Is BP Really The One To Blame? (Quick Word)

The British Petroleum Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a disaster. There's no denying that. Beginning on April 22nd, the spill has raged on for the past 8 weeks resulting in a total of 86.6 million gallons of oil spilled to date. The handling of this situation has been completely horrendous by BP, becoming subject of scorn from the media. The public has taken it upon themselves to accuse BP as well with parodies like the video seen below.

...but does BP really deserve all of the blame? In my opinion, this oil spill should be taken as a massive wake up call to the public. The world, now more than ever, must free itself of its dependence on oil. Gas prices in the U.S. have been mostly spared by the oil spill, but if this were one of the America's top dogs (i.e. Exxon, Chevron, etc) things would be much more dire.

It's easy to point the finger at somebody to relinquish any guilt from ourselves. But BP is not the one to blame. Obama's administration should not be blamed either.

We are the ones who are responsible for this thanks to our addiction to this toxic black goo.

 Quick Word is a weekly segment where current events are discussed. The contents of this article are pure opinion, except when stated as otherwise.

Nas and Damian Marley - Distant Relatives (Album Review)

Peanut butter is great. Chocolate is great. Mix them together, and it's still great.

Nas is great. Damian Marley is good. Mix them together, and...well that's the big question behind Distant Relatives, the collaboration album between the two artists. Nas has proven himself time and again that he is one of the greatest lyrical rappers ever, but recently his career has become increasingly irrelevant and his presence is merely forgotten. Nasty Nas was unable to keep up with the times because most of his songs carry very little mainstream appeal. For some this is great because it shows that he is not willing to 'sell out' but on the other hand what's the point of being credible if it's not getting you anywhere. Damian Marley also has issues with living up to the past, but it is not his own past he's worried about. That's what being the youngest son of the most renowned reggae artist in the world gets you, and critics have always compared his efforts to that of his father's.

So what happens when you mix them together? Distant Relatives proves that the two have a powerful chemistry and that they bring out their best qualities from one another.

E3 2010 Is Going To Be Big

Every year in the Los Angeles Convention Center, there is a massive show dedicated to video games. From June 15th to the 17th, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (aka E3) returns to its annual vacation home, and along with it comes a colossal tidal wave of news about everything games.

While E3's past have been pretty epic in scale, this year could be a big turning point. Sony is bringing a huge arsenal of PS3 exclusive games and a brand new Wiimote-esque peripheral called the PlayStation Move. There are also heavy rumors going around that the PS3 will have a new premium online service like Xbox Live to compliment their current free service. Microsoft is expected to finally announce details of its new motion camera technology Project Natal that will make their Xbox 360 an almost entirely controller-free system. On top of that Microsoft is bringing some major games including this one little game you may have heard about....Halo: Reach. And finally we have Nintendo who is not only showcasing new Legend of Zelda and Metroid games for their popular Wii, but they are also announcing the first details of the successor to their massively popular DS system, dubbed the 3DS due to its touted 3D gaming abilities.

Both the PlayStation Move and the Xbox 360's Project Natal are big gambles from Sony and Microsoft's traditionally controller-only gaming systems. The Move is meant to mimic the Wii but allows for a much greater precision in movement (almost 1:1) while Natal is a completely hands-free approach to gaming that detects a person's body and translates their movements into controls for a game.

This year is going to be quite exciting, so head on over to Joystiq on Monday for their comprehensive E3 2010 coverage!

iPhone 4: Kicking Ass and Taking Names

Blackberry. Android. Windows Phone 7. Palm WebOS. iPhone.

To say that the smartphone wars are heating up would be a pretty massive understatement. Back in 2007, Apple poured gasoline all over the phone industry and lit a match. That match was the iPhone, the first phone from Apple, the first touchscreen iPod, and the first in a lot of other things. Of course the ridiculous $600 sticker price was a tough pill to swallow but for those who did, they were treated to one of the bigger leaps in consumer technology in the past ten years. Fast forward to the present and everywhere you look, there is at least one person you see using a touchscreen phone. Apple had redefined the smartphone industry and today we all reap the benefits: web browsing in your pocket, limitless applications, powerful business tools, and more.

And now Apple is making a major comeback with the newly announced iPhone 4.

Welcome to OGCF* Version 2.5!

Phew. After working on this for the past 9 hours straight, I am here to reintroduce you to that person you thought was a little ugly but just got a makeover and looks freaking amazing. I went nuclear on that old layout (quite literally) and what you see before you now is the biggest refresh I've made in a while.

The reason this is getting only a measly 0.5 number bump is because I am a humanitarian and thus used a familiar eco-friendly method: recycling. Once you're done being distracted by the fresh coat of paint, you may notice that it is pretty much the same layout as before. But v2.5 has received some much needed flavor and a couple new features to boot.

Obviously the redesign adds a very professional look to OGCF* (thank you Photoshop!) while still keeping things loose and fun. There's also the addition of a brand-spanking new widget you may see above: Featured Articles. This widget is still in the beta stage for now (as you can see, it's not nearly as pretty as it should be) but throughout the next week I'll be working on that. There is another big new feature of OGCF* but it's invisible to the naked eye. I'll be doing a lot of under-the-hood tinkering over the next week so I can get things moving at a clean and efficient rate. Of course I'm going to actually have to learn a lot more CSS and HTML than I anticipated to do that, but I most certainly have the time for it right now. UPDATE: I've also built in Facebook support! Now you can 'Like' each post and you can see if your friends have liked any other posts from OGCF*!

Speaking of CSS and HTML, v2.5 of OGCF* would not be possible without the truly amazing Firefox add-on Firebug. This add-on has helped me immensely throughout the years and, as long as you have a decent knowledge of web coding, proves to be a valuable and powerful tool.

So that's pretty much it for now. Hopefully I'll be paying more attention to OGCF* than I have before and I'll finally be figuring out exactly what kind of content this blog will offer. This started out as a fun personal project but now I really do feel that this can become a great business over time, so expect a big and bright future of OGCF*.

Keep on reading and enjoy version 2.5!