ever more powerful smartphones — the iPhone X with its advanced A11 processor and the Galaxy Note 8 powered by Snapdragon's 835 come to mind — the mobile industry is fast closing in on consoles and PCs with regards to gaming. Game developers have been aware of this f ...more
Give an 18-month-old a shoe, check back 10 minutes later, and it's a very big maybe he will have it on his foot. But give him your smartphone, and in a mere five minutes, he can take 100 pictures of the carpet, send weird messages, and delete essential apps. Imagine what your ...more
Google loves to play games. That's just what they did when they went ahead and teased us with a few Android O hints after Reddit user Zitroney unlocked an Easter egg in a Google Creative Lab developer's app ShortStories. At the moment Android O, Google's upcoming version of A ...more
Super Mario Bros. is one of the most renowned games in history. It helped resurrect a dying video game industry in the mid-'80s and still remains one of the best-selling video games of all time—one reason why the new NES Classic Edition is so popular and impossible to get thes ...more
Now that it's been officially released for Android, Monument Valley 2 shot to the top of our best paid puzzle games list, and rightly so. This was no easy feat, as the games we covered ran the gamut of puzzles and all had stellar reviews. But there's just something about Monum ...more