The Fox Blog

I was playing some online Blackjack the other day, just for geeks. Blackjack can be a very nice game when you know how to play it; you can also win if luck is on your side. During that particular hand, I was playing on two places, both flopped a Blackjack. As for the dealer, he had a Queen. I was sure I would win this hand with two blackjacks. Well not quite! The dealer flops an Ace, and there we are: Three Blackjacks on the table result = push.

A news that’s being heard everywhere in the country these days is the successful operation Abass underwent. Abou Riyad, his friend, contributed in propagating the news (ask anyone today and he’ll know about it, even kids!).

If you’re still wondering what the hell I’m talking about, here’s the story: a popular comedy show, called ‘La Youmal’, the Arabic equivalent of ‘Doesn’t Get You Bored’, broadcasted on Future TV, is featuring lately a character called Abou Riyad. He is supposed to be the incarnation of the crabby Lebanese old men next door. In one of the sketches, Abou Riyad is telling everyone in the neighborhood about the successful medical operation his friend Abass (or 3ebess) underwent. Now that they know that he was suffering of this ‘physical condition’, they can go and tell everyone about it… On top of it all, Abou Riyad creates a song saying: Mabrouk ya 3ebess, w ya 3ebess Mabrouk.
Mabrouk (in Arabic) = Congratulations

I searched for the MP3 of the Lebanese sketch, couldn’t find it on the net. So I got it from someone and decided to post it for download.

Download Mabrouk Abass (Format: MP3, Size: 383 Kbs, in Arabic obviously)

مبروك عباس من برنامج لا يمل، ابو رياض

This movie, based on a true story, was only produced for TV. Luckily, it was broadcasted last week; I had never heard of the cast, the director or the title of the movie before. But still, after watching it, I must recognize that it’s a nice movie, nothing special about the realization but I greatly admire the story-line, the interpretation and the numerous country side views of Australia!

“Never Tell Me Never” is based on an autobiographical book by the same name written by Janine Shepherd, a woman whose life falls upside down in one day following a severe accident. Two thumbs up for Claudia Karvan in her role of Janine Shepherd; Claudia is an achieved Australian actress who contributed to dozens of movies and TV series in her country. She also plays a small role in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.

The plot: After several months of hard-work, Janine succeeds in joining the Australian Cross-Country Skiing Team and is on her way to grab a medal at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. During her extensive training, she is hit by a car and severely injured. According to doctors, her chances of surviving are slight; however, she survives and stands partially paralyzed in a hospital where she knows that she’ll never be able to ski again. Some doctors even doubt her chances of walking again or ever having children. Janine wants to get back on her feet and refuses the facts, just as she did before the accident, never acknowledging to give-up in a skiing competition, up to the stage of stubbornness and against the advice of her coach. Thus, she decides not to use her wheel chair anymore. In the process of rehabilitation, she meets wonderful people that help her in her recovery; people like Uncle Darryl, a nurse at the hospital, and a doctor that contributed to the rescue operation, Dr. Adrian Cohen, not to forget the constant support of her parents. Weeks after she’s out of the hospital, she launches a new challenge on herself: learning to fly light planes…

The story of Janine Shepherd is a source as inspiration as I see it. Her achievements as a skiing champion and later on as a distinguished flying pilot and public speaker proved that armed with strong-will, someone can achieve anything. Today, Janine lives in Sydney, married and mother of three children – doctors were wrong here too!

Unless you live in Australia, you’ll have a hard time finding a TV station broadcasting the movie. So you should think about getting the DVD or else buying the book somewhere online. You could also content yourself with the few screenshots below I was able to collect.

Official Web Site of Janine Shepherd

I’m not sure if “exceptional” is enough for describing this game. Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy) is a one of a kind RPG game by Atari, not just because of the content but also because of the incredible gameplay. It’s not a static game where you have to perform specific actions in order to finish the game. Actually, the way you play, “truly play” determines what happens next and how the story will end, I completely love this new gaming concept. So you’ll never get bored playing it once, twice or three times. The game script is also excessively rich, “Quality stuff”, good story line and characters performance.

The story starts in a regular American diner. You play Lucas Kane, who possessed at first by an extraordinary spirit, hits a man three times with a knife cutting his three main arteries leading to the heart. Your first task is to escape the diner before anyone discovers the body and reports to the police. Throughout the game, Kane must find out what happened to him on that night which completely changed his life and turned it upside down on a cold winter night - does Fahrenheit has something to do with it?

You’ll play the game as Lucas Kane, as well as many other characters including a sexy-looking cop called Carla Valenti and a weird-looking fellow who claims to be 2000 years old. Believe me when I say that you’re making up the story not just following a pre-defined path the characters should follow in order to reach the ending credits – even the credits are great. I’ll give two-thumbs up for the graphics and the animated scenes in the game. Extensive work was done on the scenes, just the way it’s done in movies using motion capture – did I mention that you’ll find make-of movies and art in the Bonus zone?. The game was done in association with the French institute of cinematography, serious people made in Europe. It’s as if you were watching an action movie only that you’re controlling the actors.

