With our One Love for Chi Blogathon Fundraiser coming up this Saturday, the prizes are still rolling on in. Our friends at EA have donated an awesome The Sims 3 prize package, and I think you’re all going to like it. Read the full story

Back on Sunday, news broke out that Marvel had dropped Edward Norton as the Hulk in the upcoming Avengers movie. Originally, it was reported that the decision was based on Norton’s alleged inability to work well as part of an ensemble, amongst other things. Norton’s agent, Brian Swardstrom, is singing a different tune.

Yesterday, Brian issued a statement saying this:

“This offensive statement from Kevin Feige at Marvel is a purposefully misleading, inappropriate attempt to paint our client in a negative light.  Here are the facts:  two months ago, Kevin called me and said he wanted Edward to reprise the role of Bruce Banner in The Avengers.  He told me it would be his fantasy to bring Edward on stage with the rest of the cast at ComiCon and make it the event of the convention.  When I said that Edward was definitely open to this idea, Kevin was very excited and we agreed that Edward should meet with Joss Whedon to discuss the project.  Edward and Joss had a very good meeting (confirmed by Feige to me) at which Edward said he was enthusiastic at the prospect of being a part of the ensemble cast.  Marvel subsequently made him a financial offer to be in the film and both sides started negotiating in good faith.  This past Wednesday, after several weeks of civil, uncontentious discussions, but before we had come to terms on a deal, a representative from Marvel called to say they had decided to go in another direction with the part.  This seemed to us to be a financial decision but, whatever the case, it is completely their prerogative, and we accepted their decision with no hard feelings.

We know a lot of fans have voiced their public disappointment with this result, but this is no excuse for Feige’s mean spirited, accusatory comments.  Counter to what Kevin implies here, Edward was looking forward to the opportunity to work with Joss and the other actors in the Avengers cast, many of whom are personal friends of his.  Feige’s statement is unprofessional, disingenuous and clearly defamatory.  Mr. Norton talent, tireless work ethic and professional integrity deserve more respect, and so do Marvel’s fans.

Brian Swardstrom
WME”

Norton, wanting to add his thoughts on the matter, took to his Facebook yesterday and said this to his fans:

It’s pretty obvious that Norton and his team were fully on board, and I’m getting the feeling that there is more to this than Marvel is letting on. Of course, I could be wrong, but I somehow doubt that. How awesome would that have been though, for the people at Comic Con? Sadly, that’s never going to happen.

Movie website Chud is saying that there are rumors about Joaquin Phoenix being the next actor to be offered the Banner role. We all remember his meltdown, fake or not, and he did say he was retiring from acting to be a rapper, although that could be fake too. Regardless, Phoenix is a damn good actor. Just watch his role in Gladiator, and tell me that he didn’t do a great job. My only problem is this: I don’t picture Phoenix as Dr. Bruce Banner.

Whatever happens, and if Phoenix is the guy who surprises fans at the Comic Con panel for Avengers, I sure as fuck hope we don’t see this in the movie:

- Me

** Update – Since writing this post, prizes from Activision, Central Valley Buzz, Mumbo Jumbo Games, and the ECA have arrived. More packages are expected any day now, so check back often!**

Hey there readers! So I know that on July 1st we were supposed to start with our Blogathon fundraiser, but there was an issue with their site and servers. We were told to wait until Monday, and it’s already halfway done, with no mention of starting in sight. So, instead of waiting any longer, let’s do this!

Read the full story

For the past 48 hours, I’ve been binging on Chocolatier: Sweet Society by PlayFirst for Facebook. I’m already hooked, and I know that no good can come of this.

I know, it was only a couple of weeks ago where I ranted about people playing games on Facebook, but I stayed true to my word and I haven’t been flooding my friends with status updates. Had I chosen to do that, my friends would be well aware of how, in just a short amount of time, I’ve boosted myself up to a level 13, and I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty awesome at this. I generally try to avoid these kind of games for one main reason: I have an addictive personality. Whenever I begin something like this, I always have to be number one, and I have to unlock everything. Nine times out of ten, I won’t stop until I do so.

Many of you are probably already familiar with PlayFirst. They are the ones behind the popular Diner Dash series, Dream Chronicles series, and other personal favorites of mine like Wedding Dash and Sally’s Spa. Every single PlayFirst game I’ve had the pleasure of getting my hands on, I instantly loved and couldn’t put it down. If you were to thumb through my iPhone apps, you would find multiple PlayFirst titles because that’s how good they are. I will admit, I did have some reservations about Chocolatier: Sweet Society, but it was only due to the fact that it was on Facebook, and not another platform.

