99 Lives gamer, bachelor, minimalist, extropian, futuristic, contrarian, capitalist

With E3 Gone, CeBIT Expo Fills In to Satisfy Your Booth Babe Fetish

With no E3 and with its replacement named as family-friendly “E for Everyone” spells out dismal prospects for under-sexed males sick of digging through the booth babes of yesterday at E3 Girls.

Which is where CeBIT comes in. The world’s premier consumer electronics expo shares an uncanny resemble to E3 in the booth babe department, bringing back a familiar warm feeling in the lower regions for many.

As a healthy young male, I don’t mind looking at beautiful young women while oogling the latest technology (or is that the other way around?) but is there a fine line between pandering male interests and flat out assuming we’re all mindless breast chasing bafoons?

No Criminal Charges for Death from “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” Contest

Sacramento County prosecutors will not press charges against radio station KDND-FM for its “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest in which Jennifer Strange died from water intoxication after drinking over two gallons of water without urinating over four hours.

Jennifer Strange, 28, willingly participated in the contest by Sacramento radio station KDND-FM and showed no visible symptoms to suggest that she was seriously ill or in danger of dying, Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully said in a statement.

“She knew what the contest involved when she entered it and had the option to stop or discontinue her participation in the contest at any time,” said Scully, outlining how prosecutors contemplated — and ultimately decided against — filing charges of involuntary manslaughter.

“There were no observable indications or symptoms that Jennifer Strange was experiencing a serious medical emergency which would have required station employees to seek or administer medical aid to her,” Scully said.

While I’m not very sympathetic towards people who manage to off themselves in ways that places them in the running for an Darwin award, I’m definitely on the side of the Strange Family in their civil lawsuit against KDND-FM for continuing the contest despite receiving warnings about fatal water intoxication from callers.

Microsoft Makes Last Attempt to Cash In on Halo 2

Today, Microsoft announced two new maps for Halo 2, available April 17th on Xbox Live to the price of $4. The maps will be remakes of favorites Hang Em’ High and Derelict, renamed as Tombstone and Desolation.

Microsoft Game Studios and Bungie Studios today confirmed the upcoming release of two new, eagerly awaited downloadable maps for “Halo® 2.” The maps will be available as premium downloadable content for Xbox® and Xbox 360™ on April 17.

Fans of the original “Halo” have long requested the addition of some of their favorite maps to the critically acclaimed multiplayer experience of “Halo 2.” These re-creations, developed by Bungie and Certain Affinity Inc., are a perfect way to thank fans for their support as they surpass 800 million hours of “Halo 2” gaming on Xbox LIVE®.

The two maps will bring new life to ancient battlefields and legendary skirmishes, as both are new, improved and redesigned remakes of fan favorites from the original “Halo: Combat Evolved.” For the price of $4 for the pair, these maps bring a fresh burst of action to the seminal “Halo 2” online multiplayer experience. Both of the maps will be available through the “Halo 2” in-game content downloader for both Xbox and Xbox 360.*

While many weren’t pleased, Joystiq’s entry was laced with snark and Digg was of course, filled the obligatory bitching but can you really blame Microsoft to cash out before Halo 3 when week after week Halo 2 dominates the Xbox Live charts?

Just in Time for April Fools – The Top Five Hoax Game Consoles

With April Fools fast approaching this Sunday, its time for the yearly tradition of fake news, bogus systems and wild, baseless speculation.

Which is why I’ve felt its most appropriate to compile this list of the top five hoax game consoles. Would you have purchased any of these if they actually did exist?

Number Five – The Sega Phoenix

Part Xbox 360 clone, part God-awful looking — introducing the Sega Phoenix. Born out of fanboy nostalgia of Sega’s glory days, this fake system started popping up in late Spring 2005 in discussion forums over the internets.

Promising backwards compatibility with all previous Sega systems and bogus specs boasting of “four AMD processors” and a 120gb hard drive (remember, this was in 2005) would have easily challenged Sony’s PS3 for the title of most expensive console ever.

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Super Kim Bros.

Whoa, it’s Super Kim Bros! Where Juche Communism, nuclear proliferation and 8-bit goodness collide..

Anna Nicole Smith hates DDR

I’m so going to Hell for laughing at this..

[source: ED]

Digg Front Page, Baby!

Thanks to the MacLive article I wrote, 99 Lives ended up gracing the front page of Digg. 800+ diggs and three gigabytes later, I’ve also been linked by the following:

• Wired Magazine’s Game|Life
• Ars Technica’s Infinite Loop
• The Unoffical Apple Weblog
• Techmeme
• XboxSpace
• The Aftermac
• Unlimited Gamer
• Cathode Tan

Thanks to all those who dugg my story.

Xbox Live + Mac = MacLive

As any Mac user can tell you, Microsoft is notorious for leaving Mac users out in the cold. Being a 360 owner who prefers OS X as their platform of choice, I’ve always been green with envy of the ability to access Xbox Live and track friends within Windows Live Messenger.

This has changed recently after I discovered a nifty little application, designed by James Howard, called MacLive.

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You always remember your first time..

After much procrastination, here it is. I know there’s not much content at the moment, so to keep you amused, here’s a homage to getting 99 lives in Super Mario World. Ahh, memories.