No folks, the World Cup games are not being attacked by swarms of locusts … those are vuvuzelas.

If you’ve tuned into any of the World Cup 2010 games thus far, you have heard a droning sound that makes you think a swarm of locusts is attacking.  Apparently vuvuzelas are a common item at South Africa football matches, but they are unknown to a large chunk of the rest of the world.  The history of the instrument is fractured with some believing it came out of stadiums in Mexico during the 1970′s, and at least one church in Africa claiming they created it.

I don’t really care who created the blasted things, they’re annoying as all get out.  Actually, I have been using stronger language than that to express my feelings on these things, but this is a “family” blog, but you can use your imagination of some of the things I’ve said.

There had been some talk of banning them at the World Cup games, but that obviously didn’t happen, and now we’re stuck listening to this never-ending droning buzz.  Please … make it stop!

UPDATE 06/13/10: A possible ban is being considered!

U{DATE 06/14/10: And the ban is dead.

A night filled with computer problems for both Steven and I leads to us being a bit snarkier than usual for TechMeme Friday, but is that really a bad thing?

(Links by Steven for some of the stories we discuss in this episode)

• Comscore Says It’ll Fix Search Share Measurement Now That Yahoo And Microsoft Are Gaming It (YHOO, MSFT, GOOG) – Silicon Alley Insider
• Just When He Thought He Was Out, Facebook Pulls Calacanis Back In – TechCrunch
• iPhone 4 at Wal-Mart on June 24 – CNET News
• World Cup Fever: Internet Has Busiest Day Ever as Tabulated by Akamai – Beet.TV
• Google Voice Desktop App Launch Delayed, May Be Scrapped – TechCrunch
• The End Of An Era: Hotmail Ditches The Taglines – TechCrunch
• Apple fears the killer app – Why does everything suck?
• iPad Hackers: Obtaining Emails Not Illegal, We Will Fight If Charges Are Pressed – The Snitch
• ITC to probe Apple for HTC patent infringement – Reuters
• Exclusive: Twitter’s Next Moneymaker-”Promoted Trends” – MediaMemo
• FTC Sets Apple Mobile Software Probe – Wall Street Journal

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Scattercast is 99 … and ready for kick off!

A bit of movie news, a bit of World Cup rambling and some commentary on the world of tech blogging.

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Security seems to be our theme tonight as we look into the Department of Homeland Security being told they can’t take laptops willy nilly and hold on to them for six months.  Also, the iPad security breach needed to be reported, get over it.

The feds are busy with Apple and Google … again.

WordPress.com went down … again.

Will anyone be interested in my shoes in 5,500 years?

(Links by Steven for some of the stories we discuss in this episode)

• FBI Opens Investigation Into iPad Security Breach – Main Justice
• Google Kills Its Homepage Background Image Experiment Early – TechCrunch
• Judge limits DHS laptop border searches – CNET News
• Feds eye Apple-Google ad war – Fortune
• 5,500-year-old leather shoe is oldest ever discovered [Mad Archaeology] io9

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Apparently Warner Brothers has a lot of faith in the Green Lantern movie because the studio is already moving forward on a sequel.

The long-awaited Green Lantern movie is currently filming, and isn’t due for release until June 17, 2011, but apparently that isn’t stopping Warner Brothers with moving ahead with big plans for the franchise.

At the end of May, Cartoon Network, another property of Warner Brothers, announced that it was working on Green Lantern: The Animated Series for release next fall. A toy line for the movie and cartoon are a given also, and already announced, but that isn’t all that’s coming.

Greg Berlanti, Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim, the men who wrote the script for the current film, have been contracted to write up a treatment for a Flash movie and Green Lantern 2.

Really?  You haven’t even finished the first film, and you’re moving ahead on the second?  You must have a lot of faith in this movie, and as a life-long fan of the character, I hope it works out, but man do I think this is ambitious.  This character has next to no track record with the general public, and this is a whole lot of eggs to put in his basket without knowing for sure how it will go.

Count me in for the ride, I just hope enough other people follow along.

John Gruber is a moron.  Period.  He has his nose so far up Apple’s collective behind that he can’t hear reason any more.