In Chocolatier, your main goal is to keep the chocolate flowing so your experience and prestige increase. When you hit certain levels, more recipes are unlocked, and more items are available for your Shoppe like display tables, wallpapers, flooring, and decorations. To celebrate the upcoming Fourth of July holiday, PlayFirst has rolled out some fantastic patriotic decor ranging from flooring to the table swag. I’m pretty confident that for future holidays and events, they will release other appropriately themed items.

When I began Chocolatier, I was immediately thrown in to a tutorial that led me through the chocolate making process, step by step. I found it to be quite handy because, to be honest, most games these days just assume the player will start knowing how to do it all. After creating my very first batch of ‘basic chocolate bars’, I began to focus on my Shoppe. Set in San Francisco, circa 1882, you really get that old-world feel, especially through your decor choices. Even your Shoppe patrons are dressed in the fashions of that time period, and I appreciated the attention to detail.

Graphically, the game is done very well. The colors are rich and vibrant, the lines are crisp and smooth, and everything is so aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Out of all the Facebook games I’ve played, Chocolatier: Sweet Society is easily in my top 3 in terms of appearance, and to be honest, it’s something I’d expect from a Nintendo DS title, not a free online game. Now, where Chocolatier really soars is in the music. When you are in your Factory, there is a specific, incredibly pleasant tune, and when you switch over to your Shoppe, you are greeted with a different one. Normally I mute games like this, because I find the songs too repetitive, and borderline annoying. Not with Chocolatier. As I’m writing this, I’m playing the game, and I can hear the steam pumping out of my five machines. It’s rather soothing.

The gameplay is what you’d expect from a game like this: basic, point and click, but it doesn’t get boring or monotonous. I enjoyed the simplicity because this is a game where complicated  controls or sequences would ruin it. When creating a batch of chocolate, it’s fairly simple. Just click on your machine, and select which chocolate variation you wish to create. Then you go and click on your machine three more times, to properly mix ingredients and melt it all down. Finally, the most important step: waiting. Your initial recipe only calls for a 5 minute wait time, but there are chocolates I’ve created where it takes 8 hours to complete. Last night I set some to be ready in 12 hours, ensuring that in the morning I’d have product to place in my Shoppe.

The key to games like these is to plan. Plan ahead if you want to be successful. Know that you have somewhere to go? Create a chocolate that will take a couple of hours to complete. Playing before bedtime? Set a chocolate that will be done in either 8 or 12 hours. It really is that simple. When I play a game that requires real-time, I make the labor intensive items during the night, and then obsessive-compulsively binge on the other items during the day. I can’t even begin to tell you how many chocolate bars with peanuts, milk chocolate, chocolate bars with honey, and chocolate bars with lemon I made yesterday.

Chocolatier really stands out from other Facebook games due to the fact that your Shoppe and Factory are in two separate locations. There was a game I played a few months ago where you run your own cafe, but the kitchen and dining area was in the same cramped space. Needless to say I quickly gave up on that because it was too congested. Having my machines separate from my display tables is so helpful because I can focus on both independently. Another stand out feature is this enjoyable mini-game called “Factory Optimizer”. With “Factory Optimizer” you are able to boost your machines, resulting in chocolates being made faster. All you have to do is shoot ingredients onto the production machine, matching it to the recipe shown in the upper right corner. The higher your score, the better your machines will perform. Sadly, you can only play “Factory Optimizer” once a day, but it’s one of those things where something so small can make a huge difference in terms of enjoyability.

To wrap things up, I love Chocolatier: Sweet Society, and if I had to rate it on a scale from 1 to 10, I’d give it a 8.5. I can’t give it a perfect score for a few reasons: you currently can’t sell back any items (tables, flooring, etc) you are no longer using so they just sit in your inventory, I haven’t been able to find a setting permanently disabling the occasional pop-up asking if I want to share my achievements with my friends, I wish they had a feature where for every batch of a particular chocolate it would count towards mastering it and awarding you extra experience, and finally because it’s so addictive. When going to bed the other night, I was worried that I would run out of chocolates and my prestige level would drastically drop, and yesterday when our laptop crashed, making it unavailable for hours, I again became worried about my chocolates.

So there you have it. PlayFirst has, again, created something so ridiculously entrancing that I might as well sign my entire life over to them. Why? Because in the middle of managing my Shoppe and typing up this review, I installed the Chocolatier app on my iPhone. You’ll have to excuse me now because I have to go eat some chocolate, and spend the rest of my Friday building up my cocoa empire.

- Me

* Chocolatier is available for Facebook, PC/Mac, Nintendo DS, Windows Mobile, and iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad

Many of you know that Chris has a large family, and when I say large, it doesn’t even begin to cover the amount of people. With that being said, Chris has a very talented cousin named Lee. Lee is also married to a talented woman named Lianne. With their powers combined, they are Leee Designs, and also Angry Cow. Needing a new logo for World of Meh!, and also having seen some of their work, Chris and I both agreed that they would be a perfect fit for us. Plus we wanted to help get their name out there since this is a new business for them.

