After debuting at E3 last week, Valve Software’s Half Life 2 is now the best-looking, most realistic, most highly anticipated game in the world. The lines were five hours long at E3, so I wasn’t able to witness the demonstration until yesterday. And after watching it, I’m in awe. I’ve never seen anything that comes close, and I’m giddy. I haven’t felt like this about a game since the first Quake was released. Needless to say, I’ll be in line to buy it on September 30.

If you have a high-bandwidth connection and have even a passing interest in games, you must download the 600MB Quicktime movie from Fileplanet, or possibly much faster by using BitTorrent. You’ll have to wait in an hour-long line, but it’s well worth it. If you’re on a dialup connection, you can read the play-by-play description of the movie on IGN. Go now.

Thank you so much to everyone who contributed to the Star Wars Kid fund! In only seven days, 421 people donated an unbelievable $4,334.44. After Paypal’s transaction fees, that leaves $4,074.80. Here’s a spreadsheet with all the donations that I downloaded from Paypal, in case you’re curious. (At their request, the names of anonymous donors were deleted.)

In the next couple days, we’ll talk to Ghyslain and his parents to determine the best way to spend this money. As soon as we make the purchase, I’ll post the receipts. Hopefully, we can get Ghyslain to send a few pictures of himself with his brand new toys.

We’ll also mail out the non-cash gifts that people donated, including an Industrial Light + Magic t-shirt and a Darth Maul lightsaber replica signed by Ray Park (aka Darth Maul)!

The outpouring of support has been staggering, far beyond what I ever expected. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to raise enough for a 15GB iPod, but here we are. Thanks again to all who donated, and thanks to the Star Wars Kid himself for making all this possible. Geeks like us need to stick together.

The New York Times just posted an article about the Star Wars Kid and our fundraising efforts, with quotes from me and Ghyslain. Also: Wired News, The Globe and Mail, National Post story & interview, Cinescape, Chicago Tribune, the Lycos 50, and Yahoo’s Buzz Index. Listen to the radio interview from PRI’s The World. GeekCulture.com posted a great comic.

If you’re here for the first time, view the original video and the lightsaber and Matrix remixes. Then, read more about Jish’s interviews with Ghyslain and the fundraiser effort.

The Star Wars Kid has been found!

The two videos were downloaded 1.1 million times from my site alone, a staggering 2.3 terabytes of traffic, placing a geeky little kid at the center of the web’s attention practically overnight. So who was he and what was he thinking?

My research revealed few details, until the culprits finally contacted me. His name is Ghyslain, a 15-year-old tenth grader living in Quebec. Originally recorded onto an 8mm tape on November 4, 2002 in the school’s studio, the video was never meant to be seen by anyone. After Ghyslain returned the borrowed videotape to his friend, the video sat in a basement for months. On April 19, 2003, Ghyslain’s friend stumbled on the tape’s secret contents and immediately shared it with friends. They thought it would be a funny prank to encode the video and upload it to Kazaa.

It only took two weeks for the video to spread around the world. Raven Software’s Bryan Dube added the Star Wars effects on April 24, a mere five days after it originally appeared to the Internet. A week later, both videos were linked on every major gaming- and technology-related website, forum, and chat room online.

What does Ghyslain think about all this? My French-speaking friend Jish interviewed him today to find out what he thought about his newfound popularity. Read the interview now. Overall, he seems like a damn cool kid. I don’t care what anyone else thinks; Ghyslain is my new hero.

Update: In return for all the trouble he’s gone through to entertain us, I think we should buy a new iPod for Ghyslain. We’re up to 421 donations, totalling $4,334.44! We can buy him a 30GB iPod and much more! The fundraiser is now closed; thank you to everyone who donated.

July 16, 2003: The Star Wars Kid received his presents.

Between the opening of Matrix Reloaded and the E3 Electronic Gaming Expo, it’s a very good week to be a geek. I’ll be attending a private screening of the Matrix on Thursday afternoon and E3 all day on Friday.

I’m not the live-blogging type, but I compiled a list of other webloggers who will be attending. (Those blogging the event daily are marked with an asterisk.) A list of other E3 news websites follows.

I whipped up a quick PHP script that allows anyone (even PC users like myself) to search the iTunes Music Store. Sound clips are in Apple’s proprietary M4P format, so don’t expect to be able to listen to them unless you have iTunes installed.

You can try out the search for a limited time here (until it gets too popular), or download the script for your own site. Feel free to modify it however you like.

Update: Apple seems to be encrypting (or compressing?) their XML now, which breaks the script entirely. It doesn’t seem to be gzip-encoding, either. Any guesses on what they’re up to?

February 10, 2004: Someone sent me the e-mail below, discussing how they figured out the encryption. This is a bit above my head, but other people may find it useful.

April 17, 2004: Someone finally wrote a script to work around iTunes encryption. Go play with iTMS-4-All.

If you’re going to videotape your Star Wars fighting skills on a school camera, remember to remove the cassette when you’re done. Watch this embarrassingly good video.

It didn’t take long for the online community to remix it with full Star Wars special effects and lightsaber noises. I have no idea where this video originated from; if you know this kid, let me know. The kid has been identified… The full story here!

Update: I’ve turned off new comments in this thread because of the mean-spirited tone, and deleted the most vicious comments. Yes, he’s fat and awkward. We get it. Since 90% of the traffic to these videos is coming from gaming, technology, and Star Wars news websites, I’m guessing that most of you weren’t any cooler in junior high school than this poor kid. All you geeks, nerds, and dorks out there need to think twice before trashing one of your own.

Fox Television has collaborated with alumni directory Classmates.com to form a new reality series, where long-lost friends reunite through the website.

If you haven’t tried it, Classmates.com is extremely sneaky about how they acquired their massive alumni database. Originally a free service, Classmates.com now requires you to “complete your free registration to view your classmates.” After entering in your name, e-mail address and graduating class information, they let you browse lists of your old friends and classmates without any identifying information. To contact your friends, you’re forced to pay a $36 subscription fee.

Of course, they don’t disclose any of these caveats before you choose to add yourself to their database. Of Classmates.com’s reported 35 million members, only a mere fraction are paying subscribers. Everyone else was exploited for their personal information. Can anyone recommend a popular and free alternative to Classmates.com?

Donna D’Errico, former Baywatch alum and wife to Motley Crue’s Nikki Sixx, opened a day spa in Los Angeles that offers Classical Rock Massage, massage services set to the sounds of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” and the Moody Blues’ “Days of Future Passed.” Sounds great, but do they offer munchies and a laser light show?

So, Monday was my weblog’s first birthday. My guidelines were pretty simple, and I think I’ve kept to them. I’m going to make one exception today, and talk entirely about myself.