EarthTalk: Turf? Natural gas cars?

July 30, 2007   Leave a Comment  

Dear EarthTalk: Artificial turf has been popular on sports fields for decades for a variety of reasons, but is it also a good environmentally friendly option for residential lawns?                                                                                      – Sharon Chinchilla, Ft. Lauderdale, FL The use of artificial turf for residential lawns is a growing trend across America, notably in regions where water [...]

Upper Deck: No Vick trading cards this year

July 28, 2007   Leave a Comment  

As the drama surrounding Michael Vick grows, the Upper Deck trading card company announced that they will remove the embattled quarterback from all trading card sets. “Of course we appreciate the fact that Mr. Vick is innocent until proven guilty, but the allegations alone have resulted in an outpouring of very strong emotion within our [...]

Zendoku

July 25, 2007   Leave a Comment  

Zendoku is another attempt to bring Sudoku’s addictive logic to the video gaming world. It’s a valiant effort with cute, DBZ-like martial arts characters and kitschy symbols instead of numbers on the game board. The graphics aren’t great, however, and the storyline is boring and repetitive. The game tries to suck you in with different [...]

Summer cooking tips from celebrity chef Curtis Stone

July 24, 2007   Leave a Comment  

(ARA) – World famous chef Curtis Stone, star of the hit TLC show “Take Home Chef,” knows that each season is unique. With all the bounty of the summer season, cooks take advantage of the available produce to experiment with lighter fare and all the fresh vegetables that are readily available. “Each season presents different [...]

EarthTalk: Tap Water? Golf Courses?

July 23, 2007   1 Comment  

Dear EarthTalk: Bottled water companies would have us all believe that tap water is unsafe to drink. But I’ve heard that most tap water is actually pretty safe. Is this true? – Sam Tsiryulnikov, Los Angeles, CA Tap water is not without its problems. The nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG) in 2005 tested municipal water [...]

Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek

July 22, 2007   Leave a Comment  

Her Interactive recently released another treat for Nancy Drew mystery fans in “The White Wolf of Icicle Creek.” Nancy goes undercover as a maid and chef through hotel rooms at the Icicle Creek lodge in the Canadian Rockies as she investigates weird accidents and a mysterious wolf, “which appears before each incident but then mysteriously [...]

Simpsons movie promo turns you yellow

July 21, 2007   Leave a Comment  

You can just feel that yellow-hot heat coming around the corner, right down Evergreen Terrace. The Simpsons Movie is fast-approaching, and you’d better be ready for an all-out onslaught of unbearably cheesy gimmicks. This is just another one of them. Simpsonizeme.com, a site recently birthed by Fox and Burger King, allows curious visitors–those with tons [...]

All-Pro Football 2K8

July 21, 2007   2 Comments  

Written by Matt Paprocki With three years to simmer, All-Pro Football brings the 2K style of the sport into a new generation and it feels a lot like… 2K Sports football. There are few notable changes aside from the licensing once on the field, and fans will clamor at the chance to play this updated [...]

Mac worm claimed by blogger

July 18, 2007   Leave a Comment  

Researchers announced today an exploit for Macintosh OSX that could potentially expose thousands of computers to worm-like activity. A blogger wrote that he created proof of concept code that opens Intel processor-powered Mac’s to exploitation. The code is suspected to act like a computer worm, infecting a host system and using it to spread to [...]

The Bigs

July 18, 2007   Leave a Comment  

From the “it should be obvious” department comes the second attempt at capturing the national pastime on the Wii.

Harry Potter gets serious

July 17, 2007   Leave a Comment  

"Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix" is bad, in a good way “Phoenix” is darker and much more mature compared to the other, more innocent movies in the series. Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) returns for his fifth year of study at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The wizarding community is in angst and [...]

E3 2007: Subdued conference, Subdued keynotes

July 16, 2007   Leave a Comment  

Written by Ken Edwards With a much quieter show, the three major keynotes were also oddly restrained as well; few big announcements or “wow” moments. This, like the E3′s new show format, is in stark contrast — and feels quite alien — to years past. Lets take a quick look back at last year’s E3: [...]

EarthTalk: Feminine Hygiene? Green Taxis?

July 16, 2007   1 Comment  

Dear EarthTalk: Is it true that there is a lot of waste associated with tampons and sanitary pads and their packaging? Are there any environmentally friendly alternatives out there?

Dear EarthTalk: I visited New York City recently and could not believe the number of taxicabs on the streets. Are there any efforts to “green up” these vehicles? They must be real gas-guzzlers, considering all the idling and stop-and-go traffic they face.

Signal types and connector types; Keeping them straight

July 14, 2007   Leave a Comment  

There was a time, not so long ago, when television hookups were pretty simple. There were two screws on the back of the set, which went to two spade lugs on a 300-ohm twinlead antenna line, and that was it. Apart from plugging the set into the wall and waiting for the tubes to light [...]

World Series of Poker: Gold out, Hansen up

July 13, 2007   Leave a Comment  

Jamie Gold was eliminated Monday, and as we enter Day 3, Gus Hansen is on top with over $600,000 in chips. Six former champions remained at the start of the day.

Bring back the hollywood badass

July 12, 2007   Leave a Comment  

How a pack of skinny girls became better tabloid fodder than any young actor.

-Bart Blasengame

Overlooked Alternatives: Crowded House, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins

July 11, 2007   Leave a Comment  

Written by Tom Johnson Two bands reunite for new releases this week while another throws a handful of bonus tracks onto a now-classic album that is mercifully old enough that we might not feel so fleeced into buying this “deluxe edition.” Crowded House – Time On Earth: Neil Finn originally set out to create another [...]

The Adventures of Darwin

July 11, 2007   Leave a Comment  

The Adventures of Darwin operates on a simple concept: evolve or die. Unfortunately, even with a cute title and a very easy interface that allows the player to get into the game, it hasn’t followed its own rule.

Late summer fashion tips

July 10, 2007   Leave a Comment  

Late summer is the hottest part of the year–weather wise–for most of us. It definitely isn’t the social peak of the year. Let’s face it, 4th of July means the start of the off season. There is certainly time to plan for the new school year or the coming fall season. A club or party [...]

Letter from the Editor: Blast – The (open) Online Magazine

July 9, 2007   2 Comments  

I hope you’re enjoying July’s issue of Blast Magazine so far. A lot has gone into development and content lately, and I want to share some content developments with you. The big news is that we are taking the Creative Commons road. We’re licensing all of our content under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License, meaning [...]