While PAX East was jam packed with the latest and greatest in videogames, there really weren’t any new consoles on the horizon for us to take a look at except the newest version of Nintendo’s handheld, the DSi XL. Fans eagerly visited the Nintendo booth to try out this new system, and The Flickcast was able to spend some time checking out the XL.

What We Like

• The DSi XL’s screens measure in at 4.2 inches diagonally, an inch larger than all previous models, and it’s apparent from the second you pick one up that the system more than benefits from the size change. The menus are easier to navigate, dialogue is easier to read, and games are just plain easier to play.

• The first DS Lite had a glossy finish all over, and it was really easy to scratch up and dent. They fixed this with the DSi, but the DSi XL has an even nicer matte finish on the bottom and glossy finish on the top, making this system look and feel gorgeous.

• Nintendo’s always managed to keep their prices down and despite the major size difference, this system is only $20 more than the DSi. It’s definitely not going to be difficult to justify purchasing this model over the DSi.

What We Don’t Like

• The system’s got bigger screens, which means it’s much bigger. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, this makes the DSi XL less of a handheld and more of a portable console. It can fit in a back pocket or into your backpack just as easily as the other DS models, but it’s heavier and bulkier.

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Every once in a while, we come across some exciting stuff on the Internet. Be it a cool fan film, some great viral marketing news, or just general coolness, we like to bring you some of the best and brightest that this network of tubes and wires likes to churn out.

With that in mind, we turn our attention over to freelance writer/illustrator Neill Cameron. Neill had been making some pretty big waves on the net, including getting his comic strip, Mo-Bot High, voted reader’s choice by the UK’s DFC Awards.

Neill has recently finished a series of illustrations in the vein of some classic children’s alphabet books, such as “A is for Apple, B is for Banana” and so forth. The twist? With help from his Facebook and Twitter fans, Neill has made each letter about something fantastic in the world of comics, video games, movies, and general geekdom. For example, O is now for Optimus Prime Obliterating Oompa Loompa’s, and U is for Uhura and Ultraman on a Unicorn Underwater.

Each letter gets better and better, with some great nods to pop culture. Check out all 26 letters after the jump, and head over to Neill’s website for a chance to purchase a signed print of the piece.

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Saturday was Carl Barks’s birthday. Had he not died in 2000 at the age of 99, he’d be 109. Anyone else who grew up loving Ducktales has him to thank: For nearly 65 years he was involved with Disney, most famously as author and illustrator of the “Duck” comic books, and among his creations are Gyro Gearloose, Gladstone Gander, Flintheart Glomgold, Magica DeSpell, the Beagle Boys, and, of course, Uncle $crooge.

Born in Merrill, Oregon, in 1901, Barks grew up on a small farm his parents owned and purportedly took up a number of odd jobs (that would later be reflected in Donald Duck’s vocational transcience) before deciding, on a whim, that he should go into cartooning, taking up a job at Disney in 1935. In 1942, he began his celebrated tenure working on Donald Duck comics, his first effort being the comic adaptation of an unproduced feature animation film showcasing Mickey, Goofy, and Donald seeking some lost treasure of the pirate Henry Morgan.

The book, plotline heavily lifted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island; incorporating Mickey Mouse’s primary antagonist Black Pete; and entitled Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold, was a collaboration between Barks and another Disney artist Jack Hannah. With Pirate Gold, Barks made somewhat of a name for himself and went on to write and illustrate around 500 stories featuring the ducks, until his retirement in 1966. Disney comic-book artists were never given credit in those days, but the quality of Barks’ art and stories was so distinct that fans were able to identify his work and those among the knowing would refer to him as “The Good Duck Artist.”

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This past weekend, the gaming community from Ontario to Hawaii descended upon the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, MA for PAX East 2010, the first Penny Arcade Expo on the East coast. PAX Prime, a mecca for all things gamer, has been held since 2004 in the home of Penny Arcade, Seattle WA, so this was the first chance for us this side of the Mississippi River to attend this epic experience.

And what an experience it was. In between concerts by Jonathan Coulton and MC Frontalot and panels with geek gods like Will Wheaton there were tabletop games, demos of huge upcoming titles like Skate 3, Red Dead Redemption, or Dungeons and Dragons tournaments.

Whether you were looking for someone to play Rock Band with or you just wanted to connect your Pokemon with someone else’s Pokewalker, there was never a shortage of things to do at PAX East. And while this was the convention’s debut to our coast, it felt like home already.