For those of you who are looking for graphic designers, these two are so easy to work with. Here’s how it happened:

I called Lianne up and asked her if she would have the time, and be willing to help create a logo for us. I had an idea in my head so I said I would email it to her. The drawing was, literally, me doodling the idea out, using a black Sharpee on a white piece of paper. It looked like ass, but they are both so creative that I knew it wouldn’t be a problem. Chris and I aren’t picky either, so all I asked was that it had no pink, wasn’t girlie/feminine, and that it had that modern, tech feel since that is how the template of our site is.

Not even a day or two later I had a couple of designs in my inbox to look at. She was fast! In both designs, she captured the spirit that I was looking for, but the original logos were a little too vertical for what we needed them for. So, what did I do? I told her to get really creative, have them be a little more horizontal, and just go crazy. When working with somebody who is creative, or who is an artist, I’ve found through past experiences that when you give them that freedom, they can produce some really amazing stuff. One major time was when I was getting my first tattoo. I told the guy what I wanted, the color scheme, and for him to just go for it because I trusted him. The tattoo came out incredible, and I could tell the guy really enjoyed working on it. Since I knew Lianne, there was no doubt in my mind regarding what she would come up with. Due to her having a busy schedule, with personal things, she let me know ahead of time that it might be a couple of days, and it wasn’t a problem since we weren’t on a deadline or anything.

Well, I can tell you all that it was well worth the wait. As soon as I opened the email with the finished logo, I immediately knew it was ‘the one’. What was the finished product? Check it out!

Both logos, one being a banner and the other for when we need avatars on various websites (Twitter, Facebook), capture what we are all about. All of the different topics we discuss, all of our hobbies, and it has that glossy, modern, tech look I was looking for. In the future, should we need anything, I already know who I’m contacting, and I would highly recommend them to anybody.

To contact them, their email is leeedesigns (at) hotmail (dot) com, join their Facebook Fan Page, follow them on Twitter, and be sure to check out the Angry Cow website.

To Lee and Lianne, thank you for again!

- Me

Having had a Facebook account for a few years now, and in the recent year started to use it more, I’m really starting to get sick of it. I originally joined Facebook to make contact with friends I went to school with, and wanted something more mature than shitty Myspace. Myspace was filled with all of those stupid glittery .gif comments, so much spam, and nasty dudes trying to get their dicks wet. No thank you.

My initial impression of Facebook was positive. It was clean, I didn’t have to worry about decorating my profile so I could look cool, and it was less buggy. As time went on, Facebook started to become the same as other social networking sites. Random friend requests, shitty privacy policies, spam, and people having to change their passwords because their accounts were compromised. On the privacy issue, I’ve always had mine set to “friends only.” All of my information is “friends only” and so are my pictures. I value my privacy, and it is so stupid that Facebook makes it such an ordeal to ensure that I have the kind of privacy I want. I don’t want my pictures or information sold to third parties, nor do I want creepy people I don’t know looking at pictures of my daughter. It shouldn’t have to be this constant thing, and at times I have thought about cancelling my Facebook account.

The one thing that is really pushing me towards that decision is this: Apps. I am so sick and fucking tired of logging on only for my friend feed to be filled with status updates from apps. Sick. Of. It. To make matters worse, I then have to sift through and see all these posts of YouTube videos, what groups/pages people are ‘Liking’ and quiz results. I’m almost 28. Does it look like I give a rats ass about what Disney Princess you are? FUCK NO! I enjoy having fun on the internet as much as the next individual, and I will admit that I have played some of the games in the past, used some of the other apps, and have even done some of the quizzes when I’ve been incredibly bored… but here is what makes me different than the 100+ people on my page: I don’t publish it to my profile.  (Note: All images of FB posts are taken from my actual feed, but I removed the names to protect the privacy of my friends.)

It would be incredibly hypocritical of me to flood my friends feeds with my stupid shit, and then rant and rave about what they do. I make a conscious effort to make sure that the only things on my status are things I want up there. I don’t have a tab on my profile for boxes or other crap, I have only posted a YouTube video maybe once (and it was because I genuinely wanted to share it with people rather than say “HEY! Look at what I’m watching!!!11eleven!!”), and I don’t go and join all of these groups named shit like “Ever have a one night stand and then get some burly crotch itch?”