A small problem I faced when playing the game: you reach a point where using your keyboard brutally becomes a necessity, some actions cannot be completed unless you just focus 100 % on the screen and rip off your keyboard keys. You’re probably wondering what I’m talking about, you’ll have to play the game to answer your question.

Good thing you can download a demo version from the Official Fahrenheit Web Site to get a taste of what the game is like. Try it, you’ve got nothing to lose. And if you like it, well just buy it, you’ll be happy to spend the most useful dollars on PC games this year.

December 12 2005, a bomb blast was heard in Mkalles, a suburb of Beirut. The target was Lebanese Journalist, Gebran Tueni. Police says 40 kg of explosives caused the blast which caused the death of Tueni, a friend and his driver. Several foreign workers were also injured.

Gebran Tueni was an international known journalist, issued from a family of prominent Lebanese journalists, founders of daily newspaper An-Nahar, leading arabic newspaper in Lebanon for the last 71 years. Tueni also was a member of the Lebanese Opposition during the Syrian occupation of the country. He was elected, earlier this year - May 2005 - member of Parliament of Lebanon, following the “Cedar’s Revolution”.

More information can be found on Gebran Tueni’s Official Web Site

Just another horror movie you would think… Possibly, but since it’s based on a true story, according to director Scott Derrickson (Urban Legends: Final Cut), there’s supposed to be more to it than just imagination. It turns out that the movie is partially based on a true story. The place, the characters and a part of the plot were actually modified to contribute in forming a suitable film environment, and most importantly to remove the shock effect some people might experience while watching; it was rated PG-13 for “thematic material including frightening sequences and disturbing images”. The Exorcist (1973), was the latest major release about the subject, and still shown on TV today.

Some Trivia:
- The Exorcism of Emily Rose may be the first court room horror movie.
- The Vatican has updated in 1999, the guide to exorcism in the Roman Catholic Church
- Requiem, a movie by German director Hans-Christian Schmid and to be released late 2005, tells the original story of the Anneliese Michel, the girl in question, keeping the story closer to reality than to a horror movie.

The plot: a 19-year old girl, Emily Rose, believes she’s possessed by an extraordinary spirit after experiencing several abnormal activities (what science recognized as a mix of epilepsy and psychoses). She talks languages she never supposedly learned and sees demons everywhere. The archdiocese concludes she’s possessed by a demon and approves an exorcism ritual on the girl, performed by Father Moore, the parish priest. The girl is killed in the process, the father charged with attempted murder. His lawyer, Erin Bruner, career-targeted and assigned by the parish, must defend him and prevent a conviction.

The cast: it’s not an all-star movie that’s for sure, but the cast performs well enough. I recognized Laura Linney (in the role of Erin Bruner) from Mystic River and Tom Wilkinson (in the role of Father Moore) from The Patriot. As for the rest of the cast, well mostly unknown; I note that Jennifer Carpenter (in the role Emily Rose) performs extremely well for a first major appearance that is… Well I never heard of her before.

Duality between science and faith is what the movie is all about: some would believe that the girl was a victim of demonic possession, others support the scientific approach stating that she refused to follow a proper medical treatment which could have cured her. More info on The Official Web Site

Ever heard of Chinese Tangram? Not tantra… T.A.N.G.R.A.M.
Well until last week, I had never heard of it either. But after I was assigned, as part of my graphics course, to write an OpenGL application about it, I had to discover what it was all about. Tangram is a Chinese game where you can constitute out of different small pieces a certain shape, several shapes actually. It may look easy at first glance but it turns out to be tricky -> head-scratching is recommended. In order to complete the shape, you can move, rotate or mirror the pieces.

Using the application I wrote (which I called “Chinese T-Puzzle”), you can try to form the shape. Features:
- 8 shapes to choose from
- 4 pieces to use
- 5 levels difficulty (time-dependent)
- Doesn’t recognize the shape… - well yes you can’t know until time is up. I’ll try to set up that option A.S.A.P.

Notes:
- It has a nice interface, you can check out the screenshots below.
- You’ll need the GLU and GLUT library for it to run: two files called glut32.dll and glut32.dll that needs to be placed in C:\Windows\System32
- I’m waiting for your comments; I’d really like to improve it!

Download game and dlls from Files Dump

Yahoo! Publisher is to become the advertising wing of Yahoo! and it will probably become the #1 direct competitor of Google AdSense once it gets fully working and available worldwide – maybe in one or two months. Webmasters will be able to generate revenue by displaying content targeted ads - an advertising concept that has been running for a couple of years now every since Google AdSense was launched. The site mentions “You’ll earn revenue from qualified clicks”, so they probably have an extensive anti-cheat system.

