FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Operation Gratitude Hits Unprecedented Milestone December 19
HALF A MILLION CARE PACKAGES SENT TO U.S. MILITARY IN COMBAT ZONES
Van Nuys, CA - December 8, 2009 - Operation Gratitude Director of Operations, Charlie Othold, announced today that the organization will reach a major milestone on Saturday, December 19, 2009: The shipment of its 500,000th CARE PACKAGE.

Othold expects the 500,000th package to hit the Assembly Line at ~11:15 am on Saturday, December 19th.

In addition to Wish List items and personal letters provided by more than 250 Corporate Sponsors and Friends, and by tens of thousands of individual donors across the country, "The 500,000th Care Package will include a roaring surprise generously donated by Sands Resorts," exclaimed Carolyn Blashek, who started the organization in 2003. A special delivery of the Half Millionth Package is being arranged.

Three previous Operation Gratitude milestone packages contained the keys to new vehicles. The 300,000th package was delivered personally in Iraq by Othold and Blashek.

The winners of the online "Guess the Candy Weight and Letter Writing Contest," will also be announced and the Winning Letter will be read and placed into the 500,000th package.

A special Guest Star will be on hand to sing the National Anthem.


Military and Political dignitaries, along with representatives from many of the organization's Corporate Sponsors will join celebrities and cast members from popular TV shows to assist the Operation Gratitude volunteers assemble thousands of troop gifts in addition to the 500,000th Care Package. Delicious product samples and a hearty lunch will be provided by Corporate donors.

WHAT:
Operation Gratitude Volunteers assemble the 500,000th Care Package

WHEN:
Saturday December 19, 2009: Production starts at 9 a.m.; the 500,000th package assembly and celebration will occur between 11:00 a.m. - 12 Noon

WHERE:
California National Guard Armory
17330 Victory Boulevard
Van Nuys, Ca. 91406
Corner of Victory and Louise

Volunteers (ages 12 years and older) are welcome to assist in the on-site care package activities.
For additional volunteer information, click here:
http://www.opgratitude.com/volunteer_hours.php or email OpGratVolunteer@yahoo.com

Each care package costs to ship; tax-deductible financial donations to Operation Gratitude are welcome online or by check mailed to: Operation Gratitude; 16444 Refugio Road; Encino, CA 91436

Supporters can vote for Operation Gratitude to win cash prizes in two online charity contests:
Good Earth Cares: Vote once a day through Feb. 28, 2010 to win ,000 for Operation Gratitude
Chase Community Giving: One-time vote until Dec. 11, 2009 to win ,000 for Operation Gratitude

The Troops Respond:
The troops express their appreciation for Operation Gratitude Care Packages through a constant flow of letters, e-mails and pictures, as seen in the Mail Call and Photo Gallery sections of the www.OperationGratitude.com website.

"Thank you so very much for the wonderful care package. It means so much to receive anything from home and from people who I will probably never meet but who gave a bit of themselves to ensure I was taken care of. The separation from friends and family is difficult at best. But knowing that the very citizens we defend still care, it makes it so much easier. Thank you for your prayers and support. Respectfully, SGT J.M."

About Operation Gratitude
Operation Gratitude (www.OperationGratitude.com ) is the 501 (c) (3) non-profit, volunteer organization that annually sends 100,000+ care packages filled with snacks, entertainment items and personal letters of appreciation addressed to individual U.S. Service Members deployed in hostile regions. Our mission is to lift morale, bring a smile to a service member's face and express to all Armed Forces the appreciation and support of the American people. Each package contains donated product valued at ~0 and costs the organization to assemble and ship.

Operation Gratitude
Carolyn Blashek
opgrat@gmail.com
Operation Gratitude
Marty Martin
ptmarty@aol.com

Posted by Blu on Wednesday December 09 2009 - 06:29:55 | Read/Post Comment: 0 |

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mmmm, Brains! Undead Labs to Develop Console-based Zombie MMO

Game Industry Veteran Jeff Strain Opens Video Game Development Studio in Seattle, WA

November 23, 2009 – Seattle, Washington – When flesh-eating, shambling undead corpses invade Seattle, Undead Labs will probably be the ones responsible. Video game industry veteran Jeff Strain today announced the formation of Undead Labs, a Seattle, Washington-based game development studio that's on a mission to take online gaming in bold new directions. Undead Labs’ sole focus will be to create the definitive massively multiplayer online zombie game (MMOZ) for console gamers. Nothing screams funny quite like wading into a group of rotting zombies with a lawn chair and a box of sharpened #2 pencils, and nothing says fun quite like doing it with your friends, whether online or on your couch. Undead Labs is committed to bringing to life an MMO loaded with action, humor and, of course, a whole lotta zombies, because the world doesn’t need more dragons.
Strain left NCsoft last summer to build a creative studio around the most talented – and zombie loving – developers in the industry, and to pioneer a new development model that will create a new breed of MMO built from the ground-up for console gamers.
“Every time I see a good zombie movie with friends, we spend days debating our strategies for surviving the zombie apocalypse,” said Strain. “The police station, or the supermarket? Garden rake, or staple gun? Bach, or the White Stripes? I’m a game developer, so I’d probably be useless for anything other than ghoul bait, but I’m excited to have the opportunity to build an MMOZ that lets us put those strategies to the test and find out for sure.”
Strain’s experience and expertise as a game developer and business leader helped spawn the game industry’s most successful and influential MMOs. In the mid-nineties while Strain was at Blizzard Entertainment, he was a programmer for StarCraft and Diablo and created the StarCraft campaign editor. In 1999 Strain formed the initial team and kicked off development on the wildly successful MMO World of Warcraft while taking on the roles of team lead and lead programmer on the project.
In April 2000 Strain founded ArenaNet with fellow Blizzard leads Mike O’Brien and Patrick Wyatt. He served as programmer and executive producer for the popular MMO franchise Guild Wars, which has sold more than six million units. Korean MMO publisher NCsoft acquired ArenaNet in 2002, and in 2008 Strain was promoted to president of product development for the company’s Western operations, where he spent a year wearing button-down shirts and dark socks before returning to his development roots with the formation of Undead Labs.
More information about Undead Labs can be found at http://UndeadLabs.com.
# # #
Contact (press only):
Steve Cherrier
Relate PR
steve@relatepr.com

