Savings Experiment: Can you buy cheap and look like a lavish gift-giver?
Continue reading Savings Experiment: Can you buy cheap and look like a lavish gift-giver?
Savings Experiment: Can you buy cheap and look like a lavish gift-giver? originally appeared on WalletPop Blog on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Montoya-Stewart clash in Sprint Cup finale after Keselowksi-Hamlin spar - The Canadian Press
 MiamiHerald.com | Montoya-Stewart clash in Sprint Cup finale after Keselowksi-Hamlin spar The Canadian Press The final two races of the NASCAR season were more like a throwback to the good ol' boys who settled their feuds on the track. Montoya and Stewart must have ... Montoya the man of the Miami moment Juan Pablo Montoya delivers NASCAR diversity NASCAR Ford 400 Fact Sheet |
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Dozen Daily Deals for December 14, 2009
Filed under: Deals
'Tis the season shop until your brains melt (or skip it all entirely, depending on your interpretation of the term holiday). In that spirit, for the next few weeks we'll be rounding up a dozen daily deals courtesy our friends at DealNews.com. Each afternoon tune in to TUAW for this handy summary. Keep in mind that while our posts will live on, the deals won't. Each is lovingly generated by the deal-bot every day, so get 'em while they're hot. Enjoy!- iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / iPod Apps] App Store Freebies: GravBall, iWore, Cyclic Dial, JingleToe, TanSafe, more
- InvisibleShield: [iPhone] ZAGG.com coupon: 50% off sitewide, no minimum
- Google: [Store Events] Google Holiday Deals: Up to $20 off $120 at select merchants
- OfficeMax: [Office Furniture] Office Chair Roundup: Sofronio Manager Mid-Back Chair for $130 + free shipping, more
- Walmart: [46" - 47" LCD TVs] Sony BRAVIA 46" 120Hz 1080p LCD HDTV w/ Sony PS3 120GB for $958 + $1 s&h
- JR: [Digital Cameras] Panasonic DMC-LX3K 10MP 2.5x Zoom Digital Camera for $399 + free shipping
- Skinit: [Notebook Accessories] Skinit.com coupon: 50% off sitewide
- Walmart: [Electronics] Westport Small Charging Station for $19 + $1 s&h
- Meritline: [iPod Accessories] Crystal Hard Case for Apple iPod Touch 2nd Generation for 39 cents + free shipping
- Staples: [Office Furniture] Z-Line Gemini L-Desk for $50 + free shipping, padding
- Buy.com: [Headphones] Ultimate Ears Metro.fi 200 Stereo Earphones from $20 + free shipping
- Target: [32" LCD TVs] Sylvania 32" 720p Widescreen LCD HDTV for $270 + $20 s&h
TUAWDozen Daily Deals for December 14, 2009 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If Dollhouse's Corporation Was Real, You'd Be Its Bitch Too
Most television shows either accept their limitations or transcend them. Dollhouse started out bashing its head against its limitations, before finally leaping over them. And after last night, I'm not sure it still has any. Spoilers and mindwipes ahead...
It's hard to believe this is still the same show that used to serve up timid "engagement of the week episodes" that only hinted at the questions that lurked in its premise. By my reckoning, this makes six outstanding Dollhouse episodes in a row. And what's more, the show is starting to race forward, at breakneck speed, as if to make up for its slow pace earlier.
Was it just me, or did your heart stop too when you read the words "Three months later"? Sure, BSG and DC Comics, among others, have pulled similar stunts before — but in the middle of a random episode?
It was gutsy. And yet, it turned out to be a brilliant move. As usual with the "jumping ahead in time" stunt, everything had changed, and part of the fun was figuring out how. (For a moment, I thought Echo really had just taken a nurse job using one of her imprints, and was just living quietly.)
But more than that, part of the coolness after the three-month jump was seeing how much closer we were to the glimpses of the future we saw in the post-apocalyptic episode "Epitaph One."
So after the jump, suddenly Echo is playing house with Paul Ballard (which feels logical, considering how much they were already conspiring together) and they're in cahoots with Boyd back at the Dollhouse. Meanwhile, Topher has gotten a promotion, and Adelle has gotten a demotion. Most of all, Echo is now fully in control over her multiple personalities and their talents, instead of having them triggered randomly. She's now much more like a superhero (who's occasionally glitchy) than a puppet who occasionally turns into a superhero, and really, thank goodness. I'm imagining the new Echo is like Chuck with the "Intersect 2.0" installed.
Last night's first episode, "Meet Jane Doe," subverted so many expectations, it's hard to know where to begin. For starters, we expected a story about Echo in her childlike "doll" state wandering around for an hour, while the Dollhouse tried to find her — instead, we got five minutes of that, then something totally different. And then, at the end, you expected Adelle to do something cunning and brilliant to regain her mastery of her Dollhouse — and instead, she kissed up to the evil scumbag, Harding. In the second hour, you think Alpha is just trying to take down the men that Echo has had romantic engagements with — but his real target turns out to be Ballard, because Alpha was spying and realized that Ballard and Echo are in love.
