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I am a huge fan of Halo ever since my friend introduced me to it. I have played all three Halo games so far. I have seen every episode of Master Chief Sucks At Halo and Arby 'n' the Chief. I have also seen the only three episodes of It's A Wonderful Live.Fake info: Was born on Harvest and selected for the SPARTAN-II program. Was one who barely made it through augmentations.
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The second edition, featuring Facebook lawsuits, Stanley Cup babies, and a skirmish at the Jolie Chateau. This news comes from sympatico.msn.ca
Enjoy!
(Note: Where the news article comes from is where Sympatico MSN got the article from. Usually it's from The Associated Press, but if it's different the news area where the article was found will be marked down.)
[edit] Creators of Scrabble knockoff on Facebook sued
T-R-O-U-B-L-E could loom for a Scrabble knockoff that has become one of the most popular activities on Facebook.
Hasbro Inc., the company that owns the word game's North American rights, sued the creators of the Scrabulous program on Thursday, less than two weeks after the release of an authorized version of Scrabble for Facebook.
Hasbro said in its lawsuit that Scrabulous violates its copyright and trademarks. Separately, Hasbro asked Facebook to block the game.
In the year since Facebook began letting outside developers write web programs that Facebook members can plug into their personal profile pages, Scrabulous has attracted some half-million daily users, despite efforts by Scrabble's owners to end it.
Video game maker Electronic Arts Inc. released an official version for Canadian and American Facebook users last week as part of a broader, year-old licensing deal with Hasbro, yet Facebook users have continued to spend countless hours on the unauthorized Scrabulous.
Now, Hasbro is trying to stop Scrabulous completely and collect unspecified damages.
Mark Blecher, general manager for digital media and gaming at Hasbro, said the Pawtucket, R.I.-based company waited until Thursday to file a lawsuit to ensure that Scrabble fans had a legal option first.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, named as defendants Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the brothers in Calcutta, India, who created the program, along with their web design and technology company, RJ Softwares.
The Agarwallas did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment made after business hours in India. A 24-hour number for RJ Softwares went unanswered Thursday.
Facebook, which was not named as a defendant, refused to immediately block the application, pending a response from Scrabulous' creators.
"Over the past year, Facebook has tried to use its status as neutral platform provider to help the parties come to an amicable agreement," the company said in a statement. "We're disappointed that Hasbro has sought to draw us into their dispute."
By waiting, Facebook risks losing immunity protection from copyright lawsuits. Under federal law, service providers are generally exempt for their users' actions - at least until they become aware of a specific infringement.
Earlier, Jayant Agarwalla said he was looking forward to competing with the official version, suggesting that Electronic Arts would have a tough time attracting "the attention and patronage of a large and dedicated user base," as Scrabulous has done.
Blecher said that rather than blame Hasbro for trying to block a popular game, "the fans of Scrabble will appreciate an authentic version."
Both games are free.
Mattel Inc. owns Scrabble rights outside the United States and Canada and did not join the lawsuit. It has a deal with RealNetworks Inc. to make a legal version available in other markets.
[edit] Stanley Cup used as baptismal font or christening of Swedish baby
Tomas Holmstrom had his day with the Stanley Cup on Friday, and he let his cousin use it as a baptismal font for a christening.
Holmstrom suggested the idea to his cousin, Robert Sundstrom, who baptized his seven-week-old daughter Alva Felicia during a private ceremony outside Holmstrom's hometown of Pitea in northern Sweden.
"Tomas came up with the idea when we were sitting in his summer cabin kitchen a week ago," Sundstrom said. "Me and my wife thought it would be fun to christen our daughter in such a priceless object."
The only outsiders at the ceremony were the two American security guards who travel with the massive silver trophy in Sweden.
Holmstrom won the Stanley Cup with the Detroit Red Wings, and each member of the team gets to spend a day with the trophy.
The Stanley Cup will next head to Vasteras, Nicklas Lidstrom's hometown.
Lidstrom, one of seven Red Wings regulars from Sweden, made hockey history last month when he became the first European captain to win the Stanley Cup. He is also a six-time winner of the Norris Trophy as the NHL's top defenceman.
Later, Henrik Zetterberg, Mikael Samuelsson, Andreas Lilja, Johan Franzen and Niklas Kronwill will bring the Stanley Cup to their hometowns. It's the first time as many as seven players from the same country outside North America will get the opportunity to spend a day with the Stanley Cup.
