Call of Duty Elite Adds Social Layer to Hit Gaming Series [PICS]
Video game company Activision has finally revealed Elite, a new social layer for its wildly popular Call of Duty games. Elite was designed to unite the massive community of Call of Duty players as well as provide tools to help gamers of all levels improve their skills.
Cross-platform services are becoming more popular as video game designers realize their community isn’t console-specific. Web players want to test their mettle against console players and vice versa. Elite goes beyond the game to include social networks like Facebook. Users can link up their Facebook accounts to Elite to pull in Likes and automatically find friends who are also using the service. Elite also introduces groups and clans, which will play a much larger role in Modern Warfare 3, the next Call of Duty game. Groups are largely open and can be based on anything. Like eating lobster? You can join or create a “Lobster” group. Like playing with machine guns? There’s a group for that. Same with “Yankees” or “Los Angeles.” Groups operate similar to fan pages on Facebook. Users can track and compare themselves to these mini-communities of players. Users can join a total of 64 groups. Clans are more limited. Users can only belong to one clan and there is a cap on how many players can be in a clan. The Call of Duty folks were tight-lipped about how clans will play into the next iteration but promised they would be key. We recently sat down with the game’s designers for a demo of Elite. The room, a penthouse hotel room in Manhattan, featured rows of huge black computers with the Elite skull logo. There, they talked about their goals and plans for Elite. The service is available on web browsers, consoles and mobile apps and will work with all future Call of Duty games, including Black Ops, the most recent game in the series. Elite features four main sections: Career, Connect, Compete and Improve. The service will launch in full along with Modern Warfare 3 in November, but a beta is already open for use with Black Ops. Elite is largely free, though a premium membership is needed to get full functionality. That membership also includes all downloadable content released in the future, but it still might be a little pricey for the casual user.
Raul Meireles has been Liverpool's best player this season but it was his brace, and in particular, his second goal at Molineux that will stick in the memory. A long ball was played up from left-back and knocked down to the Portuguese midfielder. In an audacious attempt, the 28-year-old let fly with from 30 yards with a dipping shot which looped over the powerless Wayne Hennessey in the Wolves goal.
9 - Carlos Tevez
Carlos Tevez makes it into this list with the only free-kick. His wonder strike this week in the replay of the FA Cup final against Stoke was simply sensational. The combination of power (60mph) and more than 8ft of bend was unrivalled this season.
8 - Cheik Tiote
Number eight in this list is here as much for the clean strike as it was for what it signified - a Newcastle comeback against Arsenal from 4-0, back to 4-4. Cheik Tiote's dipping left-foot volley was the last of the four and fittingly completed the turnaround.
7 - Dimitar Berbatov
Dimitar Berbatov was prolific in front of goal before Christmas, and in no game was this epitomized better than against Liverpool at Old Trafford. The Bulgarian scored a hat-trick in the 3-2 win, but his second was the pick of the bunch. With his back to goal the United striker controled a Nani cross with his knee before acrobatically overhead kicking it off the bar and into the net.
6 - Gareth Bale
PFA Player of the Year Gareth Bale scored some wonderful goals both in Europe and domestically. His effort back in September at Stoke was arguably the best of them all. After a typically mazy run Aaron Lennon stood a ball up at the far post for the Welsh international who emphatically caught a high volley, which swerved into the far top corner.
5 - Javier Hernndez
Javier Hernandez has been a revelation this season. The Mexican scored countless important and late goals for Manchester United, which eventually helped them secure their 19th league title. With the only header is this list Chicarito inventively managed to direct the ball into the Stoke net with the ball behind him.
4 - Samir Nasri
Samir Nasri is renowned for his clever footwork and the Frenchman demonstrated this with a superb brace against Fulham at the Emirates. Both goals could have featured in this list, but it is his second we have picked out as the superior effort. The 23-year-old skipped past three defenders, before rounding the on-rushing Mark Schwarzer. With his angle narrowing Nasri swiveled nearly full circle and scored from an improbable angle.
3 - Luke Varney
Luke Varney scored an absolute screamer in the third minute of Blackpool's match against Wolves. The striker found himself out wide on the left, chested the ball down and let fly with a thunderbolt into the far top corner. Wolves keeper Marcus Hahnemann could only watch the ball dip over him and under the bar.
2 - Johan Elmander
Bolton's Johan Elmander showed his class with his neat close control at Molineux. The burly Swedish forward twisted and turned in the box mesmerising the Wolves defence before opening up his body and passing the ball off the inside of the far post.
