Sure, Guitar Hero Encore: Rock the 80’s may be occupying all of your ax jamming attention this week (ax jamming? Did I just write ax jamming?), but don’t forget to look forward with rocker-ly glee to the release of Guitar Hero III–not just because it’s sure to be full of more songs that make you feel like an angsty teenage boy rebelling against the world from inside your garage, but because it involves strippers. More specifically, Joystiq reports that Neversoft used mocap on real-life exotic dancers for the NPC go-go dancers who will apparently be doing their thing in the background when you play at a strip club venue. Who plays at a strip club anyway? Oh wait, it doesn’t matter. Exotic dancers are perfect for any occasion. But am I going to be able to concentrate on my chords?

P.S. The above picture is of Dirty Martini, burlesque dancer extraordinaire. While she was certainly not one of the dancers to pose for the Guitar Hero mocap, she is generally awesome.

Talk about a confusing headline. Still, this Human Brain Cloud game developed by 2D Boy is kind of awesome. Basically, the site spits out words, and you just type in whatever words come to mind in response. The game then takes everyone’s responses and makes an association web.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the game’s maker has noted that the singularly most popular response word is “sex.” Also not surprising is the fact that women kick ass at this game. Of course, that’s a subjective claim, to say the least, but apparently players with feminine-sounding screen names (let’s think about the many ways that’s different female players) took the lead in both quantity and quality of responses. Women are good with words? What a shock! Yes, we know we’re awesome…

Yes, the mother of all things housewife has gone and made the mother of all game cakes. Granted, as game cakes go, the Wii cake that graces the cover of the Martha Stewart themed issue of Wired (yes, you are reading those words correctly) isn’t particularly original, but it is characteristically perfect. Aside from the fact that I’m a bit peeved a big-name baker–even a morally question one–is muscling in on the game cakes scene, it is cool that game cakes have become big enough that they can be front page news. Or at least, be on the front page. Or the cover. Whatever, you get the point. Which is that we who have loved game cakes from the beginning are proud to see our delicious little protégés grow up. Congrats, cake!

As of yesterday (that’s Monday, July 23rd), I’ve become a real person. Well, at least a real Village Voice person. I still can’t cook to save my life and the idea of paying taxes makes me dizzy.

Anyways, I’m here at the Voice full time now, which means more blogging, more column-ing, more all around sex & tech happiness. My part of the Voice (the web part) is actually moving their offices this week, so for the moment my cubicle is slapdash and easily abandoned. But when I do get set up for real-like, I’ll be sure to post pictures of my sure-to-be-dorky work station.

Now my question is, can I cyber at The Village Voice? I mean, not for fun, for research (no, seriously, you have no idea how un-fun bad cybersex can be), but still. Then there’s the fact that my new computer has a built-in camera. That means web cam sex, which, to be honest, I’ve actually never participated in myself… yet. Awkward! Office strip tease, anyone? I think I’ll hold off on that until at least my second week.

Last month Playboy sent out a press release announcing the opening of a Playboy Island in Second Life. The island, shaped birthday-cake-style like the traditional bunny head, will not only house a Playboy-themed retail store and “will also offer Second Life residents the chance to connect with the brand through a variety of events and social opportunities,” says the release. It is the “first men’s lifestyle brand to have a presence in Second Life.” Hooray?

Ironically, a trip to the Playboy Island–which the “brand” is promoting as a 24/7 party–reveals a sterile and totally abandoned little island. Check out the pictures of poor Cheeree wandering the faux-romantic beaches all by her lonesome. Of course, the retail presence is here big time. Playboy t-shirts? Playboy necklaces? Who exactly do they think their customer base is again? Maybe it won’t take long before Playboy too jumps down off the band wagon.

The thing that’s really sad about Playboy Island is that it’s a total missed opportunity. What better place to staff a few beautiful bunnies as greeters? Or to set up sexy spots for lovers to slip off to? Instead, we’ve got an island tumble weeds are just dying to blow across, and a few horrible little love nests where pose balls allow you to do such erotic things as play the harp, sun bathe, or hit a giant gong. Yes, a gong.

Update: Ren over at Terra Nova is also covering the lameness of Playboy Island. Check it out.

American Apparel. Home Depot. The list goes on. Setting up shop in Second Life has become the new most popular way to get your retail store into the news. Personally, I’ve always been skeptical of chains plopping down a capitalist tentacle into a cyber community. Then again, who am I kidding? Second Life, like any free market, is a capitalist space. Maybe the thing that really gets me is that these big-name stores don’t care about the medium, just the PR.

All of which is to say that the I-told-you-so part of my brain finds something strangely vindicating in this article from Forbes, “Sex, Pranks, and Reality.” It seems real-life businesses are finding out that the Second Life retail experience isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (those among us with Second Life cynicism could have told them that without the rant about respecting the medium). Apparently pranksters have been defacing store fronts, political campaign booths, etc. Even American Apparel is shutting it’s doors.

Good thing? Bad thing? We have yet to see. I for one am happy to see at least American Apparel go. You’re clothes, if comfortable, are over-priced and bland, American Apparel. I’m glad you’re being run out of virtual town. There, I said it.

P.S. I got a chance to visit the now defunct American Apparel store in Second Life just now. The place is indeed closed and stripped bare. Searching for pictures of what the store looked like in its prime, I was surprised to see how raunchy some of the walls ads were. I mean, that borders on softcore porn. I hate to say it, but I actually have more respect for the store now. Something about making sex appeal in clothing ads so blatant you take out the clothing all together and just leave in the sex…