This article might include some rather old news to all hardcore Tolkien fans out there. This will be especially true if you’ve been following the numerous blogs and websites out there that dedicate themselves to writing about the latest rumours and news regarding the upcoming film adaption of J.R.R Tolkiens epic masterpiece “The Hobbit”. I read an article about this on one of the “Paparazzi” websites in my country (the kind on which you can spend 32 weeks reading about how fat Britney has become).

Ian McKellen played the legendary Gandalf character in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. If at this point you have no idea what I’m talking about, you need to slap yourself in the face and pray to Tolkien for forgiveness. Since the release of the movies, I can’t see how anyone could have passed this trilogy by.

In any case, this is basically an update for those of you who were completely disconnected with the pre-production of the film “The Hobbit”. So here it all is in a nutshell (am I using that right? Well… when in Rome!). “The Hobbit” is a prequel to the “Lord of the Rings” saga and tells the epic tale of Bilbos journey for treasure. Expect a wizard and enough dwarves to pass around (that also sounds kind of wrong).

“The Hobbit” is going to be split into 2 films, the first being released in 2010, the second in 2011. There have been rumours that the first film would be “The Hobbit”, but the second an untold story, not directly adapted from a Tolkien novel. This rumour was shot down on April 24th by Yahoo News, saying that the new films are based on the book ONLY.

Peter Jackson will NOT be directing this time around due to timetable conflicts (he is directing Tintin for Steven Spielberg). He will however be executive producer along with Fran Walsh. Confirmed director is Guillermo del Toro (Pans Labyrinth, Blade 2). The project will once again be shot in New Zealand and WingNut and WETA (Workshop and Digital) will make a return as well.

McKellen has NOT been confirmed for the role of Gandalf, but has said that he loves playing this role and that “it is not a job you say NO to”. Peter Jackson has also noted that he could never imagine anyone else playing this role.

Well thats pretty much it. I guess I got a bit excited, so I did a bit of research. Hope you’re looking forward to these films as much as I am.

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It’s been a while since our last post about Game Scene Charts (November 2007), but this chart is still compiled at the end of every single month and I thought some of you might be interested in the latest version released last week. This latest issue comes in a nice new GFX engine so you won’t have to read through endless NFOs anymore but can actually see all statistics in a stylish fullscreen browser (thus slightly bigger size).

The data from March 2008 didn’t really bring anything new as it was a pretty slow month for new games: first place is still occupied by RELOADED with 9 new releases in March, followed by German group POSTMORTEM (also 9 rlses) and SKIDROW on the third place (11 low-budget unprotected games). The overall chart from last 19 months hasn’t changed much either, the first three places are held by RELOADED, SilentGate and Unleashed. More details and complete stats available after download (1.9 MB). Have fun reading through these charts!

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A famous BitTorrent tracker Demonoid is back online after months of downtime. The former administrator of the site, Deimos, had to shutdown the project in Canada. There were numerous attempts in relaunching Demonoid under different hostings all over the world, but it always failed after few days. It’s just a few moments since a new administrator took over the site after Deimos stepped down from his function due to personal reasons and relaunched it.

A quick look into WHOIS discovers that Demonoid is now hosted by American server hosting company Softlayer - I could probably imagine a better country for hosting a torrent website or tracker because of legal climax regarding peer to peer websites in the USA, but it seems to work fine now. And as we know the importance of reliable trackers in the BitTorrent community, I’d like to wish Demonoid team on behalf of our whole staff a very long uptime and a good luck in eventual legal battles.

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I felt like sharing this article with you guys as Prison Break is one of my favorite TV shows of all time, and the third season was pretty damn good even though the writer’s strike caused the season to end abruptly. Its technically unofficial, I know, but the executive producer dropped word on the fact that its picked up so I’d say it will most likely start airing in the fall

[UPDATE–March 25] Fox made it official today: Prison Break is coming back for a fourth season. The network also confirmed that production will move from Dallas to Los Angeles. Original story follows.

For a show that was once primed to be a short-lived miniseries, Prison Break sure is exceeding its life expectancy. The Fox drama wrapped up its third season earlier this year, and fans of the show have been eagerly awaiting word on a fourth-season pickup.

Fans will still have to wait for official word on a fourth-season pickup, but for those who only need unofficial word, news over the weekend was great. On his MySpace blog, Prison Break executive producer Nick Santora dished this bit of info: Season four has been picked up.

Santora also confirmed the Prison Break crew’s move from the Dallas, Texas area to its new digs in Los Angeles. Though Santora notes his new office on the Fox lot is “about half the size with just a tiny window,” he’s stoked about the opportunity to be back in business with the people he likes.

Details on season four’s storyline have not yet been released. Last season saw the characters incarcerated in a Panamanian prison.

Source: TV.com

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I’m pretty sure all of you have seen a HDR image, although you might not realise it at that time. HDR images are created by taking multiple shots exposed for the highlights, mid-tones and shadows seperately and then merged into a single image. This process results in incredibly vivid images. It’s nice to view those images in some image gallery, but it’s even better to have such a wonderful picture as your wallpaper - and that’s where a simple website called HDRWalls.com comes into the place.

HDRwalls.com features more than 600 desktop backgrounds in widescreen and standard format for use with all operating systems. The nice thing about those wallpapers is they come in almost every image resolution and even a special format for your iPod, BlackBerry or PSP. All you need to do is to browse the gallery, pick your favourite image and select the correct size for your computer.

All images are splitted into 5 different categories - landscapes and cityscapes are two most popular. You can sort all the pictures by date added, user rating, number of downloads and few other options. And of course, the whole site is completely free.

This is a paid review

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Do you use Google as your homepage? Are you bored of this simple white design? HomePagle is a simple application just for you then, and this paid review will give you more details about this project.

HomePagle is basically a directory of images, which can be used to replace the white background of your default homepage. All the wallpapers and images are sorted in various categories and subcategories: the most popular ones will be for sure Female celebrities with hundreds of nice pictures for every famous actress, singer or model, including divas like Eva Mendes, Elisha Cuthbert, Heidi Klum and others. There are many more categories as Cars, Nature, Fun, Movies etc. The other option is to upload your own image or wallpaper, so you can personalize your homepage.

After selecting or uploading the best image, you just need to save the generated link as your default homepage. You will be presented with a Google search input field with the image of your choice on the background (so this website is focused mostly on users who already use Google as their homepage). The creators of HomePagle will receive a revenue share from the ads displayed in the search results. There are many other websites offering similar personalized homepage, but having a cute girl or a decent car on the background may be just right for some of you…

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Another month, another R5 release date list for you! Thanks to our secret reader who noticed us about those movies! You can expect these movies in R5 quality during March 2008:

- Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street(2007) - March 5, imdb, dvdscr

- Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006) - March 5, imdb

- Mad Money (2008) - March 6, imdb

- Boarding Gate (2007) - March 6, imdb

- L’Invité (2007) - March 13, imdb

- The Eye (2008) - March 13, imdb, telesync

- The Hottie and the Nottie (2008) - March 20, imdb

- Three Can Play That Game (2008) - March 27, imdb

- Jumper (2008) - March (1-31), imdb, telesync

- Portal (2008) - March (1-31), imdb

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