HAMILTON – Police say a man wanted in connection the fatal shooting of a Good Samaritan in Hamilton has been arrested.Yosif Al-Hasnawi — described by police as a brave young man who was trying to do the right thing — was shot when he tried to intervene as two men were accosting an older man in downtown Hamilton on Saturday night.A second-degree murder warrant was issued on Monday for 19-year-old Dale Burningsky King, who police say was arrested Thursday afternoon in Hagersville, Ont.Hamilton police say a female arrested at the same time is charged with accessory after the fact to murder.A 20-year-old man who was arrested on Monday in connection with the shooting also faces a charge of accessory after the fact to murder.

We’re big fans of Rick and Morty here at Geek.com. And Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland is a huge fan of virtual reality. So at New York Comic Con we all got what we wanted when we got to try out Rick and Morty Simulator: Virtual Rick-ality, an upcoming virtual reality game based on the hit Adult Swim show.Rick and Morty Simulator runs on the HTC Vive, for my money the best VR headset you can buy now that all three major devices are out. You, a fresh new Morty clone, pop into existence inside the Smith family garage as Rick explains what the hell is going on. Seeing Rick and Morty as 3D models as tall as you are is a… different way to experience the franchise, but it totally fits the show’s cavalier comedic approach to unnerving sci-fi.The Vive controllers represent your hands in the world. You can pick up dirty clothes and drop them in the washing machine. You can summon a Mr. Meeseeks who mirrors your every action and shoot it to death with a nearby laser pistol. And you can pull a lever to lower the blast shields before some unexplained outdoor apocalypse consumes you. I didn’t see any Plumbuses, but they have appeared in screenshots for the final game. To move simply point to where you would like to teleport.The short demo seems like more of a proof of concept than anything else. The demo ends with you stepping through a portal into cyberspace as Rick hypes up the full game releasing at some point in the future. But just hanging out in the world of Rick and Morty is such a trip. Again, the inherent strangeness baked into the show’s premise is a perfect fit for the slightly uncanny nature of even the best VR experience.Rick and Morty Simulator: Virtual Rick-ality is being developed by Owlchemy Labs, the same folks behind Job Simulator, another popular VR game this one shares a lot of DNA with. Meanwhile, Roiland is also working on his own, non-Rick and Morty VR projects with his new team at Squanchtendo. Between Rick and Morty season 3 and now Rick and Morty Simulator: Virtual Rick-ality, we can’t decide which upcoming Rick and Morty project excites us more! You Can Now Pre-Order ‘Dungeons & Dragons Vs. Rick and Morty’ SetToy Tuesday: The Schwiftiest ‘Rick & Morty’ Toys Stay on target read more

Stay on target 11 Other Old-School Nick Shows That Should Get Netflix MoviesWatch These Movies Before ‘Dora and the Lost City of Gold’ I strongly believe that there’s nothing that makes one art form inherently better or intellectual than another. There are stupid books and brilliant video games, soulful movies and awful operas. Just look at how #brand-driven the glamorous Broadway scene is these days with musicals based on The Addams Family, Legally Blonde, and Marvel superheroes. I like that though. It makes theater seem less pretentious.In that spirit, I recently had the chance to see the SpongeBob SquarePants musical on Broadway. Now I’m no theater critic, but sheer perverse, ironic, intellectual curiosity forced me to see for myself just why and how a SpongeBob SquarePants musical can even exist. The results? This musical makes a lot more sense than you’d think, in its own nautical nonsensical kind of way.Despite the dramatic change in format, the SpongeBob musical feels a lot like the nearly 20-year-old Nickelodeon cartoon. This is a good thing. Although it’s been on for too long I love SpongeBob. You can draw a line between SpongeBob’s peculiar creator-driven aesthetic and sense of humor to today’s acclaimed modern cartoons like Adventure Time and Steven Universe. The musical’s jokes, some of which are lifted directly from the show, entertain both kids and adults, which is good considering there were plenty of both in the audience. Even the singing isn’t totally incongruous since there was a musical episode of the show, “The Sponge Who Could Fly,” that went on tour.The story moves at a satisfyingly fast pace and even feels progressive in a way that’s in line with SpongeBob’s radical self-acceptance. As an apocalypse approaches, Bikini Bottom begins to tear itself apart like a Nickelodeon version of The Leftovers. Racist old fish try to chase out Texas land squirrel Sandy. Patrick accidentally starts a sardine cult. Mr. Krabs and Plankton try to take advantage of the chaos for profit and power, respectively. Mrs. Puff gets wasted while government and media wastes everyone’s time. So it’s up to SpongeBob to save the community from self-destruction and actual destruction. It’s a bit like the 2004 SpongeBob movie, which I also love.If the plot sounds a little light and familiar to the SpongeBob faithful that’s by design because you absolutely need to already know what the heck SpongeBob is to keep yourself grounded while watching real-life human beings portray these cartoon characters. SpongeBob is already incredibly surreal and, let’s say, fabulous. So compounding that with the inherent abstraction, and fabulousness, of Broadway theater creates something almost overwhelming in its absurdity.Some elements are easy enough to translate. The set design and lighting have the same easygoing Hawaiian surf vibe from the show. Patchy the Pirate is already a live-action character so of course he shows up. You get the chill French narrator and transition cards. The show opens with tiny models of the classic pineapple house. And while they don’t necessarily have cartoon counterparts, there’s a childlike charm to the effects that feels appropriate. None of the stunts are Spider-Man-level lethal but there are cool tricks involving glowing neon sponge props, Rube Goldberg ball-launching machines, and a shifting pile of boxes meant to evoke a huge mountain.But it’s the live-action versions of SpongeBob characters that truly make this musical the weird masterpiece that it is. It’s like The Lion King on Broadway, with its people-as-animals gimmick, but without any of the mythic self-seriousness in the representation. The diverse performers are all immensely talented, pulling off what otherwise might be too embarrassing in less professional hands. Their impressions of the iconic voices are great to an uncanny degree, especially once those voices transition into legitimately, uncomfortably, impressive singing.Meanwhile, just seeing how SpongeBob designs were turned into something people could wear never stops being compelling. Plankton has an eyepatch and green nehru jacket like a true villain. Patrick wears a classic fat guy Hawaiian shirt along with his green shorts and pink pompadour. Sandy has a flower in her afro and a Kill Bill-esque outfit that perfectly suits her martial arts. And SpongeBob of course keeps his red tie, white shirt, striped socks, and brown pants, but now these clothes tightly cling to a small nasally man instead of a yellow sponge. It’s wild.And then there’s Squidward. Between his delusions of fame and love of the clarinet, Squidward is already a perfect Broadway character. But the prop pants used to give actor Gavin Lee an extra pair of tentacle legs are so cool, and their rousing tap-dancing pay-off so satisfying, I honestly would watch the one-man show Squidward has been dying to put on his whole life.As for the songs themselves, it’s kind of neat how they came about. Each song was written by a different famous musician. So you get a cheery opening number by Jonathan Coulton of Portal’s “Still Alive” fame. Plankton’s rapid rapping was written by T.I. There’s a David Bowie cover. Cyndi Lauper, John Legend, and Aerosmith all contribute songs comfortably within their respective genres. And The Flaming Lips return to the franchise after helping SpongeBob and Patrick confront the psychic wall of energy on the SpongeBob movie soundtrack. It’s a cool, creative, sort of indie jukebox musical conceit.I wish there were more songs from SpongeBob’s past though. “Best Day Ever” gets used effectively and the whole thing ends in a party set to the theme song, but I picture of a version of this that ends with “Sweet Victory” for “Band Geeks” and I get goosebumps. Heck, they should’ve just adapted that episode, or remake this musical but actually animated. Throw in a mocking SpongeBob meme song while you’re at it.But ultimately this is still a Broadway show, with characters singing about their big and somewhat generic hopes and desires. That kind of sincere emotional depth is frequently at odds with the inherent farce of SpongeBob. As talented a singer Jai’len Christine Li Josey is, and she is super talented, a belting showstopper Dreamgirls-style cry for attention is just weird when it’s coming from what’s supposed to be a teenage whale complaining her crab father loves money too much instead of her.However, that’s the kind of weird irony I live for and it’s precisely what I expect when I sit down to watch SpongeBob SquarePants the Broadway musical. In a meta sense, all that weird, uncomfortable, experimental, garage, contradictory stuff done with bubbly undersea cartoon glee is what makes SpongeBob’s specific vibe so hilarious, infectious, appealing, enduring in the first place. You can’t help but smile. So by being so enthusiastically inexplicable, this Broadway musical is actually the most natural extension of SpongeBob SquarePants ever, and it’s a ton of fun.Let us know what you like about Geek by taking our survey. read more

