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Barrie teen runs away from home, parents blame online games
For nearly two-weeks 15-year-old Brandon Crisp has been missing after running away from his home. The Barrie, Canada, teen stormed out of his house during the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend when his parents took away his Xbox 360, arguing that his excessive play of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare was affecting his sleep and social skills. According to earlier reports, Brandon told his parents he would run away if his system was not returned and, in an effort to "call his bluff," his father helped the teen pack his belongings. Brandon's parents now fear that he has been "lured by gamers" through the Xbox Live gaming service, "It could be organized crime or someone involved in Internet gambling. Pedophiles can stalk kids through these games," Brandon's father told The Star. While it's easy to argue how Xbox Live is being misrepresented in this situation the fact remains that Brandon, who purchased Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare -- an M Rated title intended for gamers 17 and above -- with his own Christmas money, is still missing and his family is completely distraught. We hope for his safe return home.
Mac 101: Where'd my send button go?
More Mac 101, TUAW's series for beginners. My mom called me up last week with this question about Mail: "Where did my send button go?" Turns out she had mistakenly clicked the white chiclet (pictured) in the upper-right hand corner of her message's compose window, hiding her toolbar. When she clicked it once, Mail remembered her settings and hid the toolbar for other message windows, too. So, just clicking that chiclet showed the toolbar again, and brought her send button back. Magic. Also, you can hold down command and click the same chiclet to show and hide icons and text labels in the toolbar. Repeatedly clicking with the command key held down cycles through all your options. Now that my mom is happily sending emails again, I can sleep well knowing all about the new Bob's Big Boy and the local woman who was on Survivor.
Breakfast Topic: Missed that one
I was surprised to find out, as I'm sure you will be also, that our own Zach Yonzon admits he has never actually run Deadmines at the level it's meant for -- he's always run it afterwards, to pick up gear for twinks or just to grind for lowbie stuff. Which means he's never felt the magic of getting stunned by Smite, or really pushed to take that Goblin Shredder down. A real shame, if you ask me.And it got me thinking: what instances have you missed out on at the level? At first I thought I didn't miss any -- I love running instances, and whenever I hit the right level, I usually run to them as fast as I can. But after looking through the list, I realized that I've basically missed out on Dire Maul -- I've only run the instance a few times, and then only for quests like the Mage water quest and the Warlock mount quest. I've never once run the DM Tribute -- I know, also a real shame.So be honest -- what instances have you missed out on at the level? And why did you miss them -- did you just not need anything from there (including possibly XP), or did you never have a group to run them with? And have you ever gone back, or leveled up an alt to make up for lost instance runs? I'll definitely have to do something about that Dire Maul Tribute -- I wonder if I could run it solo with my 70 Hunter...
Mini-review of Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition
If you're trying to figure out what to buy yourself with the gift card you got this holiday season, let me recommend David Pogue's Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition. I was fortunate to get a copy of it for Christmas this year (thanks, sweetie!) and it's 866 pages of sweet, Leopard-y goodness. The book is divided into six sections that cover just about every conceivable thing you could ever want to know about the OS. It takes a look at how to maneuver around the desktop, how to use the native apps to their fullest potential, what to do with once your online with your Mac, and everything in between.If you already know your way around OS X, this manual is a terrific reference tool for looking up obscure things you don't do very often, like tweaking onscreen colors to mimic a Windows PC monitor. At the other end of the spectrum, if you're a switcher there are roughly seven trazillion tips and tricks to help you learn how to get the most out of your new operating system. Pogue's writing style is upbeat, easy to understand, and sometimes downright hilarious. The book is well laid-out and progresses fairly intuitively, although the editor seems to have gone a little crazy with the headings, sub-headings, and sub-sub-headings on many of the pages. Also, while I'm sure Pogue touches on all 300 of Leopard's new features, it's not always immediately clear which features he's describing are different from the previous version, Tiger.Despite these minor shortcomings, I love this book and think it's a great addition to any Mac users bookshelf. This manual is one you don't want to miss.
The Darkness demo has gone missing from XBLM
The Darkness has apparently gone dark on XBLM. The demo has recently disappeared from the network and we're attempting to verify the reason for its disappearance. Major Nelson states, "The operations team pulled this ... it will be back up later today." 2K Games is investigating the retraction from its end as well.The Darkness demo went live on XBLM and Europe's PSN a couple days ago, with the European PSN demo still being available for download. We'll update as we get more details.[Thanks, Joe]
Ohhh, is that where Too Human was during E3?
We'd be lying if we said Too Human's absence from the "everything this year" Microsoft press conference wasn't noticed. Especially considering Too Human is still theoretically supposed to come out this year. How many times must Denis Dyack and the team at Silicon Knights have lemon juice poured into their papercut wounds caused by the stammering flipbook presentation of Too Human at E3 2006? Well, until we play a version of Too Human that doesn't look like a Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monster (and if Harryhausen had computers we couldn't even say that). With Halo 3 and Mass Effect already slated for this holiday season, we're already feeling like we'll be stuffed with sci-fi epics -- so will Too Human make it on the plate?Dyack tells GameDaily, "We made the decision not to show Too Human at the press conference some time ago. The reason for this decision was that we have another event planned in the future for Too Human that we thought would be more appropriate ... Not attending the show and setting appointments with the press was due to Silicon Knights being extremely busy finalizing the game and we simply could not spare the time." Microsoft, who is publishing the game, apparently didn't want to comment on the story. Too Human did show off some in-game engine footage recently, but for a game that is supposedly still coming out this year -- and was already expected last year -- we've heard next to nothing about it.Update: We got an email from Eurogamer letting us know that during an interview they did last week the soon-to-be dearly departed Peter Moore said Too Human would be shown in 2008. The wording of the quote doesn't help explain if Moore is saying Too Human will be out in 2008 or just shown at next year's E3 -- whenever and whatever that might be.
Looking for iSight
Throughout the day, readers have been sending in tips about the missing iSight. When I checked this evening, Apple's store was willing to sell me an iSight Accessory Kit, or a Griffin SightLight, but the actual iSight itself was missing in action. Some readers have reported that their local Apple Stores are out of stock as well. Reader Richard Cook checked CompUSA, MacMall, MacZone and MacConnection. All out of stock with a 10-14 day wait. So why has the iSight disappeared? Could we be looking at a new product announcement? Might a new iSight be introduced soon? What do you think? Thanks everyone who wrote in.
Where have all the nunchuks gone? [update 1]
Nintendo forgot a little something in their Wii launch -- to pack a plethora of extra nunchuks to go with their Wii-motes. If your experience has been anything like this reporter's, than you too are minus any nunchuks to go with your Wii-motes (except for the one that came with the system). Eight stores and two states later, still haven't found one -- Amazon.com doesn't have them either. Now to start making phone calls all over the place, anybody else having this problem?Basic business would have dictated that people would get a nunchuk to go with their Wii-mote, so why wasn't it a 1 to 1 ratio? All the Wii-motes in the world and not a nunchuk to attach. Having friends over and not being able to play Rayman or Wii Sports Boxing has been a very disappointing experience.It seems that some readers are having the complete opposite experience, heavy on the Wii-chuk, low on the Wii-mote. Reader Kevin pretty much sums it up, "Why dont they just package them together???" We'll look into that. (Update 1: Updated due to feedback)