While the convention may be over, our coverage at The Flickcast is just beginning. If you didn’t get a chance to attend the convention, or you went but didn’t quite get to see everything, keep an eye out for our articles on PAX East 2010 including some epic cosplay snapshots, our favorite indie games, and some of the newest gaming tech you need to keep your eye on.

Wow.  I’ve got to say that it was a pretty tepid weekend at the movies. We had a couple of new releases that I thought would just rake it in this weekend, but instead, they barely registered a blip on the radar screen.

How to Train Your Dragon actually won the throne this weekend, but I have to think the $43.3 Million opening was a disappointment for Dreamworks. This movie has family appeal and enjoyed stellar critical reviews, but had an underwhelming opening.  I have seen the budget reported at between $165 Million and $180 Million, either of which will ensure an uphill battle for the movie to recoup its costs.

Remember last week when I hinted that How to Train might have difficulty getting booked on 3D screens because Alice in Wonderland is still going strong? Well, it may be entirely coincidence, but when the husband and I tried to find a theater nearby to take our kids to see How to Train Your Dragon, we couldn’t find one.

It was no big deal to drive to one a bit out of our neighborhood, but I wonder if this happened nationwide?  I have lived in my city 15 years, and I have never had to drive out of my little five mile radius to find a movie, especially such a big release.

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Without a doubt, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is the most important gaming franchise on shelves right now. It claims the highest opening day gross in the entertainment industry. Not just video games, but ALL entertainment.

That’s nothing to sneeze at. And of course, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 came out to its share of controversy. Most notable is the level entitled “No Russian”.

Be warned, there are spoilers ahead if you are one of the four people left in the universe who haven’t played this game.

“No Russian” has the player in the role of an undercover agent attempting to infiltrate a Russian war criminal’s inner circle. He is forced to do the unthinkable as you will see in the video below in an effort to take this man down.

Machinima talent Michael Barnes takes this scene to an entirely level. Using interspliced footage from his own created camera angles of another level of the game as well as dramatic timing and footage from the actual “No Russian” level, he has retold this story in amazing cinematic fashion. The actions feel more brutal than the player pulling the trigger themselves could have even imagined.

If you don’t believe us, take a look at the video after the jump.

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Not sure if this is a good idea or not as he’s pretty much expresseed zero desire for any kind of ramantic relationshiop on the show but Sheldon Cooper (aka actor Jim Parsons) will be at least going on a date (and potentially more) before the end of this season on The Big Bang Theory.

According to THR, actress Miriam Bialik (recently of CBS’ Til Death)  will make an appearance on the season finale of the show as a “female version of Sheldon” he meets on the online dating service eHarmony. If things go well she may end up as a recurring character on the show, potentially giving Sheldon an actual girlfriend next season.

Once again, not really sure if this is a good idea or not. One of the most appealing things about Sheldon as a character is his single minded belief that he’s unique in the Universe and any kind of relationshio would be a waste of time.

If he ends up getting a girl it seems like that would be a fundamental shift in character for him. Although, maybe he’ll realize that he needs to share his genius with the world via offspring? Could happen.

No matter what we’ll find out when the season finale airs on May 24.

This week On the Radar Michael Bay does his part to help take down the American car industry, MGM loses a bidder as it struggles to stay afloat, and in completely contradictory fashion James Cameron, of all people, advocates against 3D.

Maleficent finds a writer in Wonderland

Long before Alice in Wonderland stormed the box office there were rumblings about director Tim Burton tackling one of Disney‘s best baddies, Maleficent.  Well, the success of Alice has only bolstered this film’s development and Alice in Wonderland writer Linda Woolverton has been tapped to write t script.  While there were some Alice detractors out there, it’s hard to argue the success of the film.

For better or worse I think we’re witnessing the beginning of the fairy tale phase in cinema.  I’m sure the studios couldn’t be happier.  Most fairy tales, in their original iteration, are in the public domain which means the whopping cost of zero to use the stories.  Sorry, Disney, but you couldn’t be the sole exploiter of classic children’s tales forever.

Bryan Singer off X-Men: First Class?

When word came out about Bryan Singer returning to the X-Men franchise fanboys rejoiced.  Well, the excitement certainly didn’t last too long.  It seems Singer has to choose between X-Men: First Class and Jack the Giant Killer.  Unfortunately, he can’t do both:

“Before Singer can dive into casting, he has a rather large problem –  the fact that Warner Bros. has the filmmaker on the hook to direct ‘Jack the Giant Killer.’  Fox, flush with money from ‘Avatar,’ is eager to move forward with its mutant franchise in all of its permutations, so there are negotiations that need to be done.

