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Get 'em while they're young
GLOBAL VR® TO DEPLOY AMERICA’S ARMY AT AAMA GALA
SAN JOSE, Calif – (July, 19, 2007) — GLOBAL VR today announced that it plans to unveil the latest addition to the company’s 2007 line-up of exciting titles, AMERICA’S ARMY. The AMERICA’s ARMY coin-operated game is based on the extremely popular AMERICA’S ARMY game brand which is developed by the U.S. Army and includes PC, console and cell phone games, and other branded properties. The “green label”, coin-operated AMERICA’S ARMY game is the result of a unique partnership between the U.S. Army and GLOBAL VR. The partnership which encompasses the development and manufacturing of an official U.S. Army game for the arcade market, will create a new communication channel with young Americans.
Working hand-in-hand with U.S. Army Subject Matter Experts and with the full cooperation of units of the U.S. Army, the coin-operated AMERICA’S ARMY is a realistic and engaging game centered on exciting training exercises, and includes a significant amount of authentic Army videos and other information designed to immerse the player in the Army culture.
“AMERICA’S ARMY is an arcade style training game based on actual Army training exercises designed to challenge Soldiers to hone their skills. Players are rewarded for teamwork, proper use of the Rules of Engagement, accuracy, and target identification,” says Mike Kruse, GLOBAL VR Producer. “The game’s many marksmanship exercises are entirely target shooting challenges which makes this unique product appropriate for many location types that do not desire simulated combat games.” Mike went on to comment, “Being a veteran myself, I can honestly report that AMERICA’S ARMY is a highly authentic depiction of Army training exercises and the Army’s unique organizational culture…down to the drill sergeant who is constantly by your side to bring out the best performance from each player.”
AMERICA’S ARMY is designed for one or two players and consists of a series of eight training mini-games. Each game is designed with a dynamic difficulty system making the game easy for new recruits and more difficult for experienced players. Bonuses are also important as they reward players with extra experiences and point rewards for jobs well done. Leader boards for each mini-game add fuel to the competition, and give players incentives to beat the top score.
“We are so proud to be working directly with the U.S. Army on this project,” stated Jim DeRose GLOBAL VR President and CEO. “To have earned the Army’s confidence throughout the game’s development and delivered a coin-op game that fits the market needs of most video equipment operators is a huge accomplishment. We are convinced that the cabinet’s small footprint, outstanding graphics, “green label” rating, and value pricing will make the game a natural for all locations.”
For information about other GLOBAL VR products, please visit www.globalvr.com or contact your local GLOBAL VR distributor or sales representative.
About the America’s Army Brand
Launched in July 2002, the America’s Army game has become one of the most popular computer games in the world. America’s Army has penetrated popular culture and is one of the most recognizable game brands as a result of its unique inside perspective on the U.S. Army and exciting gameplay. As the game’s popularity continues to grow with each new release, the Army has expanded the brand through a variety of products to include console and wireless games, America’s Army merchandise such as t-shirts and action figures, as well as training applications for use within the military and government sectors. The America’s Army game for the PC can be found online at www.americasarmy.com.
About GLOBAL VR: Founded in 1998 and headquartered in San Jose, California, GLOBAL VR® is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of coin-operated video games based on home gaming technology. GLOBAL VR is able to leverage the successes of PC and console game developers and design games suitable for play in out-of-home locations. License agreements are in place with some of the world’s leading game publishers including Electronic Arts, Midway, Ubisoft, and Atari. These agreements provide GLOBAL VR rights to create coin-op versions of popular home games such as EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR® GOLF, Underground, NASCAR, Blazing Angels, Beach Head and Operation Blockade. GLOBAL VR has recently entered the gaming industry where contracts are in place with Bally Gaming for development of video casino game entertainment. More information on GLOBAL VR can be found at www.globalvr.com.
Via Boingboing.
