Read the following ... "Online gamer killed over cybertheft Chinese player stabbed to death after virtual weapon sold Updated: 9:49 p.m. ET March 30, 2005 BEIJING - A Shanghai online game player stabbed to death a competitor who sold his cyber-sword, the China Daily said on Wednesday, creating a dilemma in China where no law exists for the ownership of virtual weapons. Qiu Chengwei, 41, stabbed competitor Zhu Caoyuan repeatedly in the chest after he was told Zhu had sold his "dragon sabre," used in the popular online game, "Legend of Mir 3", the newspaper said a Shanghai court was told on Tuesday. "Legend of Mir 3" features heroes and villains, sorcerers and warriors, many of whom wield enormous swords. Qiu and a friend jointly won their weapon last February, and lent it to Zhu who then sold it for 7,200 yuan (US$870), the newspaper said. Qui went to the police to report the "theft" but was told the weapon was not real property protected by law. "Zhu promise

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies After The Sunset: Platinum Series (Widescreen) America's Next Top Model: 1st Cycle Apollo 13: 2-Disc Anniversary Edition (Widescreen) Astro Boy: Complete Series Batman: The Animated Series: Secrets Of The Caped Crusader Closer (Superbit) (#35 in the DVDPS Top 40) Crimson Rivers: Angel Of The Apocalypse: SE Hustle Islands In The Stream Kagemusha (2-Disc SE): Criterion Collection (#12 in the DVDPS Top 40) Lone Gunmen, The: Complete Series Murder, She Wrote: The Complete First Season National Lampoon's Gold Diggers (Unrated) Orgazmo: SE (#34 in the DVDPS Top 40) Vera Drake Twilight Zone: Season #2: Definitive Collection (#27 in the DVDPS Top 40) Music Guero Beck Guero (W/Dvd) [EXTRA TRACKS] [LIMITED EDITION] [COLLECTOR'S EDITION] Beck Bravery Bravery Live at Earl's Court Morrissey Right to Bare Arms Larry the Cable Guy Let Them Be Little Billy Dean Language. Sex. Violence. O

A co-worker found this article, and I have to completely agree. The steps Microsoft took with XML in Office 2003 are great, but they have a lot of holes that need to be filled. I do not expect them to get fixed in 2003, so hopefully the next version will give us the XML fixes we are looking for!

As many of you know, one of my focus points in my day job is the integration of external application with IBM Lotus Notes & Domino, especially Microsoft Office. I speak at Lotusphere on these topics. At the new Advisor Notes2.Net conference, I will be giving a detailed presentation on traditional integration of Microsoft Office with IBM Lotus Notes and Domino. I will also talk about he new Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft office in Visual Studio.Net 2005. You can access the conference website here, and the brochure here. Hope to see you there! July 17 - 21, 2005 Las Vegas, Nevada JW Marriott Las Vegas Resort

As we get closer to Longhorn, the next release of Windows, information is going to pop all over the net. I found that this site, by Paul Thurrott, has the most detail I could find. Lots of good information, so go check it out. Attached are some of the new screenshots here ... the Avalon UI is looking very cool.

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Batman & Robin: Serial Collection (2-Disc) Being Julia Best Of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, The Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason (Widescreen) (#21 in the DVDPS Top 40) Fat Albert (2004) Final Cut (2004) Finding Neverland (Widescreen) (#3 in the DVDPS Top 40) Firewalker Flintstones: Season #3 Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries, The: Season One Kojak: The Complete First Season Man Called Flintstone, The Mickey & The Beanstalk Mickey's Around The World In 80 Days Paradise (2004) Pimp My Ride: Season #1 Pretender: Season #1 She Gets What She Wants Stand By Me: Deluxe Edition Star Wars: Clone Wars: Volume 1 (#13 in the DVDPS Top 40) Music Hotel Moby Songs to Make Dogs Happy Laurel Canyon Animal Company Lifehouse [ENHANCED] Lifehouse Lullabies to Paralyze (W/Dvd) (Dlx) (Dig) (Spkg) Queens of the Stone Age Silent Alarm Bloc Party Arular M.I.A. Lullabies to Paralyze Queen

