This video has been all over the web today already and had been spread about on Twitter and Facebook. Spooky right?

Check out the video clip here on You Tube.

John is based in New Orleans and used wooden arms from old dolls and ceramic paint to decorate the eggy works of art. Here are some of my favourite examples of his work.

Stephen King and a little Pennywise the clown.

The South Park Boys.

Leatherface.

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland

Let’s look at knitting first, as it’s one of those typical old lady type activities. If you wish you could find something trendier to knit yourself, then why not check out Stitch ‘n Bitch books? They don’t feature lemon yellow jumpers and duck shaped egg-warmers but things like cat shaped iPod covers and skull print pot holders. If you like craft and you’re a little bit different these books are definitely the thing for you. Stitch ‘n Bitch also do a crochet book, so if you can’t knit, maybe you can branch out into crochet.

Another “less that cool” looking activity is embroidery, but Sublime Stitching has helped to turn that around as well. With a tagline like “This ain’t your gramma’s embroidery” and patterns that feature roller derby girls and skulls, it’s clearly not what you would expect from needles and thread.

Stitch ‘n Bitch knitting groups are popping up all over the place, meaning like-minded crafters can meet up, share tips and craft together. I would love to attend one of these myself but I don’t feel I’m anywhere near good enough to be in the presence of other crafters.

Blogs are also helping keep the cool side of craft alive, with many people running their own craft blogs and posting up instructions on how to make certain things, and photos of things they have made themselves.

It’s not the way my Gran would have learnt how to craft, but it’s defiantly working for me.

Here’s my favourite sites so far:

Favicon.co.uk

The Favicon Gallery

MpP Gallery

Fineicons Favicon Gallery

One big thing that iTunes was missing was the music of The Beatles. As one of the biggest bands ever, it does seem surprising that their music wasn’t already on iTunes, but there you go. Apple and EMI have been in talk for some time now about getting the albums online, and it looks like it’s finally happened. The delay is said to have been due to the fact that Apple Corps were having a bit of a trademark dispute with Apple computers, but this was finally settled in 2007.

Apple Chief executive Steve Jobs is said to have said it has “been a long and winding road to get here”. Really? Someone actually let him make that bad pun as his comment on the situation? Ok…

Apparently Sir Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are also very happy that their music is finally online and can be enjoyed by a whole new generation of fans.

However, not everyone is so happy, as blogger Mark Mulligan said iTunes should be getting new music products instead of just re-selling us the same old stuff.

To be honest it does all seem like another way to make money to me, considering The Beatles haven’t done anything new in years. I worked in a music shop when the re-release of all The Beatles’ albums happened a couple of years ago, and fans did go crazy for them just because they were slightly different to the versions they already owned, despite not really having anything new on them. I think it is a good way to get super fans to spend even more money just to get every version that’s out there, but I think if you really love The Beatles, chances are you already have the albums.

And with albums costing between £10.99 and £17.99, they aren’t exactly cheaper than the actual CD.

Image via Be Jacks Friend.com

Though remakes have seen unprecedented popularity in recent years, the concept of re-imagining vintage material  is far from a new one. Even in the early days of cinema, it was not uncommon for classic stories to be retold and for popular characters to uplifted and placed into new scenarios. Early horror movies were notorious for this practice and at one point in the late 1920s, several different film versions of Dracula were doing the rounds until Universal Studios cast Bela Lugosi in the role for 1931′s Dracula and established the iconic character that has endured to this day. The 1958 Hammer Horror re-imagining of the tale starring Christopher Lee as the eponymous Count had to tread very carefully indeed to avoid legal difficulties with Universal.

It is telling that during the 1970s horror boom, arguably the most creative period in the genre’s history when films like The Exorcist, Halloween, Dawn of the Dead, The Omen, Evil Dead and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre made critical and commercial splashes, many classic monsters like Frankenstein and Dracula were dropped in favour of new villains. These creatures played heavily on the very worst of human traits, from the insatiable hunger of George Romero and Sam Raimi‘s flesh-eating zombies to the twisted innocence of William Friedkin and Richard Donner‘s possessed children. Though the cinematographic influence of the earlier films was still plain, by refusing to simply re-imagine another round of monster movies, the new wave of horror directors in the 70s  were able to create original and terrifying films that remain poignant up to the modern day.

