Pharrell To Keynote At World's Biggest Music Conference

Songwriter and Neptunes producer Pharrell Williams has been announced as the keynote speaker for 2010 Midem conference in France.

Williams will deliver the keynote in Cannes, France, where Midem takes place each year.

The event, which is officially recognized as the world's largest music industry trade show, will feature Williams on January 23, where he will address the impact of technology on the music industry and his vision of the future for the business.

In related news Williams has been tapped to produce the orchestral score for the upcoming cartoon Despicable Me, along with Oscar Award winners, Hans Zimmer and Heitor Pereira.

The 3-D cartoon is being released by Universal Pictures and features the voices of actor's like Steve Carrell, Russell Brand, Julie Andrews, Danny McBride and others.

“I love cartoons and animation, and I’ve never seen such incredible 3-D CGI,” Williams said. “To score Despicable Me along with Hans and Heitor and write original songs for the film is a dream come true.”

Despicable Me is due in theaters July 9th, 2010.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010 10:53 AM

By Mike Winslow

Pharrell To Keynote At World's Biggest Music Conference

Tsunami Warning 2010: 7.0 Earthquake Rocks Haiti

The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center has put a tsunami warning out for Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Bahamas.
A powerful earthquake has hit off the coast of Haiti, the Caribbean nation of 10 million rocked by political violence and poverty.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) said on its website that a magnitude 7.0 quake struck about 10 miles from the nation’s capital Port-au-Prince.

An Associated Press cameraman reported the collapse of a hospital, but there were no immediate casualty or damage reports.

The US Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, according to its website, put a tsunami warning out for Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and the Bahamas. The warning was not in effect for Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands.

read full article : 7.0 earthquake rocks Haiti

Tsunami Warning 2010: 7.0 Earthquake Rocks Haiti

DoomsDay : Sylvia Plath

Doomsday

The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans
Atop the broken universal clock:
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.
Out painted stages fall apart by scenes
While all the actors halt in mortal shock:
The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans.

Streets crack through in havoc-split ravines
As the doomstruck city crumbles block by block:
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.

Fractured glass flies down in smithereens;
Our lucky relics have been put in hock:
The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans.

The monkey's wrench has blasted all machines;
We never thought to hear the holy cock:
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.

Too late to ask if end was worth the means,
Too late to calculate the toppling stock:
The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans,
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.

DoomsDay : Sylvia Plath

Be Thankful

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

BE THANKFUL *--- William De Vaughn

A friend of mine sent this out as a post the other day and i just think it's so important for us to remember that we might not have everything we want, but we should remind thankful for all we have. There are so many that don't have what they need, and i know we hear it all the time. Be your own fulfillment of your dreams through hard work and well thought out plans. I wish you all the best this year and every year after.

R.A.P.P. Quelle

(thnx Negash Ali)

Be Thankful

Spider-Man 4 cancellation frees up Warcraft movie director

Raimi's big-screen adaptation of Blizzard series; effect on Activision's upcoming Spider-Man game unknown.

One week after the movie was reportedly delayed for months, Spider-Man 4 has now been postponed...forever. Sony Pictures has officially pulled the plug on the troubled production, instead opting to reboot the series a la Batman Begins. According to a press release from the company, the new film will be based on a script by James Vanderbilt (Zodiac) and will be set during Peter Parker's high school days. It will not star Tobey Maguire, who has played Parker in the last three Spider-Man films.

Despite reports of acrimony between himself and Sony, director Sam Raimi gave the upcoming project his official blessing. "Working on theSpider-Man movies was the experience of a lifetime for me," he said in a statement. "While we were looking forward to doing a fourth one together, the studio and Marvel have a unique opportunity to take the franchise in a new direction, and I know they will do a terrific job."

Besides unsettling the comic-book-fan diaspora, the Spider-Man 4 cancellation has a direct, twofold impact on the game industry. First, it may scuttle any game that was being developed as a tie-in to the film at Activision, which holds the Spider-Man license. Though the company has not responded to inquires about any such movie-based project, its executives have said that a game featuring the titular webslinger is planned for later this year. Activision's last Spider-Man game, 2008's well-reviewed Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, was based directly on the Marvel comic book property, not any film adaptation. However, Activision did publish games based on all three Spider-Man films for a variety of platforms.

