the scoop

the scoop

message to the troops

The holidays can be lonely for troops stationed overseas. They’re away from their wives, husbands, children and conveniences of their regular lives.

Coca-Cola’s VAULT drink is offering you the chance to express your holiday well wishes to troops abroad with its “Honoring the Uniform: Calling for Support” program. To “honor the uniform” you just have to fill out an addressed postcard, or postcards, with your message. There are postcards on the camouflage VAULT fridge packs, or you can visit drinkvault.com, or www.mycokerewards.com. While they’re already addressed, you will have to add your own postage.

Also, if you’re a Coca-Cola addict, you can also help raise up to $100,000 for the USO by going online and turning your My Coke Rewards points into a cash donation. The camouflage packaging and postcards are available only for a limited time.

superheroes hinder

Devil’s Due Publishing has partnered with multiplatinum rock act Hinder to produce a limited-edition comic-themed tour book, and is in talks to produce a monthly comic series based on the band’s upcoming “Take It to the Limit” tour, which comes to The Wedge in Austintown on Dec. 18. The first “Take It to the Limit” book will serve as the band’s tour book, which will accompany its 2009 tour.

“Growing up, every kid dreams about being in a comic book, or being a super hero. We have a new and exciting opportunity to be portrayed in a comic book series of our own,” said Hinder frontman Austin Winkler. “We are going to have a blast with this ... and our fans will be heavily involved in this.”

price cut on albums?

Are the days of deep-discounting new music releases coming back?

It wasn’t that long ago that music fans could count on low, low prices — sometimes as low as $6.99 — for hot new albums, as retailers tried to use them as ways to draw customers into stores to buy other things. Before that, you could find new cassette singles discounted as much as 85 percent — down to 39 cents, in many cases — so superstars could make big splashes on the charts with big initial sales.

As part of the music industry’s ongoing collapse, those sale prices have gone the way of, well, sales. This year’s trend, in fact, has been to try to get fans to pay more, with some hoping that they could raise album sales by curbing the availability of singles.

Last week, Snow Patrol’s new album, “A Hundred Million Suns,” became Amazon .com’s Daily Deal, a deep-discount designation usually reserved for older catalog albums, making the British rockers’ latest release available for $3.99.

new video games

In stores this week: The big guns this week are the sequels to two of 2006’s most popular shooters — Microsoft’s “Gears of War 2” (Xbox 360) and Sony’s “Resistance 2” (PlayStation 3). ... Ubisoft launches a new strategy franchise, “Tom Clancy’s Endwar” (360, PS3, PlayStation Portable, DS). ... Activision ties into two very different movies, “Quantum of Solace” and “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” (most systems). ... Mythical creatures escape Pandora’s box in Gamecock’s “Legendary” (360, PS3). ... War rages across an alternate Europe in Sega’s “Valkyria Chronicles” (PS3).

a new twist on ‘bejeweled’

With gigantic, time-consuming video games like “Fallout 3,” “Fable II” and “Gears of War 2” either in stores or coming soon, it’s hard to decide what’s worth $60. What you need is a lighthearted, casual game — say, for $20 — to take your mind off all the stress.

Here comes PopCap Games to the rescue. The king of casual games — fast-paced, inexpensive software like “Peggle” and “Zuma” — is back with its latest creation, a new version of its blockbuster “Bejeweled.” PopCap unveiled “Bejeweled Twist” at an event at Seattle’s Experience Music Project, and it looks like another keeper.

As always, the object is to line up three or more diamonds in a row. The “twist” is that your only move is to rotate four-gem blocks counterclockwise.

Right now, the game is only available at PopCap.com, but it will be in stores and on other Web sites Nov. 18.