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Weird Al's first journey into VR is a short called 'Shady Friend'
Weird Al is set to make his VR debut, Variety reports, starring alongside Nick Rutherford (Dream Corp LLC), Minka Kelly (Friday Night Lights) and former SNL writer Nick Kocher in a short film called Shady Friend. The short centers on a heartbroken man who ends up taking some psychedelic drugs his shady friend brings over. It's the first VR film to be developed exclusively for the Positron Voyager VR motion chair, according to Variety, and it will feature motion, scents and haptic elements.
Weird Al wants to sell you a drone
Weird Al Yankovic has spent over 40 years skewering pop culture through song, and endearing himself to nerds of all stripes in the process. What, then, is next on his list of things to do? Pushing swag for Radio Shack, apparently. The Honorable Mr. Yankovic popped up in a new ad for the downtrodden gadget retailer with just a touch of Wonka insanity earlier this week, leading some reporter from Parks and Recreation through a veritable toyland of drones and, erm, batteries with a (pretty awful) song wafting through the air.
Amazon's new video portal makes it easy to buy while you watch
Want to watch the latest Weird Al music video or catch a movie trailer straight out of Comic-Con? Amazon now has a place for that. Variety reveals that Amazon quietly launched a new "video shorts" section of its instant video service, filling it out with music videos, movie trailers, video reviews, interviews, featurettes and more. It seems like a simple addition of short-form video content, but it's more than that: this is one of Amazon's new advertising platforms.
Woz recreates "awesome" commercial for charity sale
Woz, always ready to entertain for charity's sake, has remade his old 280Z commercial ("It's awesome," if you didn't remember from the last time you watched it) to promote the charity sale of his Nissan 350Z. Unfortunately, rather than split-screening it, the old commercial fades up for the "awesome" line, so we don't actually get to see 2007 Woz talking about how awesome his car is. But he more than makes up for it with some nice lipsyncing, a short Segway ride, and the inclusion of a Weird Al song. Roll on, Woz!The sale itself is to benefit the IEEE lab at UC Berkeley, because Woz says that "on a global scale we are seeing America losing its competitiveness in engineering and technical skills. That is disappointing." And in addition to picking up Woz' own car (too bad it's not the Prius), you get lunch with the man himself, and the opportunity to "talk about anything that interests you."Surely that's worth the $100,000 he has listed for the sale, right? But it is for charity. If you've got an extra $100,000 sitting around, there are probably worse ways to spend it.[ via Macenstein, who has a very brown redesign going on ]
WoW Moviewatch: Hardware Store
Relmstein has a great little roundup of the best WoW machina he's seen (Big Blue Dress is a classic of the form), and while I've seen most of them, I've never seen this terrific (Model Viewer-powered) take on a wild Weird Al song. There's a little bit for everybody in this one-- Onyxia shows up, lots of sweet endgame gear makes an appearance, and someone's been playing with the fake item generator. But even if you've seen this before, it's worth another look. Great work.
Weird Al: "Don't Download This Song"
Love or hate him, Weird Al has unquestionably cranked out some of the most notable humor and satire of the late 20th - and now 21st - centuries. The Digital Music Weblog (a sister site) has discovered Mr. Weird is at it again with "Don't Download This Song," a tongue-in-cheek anthem about the dark road of lying, cheating and stealing that file sharing can lead down. Weird Al is using a small marketing site to pimp the song, complete with a music video and a download link (yes, of course it's free), as well as the upcoming album the song is featured on.Grant at TDMW cites a favorite line of Christopher Springman at Public Knowledge: "Cause you start out stealing songs/then you're robbing liquor stores/and selling crack/and running over schoolkids with your car." Personally, I don't think the record labels care where you're getting your cash, just as long as you use it to pay their outlandish monopoly prices.Feel free to grab the song, as the RIAA can't nail you for downloading this one. At least, I think.