(No word yet as to the alleged follow-up game where you play a quadriplegic vet trying to escape a rat-infested hospital. — JC)
CAT PATROL
The "Guru of Doodoo" makes a delivery to Arthur Editorial Home/Office
Delivered Monday, 1015am: A truckload of high-grade compost (finely chipped wood and horse stable stuff), for a grand total of sixty bucks, courtesy of the rhyming King of Compost, Altadena, California’s amazing earth wizard Tim Dundon…
Surplus compost free to all. Neighbors, ex-neighbors…
Gentleman gardener from around the corner, first-gen Armenian immigrant…
The missus…
A musician from the other side of Los Feliz…
"No End in Sight" trailer
Solicitors unwelcome at Arthur Home Office
by Frances & Frohman
"Fela reminds me of how a man is supposed to be. He did what he wanted. My dad was the truth."
‘He was in a godlike state’
Fela Kuti was idolised as a rebel and martyr in Nigeria – yet in the west, we know him only for his Afrobeat music and his 27 wives. Alex Hannaford reports from Lagos on Fela’s true legacy
Wednesday July 25, 2007
The Guardian
You would be forgiven for driving right past the white three-storey building in a shabby Lagos back-street. But this nondescript house, with its balconies and roof terrace, was once at the heart of one of the biggest musical movements Africa has ever seen. The Kalakuta Republic, as it’s known, is the commune that once belonged to the Nigerian musician and activist Fela Kuti.
Here, unlike elsewhere in Africa’s most populous country, young men give the single-fisted black power salute as you drive past, rather than a wave of the hand. As we pull up outside Kalakuta, a rat scurries down an open sewer and a bare-chested security guard opens a large iron gate into the compound.
Fela Kuti was the mouthpiece of Nigerian counterculture in the 1970s. He developed a style of music known as Afrobeat – an amalgamation of Yoruba rhythms, Ghanaian Highlife, jazz, American funk and pidgin English. Fela loved getting up the nose of the authorities. He married 27 women in one day, publicly smoked marijuana despite the threat of prison, declared Kalakuta an independent state, and was often beaten up and imprisoned. August 2 marks the 10th anniversary of his death from an Aids-related illness, and he remains one of the most influential musicians to emerge from the continent.
Kalakuta is now home to two of Fela’s children, Seun and Kunle. The entrance is via a side door, but to get to it you have to pass a large marble plinth. Fela is buried beneath it, and well-wishers still arrive daily to pay their respects. An estimated 1 million people turned up on the day of his funeral in 1997.
Our taxi driver, Omo, had been smiling as he approached Kalakuta. “If 80% of Nigerians understood what Fela was saying, our country would understand that our leaders are failing us,” he told me.
Kalakuta has hardly changed over the past decade. The herbal aroma hits you as you walk in. There are people everywhere – coming out of doorways, sitting on mattresses, chatting, hanging out on the roof. Fela’s bedroom has been left untouched since the day he died. The door is locked, and only his children are allowed inside. The only visible evidence that this is a living museum is a cabinet containing 40 pairs of Fela’s shoes – all handmade in various colours and fabrics.
Continue readingArthur blog at Yahoo!Music launches.
“…WHY IS IT that the only way a young musician can get across to the general public these days is as wallpaper for some other product? Why is it that we can’t hear new music on the radio, or see new music performed on television? In other words, why isn’t music on its own, given its own space in the still-powerful mass media? Isn’t music good enough? Or, could it be that it’s just not profitable enough? And if the latter is the case, shouldn’t we ask why the mass media system–and our planet’s airwaves, which belong to all of us–are structured in such a way that our right to meaningful, rich, sensuous, full-of-life art is increasingly denied? …” Read the full piece here.
Openings, festivals, gigs
“two upcoming free-of-charge music + dance public programs down here at farmlab / under spring…
july 28 @ 7:30pm: nels cline + oguri + yuval ron + many others
august 4, all night long: dublab and friends, including mia doi todd, carlos nino, frosty, dntal from the postal service, and many others
“To celebrate our 4th anniversary we are pleased to announce that on August 11th and 12th we will be hosting a two-day outdoor festival. This will feature a whole host of bands including Gang Gang Dance, Psychic Ills, Artanker Convoy, Samara Lubelski, TK Webb and Electroputas. Many new signings to The Social Registry will be performing such as Growing, UK-based Sian Alice Group (playing their first ever US show), Mike Bones, Christy & Emily and Douglas Armour (in his East Coast debut). As a special surprise we also have a reunion show from Ghost Exits, their first live performance in about three years.