1 - Wayne Rooney
There could only be one Goal of the Season and there are no surprises as to which it is. Wayne Rooney's overhead kick against rivals Manchester City was by far the most athletic and pure strike of all the 1031 goals this season. At this point the England forward was supposedly out of form and hapless in front of goal. With the match all square at 1-1, Nani's deflected cross from the right looped into the City box and Rooney, with his back to goal, leapt into the air and scored a goal that Pele in Escape To Victory would have been proud of. Simply superb.
Lady Gaga is constantly struggling to overcome a "fog" of exhaustion which "hovers over" her during her gruelling touring schedule.
The Poker Face hitmaker has been touring non-stop over the last 18 months with her Monster Ball shows and in early 2010, she sparked fears for her health by cancelling a number of concerts due to fatigue.
Gaga admits her constant tiredness is a serious concern, but she is determined to continue her punishing work routine for the sake of her fans.
In an interview with Sir Elton John for V magazine, she says, "At a certain point exhaustion becomes a state of being, and mentally I have to be strong and overcome it. It's like a cloud, a fog really that hovers over me. But in a way I will never ever escape it. Art is my whole life.
"The monsters (fans) are my medicine. They heal me, physically and emotionally, every night at the show. I feel God through their love. I worship little monsters. They're my religion."
Jemima Khan said she was "trapped in a bloody nightmare" after finding herself at the center of false twitter allegations that she had an affair with Jeremy Clarkson.
hen Jemima Khan tweeted a denial that she had taken out a super-injunction to suppress pictures of herself with Jeremy Clarkson, she unwittingly poured petrol on the flames of the growing row over how Twitter is being used to get round gagging orders being taken out by the rich and famous.
Her first tweet at the weekend ran: "OMG - Rumour that I have a super injunction preventing publication of "intimate" photos of me and Jeremy Clarkson. NOT TRUE!"
Then: "I have no super injunction and I had dinner with Jeremy and his wife last night. Twitter, Stop!" On Monday morning, she tweeted again: "I've woken up trapped in a bloody nightmare."
By then, she was responding to stories in newspapers and other media - including BBC News - that a Twitter user had named several stars that had taken out super-injunctions.
The Daily Mail splashed the story on its front page: "Gagging law stars 'outed' on Twitter: Thousands see the names of celebrities alleged to have taken out injunctions."
The Daily Telegraph printed pictures of Khan and Clarkson on its front page under the headline "Gagging order? Not me, says Jemima."
Some experts professed surprise that the naming of super-injunction stars had suddenly become such a big story.
The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones, on his personal Twitter feed, wrote: "Rather weird that Twitter has been alive with super-injunction details for weeks - but one new account with inaccurate reports is news."
This was picked up in turn by Roy Greenslade in his Guardian blog: "The sudden discovery that the names of various people whose identities are protected by injunctions are available on Twitter is baffling. Names - some accurate, many inaccurate - have been flying around the net for weeks."
Lady Gaga’s JUDAS video is rife with symbolism. But this time the symbolism is blatant, and planted directly by Gaga herself, who directed the video. Some of her old tricks and symbols are here, but she beckons us into a surreal fantasy world that to her quoted from a recent MTV interview “resembles a fresco” .
LADY GAGA JUDAS Subliminal Messages (BACKMASKED/reversed) w/ Subtitles
While I don’t know for sure if a fantasy world of cholo gangs and the guy from Boondock Saints necessitate a fresco, the imagery is crisp, clean, sharp, and powerful. Lets take a look at the video up close.
First Gaga is seen with the 12 disciples in the form of a biker gang. She is Mary Magdalene, (admittedly she explains in an MTV interview) dressed almost as Isis, or the High Priestess, wearing the mystical color of royalty, purple, and headresss. She is smiling and clearly happy to be with, or aligned with Jesus. She stares longingly at Judas as she he rides past them, but still looks committed to Jesus. If you look at Judas as representing the record companies, or who she would betray Jesus, the soul of her own truth and music too, this would be her in an early stage of career looking longingly at what could be a successful future in the form of Judas slowly passing her on a motorcycle. Thomas and Johns jackets are also showed. Thomas, and Judas and Peter are the three apostles who doubted, betrayed and denied Jesus.
