It’s time to kick it old school with Thomas from “Kung Fu” for the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Turns out that little Tommy learned a few moves since the last time we saw him. But so have his enemies. Look for special appearances from Mario characters, Street Fighter characters, and even the quirky guy from Dig Dug.

In the second half, we catch a glimpse of Spy vs. Spy before Mega Man (Rockman) goes through a similar gauntlet of attackers. The “Man” characters that he faces aren’t the Cut Man, Ice Man, Wood Man and Air Man that you’ve seen before. Will he survive the onslaught?

Psst… try to keep this on the down-low (actually don’t; create as much ambiguous buzz as you can), but word on the street is that there’s a big contest cooking up at Beyond the Rhetoric and it involves a partnership with another personal blog.

We hear that there will be not one, but two prizes. The exact details are still a little sketchy, but the cheaper of the two is said to retail for between $180 and $200. Could the category of this post mean something? Hmm…

Stay tuned. The announcement could be only a few days away…

Say what you will about Michael Jackson, but “Thriller” was easily one of the coolest songs of its time and it came with one incredibly awesome music video. “Thriller” was one of the first music videos that actually played out like a movie, rather than just a fan video at a live concert.

I know the question — what would “Thriller” look like if it was played out by 1500+ Filipino prisoners? — was never asked, but that didn’t stop a huge group of inmates from answering it. What you see below are CPDRC inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in Cebu, Philippines. Craziness. And get this: the performance was voluntary and not a punishment.

I vaguely remember Ed Lau mentioning a while back that the concept of giving a “56k beware” warning in forums has essentially lost all meaning. For those of you who don’t know what that means, that warning is included in the title of certain forum threads, telling would-be readers that the contents will probably include a series of high resolution pictures or other multimedia-geared goodies that might not suit the dial-up user quite so well. The reason why Ed said that the warning is essentially obsolete is because he assumes that everyone is on a broadband internet connection and should have no trouble browsing their way through multi-megapixel snapshots of hot girls in bikinis.

It got me thinking, though, that the concept of a “56k beware” warning may not exactly be useless, but rather needs to re-framed under a new context. Sure, everyone that I know is using a broadband ISP (internet service provider) these days and most of these people use that bandwidth to the utmost, watching videos on YouTube, playing online games, and downloading all sorts of rather hefty content. Given how cheap broadband is these days, you have very little reason to restrict yourself to a measly dial-up connection. The price difference is so tiny.

But what about the mobile internet? Data rates in Canada are through the roof, but Apple iPhone users in the United States can have access to unlimited data as part of their $60-or-so monthly plan. The downside is that the iPhone is stuck with a crappy EDGE connection, making for a not-so-fast Internet experience. That hasn’t stopped people from using the mobile version of Safari to hop onto the web. Thus, while you can assume that everyone is using a broadband provider at home, you can’t assume that their cell phones or PDA phones are packing the same kind of high-speed connectivity.

I’m currently using a T-Mobile MDA (unlocked, of course) and it has built-in WiFi. This is great for checking email while I’m at a hotspot, but the data connection gets bottlenecked due to the not-so-speedy processor and the anemic amount of RAM inside. In this way, the new warning that may find itself on Internet forums some day could be “Mobile web beware”, rather than “56k beware”.

We use our cell phones for a heck of a lot more today — camera, MP3 player, calendar, etc. — than we did only a few years ago. The mobile web, and I’m not just talking about ugly WAP, is definitely on the rise and more websites are starting to create mobile-friendly versions of themselves that aren’t quite so data heavy. And forums may soon follow by ripping out avatars and heavy graphics. What do you think? Am I on the ball or am I way out in left field?

This post was brought to you by BroadbandSuppliers.co.uk, a service that compares ADSL Broadband providers in the UK.

Just a brief heads-up to anyone in the Vancouver area: CityTV is hosting their annual Taste of the City food festival this year on the PNE fairgrounds and the munch-fest is scheduled to take place this Saturday between noon and 8pm. I went to the Taste of the City last year when it was at the Plaza of Nations, and while the food was pretty good, I couldn’t get past the horrendous line-ups and poor organization. Hopefully the PNE venue will be more accommodating.

I haven’t decided if I’m going, but I”ll probably pop by, just because I’m a sucker for good food. Some of the notable attendees this year include Vera’s Burger Shack (you can’t beat Vera’s meat), Joey’s, Sate Satu Modern Indonesian, Maurya Indian Cuisine, O’Doul’s Restaurant and Bar, Nando’s Chicken, Lombardo’s Pizzeria, and Patisserie Lebeau. Alternatively, I could just go to Richmond Night Market and eat the ethnic cuisine there.

Taken from CityTV’s official site:

Check out some of Vancouver’s most popular restaurants at Citytv’s 5th Annual Taste of the City, Saturday, July 28th.

Admission is free and at the PNE there is lots of space, lots of parking and lots of fun for the whole family.

This is the perfect chance to nibble and nosh your way through some of Vancouver’s best restaurants. Samples range from $1 to $4 each so bring your appetite for the best Vancouver has to serve!
Taste of the City Saturday, July 28th from noon to 8 pm at the PNE - Hastings @ Renfrew.

I have no idea where this train is heading, but being the adventurous type that I am, I’ve decided to hop onto yet another link train.

This geeky locomotive was last seen at TechZi.net before pulling into Beyond the Rhetoric station. Even before it arrived here, it has already sent at least a half dozen backlinks and you’ve got to love that link juice when Google is in middle of a PageRank update. Could BTR get a PR6? With a little help from this meme, it just might. Choo choo!

———- START COPYING HERE ———-

Geek Train - All aboard!

1 - Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and linkback to the blog(s) that put you on the list in the paragraph. You MUST do this. No-one plans on getting slapped for duplicate content any time soon, do they?

2 - Next, copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your own blog. If you’d like a different keyword for your blog then change it, when you do your post, and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword, provided the train keeps on spreading.

3 - Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.

4 - Add at least three new favourite blogs of yours to keep the train going, e-mail the blog owners (or comment on one of their posts) and insist that they post.

My Adds:

(The super affiliate) Zac Johnson
(The pro blogger) Chris Bibey
(The big fat liar) Alex Yang
(The fund-managing) Alex (I don’t know your last name)
(The new hustler) Coolio Jones

The Originals:

(The overclocker) Shawn Knight
(The incredible) Chris Hooley
(The rhetorical) Michael Kwan
(The talented) Leo Chiang
(The root of all evil) John Chow
(The business dude) Josh Mullineaux
(The brilliant) Shoemoney
(The absurdly loud) Ed Lau
(The mastermind) Jon Waraas
(The yaketty) Stephen Fung
(The wickedly cool) Everton Blair
(The uber blogger) Ms Danielle
(The AdSense magician) Michael Cheney
(The enterprising) Matt Coddington
(The career minded) Jane May
(The legendary) Gary Lee
(The nifty) Dosh Dosh
(The ambitious) Jeff Kee
(The crafty two at) TechRave
(The kick-ass) Nate Whitehill
(The original) 13-Year Old Blogger.
(The money-making) Affiliate Marketing guide.

This link train is the brainchild of David Wilkinson, hyper, money-making kid, and kick-ass blog designer Nate Whitehill.

———- END COPYING HERE ———-

You’ll notice that my new additions are the top commentators thus far for July. See, it pays to leave your mark on Beyond the Rhetoric. Feeling a little left out that you haven’t been called aboard the geek train? Don’t just sit there and mope about it: crash the party! Invite yourself on board this train and pass this meme along on your blog. The more, the merrier!