The second piece of fallout from the scrapping of Spider-Man 4 is that it frees up Sam Raimi to work on the forthcoming movie set in the Warcraft universe. Last July, the Evil Dead director signed on to helm the project, which is being written by Robert Rodat (Saving Private Ryan) and developed by Legendary Pictures (300, The Dark Knight) for movie studio Warner Bros.

World of Warcraft developer-publisher Blizzard Entertainment, a division of Activision Blizzard, is helping in the movie's production. Its senior vice president of creative development, Chris Metzen, is on board as coproducer. Unfortunately, Blizzard reps are currently not offering updates on the Warcraft film's status.

• By Tor Thorsen, GameSpot
• Posted Jan 11, 2010 3:39 pm PT

Spider-Man 4 cancellation frees up Warcraft movie director

Going in on Marco's Pizza !

Hey guys!

So i think we all know i'm really critical of service when it comes to Fast Food businesses. My latest "shhhhhhiiity!" Business is none other than the dearly loved Marco's Pizza. Yeah yeah , i know the pizza is good. Well this is what i've heard. When they first opened i was excited to take advantage of a new eatery being in the east, but shortly after that i realized it was just another business with "bahamian customer services" ( well atleast the fast food service we give each other, not the fake shit we give to the tourist ). I ordered a pizza , and told the cashier that i had a big note. She then said we don't have change for that. I said well thank you , but i can't get your pizza then cause this is all i have. She said hold on can came back and said that it's ok , because she told the driver i had more than their $20.00 limit of change. Not long after the "pie" came, i went to get it and the driver says to me " oh , um ...i ain gat change fa dat" ...so now am confused because the cashier just said it was cool and the driver was told and would have the change ..so i say well i guess am not having pizza today and the driver then says " well i could take your money and bring it back to you later"..( laughs at the gall of the driver ) ....so i said , um no!..You take your pizza back to your poor customer service business ,thanks. NOW!..i called back to the "brand new" establishment, and talk to the manger who explains the same thing the cashier did and i told her that this was explained to and said i would not get the pizza but the cashier assured me that the driver would have change. She says "oh , well we don't do that here"...

(sighs) -

Some of my friends think its a little too much for me to stop eating at a business place / fast food business , off of poor service that can be over looked. I feel like its just like you spitting on my food ( smiles ). I think it's the company's job to win me over. This is not just with the food , but also with the service. So sorry Marco's "poor service" Pizza, i won't be eating your food even if everyone one else does. I can't take the risk of your food preparation being as poor as your service and me catching something from your amazingly good "tasting" pizza. ( flips a bird ) ....

Going in on Marco's Pizza !

Canadian family's dog saves 11-year-old boy from cougar

A Canadian family's golden retriever saved its 11-year-old owner's life on Saturday when the boy was charged by a cougar in British Columbia.

||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Angel, pictured after the attack, is expected to make a full recovery. Photo: RCMP

Austin Forman was in his family's garden in Boston Bar with Angela, the family's 18-month-old pet dog, when he was charged by the wild cat.

Angel positioned herself between her young master and the cougar, sustaining puncture wounds.

Related Articles

• Dog saved from 70ft cliff fall by collar

• Why dogs are a president's best friend

• Barack and Bo Obama: why dogs are a president's best friend

• Mark Cavendish: a day in the life with Britain's Tour de France sprint sensation

• Black labradors are not likely to kill, judges rule

"I was really scared. At first, I didn't know it was a cougar. I thought it was another dog," Austin told the Canadian news website CTV News on Sunday. "As soon as it went underneath the light, I saw that it was a cougar. I knew at that moment, I had to go inside."

The boy fled into his home, yelling: "A cougar is eating Angel!"

Sherri Forman, Austin's mother, called police, and a nearby constable from the RCMP sped to the scene, where the wild cat was attacking the dog.

The cougar had dragged Angel under the porch, where it continued to savage the dog's neck and face despite the officer firing two rounds into its hind quarters.

When the officer finally shot and killed the wild cat, its jaws remained closed on the dog's face.

When the cat was finally killed, the dog was silent for a few moments, then took a big gasp of air and got to her feet.

