Quick Flash News

“The Guild 2″ is a game that has every aspect you could want in a game. If you are okay with a long tutorial and learning a lot of features, you will thoroughly enjoy this PC game. It has elements from The Sims, Pirates, Dynasties, Law and Order, Politics and other cool concepts. Besides that, the graphics are awesome to top it off.

You design your character and choose his starting stats that build up with experience. This is typical of most rpgs(role playing games). You can be a craftsman, rogue, scholar or patron. Their is 3-5 subclasses in those categories depending on who you pick. Such as miners, woodcutters or black smithy. You can hire employees to help your business (rogues can hire thugs, patrons hire servants). This is highly immersive as their is real time economy in the game. You mine the iron, sell it in market, then a smith can buy it, make something and sell that item (armor, swords, etc.) in the market. Then the computer or real player can store it in his house or carry it. A rogue can then go to his house and steal it. So an item is never lost unless a character dies. He can even pass his items on to his children if he is of old age. Plus the prices in the market fluctuate depending on supply. You can make money just from buying and selling in various markets.

The game is multiplayer as well, online or network which makes it really enjoyable. You can compete in the markets or in elections. Vie for the city mayor or accuse each other of crimes in court. Or you can ally and try to take out the other computer guilds. Their are multiple cities in each map and tons of room to run your own city and show it off to your friend in game. You can even move different characters in your dynasty from town to town. So if you get bored of one town you can switch towns.

There are also titles in the game, you can go from commoner to baronet. You also pass your titles down to your children, so your dynasty can prosper. There is also a feature where your children take the attributes of you and your wife. So their stats will be good if you and your wife have great stats. You can control three people from your dynasty. This leaves plenty of room to have variety and keep things interesting. Since each character can’t change classes, you can have your wife and son be two different classes or you can specialize on one skill and refine it throughout generations, so your kids can be born with a mastery of skills in that craft.

I found this great site, Free Napkin (freenapkin.com) where you can get all sorts of stuff in your local area for free. People post stuff they are trying to get rid of and the first person to claim the item gets it. There is no catch, everything is free on the site. There are items ranging from speakers, lamps, dryers, even dogs! All you have to do is sign up for the site and claim the item you want. I believe you might have to pick it up yourself though because the giver won’t want to pay for shipping on an item that’s not making them a profit. There is some really great stuff, so check it out today!

(AP) NEW YORK – Don Imus said he has prostate cancer, but the radio personality expressed confidence in a full recovery.

Imus, 68, made the announcement Monday on his morning show from New York, which airs on ABC Radio Networks and cable’s RFD-TV. He said he wrestled with the idea of making it public, but figured he should because he might have to miss some work due to treatment.

“I’m changing the name of the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer to the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with cancer and me,” he said, referring to his charity to help children with cancer.

Imus said he has early stage cancer, which means it hasn’t spread outside the prostate.

A one-time shock jock who now does a show heavy on the media and politics, Imus was fired by CBS Radio and MSNBC in spring 2007 for a racial slur of the Rutgers women’s basketball team. He later apologized. He’s built his radio network back to the level it was before the incident, although his influence has waned.

Imus said he was surprised more than anything about the diagnosis, since he’s been focused on following a healthy diet for the past decade.

He noted that doctors seemed reluctant to talk about one of his big worries: What prostate cancer treatment will mean for his sex life.

Anna Nicole Smith’s longtime doctor and partner, Howard K Stern, has been arrested for conspiring to supply controlled drugs to an addict. Stern turned himself in last night as well as doctors Sandeep Kapoor and Khristine Eroshevich have been charged with the same crime. The two were colleagues of Stern’s.

Smith died aged 39 in February 2007 after overdosing on prescription medications, just months after her 20-year-old son Daniel also died of a lethal combination of drugs. It’s too soon to say, but her son’s death may be suspect to conspiracy as well.

Here is the video of the recent John Stewart rant against Jim Cramer’s stock picks and Cramer’s retaliation. I think John Stewart is just targeting Cramer because he is one of the few well known stock analysts on TV. Cramer has some valid points about the whole market coming down but he did recommend Bear Sterns.

The Boondock Saints was one of the greatest cult classics of the last century. From the very beginning it had been plagued with setbacks and complications that eventually led to the film being released straight to DVD. The film has been arguably the most successful cult film, winning over millions of fans and becoming highly popular in a sense that it managed to become part of an almost mainstream type of pop culture for many teenagers and remains so to this day.

Director Troy Duffer wrote the screenplay after witnessing a horrid scene: he came home to find that a woman had died in a drug dealer’s room across the hall from his apartment. The film would be plagued itself with bad luck. After impressing Miramax with his script, Harvey Weinstein had decided to give it a $15 million budget. Everything seemed on track for a major launch at the theaters.

Then Duffy happened. After repeated arguments with Duffy over casting, Miramax dropped the project. Due to these troubles, Duffy was forced to find a smaller independent company to finance the film, with a smaller budget and not the cast originally hoped for. Nonetheless, the film he made would become a blockbuster sensation, but not in the way anticipated, and in more ways than one.