The games industry too has a tendency to be obsessed with its own past despite the fact that it is still a relatively young medium. In many instances, remakes of games seem more justified than those of classic films with the medium having not yet hit technical maturity and because the creative ‘language’ of games is still being developed. Some technically primitive titles from the 1980s and even 90s are now virtually unplayable on modern large screen televisions and many players fail to notice the elegance of the core game mechanics because of the extremely poor quality visuals. In this sense, remakes give younger players a chance to experience some of the magic of the originals without offending modern aesthetic sensibilities.

More troubling are the now commonplace franchise “reboots” which see classic games completely re-imagined from the ground up. One of the most infamous examples of this practice is 2006′s Sonic The Hedgehog remake which was critically panned on release for being a derivative effort to bring a series long since past its prime up to date. Often reboots are a cynical last gasp attempt to revitalise a dying franchise and ultimately many do more damage than good.

Sometimes however, the return to first principles approach can work wonders, as with the 2003 GameCube remake of the original Resident Evil, which debuted in 1995 on the Sony Playstation. The RE:Make, as the game became known, used the GameCube’s vastly superior technology to realise series creator Shinji Mikami‘s original vision which had been compromised due to technical limitations.

In other media, the reboot has also helped restore life to a faltering franchise. Christopher Nolan‘s Batman Begins and the Dark Knight helped wipe the slate clean after the poorly received Batman Forever and Batman and Robin of the 1990s and have breathed new creative life into the franchise with their darker direction and more mature plots. In television, the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series used the setting of the original TV show as a backdrop for a creative and ambitious space drama that broke out of the traditional sci-fi ghetto with its believably human political, spiritual and social issues.

It’s clear then that not all remakes and reboots are necessarily damaging and that there is certainly room for directors to innovate and create exciting new stories and artistic statements using pre-existing source material. However, the creative value of a project is often determined by the approach taken. Too many directors and producers opt for the quick cash-in approach, creating uninspired and derivative material that draws audiences with the promise of nostalgia but ultimately leaves them feeling unfulfilled and resentful.

According to sources much of the money that has already been made since his death 16 months ago has gone towards the $500 million debts that Michael Jackson managed to run up prior to his death. It may well not stop there though as on top of that the estate recently signed a deal with Sony Music which will release previously unreleased songs in a deal which is thought to bring in a massive $200 – $250 million.

Other rich dead stars include of course Elvis Presley who died in 1977 hit the 2nd spot with $60 million. JRR Tolkien ranks in at third place with $50 million with the sales of Lord of the Rings books, movies, merchandise and the new hobbit film should keep him up near the top of the list. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz is number 4 with $33 million and in 5th place is John Lennon. Surprisingly James Dean and Marilyn Monroe didn’t make it onto the list.

While the second game had a clearer narrative than the first one, with it being made clear how the survivors got from one campaign to the next, I always wanted more of that feature in the first game.

Now Left 4 Dead have released an online 4 part comic called The Sacrifice. The story of the comic explains how the four original survivors got from the end of the Blood Harvest campaign in the first game, to the new DLC The Passing, which has been released for Left 4 Dead 2. While the original survivors don’t play much of a part in The Passing, expect for shooting a lot of special zombies for you in the final showdown, they are one member short, with Bill lying dead below them. Seeing as something very interesting clearly went on that lead to Bill’s death, the good people at Valve decided to explain it in a comic.

Not only that, but the comic also delves into the back story of the first four characters, explaining how the infection affected them and how they ended up fending for themselves.

Valve have also said that the newest downloadable level, also called The Sacrifice,  will be playable on both Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, and will allow players to play through the events that lead up to Bill’s death in the comic. Not only that, but all the special infected and melee weapons from the second game will be available for the Left 4 Dead 1 characters. I don’t know about you, but the thought of playing Zoey with a chainsaw appeals to me on a great level.

Image via Left 4 Dead blog

Using acoustic radiation pressure, the hologram projector creates a pressure sensation on the user’s hands which are then tracked by two Nintendo Wiimotes. Here’s some blurb from their website that explains things far better than I could:

“A retroreflective marker is attached on the tip of user’s middle finger, IR LEDs illuminate the marker and two Wiimotes sense the 3D position of the finger. Owing to this hand-tracking system, the users can handle the floating virtual image with their hands.”

Here it is in action:

Pretty cool stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. Prior to further developments with the technology, it’s difficult to say what touchable holography might offer in the future, apart from perhaps making fictional hologramatic ideas that have been explored in TV shows such as Star Trek and Red Dwarf a reality. Who knows, in a few years, this technology could lead to the ability to create Weird Science-esque cyber babes. Many pimply faced teenagers will surely have their fingers crossed.