Currently, Yahoo! Publisher is in public BETA mode. The only restriction to try it is being a resident of the U.S. Too bad for me, I can’t try it for the moment… However, I was able to spot some Yahoo! Publisher ads on a couple of web sites, they are similar to Google ads: text-based with a blue border, an ad format that is becoming standardized.

When searching, I also found Google vs. Yahoo! Interface Design, a nice article comparing all the features of Yahoo! and Google!

I’ve heard about it a couple of weeks ago. Some guy, a hotmail addict probably, received an invitation to try the BETA version of Windows Live. Today it’s still a BETA version but accessible to anyone. How it describes itself:

Windows Live is a new set of Internet software and services designed to put you in control of the information, relationships and interests you care about. Windows Live will make it easier for you to connect with people, and to quickly find the information you need, more safely and securely, whether you’re on your PC or on the go.

In other words, it’s a new concept for surfing the net, having the information you want when you want it and wherever you are. It might become the homepage of millions of users worldwide in some time (unless it already is).

Features of Windows Live:
- Live.com - The equivalent of MyYahoo or Google personalized: you can have your own homepage so that each time you log in, you’ll check the news feed you want to read, the weather in the cities you may visit, the sport news which interest you and so on. Nothing new at his point… This feature is already available on several portals.
- Favorites: have a list of web sites Favorites on your homepage. That way you can access them anywhere, not only from your home computer. This feature is something like having your browser preferences on each computer you’re on. Note that Internet Explorer might come in handy at this point: when you log in your browser preferences could be directly set to your preferences. You’ll have a real interaction between the platform you’re on and your cached preferences.
- Windows Live Mail: a mail platform where you’ll be able to check your MSN email. The new thing is that it’s Outlook-like, it has a lot of useful features. It’s becoming a totally independent web application not just a page where you click links (that’s how email systems where at their very early stage).
- Windows Live Messenger: a new MSN messenger style application. A nice thing I’d like to see is that Messenger is directly set online the minute I log in, that way I don’t need to use a stand alone application to chat with people, I just use the Online Messenger - I want something fast, not a slow system like the current Web Messenger.
- Windows Live Safety Center and Windows OneCare Live: some security applications that’ll help you keep your PC clean of viruses and maintain your PC up-to-date against any failure that might be discovered on your system. It runs in the background.
- Missile launching system and F16 administrator terminal access… Just kidding

Some positive issues I noticed:
- All the tools you usually need when accessing the internet are on this portal including a Search Engine, a Mail box, a news feed reader and now this browser preferences issue.
- It does take care of operations you usually spend time doing such as updating your anti-virus or keeping your computer drivers up-to-date.
- I can’t affirm it at this point, but it seems fast. The loading speed is reduced and it really looks like an application not a web page although you still access it from a browser.

Windows Live BETA can be accessed at Live.com
Damn, just some time ago I wondered… who the hell owns one word top level domains (worth probably hundred of thousands of dollars today). Today I know that Live.com is Microsoft’s.

Finally! A new expansion for World of Warcraft is to be released soon. People were starting to get bored with the game; some players have even decided to stop playing. They probably reached Level 60, discovered every area on the continents, killed every deadly monster on their way and collected most of the items. Well let’s get obvious, once you finish all the main quests – you’d have to be a daily player for a couple of month in able to do that – and that you spend your time killing low level players, that’s no fun anymore. In the middle of it all, some people would just never stop playing because they’re simply addicted to it – hell yes!

“World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade” is the name of the expansion; it was confirmed by Blizzard earlier this week and a mini site for the game is already set. A new race, the Magical Blood Elves, seem to be the center of attention of the update. They’re the elves gone bad, using demonic means for magic and joining the Horde in order to reach the promised land of the Outland… In the mean time, here are some of the features offered in the pack:
- Players can now reach level 70 (was 60 previously)
- Two new races: one alliance (still unknown) and one horde (Blood Elves). This increases the total number of races to be chosen from to 10, 5 in each clan.
- A new continent (called the Outland) that can be reached from Kalimdor or Azeroth using Dark Portals. It will probably be the starting point of one of the new races.
- New profession: Jewelcrafting.
- New dangerous monsters and flying mounts.
- Hundred of new quests, items…

A part of the expansion will be available to current players of World of Warcraft. However, in order to benefit from all the features of “The Burning Crusade” including the new continent, the expansion pack should be purchased. In other words, it’s a new expansion pack that you’d have to buy; watching the number of players currently playing (2 000 000 – that’s 2 MILLIONS), Blizzard should be out of stock 15 min after the release of the game – lol

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Official Site