The release of Boondock Saints in theaters in 1999 was, according to Duffy, unfortunately timed. Due to the Columbine High School shootings recently occurring, the film was reduced and limited to only five screens in the entire United States, and even then, only for one week. With help from Blockbuster Video, who had discovered it to be widely popular in their stores, Troy Duffy secured financing to re-release the film in 2006. Due to word-of-mouth, Boondock Saints had gained a cult following, which some critics might argue is undeserved. The other die-hard fans have proven it to be a success despite the monumental problems it’s release faced.

With this given trend of bad luck, especially in the development and production of the film, when Duffy announced a sequel to have financial backing in 2002, many would be right to be skeptical. The release date of 2005 never came to be, and Duffy made clear later on this happened due to litigation with the company in control of the film rights. 20th Century Fox would eventually step in and agree to back the production of the sequel. It finally seems that for now, the troubles for Duffy and the crew may now be over. The film has been marked as in post-production, and Duffy states possible release by the end of the year.

You thought a 300 sequel was impossible, right? All the 300 Spartans are dead beside the story teller, how can they live to fight another day?

Well they can’t. This sequel takes place after the Battle of Thermopylae right before the Battle of Plataea and into the epic battle of course. This film might possibly come out in 2010 and they may start filming towards the end of this year if we’re lucky. Zach Snyder will direct this one, so we are pretty sure it will have mind blowing cinematography and story telling. Frank Miller is currently working on the graphic novel that will inspire the film to greatness.

While the Battle of Plataea is not quite as epic as Thermopylae as far as odds are concerned, it is still a huge battle in it’s own right. You know with Frank Miller’s added creativity it will be more stylized than the actual battle. The only thing is they will need a big star to lead the Spartan army. Casting has not started yet but I’m sure they’ll do a good job like on the last film.

The odds were still astonishing at 3:1 in favor of the Persians. The Persian’s army numbered around 300,000 whereas the Spartan/Greek army totaled around 100,000. “A paltry 3 to 1″ as the narrator said in the original film.

There are all sorts of great moments that would be dramatic enough for the film. Like when a large portion of the Persian army was trapped in their camp, and slaughtered. There is also the pseudo retreat by the Greeks that enabled the Persians to charge in and meet their doom against the reformed Greco/Spartan lines.

There is also the gathering of the Greeks and Spartans uniting together against a foreign threat. We saw the army that was formed in “300″ but we didn’t see the call to arms and political bantering to gain support against Xerxes army.

This film will do exceedingly well in theaters. It seems everyone really wanted to see what would take place in the next battle. Frank Miller and Zach Snyder’s work has been doing exceedingly well lately. Snyder directed Watchmen which made 55 million and his directing career is just getting started. Think once he masters the art how great he will be. If they didn’t want to make this film about the Battle of Plataea they could always make it about the Romans battling the Gauls with Julius Caesar or the Romans vs the Huns and Attila. Whatever route they end up taking, I’m sure it’ll be a great one.

It should be no surprise that positive publicity can help determine the success of a business venture. Yet in no industry is it more critical than in the film industry. Recent movies have proven that often times, the trailers for movies can determine their successes more than the quality of the films themselves, except in the cases of complete bombs. One group of films based on Frank Millers’ novels has used trailers to amazing effect, drawing massive crowds. Hollywood better take note, or be left in the dust.

Take the recent release “Watchmen”. Before the movie even was released, many were prepared to call it the greatest film ever, even people who had never read the comic books. Regardless of the content, it is apparent that the hype was perhaps out of proportion to the film’s true quality, as ratings for the film began to fall in the preceding days, rather than rise. Nonetheless, the trailers served to bring crowds, which in turn helped “Watchmen” claim the top spot at the box office, which is sure to bring in more movie goers to see the popular film.

Another example is yet another Frank Miller based film “300″, which soared at the box office and managed to gain an eye-popping number of people to the theater who may have been unfamiliar with Frank Miller. Many who did not take a liking to Sin City, still showed up as the trailer was so impressive in portraying the ferocity and amazing artwork of the war film. The film is remarkable for it’s amazing box office earnings while lacking truly big name actors. The film overall impressed audiences, bringing back repeat watchers as well as earning it extremely positive mentions from fans, helping increase the buzz.

Regardless, it may have well been quite possible that “300″ could have gone relatively unnoticed  at the box office had it not been for the amazing trailers. The “300″ trailers had gotten millions of views on YouTube and other sites, and it’s worth noting that is free advertising to millions of potential moviegoers. Without the great trailers, that would of never occurred.

Many great films had releases with only a small initial turnout or earnings. These cult classics failed to make any sort of splash. Donnie Darko being one great example that failed to make any significant earnings at the box office but went on to become widely popular with steady DVD sales. Others went straight to DVD and never managed to get the type of box office earnings they could have, such as “Equilibrium” and “The Boondock Saints”. Overall, a flashy trailer can do far more for a film than even the reputation of a big name actor or a massive marketing budget can do, as the Frank Miller films have shown.