Even with everything else that happened last night, it's hard to avoid fixating on Adelle. Her transformation was incredibly painful to watch — first, from steely-but-sensitive mistress of her domain to subservient, resentful underling to Mr. Harding. And then, from underling back to boss — but this time, she's willing to do whatever it takes to please her masters and save her own skin. Olivia Williams was incredible last night — most of all in the scene where she is willing to give Alpha whatever he wants, because that's what she's become. She's lost her self-respect, and whatever shreds of idealism she may have had left, and become a monster. And it's fascinating to watch.
The other big star last night was... Eliza Dushku. A lot of people have doubted her ability to carry this series — including me, on a few occasions. But now that she's playing a more self-aware version of Echo, she's able to bring a lot more real acting to the table. Her scenes with Paul Ballard, where she's in love with him and he's unable to reciprocate because of his whole "Galahad" complex, were brilliant and rich, and she seemed to snap between different personas pretty easily. Dushku's talent has never been mimickry or creating different mannerisms — she's not an Enver Gjokaj — but she's a lot better at handling nuances of emotion. She's always Eliza Dushku, no matter who she's playing, but she's capable of bringing a lot of expressiveness and subtlety. And last night, we saw more of what she can do when she's in her comfort zone.
Meanwhile, once again Topher was ethical-dilemmas guy — turns out the remote wipe device he's been working on is just one piece of a larger puzzle, one that will lead to everyone in the world becoming mind-controlled slaves. Topher cracks the problem of how to program anyone, anywhere remotely — but it's Adelle who hands it over to the evil corporate overlord. No wonder those two are basket cases after the apocalypse.
As Adelle says towards the end of last night's first episode, with the kind of power Rossum has, you don't want to be on the opposing team. Apparently Rossum doesn't just control a sitting U.S. Senator (who's got an excellent chance of becoming President), they also have 22 Dollhouses, with a 23rd on the way — and that means thousands of current and former clients who will safeguard Rossum's interests. And now, they have the means to reprogram whoever they want. Shiny.
It was interesting to see Harding running the Dollhouse, in contrast to Adelle. Her fancy performance was always aimed at creating the impression of a humane, caring service that was therapeutic and philanthropic — much like Inara's "Companion" poise in Firefly. Inara and Adelle even both use tea to symbolize the fact that they're fancy and full of happy empowerment. Harding keeps the tea, but drops the empowerment schtick — he's happy to be a pimp, and his dolls are property. As Boyd points out, the only real difference is that Harding doesn't lie to himself.
So the first episode was, once again, all about how the wealthy get what they want, and the rest of us are just their soon-to-be-broken toys, what with the evil boys' club of rich assholes congratulating themselves in Adelle's office. And then in the second half, we discovered that the wealthy don't always fare that well with the Dollhouse — we meet a guy who blew his entire fortune on engagements with Echo, and get to see a bunch of her other clients killed horribly as well.
Patton Oswalt returns as the tech whiz who needs Echo to impersonate his dead wife, and he's somewhat unsettled to learn that even though he's never planning on hiring the Dollhouse to recreate Rebecca again, she still exists. You can't really delete a program — once a program's created, it has a life of its own.
Did anybody else think Alan Tudyk was channeling Heath Ledger's Joker, just a bit, in his performance as Alpha last night? Maybe I'm on crack. In any case, Alpha was nattily dressed, and was (thank god) doing less of the "crazy talking to myself and snapping between personas" thing, and more of the "super-genius psycopath" thing. I was "meh" about Alpha last season, but he went a lot further towards winning me over last night. Especially after having just gotten such a powerful glimpse of the real evil of the Rossum Corp., Alpha is looking more and more like the lesser of two evils.
I don't have much else to say about the second hour — Alpha's still obsessed with Echo, and wants her to love him. It's a bit underwhelming as a villain motivation, but I think it's partly supposed to be that Alpha is obsessed with Echo because he sees himself in her, and he wants to be able to understand the difference between programmed and "real" emotions. And he knows that Echo's feelings for Paul Ballard are "real," so he wants to be able to see where they come from. Maybe now that Alpha has imprinted himself with Ballard's personality, we'll get something new and different out of it, like an Alpha who struggles with doing the right thing occasionally. We know, from "Epitaph One," that Alpha does turn out to be something of a force for good.
I liked the Actives being turned into killer zombies, which was a nice twist. And the Monty Python references. And Boyd, Echo and Ballard choosing to trust Topher with Echo's secret — wonder how badly that'll backfire? And co-writer Maurissa Tancharoen doing her sassy "I ain't got time for no neurocondensing" act. And Ballard's "My ass does feel very pampered."