[edit] Papparazzi clash with guards at Angelina Jolie's chateau
It sounds like a scene from "Fight Club."
French police say camouflaged paparazzi who managed to get onto the grounds of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's chateau in southern France on Thursday fought with the Hollywood couple's guards. Both the paparazzi and the Jolie-Pitt's head of security confirmed the confrontation but gave widely different versions of events.
Freelance photographer Luc Goursolas said he broke a guard's finger and bit another until he bled, and that they hit him with a walkie-talkie, punched and kicked him, leaving a head wound that required three stitches.
"I was pouring blood. I threw myself at them, put blood all over them, and told them that I had HIV so they would stop hitting me," Goursolas told The Associated Press on Friday.
Tony Webb, head of security at the Miraval estate, said Goursolas went "berserk" without provocation and denied that his guards punched the photographer.
He said Jolie and Pitt may be forced to move if their privacy is not respected, and that the couple feels besieged. He said local police are not taking the problem seriously enough.
"If they get invasion of their privacy like this then they would have no option, and they would have to go somewhere where the laws are upheld a bit better," Webb told the AP.
"It's just not fair, they are in their own property and you've got him (Goursolas) and there could be another dozen out there that we can't find" on the 500-hectare property, he said. "They are just a couple trying to bring up their young family."
Goursolas said he wasn't on the property but in woods nearby where the guards, on quad bikes, found him. "The forest belongs to everyone," he said, adding that he walked five hours to get there. "I wasn't in their garden."
He said he didn't take any photos. The colleague who was with him, camerawoman Marianne Saint-Arroman, said she didn't take any video. She confirmed they were wearing khaki and camouflage to avoid being seen in the woods. "We weren't going to wear a red sweater," she said.
Webb, however, said the paparazzi were on the property, about 550 metres from the house, on a wooded hill from where Webb suspects that previous shots were taken of Jolie and Pitt in their garden with their children. He said Goursolas had also camouflaged his equipment and that he was "there for a good stay."
Jolie returned last weekend to the estate after the July 12 birth of her twins, Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline, in the Mediterranean city of Nice, about 100 kilometres away.
Goursolas claimed that Pitt came out to speak to them after the fight. "He told me, 'What you are doing is bad, I am fed up with my private property being violated' ... and then he said, 'If you want war you will get it."'
Webb said he wasn't on hand at that point but added that he didn't think Pitt said that.
Police spokeswoman Capt. Olivia Poupot said both sides filed legal complaints accusing the other of battery and causing injury. Goursolas said he also filed complaints for illegal detention and arrest.
The police spokeswoman said the injured personnel from the estate got doctors' notes giving them four days off from work, but that the photographers did not. Police took everyone downtown to the nearby village of Carces and took statements. A judge will rule on whether the legal complaints should be pursued further, she said.
"One can imagine that if you discover someone in your garden who is taking your photo then you're not necessarily going to politely show them the way out," she said.
Poupot said it was the first time the chateau has called on police to intervene since the Jolie-Pitts settled there earlier this year, ahead of the twins' birth.
But she said she had no other information.
"This kind of thing is really not the type of problem that interests us," she said. "There are, in my opinion, far more important things than paparazzi taking photos of a glamour couple."
Holy crap!
Finally, I have a bit of Halo-related news. This news, of course, is made up and completley fake but is about Halo, in a way.
[edit] Crow's Nest spot of huge 64 player SPARTAN deathmatch: body count at 1050+
Somebody was able to port the Crow's Nest map to a multiplayer map. Crow's Nest was then the site of a huge deathmatch between 64 players each commanding hundreds of SPARTANs and a few Elites. The fight happened early yesterday. When the match ended administrators entered Crow's Nest to find it full of bodies. They continue to search the map and keep finding dead bodies everywhere.
Administrator of the match John Secura had this to say: "I have never seen so many dead bodies on a Halo 3 multiplayer map ever. It's like Hell down here and Heaven too, because there are so many damned weapons that we can take. Heh heh heh."
As body count continues to grow, the players have commented on using a Windows Vista map-making tool to copy Crow's Nest onto an empty spot on the hard disk before placing weapons and finally testing the map.
