I'm A Nerd: Portal

So you might not understand what you saw, but this is portal. I would like to start off by saying a big thank you to my buddy David for giving me his free copy of portal! When you pre-order portal 2 (which everyone here should go do), you get a free copy of this wonderful game. You essentially have a gun that has a portal entrance and a portal exit. Simple? Wrong. Although it is a pretty simple concept, the physics and tricks you have to use in this game are ridiculous. You can create infinite loops and really think outside the box in order to get past obstacles. You might have to do something with gravity like this:



Anyways this game really plays with your mind and makes you really think about physics in a whole new way. Although you can beat the game in about 10 minutes (if your pro) it could take hours if you don't know what your doing. I hope to see what Portal 2 brings.

Music Recommendation: Lights

Music Recommendation: Ladyhawke

It looks like New Zealand is no longer just known for Flight of The Conchords, Lord of The Rings, and Kiwi's. Phillipa "Pip" Brown or "Ladyhawke" is best known for her hits "Paris is Burning" and "My Delirium". Still, she has numerous other hits including "Another Runaway", "Magic" and "Dusk Til Dawn". The song above is a mashup of her first and only album to date. It's not often that a singer can remake an entire debut album and turn it into its own song. She won best album as well as best single for the 2009 New Zealand Music Awards and shows no signs of slowing down. According to the Charlatans' Tim Burgess- "I've been working with Josh, the guitarist from The Horrors, and Stefan, the drummer from the Klaxons and right now we can only do stuff when our other bands aren't doing things. But when we do get together, it's really explosive and it'll be well worth waiting for. I've also got Ladyhawke singing on it."

Also to throw insult to injury I decided to included Lissy Trullie in here just for fun. only so many "L" ladies that you can fit into a week.

UFA Watch: Tomas Kopecky

(picture courtesy of life.com)

Although Tomas Kopecky is not a household name, he is someone that could certainly be on the Edmonton Oilers radar. With Jordan Eberle and Ales Hemsky down the right side, Edmonton could use some size down the right side and Kopecky is 6'3" and over 200lbs. Although it is likely that Ryan Jones, Curtis Hamilton or Tyler Pitlick occupy that spot going forward, I think that Tomas Kopecky would be a great fit until our kids are ready to jump up into that role. He is currently 5th on a very talented Chicago team Although the majority of his points were from playing a top six role this year, he would be a nice luxury in our bottom 6.

Given his career year in Chicago this year with 14 goals and 27 assists for 41 points in 73 games, Chicago is unlikely able to sign him. Only 29, Kopecky is still entering his prime and likely looking for a pay raise- something Edmonton shouldn't have a problem offering him. Here is a great hit on Denis Gauthier and another awesome hit on Carle.

I'm A Nerd: R.U.S.E

R.U.S.E is a real time strategy game that was released in september 2010 for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox360. It allows the gamer to take the role of a World War II general that tries to raise through the ranks in hopes to end the war. But it doesn't just stop their, the general still has some odds and ends to finish after the war as well. The game offers a great multiplayer where you can take control of different nations against your friends. The best part of this is that each nation (or faction) has different units that are better suited for different styles of players. These nations include United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Italy, France, and the Soviet Union. The French for example have upgraded bunkers that allow for easier defending while the Germans have much stronger tanks. Panzer General anyone?

Although this game may just seem like your typical WWII strategy game at first, it provides two very unique aspects that allow the user to enjoy the game on a whole new level. First, the user has full control off the camera. What I mean by this is that the player can zoom all the way until their units look like chips on table. A typical view would look this this:



But the player can also scroll in to watch the battle first hand. This is not to say that you only have two options, but rather you can look at the board from every single angle and any zoom that seems comfortable. This allows the gamer to pay attention to both the micro and the macro in the game.



Unlike games like Starcraft that you can just mass as many units as you possibly can and try to overrun a city or town, you are unable to use such simple strategies in this game. With Recon your units are unable to see hidden units and your army can be absolutely slaughtered. In addition, the board has forests, mountains and rivers that can cause huge problems for units. If you place the lonliest footsoldier in a forest it can easily ambush a tank. The same is true for artillery. Response times are also much longer. If your army becomes ambushed you aren't going to be able to get another army to a different town in the matter of seconds like a lot of strategy games.

The second biggest thing with R.U.S.E is of course the ruses. What are ruses? Well basically they are decoys that are handed out every couple of minutes that add a more dynamic gameplay. The user can choose between a wide range of ruses that reveal information, hide information or create decoys. So essentially one user could use a spy to see what a use has while another user could launch a fake assault on a town. Other ruses make small units look like bigger units and vice versa. You can also make your units move faster. Their are many different strategies you can use and you have to react to other peoples ruses accordingly.

(pictures courtesy of digitalchumps.com and play2compete.com)

Devan Dubnyk: Goaltender of the Future?

Their is a lot to like about Devan Dubnyk. The Regina Saskatchewan native is a fromer first round pick of the Edmonton Oilers in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. Although it was a questionable pick at the time, he is looking much better then the five picks that followed. Those players included Alexander Radulov, Petteri Nokelainen, Marek Schwarz, Kyle Chipchura, and Lauri Korpikoski. Although I'm normally not one who supports drafting goaltenders in the first round, It's hard not to like this pick.

It has taken Devan Dubnyk a lot longer to get to the NHL then most thought, but he has been worth the wait. The 6'6" netminder has a respectable 0.911 save percentage on a team that is currently ranked second worst in goals against. Even more impressive is his record. Dubnyk currently sits with 10 wins and 12 regulation losses. He does however have EIGHT overtime losses and I can't even recall how many of his regulation losses have come with under a minute left in play. My point is, that if this team improves in the shooutout and in overtime that Dubnyk could be sitting a very nice 18-12 record on the worst team in the leauge. Oh and one shutout.

Given that this is his first full season with the Oilers (he played only 19 games last season), he really has a chance to be the goaltender of the future with the Edmonton Oilers. His numbers don't express his full potential seeing as he has almost always been on the team that is the "underdog". He has had times where he has made 40+ saves and still lost the game because of the team in front of him. With a defence in front of Dubnyk, I would be surprised to see his save percentage rise and his goals against drop.

At the same time the kid is only 24. If you look at a goaltender like Cam Ward he had a .897 save percentage in the regular season when he was 23 and when to the stanley cup and followed it up with a .904 save percentage in 2007-2008. In fact Ward is seemed as one of the best goaltenders in the leauge (not elite but still capable to winning a cup) even though his career save percentage is .909 in the NHL. Thats less then what Dubnyk is currently sitting at now.

The young Oilers look like they finally have a few peices coming together.

Music Recommendation: Lissie

Elisabeth Maurus or "Lissie" is an American folk artist from Rock Island, Illinois. Her Debut Album "Catchin a Tiger" was released June 21st, 2010 and has already received unbelieveable attention. She was voted by Paste Magazine as the #1 best solo artist of 2010. She already has three singles including "Cuckoo", "In Sleep" as we as "When I'm Alone". In fact, iTunes UK voted "When I'm Alone" as the best song of 2010 and she has continued to turn pop covers such as "Bad Romance" and "Pursuit of Happiness".

Lissie is an artist to watch for sure. She makes singing look so effortless and isn't just a one hit wonder. I look forward to see her grow as an artist and use her musical talents (not just her voice but her guitar playing) in different ways. If you liked her first video check out "Everywhere I Go" or "Making Pies".