When they dismount the bikes, its clear that they are at the feast that Jesus and all his disciples attend the night before Jesus’ crucifiction. In the bible, this is where Jesus is betrayed, and denied by Peter, who make a small cameo in the video as well. At 2:27 She gives “props” to Peter with the lyrics “Build a house or sink a dead body” Peter not only denied Jesus on the fateful night that this video takes place, he also sinks when he trys to walk on water with Jesus, but cant because he loses his faith. The fact that she points to him on this lyric is telling. Peter lost faith in Jesus several times. Gaga is not losing faith, but betraying both her personalities in the video, so perhaps she is making this point clear, That her allegiances are many, but she never, ever loses faith. For to her, only dead bodies sink. The dead, lifeless body of someone who has lost faith. At 2:39 seconds Lady Gaga is seen tugging a golden cord. The golden or sometimes known as a silver cord is best defined as this: In metaphysical literature, the silver cord, also known as the sutratma or life thread of the antahkarana, refers to a life-giving linkage from the Higher self (atma) down to the physical body. It also refers to an extended synthesis of this thread and a second (the consciousness thread, passing from the soul to the physical body) that connects the physical body to the etheric body, onwards to the astral body and finally to the mental body.[1] The cord that connects the higher and lower selves, the astral body to the physical body. She is pulling and tugging on it like she is the master of it. Jesus is very near to where she lets the golden cord back into the air. Perhaps her way is through Magical Catholiscism? Then she is seen quickly after this, hugging and bestowing care and love onto someone, just like Jesus is seen doing earlier in the video, in the same style. A short quick clip showing their love to their apostles and people. Perhaps she is saying that she masters herself so that she may bestow love upon her fans, or perhaps she travels astrally to create the visions for her art. Then at 3:41 she says “king with no crown” as Jesus is looking down. Perhaps saying that Jesus was the king with no crown? The King of man, with no real material crown to speak of. Just one of the spirtual kingdom. Perhaps thats why Jesus is showed looking contemplative here. Then a fight breaks out and she is seen prtoecting Jesus from Judas, whos running around like the kind of drunk maniac you dont want at a party. Her eye makeup at 3:07 is oddly reminiscent of egyptian makeup, which could connototate a connection with the ancient wisdom that was handed to Isis, which ca be viewed as alchemy, and the story of Jesus. That they are both telling us essentialy the same thing. Their is a clear choice between good and evil, and we have both things alive and well in us. This thought reaches its pinnacle in a few moments with the climax of the video. Now things get interesting. At 3:23 Gaga is seen as the duelmaster in between Jesus and Judas. Whats interesting is how she is dressed. Like a member of the church. Even her hat represents the Bishops spiraled staff.
Above is a picture of San Leandro, who was Bishop in the early Byzantine Court. You can see his staff is spiraled, as Lady Gaga’s hat is. Her costume is reminciscent of the Bishopas well. Is she representing the church in this epic climax? The church betraying Jesus’s secret esoteric and Gnostic teachings? She ten takes out a gun, and points it at Judas, smearing him with lipstick. She looks at Jesus in anguish before and after this action. She is showing a switch of allegiance from Jesus, who she comes to defend, and Judas, who she instead of shooting with a bullet, shoots with a kiss, or smear of lipstick. This shows her connection to Judas is in fact solidified and something to cause her grief.
Is Judas her allegiance to her record company, and the duty she must undertake to be the Christ lover to her fans and to complete the higher conciousness of herself through art? We talked above about the golden cord, and Jesus being a driect path way in religious and or magic to channel ones energy into beautiful and creative inspiration and artistic endevour. Is Judas the earthly price she must pay for such things? She immediatley is show in two different positions in water. One is on a rock in an ocean, where she wears gold, which as we’ve seen from my dissection of the “Bad Romance” video represents the solar deity inside oneself the higher power. The higher power is being overswept into the ocean in a kind of reverse baptism, or fall from grace. Her higher self is being submerged into the ocean, swept away by the waves. But is it a negative thing? Please also note the similarity between Oannes, or the Fsh God who is closeley linked with John the Baptist, and whos post Christ symbology grew out of the spiraled Bishops staff we saw earlier in her costumed hat at the Jesus Judas duel. Her gold dress comes to a finlike point, and she is about to be immersed in the ocean. Oannes is an ancient God of Babolyn who brought art to the world. This is akin to the role Lady Gaga sees herself playing out. “Today is the feast day of John the Baptist, who, in Christian tradition, acted as an initiator to Christ through the sacrament of baptism. The name “John” comes from the Hebrew “Yohanen” meaning “from the waters”. The John the Baptist story seems to be an echo of a much older, pagan story – that of Oannes, the fish-headed initiator god of the Babylonians. Nightly, Oannes would rise from the sea and, like other “communicator” gods Djehuti (“Thoth”), Hermes, Wotan, would teach arts, language and sciences. These two figures, Oannes and John the Baptist, share not only a name, but a job description (initiation by water). In the Christian story, it is Jesus who plays the “communicator god” role, but even in the early second century