Posted by Blu on Monday November 23 2009 - 18:20:32 | Read/Post Comment: 0 |

Virtual 'Heroes' Join Together to Donate to Real World Charities



Sacramento, Calif. -- Nov. 20, 2009 -- Players of the "City of Heroes" massively-multiplayer online (MMO) computer game are collaborating to collect donations for three real world charities this holiday season. They have created a six-week donation drive at www.RealWorldHero.com that will run Nov. 20, 2009 through Jan. 1, 2010 and be promoted from within the "City of Heroes" game environment.

The idea was formulated by Joel and Karen Garcia, long-time "City of Heroes" players, after attending the HeroCon 2009 event hosted by NCsoft and Paragon Studios, the development studios behind the game. The gaming couple was inspired to encourage real world heroism from fellow gamers after hearing the extensive complimentary comments of the game development team toward the dynamic gaming community during an industry panel, including those from Brian Clayton, Executive Producer and Studio Head of Paragon Studios -- "You guys are by far the best community in the MMO space bar none."

Other members of the panel suggested that perhaps the idea of playing heroes had attracted a community of people who reflect those qualities idealized in society’s favorite comic book super heroes.

With that in mind, www.RealWorldHero.com was created to draw the "City of Heroes" community together in supporting three selected charities this holiday season:


Operation Gratitude (www.OpGratitude.com) - Sending over 100,000 care packages annually filled with snacks, entertainment items and letters of appreciation to U.S. Service Members deployed in hostile regions, their mission is to lift morale, bring a smile to a service member's face and express to all our armed forces the appreciation and support of the American people. (Tax ID 20-0103575)
Donate Games (www.DonateGames.org) - Founded upon the belief that people can change the world by simply donating their unwanted video games, Donate Games is a charity dedicated to funding research and support for children with "orphan" diseases and the millions of other Americans affected by them. Donate Games collects new and used video game donations and then resells them online to help the millions of young people suffering from these neglected disorders. (Tax ID 26-3438815)
Child's Play (www.ChildsPlayCharity.org) - A community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. Since its founding by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of the online comic strip Penny Arcade in 2003, Child's Play has donated more than million dollars in toys, games, books, and cash for sick children in hospitals across the U.S. and the world. (Tax ID 20-3584556)

100% of all donations made through www.RealWorldHero.com will go directly to these non-profit organizations.


###



If you'd like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with donation drive organizers and beneficiaries, please call 530-588-9789 or email info@realworldhero.com.

Posted by Blu on Monday November 23 2009 - 17:50:25 | Read/Post Comment: 0 |

You may have seen the news a couple of months ago about the "PWN to OWN" challenge sponsored by TippingPoint in which a Windows Vista laptop, a MacBook Air, and a Linux laptop were to be given away (along with nice cash prizes) to the hackers who could be the first to break into them. The MacBook Air fell first (so very tempting a target it was), and then the Vista laptop, but the Linux laptop was never breached.

Well, the vulnerability that doomed the Vista laptop was in Adobe Flash. The bug was responsibly reported to Adobe, who fixed it in the most recent version (9.0.124.0) released last month.

Since then, it has been reported that the hackers with less noble intentions have seized upon that vulnerability and are now attacking PCs via Adobe Flash. If you have an older version of Flash, your PC could be pwned by merely visiting a web page that has any amount of Flash animation containing the exploit code. Your PC could become part of a botnet sending spam to the entire world or taking part in denial of service attacks, and all your passwords would be compromised as well.

What does all this have to do with gaming? Well, World of Warcraft passwords are known to be desirable; the criminal activity of pwning PCs has become yet another way of farming gold. Imagine logging into WoW and finding that all your characters are broke, or worse, that you can't even log in because your account has been suspended after hackers used it to send gold selling spam to other players!

So, make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Flash by going to http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/

[Submitted by WB]

Posted by WB on Saturday May 31 2008 - 20:10:02 | Read/Post Comment: 7 |

Sierra Entertainment and Yahoo! Present World Broadcast Premiere of "Falling" Music Video and the Bourne Sessions - the Exclusive Concert Event - For Upcoming Video Game the Bourne Conspiracy?



[Submitted by Blu]

[ Read the rest ... ]

Posted by Blu on Thursday April 24 2008 - 06:57:40 | Read/Post Comment: 5 |