Billy the Exterminator somehow comes up … we hate his hair.

AT&T let loose 140,000 e-mail addresses of iPad 3G owners.  Way to go, AT&T!  You rock!

(Links by Steven for some of the stories we discuss in this episode)

• John Battelle on Apple’s Banning Google From iOS App Ads – Daring Fireball
• It’s Official – Apple Kicking Google Out of iWorld – John Battelle
• Uh Oh. 114,000 iPad Owners Have Their Data Exposed By AT&T – The Next Web
• Linden Lab Lays Off 30 Percent Of Staff – TechCrunch

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Can you feel it? That electricity in the air? That almost palpable sense of the world holding a collective breath as we all wait for that first whistle to be blown?

It’s World Cup time folks.

The first time I actively remember paying any attention to football (deal with it Americans, that’s its name, that’s what I’m calling it) was during the 1990′s and the incredible female squad the United States had.  I caught a game here or there, and I was taken in by the intensity, the athleticism it displayed and the fact lacked all the trappings American sports seem to have.  Where were the endless time outs?  Where were the “special teams”?  The list was endless, but this sport I had never paid much attention to felt much more like the sport I always thought I could get interested in.

I quickly discovered the English Premiere League, and the idea of getting to watch football eight months a year really got me going.  The deal was clenched though when I discovered how standings were calculated.  There was none of this “win/loss” stuff, it was your total goals.  Even if you lost a game, if you scored a goal, your ranking could theoretically go up.

I was the most hooked on a sport as I had ever gotten.

The 2006 World Cup rolled around, and I think I actually watched every match that year (and blogged about it quite a bit).  It took my of the game to a whole new level because every single game was so intense, and due to the level of the athletes at this stage, every kick was like the one that would win them the title.  It was the most into sports I’ve ever been, and I loved every minute of it.

And here we are.  The clock is ticking down to World Cup 2010.  I know I live in just about the only country in the world where football isn’t the top sport, heck, it is even in our top 3, but I am beyond excited.  If you don’t “get” football yet, I invite you to watch what is about to take place over the next 30 days.  Even if you only watch one match, do it.  Your in for a treat, and I dare you to walk away afterwards and call it “boring”.

I also want you to think about something else as you watch this, a game is 90 minutes … there are two substitutions allowed per game … that means that a minimum of nine players per team play the full 90 minutes.  Someone show me an American athlete that does that in any of our sports.

This post is also to serve as a warning to my regular readers.  From now until July 11th, there will be a lot of World Cup talk.  It won’t be every day, I promise you that, but there are sure to be games that just warrant a comment, and I know sports isn’t my normal subject, so, just wanted to warn you.

To close things out, here is Shakira’s video for “Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)”, the official theme song of the World Cup 2010.

Okay, enough with the iPhone already … you made me all ranty tonight.

By the way, to all of you “big” tech blogs out there … how in the world did you miss the announcement of Microsoft launching the online version of Office to everyone?  Oh, that’s right, you were too busy kissing Steve Jobs’ ass to be bothered.

(Links by Steven for some of the stories we discuss in this episode)

• 2TB Hard Drives Crack the $100 Barrier – Gearlog
• Microsoft just gave Google a swift kick in the balls – WinExtra

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What is that old saying about everything old becoming new again? Apparently Hollywood is living by this motto.

Apparently 25th anniversaries are the time to dig up properties from the past and try to “modernize” them, usually to great failure. Being a child of the 1980′s cartoon boom, I am now getting to atch my childhood get massacred by people who think they can improve the properties.  The Transformers movies are a prime example of things going wrong, and don’t even get me started on that train wreck that was the G.I. Joe movie.

Now we’re up to the anniversaries of Voltron and ThunderCats, and, yep, here we go again.

I wasn’t a huge ThunderCats fanatic, so I skipped mentioning the news last week of a new “Anime style” series coming to Cartoon Network.  I rolled my eyes and moved along.  Now, according to Variety, Nicktoons has struck a deal for a new 26-episode run of half-hour cartoons called Voltron Force that will “revolve around an edgier, modernized robot”.