I went through my feed, and while I only counted how many application statuses I saw, it doesn’t include the 20+ YouTube video posts, the numerous “like” shit, and other annoying crap. So, here is what I counted so far:

Within the past 12 hours

Castle Age – 3 posts

Country Life – 1 post

Fish World – 11 (10 posts were straight in a row)

FishVille – 2 posts

Vampire Wars – 3 posts in a row

Zombie Farm – 1 post

Total posts in a 12 hour timespan: 21

I went further back and counted this:

From 5 to 8 PM

Castle Age – 1 post

Family Feud – 2 posts in a row

Fish World – 15 posts in a row

Happy Pets – 1 post

My City Life – 1 post

Save Shelter Dogs & Puppies – 2 posts in a row

Vampire Wars – 2 posts in a row

Zombie Farm – 3 posts in a row

Total posts in a 3 hour timespan: 27

So, in 15 hours, my friend feed was bombarded with 48 goddamn app spam posts. Ridiculous! I’ve had to delete a massive amount of people before due to privacy and not being able to trust them, so it’s really sad where I’m having to consider removing people (some who are yeeeaaarrrss older than myself) because of stupid childish crap. Maybe I’m just getting old, or maybe it’s because I joined Facebook to stay in contact with people I cared to associate with, not to constantly read shit about how you cleaned your fictional fish tank, but regardless it has to stop. Facebook should make it to where people can select which apps they want to see in their friend feed, because at this point the only option I have is to hide certain people and that includes every single little thing they post – I’ve already had to do that to two people already because I don’t care about their drama.

I just feel like I shouldn’t have to make decisions like ‘do I hide this person entirely, or do I let them stay and get annoyed by their shit?’ or ‘do I delete the person from my profile, and have to deal with drama?’ My 10 year class reunion is coming up this Fall, and the last thing I want to have to deal with is somebody coming up to me asking “Hey! Why did you remove me from Facebook?” because I can assure you, it would happen. If I were still in high school, OK, I could see this app behavior to be normal. If I were like 8-10 years younger, OK, still same age group, still immature. However, on the 29th of this month, I will be 2 years away from 30, so shouldn’t my peers have matured as well? I guess not.

If any of my friends read this, in which I sincerely doubt they will, but just in case, I’m not trying to be mean, I’m not trying to call you out, I’m just simply saying that if you want to play games, I don’t want to have to fucking read it because I don’t care. If you want to do a quiz, I don’t give a shit about the result, and do you really want every single person to know how bitter some of you can be with the groups you ‘like?’

The odds of me deleting my Facebook are slim to none because at the end of the day, there are some friends on there, friends I’ve had since I was 6, that I want to keep in contact with. Sometimes phone or email doesn’t always work because they live in different time zones, have families, work, and are busy. Facebook allows me to stay connected with them without having to be a bother, so I like that. I’m just at my wits end because as each day goes by, it’s just keeps getting worse. So, Internetz, please…. stop the insanity!

- Me

Readers of Meh, this is not a joke (seriously). On Facebook, not even 5 minutes ago a friend of ours posted a disturbing update. A friend of his has a daughter who is missing. Please read below for more information, and spread the word. Help these people find their little girl.

Kelsey is described as:
Hair: Strawberry-Blonde
Eyes: Green
Height: 5’6″
Weight: 115 lbs
The family is also posting a reward for the safe return of Kelsey to whomever can provide viable information leading to her location.

If you know of any information, please contact the Mineral County Police Department (Montana) at (406) 822-3555 or (406) 544-3098 with any information, or you can find her mother, Monica Ray on Twitter, and you can even help spread the word on Facebook by joining this group.

Please readers, a family and a little girl is counting on you.

- Me

So I caved, and created a separate Twitter account for WoM. Why? Because it’s easier that way. I have it linked up so that all of the Facebook Fan Page posts get automatically posted there, and I have it so that all blog posts are created into a Tweet. It will make it a lot easier, and I like the idea of having it separate from my Twitter Feed.

If you are on Twitter, please be sure to follow us, and watch as we grow!

- Me

Finally a Facebook Fan Page has been created for World of Meh! I know it’s a little long overdue, but in all honesty we haven’t been doing much with the site. Since we are now giving it another go, why not create a Fan Page?

We’ve said time and time again how we want to create a community, and this is just another step closer to that goal. So, if you have a Facebook, and if you like our site enough to give us a nifty thumbs up, please add us! Be sure to spread the word to your friends too. We love meeting new people!

- Me

Browsing around on Youtube, I came across this video that made me laugh so damn hard. It’s from RecklessTortuga, a sketch comedy group from Los Angeles. If you are a fan of either Twilight (gag) or Harry Potter (yay!), be sure to watch this video (it also pretty much solidifies my reasons for NOT wanting to watch Twilight).

For more RecklessTortuga, check them out on Youtube, Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. If you do check them out on Youtube, I highly suggest you watch their “Psycho Girlfriend” videos. I will be blogging about those sometime this week. Absolutely hilarious!

- She Who Has The Last Word