The dog, which has a swollen eye, was expected to recover with the help of a local vet.

Mrs Forman praised the family pet.

"She must've known something was up," she said. "Now, she's our guardian angel."

Canadian family's dog saves 11-year-old boy from cougar

Wii VGChartz Game of the Year Awards 2009

t’s been a year of revivals, remakes, and revolutions in game control for the Wii, as it closes the decade with a very respectable lineup for 2009. In the course of one year, we’ve seen such varied titles as MadWorld, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, Wii Sports Resort, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. The VGChartz staff have chosen our picks for the cream of the Wii’s crop this year, and we also got you, the users, to send in your votes. So, did your favourite game win? Read on to find out!

Best Shooter: Metroid Prime Trilogy

Three award-winning first-person adventures for the price of one, updated with better graphics and superior controls? Yes, please! The Metroid Prime series has been critically acclaimed since its inception, but the first two games (on the Gamecube) were hampered by an oft-confusing control scheme. Their facelift on the Wii, which gives them both pointer controls, fixes this problem and makes these atmospheric games even more intense. For its fantastic value, Metroid Prime Trilogy wins VGChartz’ Best Shooter of 2009 award.

Runner-Up: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare: Reflex Edition

Reader’s Choice: Metroid Prime Trilogy

Best Action-Adventure: MadWorld

“Jack! Jack! He’s a psycho maniac!” Such phrases permeate the in-game commentary of Platinum Games’ MadWorld, and they’re a pretty apt summation of what’s generally going on. Jack likes to spend his days beating guys to a pulp. Whether he’s impaling them with a street sign, tossing them into a live wire, or slicing and dicing them with the chainsaw attached to his arm, this guy’s got attitude to spare. Add in the hilarious commentary and black-and-white Sin City art style, and you can see how MadWorld takes VGC’s Action-Adventure of the Year award.

Runner-Up: Muramasa: The Demon Blade

Reader’s Choice: Metroid Prime Trilogy

Best Fighter: Punch-Out!!

The champion returns! Little Mac re-enters the ring after a fifteen-year hiatus, and that’s probably all that need be said. Canadian developer Next Level Games brought back Nintendo’s classic fighter with a vengeance, with snazzy cel-shaded graphics, new opponents, motion controls, and the series’ first foray into multiplayer. But we all know that the real reason Punch-Out takes VGChartz’ Wii Fighter of the Year award is because of Doc Louis, right? “Join the Nintendo Fun Cl... I mean, join Club Nintendo today, Mac!”

Runner-Up: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up

Reader’s Choice: Punch-Out!!

Best Platformer: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

...and in other news, the sun came up this morning and pie tastes great! At this year’s E3, Nintendo debuted many tasty treats for its serious fans, the first of which was New Super Mario Brothers Wii. First Mario sidescrolling platformer on a console since the SNES? Check. Dozens of levels worth of challenges, collectibles, and new powerups? Check. Four-player simultaneous play? SHWAAAAAT??? New Super Mario Brothers Wii triple-jumps over the flagpole to snag VGChartz’ Wii Platformer of the Year award for 2009.

Runner-Up: Lost Winds 2: Winter of the Melodias

Reader’s Choice: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Best Racing: Excitebots: Trick Racing

Excitebots: Trick Racing took home our Wii Racing Game of the Year award for being the first in the genre (to our knowledge) to combine racing, poker, robots, and super sandwiches. Fast-paced online and local multiplayer matches make this a worthy addition to the venerable Excite franchise.

Runner-Up: - Excitebike: World Rally

Reader’s Choice: Excitebots: Trick Racing

Best RPG: Rune Factory Frontier

If there are two terms no one ever thought they’d hear in the same sentence about a game, they’d probably be ‘farming’ and ‘RPG’. In this world, you’ll go from chopping wood, gathering food, mixing medicine, and enhancing your farm skills to crawling dungeons, fighting bosses, and levelling up your watering cans. You can make friends with monsters, cultivate land, learn to fish, and make friends with every character in the game. All told, it’s entirely possible to spend over a hundred hours in this world. For its unique blend of two completely different genres, Rune Factory Frontier wins our Wii RPG of the Year award.