Don’t mind em … I’m just going to be crying in the corner for a minute.

The whole reason this is happening is that a live-action feature film stalled out multiple times, and so now the current rights holders, World Event Prods and Classic Media, have decided to relaunch the property as an animated series, and then make another run at doing a film.  Do a new series all you want, but why change the classic robot?  It still isn’t a bad looking design!

The only good news to come out of this is Mattel has been awarded the toy license, and in addition to doing items based on the new series, they will also release some items based on the classic property.  Okay, cool, I can get behind getting an all new shiny CLASSIC Voltron, but why or why do they have to modernize this thing?

Oh well, what ya gonna do?  At least I have classic episodes to watch should the mood hit me, and I can skip this new abomination.

Ah, it’s Moronic Monday time where Steven and I make fun of totally silly stories.  After this day of nothing but iPhone 4 news, is kind of welcome!

Oh, and I actually compliment a company … no one faint.

(Links by Steven for some of the stories we discuss in this episode)

• Sony’s Twitter device for cats: have they lost it? – DVICE
• Laser guided scissors – SlipperyBrick
• iMaria is a sad app for your pathetic and lonely life – SlipperyBrick

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After way too long, Torchwood season 4 has been greenlit, but with a little help from an unexpected source.

We last saw our two surviving members of Torchwood over a year ago as the shortened third season ended. Gwen (Eve Myles) was pregnant, and Capt. Jack (John Barrowman) had left Earth in a fit of depression. Season 4 seemed a sure thing as season 3 had record rating in England and in the United States on BBC America, but costs were a concern of doing another season.

American television network Fox stepped in and requested a pilot, but it thankfully never got past the scripting stage, and the series was again left up in the air.  The BBC was weary of the budget the show requires, and seeing as it isn’t a commercial network, it has to be more mindful of things.

Out of the blue, in steps American cable network Starz who has offered to pay a portion of the budget in exchange for first airing rights to a ten-episode season four.  The deal was struck, Ms. Myles and Mr. Barrowman have agreed to return, and the new deal will allow the show to film in more locations than just England.

In other words, we’re getting an internationally flavored Torchwood, and that could be epic.

Think of the series as Doctor Who’s rebellious younger sibling.  Although it spun off from the time travel series, it is a much more adult series with darker themes.  With Starz backing it, best known for its recent Spartacus: Blood and Sand series, it may get even more adult, but that remains to be seen.

Executive producer Russell T. Davies will return to run the show, and he has said Fox has allowed him to re-purpose the script they rejected for the pilot, so he already knows where the season is going, and he has hinted there will be an over-arching story for the whole season.

This could get very interesting, but so long as it means more Capt. Jack on my screen, and done by the original people, I’m all for it.

One of the few shows to really grab my attention for next fall is $#*! My Dad Says on CBS.  I’m not expecting anything groundbreaking here, but it stars three people I enjoy: William Shatner, Nicole Sullivan and Will Sasso.

Of course Mr. Shatner is best known for his work on Star Trek, but where I really came to enjoy his work (not that I didn’t enjoy him as Kirk) as Denny Crane on Boston Legal.  He played so against type that it really changed my opinion of his acting abilities, and I actually found myself sad when the show went off the air as it meant I lost this character and Shatner’s fine performance.

Nicole Sullivan and Will Sasso are two of my favorite Mad TV alums, and were probably two of the best discoveries to come out of that highly uneven series.

As for the concept of the show, it is now the stuff of legend on the Internet: Justin Halpern, a guy down on his luck moves back in with his dad, gets blown away by the random things his dad says, and puts them on a Twitter account.  All of this spun into a book, and now a television series.

… I should have done this year’s ago with my dad.

Even though the show show has yet to air, the Parent’s Television Council (PTC), a group I have written about many times is offended by the title.  ”CBS intentionally chose to insert an expletive into the actual name of a show, and, despite its claim that the word will be bleeped, it is just CBS’ latest demonstration of its contempt for families and the public,” PTC President Tim Winter said in a statement.  This just makes me want to watch the show that much more …

Anyway, the first full trailer is now online for you to check out.