the gospels acknowledge;” “Now the people were filled with expectation, and all were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Messiah” Again she embraces the water in ecstasy not anguish, and returns to it. Then Jesus Judas and Mary Magdalene all share the tub of the living waters, each playing out their different role. Each battling for the soul of Gaga Magdelene. This part is eerily reminiscent of Bad Romance, when her re birthing from lower self to higher self occurred in a bathtub, after being forced to drink the living waters. this time she is playing in the water, using it to channel both higher and lower sects. She is the medium in between Jesus and Judas, Jesus the highest power, and redeemer of higher consciousness, and Judas the animal, primitive self. The good and the evil, and Gaga in between. Also fire plays a role, like it did in the Bad Romance video, burning in the background, perhaps as a symbol of Jesus’s baptism through fire. she is shown begging for Jesus’s mercy and forgiveness, and is clearly in anguish over her favor with Judas. she is reaching for Jesus while Judas is pouring holy bath water on her sexually posed ass as to say her higher self is with Jesus, but she her earthly body, her sex her fame are all connected and stuck behind with a betrayer and necessary evil. The last part is the most haunting, Gaga dressed in white, clearly reborn after this rite of betrayal and forgivness, is stoned by the public. Outwardly it could be symbolic of any public backlash shes had or would excpect. But what really sticks out is her costume choice. a really interesting spin would be to compare her post reserection outfit, with the post resserection outfit of Lucy from Dracula:
What could she possibly be saying here? Her twisted allegiance to the Judas of the record industry has rendered her a vampire? Remember from my earlier lyrics post “in the biblical sense I am beyond repentence, but in the cultural sense I speak in future tense” The lyrics of the song show that he has made some sort of sacrifice, be it emotional, ritual, occult, mental physical or all of the above, to become famous. She is a “fame hooker prostitute wench” . Is she drawing parallels between her and the risen vampire Lucy from Dracula? Has she risen again as a beautiful twisted piece of evil that is to be destroyed? Or is that just one part of her, that is being destroyed? Or perhaps the public is screaming for her death and WANTS to see her higher, resurrected self destroyed. Clearly the color white of the costume is a symbol of being reborn, especially on the heels of the earlier clips. I liked this video alot and I love Lady Gaga. Thanks to her for keeping pop music interesting and for bringing some definite ancient symbolism back into the limelight!
LADY GAGA JUDAS REVERSED MESSAGES
GaGA Judas and the New Jerusalem?
Why make a pop song about a famous and evil biblical character? On the surface it’s a love song with “dark” undertones but I will try to put it in the light of some symbolism I believe Lady Gaga is privy to, and has used in other videos and songs. Please see my older post “GaGa and the All Seing Eye” for more background. Also please see my previous post to listen to the song “Judas” which I talk about below.
Celebrities Celebrate Osama Bin Laden's Death Celebrities including Lady Gaga, Demi Lovato and Katy Perry have taken to their Twitter accounts to celebrate the news that terrorist Osama Bin Laden has been killed. The news broke online earlier today, and US President Barack Obama confirmed that Bin Laden was dead in a live press conference. Lady Gaga wrote on her Twitter account, "Just landed. Watching CNN, what a historical moment in the fight against hatred."
Demi Lovato tweeted, "USA I love my country.. We made history today.... Wow..... I don't care who disagrees, I support the troops of the United States of America.... GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS!!!!!!!"
Reality TV star Kim Kardashian wrote, "Osama Bin Laden is dead!!! I can't wait to hear President Obama's announcement!!!"
Her sister Khloe added, "I loved our Presidents speech. May God bless us all!"
Joel Madden from Good Charlotte simply wrote, "America!!! , while his brother Benji encouraged Obama to sing at his press conference. He tweeted, "Yo BarrackObama you should do a little song at This news conference to celebrate! What do u say sir? give the people a treat!"
Katy Perry wrote, "AMERICA YEAH, HERE TO SAVE THE May DAY YEAH! then added "..Does anyone else find it strange that this is announced on May Day... I am releaved in some ways, but have a feeling of uncertainty now."
Hollywood actor and former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger writes, "I'm proud of our men and women in uniform. Wherever you are, take a minute to say thank you to one of the brave heroes who serve our country."
Actress Christina Applegate tweeted, "Let me try this one more time...my heart raced when I heard the news. the terror he caused us was epic.the lives lost, too many..", while sociate Nicky Hilton added, "After 9 years, 8 months and 20 days justice is finally served.
US President Barack Obama confirmed the news of Bin Laden's death during a live press conference. Bin Laden was reportedly shot during a U.S.-led military mission earlier on Sunday and his body is currently in U.S. custody. DNA tests have confirmed his identity.
The Al-Qaeda leader, 54, is believed to have been the mastermind behind the tragedy of 9/11, when two airplanes crashed into the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the worst terrorist atrocities in the country's history.
Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart Caught Kissing (Photo)
Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart share a kiss in the backseat of their car as they leave an after party following the New York premiere of Pattinson’s new movie, “Water For Elephants.”