South park is one of the longest running animated shows in America with a large fan base of fans. South Park just entered their thirteenth season, perhaps stronger than ever.

1. South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker have no fear. They will attack anyone if they think it will warrant a good laugh. Sometimes controversial and often attacked by the media and various “offended” personalities, South Park has done the unthinkable. From defaming sacred religious figures, to offending popular celebrities, the South Park duo believes either everything is okay to poke fun at or nothing is.

One example some were appalled at in the media, was when South Park was running an episode in which Satan is holding a Halloween party in Hell in which people are expected to be wearing costumes. Satan spots someone in what appears to be a Steve Irwin costume with a stingray impaling him. Satan remarks on the costume claiming it’s “too soon”, to which the person replies that it’s not a costume, implying it really is Steve Irwin at the party in Hell. To which Satan replied that he must get leave the party as it’s costumes only. Such a scene appalled many on an almost international scale, but Matt and Trey make no apologies and have stood by their work.

2. The fresh ideas. In an industry full of re-hashed plots and boring sequels, South Park has done hundreds upon hundreds of episodes with undeniably original and creative plots. The episode in which McCain and Obama’s attempts at election were really a ruse for an “Ocean’s Eleven” style theft, or in which the South Park boys want to sue Lucas and Spielberg for raping Indiana Jones and at the same time within that very episode Cartman was trying to stop an imaginary invasion of the Chinese as the “American Liberation Front”. It’s hard to imagine these types of episodes being run by any television series other than South Park. Yet the “Look Out Indy” episode had earned South Park one of it’s highest ratings as the shows’ most watched premiere since 1999, despite perhaps offending millions at the same time.

In the end, South Park stands as the lone champion fighting for the right to poke fun at anything and everything in order to provide hundreds of original comedic episodes that have won them one of the largest fan bases in television. Matt Stone and Trey Parker can boldly and proudly take responsibility for millions of laughs, and have helped to bring about change that extends past the borders of their own show as they constantly appear on the news and political talk shows with their bold messages, giving birth to a new group of people who identify themselves proudly as “South Park Republicans” or more recently “South Park Libertarians”. Matt and Trey have hit a vein with America that goes deeper than simple comedy.

We all know Joaquin Phoenix is a great film actor, his rapping career however, well let’s just say the only reason you would go to his concert is to see him, not his rapping.

When we first saw him on stage rapping, we thought “oh he’s just having some fun, doing something different”. But when he came out saying he was “quitting acting” to pursue his rap career, we thought he must be joking and this is crazy.

He even went on Letterman for an awkward appearance. Letterman razzed him as Phoenix basically said little to nothing. Phoenix even put gum on the Letterman table when Letterman said “how bout I come to your place and chew gum”. But at the end of the show Joaquin shook hands with Letterman and took off his glasses. So if he was really irritated with Letterman like he appeared why take off your glasses as a sign of respect? He seemed to pick up his mood when the interview was over. He went from depressed to happy in a second. That makes me think Letterman was in on it, or being a good sport. Usually on talk shows like that you go over what you are going to talk about with the interviewee that way the conversation goes smoothly so no one is caught off guard. Now Letterman may be able to roll with punches and ad lib, but he seemed to know something was going on and played along very well.

Another thing to add to the “staged” concept is that Casey Affleck a known director (Gone Baby, Gone) has been filming all along this Joaquin journey. This leads some to believe it will be a mockumentary of some sort akin to that of “Borat”. See the reaction you get from people when you drastically change careers, or the film could be about the comedy of the situation. Now, you definitely have enough material for an hour and a half movie. Especially if you add in Ben Stiller’s imitation of Joaquin with the beard and mannerisms.

If this whole thing was a stunt to get publicity for his next movie, he wouldn’t need someone to film it. Besides couldn’t you pay some Joe Smoh to film it instead of an in-demand director like Casey Affleck. That’s pretty nice of Affleck to film something like that just so Joaquin can have a video to remember his crazy rapping adventures.

Now Joaquin attacked a heckler at his most recent rap concert. He yelled back at the heckler “We have a (double-expletive) in the audience,” he said before jumping into the crowd. It was not immediately clear whether the two men exchanged any blows. This makes me think it was all a stunt to “act like a thug” and more material for his mockumentary. Especially since Affleck didn’t stop filming the whole event. Why wouldn’t he go help his friend in a fight I wonder? Maybe the heckler was also in on it. Course there would naturally be hecklers due to Phoenix’s lack of hip-hop talent.

I just don’t see how this mockumentary will actually be successful. In this day and age with youtube and mass media and blogs we’ve already seen or read about most of these events. So when the film comes out it will be so re-hashed it will be boring and repetitive. Unless the film makers make a really bizarre spin on the film like “how the media treats you if you go off in another direction in your career.” But that seems unlikely as no one will feel sorry for him (Phoenix), when he’s already made millions and we are in a Great Recession.