“The full line-up is as follows:
Saturday August 11th:
Psychic Ills
Artanker Convoy
Ghost Exits
TK Webb
Samara Lubelski
Mike Bones
Sian Alice Group (acoustic set)
Sunday August 12th:
Gang Gang Dance
Sian Alice Group
Growing
Electroputas
Douglas Armour
Christy & Emily
Octis
This will be a two event with tickets available for each individual day or both. There will be food and drink available. The details are as follows:
Venue: The Yard
Address: 400 Carroll Street btwn. Bond and Nevins
Directions: F or G train to Carroll Street / N or R train to Union Street
Price per day: $15
Price for both days: $25
Hours: 1pm-9.30pm
Advance tickets available through TicketWeb: ticketweb.com
The path to Idiocracy, part 78
A gleefully ignorant public is easily frightened, over and over again.
From The New York Times:
President George W. Bush argued forcefully today that an Al Qaeda-affiliated group in Iraq is linked tightly to the central Al Qaeda leadership, and that for American forces to leave Iraq without defeating the terror group would be “dangerous for the world and disastrous for America.”
He made the remarks at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina, at a time of fierce debate in Washington over Iraq policy. Last week, a major intelligence report concluded that the international Al Qaeda organization of Osama bin Laden had successfully regrouped, probably in rugged northwest Pakistan, and that it is once again as strong as it was before the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
In a half-hour speech clearly aimed at his Democratic critics, Mr. Bush said that those who argued that the affiliated group, called Al Qaeda in Iraq or AQI, was a local group with local objectives, and not a serious threat to Americans at home, were seriously misinformed.
“It’s hard to argue that Al Qaeda in Iraq is separate from bin Laden’s Al Qaeda when the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq took an oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden,” Mr. Bush said, referring to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a leader of the affiliated group in Iraq who was killed last year.
Mr. Bush called the two similarly named groups “an alliance of killers,” and said, “No enemy is more ruthless in Iraq than Al Qaeda.”
The president’s remarks focused almost entirely on links between the two groups and on threats they pose. His tone was particularly tough. Mr. Bush’s message did not vary much in substance from what he has long said about the groups, though he added some details, apparently based in part on newly declassified information.
Critics of the administration’s policy in Iraq, including some Democratic politicians, have said that Mr. Bush’s portrayal of the links between the Qaeda groups is overblown, and that the group in Iraq did not exist before the American-led invasion. The international group, they say, is the one that poses the much greater threat to the United States, while in Iraq, sectarian violence is a far greater concern than are foreign-led terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Democrats reacted swiftly and dismissively to the president’s remarks. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, accusing Mr. Bush of “flawed logic,” said, “The president is putting forth a false rationale for continuing the war.”
Holding up a copy of the latest National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism, released by the administration last week, Mr. Kerry said, “Our own intelligence community tells us today unequivocally that our presence in Iraq has created more terrorists, attracted more terrorists.”
Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said that “the president’s claim that the war in Iraq is protecting us from Al Qaeda is as misguided and dangerous as the conclusions that drove us to Iraq in the first place.”
“Despite what the president would like us to believe,” he added, “it has been established that Al Qaeda had no active cells in Iraq when we invaded, and we have long known that we were not attacked from Iraq on 9/11. Saying otherwise does not make it so.”
Still, judging by recent opinion polls, the president has had some recent success in making a case to voters for continuing the war in Iraq. He has insisted both that success is possible and that failure would be catastrophic, in part because Al Qaeda in Iraq might then turn its attentions elsewhere.
For more on the “Fearmongering Your Way to Power” technique, successfully employed in recent decades by both far-right Islam radicals and far-right American neo-conservative radicals, watch Adam Curtis’s comprehensive “The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear” television program.
Arthur Magazine 