For those of you not aware, one of the big things with the gaming community is to modify one's computer case. Called "case moding," people go to extremes to make their computer look like anything but a computer. One of the coolest ones I have seen is the Doom 3 case mod. Still in progress, the modder has a picture blog of his progress. Its a great read/view and interesting to see how it is done. I can not wait to see what it looks like in the end. Check it out here

Wow ... I do not know what to say here. Bill "Wicked" Wilson, the founder of GamingGroove.com and the Original founder of VoodooExtreme (now part of IGN Insider) passed away this morning. He leaves behind his son, Dax, and ex-wife Aimee. Billy was one of the originals in the world of computer and console game news on the web. VoodooExtreme was brash, over the top, and rubbed many people the wrong way. But Billy did it with style and class, and helped turn the gaming web sites into legitimate journalism. I met Billy once, but he would not remember me. I can not call him a friend, but I watched his sites and career over the past few years. He was 33, just a few years older than I am. Just hits you hard. You can read some other stories about Billy here and here. Billy, you are in a better place. Rest in Peace.

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Alfie (2004 / SE / Widescreen) As Time Goes By: The Complete Series #7 Band Wagon: SE Bells Are Ringing, The Call Northside 777 Easter Parade: SE Hogan's Heroes: Season #1 Incredibles, The (Widescreen) (#1 in the DVDPS Top 40) L'eclisse: Criterion Collection La Femme Nikita: Season #2 Laura (#8 in the DVDPS Top 40) Miss Congeniality: Deluxe Edition Red Dwarf: Series 5 Red Dwarf: Series 6 Star Trek: First Contact: 2-Disc Collector's Edition (#2 in the DVDPS Top 40) Starsky & Hutch: The Complete Third Season Strange Frequency 2 Sword Of Doom: Criterion Collection Toolbox Murders, The What The "Bleep" Do We Know!? Young Torless: Criterion Collection Music Now That's What I Call Music! 18 Various Artists Greatest Hits [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED] Crosby Stills & Nash Employment Kaiser Chiefs David Live David Bowie Live at the Fillmore Los Lob

I assume that everyone has seen the official trailer for Star Wars Episode III: The Revenge of the Sith. It premiered on the Fox TV show "The OC" and in theaters with the movie "Robots" this past weekend. You can also download it from the Star Wars website. For a total fanboy of the Star Wars worlds, I love what I have seen. George announced it will be the first Star Wars movie to get a PG-13 rating. Hopefully that means the violence of the Jedi's getting wiped out and the deaths of Padme and Mace Windu will not be weak. Actually, the rumor I have heard about Padme's death makes me think George is doing this movie right ... highlight the line below to read the rumor: Anakin Force Chokes Padme! Most Star Wars fans consider Episode 5: The Empire Strikes Back as the best of the series. It is dark, the dialog is fairly decent, and the action is packed. If this movie is done right, it should be the darkest and the best of all six. My fingers are crossed!

It seems that the hot smackdown on the techy websites now a days is the calling out of the death of Tivo. I am a huge Tivo fan. One of my favorite hardware inventions of the past 15 years. I can live my life on whatever schedule I want and still be able to catch television shows that I enjoy. Iron Chef (both the Japanese and US version), Stargate (SG1 and Atlantis), The West Wing, BattleStar Galactica (The new version), and the Monster Series (Monster House, Monster Garage, and American Chopper) all get taped every week. Love it. You can read some of the deathwatch talk here and a great rebuttal. Hopefully Tivo can stick it out. I like Tivo to Go and think they did a good job for a first implementation. I want it to work on my Mac, but I can wait. And for those of you who use other solutions other than Tivo ... tried them and no thanks. Tivo is PVR done right.