Runner-Up: Muramasa: The Demon Blade

Reader’s Choice: Muramasa: The Demon Blade

Best Puzzle Game: Boom Blox Bash Party

The original Boom Blox was a great game – after all, who doesn’t love virtual Jenga? But it was lacking in some key areas (namely the controls and a lack of content). These issues were addressed in the sequel, which adds more single-player challenges, more multiplayer modes, an enhanced level editor, and the ability to share created levels online. Of course, the multiplayer is the main draw here. The sheer fun of pointing at blocks and pulling them around with multiple players watching you, all the while trying to keep a steady hand and a straight face, is enough to earn Boom Blox Bash Party VGChartz’ Wii Puzzle Game of the Year award.

Runner-Up: Marble Saga: Kororinpa

Reader’s Choice: Boom Blox Bash Party

Best Music & Peripheral: The Beatles: Rock Band

Imagine there’s no hardcore. Around us only games. Nothing to rage and moan for. And no online verbal maims.

That’s what the music game genre is all about – approachable party gameplay that everyone can enjoy, regardless of their gaming experience. The Beatles are quite likely the most beloved band of all time, so who better to base an entire Rock Band entry around? John, Paul, George, and Ringo are all rendered in a masterful stylistic fashion, belting out classics such as “Here Comes the Sun” and “She Loves You Yea Yea Yea”. In addition to over 40 on-disc vintage songs (and reams more available for download), The Beatles: Rock Band also adds the ability to play with up to three microphones, allowing vocal harmonies for the first time in the series. This game wins our Wii Music Game of the Year award for its fantastic songs and approachability, whether you’re of the younger generation experiencing the Beatles for the first time, or a long-time fan looking to get back to where you once belonged.

Runner-Up: Guitar Hero 5

Reader’s Choice: The Beatles: Rock Band

Best Strategy & Simulation: Little King's Story

Hey! You got your Sim City in my Pikmin! Honestly, it was hard to decide whether LKS belonged in this category or the Action-Adventure genre. There is just so much going on in this game – city building, character interaction, fighting, questing, resource management, and a very cute story – that it was very hard to nail down. Whatever the genre, though, Little King’s Story is a winner due to the fact that it does all of the aforementioned things in an exemplary manner. The fact that your main character’s a little tyke who orders around entire kingdoms is just another reason why Little King’s Story deserves our Wii Strategy & Simulation Title of the Year award.

Runner-Up: Rune Factory: Frontier

Reader’s Choice: Little King’s Story

Best Sports: Wii Sports Resort

The poster child for Nintendo’s new Wii Motion Plus attachment, Wii Sports Resort really does showcase a new dimension of physical reality in gaming. Returning favourites Bowling and Golf join Archery, Basketball, and (for the love of god finally!) an excellent Swordfighting game, among others. My Obi-Wan Kenobi Mii takes the high ground and knocks Sylvester Stallone into the drink, winning Wii Sports Resort our title of Wii Sports Game of the Year.

Runner-Up: Tiger Woods '10

Reader’s Choice: Wii Sports Resort

Best WiiWare: Lost Winds 2: Winter of the Melodias

While it had the unfortunate luck of competing against a new Mario title for the Best Platformer award, Lost Winds 2 gets its chance to shine as our pick for Best WiiWare title of the year. Improving on the stellar wind-based platforming of the previous title, this entry adds the ability to create cyclones, which can siphon water out of pools and clear rocks out of the way, allowing for more crazy puzzles. The biggest addition is the ability to change the seasons, allowing the player to switch between Summer and Winter at will.

Runner-Up: Final Fantasy IV: The After Years

Reader’s Choice: Lost Winds 2: Winter of the Melodias

Best Graphics: Muramasa: The Demon Blade

When you play Muramasa: The Demon Blade, you aren’t playing a video game. You’re stepping into an interactive watercolor painting. Momohime and Kisuke run through exquisitely-detailed vistas, dark and foreboding badlands, and everything in between, fighting with grace and fluidity that almost brings a tear to your eyes. That the engine can handle so many things happening onscreen at once, with tons of enemies at times, is only icing on the cake. For its mixture of style and technical finesse, Muramasa: The Demon Blade wins VGChartz’ Best Wii Graphics of the Year award.

