Saw Cloverfield last night... I liked it a lot, although I think lots of people probably won't.

It's like Godzilla + Alien + The Blair Witch Project. And it's that last part that's going to be a problem for a lot of people. The movie is about a giant monster attack on New York City, but it's shot entirely from the point of view of the people on the street via a hand-held video camera, with all the shakiness and lack of focus that entails.

** VERY MINOR SPOILER ALERT **

Knowledgeable fans might want to stay for one of those "You're still here?" moments at the end of the credits, when a garbled radio transmission can be heard. Unfortunately, it was so garbled that no one in the theater could understand it.

In this interview, director Matt Reeves discusses the movie including the secret message at the end, although he won't divulge what exactly it is.

** MAJOR SPOILER ALERT **

After a little Googling, I found someone who claims to have recorded the audio and reversed it, resulting in the following message...

   boomp3.com

So, what do you think?

AOL/Moviefone has an exclusive sneak peek of the all-new U.S.S. Enterprise from J.J. Abrams' hotly anticipated Star Trek film, due out in December...

Click the image to make biggerer...

According to the Peak Oil: Life After the Oil Crash Website, we have much bigger problems on the horizon...

Civilization as we know it is coming to an end soon. This is not the wacky proclamation of a doomsday cult, apocalypse bible prophecy sect, or conspiracy theory society. Rather, it is the scientific conclusion of the best paid, most widely-respected geologists, physicists, bankers, and investors in the world. These are rational, professional, conservative individuals who are absolutely terrified by a phenomenon known as global "Peak Oil."

The site argues (at length) that the imminent depletion of the world's oil reserves will have catastrophic consequences for the world economy and population. I'm not buying into the doomsday predictions at this point, but it's definitely an interesting read.

The folks behind the classic Mystery Science Theater 3000 are back together working on a new project, called Cinematic Titanic...

Looks pretty damn funny. The DVD is for sale here.

Looking forward to the fourth (and final) season of Battlestar Galactica...

Is it April yet?!? Frak! (via ExtraLife)

How cool does this look? ...

The game is called The Agency from Sony.

The Agency is an intense action shooter set in a high tech world that lies just around the corner. Live the life of an elite agent in a persistent online world of super spies and rugged mercenaries, who use both the highest technology and the lowest tactics to accomplish their goals. Featuring cooperative and competitive play, The Agency is designed to provide instant action and long term strategy for all fans of espionage, intrigue, and explosive gameplay.

In other words, 24 meets Alias meets Counterstrike. Sign me up!

As defined by Wikipedia:

ding - Jargon for advancing a level in many video games, particularly of the role-playing genre. It originates from Everquest as there was a "Ding" sound when you leveled up.

Why do you care? (Well honestly, you probably don't. )

That's right, read it and weep, n00bs! It took a while, but I finally overcame my natural gaming attention deficit disorder and played one game long enough to reach the level cap. Yay me!

Here's a screenshot of the actual Ding moment (click to bigify)...

The game is Lord of the Rings Online (blogged previously here and here), and it's far from over despite the level cap. There's lots of high-level content to see and phat loot to acquire. The beauty of LotRO is that there's a ton of Middle Earth left for the developers to add to the game in the form of free updates, and eventually a paid expansion or two. (I can't wait to explore Moria!)

That's not to say I'm not looking forward to other games, but Lord of the Rings Online will be my home (literally) for some time to come.

p.s. In LotRO the level up sound effect is actually closer to a "whoosh" than "ding".

p.p.s. In the interest of full disclosure, I was the last of my regular gaming group to level up. However, I contend that they cheated... How dare they continue playing when I'm lazy and/or not in the mood!