Bottom line: This show is now much more clearly about an evil corporation that wants to own your brain. This has been true from the beginning, but it was harder to tell in those early episodes. Now it's pretty clear and straightforward, and the storytelling that can come as a result (with alll of those broken, complicated people, squirming under Rossum's thumb) is going to be magnificent. For as long as it lasts.
Read More... [Source: io9: top]
It's worse than we thought: GM commissions Chevy Volt dance to go with song
Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Green Culture, Hybrid, Chevrolet, GM, LA Auto Show, Green Daily
"E for electricity, V for Chevy Volt and me..." Catchy little diddy, we admit. That said, we were mostly willing to let the Chevy Volt song make the deep, dark trek into obscurity with nary another mention here on our pages. That is, until today. What made us change our tune, you ask? Boy, are you in for a treat.
Witness the Chevy Volt dance. Yes, it is an official routine commissioned by GM. Showgoers that meandered near the GM area at the LA Auto Show may already be familiar with this little number, but the video is just too "good" not to share with the rest of the class. We especially like it when the four-person crew stops whatever they're doing to throw us an "E" and a "V."
Trust us. You owe it to yourself to click past the break and watch the video. Here's hoping The General antes up to send these dancers around the country for the rest of the auto show circuit.
[Source: GM-Volt.com]
Continue reading It's worse than we thought: GM commissions Chevy Volt dance to go with song
It's worse than we thought: GM commissions Chevy Volt dance to go with song originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Dofus opens their new version, Dofus 2.0, to simultaneous praise and worry
Filed under: Fantasy, Dofus, Launches, MMO industry, News items, MMORTS
Recently, the Dofus team has ripped open the packaging on Dofus 2.0, a huge update that gives the game improved graphics, new areas, gameplay, and much more. However, the update hasn't been released without a fair share of criticism. Ankama Games had made the decision to launch Dofus 2.0 while simultaneously keeping Dofus 1.26, the prior version, online on separate servers.
Continue reading Dofus opens their new version, Dofus 2.0, to simultaneous praise and worry
Dofus opens their new version, Dofus 2.0, to simultaneous praise and worry originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Promising new developments on the breast cancer front
Filed under: Company News, Technology, Healthcare, Sanofi Aventis, GlaxoSmithKline
The San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held Dec. 9-13, brought mostly good news for breast cancer patients and drugmakers. And that's a welcome development: Aside from non-melanoma skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women and the second-leading cause of cancer death in women. Estimates for 2009 put the number of new cases at over 192,000 women and nearly 2,000 men, with over 40,000 deaths in women and 440 in men, according to the American Cancer Society. Here's a wrapup of significant reports from the symposium.Continue reading Promising new developments on the breast cancer front
Promising new developments on the breast cancer front originally appeared on DailyFinance on Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Buy anything: 2010 should be a can't-lose year for investors
Filed under: Investing
Now that Goldman Sachs has forecast that 2010 will be a good year for stocks (and if they expected a lousy year, do you think they'd announce it or just quietly sell?), it's official: All four widely held asset classes -- stocks, bonds, precious metals and real estate -- are expected to continue rising in unison.The Fed has announced that interest rates will stay near-zero for the foreseeable future, bolstering bonds. Thanks to massive government support of the mortgage market, real estate has "turned the corner." And gold is believed by many analysts to be on its way to $1,350 at a minimum.
Continue reading Buy anything: 2010 should be a can't-lose year for investors
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Framed! - nice iphone app boredom buster
Filed under: Fun, Photo, Apple, Commercial, Holiday Gift Guide, iPhone, Mobile
Framed! is a fun photo app for iPhone/iPod touch that allows you to drop your photos in 34 different scenes such as taxi billboard, album cover, wanted poster, cereal box, TV, etc. After you select the scene and input the text, you can share your creation via email or Facebook.At .99, this 4 star rated app is a pretty good investment as it will probably keep kids and tweens occupied for hopefully longer than the usual 5 minutes. I timed my own kids using it and at a full 45 minutes of entertainment, I consider that just about priceless.
Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later. There's also a free "lite" version does the same thing with less - only 14 frames.
It seems Santa left us with 3 copies to give away to DLS readers, as well as 1 copy of Xmas Frames, the eggnog version for the holidays.
The rules:
- Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
- To enter, leave a comment below. The comment must be left by Friday, December 11, 2009 at 11:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time.
- You may enter only once.
- Four winners will be selected in a random drawing.
Click here for the complete official rules.
Framed! - nice iphone app boredom buster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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NPD: 114K took a Tony Hawk: Ride in November
While we don't have a per-platform breakdown of the disappointing sales, a forecast released before today's NPD results estimated that just 13,000 copies sold on Xbox 360. All of this just confirms what we intuitively knew: skateboards without wheels just don't work.
NPD: 114K took a Tony Hawk: Ride in November originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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