The official Dream Theater website has information about the 8th CD: Dream Theater have completed work on their 8th full length studio album entitled "OCTAVARIUM" which is tentatively set for release through Atlantic Records on June 7th, 2005. The track listing is as follows: 1. The Root Of All Evil 2. The Answer Lies Within 3. These Walls 4. I Walk Beside You 5. Panic Attack 6. Never Enough 7. Sacrificed Sons 8. Octavarium Dream Theater's 2005/2006 World Tour will kick off on June 10th in Sweden with a leg of European Festivals and select headlining shows which will then be followed by a North American leg throughout July/August as part of a "package" tour with several other bands TBA very soon..... More info as I get it

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Best Of Mister Ed, The: Volume 2 Columbo: The Complete Second Season Crusade: The Life Of Billy Graham Felicity: The Complete Fourth Season Friends: Season 9: SE (#38 in the DVDPS Top 40) Green Acres: Season #2 Ladder 49 (Widescreen) Popular: Season Two Ring Collectors Set (Widescreen) Sweet Valley High: The Complete First Season Thief And The Cobbler, The We Live Again Music Earthsongs Secret Garden Mafia Black Label Society, Zakk Wylde Kasabian Kasabian Ragin Live Rhonda Vincent and The Rage Fabric 20 John Digweed Set Yourself on Fire Stars Stabbing the Drama (Dig) [EXTRA TRACKS] [LIMITED EDITION] Soilwork My Kind of Livin [ENHANCED] Craig Morgan No Wow Kills, The Kills Duke Meets the Earl Ronnie Earl & Duke Robillard my pic(s) of the week: A lite week for new releases and nothing I purchased :( For those interested, I use DVD Price Search for upcoming mov

As many know, JMS ( J. Michael Straczynski), who created and executive produced Babylon 5 was working on a new movie for the franchise. "Babylon 5 - The Memory of Shadows" would have carried on the story of the TV show. It has been announced that the company that optioned the script could not put together the complete deal. You can read up on what happened here, but I wanted to share this part of his comments: This was not the first time someone's taken a run at a B5 feature film, and it will not be the last. Eventually it will happen, because such things are simply inevitable. If they can do a Brady Bunch movie, you can be sure that sooner or later, somebody's going to do a B5 movie. The only thing I can say without equivocation is that when that day comes, as the rights-holder, I will make darned sure that it's done right, because I'd rather have no B5 movie than one that doesn't live up to what fans and I myself would want to see. To that end...I can wait. Good to

So for those of you that do not know, the final Star Wars movie is being releases in May. Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith will tie the story together, showing the turn of Anakin to the darkside and his transformation into Darth Vader. As with any Star Wars movie, this is not just a movie, but a cross media movement. One of the first things I have seen to be releases is the Lego lineup for 2005. I happen to be a Lego fan ... found memories of childhood. Check them out here. If you want to spoil the movie, goggle for the play-by-play images. Some interesting pictures out there. Sorry, no link ... do not want to get a call from George :)

Here is what's coming out today ... Movies Bambi (2-Disc SE) (#3 in the DVDPS Top 40) Brady Bunch: Season #1 Bringing Up Baby: SE (#19 in the DVDPS Top 40) D.C. Cab Exorcist: The Beginning (Widescreen) Flight Of The Phoenix (2004 / Widescreen) (#25 in the DVDPS Top 40) French & Saunders Collection (2005) Ghost Dad Hoosiers: Collector's Edition Incident At Lochness Lost In Space: Season #3 v1 My Own Private Idaho (2-Disc Director's Cut): Criterion Collection Philadelphia Story: SE River, The: Criterion Collection South Park: 5-Season Pack SpongeBob Squarepants Movie, The (Widescreen) Virginia's Run Wonder Woman: The Complete Second Season Yanks Music In Between Dreams (Dig) Jack Johnson Frances the Mute Mars Volta The Massacre [EXPLICIT LYRICS] 50 Cent Massacre (Coll) (Dig) (Spkg) [EXTRA TRACKS] [COLLECTOR'S EDITION] 50 Cent Rebirth Jennifer Lopez Amos Lee Amos Lee Angel of Retribution (With Bonus DVD) Juda