the scoop

the scoop

archetypal behavior

What does your favorite movie character say about you? That’s just what the book “Cinescopes” intends to answer. “Cinescopes” by Risa Williams and Ezra Werb (Quick Books, $14.95), offers a “personality assessment system based on heroic archetypes commonly found in movies.”

So in other words, depending on what type of character you relate to, you’ll gain some insight on your strengths, weaknesses and even your best and worst relationship matches. For example, say you like Existential Saviors. According to Williams and Werb, famous Existential Saviors are: Truman Burbank in “The Truman Show”; Harold Crick in “Stranger Than Fiction”; Neo in “The Matrix”; and Dorothy Gale in “The Wizard of Oz.” On being friends with Existential Saviors: “Existential Saviors tend to have a small, tight-knit group of friends that they rely on. Usually they surround themselves with people like themselves: dreamers, philosophers and artists....”

nick and the primaries

Nickelodeon celebrates its long history of giving kids a voice with the launch of its Kids Pick the President campaign.  The campaign will invite kids to participate in their own primary election, as well as allowing them to cast their votes once again for the next president on nick.com.  Kids have predicted the next president for four out of the last five national elections.  Nickelodeon’s campaign begins Sunday and will include three Kids Pick the President television specials, and a special online election Web site: nick.com/kpp/

The first special, “Nick News with Linda Ellerbee: The Kids’ Primary,” will premiere at 9 p.m. Sunday and will explain how presidents are elected in the United States; the primary system; the current candidates; and what it means to be a Democrat or a Republican. 

Kids can vote online next week for their choice in the primary election. On Jan. 18 at 8 p.m., Nick News’ Linda Ellerbee will announce the results of the kids’ primary on-air on Nickelodeon.

poetry performance
workshops slated

Slam U, a series of performance poetry workshops presented by the Arts Education Department at Playhouse Square in Cleveland, is a unique opportunity for high school students to speak their minds, hone their poetry-writing and performance skills and compete for a place on Cleveland’s National Youth Poetry Slam Team that will travel to Brave New Voices, the 11th annual National Youth Poetry Slam Festival, in Washington, D.C., in July. Poetry slam is the competitive art of performance poetry.  Emphasis is on both writing and performance.  At a poetry slam, poets perform their work and members of the audience serve as judges. Slam U workshops will be held on Jan. 18, Feb. 22 and March 14. The competition will be held on April 11 and 18 (semi-finals), and April 25 (finals).  Four finalists and one alternate will be chosen to represent Cleveland at the National Youth Poetry Slam.

Slam U is open to Northeast Ohio students ages 14-19.  All Slam U events are free, but reservations are recommended.  Call (216) 348-7909 or e-mail artseducation@playhousesquare.org. 

new video games

Microsoft’s first offering of the new year is the dungeon-crawling role-playing game “Kingdom Under Fire: Circle of Doom” (Xbox 360). ... Sega’s popular hedgehog and his pals hop on their hoverboards in “Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity” (Wii, PlayStation 2). ... EA Big’s arcade-style, seven-on-seven football franchise, once known as “NFL Street,” returns as “NFL Tour” (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3). ... And here’s a rare cartoon-based game worth playing: Capcom’s “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law” (Wii, PS2, PlayStation Portable).

hooray for radiohead

Whatever the price, Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” is a top-seller. The band’s seventh album was No. 1 on the week’s music charts with sales of 122,000 copies, according Nielsen SoundScan figures released Wednesday. The physical, standard priced release sold fairly well even though Radiohead three months ago made a digital copy of the disc available for download on its Web site with optional pricing. Following Radiohead on the charts was Alicia Keys, whose “As I Am” sold 112,000 copies in its eighth week.

a failure to communicate

The holiday season brought some mixed results for Microsoft. On one hand, several million more families now have an Xbox 360. On the other hand, all those new customers have flooded Xbox Live, at times crippling Microsoft’s online gaming service. “As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox Live issues over the holiday break,” general manager Marc Whitten wrote on the Xbox Web site. “While the service was not completely offline at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance.”

“Intermittent” isn’t quite the right word; try “chronic.” Since Christmas, about 90 percent of my attempts to get games going over Xbox Live have been unsuccessful. Whitten said technicians have been working “around the clock to restore the service to a stable state,” but that’s kind of a letdown for all those kids who missed out on “Call of Duty” deathmatches during their winter break.

Whitten promised to reimburse disgruntled players with a free Xbox Live Arcade game.

record collection

What’s the highest-grossing movie based on a video game? What’s the fastest completion time for the original “Super Mario Bros.”? What character was originally called Mr. Needlemouse? These burning questions, and more, are answered in “Guinness World Records Gamers Edition 2008,” coming out in March.

To promote the new book, Guinness is sponsoring a worldwide “Guitar Hero III” marathon. The company is inviting virtual shredders to gather Feb. 6 in six cities — New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, London, Paris and Sydney, Australia — to set a new “GH” record. If you’re interested, or if you want to submit your own record for inclusion in the next edition, visit gamers.guinnessworldrecords.com.

(The answers, by the way: “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider,” five minutes and Sonic the Hedgehog.)