Issue: July 2008Frequency: MonthlyLaunched: 1893Circ: 45,000Editor: Holly SkraelPublishing Company: Source MediaCreative Director: Jason Pohl (for July ‘08 issue) US Banker’s July 2008 cover was one of firsts for a few reasons. One, Jason Pohl, creative director at sister magazine Bank Technology News, substituted for usual US Banker creative director Andrew Lathrop, who was on vacation.Second, both the story and the cover represented a change in focus and style for the b-to-b magazine. The story, “Waiting for the Call,” looked at how banking and technology can be powerful tools to help impoverished countries pull themselves out of poverty. “It was a pretty broad ranging story, with a focus on Africa, Asia and Latin America,” says Pohl. “The story falls outside our normal editorial boundaries, which tend to be more U.S.-focused or profile driven. Our usual covers tend to be portraitures of bankers.”Themes of the story were about opportunity and advocacy. “We’re saying to our audience that there’s all these countries that are tech savvy and early adopters and there is a tremendous opportunity for banks to develop relationships with these regions to not only make money but also do a good deal of lending some aid,” says Pohl. “They should be there because it’s the right thing to do. We were trying to shake it up a bit and print something unexpected. What was so compelling to me about the image was there was a hopefulness and an expectancy to it that captures the story.” The initial thought for the cover was a reportage but most of the materials were specific to one region, which didn’t speak to the scope of the story. Finally, after beating the bush with AP, Reuters and Corbis, the staff discovered the photo of a child holding the phone on Getty. Pohl re-arranged the vertical positioning of the photo for the magazine cover but the color and graininess of the image were in the original shot.“We were running out of time and the story wasn’t coming together, so all thoughts of shooting went out of the window,” says Pohl. “Sometimes you get lucky.” DESIGNERS’ COMMENTS“Although this image is visually arresting, I think the cover is a miss overall. The reader has to work too hard to get the concept, and the typography seems better suited to an article opener, not the 10 second decision of a cover.The image and the cover text don’t seem to work together. It looks more like a vacation planning issue than an emerging market banking problem. And the long description below the title is hard to read and evidence that the title isn’t very clear in the first place. I don’t think this design supports the content.”Karen Player | Art Director | Harvard Business Review“This cover leaves me perplexed and slightly angry. At first I thought it was the back of a naked woman and was annoyed US Banker felt the need to fall back on ‘sexy’ to get their reader to pick the magazine up. Upon further review I realized it is actually a child. A half-clothed child as a representation of developing countries is condescending.As far as the typography goes, it is fairly clean. Though it would have been more refined if the type was not on top of the figure, especially when there is space around the photo to work with.” Kelly McMurry | Creative Director | 2communique read more