Runner-Up: Silent Hill Shattered Memories

Reader’s Choice: Muramasa: The Demon Blade

Best Musical Score: Punch-Out!!

In any fighting game, one of the best ways to keep the player pumped is with upbeat, high-quality music. Lucky, then, that Punch-Out!! has this subject right where it wants it. With the game’s many variations on the theme from the classic NES game, and the amazing new fastpaced techno beats, Little Mac delivers a knockout punch to the competition, taking home the championship title of Best Music Score for a Wii game in 2009!

Runner-Up: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Reader’s Choice: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Most Innovative: Wii Sports Resort

Wii Sports Resort is a sign of things to come for gaming, no doubt about it. With the added fidelity of Wii Motion Plus, every golf swing, every basketball throw, and every sword swipe is accurately measured onscreen. In addition to being an incredibly fun multiplayer experience, Wii Sports Resort is helping to bring gaming to new levels of immersion, and for that, it earns VGChartz’ Most Innovative Wii Game of 2009 award.

Runner-Up: Silent Hill Shattered Memories

Reader’s Choice: Wii Sports Resort

Biggest Disappointment: The Conduit

Remember when High Voltage Software first showed off their amazing Quantum3 engine, which promised to bring the Wii to a PS3/360 level of graphical fidelity? How about the epic single-player campaign we were promised, with multiplayer that will knock our socks off? Well, the Conduit came out and yeah... those things didn’t happen. The graphics, while great on a technical level, lack anything resembling artistic design. The single-player, while fun, is basically a corridor crawl. There is no local multiplayer or network play, and the online play itself is limited to just twelve players. Now, keep in mind that this award doesn’t mean the game is bad – VGChartz gave it an impressive 8.3/10 – it just wasn’t nearly the game-changer it was hyped up to be. For these reasons, The Conduit earns VGChartz’ dubious honour of the Wii’s Biggest Disappointment of the year.

Runner-Up: - Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop

Reader’s Choice: The Conduit

Best Game No One Played: Little King's Story

Seriously, guys – 140,000 sales for Little King’s Story? And we're wondering why third parties are sometimes unsure about making Wii games... We’ve already given this title an award on this list, so nothing further needs to be said about its quality. Whether it’s due to poor marketing, the game’s status as a ‘niche’ title, or the bad economy forcing people to spend their money on ‘sure bets’, it’s a crying shame when an innovative title such as this fails to spark much interest. Unfortunately, Little King’s Story takes our award for Best Wii Game No One Played.

Runner-Up: MadWorld

Reader’s Choice: Little King’s Story

Most Anticipated Game: Super Mario Galaxy 2

The original Super Mario Galaxy has the honour of being the third-highest-rated game of all time on Gamerankings.com (and, indeed, it's the highest-rated on VGChartz!). With that in mind, expectations are high for Super Mario Galaxy 2, which will mark the first time a Nintendo console has played host to two full 3D Mario adventures. The addition of Yoshi, along with Shigeru Miyamoto’s promises that it will be much more challenging than its predecessor, ensures that (at the very least) Galaxy 2 will be one of the top games to look out for in 2010. Yoshi eats a Star Bit and poops out our Most Anticipated Wii Game award!

Runner-Up: No More Heroes 2

Reader's Choice: The Legend of Zelda Wii (Working Title)

Wii Game of the Year: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Really, what more need be said about New Super Mario Bros. Wii? Everyone knows sidescrolling Mario. Everyone loves sidescrolling Mario. This is a new entry in the series that brought gaming from the brink of extinction in the 1980s, and some have said this one’s the best of the lot. With imaginative level design, four-player capabilities, and that extra layer of TLC reserved only for a Miyamoto game, New Super Mario Bros. Wii was a shoe-in for VGChartz’ Wii Game of the Year.

Runner-Up: - Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

Reader’s Choice: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

There you have it, folks – the Wii has had a decidedly good year when it comes to software, with many varied genres represented, and we (and you!) have decided on the best of the best. Check back tomorrow for for more awards, as we unveil VGChartz’ PC Game of the Year!

By Daniel Share-Strom 29th Dec 2009

Wii VGChartz Game of the Year Awards 2009