With Singer contractually obligated to Warner Bros. it means Fox has begun searching for other directors to reignite the X-Men films.

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Yesterday, the good folks at Apple were kind enough to update their flagship image handling software Aperture to version 3.0.2 and today the updates keep on coming with the release of an update to iMovie, which brings the application to version 8.0.6. The update “improves reliability when working with videos from Aperture and requires Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later and iLife ’09.” It is 35.84 MB and available via Software Update.

Also updated, just not by Apple, was Flip4Mac‘s free Windows Media player, which brings it to version 2.3.2. In case you’re not familiar, Flip4Mac is a QuickTime plugin that lets you watch Windows Media files in a QuickTime Player. It’s a great tool that’s saved the day more than once when standard Quicktime won’t open a video file. The new update fixes problems playing back files and streams with MP3 content and corrects problems launching QuickTime Player if you’re using Snow Leopard.

In addition to Flip4Mac’s player, Perian was also updated to 1.2.1. Perian is a QuickTime plugin that allows you to play pretty much any kind of media through QuickTime Player. This particular update adds Indeo 5 decoding and fixes some pesky bugs that seem to crop up from time to time.

Have any trouble with these updates? Let us know in the comments.

You have to feel a bit sorry for Michael Rosenbaum as an actor. Even though he’s left Smallville and Lex Luthor behind, he’s still going to be identified as that character for a long time to come. That’s just the way things work. When you’re on a popular show and make an impression on fans, they tend to want to think of you as that character forever.

Given that, it’s easy to see why he’s trying something new. That something? A new comedy series for Syfy, featuring Rosenbaum and Jonathan Silverman of Weekend at Bernie’s fame. The series, which has been given a script order from the network, is a single camera show following the lives of two friends, former actors on a popular science-fiction show, who have hit rock bottom and must work together to get their lives back on track.

Not that Roseenbaum has exactly hit rock bottom, but as the creator of this new show, I can see how the subject might appeal to him. Or maybe he just wants to play a character with hair? Can’t blame him for that.

What do you guys think? Will Rosenbaum always be Lex Luthor to you?

For good or bad, you can never judge the quality of an Office episode by the cold open alone, since it tends to have little or nothing to do with the rest of the episode. Still, the image of Stanley struggling to do 26 pushups so he can go home early is funny, but the quiet voice in the crowd that says, “Alright, Papa Bear,” elevates it to the ranks of greatness—and I’m pleased to say that it does indeed set the tone for the rest of the show.

Like the best episodes, Happy Hour contains multiple plotlines as well as a few peeks into the lives of the supporting characters. This time it’s Oscar’s ongoing pursuit of warehouse-worker Matt. Unfortunately, Oscar’s been out of the game a little too long, and his idea of pitching woo is showing up to work early to exchange some quick words and sheepishly asking Darryl to invite his co-workers to an office-wide happy hour.

Oscar in turn invites the office out for an evening of fun and drinks to what appears to be a Chuck E. Cheese’s with booze. Jim tries to weasel out using his daughter as an excuse, but Pam, desperate for a night away from the baby, immediately takes Jim up on his half-hearted offer and invites a friend along as a possible hook up with Michael.

Meanwhile, Erin and Andy struggle with keeping their relationship a secret to avoid the drama that comes with office romances. Fearing their co-workers are on to them, they decide to avoid each other and eventually end up flirting with some of the other patrons, until Erin’s groping of a complete stranger’s leg (her concept of flirting is derived solely from television, isn’t that adorable?) gets Andy jealous.

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I have to admit that we were all pretty excited to hear about the Robert Rodriguez reboot of the Predator franchise known as Predators and directed by Nimrod Antal. Sure, the original Predator has a lot going for it, including such memorable Arnold Schwarzeneggar lines as “Get to the chopper!” and “You are one ugly motherf***er.” Still, with all that great stuff, a new movie with even more awesome predator action could be a good thing.

In the past we’ve brought you some cool info about this new Predators film including casting info and the first look at the trailer. Now, curtesy of the fine folks at CinemaBlend, we’ve got a new featurette to share with you today.

I admit I was a bit skeptical about Adrian Brody and his ability to be a convincing action hero. But after seeing the recent trailer and now this new video, I’ve changed my mind and think he will be able to pull it off. After all, he’s a gifted actor who should be able to play pretty much any role so fighting predators should be a walk in the park, er, jungle for him.

Judge for yourself and check out the featurette after the jump. Predators hits theaters on July 9th. What do you guys think? Does Brody make a convincing action star?

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